Okay.
Here I will post my old fan fiction. I didnt have much readers, and it was far from making a success, but its a worthwhile read. Those who did read it claimed to have liked it.
It is unrelated to Ragnarok Online but....here goes nothing.
And come on peeps :o Dont neglect reading it just because its long!
Its more proffessional! And look! Look! It has neatly organized Paragraphs!
Prologue
A fluorescent ray erupted from the summit of the plateau the dwarves called Yamenzaid, The Eye of the Impact, making the yellow-orange stone shine with incredible radiance. It’s name was well earned. In an age of Light and Lava, a meteor was said to have crashed on the planet of Narubia. The meteor crashed on a plateau, the one that was today called Yamenzaid, creating a giant crater. A dragon was said to be created in the fire of the impact, a very territorial dragon that kept safe the meteor, which had magical properties known by few.
Upon contact with the planet's atmosphere, some of the fragments of the meteor dissolved and fell apart, scattering to the four winds, or so legend said.
This fact was of no importance, until the gods of Narubia discovered that the meteor was one giant magnet.
A magnet that could align planets.
Since the meteor lost too much of its fragments, it wouldn’t be drawing planets together...for now. And thus the gods created the Harconians, the firstborns, to find and safeguard the shards of the meteor, for if it came the day it would function again, Narubia would be lost...But there was also a god of evil implicated in this...Azrael the corrupt.
The terrible god created a selfish race that didn’t control their emotions, which knew only rage and anarchy. The humans. But most of the humans turned against each other instead of doing Azrael's bidding. They were imperfect.
Never the less, those that didn’t wage war against their own kin attacked the Harconians, the winged people created to protect the meteor pieces. They knew only to protect, and couldn’t stand and fight. They were killed in terrible numbers.
Once again finding the opportunity to serve none but themselves, the humans kept the pieces, and scattered. Age after age the legend was less remembered. Some said that the meteor was sacred, and if one were to defeat the dragon guarding it, one would get a wish. The notion of fragments was forgotten.
The ray was of a shining green, but not one that was pleasing to see. It was the color of sickness, of mucus, of swamp. Spirits of lost warriors circled around the ray, bidding these new warriors who stand to face the dragon to join them.
"By all that's sacred Zelse, let’s leave this foul place!" said Travlin, a noble paladin.
Zelse turned to face him, and a smile appeared on his handsome, angular face, but it was a mocking sneer "Paladin, will you turn and run now? When we finally achieved what we've been searching? We've slain gryffons, wyverns and a manticore together, and you didn’t even look at this dragon, yet you already wish to leave? Shame on you Travlin." His companion tried his best not to look beaten.
The others were either ignoring them or too focused on the dreadful sight to have heard them. From what his companions knew of him, Zelse knew no fear. This was because, in his wisdom, he knew death came eventually, may it be early or late. His sole regret was to leave his family behind.
The great ray dimmed and vanished, and so did the souls of the fallen warriors.
The companions turned to each other and shrugged, when suddenly a scaled claw emerged from the crater, and hit the ground with a startling explosion of sound.
The Dragon rose its head. Its eyes were about two times the size of a grown man in length. It had a long slender neck, and it was beautiful, but it could be seen that the creature was not of this planet.
"Zelse, you may be a freaking fool and a bastard at times but I never believed you to be so stupid," said Zack, a selfish warrior who had, since the very first years of his life, learned to subsist on his own. Zack was a rogue, a bandit. "No army could stand against this thing, it’s too damn huge!" The bandit was shaking with fear. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead and down his neck, but so terrified was he, that he could not wrench his gaze from the mighty creature that loomed over him.
The three others turned to face Zack. The beautiful elf cleric, Mia, spoke "You cant leave us now, Zack, not when we need you the most..." She, too was terribly frightened by the Dragon, but this only made her look more beautiful. But even frightened as she was, she would never leave her friends.
They were the best. The very best.
Zelse, with his control of fire, was a prodigious pyromancer, wise and powerful beyond his young age. His skill in the art of sorcery and his knowledge in all things made him an invaluable ally.
Travlin, the Paladin, with his faith in god so large, he would gladly leave this world to join them in the next.
Mia, the cleric, who, simply by raising her fist to the skies, could summon the power of the gods. She had prayed so often that her deities could recognize her when she was in need and grant her their power instantly.
