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6/14/2012 11:56:22   
BlueKatz
Member

"Wake up! Ariwth! Our mission is about to begin!" Reginald, My master, woke me up. I woke up in a dazzle, we were still in the library. He was on the chair, poking me with the scabbard "You lazy bastard! Wake up! Our job here is done, we should get to see Anthea before leaving."
"Now...?" I was sleepy, I did not want to move. I knew I couldn't continue to sleep, but it did take him 10 minutes, that was enough.

My name was Ariwth, the Bronze dragon and my Dragon Lord was Reginald. We were on a mission for the Dragon Lord order. What mission you might ask? I hardly remember. Reginald buried himself in paper work for 3 days.

I wished we could enjoy other type of mission. This was boring. I was still a young dragon with a size of a young wolf, but I was also filled with energy. I wanted to join the battlefield, I would unleash my power into enemy lines, slaughter their fragile bodies and taste the tear and blood of my prey.

And despite the war outside, we were stuck here. As trainees we were allowed to guard this flying 'fortress' - Dragonsgrasp. I felt insulted. Reginald and I trained fair and hard to pass the training, we were talented, we were ready for the challenge... and then the war happened. Our test was cut in half, we were too young to be considered, and so we stuck here.

It was frustrating. How could they think we were too young for the war? As any prideful dragon, I was not afraid of battle. And Reginald was not original adventurer, he was Prince!

Yes, Prince. A dragon egg was his birthday gift 6 years ago. But I was no mere pet, the dragon inside me wanted to go outside. And my master was no original prince, (or should I say he was a real Prince?) just few years later we together left the easy life behind and advance into the the wild Lore.

Reginald was a perfect human being, and I could say I'm glad being with him. He was tall, strong and handsome (6'2, blonde, blue eyes, muscle and tone... Or that was how other describe him. As a dragon they all looked like logs, really). He was smart, talented and skillful (He was a skillful sword fighter with enough magic and alchemist knowledge). He was cheerful, brave and confident. (He was so positive and passion about everything). And with my help, we were unstoppable. And yet... they thought we were too young for battle.

Reginald didn't stop pursuing our dream. The promoting system of Dragon Lord Order was simple and fair enough. We had the skill, we now only to be experienced enough to join the war. He found the hardest quest available for us, and by achieving it he could be a real Dragon Lord.

We walked along the North hall of Dragonsgrasp, the connection between the Research building and the main Center. I had the urge the fly upon seeing the cloud and open sky 'down' there. Dragonsgrasp was a flying island for the Dragon Lord. I could jump right through the short fences right now and enjoy the air cut through the wings from ten thousands feet high. But I was afraid... my poor wings could hardly hold me upon thin air from this height.

There was a trick however. Everyone know Dragon Lords were capable of using Dragon Amulet, a powerful yet mysterious artifact which link the power between human and dragon. By using the Dragon Amulet the Dragon would be enlarged to its prime form. In my case I would bypass time and be fully grown. I could almost find myself fly across the sky right now.

No one could fully explain how does that work. The Dragon Amulet cost a lot of power to use, not only magic, but physical strength and mental power. The Dragon Lord would be able to achieve what they could only dream about: the dragon magic - the most original magic on Lore.

We headed down to the hall to see Anthea - she was possibly the only High Dragon Lord left here to do all the paper work. Reginald excitingly jumped toward her with tons of papers "Look what we got here. Did you see the recent report from Amityvale?"
Anthea took all the paper and quickly read them all, then looked into his eyes "Oh... this again. Must you bother me again about this wide goose chase..."
"Why not?"
"This is a very high rank mission, it's dangerous and but not even worth wasting time on, especially at this time. He was destroyed at Amityvale..."
"... And we found no corpse..."
"He was a very highly rated target but we have not seen any problem so far."
"That's why I brought you this report from Amityvale, where people start missing around Old Village Hill and they reported up to Dragonsgrasp as things got complicated there recently." He stopped for a breath and continue "This alone could be a mission."
"Great! Another dangerous place! Isn't missing people common there?"
"Just look at the number. That place was haunted and everything avoids it like plague. It's not because it's dangerous, that place just freaked people out and made people sick for staying. But kidnapping is obvious new and people was attacked lately."
"Very convincing..." She said in sarcastic tone and tossed the papers aside.
"I can't help but feel like you are avoiding the mission here" Reginald said coldly - he was a sharp one and he was teasing with Anthea.
"I can't help but feel like you are using this mission for personal gain." We all knew why Reginald was being so aggressive about this. He wanted to get ranked, he wanted to join the war. If we just sat here, it would take at least 2 more years until we got to a higher rank. Because everyone was busy, we had the chance of getting this mission - a ridiculous mission, but he wouldn't give in.
"It's my duty. I provided all the needed proof. You can give me the permission, or we do this old fashion way."

The old fashioned way: with files, report, rule and confirmation just to set something done! Everyone were allowed to 'sue', but no one want to get involved. The lady did not seem to mind, but even though the Dragonsgrasp was nearly empty, she was the only one here to do the paper work and who would want to waste that much time? There were already few people behind waiting.

"Fine." She gave in "But investigating the town only then report! We will send at least 2 more Trainees or even some Dragon Lords to back you up tomorrow!"

"That was my plan." Reginald smiled, grasping the permission and then patted my head - We left behind the furious officer.

The packing didn't take too long. I, of course, did not need anything, and Reginald only took some money, a simple armor, a dagger and a sword. It was his family sword by the way, a very powerful long sword that didn't care about element, it was capable of spearing through anything with Dispel magic, but of course he then took along a Light Dagger.

We used the Gryphon to get down there because we didn't want to get exhausted getting down there in full Dragon form before the quest began. We didn't dare to go directly to Amityvale, but rather stop near the north west - near Hunter's Paradise, and go from there. Too bad we preferred to go straight to Amityvale so we skipped it. I heard good things about Hunter's Paradise.

That was my first time in DoomWood. I had heard a lot of creepy stories about that place and it just made me feel even worse. The road was solid as rock and almost every trees were dead or maybe... The sky was so clear that you could see both the moon and stars - that was creepy and unnatural, the air was very weak here: all the steady wind seemed like coming from the spirit, it caused a really blank atmosphere, where the only sound was the wind, and any other just vanished.

I was not really scared, but still thrilled. I was nearly hugging Reginald's leg and that made him slip more than one. But on the other hand, it was hard not to feel the uniqueness of this place. I hardly could say it was beautiful, but it surely was attracting.

The thought was on the crazy part of the mind, so I assumed people living here were all crazy.

Meanwhile, Reginald still walked straight with determination. He was ready for this, or should I say "excited". The creepiness only seemed to feed his courage. He often made comments on the surroundings and sometime joke on my silliness.

Although Amityvale was just on the edge of DoomWood, the road was no short either. We first encountered an endless field of pumpkins. There were a young lady and an old man there. Reginald waved his hand and walked toward them.

They seemed very friendly, Reginald introduced us. "Hello, my name is Reginald and this is my Dragon, Ariwth. You must be from Amityvale."

They smiled, the girl replied: "Ah yes, I and my father here are taking care of the pumpkins. My name is Alice and this is my father Ben." - "Hi" The old man said. "You must be a Dragon Lord. I did not expect to see any at this time."

"Yes, the war. Unfortunately not all of us can join the war. I am here to investigate the Old Village Hill"

Their faces were changed. "The Old Village Hill?" The girl asked "Things are getting weird up there, you should be very cautious..."

I then heard a snap, there was something out there. I couldn't see anything on the field, but it seemed very visible.

Reginald looked down as he heard my growling. I saw the other two look out there nervously.

"Did you hear that young man?" The old man spoke "There are somethings out there watching us. Missing people, sneaky creatures, flying objects, weird sound..."

"Aren't those common in DoomWood?" Reginald asked.

"Yes. But not in town, the town was always safe - that's why we leave here. Something out there is powerful enough to mess with us. But, why? No one knows. Everything seems random, it's causing a lot of fear."

"But isn't the kidnapping the main activity?"

"No! Not that much people were missing actually, only 8 - counting some adventurers and Guardians investigating that place. It happened randomly - some checked all and come back without a scratch. 3 missing actually got back but they can't remember anything, you can see one of them in the village. Only one corpse was found so far, hung on the tree near our entrance." He stopped a bit and then whispered "It was warning us..."

Reginald looked around, he was trying to think about the clues. It was confusing, but Reginald seemed to know something, it had to do with the quest.

"So I guess we should go together" Reginald told other two.

"Yes, our work here is done" The girl replied.

Alice then helped her father get up and we slowly walked along.

Few minutes later, Amityvale was within eye-sight.

< Message edited by BlueKatz -- 8/18/2012 15:30:50 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 1
6/15/2012 12:27:33   
BlueKatz
Member

We quickly parted away from two new friends as we headed to the inn. It was a rather depressing looking town. There were only few houses, the inn was next to the town hall. Reginald opened the door, there were only 2 people there - a girl and a lady, both looking at us.

"Hello" Reginald said and walked toward the teal hair lady. She was obviously the Inn owner.

"Greeting, Dragon Lord. You must be Reginald as we were informed. Welcome to Smashing Pumpkin Inn! The only best and only Inn in Amityvale! My name is Rosemary, at your service."

"Ah... Thanks. We are staying here for 1 night. I ought to wait for the reinforcement before going deeper into the hill. I want to go around and ask for information about the Old Village Hill..."

"You should really ask Thursday, she knows a lot around here." She hinted at the girl near the window. She looked at us friendlily. We quickly walked toward her.

"Hi, my name is Thursday. Welcome to out lovely Amityvale." She smiled and handed to the seat. Reginald sit on it and I jumped on his legs (He didn't seem happy about that).

"Hi, I'm Reginald. Rosemary told me you can tell me something about this town and Old Village Hill."

She looked outside while talking "Things are getting weird around here, most noticeably that some people are missing, and almost all are outsiders. The Old Village Hill was where one of the first towns in Doom Wood was built. It was old and inconvenience, but it was rather safe trade way to the east."

She continued, looking at us "Most outsiders don't get DoomWood. It has a lot of interesting creatures, a different lifestyle. But it still has its order. Something out there is messing with it. Something is not from around here."

"Dark Magic, perhaps?"

"No." She smiled "I don't think it was Element magic. I believe it was Spiritual Magic."

"Isn't that Dark Magic?"

"No... Dark is the most common Element magic to be used when combining with Element Magic. But they are not the same. Spiritual magic is very unpredictable, rare and unknown."

Silent for a while, then Reginald asked "I looked at the report. People are missing, brainwashed, there are some house collapsing or burning, attacked humans and creatures, destroyed fields... Maybe the town is haunted"

"No, that's not plausible. We don't feel anything here. These activities were done physically. Something was messing with us. But for what purpose?"

