After searching for a clue for hours in the sand dunes, I was about to give up, but something caught my eye. A white corner peeked out from under a sand dune. I grabbed it, and it said: Ghprqlf Rdvlv(1989620 2081855). First, I decoded the numbers, which was a normal A1Z26 cipher, which read shift three. That led me to believe that the letters were in a Caesar cipher. Decoding it using shift 3, I arrived at Demonic Oasis. Looking at the map again, there were several oases scattered around the desert, and there were probably many oases that I would rather go to the Demonic Oasis if I was basing it off of the names.

I ran toward the oases and quickly looked around, trying to find anything strange that might indicate danger, but found nothing suspicious. I crept to the shore, waiting for something to jump out of the water and try to destroy me. Nothing jumped out of the water, so I quickly sent Lightning Discharge into the water. A large snake that the electricity had killed floated to the surface, but that seemed to have been the only dangerous thing in the water.

I suddenly saw a shadow dart past the trees in my peripheral vision. I whirled around and took out Pauradanti.

A hissing sound came from the lake, “You have done well stranger.” I whirled around, expecting to see the snake was somehow alive and was going to strike, but the snake was still as dead as ever.

The strange voice laughed, “You won’t find ME, stranger.” The same shadow darted past a tree again. I whirled and sent a column of fire towards the place I last saw the shadow.

The voice laughed again, “You can never defeat me, weakling, you were correct in using flames; it’s my only weakness, but I am too fast for you to burn!”

“Will my enemies ever learn?” I sighed.

“What do you mean?” The voice asked, blurring across my vision.

“Why do my enemies keep telling me about themselves? You probably shouldn’t have told me your weakness!” I readied Pauradanti and a ball of flames.

“What? Why not? As I said, I am too fast for you to hit!” the voice responded.

“Well then, let me show you why you’re wrong!” I exclaimed, leaping into action. I channeled a Giant Raindrop through Pauradanti, scouting the area. When I saw a shadow blur across my vision, I sent my ball of flames after it just as the raindrop dissipated.

“Ha! You missed me by a mile!” The voice laughed at me, standing still but invisible.

“But I wasn’t aiming at you…” I whispered.

“What did you say?” it stepped closer.

“I said, I WASN’T AIMING AT YOU!” I screamed.

“Huh?” It asked, turning around… only to get smashed by a fireball. Since I wasn’t using a fireball spell, but using Elementalism, I controlled the fireball and made it miss and come back.

Meanwhile, the shadow was writhing on the ground in pain as it screeched painfully loud.

“What are you? What is your name? I will be asking you some questions, and if you answer them all truthfully, I will give you a quick death or spare you, but if not…” I grinned menacingly, holding up a fireball in each hand. I didn’t like doing this kind of thing, but I had to do what I had to do.

“I am the shade Amartia, and I will make you pay for what you have done to me!” Amartia continued to yelp in pain.

“Yeah… sure… you’re definitely going to be able to do anything to me after I just slew a literal LEVIATHAN!” I yelled.

“Wh-what?!” Amartia shrieked in pain again, then continued, “You managed to slay a LEVIATHAN?! Impossible! Even Captain Fovos can’t do that alone!”

“I did it with my dragon…” I muttered.

“Oh? So where is this dragon of yours?” Amartia questioned.

Honestly, I was pretty sure that Amartia knew he was screwed as either I had incredible power or I had a dragon, both of which had bad prospects for him.

“I forgot my dragon at home!” I sarcastically responded.

“Oh? And where is home?” Amartia continued asking questions. Clearly, he did not understand the concept of sarcasm.

“Agh. That was sarcasm!” I complained.

“Who is Sar? And why are you bringing up a chasm named after him?” Amartia continued asking things that made absolutely no sense.

“Ach! I give up!” I threw my hands in the air and sighed.

“What are you giving up on? Your life? I agree… you should probably do that!” Amartia earnestly responded.

“No, I’m giving up on your existence!” I replied drily.

“Ah, well, I can’t satisfy everyone!” Amartia wistfully sighed.

