“Po, the druid, do you have anything to say before I kill you?” A well poised man wearing dark blue garbs, and a mask covering everything but his bright gold eyes, points his katana at a man picking mushrooms on a hill. After he picks up another white mushroom and tucks it into his robe pocket, Po turns to the ninja and stares intently at him. A long pause draws out through the breeze as the clouds began to overcast and the hill side grew ever more silent. The wind ripples through the short patches of grass on the hill like waves in the ocean blue. Po breaks the silence with a surprise: a web of entangled vines that grew rapidly below the ninja.

The ninja dodges and darts towards Po with his katana primed, then slashes at Po’s stomach before he has time to react. Another long pause occurs as the ninja closes his eyes without turning his back and cleans his katana with his fingers; he places it back in the sheath and begins to speak.

“Pathetic. I thought you would put up more of a…” he pauses as he turns around and witnesses that Po blocked his attack by transforming his skin into a large piece of bark.

“That’s all you’ve got, rogue?” Po says condescendingly.

“I’ll have you know that I’m a well-respected ninja in my clan.”

“Ninja, schminja.” Po says as he positions his hand towards his opponent and thrusts upward, making a fist. The ninja watches as Po’s hands transform into gauntlets of bark and positions himself to throw a critical punch.

“I’m impressed.” The ninja says with intrigue. “Tell me; are you aware that your bounty is ten thousand gold pieces?”

Po, after a moment of unaltered expression, says “Nope.”

The ninja pulls out his katana again and gets into position, as does Po. The two warriors slowly move towards each other with unbroken stares. And then, as the wind begins to pick up, they dash towards each other with killing intent.

Po dodges.

The ninja parries Po’s fists.

Po dodges again as the sound of the katana impact rings loudly.

“You’re good.” Po begins to say as they take a reprieve. “I have to ask: What’s your name?”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“That’s too bad; I usually know the names of the bounty hunters before I kill them. I guess I’ll just kill you, rogue.”

“On the contrary.”

The two stare at each other, unflinching. The smell of distant rain fills the air as the wind begins to pick up, yet again, and the cloud roll in at a accelerated pace. The two make a mad dash towards each other. Po morphs a thorn javelin out of thin air as he runs towards the ninja, and throws it.

The ninja dodges, and flips over Po to slice at his back.

Po blocks as he instantaneously transforms his back into a sheet of bark.

They exchange blows for a solid minute; one by one chipping away at bark and metal, until they take another reprieve. As they both continue to stare at each other and take deep breaths, the ninja begins to speak.

“You’re the best fighter that I’ve come across in a long while.”

“Thank you.” Po says with a slight grin on his face.

“Now tell me,” The ninja begins again, checking the damage done on his katana ever so cautiously. “Is that your only trick?” Po takes another moment as he makes an assertive smile.

“Nope.”

The ninja dashes at Po.

Po dodges as he begins to talk during the fight. “Now tell me, rogue.” The ninja evades another thorn javelin by quick stepping to the side. “Did they send the best of your clan to kill me, or are they just blue balling me with their second, no-” The ninja slashes at Po’s fist and buries the blade into the bark. They both stare at each other with smirks of amusement while they remain locked together. The crackling of splintered wood gets louder the longer they hold one another back, pushing the earth below their feet deeper into the ground. Then, Po breaks the silence, “Make that third best.”

The ninja frees his katana from Po’s bark skin and jumps back twenty feet. He takes a moment to sigh in displeasure as he rubs his shoulder, popping his neck in the process, and says, “They only send the best for you apparently. I see why you’re worth so much, considering that you have quite the winning streak for duels.”

“I'm aware of that. I don’t know how many it’s been now, but they just keep coming.” Po says in a sarcastic manner while morphing a set of wooden armor, and making a mad dash towards the ninja.

The ninja dodges Po’s fist, and turns to counter.

Po parries the ninja’s counter, then ripostes.

The ninja evades Po as he smashes the dirt, making a fist size hole on the hill side.

They both back away from each other, take a moment to catch their breath, then dash at each other again.

The sound of the ninja’s katana rings loudly as it is deflected off of Po’s shoulder.

The ninja feints, and then strikes.