"For what purpose..." Reginald was muttering...

We heard crying... It was getting louder... It was getting closer...

And it sounded familiar.

Everyone was stunned. The door suddenly was wide opened. It was the lady we had seen in the pumpkin field, Alice! I felt chilly upon my wings as we all felt what might happen.

Reginald stood up quickly (as I stumped into the ground) to grasp her. She was not crying that much, but she sure was terrifying.

"IT! It took my dad! You must get him, Dragon Lord! Before it's too late! Please... I beg you..." She cried out loud and held Reginald's shoulders.

The inn-owner Rosemary got Alice and pulled her down a seat. Thursday was mused behind us "A village?"

"How does it look?" Reginald nearly shouted

"I... I... don't think it's human, but sure look like one. It quickly got my father and jumped away up to the East. I only could get here as fast as possible. Please, Dragon Lord you must find him. He might be killed!"

"Were all other kidnapping like this?"

Thursday replied "Yes. But this is the first time it was that visible. And this is the first time a villager got kidnapped."

"It could be hungry!" Alice shouted to the wall.

"Is there a horse?"

"Yes, take mine!" Rosemary said as she moved out. Reginald followed and so did I. We quickly got to the stable, Rosemary leaded a brown male horse and handed a map. Reginald and I jumped on quickly, he didn't like me but Reginald controlled him quickly and we sprinted away.

"I don't think this is a good idea, Reg." I muttered. We were just few minutes away from town.

"Why?" He obviously was thinking as well.

"You know why... We know nothing about this and charging into dragon lair is not the best idea. We should have waited until someone come."

He sighed "I... Do you want to stay there and looking at her..."

"I won't mind."

"I do..."

"Human..."

"Thursday said this time it was more visible. It could be something... I hate to say but I don't think we can do anything for the grandpa. But I don't want to get back empty handed."

"You are crazy. This is very dangerous."

"I shall protect you!" He jerked. And before I could say anything, he continued. "We get in, check if we can see what is it, where it might be and hopefully can get the old man back dead or alive. Many people checked that place and got back empty handed. We might get to something here."

From the back, I laid my head into his back showing the depression.

"Hey!" Reginald said brightly "We are awesome. A mighty royal Dragon Lord and a powerful Dragon! Investigating can't be that hard!"

It was not the shortest trip but the tension really lengthened the road. I could not sense anything around but trees. However the feeling of being watched haunted me for the whole trip, hopefully it was just the creepy moon.

There were a lot of houses, but they were scattered around the hill. Most of them were badly broken, I could even see everything inside - nothing. We looked around but there were nothing around, and we almost reached the top. Below was an endless forest of dead trees.

"There it is." He hovered to the East "10 years ago Lord Carandril was defeated here. The searching was badly delayed by this haunted town. I got the feeling we are right on track."

I hardly could understand how our mission could have anything to do with all these haunting in DoomWood. The most convening part of the report was just an 50 years old Dragon Lord armor piece on the hill found from the first searching after the first kidnapping. But really, why would a crazy power-hungry fallen Dragon Lord want to play with creatures of DoomWood?

Our target was Carandril, a High Dragon Lord, a genius, a talented general. 10 years ago he was discovered using a lot of unorthodox experiments. He just liked doing that. 3 Dragon Lords hunted him down, battling from Dragonsgrasp to DoomWood on air. Finally they slayed his Dragon, Akor, in an air fight, but his corpse was never be found. His skill and intelligence made him extremely dangerous and many of his files were still stored uncovered. He was not killed, but vanished. People want to get him but nobody care about him.

Reginald was interested in this Carandril guy. I thought it was not only because of the ranking, but "Lord" Carandril was close to his family, he was from Reginald's land. It was not something I really cared about, but I guessed it was motivating enough for him.

I personally just hated this mission. Dealing with Lord Carandril - one of the most powerful Dragon Lord of that time - was just one thing, but no one could find the meaning of all these.
Everything have meaning, and we just couldn't figure this out. It was unorthodox getting into this like that even if we had reinforcements. Guess it was just a bad day that I didn't speak strongly against Reginald, and Reginald was just too ambitious about all of these.

By the end of the road, we saw a mansion.

< Message edited by BlueKatz -- 8/18/2012 15:30:06 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 2
6/16/2012 9:45:57   
BlueKatz
Member

The mansion was not very big in my eyes, but then I lived in a castle before. The wall was very high and on top of that were lots of spikes. It was plausible to climb but the owner sure didn't want uninvited visitors. We could see inside through the iron gate: A classic mansion, covered by a lot of plants. It looked clearly abandoned. But on the ground there were some trails, and some of the plants were bended. Whatever we had been dealing with, it sure would be in there.

We got closer, but then the horse turned wild. Reginald tried to calm it down but it was helpless. We jumped down and tried to lead him toward.

"I have a bad feeling about this" I spoke the obvious. "There's no reason to go inside. This is so obvious, something is inside, and it's dangerous... we are done investigating, now let's go back."

I had surely convinced him, then we heard sound coming from the mansion. We saw the old man, and "it". We both charged at the gate for clearer look as the horse ran away. The old man shouted loudly but we couldn't understand any word he said as "it" dragged him inside the mansion's door. Then it got shut in front of our eyes.

It was too dark and even the moon light of DoomWood couldn't light this mansion up, with all the rotten plants around. "It" could be a human, maybe, but it was unusually tall and rather big. It was not zombie for sure, and considering how easy to dragged the old man, it must be very strong. We didn't see it at first because it came from the garden or maybe it was taunting us. I wondered if it was the one we were looking.

None of us could speak a word. Only at this moment, I realized this is our first time experienced something like this. We almost hugged the cold locked gate to see inside. None of us can figured out what was that thing.
"Well..." I said weakly...

And the gate just suddenly opened, along with its rusty sound. Reginald was almost fell inside while I bounded away from the gate like on fire.
"There's no way I gonna walk in there. It's obviously a trap!" I screamed!

CAH CAH CAH CAH

"What the hell?" Reginald said. Just tons of crows appeared around us. They must have come from that suspicious garden. We were bound by thousands of reckless crows and the only way they left for us was the mansion. As I looked at it, the door opened.

I was first scared, then I was angered. Why? Why on Lore did we get stuck in this obvious trap? I covered myself in the wings, prevented them poking my eyes, and then breathed a long spray of fire, burned many of those pesky crows.

"Get in!" Reginald chopped down some, obviously less effective than I.

"No!" I breathed another fire ball. "It's a trap! You can freaking see that!"

"You can't out-run them back to the town!"

And before I could snap back.... "Especially… with THEM!" Reginald pointed out.

Zombies! When did they come out? I was too furiously focused on the crows. There were many types of zombies, and it obviously had chosen the fastest ones out there. Five zombies quickly sprinted to us, but they laid their eyes on the most tempting target. The one with peasant clothing hit Reginald with his full body, he blocked with the shield while stabbing an ancient warrior nearby. But the crows wasn't just watching, one of them dashed into his head, Reginald could only moved an inch as the zombie was still at his shield, the crow hit his forehead. It was enough to break his balance, the third zombie jumped in, got his ribs and immediately started crushing it. Reginald felt down.

I flapped toward Reginald in panic and slammed into the ribs grasping one. He fell off as I bit off his neck. Reginald quickly kicked off another zombie and stood up. He moved a bit forward to chop off a female zombie at the middle of the doorway.

CLANK!

The gate shut! I didn't realize we already got dragged inside this far! We could try to climb to wall but I could see many zombies on the other side of the gate, and sure more would come if we try to.

Then the crows flew away and the last zombie just fell down. Suddenly everything fell silent like nothing had happened.
I sprinted toward Reginald. He was bleeding but it was just a cut on forehead. They didn't try to damage us, they only dragged us in.

"Well they did it." Reginald simply said and looked around. We were just right on the door steps.

I wished I could be angrier but I was more scared. We were trapped and we knew nothing ahead. I squeezed myself by his legs. There was not a single light in the house, the moon light couldn't even reach there. I looked at the wall hopefully.

Reginald was an idiot, but he still had a brain. Trying to got me off, he walked away to check the gate. I followed tightly.

There was no hasp. The gate was locked by magic. The zombies were gone but we can still sense them out there. We checked the wall, it was too tall and flat. No, I would not give up, I grasped the wall and it just mysteriously bounded me away.

"Magic!" He said, and then pointed to the east "The only way to get down is to jump down there."

The mansion was built on top of the hill, and on the edge of very flat rocky slope. And down there was a lake. It might work, but it was very risky. I thought I could survive the hit but I didn't think human can handle that, even for a Dragon Lord.

"Or this..." He opened his hand. In this hand... is the Dragon Amulet.

This beautiful trinket was the connection between a Dragon Lord and his Dragon. I was not sure if it was a requirement or just an ignition. Either way, a part of him and me were inside, allowing that human to touch dragon magic and bypass nature rule. One of the most powerful ability was to grown the dragon, me, bigger, stronger, more powerful... We could fly out of here if anything go wrong.

I could not understand how Dragon Amulet work, it was just golden trinket with a charming red orb in the center. Reginald knew a lot about it but even he could not master it still. It was the key to channel dragon magic, powerful enough to bend the law. It was very hard to control the Dragon Amulet, it could make both of us crazy if not controlled properly... To be honest, as charming as it seemed, I didn't like it. It was like holding a bomb.

So that was why we were so concerned about using it. Most Dragon Lord only used it when they are strongest mentally, when they were ready for the fated battle.

"That mean..." He continued.
"We gonna go inside..."
"Yeah" He smiled "Whatever this was all about, I don't think he want to kill us... yet."

The Amulet... It was a small flame busted in the darkness. We now at least knew we have a chance to get away. We looked inside the house, it was filled with darkness, I then suddently felt like the flame was just an illusion, just like our thought... Stepping another step, my blood suddenly felt icy.

"Light" Reginald said dryly. Oh god I thought he could do better than that...

I formed a light ball. It slowly flew up and stayed above Reginald's head. We could not see that far - only a part of the red carpet leading into the dark, I had the feeling that the magic field in this house was unusually strong.

We stepped inside. The darkness reflected our footsteps. Then door shut tight. It was a shock, but not a big surprise. Something was watching us since we stepped in DoomWood. We headed forward along the red carpet, could not see even the wall. The owner of the house wanted to show us something.

The carpet got darker... or so I wished. It was blood. There was a corpse ahead, and before we could reach it, the room started getting brighter. It was first just dimming from the candles then the whole room was lightened up like a promenade.