“Well, that’s very close to the truth!” I agreed and started getting lost in my thoughts.

Wait… why am I feeling so… weirdly happy? Wait! Amartia is probably messing with my mind!

But when I regained control over my mind, Amartia had extinguished the flames and was blurring out of my vision.

“Hah! Humans! So susceptible to mind attacks! You have such a weak mind! Eh, that works for me! I must admit, you caught me by surprise with that boomerang fireball. I wasn’t expecting you to have the lost art of Elementalism. However, I have taken down many people with Elementalism back in Zloty and Malkallam’s day! Now, I am even older and stronger than ever! You will not defeat me!” Amartia zoomed into action, dashing toward me so fast that I could barely catch his movements.

I darted my eyes left and right, trying to pick up clues on where Amartia was. I saw a slight disturbance; a slight marking in the air near the ground, and I turned toward that and cast Forcefield while lashing out with a fan of flames.

Amartia immediately became visible, holding a sword of shadows in his hand. It disappeared, and he lunged. I stepped back as the sword reappeared with the tip exactly where my heart would’ve been.

“Impressive. You have good reflexes! Are you sure you don’t want to join us?” Amartia cocked his head.

“Never!” I cried as I summoned a beam of fire that looked like a laser beam.

Amartia leaped over it, letting the flame burn itself into a tree. I managed to dodge left just as he sent a flurry of shadow daggers at where I just was. I panted heavily, not knowing how I was supposed to defeat Amartia.

Didn’t I beat an entire group of shades at the Gates of Yadurige? I guess I had said that out loud, as Amartia stated, “Oh, so that’s where the Varkas Squad went! We were wondering what happened to them! They were imbeciles, and were the weakest of shades! That’s why you beat them but are struggling with me. Also, you surprised them! I heard that the Varkas Squad was ambushed, but wasn’t sure about that.”

“Oh…” I muttered. “That’s a shame…”

“Yes indeed, you thought I would be easy to beat, but I am proving you wrong!” Amartia agreed.

“No, I’m saying that it’s a shame that you don’t learn from your fallen comrades!” I yelled, launching into action. I created walls of flame around Amartia, surrounding him. He jumped out, but I fired a lot of flame arrows there through the narrow gap between the flames. Each time a flame arrow made contact, a small flame broke out and was extinguished, but each of them building up eventually made Amartia howl in pain.

“Ow!” Amartia yelped in pain.

Amartia then charged at me with his shadow blade extended. I stepped to the left, lashed out with Pauradanti, and tried to whack Amartia.

Amartia sidestepped and sent a flurry of shadow daggers at my head. I summoned a Forcefield to block them, and they all fell short. However, I got distracted by the shadow daggers and Amartia took this chance and lunged in with a shadow blade, nearly cutting my head off.

Instead, I somehow managed to form wings of flame, flying over the shadow blade, which cut through a tree that was behind me.

When I landed, my back was hurting a little, and when I looked at my back in the pond, it was a bit scorched from the wings of fire.

“Well done! I haven't seen that level of control for some time!” Amartia mused appreciatively. Then the shadows shrouding Amartia hardened and shot towards me. I stared, wide-eyed, and quickly made a shield of fire. The shadows burned away, revealing Amartia lunging with his sword out to stab me.

I yelped and lept to my left, barely avoiding the sword. I hurled fireballs at Amartia, only for them to be intercepted by shadow spikes. I growled and threw Revanis and Kosmar at Amartia after covering them in flames. Amartia hissed and leaped out of the way. I used the fire on both of the staffs to redirect them and follow Amartia. A wall of shadows appeared, blocking the staff’s path, but the fire burned through the wall. Amartia sighed and suddenly the shadows swept to the water, scooped up some water, and threw the water at Revanis and Kosmar. The fire was extinguished and a wall of shadow appeared again, this time blocking the staffs.

I sighed and questioned, “Do you have to make it so hard?”