And Zack, the rogue, who could walk so silently and stab any opponent in the back without them knowing that they were not alone.
The four were the Best. And they knew it. Except for Zack.
"Blam you to hell I say! You don’t believe I will leave, then watch me!" Zack snapped, then, when he could finally avert his gaze from the large dragon, he turned and ran for his life, with apparently no regret.
The rest of them didn’t know what to say; they were paralyzed in disbelief and in fear for their upcoming fate… Until the dragon, that had been watching intently and waking up from it’s long sleep, groaned, and fire materialized between it's teeth.
Mia screamed "Its going to blaze us! Get ready to dodge it! We must-" the rest was interrupted by the loud intake of breath, and the stream of fire shooting towards them. Mia dashed to the left and made one final leap...and succeeded in avoiding the ray of fire, but she landed hard, and felt an agonizing pain in her leg.
Zack who had not had the time to escape, died, unknown by the others. His death was a blaze of Glory.
Well…it was a blaze. But the glory was left to find.
Just as the fire was about to scorch Zelse and Travlin as well, the pyromancer yelled words magic, instinctively.
"Empirius! FirePhasing Kinetic Shield!" the words that Zelse spoke were a blur to Travlin. As the ray was about to touch them, a translucent barrier appeared around Zelse and Travlin as he planted his quarterstaff in the ground. It was large enough to have contained a third person in it. But the sorceror had not noticed that Mia had jumped out of the way.
The streak of fire went around the magic shield. Travlin, encased inside it, could feel the searing heat of the flames as it circulated around them Time seemed to have stopped, but for the sweat trickling down Zelse’s neck. When it seemed the blaze wouldn’t end, it stopped abruptly. The moment it was behind them, Zelse removed the staff and breathed.
"Wow Zelse, I never thought you could also use defensive magic..." Travlin spoke out of sincerity.
"I am no Mage, Paladin; I am a Pyromancer, as I have told you at least forty times. I can only repel fire and invoke fire and imbue fire." this said, he raised his hands. He was thinking fast, as always. "Raise your sword Paladin." And as Travlin did so, Zelse spoke more words of Magic: " Pyros Deltagon! "
Travlin's sword extended and its edge glowed in red. Yet it remained as light.
"Attack the dragon Travlin, do it fast while it recovers its breath."
"Back me up, Zelse" The warrior said.
"Go."
Travlin ran towards the Dragon of Impact and leaped into the air. He closed his eyes as he felt himself rising foot after foot. He did this many times before and didn’t need to look down to see that he was soaring through the air, from Zelse's magical assistance. Not only his sword was imbued, but also his shield and boots, the latter explaining his great jump.
"May the FireKraken hear my oath to him! Tentacle Diving Slash!"
Travlin suddenly stopped rising and started to descend upon the dragon, sword ready to make contact with it. A shimmering figure appeared around Travlin, and a presence could be felt. A powerful presence. The presence of a god.
But instead of tearing a mighty gash on the dragon, the sword bounced off as if striking stone, and Travlin nearly lost his grip on it. He fell to the floor on his feet, but wasn’t wounded, except for his pride.
Zelse walked up to him "Fire seems to do it no good. We might need Mia for this...Where is she?"
"I think she jumped out of the fire's path when the Dragon shot a beam at us..." Travlin answered slowly.
"I’m...here" Mia's voice was heard. "Guys...I think I broke my leg..."
Something blotted out the sun. Zelse turned to see the Dragon, opening its wings, ready to attack again. It was colossal.
"Paladin, attack the Dragon again, I’ll tend to Mia. Try something different this time and…Be careful."
"Sure thing."
Once again, Travlin jumped into the air, and he was lifted high, just as before. But this time, the Dragon saw it coming and quickly shot him out of the sky just by flapping its wings. And this time, Travlin's fall hurt more than just his pride.
"Godammit!" Zelse ran to Travlin, forgetting Mia, who lay on the floor, gasping in pain.
Travlin was lying on the floor, hurt badly, but he was still conscious and apparently, he was doing his best to stay so. His teeth were grinned in pain, as he forced himself not to yell.