In front of us was Ben, dead, leaning on the fountain in the middle of the room. His neck was cut, his blood covered his cloths and the floors. His eyes were wide opened in awe. There were many coins lying around and we could clearly see some shined in the bottom of the fountain.

We were shocked, and then shocked by the piano sound. It was in a corner of the room, playing by itself, but it was playing a beautiful song, a peaceful song, a prefect song, as was mocking us. To the right was the dining table, all the foods were still hot. We were invited, he was not...

I wished we thought clearly about that. The owner of the house just won, he pissed us... we were angry, we were not feared, we were not leaving.

It took us a beat to calm down. Reginald walked to the old man, he kneed down and closed his eyes for a while, and then Reginald closed the Ben's eyes.

"He waited for us the whole time" Reginald muttered.

I wished I could say something about it, but I was afraid speaking would just break my throat like glasses.

< Message edited by BlueKatz -- 8/18/2012 21:48:02 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 3
6/22/2012 12:30:22   
BlueKatz
Member

It took us awhile to calm down. It appeared that the mastermind behind this didn't want to see us... or couldn't, yet. Our experiences, and the time spend in studying and reading random novels surely helped. It was obvious that whoever lured us inside couldn't handle us directly for some reason.

I quickly checked the magic surrounding, it was very solid, as if the house was made of magic. I thought we wouldn't be able to escape here easily by breaking the windows. Most important of all, I sensed that the house was slowly dripping away our power.

"So I guess the house is draining our power" Reginald spoke. Obviously he was analyzing the house as well.

"Yep... We better get out of here fast."

Reginald moved first, he went toward the piano, it was still playing music, a peaceful one - we all knew its job, slowing us down. There was nothing around that piano, it was fully controlled by magic.

"Should I smack it?" I asked.

"Ummm... I don't think so. The owner of this house wanted to make us feel curious. Obviously he wants to buy time. I guess it helped us both, I don't want to go crazy yet, we need to keep our mind clear."

"Do you think that he is trying to get enough power to fight us? Like waiting till 12 o'clock

He looked at a big old clock on the hall, it was dead.

"Yeah... I guess." He thought for a second "That seems like dark magic. But Thursday warned us that it wasn't dark magic..."

"The village wasn't attacked by Dark Magic doesn't mean he won't use Dark Magic... He should be able to use Dark Magic very effective here" I pointed out.

"Oh... good call" I loved when I could snap his thought, he quickly tried to come up with something smart "That could mean he, or she is very powerful..."

"Like Lord Carandril?" I suggested

"Exactly!" He said like he was leading all along.

We quickly checked the windows. It was sealed shut, we tried to take it down with blade and fire but it was obviously useless. We could try to us heavy force but would it worth it? If we were tired we wouldn't be able to hold off any attack. And to be honest, at that time we were still fairly confident, we had the Dragon Amulet, we were here to get Lord Carandril!

The hall was big, it basically was the first floor, the only 2 other small rooms were a kitchen (a surprisingly clear one, but there were no food inside) and a bar (containing a lot of drinks, of course we wouldn't want to touch it). The main stairs leaded to the second floor, we would check that later. On the left side was a steel ladder, from what we had seen outside, it should lead up to the top tower. Below the ladder was a trap door, we quickly checked it only to find out it was also heavily locked. Reginald climbed up to ladder and figured the tower was also locked, not a big surprise.

We looked around, beside some creepy things we noted and wouldn't touch, there was a trophy cabinet next to the main stair. After checking everything but the main stair, we decided to go there - we had the feeling that will lead us to somewhere, and naturally, we saved it last.

The cabinet was filled with trophies, medals and a lot of papers. A lot of other pictures was rudely tossed aside, it was not belonged to this collection. Reginald nearly jumped into the cabinet when he saw some similar signs: the formats, the checks, the medals, the trophies... all were from Dragon Lord Order.

"I knew it! I knew!" He muttered in excitement. "These are from Lord Carandril! All of his rewards..."

I looked myself as Reginald tried to feed me those rewards. "Wow... I thought it was supposed to be harder... like we would figure that out at the end and some plot twist would happen..."

"Yea..." Reginald focused on the papers, he tried to learn more about his opponent and compare those papers to what he knew about Carandril.

He spoke "I don't think that matter to him or us. In fact if anything it only made us having to stay here and face him..."

"We could just leave... That's what investigating for..."

"We saw how powerful he is... He seals this house perfectly, controls a lot of zombies and crows... If we leave, he leaves"

I was annoyed, this didn't feel right. "Then why? Why did he try to get us inside?"

"I don't know..." He avoided the question "He was always an insane one..."

Reginald continued to read those junks. I knew he was also looking for an answer for that question, but I doubted if those files help. I wished I could bite his legs and knock some sense into his poor brain but this was a mission. I guessed I had no choice but playing his way.

I lay down patiently, hoping he would find out something useful and not that we were tricked and wasted a lot of time. Finally Reginald snapped out of that.
"Umm... Carandril had a lot of records in researching and medication and even in Dragon Amulet researching. Then in the files I found in the Library that he was then targeted because he experienced on wounded soldiers."

"How does that help...?"

He obviously could not answer that. "The more we know about him the better. Let's check the second floor."

We went up without any trouble. There were a lot of pictures on the walls. None of those seems like Carandril. Look like this mansion was belonged to someone else. There were 3 rooms on the other side of the stairs and another smaller stairs up to 3rd floor, the final floor. We quickly checked all the doors, all 3 rooms were locked, as well as the doors to 3rd floors.

"Well, don't tell me we should stay down stairs and wait" I mocked.

He looked around then said "Umm... we should try to take down one of the doors."

"Wait! What!? We should use force to take down a window and get out of here!" I shouted.

"We have the Dragon Amulet for that. We should find him as quickly as possible and fight him. If he avoids us he might not be at his full power right now"

Couldn't argue with that logic, I had no choice but let him try to picklock the door. We took the right one, he tried but obviously it was locked my magic. Reginald stood up and charged magic. The magic surrounded him then started focusing into his right hand. He punched the door, tearing it apart. The magic was strong, it still held part of the door still and we couldn't move it, but it was enough for him and me to move inside.

I lighted up the light ball again. It was another library, filled with books. The room was not that big, there was only a chair and a table and 5 bookshelves. The small bookshelf in the middle caught my eyes (it was nearly served as tea table), it was cleaner than other bookshelves (other are rotten books and filled with dust) like they were being used frequency, the books were not as old too.
I checked the window, it was also locked. "Hey" I asked "Do you think you can break this window?"

I was... slightly impressed by that door punching by Reginald.

"The door was not that well sealed like the wall and windows, silly..."

I turned back, ready to question him... But then I saw how tired he was. He was sweating, his right hand was shaking. I knew nothing of human magic, I was not aware of his effort to break that door.

"Wha... Did you try that hard to break through that door?"

He stood there for a while then nod. "I tried... I felt that the power inside the house was not as strong as the power warping the house. It could be a small flaw in the spell."

He moved toward the middle bookshelves and checked, and then grasped 3 books then fell on the chair. Yep... he continued to waste time on those researching again. I sometime wondered if all humans were like that.

I couldn't do anything at this point so I rested, keeping my eyes on the door. Luckily Reginald only checked those books briefly.
His punch was very powerful. I suddenly realize that the punch was that powerful... The magic around the house was shocking, and it still was. I wondered if that had any meaning.
Then I realize the magic start acting weird... like it was on a flight.

"Rex! There's something wrong with the magic around this house!"

"Uh... what?"

I wondered if he couldn't feel that because he was just human or he was so weak...

"I don't know it was chaotic... Maybe you pissed it?"

He frowned "Just keep your eyes on. I'm done here." And - I couldn't believe it - he started bragging about his discovers...

"Wow... those writing were sick. You wouldn't believe what I saw. Those books contains, not only dark magic, but a lot of terrible experiments on living creatures in order to modify them and their nature form and power. There were so many notes from Carandril himself on his own experiments, look like he got his hand on a lot of subjects. And on the newest note..."

A sudden sound cut through Reginald's speech. It sounded like the sound of the trap door hitting the floor. We were about to move then we heard more sound, both of us halted, it sounded like someone... more than one, moving. It was so silent we could even hear the breathing. Then the light downstairs suddenly shut off, covered the stairs in dark. We heard sudden moving and the sound of bodies hitting the floors. It was a fight!

Without a word, Reginald and I dashed downstairs.

< Message edited by BlueKatz -- 8/18/2012 22:03:13 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 4
6/23/2012 13:29:37   
BlueKatz
Member

We ran down the stairs. The light orb lightened up the whole room. There were some zombies, a dozen or so. The trap door was damaged, opened aside. But none of that matter, in the middle of the room were two new figures: A young girl and an old Man.
We quickly recognized the young girl. I couldn't remember her name, but she was in the report we received from Amityvale. She was the latest missing one, a young adventurer, decided to explore the world. She looked badly wounded, or maybe she was tortured. She only wore a simple white dress like what they wore in hospital, there was dirt and blood on the dress, but she did not seem to be injured. Not only that, she was covered in a lot of bandages.
It did take a while for us to see the old man. No... He was a shade, not a ghost, but a powerful force refused to die. Yes. He was Lord Carandril.
Like the title suggested, he wore a black lord suit, not like a vampire, but older, dirtier. He looked tall. His hair was black, his black eyes filled with surprise seeing us. He did not seem that powerful, but fearsome enough. He did not look evil, but his appearance consumed the surrounding.

They were after the girl. Lord Carandril was holding her right hand, locking her dagger. The zombies didn't do much. But the light from our appearance shocked them all. Carandril looked at us, or more specifically, Reginald. His eyes flashed with surprised, in an eyes to eyes contact, then he quickly looked away. For a second, I saw him hiding his amusing smile, and then the girl pulled her hand, breaking free from Carandril's lock. He quickly disappeared in smoke and shadow - we but all saw his shade draining back to the trap door.

I realized that we just stood on the stair during those seconds. I guessed none of us expected to see Carandril... But the zombies quickly reacted without their master, they were only stunned by the light ball for a while. Two of them jumped from behind, grasped her back and legs, knocking her down. Reginald and I finally reacted, he jumped toward the girl and darted through those two while I created a small circle of fire, pushing the rest back.

The two zombies were quickly finished, I expected the girl to say "Thanks" but she fell down on her knees. She was weak already and the attacks really damaged her legs - they really wanted to re-capture her.

