Dagger: Chapter Five

Chapter 5

When they finally got to the entrance of the palace, the sun had fell and the moon was pulling itself up, many of the guards were roaming around the palace’s perimeter, especially the entrance. What was a pleasant day had turned into a helix of muddle, Lord Ned must have found out that Ariam and the gang knew he was hiding the passage to the underground city, and since their mission was dire, he discerned they were coming for him. But why was Lord Ned so protective about this passage? What was he hiding there?

            The gang hid behind a corner adjacent to the palace, overlooking the guards, it was quite stuffy being cramped up together, and quite miserable thought any minute now one of them might slip up and gave away their position. What were they waiting for? Bernard thought, if they want to get to the secret passage that was hidden inside the palace, then they shouldn’t be dilly dallying, he was worried about his ship and her crew being attacked by the guards and would soon make sure they were fine. Say what you want about Bernard, but he was a compassionate captain, that worries about his people.

            “We can’t simply kill all the guards,” Obadiah said. “We need to lure them out. Some of us need to go inside the palace, enter the underground city and take the relic, while some of us distract the guards.”

            “I can sense the relic,” Ariam informed, only know she tells them, real good one there Ariam. “I know I can, it wasn’t strong before, but it is now, it’s underneath us.”

            “I need to find Jodeline, I have to go in there,” said Kelvin.

            “Well then, that’s settled, how fast can you run, good old Dagger sir?” Bernard grinned at Obadiah. “Ariam, Kelvin, and Raewyn will go in and secure the relic, while the both of us have our fun with the guards. I need to check on my men nonetheless.”

            “Very well,” Obadiah agreed. “And boy, I am faster than you could ever be.”

            Without wasting any time at all, Bernard and Obadiah came out from the hiding spot and yelled out to the sentries who were standing, guarding the entrance to Palace Baixo. Bernard threw a rock at one of them, and soon all of the guards chased the two sprinting men, giving a timely chance for the others to slip in the palace without causing any casualty.

            Obadiah and Bernard ran as fast as a dashing lightning bolt, Bernard was slightly faster than the senior Dagger it may have seemed, and he boasted on it, but they were both faster than all the guards combined, which was a good thing. Obadiah didn’t want to fight them, he hates when he has to strike down a fellow human. He was a Dagger, he has killed a lot of things, but a lot of those things were monstrous supernatural creatures, and he swore to protect the civilized world as a Dagger, if he murders his fellow man, then what was the difference between him and the monsters he slew.

            Routinely Obadiah and Bernard would have argued with one another, ever since they met that was the only way they communicate, with Obadiah yelling and Bernard being sarcastic. However, as they ran together, believe or not, they were having a good time with each other’s company. They challenged each other by who was the fastest among the both of them, and laughed at how the guards were losing their breaths pursuing them. Bernard had come to distinguish, and even respect the senior Dagger justly well in the days Obadiah employed the pirate captain’s services. What was first a distant and corporate relationship bloomed into a friendship between the two opposite characters.

            Meanwhile, as Ariam, Raewyn, and Kelvin entered the palace they were faced with palace guards. They quickly defeat the sentries with much effort, without killing them of course. The palace didn’t feel liked it was before, something was different, when they got to the servant quarters, the skinny man who had helped them was dead. He was impaled. It was Lord Ned’s doing, they all knew it. It was certainly absolutely positively super evidently sure more than ever now that Lord Ned was mad and it was because of the secret passage. He must be hiding something so fretful that he couldn’t let his friend and a member of the Daggers, Obadiah knew.