“Yes,” Amartia responded simply. I cast Acid Splatter, Hurricane, Lightning Discharge, and Giant Raindrop in quick succession, followed by a fireball the size of a person.

“Hey, Amartia! I have a spell called Chaos, do you know what that is?” I questioned because I doubted anyone else would know about it, and if they did, they probably never saw it being cast because of the massive EP cost.

Amartia’s eyes widened, then he quickly regained his appearance and responded, “Do I look like a teacher to you?”

“Well… No, you look like a–” I was cut off when Amartia continued, “As for if I know what it is, I do, it is a spell of mass destruction and I have seen it cast once before on my forces by one of the gods. The spell makes all the people affected go into a mindless killing rage while howling winds carry spikes of shadow and ice in an area of 0.5 miles. Dark clouds form in the sky over the area of effect and rain down fire and lightning. Massive earthquakes would strike in the area of effect as well and lava would erupt from the ground.”

My mouth hung open, “Ummm...Uh…Wow, that's a lot of destruction,” I was still shocked about how much destruction it would cause.”

“Yes, I hope you never cast it,” Amartia said earnestly, then shot a volley of arrows made of darkness. I sighed and cast Forcefield. The arrows bounced off the forcefield and I created a field of spikes of fire between us.

“What's that supposed to do?” Amartia questioned, “It doesn’t even circle you.” I grunted and used Portal Making to create a portal right under Amartia, making the exit right above the spikes, which made Amartia fall right on the spikes. Amartia screamed, and while he was distracted, I cast Acid Splatter, Lightning Discharge, and threw a fireball at him.

Amartia exploded into smoke and I groaned, thinking that he had somehow teleported, only for the smoke to scatter and vanish.

“Huh,” I said, “Maybe that’s how shades die?” I shrugged and looked around for more clues.

After a while of searching, I found a small note tucked under a bush. I didn't pick it up just in case it was trapped.

It read: After you pick up this note, the idowaktu snake appears and you have 1 hour to destroy it. Walk the Path of Doom to find the snake or else...

“That... definitely doesn’t sound ominous!” I commented when I saw the note. I quickly located the path which seemed to appear whenever anyone picked up the note.

Following the path for a while, I began to see giant snake tracks. Going off of the Path of Doom for a bit, I followed the tracks to an oasis full of ants that formed the word ‘DIE’. I looked behind me to see a giant snake sending black projectiles at me.

I went full matrix mode, dodging and weaving through the torrent of projectiles until my hand was hit by one of them. My hand flickered and then disappeared.

“Where did my hand go?” I shouted in anger.

“It was transported back in time, you idiot!” The giant snake (presumably an idowaktu snake) snickered.

“W-what do you mean?” I stammered.

“It went back in time! Was I not clear the first time? Your hand was sent back in time and it will disappear forever!” The giant snake cackled.

“NOOOOO!” I yelled in despair. Maybe if I kill the snake I’ll get my hand back?

I decided to test it. I leaped into action, creating barriers of flame around me to protect myself. Suddenly, the snake sped up, slithering across my line of sight. My eyes sped back and forth in my eye sockets, trying to keep up with the snake’s movements.

I caught a glimpse of air movement to my right, and I jumped to my left just as the snake zoomed past where I just was, jaws outstretched. As the snake looked around in confusion, probably wondering why he didn’t get a meal, I prepared a large fireball, building it up. When the snake turned around, I had built a gigantic fireball, which I launched straight at it.

The snake dodged a little, but his underbelly got scorched, and he shrieked in pain.

He let out another stream of black projectiles, which I all blocked with a single cast of Forcefield. I jumped up, shifting into a dragon, and let out a scorching hot beam of flames at the snake. Creating some twirls in my flames, the flames followed the snake around, who was trying to escape.

Even though he was slithering so fast, my flames eventually caught up to the snake and he was burned to a crisp. But still, my hand had not reappeared. I started to sob, thinking my hand would never come back.

I decided that I would start going back to where I started so I could discover the secrets of rune magic, so I picked myself up and started heading back with a heavy heart and a missing hand.