Welcome to Gaia! ::

Laptus turned his head toward what seemed to be another newcomer. The man introduced himself as a merchant and went by the name of Hiroshi. The others began to board the wagon that was headed to Tinto and Laptus gazed at the others momentarily. He saw the boy cleaning his scythe and called out to him to join.

While Tak was talking, Eric was thinking. Why did he hate this man? He thought.

And thought.

And thought.

And thought.

Then, he had it!

He pulled himself onto his feet. Striding over to the cell, he leaned close to the bars, towards Akihoto's face. The cold, blue eyes stared deep into the fish-lens eyes of the prince. As he did this, he thought to himself; Why would he do this? What are his motives? Has he any motivation besides revenge and spite?

After two minutes of this, he spoke, in a soft, quiet voice, so that only Aki could hear. "You have no idea what you are attempting to do. You are out of your depth, and you are contesting with the might of one of the Great Heroes. You are attempting to bring damnation onto both the earth and the high heavens. Do you know what you are doing with this 'rebellion'?

You will bring darkness onto the earth. If you complete this, the sun will stop shining. Locusts will descend upon the earth. All the thousands and millions of creatures on this earth will die. Gailor's family has held down rebellion and unrest in his country for the last three hundred years. Five ethnic groups are held down by him -- four of them warrior clans, and the last is a powerful group of Magi. If you kill him, they will see him as weak. If you spare his life, they will see him weak as well. None of these groups would suffer a weak leader to rule them. They will overthrow him, and do you think they will suffer you, the one who stopped their country? They compose a good majority of his army -- and they won't suddenly turn loyal to you because they all hated the Mad King. No, his advisors will not be able to hold them back. You should also know, Gailor has the world's current largest army and magician's circle. Should the magi go uncontested, they will summon Azathoth.

Death will stalk the night. Oblivion will be your future. You will kill your own people for a fleeting bit of revenge? You will kill all of existence for the satisfying feeling of killing a man? Of killing MAN?

Of course, you need to live too. Should you die, your people will rise up and overthrow him. Thus, the same events will occur. Keep your rebellion restricted to skirmishes with him -- your fate was decided the day his advisors decided to take over Faren.

Well? Do you have a revelation, an epiphany?"

((Two things that I had hoped you had noticed :/

As I've already stated, Eric is unreliable and is thus likely lying.

This was also meant to be a mechanism to add some angst to Aki's story, rather than a straight happy ending for all.

I was also somehow expecting Aki to have the flexibility to PLOT or find a reasonable solution to the problems I stated.

Also, it adds just a little doubt whether or not it IS real, and whether it is morally right to kill the king.

It was not meant as "taking the story in my own direction", it was meant as a different problem to consider than "He's morally a monster and thus a free kill. We win!))

((occ: Seriously guys I've seen snail covered in cold molasses move faster... I vote for time skippage.))

((OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! I took the test to get my driver's permit today, and I passed! I can now legally drive! As long as I have a licensed passenger.))

((I know, but what he said was a bit...extreme, so it's most likely a lie. That, and I don't want that to happen. How can I make a sequel if the world ends?))

[Oh s**t, you read TV Tropes?]
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Bjorn nodded at what Hiroshi said, looking over at Hana, who was sitting beside him. "I agree with him. The faster we can get into town, the faster we can work on a plan to get at Aki, instead of a plan to get into town unseen." he pointed out.