            On the way to the Lord’s Hall, where the passage was, they were faced with more guards. Ariam drank a potion, Lazriath’s Haste, a potion that enhanced a Dagger’s reflexes and movement speed. It practically slowed down time to whoever drank it. Everything around her was twenty times sluggish. She need not help from Raewyn’s lightning spells or Kelvin’s brute force when facing this group of guards, nor does she need to pull out her silver sword. She was going in with only gloves on. There were seven guards coming on her way, the first one, she pulled and threw the man to the wall. It gave her the opportunity to cast her repelling hex on the second one. The third, fourth, and fifth guards all came in to attack her from behind at the same time, while the sixth and the seventh attacked from the front, and with rapid impulse she gripped the third one and threw him to the sixth and seventh guards, knocking all three of them. The fourth guard got her by the shoulders, but then with her elbows, she pummeled the man’s gut till he coughed out blood. The fifth one attacked using his sword, Ariam stepped on the man’s foot, bumped his throat, almost killing him, and then she grabbed the sword right from the man’s hand and hit the man’s head using the hilt. The first and second men who attacked her finally got up, the second man managed to hold her down for he was big brutish man, and just as the first guy was going in for the strike, Ariam slip away from the man’s grasped and knock the both of them out by jumping high and kick their faces with both of her legs at the same time. And all of this was done under two minutes.

                 “I knew Daggers were fast, but I didn’t know that fast,” Kelvin commented on Ariam’s abilities.

            Eventually they got to the Lord’s Hall, where Lord Ned, surrounded by his guards was. Lord Ned looked monstrously tired, as if the life of him was taken away by force. “Kill them, don’t let them hurt my child. Finish them! Finish them!” yelled the mad stricken, drained looking lord of Baixo to his men.

“Where’s Jodeline? Where is she!” demanded Kelvin as he charged forward, knocking back all the guards and the rest of the gang joined in to help the Seeker.

            During the fight, Lord Ned escaped through a secret passage behind one of the room’s walls, leaving his men to fend off the youth, but he left the door open, and when the gang finally defeated their foes, they went on to pursue the lord down the secret passage to the underground city.  

            When they entered the subversive municipal, it was in ruins and absorbed in darkness. No light was absent, Ariam can see through the blackness with her animal eyes, but Raewyn and Kelvin couldn’t. Hence Raewyn tapped her staff on the ground, and the mystical ball on her staff sparked bright bluish light. With the light, they saw the underground city was empty as they journeyed down the crumbling steps.  

            This city was the real Baixo, long ago in the ancient times Baixo was King Hervarth’s, one of the Forgotten Kings younger brother. Thousands of years ago, Prince Baixo was probably bout seventeen years old when King Hervarth gave him his own land to rule in the north. Baixo was kind and compassionate to his people, but he was also reclusive and likes to spend most of his time alone. So, when he asked his people to forename the city they lived in, his people baptized it after their prince, Baixo. And in this city, there was a mage, and in the olden times mages were not seen as a threat but a blessing, this mage was named Theanara. She was beautiful and benevolent.

            Theanara was said to be a Seer, with one of her eyes purple and the other pure emerald, she could see the realm of the dead, and because of her benevolence, a kind spirit who can see through the veil of time told her of the coming future, how King Hervarth will retake the land he bestowed upon Baixo and torment the people. Because of Baxio’s reclusive nature, he would only meet with one person at a time, and once Baixo saw Theanara walked in to his court he fell in love just like that, and Theanara fell in love with the prince as well. Theanara went to Baixo’s court to tell him of her prophecy, but being intoxicated with love, forgot all about it. As she kept on returning to visit the prince, she planned to tell him, but once her eyes locked on him, all of her thoughts faded away. Soon Baixo asked the mage to be his wife, and she accepted.

            On their wedding day, Theanara finally told the prince of her prophecy but it was too late, King Hervarth with his massive army came to the city and pillaged the good folks. Theanara felt guilty that she didn’t tell the prince sooner, and so with all her might and magic powers, she sacrificed herself. She planted the city beneath the ground and threw King Hervarth and his men out of Baixo, but in doing so it drained all her power. She died wearing her wedding gown, and Baixo was left to mourn, but the people and city lived on. The city has become Baixo’s personality, reclusive and isolated.

            The underground city was gripped in dust of olden times, and it was oddly cold. Ariam had the skin tone of a Mauripean, a southerner but she was raised in Krajinyr, and living in the north she had gotten used to cold weather, but in the underground city, even wrapped in her armor she had never been so cold before in her life. There was no ice, there was no wind gushing, which was very peculiar as to how cold it was.