Zelse, extremely slowly, lifted Travlin, but the Paladin screamed in agony. Then Zelse saw what was lying under him. Travlin had fallen on a sharp rock, and his blood was all over it. It very nearly went through him from one side to another. The blood was quickly flowing out of him, falling into a rapidly growing pool of the crimson liquid.
"Zelse-" he coughed blood, "please...listen to me."
Tears were filling the eyes of the Pyromancer. "Yes, my friend"
"I’m dying, leave me be and take care of Mia, she-" he coughed blood again-"bares my child..." Zelse did little to cover the look of surprise on his face. "Promise me, Zelse, that as long as you live,” he choked, “you will protect my descendents, until the very last one, or until you die."
"I promise."
"Now get Mia away from here!" It took some time before Zelse noticed that his friend was dead, since his eyes stayed wide open and still looked focused on him.
The man silently bowed his head down in grief, the memories of the times he had spent with the young, blond Paladin flowing through his head. Memories of childhood spent together, memories of growing up together, and travelling together. He raised his head again, knowing he had no time to lose. He might be the next one to leave this world. And no one will be left to know about his death.
His sister, now eighteen years of age, would wait for his return, and cry, years later, when she would realize that he would never be coming back.
A sudden determination came to the pyromancer. He was filled with adrenaline.
Zelse quickly walked to Mia, who was making a pathetic attempt to sit up. But her eyes were watery, and she seemed to want to walk up to Travlin's body, for she gazed at it with lingering eyes.
"I’m getting you out of here"
She looked confused, and Zelse saw madness in her eyes. It pained him to see it, because, if she remained mad, Zelse would have no friends left to tell his tale to, provided he defeat the dragon or got out of this forsaken place.
"T-TRAVLIN!"
"He’s dead Mia." he put a lot of emphasis in the word 'dead'. She looked at him with a look of irecognition. Zelse sighed and pressed his finger against her broken leg. A look of pain crossed her face, and it seemed to snap her back into reality. "So you still feel it...I’m going to get you out of here Mia."
"No! I want to avenge Travlin!" Zelse pressed his finger against her leg again, drawing a great 'ouch' this time.
"Let me be the one to do the avenging."
"Zelse I Want to Fight! I want to get my wish! We can resurrect Travlin, and that’s what we'll do, so let me-"
"SILENCE! LISTEN MIA, YOU’RE IN NO SHAPE TO GO FIGHTING AGAINST A DRAGON SIX MILLION TIMES YOUR SIZE AND WEIGHT!" Zelse put all his voice into his shouting and it seemed to have an effect on her.
"...'Kay Zelse, use your magic to whisk me out of here..." she had regret in her voice.
The pyromancer looked at her one last time, compassion in his faltering gaze, and whispered incomprehensible words, and the cleric was surrounded by a softly glimmering aura and disappeared, transported far away.
Zelse turned abruptly, his robes fluttering around him, and chanted as fast as he could. Multiple rays of red light streaked from his hands and hit the dragon inefficiently. The Dragon shot an orb of blue fire at him.
"Empirius! FirePhasing Kinetic Shield!" Zelse thrust his staff into the ground. The orb was deflected and bounced harmlessly off the shield, touched the ground and exploded loudly. He grabbed his staff and shot several more bolts at the dragon, still ineffectively, for the dragon didn’t flinch.
"This is hopeless. I will die." He bowed his head in defeat. And then he was suddenly angry.
Zelse shouted what sounded like a cry of battle, and shot as many bolts as he could, in incredible numbers and at incredible speed. Then he ran over to pick something up at Travlin’s corpse. The Dragon could well have been toying with him, for it saw the bolts coming but didn’t even attempt to shield itself. The bolts hit the dragon consecutively and it didn’t watch as Zelse leaped toward the creature, staff in hand and Travlin's still imbued shield in the other.
Impact Dragon noticed it too late to prevent it; Zelse was leaping towards it. The creature was of enough intelligence to realize that this mortal presented more of a threat than the pathetic paladin did.
The giant dragon shot as many of the blue orbs as possible, but the Pyromancer raised the shield and the orbs all hit it. Several out of two dozen bounced off the shield and touched the dragon, each exploding with fierceness, and this seemed to affect it. Zelse was still soaring towards the dragon, and once close enough he dropped the shield, which clanked loudly on the floor. And he stood there, hovering in the air that was filled with smoke.