Po counters.

The ninja dodges.

Po tries to surprise him with a feint, as well.

The ninja blocks, and then ripostes as he blocks Po’s sneak attack from behind.

“You’re marvelous.” The ninja finally says as he attempts to slash, but fails to connect.

Po positions himself on higher ground. “I ought to be after training on this island all my life.”

The ninja strikes at Po and plants his katana into the ground.

The ninja quickly kicks Po in the face as he leans on his katana.

“How long might that be?” the ninja asks as Po staggers back a bit.

Po tries to take the advantage of his off guard stance but misses as the ninja pulls the katana out and flings dirt in his eyes.

Po barely dodges the dirt and the sneak attack the ninja dishes out. The two put distance between them before Po starts to retort.

“Oh, I say about twenty years, give or take.”

As Po finishes, the ninja dashes towards him with sword readied to strike.

“Twenty years, eh?” The ninja connects with Po’s fists and they stand locked. The ninja forces Po to stagger and fall onto the cold grassy earthen hill. The katana’s edge inches closer to Po’s throat, while the ninja continues on where he left off. “One eye, silver. One eye, gold. You match the description perfectly.” Po forces the ninja off, and as they back away from each other, the ninja says, “You are indeed my target, Po. But I still can’t believe it.”

“Why is that?” Po throws a punch, but misses the ninja as he moves behind him.

“Well,” the ninja begins again, “I thought you were a Romalian pirate that was hiding out on this island at first, but an isolated druid makes so much more sense.” Po darts towards the ninja while casting a spell. The ninja tries to dodge, but is caught by roots that sporadically come out of the ground and wrap his legs. The ninja dodges the first punch, but is hit in the face by the second. The ninja falls to his knees as he feels the point of a thorn javelin caress his forehead. He attempts to parry Po, but the vines grab his katana and watches as the roots toss it a good twenty feet away.

As the katana slowly rolls down the hill, Po points the javelin at the ninja’s nape and says, “Is that all you’ve got, rogue?” the ninja squints his eyes and gives out a panted breath of mild amusement.

“Nope.”

Po is caught off guard as the ninja barely moves his hand and suddenly the katana springs from the ground and slices Po’s javelin in half. The katana flies back into the ninja’s hands as he then cuts the vines and reverses the roll by forcefully kicking Po in the chest, making him fall onto the ground, and points his katana. As the broken javelin rolls down the hill, the ninja says with a patronizing tone, “Is that all you’ve got, Po?” Po smiles with a coy expression as he begins to retort.

“Nope.”

He then points his hand up in the air and thrusts down rapidly. The ninja’s eyes widen as he begins to thrust forward. But within a split second, a bolt of lightning thunders down onto the ninja and zaps him. A flash of green light and a thunderous beam explodes into the ninja’s right shoulder as it branches through his skin and the intense flash briefly blinds them both. The crackling of thunder is heard all around, slowly echoing off the distant hills and forest, until it fades into obscurity as it hits the tidal waves from the sea. A very long silence fills the air around the two as they slowly re-collect themselves. Po quickly brushes off the static and begins to look over at the ninja: motionless on the ground with smoke wisping off of his smoldering clothes, Po attempts to stand, but finds that the ninja buried the katana in his right thigh.

“Ah, fuck.” Po clasps his thigh in anguish; The deep laceration spurts out blood incessantly. Without hesitating any further, Po pulls out the chipped and blackened katana quickly, then begins to treat his wound with a smashed up mushroom in his robe pocket. The hill side is still ever silent with the sun beginning to beam through the clouds. The breeze slows down a bit as Po begins to hear groans of pain coming from the ninja.

“Oh~”

“Oh, you’re alive.” Po says with discontentment as he continues to patch up his leg persistently oozing blood. He rubs the pieces of ground mushroom into the wound, slowing the bleeding, but not significantly.

“And...you as well.” The ninja coughs, then lifts his head off the ground and props his body up with his arms to look at Po. The ninja’s right shoulder plumes a bit of smoke out from his torn clothes. The electrical discharge branching down his body starts to blister and ooze blood.

“Looks like a draw.” Po says as he looks at the ninja with suspicion.