            It was also large, but many of the buildings were crumbled and buried in soil, it made many of the roads inaccessible. They could sense the weight of the miles of earth above them. It was spectacular how a city could be made under another.

After a hefty amount of steps, trying to find Lord Ned’s tracks, Raewyn and Kelvin sensed it. Dark magic was present, and it wasn’t Lord Ned, no it was something big. To Kelvin, who was not a mage always had painful headaches whenever he sensed dark force, but when it comes to normal mages like Raewyn he had gotten used to it.

            In order to be a fully functioning Seeker, men and women of no magic potential were subjugated to consume mana when they were undergoing though their Seeker training. It makes them prone to sense magic in better hopes to catch mages.

            “This is not Jodeline,” he warned the group. “Something is in here watching us, Lord Ned isn’t alone.”

            “This thing is dangerous,” Raewyn gave her input. “It’s hungry.”

            A child’s voice could be heard not far from where they were standing. It was humming elatedly, and behind the humming were small footsteps. The child was running around and humming in a playful tune behind them, but they couldn’t see where the child was. It was lurid and clear. Was this a child or a dark spirit, it was hard to tell.

            The child’s voice and footstep got louder and louder to them and it was unseen. And then a voice whispered into their ears, “Did daddy bring three of you to play with me?” it was flimsy and thin. And when they turned to where the source of the voice was, nothing was there. “Daddy came down here. He said you wanted to kill me.”

            “My foods aren’t supposed to do that!” the voice yelled, it transformed into something unearthly and demonic as a strong wind pushed behind the gang, and they held their ground as durable as they can until the wind was dried out. Raewyn’s staff was dimmed, the wind blacken the spark of her mystical ball.

This was a strong being, indeed.

Panicky as she was, Raewyn tapped her staff to animate light again, and after several shaky and jumpy bangs it worked. Her mystical magic ball clasped at the tip of her staff, sparked brightness only to hear the sound began again, “I’m going to eat all of you, nobody hurts me or my daddy, I ate mommy, I ate all the people before, and I can certainly eat all of you.” The people, this dark being was talking about, must be the missing folks in the city that nobody cared to investigate.

Upon hearing this, Kelvin got worried if Jodeline was one of this monster’s victims.

“Where is Jodeline! Did you eat her?! Fight me you evil spirit! I will exterminate you!” Kelvin shouted at the dark empty air.

This time when they turned behind to see who omitted the voice, they peeked before them a dark towering massive figure that resembled a floating slender man. It was no child, it was a wraith. This thing was carved in rotten flesh and shadows, as if it was birthed out straight from hell. Wraiths were evil spirits or demons that had come to the physical realm from the dark realm by force without possessing any physical body. The general way to kill a wraith would be to slice it using a silver blade, or magical means such as hexes and magical spells. Daggers were usually assigned to banish a wraith, and Ariam had read a lot about wraiths before in her textbooks, but never actually face one up close.

However, this particular wraith was stronger than any average wraith by the sheer size and ferocity it beheld, Raewyn and Kelvin can detect it. They looked up at the creature, with its menacing six eyes and devilish fangs, it forebode a marked of terror into their hearts. Ariam wait no longer, she considered the wraith was about to attack any time soon, so she drank a potion that enhanced her strength and jumped at the spirit with her silver sword equipped. She sliced its chest, and a part of its dark flesh came out flying, but soon immediately the shadow pulled back the wraith’s cut off flesh and placed it back to its body. Ariam sliced and sliced, but it was the same result, the wraith kept regenerating again and again. And then Raewyn blasted a heavy lightning charge, but the wraith absorbed her magic spell and threw it back at them.

Kelvin cut off the specter’s leg, but it only rejuvenated back. What kind of wraith was this, thought Ariam. Obviously this was some kind of a next level, and you shouldn’t mess with kind of wraith. It’s practically immortal. Silver caused damage, but it was not great enough to exterminate the specter. And it absorbed all of Raewyn’s magic spells unscathed. The gang did all they could to hurt the spirit, but it was to no avail, then in due course the wraith maybe got tired or bored, laughed and twisted its shape into something familiar to Kelvin.

