Morning broke over the elevated dry platform with a golden gleam, casting long shadows across the makeshift camp. The swamp mist had thinned, revealing distant clusters of twisted mangroves and floating moss islands. Birds chirped lazily, some of them perched on giant mushrooms that dotted the distant edges of the island like oversized umbrellas. The air was crisp, unusually pleasant for a swamp, and the adventuring elf children finally had a moment to breathe.
Fahleena was the first to rise, not because of discipline, but because her keyblade had cracked the last battle vs ancient crocodile, and to her, that was a grave emergency.
She knelt beside her beloved weapon, now resting on a folded cloth like a patient in a hospital bed. The once-pristine silver edge was marred by a long, jagged fracture that shimmered faintly. She clasped her hands over her heart.
"O Keyblade of Destiny, thou noble blade forged from the threads of fate… I, thy mistress, shall not forsake thee in this time of sorrow!"
Gigih blinked awake nearby, rubbed his eyes, and muttered, "She's doing the incantation thing again…"
"Shh," Yuuna said, not looking up from her notebook. "It's best to let her finish."
Fahleena raised her arms skyward, her pink twin tails fluttering dramatically in the morning wind. "Awaken, O slumbering relic! Let thy fractured soul be reborn through sacred mana!"
The breeze picked up. Distant thunder rumbled. It was probably unrelated.
"Keyblade of Destiny!" she cried. "By the contract we sealed beneath the Lunar Eclipse of the Forgotten Epoch, I, Fahleena the Starbound Prophet, vow to mend thy spirit!"
Fuhiken, holding a frying pan in one hand and a confused lizard-egg in the other, stared blankly at her performance. "Has she eaten yet?"
"No," Gaby replied dryly. "She's running purely on drama."
Yuuna finally closed her notebook with a soft snap and approached. "Fahleena. Your keyblade has a self-repair function, remember? Just needs mana infusion."
Fahleena froze mid-pose. "…I knew that."
"Right."
Yuuna knelt beside the keyblade and examined the fracture with a critical eye. "It's stable. Structurally, it's like a mana conductor. If we boost it with the crocodile's mana stone, the frame will reinforce itself."
Yetsan trudged over, still dusting invisible dirt off his armor. "The stone's in my bag. It's wrapped in anti-contaminant cloth. Which I enchanted, by the way."
"Thanks," Yuuna said.
Fahleena, still frozen in her dramatic stance, peeked sideways. "So… what if we also bless it under a blood moon?"
"No," Yuuna said instantly.
"But, "
"No."
Fuhiken joined them, arms crossed. "If we're modifying the weapon, might as well upgrade the rest of our tools while we're at it."
Yuuna gave a small nod. "I was thinking the same. I've been analyzing the crocodile scale patterns overnight. There's a unique mana-reactive structure. Perfect for bag reinforcement."
Adiw blinked from where he was doing push-ups nearby. "You're upgrading our magic bags?"
"Yes. I'm calling the new model 'Magic Bag X'."
"Cool name," Sinryo said, poking his head out from behind Kyle. "Does it explode?"
"No," Yuuna said. Then she looked at Kyle. "Unless he tampers with it."
"Rude," Kyle muttered, but said nothing else. He still remembered yesterday's pudding incident.
Orchid sat up groggily and perked up. "Oooh! Magic bags? Can I help?"
Yuuna froze.
Fuhiken was already behind Orchid. "Nope."
Before she could reach the materials pile, he hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of flour and walked her away.
"Let me bless it with chocolate auraaaa!" she cried in the distance.
"Denied," Gaby sighed.
One by one, the elf children handed their magic bags over to Yuuna. Using a blend of enchantment patterns, mana threads, and the scaled material from the ancient crocodile, she upgraded each bag. They now boasted not only increased storage capacity, but also an anti-theft alarm.
"Each alarm can be customized," she explained. "Just speak your chosen trigger sound while touching the rune."
Gigih grinned. "Alright. I want mine to sound like a failed incantation."
He cleared his throat and chanted, "FLAMEBUR, eh?! No wait, "
The bag promptly made a small popping sound, like a cork shooting off a bottle of flat mana soda, followed by a flicker of harmless blue sparks that danced in the air like confused fireflies. A faint trail of smoke curled upward from the rune, forming the ghostly shape of a question mark before dissolving with a dramatic pfft. It was the unmistakable signature of a spell gone hilariously wrong, exactly the aesthetic Gigih was aiming for.
"Perfect," he nodded with pride.
Sakura set her alarm with focused intensity, pressing her fingers gently to the rune while imagining her ideal sound. A soft chime echoed from the bag, ding-ding!, followed by a cheerful, overly enthusiastic voice that rang out, "Hot buns incoming! Please open immediately!"
The others turned their heads. She clutched it to her chest like it was sacred.
Fahleena approached the task with solemn reverence, as though preparing for a divine ritual rather than a practical enchantment. She knelt gracefully upon the sun-warmed stone, her twin tails fluttering like silken banners in a sacred breeze. Cradling her newly-repaired keyblade with both hands, she bowed her head, the morning light catching the faint glimmer along the once-cracked edge. The weapon rested against her like a slumbering relic, and for a moment, time itself seemed to pause, swamp winds hushed, and shadows softened, as if the world acknowledged the silent vow between girl and blade.