The rest of the zombies quickly reacted, they jumped through the fire. It burned the first few one but didn't do much overall, I didn't really want to create a fire circle anyways... Two jumped right onto my nose, but I was holding my breath, they were also melted instantly, lightened the whole room in bright red.
Three attacked me, one from the side. They were not as fast as the one attacked us outside, but they were pretty strong and solid. That slam pulled me out of the field. Reginald cut a zombie by half instantly, but the rest attacked crazily.
The girl attacked one of them poorly with the dagger and she couldn't even stand - then her hand flashed with magic, cutting the magic inside that zombis - he kneed down and stay still. Oh... she was a Mage.
Reginald fought extremely defensively, he summoned a shield to cover his right, then focusing energy into his blade, aiming at the row of zombies. The sword shined at its critical power peak, Reginald hit down the floor, creating a shockwave blasting off the rest. They all were stunned by the power, remained useless afterward.

We quickly finished them all. I didn't like it, it was a reckless move, while it was pretty safe, it was very costly. I wondered if that was human thing when they do around girl... He was there, checking the young girl while I had to go biting off every zombie’s necks.
She was around 15 at best, a very young adventurer, not any younger than us at the beginning, but surely uncommon for a female. I guessed she looked good in human standard, blonde, white, blue eyes and she had average height. Reginald looked at her worriedly and confusingly. She could not talk. And her legs were not in best shape. They both tried to heal her legs but no one here were Healing expert, healing might take a while to kick in.
I didn't know why she couldn't talk. I looked at her throat, covered in bandages... Remembering what Reginald said about those books, I really tried not to predict anything about that...

Reginald asked about her information. Yes, she was that girl. Sadly Reginald couldn't remember her name as well. He stood up and spoke to me.
"Ariwth, we are going down!"
"What" I couldn't believe this guy sometime... I was almost speechless.
"I know what are you thinking, but he was obviously not that strong... now. We knew where he went. She could not move out of this mansion back to the village but we can..."
"But don't you see the magic of this house is unstable now? We could break out and slowly walk down, he might send tons of minions after us but he won't be strong enough to do it himself."

It was clear now. The attack from Reginald on the door was very strong, that damaged the house magic. That magic also kept this girl down there, behind the trap door, and she had the chance to break down it. The magic was still there, it was still strong, but it was dizzied.

"And yet this is out only chance to get him."
I couldn't deny that. We already failed the investigating mission. He knew us coming and he waited for us. If we left, he left. We saw him, he was obviously strong enough to leave.
It was like a duel. He wanted to get rid of us as well. Only one could walk out, having the secret in the hand - or both get nothing.

He stood up, headed to the trap door. "I will go even without you. You can stay and guard the girl, she cannot move."
"Wait... what... No way I would stay here..."

"Then you stay in the kitchen. This should be quick" He said to the girl. Surprisingly she agreed with his stupid plan, headed to the kitchen by herself - at least as we checked it was a safe spot.

Reginald headed to the trap door, filled with determination. I had no choice but following him, to try my best to protect him. I already could feel what awaited us down there.
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 5
6/27/2012 15:19:03   
BlueKatz
Member

It was really dark down there, and the tunnel seemed infinity, our light orb could only light up few foots ahead. It did took us a long while to get down here with that rotten stairs (I hoped it won't slow us down on our escape) so I guessed we ought to be deep inside the mountain now. The wall was raw rock and only held by logs, this tunnel was made poorly like a mine. The Air smelled wet and filled of dirt, I could also smell some really fainted alchemist mix used to keep that tunnel from roots. Unexpectedly, I smelled none of the rotten fresh from the zombies or any sense of magic. I wondered if this could be another illusion or this place was abandoned for too long and Carandril was a lot weaker than I thought.

We didn't walk for too long but our patience was limited. We tested to see if this would be another illusion but it was not.
And then right when we thought we would feel crazy, we saw 2 paths a head.

"Oh how encouraging!" I could sense the disappointment in his tone, he must be falling down from that flashy speech. "Can you sense him?"
"I can't feel anything. He seems like a shade, earth generally absorb magic so it's hard to track him down." My direction was a lot better than most human "But I believe the right path will lead us deeper into the mountain, father away from the mansion while the other lead back to the mansion."
"What?" He asked surprisingly "So it just takes us back? What's the point of this long road then?
"It could be a big storage and it was inconvenience. We didn't walk that far away from the mansion actually, the tunnel acted like a stairs leading deeper inside the mountain."
He thought for a sec then decided "Well we ought to check the storage then, or whatever it might be. We might not be able to catch him at this rate so just check where we might not be able to go back again. "

Wow... I thought, are all human that stupid? For a second he insisted going after the most wanted man in the Dragon Order, and then later he decided to check hidden stuff instead of chasing said guy. I guessed I could never understand this "adventure" spirit.

We took the right path, it got a lot deeper and sloppier. And shortly after that I noticed something interesting.
"Hey!" I said "This is a cave, it's not a man made tunnel anymore."
"Does not seems like a natural cave to me... too many rocks." Reginald complained. There were actually a lot of rocks blocking our way, and soon we had to walk on them. "Look like an eruption or something."

We then reached on top of a solid giant rock or something, the light orb couldn't light up the darkness ahead, looked like we reached a big cave room.
"Can you see any path" Reginald said. We then heard the weak echo from his sentence. "Woo... this seems big."

We stood there for a moment then he said. "We could climb down but it's better to check everything down first. Can you create a big light ball to lighten up this whole place?"
A light ball wouldn't cost too much power - that was why I loved Light, it could be used differently at different forms and power levels. Creating a flare was complex but easy. I purified myself with Light magic and mixed it with Dragon Magic, a small ball of light flow into the darkness by my soft breath. It reached its destination, in the heart of darkness, then flashed light, covered the whole cave in light.

I wished I could always be that light... But we were stunned by the cave.

Lying on the ruin of rocks was the giant skeleton of once great dragon - Akor! It was obviously moved here, someone set him lying across the rocks - because of that, he did not look that horror, instead we all felt like he was sleeping, he still looked fearful and powerful, waiting for being awakening.
Lying all around, acting like the background, were a lot of corpses, skeletons and cages, old and new - we almost didn't realize them. They were Carandril's prisoners, dying in cages. It gave us a chill feeling, then left with sadness.

They said you can feel one man feeling my seeing his creation. Although I did not learn anything about Carandril, seeing Akor slept calmly on this faint field of death just told me who he was. He was the one who wouldn't stop for anything but his goal. He killed a lot of people, he used a lot from the other, he did what he wanted the most, and he did it for his own good, for his ambition, for his survival.

People called him selfish, I thought not.
He lacks what people called "humanity".
The biggest gift one could receive from human.

We stayed for awhile then leave. I wondered that was the true meaning of that. I wondered what was on Carandril, I wondered what did he think when we get here, I wondered who was that girl and what was that room truly for...
I hated to admit but I had the feeling that we were getting closer the the answer.

We quickly got back on track. It did not take that long before we reached a wooden door. There was blood written on it "GO BACK I WARNED YOU"
"Heh! Child play." Reginald commented. "Ready?"
"Yes." I felt a lot more confident now, after seeing the dead cave. I thought I knew it would end here, we would got what we came here for.

Reginald pushed the door side. There was he, Carandril, sitting on a simple wooden chair waiting for us. He did not look that old, he now looked calm, he had a very styles confident face, looked serious and amusing. Carandril sat still with right left crossed while smoking tobacco, his other hand held on the walking stick. I did not know if he was not as shady as he looked or he got a lot better now.
The room was rather small, it was lightened by a lantern on the table and a candle near the corner. There were more than 1 table beside the big one in the middle, they all were filled with papers and pictures. They were all about his experiments, those graphs and pictures were too disgusting to be looked at. There were also alchemist potions and tools all over the place, and some things looked like warped meats...

Carandril sat there amusingly like waiting for his guests to enjoy the view.
Breaking out of the shock, Reginald pointed his hand and said loudly: "You are under addressed by Dragon Lord Order, Carandril!"

"Well I hope you don't think I would follow that easy right?" Carandril said for the first time with his calm voice, surprisingly I felt like it was fulled of passion and life. Carandril's reply cut through Reginald 's speech "After all I was the one invited you here, why must we leave so soon..."

"Why?" Reginald bounded back "Why did you get us here? Why did you attack the town? Shouldn't you be more..."

"I'm glad your brain functions well but it would be time wasting for us both if we talk about this matter now..."
He stood up.
Reginald pointed his sword forward, I stood ready for a big fire ball. "Hold on. Then we ended this right here, right now. No more game."

"But I have to keep you entertaining while I prepare. As you can see... I am not ready yet..." He acted like he was also falling over, hanging on his walking stick, then stood up. "Don't be over confident, it's you the one who won't be able to get away. It's not that you didn't want to step back, you couldn't, I know Dragon Lord too well... you both are under my strings now."

Reginald dashed forward thrust his sword toward Carandril's chest, leering to the right to corner him. But Carandril stepped back and disappeared behind the curtains.

"What the..." Reginald angrily thrusting into the curtains, we knew what happened, he got away with a secret door. Just when we opened it, the whole room was shaken with rocks and dust. The secret way was quickly filled with rock, blocking us from getting our hand on Carandril.

But thing wasn't ended there, right after that we heard the familiar screaming tone of the undead from the tunnel. He surely wanted to entertain us.
"We must get moving!" The genius one said.

Then the door suddenly got shut and all the objects in the rooms flow widely around us. It was not that damaging, but really confusing, and the sound of the horde got closer and closer.
"What the hell!" Reginald screamed, bashing himself at the door.
"Magic! This mansion is haunted!"
"Well! There is only one way!"

He charged magic into his hand, this time it was even stronger, the magic furiously shaking his hand. Reginald hit the door with his full force, bashing it to pieces, I could even see the first skeleton get crushed apart right away.

I jumped right outside, hoping Reginald could catch up after the shock, and crushing two skeletons with my headbutt and then a powerful crush from my front legs. The skeletons ran after than zombies but they had no endurance to keep us still. Luckily none of them had any weapon.

Reginald dashed out right after that, I quickly leaded forward, knocking any other skeletons out of the way and Reginald only needed a slash to finish them off. But I wished life were always that easy, many of them packed a punch, some managed to cause few scratches and one even speared a bone through my scales, but I was lucky. Most important of all, Reginald was completely unharmed.

We only got pass one fourth of the tunnel. I was not in best shape and Reginald was exhausted. Then ahead were a sea on zombies. There must be almost a hundred throughout the whole tunnel, or so we thought, but realistically we knew we can get pass them. There couldn't be that much from that dead cave.

I charged a raw magic attack, Reginald quickly headed and blocked most of them with his blade, he was too weak to summon a shield. We were lucky, this tunnel was not that wide, Reginald cut them down one by one but many of them get passed and attacked from all side, leaving few wounds on him.
I charged enough for a blast before any of them could reach me, I roared, warning him, then release the power. The raw magic is destructive in its own way, blasting all one them, pushing them back and finally created a small hole in the thick web. I was dizzied but Reginald held me and ran as quickly as possible, passing all those zombies.