It spiraled in a downwards manner, reducing its size, a tornado of dust and shadows covered it as it did so. And then when it finally stopped transforming, a petite of a woman, dressed in mage Seeker robes was standing in front of them. Her face was almost pale as the white snow, and hidden by a her wild long shaggy brown hair, but were eyes could be seen, it was pitch black, with smokes coming out of it. The woman smiled at them, her teeth were sharp and dirty, with her longue reptilian tongue licking around her mouth, she chimed ever so flirty to the young Seeker, “Kelvin, you wouldn’t hurt me, would you?”

The woman whirled her way to the gang, playfully so, not worrying at all the gang would attack, and they didn’t. Ariam, Raewyn, and especially Kelvin just stared the woman as she approached them. She slithered around Kelvin, grating his armor using her own body, and then whispered to him, “Don’t you know? It’s me Kelvin. It’s Jodeline. Don’t you remember how I look like? Don’t you love me anymore?” The air got colder around them, and Kelvin’s headache got worst as the woman touched him.

“Kelvin,” Raewyn quaked with crackly voice. “Listen to me, this is not Jodeline. It was the wraith. It is trying to trick us.”

Ariam darted at the woman with her silver sword, with full intent of killing her. She knew it was the wraith, it changed in front of them, but apparently to Kelvin, he couldn’t tell what was real at the time. No one could blame him, to Kelvin the woman did look and sound like Jodeline. And as Ariam’s sword nearing in to clash the woman’s cranium, Kelvin at a standstill used his large triangle Seeker shield and blocked Ariam’s attack. “What are you doing?” Ariam groaned. “She is not Jodeline.”

Kelvin was silent. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to draw of from this situation, in off shoot chance it might be Jodeline thought Kelvin. Mages were of course more prone to be possessed by a demon.

“Kelvin,” Raewyn begged. “Think this through, you’re a Seeker, you can sense mages and dark magic. Mages and their Seekers have a deep connection together, if this was Jodeline you would knew it by now. Kelvin! Listen to reason.”

The woman stood behind Kelvin as he protected her from the girls, without Kelvin’s awareness the woman looked at the young Seeker with smiles and her nails grew long. “No, Kelvin. Don’t listen to it. That’s not Jodeline.” He didn’t want to hear it because he couldn’t handle the truth, this illusion could be the death of him but he didn’t mind. Ariam snarled at the woman, she planned to strike again, but did not want to hurt the young Seeker because she saw Kelvin as a friend, and you’re not supposed to hurt your friends. She wanted to acquaint the woman’s facial features, most probably her nose and cheeks with her sharp silver Dagger sword, repeatedly till Ariam knew the thing was dead and could do no harm to her and her friends because that’s what you should you do when something is trying to hurt your friend.

Right when the woman was about to foray Kelvin from the back with her sharp long nails, a strong blistering fireball spell was casted behind the woman and she screeched in pain. To be quite and impolitely honest, that served the wicked creature right for messing with people’s head. Totally uncool, Kelvin was vulnerable and weak. The young Seeker and the rest turned to the woman to feast their eyes on its ghastly transformation. It twisted back into the wraith, and with its laughter fading off, it disappeared into the shadows. Something told them, that this wasn’t the last time they will encounter the foul spirit.

 Once the wraith was gone, a woman who resembled the wraith’s alternate appearance walked out of the darkness. Petite like, with messy hair, and torn up mage Seeker robes, she looked at Kelvin with superfluous excitement, “Kelvin,” she rushed towards him and gave him one big embrace that could form a new constellation. If there was one true magic, it was the tiny spaces between two people having a hug. The more diminutive the space gap in a hug, the more magical flare there is, and the hug these two were having had almost no space at all, their bodies were like one, literally the formation of the number one. “You’re here,” she kissed the Seeker. “By the Gods, you’re here. I didn’t know you would come.”