"This is for you, Travlin Mastermate. Childhood friend."
He made a motioning movement with his hand, and the sword of his fallen companion levitated up to him.
He lifted the sword. “Foul beast hurt Mia. Foul thing to do. Killed Travlin…” he stopped, turned his head, and spit, then looked at the dragon in the eye. “Last thing you’ll ever do.”
The large creature was still suffering from the explosions of the blue orbs, and the last thing it saw was the pyromancer hurling a great sword to its eye, retrieve it, and slash at its other eye. The sword struck with great accuracy, piercing the tender fabric of the creature’s eye easily, with a sickening noise. Zelse retreated.
The dragon flailed madly with its long neck, its horns nearly skewering Zelse, and flapped incessantly with its wings, sending gusts of wind towards him, breaking his concentration, that was needed for keeping him in the air. He fell with frightening speed.
But the wind blew open his magic-item pouch and he noticed it in time to grab a kingfisher's feather and clasp it his hand. He drifted slowly to the ground. And landed with a slight tap.
The dragon opened its great maw and Zelse was prepared to receive another fire blast. Would he have enough energy to cast the barrier again? He doubted it.
But instead, the dragon spoke to him.
"Curse you, mortal"
Zelse was taken aback.
"Curse you for blinding me! Curse you for coming here for no reason, curse you for trying to slay me!"
"I do have a reason, Dragon," Zelse found the courage to answer, "grant me a wish."
"Fool! You do not even possess a single fragment of the sacred meteor!" it shouted with its grave voice. Zelse refrained himself from putting his hands on his ears to cover the loud noise. But he wanted to look as if he was in control. Even if the dragon was blind. Zelse had the impression it would have known anyways.
"What is this you bark about, lizard!"
"You have no shards of the meteor, and you blind me for no reason. I will curse you. Curse you so you can see your foolishness, and curse you so you can see everyone die of foolishness like your pathetic friend!"
This being said, a black aura surrounded Zelse...And disappeared just as fast, but he felt nothing...He certainly didn’t feel like he was cursed...
"Now flee before I find it in me to destroy you instead."
For some reason, Zelse obeyed, and ran for his puny little life.
Shards of the Meteor. He didn’t bother to search his mind for what sense this made.
SILVER DAWN-ERA OF DESTRUCTION
Chapter 1: Zelse, of sorrow and madness.
958 years later
"Up...Ruby...WAKE UP!!"
"What...?", Ruby opened her eyes, in part because Darius was screaming in her ears, and the other part was a brilliant flash in the horizon...She decided to ignore it. At first, her vision was a bit blurry, then she saw her little companion, Darius, gazing down at her. She also half-expected to wake up on her bed.
Instead, she woke up on mud. Ruby gazed at her surroundings. They were close to the port city of Vel Hanin Espra. At their right, the city, at their left...Goblins. A pair of blasted goblins. She got up to her feet and turned to Darius.
"What happened?" she asked, brushing aside her long lavender hair. She nearly had to bend down to look at Darius in the eyes. He was quite a funny looking fellow. Darius was either in his late twenties or in his early thirties, Ruby couldn’t quite remember. He stood a bit less that five feet tall, and his black hair always stood erect upon his head. Since Ruby knew him, the little man had always worn his plain, nondescript shirt, which he took special care of.
"Well we were walking peacefully and I said 'Hey Ruby, isn’t it such a nice day?' but at that point it wasn’t nice anymore 'cause a goblin came out of that bush right there and whammed you on the head with it's club."
Ruby recalled this with pain, rubbing her head and feeling a lump.
"Let’s kill these bastards," she said, "gonna make good exercise for us."
The goblins looked at each other with their ugly half-reptilian, half-mammal faces and shrugged, pulling out their short swords and putting away their clubs, as Ruby pulled out her dual crescent blades.
"Okay Darius, I’ll take the ugly one."
"They're both ugly", he answered, starring at the short, red-furred creatures, but Ruby had already started. With a single graceful movement she pounced on the taller goblin and made an arc similar to a large X with her two crescent blades, which killed the first goblin instantly. For a moment, she wore a rare smile on her face, exultant in her victory. She then irritably smoothed her hair that fell almost to her hips, trying to remove the blood that just stayed there anyway.