We passed half the tunnel, passing the dead cave path, unfortunately there were still some zombies and skeletons along the way and we had to battle them. There were too many of them so they were not to tough (It was harder to control many minions at once than control few individual ones) but they really slowed us down. We could still hear the horde follow us widely and getting closer. And right when we thought we put everything under control, the front line was thin enough to escape easily then 4 zombies and 2 skeletons shown up.

We were ready to crush them like we did with the rest but then something touch us: The sound of the horde went silent, few skeletons right behind us suddenly collapsed. Carandril knew he wouldn't be able to stop us by number, he knew his force wouldn't be able to keep us inside long enough. He wanted to cripple us instead. The zombies are well armed with thick armors, 1 steel and 3 leathers and two skeletons one had a giant axe and one had a long blade.
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 6
6/28/2012 15:13:18   
BlueKatz
Member

I wished we moved faster while they couldn't focus their power after that, but we were exhausted by the long run. So turn out they got the first move advantage, the zombies formed a curve blocking our way out, while two skeletons took the sides, readied to cover the back when the battle start. Then they stopped and played very defensively.
That was surprisingly clever, I guessed Carandril was controlling them like puppets. Being defensive gave huge advantage for them while buying a lot of time for their master.

"This is troublesome..." I sighed "I don't think any of us can use magic effective in this condition, and we shouldn't either."
"I still can give them a blast..." then he looked at me "But only if we can't kill them..."

"They are directly controlled. Unless we tear them apart or burn them down, I don't think we should care about battling them. There are many behind and Carandril only need to channel to another one. We should think about breaking through their line and get pass the trap door, we then have the girl, the high ground advantage and maybe we can put the table on it." He continued after calculated the situation. "You take the left skeleton and I take the right one, don't get the zombies cut us apart though. If they try to cut us, help me instead and fall back, we should be able to take down one skeleton at least"

We quickly took into the action. Reginald, as the Melee attacker, moved closely toward the right skeleton and attacked him aggressively with his sword. I only moved slightly out of the middle, using Ice breath to attack the left skeleton. I didn't want to move too much since they zombies would quickly cut us in half.

Ice was not the best Element to use against Undead, but to actually damage Undead it will take a lot and a while with Light. As expected they were strong, I was glad I made the right choice. The skeleton and the zombies were not even damaged by the mist, but the mist slowed the zombies down. I mixed some water in the air, and frost was created. With magic I attacked the sword skeleton with sharp ices. He couldn't block any of them with his sword but the mist and the ice didn't cause him any pain to fall back, he dashed toward me, ignoring the constant ice rain.

Meanwhile, the right skeleton swung his axe with great force, I could even felt the air cut from over here along with the sharp sound. But Reginald was an excellent swordsman, he dodged the attacks seemingly with ease. The axe was too slow for Reginald and his blade. Reginald couldn't fully contact him with such powerful attacks threatening, and the skeleton controlled the battle rhythm, but he did land some good hits. As expected its bones were solid as steel, but not breakable. Those skeletons were not well developed, it was the magic in his house what made this place really scary.

The zombies got very close. My skeleton was barely damaged while Reginald did land some good hits, but it didn't do anything.
"Ok, let's finish this one! Fall back!" Reginald shouted.

I created a huge freezing storm, spearing Ice through its ribs and nearly covered him in solid ice. That was enough to keep him still for awhile. I moved far back, but Reginald played a risky move, he moved forward, putting himself between the skeleton and three zombies. That cut the skeleton apart and sandwiched him among us.

I didn't have time to warn him, I knew what I must do. I sprinted forward as hard as I could. Reginald hit the axe with his sword as hard as he could, both of them fell imbalanced after the shock. The skeleton quickly lost his move, created an open for my close combat. I jumped on him, grasping him still with all my legs and tail, and bit through his skull with my big mouth. I couldn't crush the skull apart, the magic was too strong, but my teeth cut through the skull. That was enough to shatter the magic, I quickly blasted his head apart with Light magic. The skeleton walked left and right then fell apart.

Reginald was not that lucky through, the zombies quickly got him and they didn't feel mercy for the one who pushed their friend to death. The first one locked him tight in his arms while the second one punched him in the face. The third one thrust his wide opened hand into poor Reginald's stomach. I thought he only survived that hit with magic.

In panic, I flapped my wide wings with all force and made a perfect air dash toward them. I made an air curve, slapped the third zombie's head with my tail, threw him down the ground, and dashed toward the one locking Reginald. I bit his zombie biceps harder than I could even image, crushing its bone. I fell down the ground with half of the arm in my mouth - I could never forget the taste of that that rotten meat...

Reginald broke free and got down - the second zombie punched the wounded zombie in the fact like in any comedy, he fell down after flow for three second and hit the wall. Reginald swept and knocked the last one down. He was not in best shape but his brain functioned well. "Move!"

We quickly ran at once but they were not that slow. The fallen zombie suddenly moved forward and held Reginald's leg, knocking him down. I turned back with a huge fire wave but that didn't stop them. The two zombies jumped toward me buy I easily avoided them and returned with a front leg smack down, breaking one's ribs apart.

But that powerful attacked made me lose focus, I forgot one member of the party - the skeleton. He threw the giant axe at me. And yes, it was a hit. The blade cut my wing unmercifully and thrust deep into my fresh, passed the scale. I could only barely react, therefore the blade didn't hit the bone of my wing, but it was torn badly.

"ARIWTH" Reginald screamed furiously when he saw that. He pushed his whole body back using two hands then kicked the zombie head while did a backflip from the ground. The zombie in surprise was dragged along upon the air, and while they both in mid air Reginald stabbed it with his blade. It was not cut in half, but the blade cut through half of its body.

He landed and dragged back the blade stuck inside the zombie's fresh then moved toward the skeleton. It greeted him with a sword fight.
"Are you ok?" He asked nervously.

Everything was so clear... I didn't feel a thing. It was the adrenalin, but it wouldn't last for long. I knew this would hurt so much later, we must get away as soon as possible.

"I'm... fine. We must move." I jerked off the axe and moved ahead as fast as possible. I noticed the pain, but I didn't feel it, for now. The least damaged zombie got up and chased me but it was too slow. Reginald started running too. We were ahead, we had the advantage, and we could already see the exit.
The zombie who almost cut by half and the one who got its ribs crushed tried to chase us but they were not that fast. The last zombie followed us closely and the skeleton constantly got pushed back by Reginald.

We ran up the stairs. I was sure that without being a dragon I would feel so much pain right now, the human could not keep up that long. The adrenalin kept the pain locked, but I couldn't fail to notice half of my body started getting faint in pain and I could clearly felt the blood spitting out of the wound.

Reginald suddenly held me up and moved faster. Then finally, we saw the trap door.
The zombies followed us closely but not fast enough. Suddenly the skeleton dropped its weapon and jumped on Reginald's back and started hitting him with its elbow.

We dashed pass the trap door. At that last moment I breathe a strong wind force and threw the skeleton off. Its head even hit the side before fell down the tunnel, slowed down the zombies. We were affected as well, the blast sent us all over the floor.

Reginald tried to get up as to block the trap door or half of our effort would be wasted, but someone already did that for us. The white dressed girl quickly pulled the table over after closed the trap door.

The Undead thrust the door. Then everything fell silently. Carandril knew he wouldn't be able to do anything else, and I was afraid he would lay back for another trick.

< Message edited by BlueKatz -- 7/5/2012 6:55:20 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 7
7/5/2012 10:17:29   
BlueKatz
Member

"Thank you." Reginald thanked the girl. "Without your help we would be in bigger trouble. But why don't you stay hidden as I suggested"
She pointed to the trap door then to her ears. I guessed she meant she heard all the noise down there.

I moved, ah, the pain finally came. It was not that bad though, the cut was not that deep, I guessed it was around two or three inches. I healed the wound but it was still pretty bad. I thought I should consider about learning Healing magic if we can survive this.

Reginald heard my soft moan, he shocked a bit like he was totally forgot about that, then ran toward me and check the wound.
"Oh man... I'm glad you held the wound. It should be fine now. But the wing is still broken..."
"Yep... It's always the hardest part. I used too much magic already it won't worth healing the wings, that would take few days."

Reginald looked at the wound for a while...
"That's it!" He finally said "We use the Amulet and get the hell out of here."
"Oh! Look who's talking." I mocked
"Umm... this is serious. I... From the fight I can surely tell you that he used a lot of power. He was not that strong compare to us. But he's still stronger and we can't underestimate that. And worst of all, we still have no idea what else he can do."

"Then use the Dragon Amulet, I will crush this house and we fight him."
"What?"
"You heard me. I saw that secret door as well. It was an elevator and that room was right under this mansion. He must be around here somewhere."
"Alright... if you think you can take him..."

He held his hand up in the air, the magic channeled around his hand, link between us and the amulet. The Dragon Amulet was summoned, it shined between his palms.

But we noticed something when wrong instantly. The Amulet was summoned, we sensed the connection, the ancient power from the rift, but then it disappeared harshly.
Instead of the warm and welcome magic feeling, we felt the cold and icy magic of the house flowed in between. It interrupted the powerful Ancient magic. In Reginald hand was just a powerless Amulet.

"Wow!" Reginald really shouted in surprise as I backed and roared. I wondered what shocked me more, the Amulet being blocked or the powerful magic wave suddenly hit us.

The magic went away as fast as I came, but it surely left behind the damage. Reginald looked blankly at the Amulet.
"How?" He asked "How on Lore did he do that?"

I stared at the Amulet... One of the most powerful objects on Lore was completely disabled...

Reginald looked at it, he channeled the magic again. He raised his other hand and tried to summon another Amulet as if that was the fake one.

We looked at each other. Our biggest hope was gone. Suddenly the room seemed a lot colder. Everything looked bleak and faint...

But from our eyes, we saw something else. There was hope, we knew Carandril was still in our hand. We saw we both had one goal, the only goal.

"Look like the only way to get out of here in one piece is to fight Carandril." Reginald said, he looked up the main stairs, covered in darkness. "I don't know how did he do it, but he somehow disabled the Amulet..."
"He's a really tricky one... he controlled the game all along." I breathed angrily.
"He's an expert. I guess he figured a way to disable the Amulet..." He added "Amazing... I wonder how... He might be a clever one but we can fight him with caution and pure power. Let's go! There aren't many places left for him to hide."