No doubt about it. This was not an illusion, this was real, his Seeker senses were tingling and ding ringing ding this was the real Jodeline. “Of course I’m here. I will always find you, to the heavens and back, I will always find you,” he said. There’s only one Jodeline, and she’s right there in his big muscular arms. He felt guilty on how he could gaffe a wicked spirit as her, never again, he was weak, but with Jodeline in his arms knowing she was alive, he was strong again, like hella strong to apposite his large figure. The tingling sense in his head with Jodeline around was like an unwritten coruscating slow hummed drum song, she couldn’t disappoint him even if she tried. Jodeline was like a book written solely for girls, and as you all know, that’s the best kinds of books.

Jodeline explained to them what the wraith was, a demonic spirit that has possessed the mage child of Lord Ned, and because of that it was resilient. The only way to kill it was to end the boy’s life that was trapped in a magical barrier deep in the underground city. No doubt that was where Lord Ned will be. Jodeline knew of this because she has spent and survived two days alone beneath ground, the wraith will eat anybody who falls to its trick, Jodeline has seen many men that Lord Ned threw in being soul eaten from its mind games. Ariam and Raewyn then asked why Jodeline risked her life to come to such a dangerous place, the mage then answered, “I have been researching about the Titans for ages, I had to come here,” she turned to Kelvin for a while and say to him timidly, “I’m sorry that I left you, I don’t want you to get in trouble, but I had to find out about the Titans and these relics. One of the relics is here, and it’s right where the boy’s body is. But I couldn’t get close to it because of the damn barrier. These relics mean the return of the Titans, I am sure of it.”

Just their luck isn’t it, somebody was researching about the Titans just as about the same time Sajib, the freaky demonic looking Dagger was about to summon them, and how the gang were hell bent to stop it. “We need to secure the relic,” explained Ariam, and she went on talking about her visions of the oncoming death bringing Titans return if they don’t do anything to stop it, and how the relics were the gate to Oblivion. Jodeline was excited to hear all of this of course for it proved her research was right.

            Back to the danger at hand, Raewyn asked Jodeline why Lord Ned has been feeding the demon, “Lord Ned’s son was dying from an incurable disease, and in his fragile state Lord Ned accepted the offer of an evil spirit. The spirit took control of the boy’s body keeping him alive, and forced Lord Ned to feed it souls of men so that his son would not die. This was sick, this was happening before I came to this city. The evil spirit hid here, under the city with the boy’s body eating souls ever since. It even ate the boy’s mother and there was nothing Lord Ned could do, he didn’t want to lose his child.” That’s messed up, like step back, and realized how messed up this situation is.

            With all being explained, they established a plan to secure the relic, but being a Dagger, it was Ariam’s duty to hex out demonic threatening spirit, and found it her responsibility to banish this evil spirit out of the physical realm.

            They followed a path leading them deep to the city, where they encountered giant spider crawlers along the way. These were common monstrosities living in dark caves and ancient holes, and common enemies to all adventurers. But unlike a normal spider, these giant spider crawlers were noticeably gigantic, bloated and nauseatingly hairy, and their eyes were disturbing, you couldn’t even stare at them without the thought of puking. For Raewyn and Jodeline, they used their magic spells to kill these creatures, and as for Ariam and Kelvin they used their swords. While Kelvin depended highly on brute strength, Ariam hinge on her supreme dexterity and skill, and once in a while her hex power comes in very handy. Giant spider crawlers weren’t much of a match to four very skilled individuals, two of them being a mage, one of them being a Dagger whose sole purpose was to deal with these sorts of things, and a burly Seeker who could bash a werewolf’s skull in pieces with his hands.

            They paced through the path, walked on crumbled ruins and antediluvian structures, and then climbed down piles of debris and soil until finally they approached Lord Ned cradling next to a purple mana sphere barrier, within the barrier was a boy floating in midair unconscious and spinning around the boy was the relic. The taupe stone relic with ancient words written on was half the boy’s size. It was a quarter of a rectangle, it looked too small to be a gateway of Oblivion or fit through a Titan, thought Ariam, but indeed that was the relic she sensed. The relic was calling on to her. Ariam could feel it. The magic inside her was coursing through her veins, instructing her to take the relic.