Darius seemed to hesitate before drawing his bastard sword. He always questioned himself before taking a life. A being his size would normally topple over the weight of such a weapon, but due to his irregularly muscular arms, Darius could use a bastard sword like any other man, if not better.
No one ever knew what race Darius belonged to. He wasn’t a halfling; he lived far longer than a halfling could. He wasn’t a human child. Darius was too powerful. He wasn’t a kender, Darius never stole from anyone, and neither did he like stories so much.
He finally pulled out his bastard sword and ran towards the second goblin. The goblin met his charge with it's own sword and the two weapons clashed. Then Darius let go of the sword with one hand to fist the goblin in the stomach, and slashed downwards, slicing it from shoulder to waist.
"Good job, Darius," said Ruby, smiling despite her throbbing temples. They were both particularly skilled fighters. Of course, goblins never were much of a threat. Such raiding parties were commonly found around this area. The two creatures had probably broken off from theirs. "Now on to Vel Hanin Espra."
They hadn’t been to a city in more than a month, and the smell of freshly baked bread was rather tempting. They went to the small town hurriedly.
"How’s your head?"
"Angry", Ruby liked giving human attributes to everything, including sand and hair. Darius was well used to this, so he didn’t ask what 'Angry' could be for a head.
They were quite the duo.
Darius and Ruby came to stand in front of the gates.
A guard stepped up to them.
"What business brings you to our beautiful port city?" The smudgy faced guard asked.
Darius stepped forward "we seek a guy-"
Fortunately the guard paid no attention to him since he was hearing Ruby's version. "We're here to rest at an inn, we're pretty wary of our traveling, and then take a ship to go to Verak'Bis.", she said calmly.
"Raise the portcullis!" shouted the guard to those behind the gates. He then turned to the two companions. "We welcome you to our town. Enjoy your stay.", and he bowed, as was custom before a lady.
Ruby smiled and stepped under the portcullis, Darius following her.
"You very nearly ruined this for us!" she said to him when they were far enough.
"I don’t really like lying..." he answered, hurt.
"Next time allow me to do the speaking..." she said casually. Arriving at an intersection, they came to halt.
"Okay where do we start our search?"
"Hmm..."They looked at their surroundings. Vel Hanin was relatively small, not as big a port city as Verak'Bis. Not nearly as big. She spotted a sign that read "Vel Hanin; Population: 86" this was crossed out-"88" I wonder if the inhabitants are dumb enough to consider us part of the population, she thought.
"Okay," said Darius, "apparently the wizard we seek is a local. So forget the inn. Its getting dark, so...Id say the public ale house."
"Good idea, Darius," Ruby said, smiling. She had been waiting for this day since two years ago, when their quest began. Darius supposed either this made her happy, or she was whacked on the head much too hard. He opted for the latter.
"Is your head still angry?"
"Now its fine."
"Oh, okay."
They found the alehouse fast enough.
"Okay Darius, we must look like imposing and important people."
"Yes ma'am"
They slammed the doors open, and everyone in the small alehouse stopped what they were doing to look at them. Seeing nothing but two travelers, they immediately resumed their conversations.
Ruby cleared her throat and asked loudly: "Okay, we're looking for a mage. Are there any mages in this building?"
At this, everyone looked up...and laughed. Were they laughing because they knew that the two were trying to look imposing and failed? Ruby frowned and said, "Is something funny?" and they laughed louder.
The owner of the alehouse, a chubby man with a greasy apron yelled: "Our bards are here!"
Darius hushed the crowd by yelling out "we're no bards!" and quickly added, "unless Ruby wants us to be!"
Ruby flushed at this. "What makes you take us for bards?"
A man sitting in a table close to the door said "Lady, Vel Hanin is a mage city."
Ruby and Darius froze. Only then did they notice everyone was wearing robes. Robes of every description. Red robes, black robes, white robes, blue robes… Everywhere else, mages were rare enough, but to interrogate one mage on eighty-eight one at a time, without knowing what the one they were searching for looked like, would be quite different than picking out a sole mage.
How they had been blind! They were walking all this time with their hopes blotting out their vision.
The two stood miserably at the door way of the ramshackle ale house. Conversation resumed once again, and everything was as it was before they had came. Darius watched in amusement as illusionists performed coin tricks to gain some money from the eventual traveler that came to relax and have some wine before setting out the next day for a larger city.