He moved the stopped, Reginald looked at the girl. In awe, we completely forgot about her.
The girl saw that look, she moved forward and raised the dagger close to her chest, and we could feel the magic power from her.

"You can stay here by yourself?" Reginald asked.
She pointed to the stairs, she wanted to go with us.

"I guessed so. You seem like a great fighter... We should stick together this time and take down Carandril as soon as possible."
I said nothing. I found this situation a bit awkward but we had no choice. I guessed nothing worse can come from her. I kept my eyes one her, I did not trust her even though I knew any if us could easily take on her in an one on one fight.

Reginald headed to the stairs and we followed. He said "We better check the two remaining room. I think we will find more on third floor though, as it's the highest possible and I see no space left. Oh and the tower... we can ignore it for now. It's a lot easier to check it on our way back. Not to mention Carandril won't be there as it's too high for him to take advantage from the magic house."

We walked up stairs, this time we moved more freely, we were a group of three, and Carandril might not attack us any time soon. We quickly reached the two remaining doors on this floor. Reginald held his hand in the air for a second as he was preparing to break down the door, then he checked the door first. It opened easily.

"I guess he does not bother preventing us to go around" Reginald said before headed inside. It was a bathroom. I chocked.

We quickly checked the other room. We opened it easily as well. But this time this room stunned us.
It was a bedroom with fine a twin bed in the middle. On it was a skeleton, we quickly recognize what it was holding, a completely broken Dragon Amulet. We moved into the room to see it more clearly.

We carefully look at the skeleton with the Dragon Amulet. Between its chest is a black dagger. Reginald carefully hovered his hand around it then grasped the dagger. He smelled it then touched it again.
"A silver dagger. Look it was corrupted with magic." His eyes flashed, Reginald blurted "Ah... Now I see. He used spiritual magic, not Dark magic."
"There's such thing?" I asked
"Yeah" He laughed lightly "I guess your kind doesn't care much about anything else but Elements"
It was not that wrong. I guessed I don't care about those hybrid human Magic.

The room was incredibly dirty, look like it was not touched for a very long time. The rest of the house was fairly clear. The room was filled with dust, in the corner was a very black spot. I sniffed, I couldn't figure what it was, but it was burned with magic. The object was destroyed while the surroundings were barely damaged. The room looked messy, the bed was moved. Obviously the one with the Dragon Amulet did not die without a fight.

"Look like he was also invited" Reginald smiled amusingly. He pointed at the broken tea set on the floor. In his hand was a light Dragon Lord armor he found in the cabinets. The chain armor was normally wore inside or used outside of mission. I walked toward him to see the cabinets but there were no Dragon Lord armor parts.

"That was interesting, but we better move on. The third floor should be where he be." Reginald commanded, and then we headed outside.
But that room bothered me. It could be a Dragon Lord. And an Amulet was destroyed. I realized that Reginald also was a Dragon Lord. Maybe we were here not because of Carandril's twisted interest, maybe Carandril wanted something from us. I wondered what was in Reginald after that, I knew for sure he had the same feeling as I.

I wished we had time for another chat, but the tension kept increasing the more we discovered. We moved up to the third floor. The stairs was not that big compare to the main stairs so we had to send the Light orb ahead to check. The stairs leaded us to a long tight hall, all the windows were locked so it looked like a long mysterious maze. There was nearly nothing on the hall beside few small cabinets with some dry flowers.

We climbed up and looked around. There were two direction for us and we could not see any further. Reginald whispered "I think these halls will form a square..." then he realized we didn't need to whisper "... and there will be a room or terrace in the center." He looked around "Though I see no door. There might be secret entrance."

Then he moved ahead. It was not that hard to choose direction for him. We quickly approached a door. We opened it. It was taller than the hall, we can see the pointy roof design by looking up. This time, the window was not locked, we could see outside easily through the clear glass window. From here we could see also half of DoomWood, and the small light down there must be Amityvale. The slight looked surprisingly beautiful. Next to the window was an easel with many layers of paper to paint on. We could see many paints shattered around the room, some of them were lying around the floor but most of them were pinned on the wall. There were wines and cups on the cabinets, but most interestingly, I found some makeup and an used lipstick.

"There must be a woman here." I said
"Of course." Reginald said "This mansion was belonged to Arthur Ryan and his wife Maria Ryan. Ryan family ruled DoomWood for a long time before they slowly got killed or moved away."
He looked at me and said "Well... that's what I found from reading stuff around this house. You don't expect Carandril owning this place right."

We opened the other door on the left, it leaded us to another hall. Look like we would have to circle around the 3rd floor.

< Message edited by BlueKatz -- 7/9/2012 7:48:36 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 8
7/9/2012 11:56:42   
BlueKatz
Member

We walked through the dark hall easily and at the end was another door, exactly like the last one. And once again, we could open the door easily. Once again we were disappointed, it was just a normal room with one single bed. We walked around, checked for any secret door but this room was no special. It could be a servant room or guest room. It didn't even have any door so we would have to go all way back to the stairs to head to another path.

We checked the room again, hoping for something, but it was obviously forgotten and filled with dust. Staying here would be a waste of time. Reginald ordered us to go back.

We had to take a fairly long way back. Somehow I felt worse this time, the long way really sucked our enthusiasm out of our heart. We finally reached the stairs again just to head to the only direction left. Again, we reached another door with exactly same style and it opened easily. This room was more impressive, it was an armory room.

There were 4 armors with different types stood in the room in four corners. The wall held many types of weapon, from short swords to battle axe, from crossbow to staff... They were all dusty but we could still feel the power within them. Reginald and I walked in the middle, looked around impressive. It was a fine collection.

The young girl took down a staff, she swung a wide arc. She seemed satisfied with that weapon. I somehow almost forgot about her existence.
I asked Reginald. "Do you want anything from here?"
"I don't think so..." He then looked at the girl "Glad you found something suitable for the battle"

This room had another door leading to another hall. We finished checking the room, including moving the weapons to find secret switches. Following the house design, we should be heading to the the last room. We walked through the hall and saw the last door, exactly with the same setting...

Except... it was locked. Reginald hit the door twice and said "It was locked by magic."
So maybe we reached it...

Reginald channeled his magic, this time he didn't blast it away, but simply opened it like any normal door. I wasn't sure how did he do that, maybe he knew how much power was needed, or the door was protected lightly.

We quickly recognized the room. It was an alchemist room. We looked around and saw a lot of potions and reagents and all kinds of needed tools. It was a fine and clean lab, looked like it was used frequency. Again we saw no addition door so we were half disappointed, but on the other hand, this room surely was interesting. Carandril wouldn't lock it for no reason.

We couldn't find anything else interesting.

I looked at him and said "What do we do now?" We looked everywhere but the tower now.
"I still think there must be something in the center of the floor. Maybe I should blast away the wall..."
I sniffed...
"I know I'm tired..." He looked around and suddenly his eyes opened delightfully. "I know... I don't understand half of these but I know for sure I can make some basic potion."
"I afraid you will kill yourself more than any trap."
He walked toward the table. "Nah... You know I'm better than that."

He walked toward the large cabinet. It had many deep holes and each contain different reagents. I watched him pulling out some familiar herbs. But something else caught on my eyes, a hand inside the cabinet suddenly grasped Reginald before I could warn him. Reginald screamed in surprise as the long black arm pulled his body into the cabinet, it didn't do that much damage, but the hand seemed crushing Reginald body with gigantic force - he couldn't even talk.

I quickly jumped to the side to find a good angle to bite the arm but our companion was closer and quicker. She hit the arm with her staff but it did nothing, she moved closer then poked the staff into the cabinet. I guessed it hit the eye or something because the arm dropped Reginald in shock.

Reginald backed quickly and retook his sword as the arm swung for its prey. After few swings, it backed out inside the cabinet.

I was going to suggest to check behind it cabinet then the cabinet got broken in half. A huge figure appeared, it was the creature who taunted us into this mansion. I could say it look like human, but its figure did not look natural at all.

The creature looked like human, with a head, a body and four limbs, it even wore a rag. But it was a lot taller than any of us, twice the size of Reginald and its face was as long as a mask. Its skin looked like rubber or like bruised skin. Even with muscle it was unusually thin. The creature had no eye, no ear and no nose. It had a wide mouth with very sharp teeth with a long tongue - it was not undead, we saw it breathing through its mouth heavily. All of its limbs were longer than human's, reminded me of spider, but they moved easily like squid It has no claw, but its fingers had sharpy skin like lizard.

Reginald and I looked at it in shock, but the girl looked at the creature with both hate and fear. It was the bogeyman who did all the dirty work for Carandril. For some reason, probably because of the potions, Carandril decided to throw this at us.

Reginald reacted quickly before the monster could figure out all of us. He charged right into the monster while shouted out loud "FLANK!” We were in fairly good position, surrounded the monster. The girl channeled a ball of frost while I sprinted forward to help Reginald.
Reginald attacked it wide opened to taunt the monster, but it was a lot more flexible then we though. It launched its long arm into Reginald, he tried to cut the arm with his blade but somehow it curved out of the attack, the long arm hit his hip from the side, flipped him into the floor. I attacked him from the side closely with a breath of fire but its hand hit me head right through the fire, smashing me on the ground with pain.
The girl launched the frost ball too slowly compare to the creature, it dodged the spell easily during the whole attack.

I guessed that was a shameful ultimate defeat, and was the quickest one. And as I was crawling back on four foots, I saw another figure in the room behind all the action. And before I could warn other about it, the shade moved quickly behind the girl. Carandril injected a big syringe on her neck, the long needle went right through her skin, and I could see the liquid in the syringe being drained.

The girl screamed soundlessly and she tried to reach backward. The magic busted in her hand like a star shine, it burned the shade, Carandril backed out with light burning his figure. But he did it. The young girl fell on the floor with wide opened eyes. She tried to breath, she tried to move but we could only see her shaking on the floor like a poisoned spider.

Reginald jumped toward Carandril with a shouting charge of anger but the creature didn't just stand there, it grasped Reginald's body with ease and threw him upward. His head hit the ceiling with an uncomfortable sound, shaken the whole room and came along with tons of dust. He dropped down on the floor unconsciously.

I moved forward but stopped to look at the fall of Reginald in awe. Carandril laughed, the magic of the girl went out. He was a ghostly shade, the light magic damaged his figure leaving black marks on his shape. Carandril looked like an ugly half burned wood figure, but he didn't mind. I could see on half of his face was a smile. He looked at the girl satisfyingly.

Carandril spoke victoriously "Finally. You didn't think you could escape your fate, right?"

Then I followed his eyes, the young girl lied still on the ground, but something else moved. I could sense something moved inside her, not just magic. I could even hear her body changed. The skin smelted and shaped repeatedly, lengthened her body. The liquid inside her was dried, I could sense the life force being dried and twisted insider her.