            Frightened, Lord Ned beseeched the whole gang not to step any closer, “Stay back, please! Don’t hurt my child!” He shouted like a mad man as the gang approached closer, knowing their intent was not to save the child. And as Jodeline took out her staff, in one deafening plead, Lord Ned called out his son’s name, “Baldwin! Baldwin! They are going to kill you, don’t let them!” For a second nobody came out. Not anyone the gang could see anyway, but Kelvin and the two mage girls could, the dark magical sense was tingling, it’s the wraith they encountered hours ago. Then out of the rimmed blackened unsanctified shadows that reaped death and harrow, the whole gang could see the wraith forming behind Lord Ned. They were tensed and prepared, and Ariam was up for a rematch. This thing was disturbingly grinning there, knowing it can’t be killed. It’s the relic. It must be the relic that keeps the boy’s body from the barrier.

            Its words came out, and an echo of unearthly ambiance wreaked their skin, “Did they hurt you, Daddy? Do they want to hurt me?! Nobody hurts me, not my food!” It knew how to give a good scare.

            A short time there was just that, no movement, but then Ariam after swallowing some potions down her throat and the liquid gushing through her veins, yelled a battle cry that sparked ferocity to the whole gang, “I’m going to kill you, you foul creature! Die!”

            Ariam jumped boldly off the gritted ground, cannonball herself to the wraith, with her silver sword charged ferociously. The wraith made a move, it waved it black shadowy arm in a hundred and eighty degree strike upon Ariam’s direction, but she was able to maneuver herself as she was in midair. She stabbed the wraith’s arm, being attached to it, and then jump off from it to go higher and attack its ghastly freaking ugly mug of a face. Raewyn released a charged up massive electronic discharge at the specter, while Jodeline whose a fire mage casted a strong incineration spell at it, and Kelvin was fighting against Lord Ned, who one might think is frail with all that fat in him, but to the contrary, Lord Ned was once a great swordfighter and the skillset was still in him. It proved Lord Ned was not somebody you want to mess around it.

            They kept on fighting when Kelvin bested the lord, by a double solid shield bash attack, dealing a lot of damage to the lord’s head as well as losing his balance. Lord Ned fell to the ground, lifted his hands up, and pleaded for his life like a common beggar as Kelvin was about to give the last strike. And just then, the wraith that was fending the girls attack at the moment, twisted itself to see the boy’s father was in pain. It growled in anger, and rushed towards Kelvin, where it pushed the young Seeker off ten feet to the ground before he could lay out Lord Ned’s life. It seemed the boy named Baldwin was still in there because it cared for its father’s wellbeing. Wraiths normally don’t care about anyone’s safety and health.

            The wraith cradled its father’s body with its spectral arms, and soon weeping sounds could be heard. Kelvin got back up to his feet by the help of the girls, and noticed the wraith’s voice was of an innocent young boy, “Don’t die daddy. Please don’t die.” They turned to see the barrier weakening and thought best to secure the relic immediately before it bolster up again, the boy’s presence must be taking over its body back, that must be the reason thought Ariam.

            “We need to kill the boy,” Raewyn suggested in a low voice as they walked slowly to the barrier, while the wraith was still occupied with checking up on Lord Ned. Ariam thought about it, but the boy was young still, couldn’t be more than eleven by the looks of it, ending his life seemed like a cruel idea. On the way to the relic, as they journeyed under the underground city of Baixo, Ariam kept thinking of ways to kill the wraith without ending the boy’s life, and there she was now at the position and could not find any other around it, it has to be done. “There is no other way to it, this wraith must die and the relic must be secured.”

            Why this responsibility was given to me, asked Ariam. Well for one, she is the main character, so it’s only natural big hefty duties like killing a boy to stop a wraith’s sway was up to her. “I’ll do it,” she volunteered, of course she volunteers, the main protagonist always do. By the expression of it, Ariam was not thrilled to execute a child. Growing up in Kina Shira and being a Dagger, never had she thought it would lead to this.

