The man with the long blond ponytail walked closer to the humans, who were still stuck watching the beautiful bubble. He put the flute on his mouth again and started to play it; the bubble began to move, and the others couldn't help but follow it with their eyes.
The bubble went directly on top of the man with the long blond ponytail and stopped. As the man removed the flute from his mouth, he started to speak again.
"First of all… where are you from?"
The three men answered together.
"We're coming from Therya," the group said simultaneously.
"Therya? What is Therya? Is it one of the other cities?"
"Therya is one of the four main cities," answered the guys together.
'Mhm, weird… why did they come here in Yalemba?' thought the man with the flute still in his hand.
No one had noticed it yet, but while they were answering, Snowy had begun to move his paws again — very slowly, so no one noticed.
"What do you want from our city?" asked the man, but before the others could answer, Snowy woke up.
The small creature glanced around.
"What is that…" whispered the man with the long ponytail.
"We came here because…"
The man lost what they said because he was too distracted by the creature and didn't hear them.
"Is this creature dangerous? What is this creature?"
Snowy remained still while the man tried to inspect it.
The only one who answered was Darian.
"This creature isn't dangerous, but we don't know what it is."
While Darian was speaking, Snowy looked up at him, understanding that something was wrong.
As the creature looked directly where his owner was looking, his eyes became bigger for a moment, but Snowy understood that the bubble was the reason Darian was acting strange. He chose to jump into his right arm.
"Hmh?" murmured the other man.
Suddenly Darian's body changed again, and as it happened, he regained his consciousness.
Darian, scared, snapped back to reality. He shook his head as he still felt confused.
"Where am I… I remember listening to that music…" whispered him as he noticed that his body was transformed.
'Wait… this means that Snowy!' thought him as he looked again, happy—just to see something that made him feel sad.
Liro and Vane weren't moving; it felt like they were hypnotized by something.
In front of Darian stood the man with the long ponytail, looking at him.
"You broke free from my spell…" pointed out the man with a smirk.
While this man was calm, Darian felt more stressed and took a step back.
"Who are you?! What did you do to my friends!?" shouted him, hoping that Liro and Vane would hear him, but they didn't. They were still watching the big ball.
'I remember listening to that music… then the weird bubble came out,' thought Darian as he looked up at the bubble.
He felt like his eyes were being attracted to that thing. Before it was too late, he managed to snap back to reality.
"ANSWER ME!! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" shouted Darian, pointing his hand toward the man, who walked back and sat down near the tree.
"Shhh, don't ruin the calmness of this place," said the man.
Darian looked at him, confused.
"Free my friends," said Darian with anger in his eyes.
"I was just asking questions… you know, we don't receive visitors very often here," said the strange man.
Darian didn't flinch; he kept his hand pointed at the man.
"Why did you create that thing then?" asked Darian, now pointing his arm toward the floating bubble.
"You can never know who arrives to disturb the peace of this city," said the man in a calm tone. He brought the flute to his mouth and was about to play again, but he was brutally interrupted by the sound of magic.
Darian threw his ice shard toward the floating bubble, making it explode. The object disappeared immediately, leaving behind a beautiful trace of purple, while Liro and Vane snapped back to reality.
"Eh—what happened?!" asked Liro, scared and not knowing where to look.
"Did we get attacked?" questioned Vane.
"Calm down everyone… I just wanted to speak with you," said the man.
Everyone now had anger in their eyes.
Liro walked backward, getting closer to Darian, while Vane put himself in front of them, ready to turn into an animal at any moment.
"First tell us who you are. We promise we won't hurt you if you tell us everything," said Darian with his hand still pointed at the man.
"Guess I can only answer… My name is Garoo, but I don't like when people are this chaotic."
Garoo started to play his flute again.
"I'll attack him!!" shouted Darian as he created a powerful ice shard that went directly toward the enemy's hand.
The sound that came from the flute was the note MI.
Now the bubble had a grey color, and it looked extremely heavy. The shard created by Darian hit the object; no visible damage appeared. It looked like the bubble had completely absorbed the attack.
"I'll get him noww!!" shouted Vane as he turned into an eagle and flew at extreme speed toward him.
Garoo kept playing his instrument; now the sound was the note DO.
A new bubble appeared, this one completely yellow, giving off a chilly feeling.