I looked terrifyingly at the girl as she was being mummified in front of my eyes at insane speed.
I was wrong, they did have eyes and ears and nose, but they were dried out so badly you barely could see it. It happened in like three minutes, I hardly could recognize her anymore, she now looked almost like the bogeyman we tried to fight just few minutes ago. Then I noticed, "it" started breathing through the wide opened mouth.

Carandril laughed softly, he said to the creatures satisfyingly. "Yes... As I expected, she survives the transformation... Another one in my collection..."

She stood up, the blood was still dripping through her skin and mouth. "Soon... it would be dried" He said as the creature looked around confusingly, I wondered if it had any intelligence left. Then it looked at me with its flat unrecognizable face. I backed out just to realize my tail already hit the wall.
I looked at the closest way out, the secret door, just to find out another of that thing. Three of them, god, how many of this thing does he have? I worriedly wondered.

"Calm down boy..." He smiled "I'm sorry it turned out this way" he looked at Reginald "but you two didn't understand my invitation."

"What..." This was the first time I talked to him "... did you do to her? Who is she? What are those?" I spoke to him as the "young girl" moved a bit closer to me.

"They are a part of my experiment…. An evident that my final goal can be achieved. The closest thing I can think of is fresh golem... Yes, we all know this is not golems, but surprisingly they function the same."

"So all of these were just an experiment for you? What do you want exactly, Carandril?"

He smiled, a very normal smile, and in that moment he did not look at me. Carandril was looking at the world and himself...
"I want to go back... I want to remember everything... I want her..."

And he looked at me with the best smile you could expect from a half burned face.
"And you will help me achieve that."
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 9
7/11/2012 14:50:25   
BlueKatz
Member

I truly didn't expect that. I knew he wanted us, but for the whole time I thought he was interested in Reginald, I thought he wanted someone else like him. I stared blankly at him with many questions. From the look of that, he might want me for some ritual, but my experiment part got me, thing might be more complicated than that.

I wished I could continue the conversation and buy more time for Reginald, but Carandril ordered the Fresh Golems - that was how I liked to call them. "Get him!" He pointed at me.

I hardly could recognize the girl now, they looked the same to me. The closer one moved quickly toward me, I ran away as fast as I could on all four, what else could I do? But the creature was a lot faster, its hand moved like a snake, grasping my tail. I turned back and bit its wrist. Normally a bite like that could cut off a human neck but its fresh was as solid as rubber. It was a deep bite but that was not enough, and before I could let go off the solid fresh, it dragged me closer to its mouth.

I tried to attack with magic this time but the fresh monster breathed onto me with its toxic smell. I was stunned as the smell reached my head. It was first shocking painful then my whole brain was confused. I hardly could sense or control anything and my vision went black - probably when the light orb vanished.

The world was shattered and I could even see my brain tried to get everything together, slowly. I realized Carandril was leading the group through the secret door. One of them was holding me still with its big hand, the other carried Reginald and held his sword on its other hand.

I didn't remember anything else for a while, I recognized everything but none one those were memorized. I finally found out I was lying on a bloody table, I could not move, but not by the golem, but by the magic.

I could see almost everything. The room was very bright, lightened by the moon out of the window. There must be four windows in all four directions, I could see the infinity forest so far away, we must be very high.

I was in the tall tower. It did not seem that different from other parts of the house. One the left and right sides were the two golems. The one on the right was holding Reginald, he was still unconscious.

Lord Carandril was standing in front of me, he was not watching me, but looking at Reginald's sword closely with great attention. But what got most of my attention was a strange new figure leaned back on the wall, next to Carandril.

She was still beautiful even at that age, the lady in the black funeral dress was sitting below the window, and in her hand was a dried flower. The lady was dead long ago, I realized she probably was looking at this table and fell asleep waiting.

She did magic. Around the whole room, and circle around her and the table were words, runes and lines of magic, made by burning or cutting. The flower was also a rare but powerful tool of witchcraft. The table I was laying had blood and powder on it - which I assumed bone dust.

But most important of all, I could sense the magic. She and the house was one. I knew that face, I saw her picture on the wall in this mansion. She was probably the original owner of this mansion.

Carandril broke the silent. "This symbol looks familiar..." He was looking at the family symbol one the sword - Reginald said Carandril was a part of his family tree.

"But soon I will..." He put his eyes away from the weapon and looked at the woman with care. "And we will be together again, my love."

Carandril looked at the moon once then turned to me, he smiled. I growled, I tried to move but the magic held me back. He began to walk around me, said with his melodious voice.

"I guess it's fair letting you know what do I want..." He came from behind, stood next to me. "You will be my dragon."

"Nonsense!" I growled. I looked at his wild eyes, he was serious? "I can't, and will never be your dragon!"

"Of course that's not how thing work..." He walked away, and once again he checked the sky. "But one can't be a Dragon Lord without a dragon. I don't want you... You! But I need a dragon!"

I didn't talk, he was on his emotional track. "I followed what I left behind, my work on Lore law and Lore magic, the power of the Dragon Lord... I have the magic, the spirit, but the Dragon is creatures of the Elements, they own the power to create the world.

I lost everything. I have nothing. I wanted everything but I only need one thing. The woman I love spend her life in hope of resurrecting our connection... But I gave her nothing but tragedy.

I can't remember anything else, and I want nothing else. I was created by her love, I might not be real but I know what I must do: I must be Carandril!"

I felt like getting a punch in the face. So Carandril was actually dead all along and we basically walked wildly right into this tragic story. He was a magical being, created from the memory of Miss Ryan. I was actually touched by his story, that being was only trying to fix his mistake.

"Who killed you?" I asked while the shade was thinking about his meaning of living.

"Arthur. Arthur Ryan. Her husband... I hardly could blame him. I ran to the last place I could go along with all of my trouble... Akor was dead before I could even reach the mansion and I had to send him down back to Lore. I should not have come here after all..." He smiled sadly.

"I one day walked up just to see she waited me to dead. I am imperfect as well, a shade. Maria, me and the house are one. I waited here, tried to find a way to go back in game, I hardly remember anything but I still have all my research with me. I relearned everything, from reading my own work or asking visitors... I have enough power to refine everything, from Maria to Akor, and myself, but I need Elements, I need to power to first create things before blowing life into it...

And finally I found you two. But you are with him. Our soul will never fuse. And none of us are powerful enough to do it individually. But there's another way to do that. Your soul has no use for us. This project of mine can destroy any soul without damaging its power..."

"Was that what you did to them?" I suddenly asked. This was getting bad.

"Yes... they are under my control now." He took out 2 rune stones "They are also physically changed, I tested how Dragon Amulet might work."

That was ridiculous. I remembered how he shut down our amulet. He continued.

"There are many names for such device with many different types, a common branch of them is totem as an example. Unfortunately I can't just destroy your soul, thank to the Dragon Amulet. It's a powerful object, your soul, your master's soul are inside it. The Amulet has the magic of its own too. It's surely hard to crack that. I afraid I will have to destroy the Amulet along with your master."

I was a bit confused by his wish of destroying my soul to revive his love, but that didn't mean I can accept that. He and other had to pay for his mistake and I selfishly wanted to live so no thanks you I don't want to help. And now he wanted Reginald?

I growled angrily "You can't have us."

Carandril said tiredly. "Unfortunately, I do not care."

< Message edited by BlueKatz -- 7/12/2012 11:51:58 >
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 10
7/12/2012 14:43:52   
BlueKatz
Member

Carandril didn't talk much after that, he was too busy preparing his tool on a nearby table: syringes, needles, saw... I had no idea how would he use them, but looked at how he carefully clear them really got on my nerve.

I tried to reason with him, I tried to get on his good side, I tried to criticism him... But after telling me everything he rarely answered. What did I expect? Carandril was a depressing ghost, he cared not about everything else. I hardly could blame him for that, after all, each had their own way of living. For some reason, I admired his knowledge and passion.

What else could I do? I might be able to break the magic chain, but only with the help from Reginald. But Reginald was still unconscious - I didn't think the hit can damage him that badly, but both of us pretty much were exhausted by Carandril's challenges. Most important of all, he was not the best pure magic user as well - Carandril had his sword. So even if he could help me, how could both of us get out alive? Carandril might be weak but his golems were a lot stronger than us, and there were at least two of them. Not to mention the magic of this house, we would have to break through it.

I whispered his name. "Reginald" He didn't respond.

"So that was his name?" Carandril asked. He walked toward Reginald and started using his hand to measure the skull. "So what is your name?"

So he's talking now, I waited for such chance for awhile. "Ariwth." I answered

"How am I supposed to write that?" He was speaking to himself. And once again he looked outside and sighed.

"Why do you keep looking outside?" I asked.

He didn't answer. Again, Carandril looked outside silently. I thought I had been here for half an hour or so and for the whole time I rested to regain my power. It was not much, but hopefully Reginald and I could break through.

It looked grim, but from the fight between the girl and Carandril I knew he wouldn't fight us directly, but instead use the golems. What chance could we have against them? Well... At least now we knew their moves, that could be a huge advantage. We might not be able to kill them, but they might not be able to stop us from killing Carandril.

But at the end, Carandril was slightly bored. He finally spoke.
"I need a reverse scenario of time to effectively focus the magic of this house into one. Maria used her life to channel this place in magic, now I guess it's time to focus that magic into life forms. We will live again…

Just soon... Only more than one hour till the destination."

I realized our chance to escape was totally plausible. If he channeled the magic into himself he would be powerful enough to fight, maybe even as powerful as he was. But without the magic barrier we could run away, and maybe the reinforcement might be able to help us if we could held the battle.

But the question was: "Can we win?" Carandril knew our chance to run away and he was ready for it. Two golems were always stood in ready position. Carandril himself held the only weapon in the room. Only one window was opened while all other was heavily locked - and I doubt if he would let the last window open freely for us. There was noway to have enough time to take down those barriers without finishing the fight first, we were outnumbered.

But that was a real chance.

I didn't notice it at first, but the moving was a lot clearer later. For some reason, the house was shaking, the magic of the house moved like whirlwind. Carandril closed his eyes and sat down, he was channeling the magic.

But he said "once hour". I didn't think he was lying, but he need to channel his magic first.

The house was shaped, the wall moved, and I saw the wood shaped like thorns covered the room. Look like the tower was moved as well, we seemed to be lowered. Most important of all, the magic surrounding the house was getting drained.

But I was confused, I thought he would channel the house magic into himself, but why the house was shaped and moved? I looked around trying to find the answer.

"She's alive" Carandril suddenly spoke. "And so will I. And then everything will be back to normal."