            “If you can’t I will,” Raewyn chided.

            “No, I will do it,” Ariam detested as they finally entered the barrier. The teenage Dagger pulled down the unconscious boy, waking him up instantly.

            “Where am I? What happened?” Baldwin said innocuously. “Who are you people? And where’s my daddy?” From the time when Baldwin was awake, the wraith disappeared, and Lord Ned came running to the gang, by this also the mana barrier was ceased and the relic was secured by Jodeline.

            “Stay away from him! Don’t touch him!” yelled the Lord of Baixo. And the gang did so, Ariam pulled everyone back, letting the father have his moment with his child. Baldwin was coughing up blood as his father hugged him tightly. It seemed whatever disease that was killing him was still there. Ariam hesitated, he almost struck her blade deep into the boy’s heart, but as soon as he spoke, she chickened out.

            Raewyn has decided to finish the task at hand. She pushed everyone aside, and chanted her spell, but as soon as she was about to finish, Baldwin threw up blood and booger came out of his nose, and straightway got unconscious releasing the wraith within him. Baldwin floating above ground, off from his father’s arm, came out of his mouth and nose the ugly wraith. It roared in fury, and smacked Raewyn away. This was it, now or never thought Ariam.

            There was barrier to protect the boy now, but the wraith’s form was much more grisly than ever before. It got expansively huge and attacked everyone except for Ariam, who managed to jump over its numerous long arms. She landed on one of the arms, and then sprint on it to get closer to the boy. She does a backflip, slicing the wraith’s face along the way, and then with one sure shot, she jumped off and struck the boy’s heart. Her strike killed the boy and wraith.

            It seemed the death of the coarse wraith produced a large mana explosion, causing the soil above them to crumble. All of them ran immediately with the relic, Ariam tried to pull Lord Ned, but he seemed defiant not to move. “Leave me be with my son, you savages! Damn you all to hell,” he said. They took the path forward for it seemed the road in which where they came from was already filled with earth.

            They left Lord Ned, and with all was settled, it was now a simple matter of racing back to the surface before they were buried alive.

            They lastly got to a gate that seemed to lead them out to the surface, but it was gigantic and locked. All of them attacked it, and so attacked and attacked they did. Raewyn’s lightning spell did the most damage. And when finally the soil beneath them was crumbling, Jodeline conjured a firewall spell around them. They were already practically buried it was just Jodeline’s spell that hold off the earth’s weight. However, since it was fire around them, their oxygen was running.

            In one strong spell, Raewyn blasted the gate open. “Come one, let’s go out!” Ariam primed. “No time to lose!”

            “I can’t move, the spell is draining me, and if I dispel it out now, the earth will crush me,” said the petite mage. “Take the relic, stop the Titans from returning,” and then she took a moment to catch a glimpse of Kelvin one last time, and as a tear brooked down she said, “Live for me, my love.” Raewyn snagged the relic, and with the realization that love is lost, and life is a struggle, Jodeline dispel her firewall. The earth crushed her, and the gate was sealed off by the gravel, nonetheless the three others were already out. Kelvin wanted to save her, he totally did, but there was nothing he could do about it, Jodeline reacted so quick, he had no time to do or say anything. “Live for me, my love,” that was the last thing Kelvin the Scarred Seeker heard from the girl he loved. Jodeline had decided to sacrifice herself for them, for Kelvin.

            It was frustrating, Kelvin got her, finally got her. She was in his grasp, but then he lost her again, this time for real. He felt helpless and angry, and so he screamed at Ariam and Raewyn, “We could have saved her! You could have used your magic, your speed! No! No!”

            He punched on the walls that separated him and his love. “I will love you forever, Jodeline, whatever happens, you were always the one. I will live for you, and when my time has come to an end, I will find you, and we will be together again. But, for now, I will live,” he said to himself. This is the wretched thing about life, as if it was an unspoken universal rule. That when things are way too good to be true, the universe is just preparing for you to get your heart ripped out. Take this advice, always expect things to be unexpected and painful, heartaches are unavoidable.