“It’s not over until one of us is dead.” The ninja says as he sharpens his gaze.

The two look at each other in ire and recollect themselves slowly as the clouds began to part and the sun shines upon them, basking them in warming light.

“It’s a beautiful day to die, huh?” the ninja says in a stern tone of voice.

The two look intently at each other for a few moments before Po says, “Indeed. Indeed it is. I can’t believe I have to use this, but you leave me no choice.”

Po clamps his wound shut with a suture made of vines, and begins to unlatch a very large scythe hidden from behind his druid robes as it shimmers in the light of the sun.

“Whoa, a druid using a weapon. You truly are intriguing.” The ninja says in excited amusement as he stabilizes his balance with his katana and stands back up. The two stand, wobbly, with the sun beginning to shine to a grossly incandescent.

“I like your scythe.”

“Thank you.” Po says with a truly revealing smile.

“I guess it’s true what they say about you being a harbinger of death.”

“Who calls me that?”

“It won’t matter much to you in a moment. And since you’re giving it your all, I should do the same, as your adversary.” the ninja removes his wooden sheath as hold it to the side as he places the sword back inside and takes on a power stance.

The two lock eyes intensely as they both intensify the solemn mood. The air becomes cold and begins to pick up pollen from the forest, making it dance and sway with the ocean wind.

The two run towards each other at lightning speed.

They both parry and riposte.

They both block.

Po stumbles around as he attempts to not lose his balance from his leg wound.

The clang of metal echoes over and over.

The ninja tries to counter, but he misses as his wounds start to affect his speed.

Po counters back and jumps to higher ground.

The ninja blocks Po’s attack from behind with ease.

The ninja and Po lock in place as they both hold each other back with all the strength they have.

“You are a very commendable adversary.” The ninja begins to say to Po as he snickers.

Po smirks with amusement as the sound of a katana grating against bark quietly echoes from the hill side. Po begins, “And to you as well, ninja.”

The two break apart, and without hesitation, begin to set a barrage of clashes upon one another. They continue to fight viciously for another two minutes with unbroken guards.

Suddenly, Po slips on the hill side from his broken javelin and falls to his knees. The ninja slices at his chest, lacerating him from nipple to liver; a shallow cut but deep enough to bleed. The ninja slips on the other piece of javelin, upon which Po forms a sharpened branch that barely scrapes the ninja side. They both roll away from each other and begin to pant and heave heavily as they stared at each other, unblinking. They both try to stand up, but neither one is able to as they fall back to their knees.

“I never thought I would be beaten so easily. Heh, and I laughed when they said this was the hardest mission given to a greenhorn in years.” the ninja grips his side as he attempts to stop the bleeding.

“If it’s any consolation,” Po heaves and takes a deep breath while rubbing a mushroom on his chest to stop the bleeding. “Out of the forty duels i’ve faced...you’ve done the most damage. I might actually die this time.” Po begins to act very nervous, with the ninja staring back at him with a puzzled look in his eyes.

“What? Is that the look you want to die with?”

“No, you fool. There’s a mass swarm approaching.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“No, i’m serious.”

“How can you tell?”

“I can feel it in the wind.” Po faces the wind as it blows back his hair, causing the ninja to scoff and cross his arms.

“Pfft, so, what? Did you smell a fart in the breeze?”

Suddenly, a peculiar sound is heard in the distance that captures the ninja’s attention. They both stand up in preparation for what is to come.

“That noise. I’ve heard it before.” The ninja begins to say, sticking his hands behind his ears towards the massive swarm.

“What is it?” Po says.

A long pause draws over while they both stand in silence and on guard. The smell of sulfur fills the air, and suddenly, the ninja spots something peeking over the ocean horizon: the fairies of Sugarwillow.

“Shit!” the ninja says in haste as he flinches at the sight.

“What! What is it?” Po says as he flexes with his scythe ready in hand, squinting his eyes in desperation to learn about the progenitor of such a horrendous noise; that sound of a horde of carnivorous butterflies eating the flesh of carrion, of which the ninja was all too familiar with.

“It’s the fairies of Sugarwillow coming in for the annual harvest.” The ninja says with an intimidating face as he points towards the oncoming horde.