"What?" I shouted through the house noises. "Who? The house? Or Maria?" He never really explained everything. "Then what exactly do you need me for?"

"We have no form. That's why I need you to complete the spell." He spoke in weird echo voice.

Then I just got it. The pure magic which illuminated the house for so long was reversed. Instead it gave life back to them, Maria and Carandril. Before I only could sense the house and Carandril as a whole, as magic. Now I sensed him and the house as two completely different life forms.

It didn't matter how Maria casted the spell, it was not perfect. The result was a part of Carandril, who desperately tried to complete the wish.

A ghost and a house with human soul, they were imperfect, they were the souls the tried to avoid death. They need Element to recreate their form in hope to live again. I didn't think even Carandril know if he could be strong enough to recreate life. But that bashed soul would desperately try anything to do that.

That was it! I had everything I need. This was the time we could get out. I would try to break the weaken seal and try to get Reginald up and we would fight them til the end. I was rather dying in a fight than sacrificing myself for such twisted demand.

But someone else was faster than me. Reginald suddenly put a knife into a golem heart. It was his Light dagger he brought along, it was totally out of my mind. It didn't kill the monster, but enough to pushed the golem backward and Reginald had the chance to break free. With a simple spell, he broke the seal and I was ready for battle.
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 11
7/14/2012 13:00:33   
BlueKatz
Member

"I didn't think you would get out that easy." Carandril praised us calmly "But then again, I didn't think you might have a small dagger. Don't expect me to make any other mistake."

"Are you ok?" I asked Reginald quickly.

"Yes. You?"

"Fine" I was glad he seemed fine.

Reginald didn't fall unconscious that long, he waited for the moment to strike. That attack wasn't much but we need to use it as an advantage. The golem stood up, but obviously the attack crippled its movement. Plus it was pushed apart from their team.

We quickly analyzed the situation. Reginald took no more time and ordered. "I'll hold them, take out the wounded monster and try to find a way to get us out of here."

The last window got closed, Carandril and the golem silently moved apart to surround us. But we moved as aggressive as we could. Reginald attacked Carandril with just a dagger, but that attack pushed him far backward. The ritual probably would take a while to take effect, Carandril wouldn't be a problem without two golems.

But the golems were the problem! Carandril quickly moved back with the sword while his golem swung its arm like a rope at Reginald. He had quite big trouble at attacking the creature with just a short dagger.

I wished I could watch his back more often, but I was so busy and it was hard to focus in such dime light. The only light source was the moon shined through windows cracks and I wouldn't risk making a huge wasteful light ball.

I quickly charged at the weakened golem, I had to finish it as quickly as possible. The creature tried to move away with in its unstable form, it didn't move too far away. So while on air I used the wing to make a curve dash to hit it. Turned out it was not the best idea, I forgot how badly my wing was wounded so I ended up falling on the monster instead of charging at it. Both of us slammed at the wall.

The monster was obviously more wounded than I thought. While it was strong and fast its inner could be easily damaged. And as a resulted creature of alternative magic it hardly could recover. I quickly jumped on the fallen monster and smacked my whole front leg into the wound. I could feel the rotten fresh between my scale and my paw reached the bone.

It recovered quickly, it grasped my whole body with two hands and slammed me to the side and tried to get on me. But I wouldn't allow that. Before he could start squeezing my neck, I smacked his wrist with my leg. It was an accurate shot, I launched the claws right deep into the wrist. And with a quick tug I must have cut apart his tendon. Its hand only hung on with few fibers. There was no blood.

Feeling no pain, the creature used the other arm and swung me into the nearest wall. All of the contacts really flashed my eyes and I totally lost my focus after two or three hits. I had to do something, focusing my breath when being smacked into the ground was hard, but I released more than 2 fireballs into nowhere.

I could hear Reginald's voice over there "Oh wo!" I hoped I didn't hit him.
But two other fireballs hit the monster above me. It was a powerful blast, that send the creature upon the air - but it refused to release me - along with me. We were hovering upon the air for a short while, then suddenly we hit something - probably the table.

I opened my eyes to see the other golem pushed Reginald to the wall with its arm attack again. For some reason, Reginald had the sword again while Carandril sat still in the corner while murmured some kind of spell chanting. Reginald fought the creature well with his summonsed shield and the sword, he once again predicted the monster's hand and moved closer to dodge the attack and hit it with the sword.

Meanwhile my golem was hitting me with its hand-less arm like a robe while still held me down with the other. I breathed out another fireball but this thing predicted the attack and dodged it easily. The fireball once again flashed the room and hit the roof.

I tried again, this time it hit the window. And again it hit the wall. I got to do something else. The punching started getting on my nerve... I felt really bad, my brain was hurt and I barely could see anything and I hardly could breath. I could feel the blood and scale screaming in pain. I wondered if the monster could learn or that was Carandril controlling skill, the monster didn't make any of its previous mistakes.

A risky idea came out of my crippled mind in desperation. I timed the attack, and right when its arm hit my muzzle again, I bit it with all concentration I had left. The arm was inside my mouth, and I was good enough to hold it back before it could smash through my throat. It tried to get out but nothing could get away from the dragon jaw.

I was grinning at the creature then it did something that was totally out of my mind: the monster charged toward me with its wide opened jaw. It was far wider than normal human mouth could be and its teeth were a lot more dangerous (they even growled more teeth).

I was freaked out by the surprise attack. But at least I got it this time, in my jaw. I wildly charged the energy in hurry and release it before the ugly face could hit me. I closed my eyes expecting a hit, but it didn't come instead I felt the arm let me go and heard the sound of the golem hit the floor. I opened my eyes again and see half a face left on the neck. That was what happened when you blasted a strong force right into a wide opened mouth, the force cracked the jaw apart and broke its head into two pieces.

I looked at the creature, it didn't die, but I didn't think it could go through. The golem was trembling on the floor and then it dead. The creature couldn't move any more. I was half surprised by its death, half surprised by how well I handled that fight.

But I had to put my attention to something else. Just few steps away Reginald had so much trouble to move out of the enemy attack lines. The golem was barely wounded, it moved fast and attacked even faster. None of the sword attacks could really damage the monster, it was in perfect shape unlike the other.

"Well don-!" Reginald congratulated. His word was half cut by another attack landed on the shield. He then moved closer and hit the monster with the sword. The blade cut across its chest but the monster backed quickly, it was again barely wounded. And quickly it used its remaining leg and one arm to move to another angle and continue the attack. Reginald had to move away. The battle was repeated with no clear ending, none of them really had advantages over the other. And surprisingly Carandril was still sitting in the corner chanting something.

I charged from the side to help him but Reginald quickly ordered. "No! Take out Carandril!"
I was a bit concerned by his decision, but this was no time to argue. Just to be safe, I launched a fireball at him from a distance. A magic shield protected him as I expected. I tried to scratch it with the claw but it didn't do much. I touched it and felt the magic, it was not an easy one.

Reginald saw that. "Ok. Just find some way to get out of here."

So I had to leave him like that for awhile. I hit the door, the windows but they all are too strong. There were still magic in them somehow. I tried to feel the magic. So we were out of that old house magic and got stuck in different kind of magic. While sounded confusing, it helped: It was a reflex magic so with strong enough force we could move through. So technically we could break it with enough force.

I looked around to find more weakness, the wall seemed too tough to break through, so were the windows. It was hard too see through the dark. Then I looked up the roof. The damages from the fireball were helping, I could see how damaged the roof was. With a huge force we could bring it down.

"Reginald! The roof!" He backed out and quickly throw a spoon (was originally on the table) up. It bounded out easily even with such force, but in magicians eyes we could see how deep was it being hit.

Reginald avoided the golem, but he was caught off guard by another one. Carandril stood up calmly, and without any expression, he raised his hand toward Reginald's back. A spray black smoke spread through the room from his hand and it speared through Reginald. I could sense the life being drained away as Reginald kneed down, part of his armor dusted away revealed his darken skin.

It was a cheap shot, but it was Reginald's fault for not being careful. I angrily charged at Carandril but the golem caught me right on the tail. I tried to break out but it kept me and my mouth still with two hands. First Reginald, now then I made huge mistake.

"You two fought well. But it's time to end the ritual." Carandril calmly spoke as he took away the sword. He was being serious, his eyes creep me out with his merciless look. He moved forward me with his legless shape. He looked even worse now, his shade looked like a bunched of smoky storms, I could hardly saw his face. The flying suit floated toward me, Carandril casted a simple seal spell on me before I could do anything.

He raised his hand as he would hold me, but instead the floor cracked and I could see the house parted away like tentacles and it started to hold me still. I tried to get away, with magic, with force, with angry sound but none of them worked.

"Let's go..." He said. And I realized we were being fused into the house floor.

But Reginald moved, he was breathing hardly but he moved. He stepped toward us. Carandril turned back and pointed the sword on his face. "Stand back. He's mine now. And soon will you."

But Reginald didn't stop even though I tried to warn him in silence. He dashed forward as fast as you could image. He ignored the blade cut through his chest. He sprinted pass Carandril as the shade fainted away like smoke. He grasped me before the floor could swallow us. He freed me from the wooden tentacles.

But the house didn't stop. The tentacles grasped us both as the floor kept sinking down Reginald. The ghost wouldn't give up either, Carandril pushed the sword harder and started the slide through Reginald's skin, and he used his other hand on Reginald's neck. His face hissed like and angry snake.

"Fool... Now you will see him die instead..."

Reginald didn't care about all of that. He once again pulled me out all of that. I could sense Reginald tried to channel all of his magic. And suddenly he threw me upward.

It was not a normal throw, I hit the magic barrier and felt the energy ran across my body. I hit the roof and went pass it after a shock. And I was upon the air. I could feel the wind, the sky, the magic of the Lore. I was shocked by the freedom because I knew below was chaos, but that was all mattered to me.

I was shocked, I didn't fully realized what just happened. Or maybe I didn't want to... I flow through the sky and hovered for a second. I looked down just to see the last of him being pulled into the darkness. And then I fell, I fell down fast and hard. I couldn't move. For once I wished I could smash myself into the world. But my body was smarter than that, I opened my wing, it was broken but it still slowed down the fall. It was painful but it was meaningless.

I could sense myself cut through the air, I could see the ground was being dragged closer. All of them were interesting but I couldn't focus. And there it came, I closed my eyes.

I felt mysef launched through the tree. I smashed the ground painfully, I could feel every bones being bended. I landed on legs just to felt them being crippled in pain. I slid down the slope and rolled like a log. I thought I dropped my wings along the way but I didn't.

Finally I stopped, just to sigh "Why didn't I die already?"
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 12
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