Chapter 4: A Leap of Faith

Chapter 4

When I woke, it was early morning. It was quiet outside. Unusually quiet. I looked around the igloo and could see Sanji sitting in a corner, doing something. I imagined it was a wizard thing, but I couldn’t say. Magic was never something I was good at. I wrapped my arms around my legs since I hadn’t a clue what to do. Cortanna probably was still in Sanji’s rope trick room and considering the town wasn’t up and about, there wasn’t anything for me to do. I did glance over at my arm and noticed the wound was beginning to heal. The imp currently at it was hard pressed to find anything to consume from it. I knew I had best get more food for them. Perhaps I could do some more work for one of those cattle beasts.

“Good to see you’re back. Where’d you run off to in such a hurry last night?” I asked Sanji as I felt myself begin to get restless.

“Realized Kedra was missing. I was able to find her. She’s doing alright when I checked on her earlier this morning,” Sanji responded without looking up at me. I felt a little bad we had forgotten about her, but she was kind of a pill to me.

Speaking of things missing, I noticed Gunther wasn’t in the room. However despite noticing Gunther’s absence, I figured Sanji would be the one most likely to be freaking out if he truly was gone. Also, I tried calling luggage a few times to see if I could find anything entertaining from him. He never came. Here was hoping he was alright and not lost too.

The morning continued on but still no life from the town could be heard. A bit later some footsteps sounded outside the door. The door opened and Cortanna stepped in with Kedra. She looked in bad shape with her eyes all bloodied. She must have gotten snow blinded, or whatever it was Humphrey had mentioned as a hazard when walking through snowfall. I still couldn’t believe we had left her. Why didn’t she call out for us?

“Hey everyone,” Cortanna greeted us, “Has anyone noticed how unusually quiet this town has been? There’s no one milling about outside.”

“I’ve noticed it being oddly quiet,” I mentioned.

“Ladies, it’s frozen ice outside. If you had to live here, you wouldn’t want to be an early riser either,” Sanji stated, once more not looking up from his. He then cocked an ear and looked out of the corner of his eye toward the open door. “Actually... it is oddly quiet. There should be at least some people, other than ourselves, up and about by now. Here, let me finish up this last thing,” Sanji said going back to the papers in hand. A minute later he then packed up his things and got to his feet.

“I’m going to go explore around the town and see if I can find anyone. This town might be even later of a riser than what my town was.” WIth that, Sanji went outside. Cortanna stayed with Kedra, and I followed after Sanji. I needed to stretch after sitting around idle for about 2 hours.

The sun glowed off the whiteness all around. It was a bit harsh on the eyes. I saw Sanji knock on a few homes. He would then enter when no one answered. I looked about the town as he explored. Being as large as I was, I didn’t want to explore the homes. However, I did have to go into one of them with Sanji.

“Penelope!” I heard him call for me. I was a little surprised by his harshness in tone, “You need to come see this!”

I quickly followed him into a building. Sanji lead me into a large room that had some cots placed about. There was a body on one of the cots in the back. Sanji lead me straight to it. It was Humphrey on the cot. His bluish skin and breathless form meant he was dead. I was a bit confused why Sanji needed me to see this.

“How’d he die?” I asked.

“Look at his hand,” Sanji said pointing to it. Humphreys hand was black. It was quite disturbing, but why was this so important for me to see?

“Penelope, that’s the hand your imp bit,” Sanji said with a hint of gentleness, “These imps are not good creatures. They kill things, and Humphrey is only the first of them if you so choose to keep them around,” Sanji explained. I felt bad and conflicted. I still didn’t think they had bit Humphrey on purpose. They were hungry and he probably surprised the imp when he patted my shoulder. But, what if they did decide to attack more people?

I saw one of my imps fly up in front of me. He pointed to Humphrey and had a quizzical look on his face.

“He’s dead,” I said. The imp them slowly pointed to himself with the same questioning look. I nodded my head, “Yes, I’m afraid you did that.” The imp looked distinctly remorseful. It was like he didn’t know he could do that.

“Sanji, look. I don’t think he realized he could do that,” I said. Sanji placed his hand on his forehead.

“Penelope, I told you what I think. You’re playing with fire. They’re your problem, not mine, but if they step out of line one more time that effects our party or the well being of those good folk we interact with, I will be doing something about them,” Sanji said vehemently. He then took off leaving me and the imps with the dead Humphrey.

After a few moments of quiet I looked to see the imps eyeing the dead body of Humphry hungerly.

“Imps! We do not eat people! Even if they’re dead, they are not food! Now, if you don’t behave yourself, I will abandon you to this cold, forsaken place! When I say behave, I mean no biting people or attacking things that I didn’t tell you to bite or attack!” I snapped at them. I could feel the imps cling to me, as though frozen in guilt. I then decided to go back to Cortanna and Kedra.

When I arrived back there, Sanji was one more with the ladies. He was placing a bandana around Kedra’s head.

“Okay, is that better?” Sanji asked her.

“Yeah, wow. You know, I’ve broken bones before and healed from them, but I don’t know if I’ll keep from this,” Kedra said, “Hopefully my eyes will come back, but...” Kedra trailed off.

“Did you find anyone in town,” Cortanna asked. Sanji shook his head.

“No actually. The whole town seems to be deserted,” he said solemnly. We stood in silent for a moment.

“Well, lets get out of here then,” Cortanna said.

“Do we have any food to take with us?” Kedra said, “I’m actually quite hungry.”

“We could kill one of those beasts the town has,” I suggested.

“No, lets not steal from the townsfolk,” Sanji scolded.

“How is it stealing if they’re gone?” I debated. If the town is deserted and if they left their animals behind, then why not use them for our needs?

“We’re not going to take their livestock,” Sanji responded. I shook my head. I was going to need to give the imps something soon. It’s not fair for me to tell them to be good if I can’t meet their needs.

“So where to then? What other food will we find here in this frozen land?” I asked. Sanji shook his head.

“How convenient a teleportation pad would be right now,” Sanji muttered.

“I bet luggage would have something like that,” I said sarcastically, “Luggage!” I half heartedly called out. I was about to announce that he wasn’t around any more when suddenly luggage popped up out of the snow.

“Luggage!” I said out of surprised. I gave him a little hug. Now that he was here, I figured why not ask what Sanji had mentioned, “Do you have anything that could teleport us?” Luggage immediately began to cough and out came a large circular disk.

“No way,” Sanji said.

“Where will it take us?” Cortanna asked,

“I don’t know, but it’s our ticket out of here,” and with that Sanji was on the pad and suddenly gone. Us girls looked at each other kinda shocked.
“Well... I suppose he’ll need our help if he’s in trouble,” I said. Part of me didn't want to step onto the disk and be transported to the unknown. Part of me could barely contain the excitement of this new part of my adventures. With that, I stepped on to the disk. I suppose this would be what my parents would have called a leap of faith, for as soon as I was on, all went black.