Suddenly one of the mages in the back of the building stood up, and walked to Ruby. The mage owned a Doberman dog, which was following him loyally. This mage wore robes the color of flames, but had a hood drawn over his face, making it hard to discern anything asides from his chin and his mouth. This sorceror had a muscular frame, his shoulders brooder than most. It was a man. He wore a dagger pelt from shoulder to hip, and a tight belt with spell component pouches attached to it. Long brown hair could be seen coming out from under the hood now. But Ruby's eyes focused on the dark silver stone he wore around his neck.
Ruby spoke as the mage calmly walked towards the exit, which stood directly behind her. "Sir I would like to-" The magic-user stopped in front of her…and suddenly punched her on the forehead, approximately the same place the goblin clubbed her. She fell to the floor with a groan. The mage ran out the door, the dog following him. Darius bent down over Ruby.
"Now is your head angry?"
Ruby wrestled with the urge to yell out in pain. “...Yeah, it is. Darius, get that mage! He's the one!"
Darius hesitated. He felt awful about leaving Ruby sprawled on the bar floor, but he had sensed the urgency in her voice. He dashed after the mage.
The short man followed his every movement, every step, and every turn. He ran as fast as his short legs could carry him. Suddenly, as Darius turned at the corner of the paved road he had been following, the dog that had been with the red robed character sprang at him, making him fall on his back. He held the dog by the neck, which was the only thing preventing the pet to bite his face off.
He struggled with the animal that was unsuccessfully clapping its teeth at him, unwilling to get up because, in doing so, he would probably forfeit his nose to the dog. Finally, between claps of the dog’s teeth, Darius smacked the animal’s head into the paved road, got up, and ran in the direction the magic-user had gone.
Finally the chase came to an end. The mysterious mage came to a stop at a dead end, the city wall behind him and surrounded by houses on both sides. The dog sped past Darius and was quick to join him. Darius ran up to him and grabbed the sleeve of his robe and screamed like a child would. "I got you!"
The mage looked at him with a look of pity and irony, and it nearly seemed as if the dog was doing the same. Darius’s smile quickly faded as two of the guards Ruby and him saw earlier approached him from behind, and each of them grabbed one of his arms.
"Foul little idiot!" the smudgy faced gate keeper said, "you will go eight years in prison for attacking our elder!"
"Elder? Prison? You got the wrong person here, he’s the one who punched my companion!" Darius, satisfied, turned to look at the magic user. "I got you now foul necromancer! Reveal yourself!” He laughed what seemed like an imposing laugh, the kind of laugh used by the evil characters in stories for children.
The "necromancer" seemed to have been smiling but due to the hood, Darius couldn’t know for sure. “Guards. Take him away." the sorceror commanded. His voice was relatively young.
"No! This is wrong! What the hell is wrong with you people! I-"
"On second thought never mind." he looked at Darius, and pointed at his chest. "You little bastard, tell your friend to leave me alone. We can solve this a smarter way. You and your disgrace of a friend, visit me at the inn room thirty-three. We will talk."
"But you’re the one who attacked her in the first place!"
"You would rather go to prison? That can be settled very easily.”
"I-" Darius thought about this hard, something he barely ever did. If they were to go to prison, they wouldn’t be able to make another attempt to this mission for another eight years anyway so..."Fine then..." he said soberly.
"Guards, leave us be." the red robed man faced Darius again "today at 8th hour approaching six. Be there." The guards let him go. They both whispered a word and vanished.
"Yes...sir..." Darius walked slowly in direction of the ale house, miserable. This character was some kind of mayor? His face on the floor, his hands in his pockets, Darius looked for a way to tell Ruby this news. He grimaced as he noticed a spot of blood on the floor, were he had banged the dog’s head. Only then did he realize Ruby’s similar situation and accelerated his pace.
When Darius came back at the alehouse, Ruby was still on the ground. She had lost consciousness.
"Ruby...Rubyyyy? RUBYYYY! RUBY, SPEAK TO ME! OH MY GOD NO! THIS CAN’T BE! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
A hand shot out to grab Darius's neck "READ MY LIPS! I-AM-FINE!" Ruby let go of Darius' neck, and pulled herself to a sitting position "Really, you should stop that. Bad enough the guy cracked my skull, worst if you make me tear off my ears." She rubbed her fingers against her head. "Pigs but this hurts! What happened to everybody's favorite mage?" she said bitterly.