"O ancient spirit of resonance, grant this vessel the voice of my soul!"
She pressed the rune. There was a flash of light.
"BEHOLD! THE ARCANE GATE SHALL BE UNLOCKED BY DESTINY'S CHOSEN!"
A swirl of pink mist burst out of the bag.
"TREMBLE, O THIEF, FOR YOU HAVE TOUCHED THE PROPERTY OF THE DARK STAR HARBINGER!"
Everyone stared.
Nobody said anything.
Even the swamp went unusually quiet, no croaking frogs, no buzzing insects, not even the usual distant plop of something falling into murky water. It was as if the entire ecosystem had collectively decided, "Nope, not touching that." A single bird, halfway through a chirp, abruptly stopped and flew off in the opposite direction. The silence stretched long enough for someone's bag to let out an awkward beep, as if trying to change the subject.
Fahleena nodded with satisfaction. "Now no one will steal it."
"You're not wrong," Gaby muttered. "No one would dare."
Yetsan's bag let out a high-pitched alert whenever someone touched it without gloves, accompanied by a shrill "UNSANITIZED CONTACT DETECTED."
Kyle set his alarm to a suspicious silence, but the rune suddenly beeped and said, "Nice try."
He turned to Yuuna. "Why does it know?"
"It's watching," she said ominously.
Jessica initially set her alarm to a piercing blade clash sound, sharp, metallic, and loud enough to wake the dead or at least stun a small animal. Every time someone passed within a meter of her bag, the camp echoed with a violent SHING-CLANG! that made even the birds in the trees scatter. After five relentless minutes of startled jumps, dropped supplies, and one near tea-spilling incident, Jessica sighed in resignation and deactivated the alarm with a swift tap of her thumb.
Kyle, still rubbing his ears, muttered, "Pretty sure I've been hit less in actual combat."
Fuhiken's bag simply chimed once and said, "Access approved, Commander."
Fuhiken's bag gave a dignified chime the first time it was triggered, followed by a confident, echoing voice that declared, "Access approved, Commander." The words rang out with the kind of overly heroic tone that sounded like it belonged in a war documentary or a theater play performed entirely by brass instruments.
At first, he tried to maintain his usual composure, standing tall with arms crossed.
Then came the second activation. And the third. And the fourth, this time by accident when Gigih brushed past it with his sleeve. Each time, the bag blared its approval of "Commander" with unwavering enthusiasm, as though announcing his presence to the swamp.
By the fifth declaration, Fuhiken's ears were slightly pink. He quietly walked over to the rune, tapped it with a stiff finger, and turned off the alarm. No one said anything, but a few smirks were exchanged.
He cleared his throat and pretended to be inspecting the cooking supplies.
---
By the time the upgrades were complete, the sun was high and warm over the platform. The swamp glistened below like a shimmering green sea, stretching endlessly in all directions. Birds called out. Insects buzzed, though they gave the platform a wide berth, perhaps repelled by Orchid's chocolate aura lingering in the air.
The children gathered in a loose circle, examining their bags, adjusting their straps, and occasionally triggering each other's alarms just for laughs.
Fuhiken stood a little apart, arms crossed, watching them all.
Jessica and Gaby were comparing bag efficiency. Sinryo and Kyle were already plotting some kind of bag-based prank. Gigih was reading next to his bag like it was a pet. Sakura was using hers as a pillow.
They were noisy. Disorganized. Incorrigible. But they were his siblings. He exhaled and gave a small nod to himself. Tomorrow, they would head toward Thraghurn. A new city, new challenges.
But today?
Today, they had upgraded bags, repaired weapons, and, somehow, no one was poisoned. That counted as progress.
And somewhere off to the side, Fahleena stood atop a conveniently elevated rock, silhouetted against the golden afternoon sky. With theatrical flair, she raised her newly-enhanced magic bag high above her head, both hands trembling with sacred urgency. The pose was unmistakable, part ancient summoning ritual, part over-the-top stage performance, and entirely Lion King, if Simba had been a glittery pink keyblade-wielding elf child.
Her twin tails whipped in the wind as she shouted with full conviction, "O COSMIC VESSEL OF ETERNAL STORAGE! THOU ART NO LONGER MERE LEATHER AND THREAD! THOU ART ASCENDED, THE SACRED RELIQUARY OF FATE!"
The magic bag, now charged with her absurd yet somehow infectious energy, pulsed once with an ominous chime and emitted a triumphant chant:
"SEAL UNLOCKED! PREPARE FOR INFINITE CHAOS, STORAGE MODE: APOCALYPSE!"
Everyone froze. The wind died. The fire crackled nervously. Somewhere far off, a toad gave a single, uncertain croak before falling silent.
Even the swamp, which had seen countless horrors and oddities in its time, seemed to collectively hold its breath. A single cloud drifted overhead, reconsidered its life choices, and quietly floated away.
The sky, thoroughly intimidated, wisely chose to offer no reply.
........
Jessica had a hand over her mouth, visibly shaking. This was her limit. And yet, she held the laugh. Barely.