Scene 3 - Destiny

After a shock, Rune entered the dome with a glare, already displeased by the pain. Despite that she pushed opened the door with a grin and rushed inside headfirst, confident that she would crush this trial since Marley had already given them the rundown on what to do.

When she entered the dome, the door behind her sealed shut but Rune didn’t notice at all. A wave of heat and the smell of rotting roses filled her senses. It came in waves, one after another, making her sweat with a sense of nausea. For a few agonizing moments, her thought process was overpowered until her senses distorted and the horrible sensation was replaced by the feeling of a warm blanket melding into her body.

Rune calmed down and subconsciously sat in a lotus position before two statues. The fiery heat and evil green energy danced excitedly around Rune in waves with a tempo, raising high and low to form a tornado of scarlet red and evil green.

The statues seemed to stir with Rune’s provocation of the surrounding energy; and began to flash a faint pulse of light, growing brighter at every pulse. Pressure began to emanate off of them, which seemed to calm the chaotic magical power and caused Rune, in her trance-like state, to gaze at the two.

One was a thirty-foot tall statue depicting an enormously huge serpent with scaled wings stretched outwards. It's two jade green eyes shined with ancientness as they stared into her soul. Strangely, the poisonous aura the statue gave off began to condense and bloom around her, becoming decayed roses. The other statue was that of a five-foot statue of a skinny boy. A long red jade horn protruded from his forehead, and his pupils came to be strangely square. Flames condensed around her in the images of lotuses dancing around the wind burning brightly.

Sitting between the two, Rune slowly connected to the energy being emitted from them and her mind eventually fell into the same realm Vince did. Two doors appeared, one covered in various carvings of majestic pure jade green snakes; the other made of fire opal and other various precious stones filled with heat. Bickering could be heard as soon as the doors opened, a showdown of fierce high-speed arguing that lasted for a good five minutes before settling down.

A beast-like voice resounded in Rune’s ears, “Come in child, I, Imoogi, the god of Poison shall bestow upon you mortal my magic.”

A cold snort could be heard from behind the fire opal door, “Don’t listen to that old fart of a snake! Come hither and receive my blessings from me! Enya, the God of Fire!”

Imoogi growled out in a beastal roar, “How dare you, flame midget! This apostle is mine! I haven’t seen a Poison Genius in three thousand years!”

They rattled back and forth until Rune grew sick of it and said, “Can’t I just accept both of your magics?”

The two grew silent for a while until Imoogi spoke up, “As long as the midget agrees to it then I shall.”

Enya snorted, “Humph, you don’t think I dare to agree? Humph, I agree! I grow tired of this argument!”

Rune’s mind spun. Were the old god's children? How were they evil if this is the way they acted?

Soon the doors entwined together, half jade green and half fire opal. Rune slowly floated inside the doors to see a giant snake three hundred meters long and a flaming youth having a staring contest to the death, with flame and poison flying like sparks.

Rune fell to her knees from the crushing pressure of the two unconsciously gave off. Seeing this, they retracted their auras, allowing her to stand. She fumbled the words inside her head before finally speaking, “I came here to absorb elemental magical energy, so why did I come to this strange place?”

Imoogi spoke, his speech thick with the beast tongue, “Normally, if anyone cultivated under our statutes they would gain the energy surrounding them. Unless they were at the Genius level of talent, they would never see us.”

Enya and Imoogi tried to scan over Rune’s memories to no avail, a thick steel wall covered her mind making them unable to penetrate it.

A weird expression covered Enya’s face as he asked, “Do you remember your past?”

Rune shook her head side to side, “I only remember as far as wandering outside my mother’s house, nothing else.”

Enya sighed. How could he not know? Someone had created a spell to seal away her memories, but this only made him slightly more interested in the puny mortal. He wanted to see what was so important to seal her memories away. Just as he was about to undo the spell with ease, a mental message was sent to him by Reveera through a network of mental manipulation, ‘Do not remove that block.’

Enya, in shock, replied, ‘Why?’

Reveera quickly replied with a slight hint of sarcasm, ‘If you do she will kill her older brother and I’ll cut off your little member. Again. I wouldn’t normally be wasting the favor you owe me on such a simple matter, yet the boy over here has a great shadow of death over his head tied to her. He’s a dual Genius as well, making this just too good to pass up; just consider this the favor that you owed me now repaid in full, also tell that old fart of a snake to stand down or I’ll clip his wings. Again.’

Enya’s face paled and he readily agreed, telling Imoogi to follow her orders. It took a bit of time to describe, but this conversation only lasted for an instant between the three gods.

With a smile, Enya gathered a red ball of energy above his finger and sent it straight towards the scared witless Rune’s head, “I shall grant you with my cultivation magic !”

Even if the wall could seal away the memories of old; it would not infringe on new memories coming inside. Rune’s mind reeled and she fell to the ground as information flooded within. She clenched her teeth, trying her best to withstand the impact.

She convulsed for twenty minutes before she stood up with much difficulty, paled faced and glaring at Enya. After the branding was complete she opened her mouth, about to say some frightful things to the old god when suddenly a ball of purple energy shot inside of her head as Imoogi roared, “My magic brings only death so use it wisely! This magic allows you to cultivate your own poison within your body; I call it !”

Rune trembled nonstop as information once again filled her mind. Suddenly she felt a crack inside her mind, a crack that let her peer upon the memory of a garden filled to the brim with water lotuses. It was so beautiful that tears began to flow down her tender cheeks as her body continued to convulse. Suddenly four adult figures walked towards her within the memory with a small boy in the middle of their group.

She couldn't see their faces but she saw him shyly raise his hand out towards her. As she reached out to grab his hand the image suddenly cut into black. She slowly opened her eyes to the see the gods looking at her strangely, for she was gasping for air as tears stained her cheeks.

Rune frowned, thinking deeply, ‘What was that? A memory? A dream? No, what was it? Why can’t I shake this feeling that… I want to kill that boy. Why? What did he do?’

Wiping her cheeks, Rune bowed to the gods while biting her underlip, her mind in a haze she only heard the gods rambling something about her helping them in their time of need. She nodded absentmindedly to the gods and thanked them, after which the two gods left, leaving her with the same words that Vince had received.

Her soul shot back into her body and she lied on her back, staring into an infinity of Green and Red, “Who is that boy I’m meant to kill? I wonder… If elder brother would help me track him down for answers?”