"He's not my favorite..."
"Never mind...Just what happened?"
"We must meet him at the inn tonight, at eight approaching six."
"Oh great...what time is it?"
"Seven approaching four."
This left them over one hour to ponder what to do next. They sat at the table the red robed figure had sat. After looking around to make sure no one was watching, they shared the food that was left on his plate. There was pretty much only three things they could do. Submit and leave this man they had been looking for for two years, which was unthinkable, go to the inn, jump him, and steal the stone he had been wearing around his neck (which was why they were looking for this man), or go to see what he wanted. They opted for the latter, and thought bitterly that they would have to go for the second option if it went wrong.
Neither of the two was enthusiastic about facing a magic-user.
They arrived at the inn as was expected. It was a very plain decor and the innkeeper looked just as plain.
"The Lord has arranged a meeting with you, I see. Room 33. He paid the night for you."
Ruby unenthusiastically moaned something sounding like 'how pleasant for someone who fists so hard' and dragged Darius up the stairs. Darius didn’t forget to wave at the innkeeper, bidding her good night as he fell and bumped against every stair.
"Okay Darius, no stupidities tonight. This is what we've been waiting for these past two years. I do the talking; you watch and bob your head and say 'indeed' or 'your right'. Got it?" asked Ruby, as they searched for room 33.
"Aye, ma'am" answered Darius, smiling.
"Okay. Thirty-three. There it is."
Darius knocked thrice on the door. "Is anyone there?"
Someone answered unsympathetically in a high pitched voice. "Leave me alone! Crazy bastard! Can’t you see? Occupied! People these days! Damn it!"
"Darius, that’s the washroom. I meant there it is as in there-"she pointed at a room at the end of the corridor,"-it is."
They entered the room to see the mage and his dog, each sitting at a chair around a large oak wood table in the middle of the large room. "Welcome" he said calmly. "Please. Take a seat." Darius and Ruby shyly obeyed. "When we first met we weren’t properly introduced." The mage, no, a sorceror, they could see the symbol of fire etched in his hood, slowly pulled down his hood, and revealed his face. He was relatively young and handsome; his ears weren’t pointed, which made of him a human. He had an angular face and a feathered bandana kept his long brown hair from falling before his eyes. But these were the most frightening. The darkest color of blue possible, were his eyes. And the pupils. The pupils were hallowed in red the tint of crimson. The tint of blood. "I am called Ryuukan Zeheles. My friends though, call me Zelse, and I bid you to do so too. Oh and-" he quickly added-"my companion here is called Duke." he indicated the Doberman.
Finding the man’s politeness charming, certainly bizarre after their last encounter, she mimicked it.
"I am Ruby Delstarr," said Ruby with a shy smile.
"And I am Darius." the little man finished.
“I do not want to discuss this too long, so I will immediately get to the point. You want the silver shard, that much is clear. As you’ve realized, it is very precious to me. I politely ask why you want it.”
Ruby spoke “My story is short, and you may find it rather pathetic…” she blushed. “Do you want to hear it?”
“Yes. I’ve all the time in the world” he said, and for some reason, he chuckled.
“We were exiled from our village, for personal reasons I will not reveal. Our lives were disrupted, and our eyes opened to the suffering of the world. We want to end that suffering. Everywhere around us, rumors of war spread like a fire upon a meadow. Plague has spread through many of the villages of the eastern continent. Goblin raids are more and more frequent. We seek to stop it all, to live in a world of peace…so we can ultimately return to our village…
“We have heard of the legend of the sacred Impact Meteor, and, if we could just…bring a lot of the shards and fragments together…perhaps we might be able to slay the dragon guarding it, and get out wish.”
“A noble cause.” Said Zelse.
"I’ve a question. They said of you 'village elder', if I am mistaken?" Zeheles shook his head, "but you seem younger than most I have seen here. How is it possible that you are elder?"
Zelse sighed and said with a deep voice, "my friend, I have been cursed. Cursed with immortality. Cursed to see my kin waste away while I stay young. Always."
Zelse's terrible eyes reflected to them that he was saying the truth.