The bubble appeared right in front of Vane. The moment he destroyed it with his wings, a new aroma started to wander around the battlefield.
Vane first felt calmer, followed by Darian and Liro.
"Being mad makes you not think rationally… sit down and let's talk peacefully, alright?" asked Garoo, smiling.
The madness everyone had slowly disappeared as they felt calmer thanks to the aroma spreading around the battlefield.
"Let's calm down, everyone… being mad does not help anybody," added Garoo.
Everyone walked more relaxed, and Vane returned to normal again.
"Just tell us… are we in Yalemba?" asked Darian as he walked closer to him.
Liro followed behind, ready to use his magic in case something bad happened.
While these two were more suspicious, Vane sat down next to Garoo without caring about anything.
"That is right, you're in Yalemba. The city is not far from here," answered Garoo as he returned to playing his instrument.
Everyone felt more relaxed as they listened to the sound of music.
"We… need your he—no, it is you who needs our help," said Liro with decisive eyes as he felt more trusting toward Garoo, who didn't even flinch at his words.
'It looks like he doesn't believe us…' thought Darian as he was still fused with Snowy.
"Yalemba is in danger; we came to give you our help," said Darian as he stood up.
Garoo stopped playing his instrument and took a deep breath with his eyes still closed.
"Why would we be in danger?" he asked as he opened his eyes again, looking toward the group with a cold expression.
"We know that the krukin will attack this city in a few days… we came to help," said Darian with a decisive look in his eyes.
Garoo first looked at him; before answering, he laughed softly.
"Yalemba getting attacked? It will never happen. They have no way to get close to us," said Garoo as he spread his arms wider.
"You might think they could arrive from any cave nearby… but there isn't any cave around the city."
Garoo put the flute again near his hands.
"And the krukins have never attacked the city; we never had any problem," added Garoo as he returned to playing his instrument.
"And just the three of you arrived? Only you?" asked Garoo playfully.
The three of them didn't know what to answer.
"It's just that… the other allies will take longer to arrive. We came first to explain the whole situation to you," said Liro, lowering his eyes.
"And what if the enemies attack before the allies arrive? What do you hope to do?" asked Garoo jokingly.
"You seem strong. You were able to fight us without any problem," said Vane, still calm after the aroma changed his expression.
As Garoo heard these words, he stopped playing his flute and looked down at his instrument.
"No one here is as strong as you people who go to the mainland," said Garoo as his expression returned to normal.
"Don't you go to the mainland too? Don't you have expeditions too?" asked Liro, curious about how things worked here.
"Nope, we don't have that problem. Our town isn't as big as yours. We usually just stay here without doing anything and live our lives. We've never had any problem in 200 years."
"But… the world is dying… how can you say that?" asked Darian as he remembered the first time he saw the Earth again, it was totally destroyed and ruined.
"We know, but we prefer to remain here. We have everything we need," said Garoo as he stood up and looked directly at the town behind the tree. The group did the same and looked over the beautiful town.
Yalemba was divided into two parts.
One was on the grass: in the middle there was a huge tree, and around it multiple houses. Not far away stood a huge tower that none of the three guys recognized—not even Darian.
The other part was built on stilts, with many wooden paths over the water. This part was the smaller one, without any important place.
"Don't you think the view from here is beautiful? I usually come here to play my flute. No one comes to bother me… except for—"
Garoo sounded annoyed as they heard footsteps.
As the group turned around, they saw a girl with an old woman beside her.
The girl was helping the old lady walk, as she was very slow and used a walking stick.
"Garoo!!" shouted the girl, who had long green hair with part of it covering her eye, where she had a white bandage. She wore a long white dress with multiple flowers drawn on it.
The moment she saw the other humans, she immediately froze.
"Who are they…" she asked, scared, as the old woman finally reached them.
"Ohoh, looks like you made new friends while we were away," said the granny jokingly.
"Yeah, well, you know? They wanted to visit the city. Bring them with you and let me play my instrument alone," said Garoo, a bit annoyed as he turned back toward the tree and sat down. Before playing the flute again, he waited for the group to go away.
"Is he letting us go without any problem?" whispered Darian.
The old woman was already next to him.
Both of them looked toward the tree where Garoo was sitting.
"He's like this… if he says that, it means he trusts you," said the old woman, laughing softly.
"Come with us, we'll let you see around the town!" said the girl with long green hair as she led the way.