“Fairies? Why should I be afraid of fairies?” Po says as he begins to loosen his guard.

“They capture people all over the Western Territories to turn into slaves, or eat, if we’re real lucky.” The ninja says sternly as he waves his hands and sword around wildly.

“Fuck.” Po says with shock as he begins to stagger. “We’ve got to get...out of...” Po suddenly passes out from blood loss, catching the ninja off guard.

“Shit, why now. We haven’t even finished our duel.” the ninja shouts as he stumbles awkwardly over to Po and starts shaking him to wake up. Po opens his eyes barely enough to see, looking around in a daze. “Listen. Do you want to live past this day?”

Without hesitation, Po begins. “Yeah, but how do you…expect to survive this?”

The ninja surveys the land as he investigates the environment around them. Nothing but rolling hills flanked by a thick forest and an ocean on the other side. Then, as the fairies get within spell distance, the ninja shouts “Follow me.”

The ninja grasps Po’s hand as he attempts to run, but is dragged back by a still fallen Po.

“What are you doing?” the ninja says with slight irritation in his voice.

“I-I can’t move. Lost...too much blood.” A weakened Po finally says as he begins to sweat and his skin tone pales.

“Son of- Son of a Pugh!” the ninja says with furious anger as he attempts to lift Po up and throws him on his charred shoulders.

“Why?” Po begins to speak as the ninja carries him to a nearby patch of forest. “Why do you want me to live?”

“I’m not letting an adversary die. I want to kill you myself one day.” The ninja says with panted breaths as he begins to show signs of fatigue. The oozing wound in the ninja’s shoulder begins to bleed again.

“Damn, you’re heavier than you look.” The ninja says as he collapses to the ground from exhaustion, managing to barely hold himself up by kneeling. The sky becomes blackened by the veil of the horde of fairies swarming around the two. Takeshi begins to swing his sword wildly, but to no avail, the two are promptly apprehended by the fairies as they begin to shout at the two and fly around with spears pointed. A fairy begins to shout in an unknown language to the wounded druid and ninja.

“What?” the ninja says with a puzzled look in his eyes. He gently puts Po down on the ground and begins to slowly pass out as his body hits the floor. The fairies look at each other with equal expressions of confusion. The ninja becomes conscious enough to turn to look at Po, beginning to pass out as well from blood loss.

“Stay with me, Po. If we get out of this alive…” the ninja evaluates for a moment, but says nothing more as he puts one hand on Po’s icy shoulder and looks back up at the fairies.

“Fuck.” The ninja says briefly, and the fairies cast a spell summoning a large net over the two and begin to lift the net up in the air. As the two of them feel the wind pick up the higher they go, the ninja turns around to look at the sun.

“You better take it all in while you can, Po.” Takeshi says as he vigorously shakes Po awake. Po wakes up in a cold sweat as he joins the ninja to take in the view. A spectacle of oranges and dark blues dance around the sun touching the horizon. The clouds, pink in hue, partially covering the sky are pushed around by the high winds in the upper atmosphere.

“It might be the last time we see the Sun.” the ninja says with a cold tone of voice as they are hauled off into the horizon by swarms of fairies. After a long moment of silence, Po musters up enough strength to say: “Where-where are we going?”

“Welcome to Candi Land, fuckers.” A very large, muscular fairy cracks his knuckles while speaking Common as he stares at a bounded and beaten ninja and druid. The two are pushed to the ground by the spears of two fairy guards behind them as they kneel on a very rusty iron floor. The air around them; filled with heat and the smell of molten metal from the blast furnaces and the two branding rods sizzling their butt skin.

“Ah, fucking fuck.” the ninja yells is agony as the word ‘Candi’ is forever branded onto his right butt cheek.

“Hey, boss, this guy jacked up the first one.”

“Just do it again.” the muscle bound fairy states callously with his arms crossed.

“Ahh~!” Po cries out in anguish as he squirms on the ground with the spears still pointed at both of their faces. The sparks fly off the molds shaped into swords, armor, and bars. The other workers sunken expressions are barely seen through their soot covered faces. The pounding of hammers rings loudly through the foundry as brutish fairies walk around like hulking ogrillas inspecting and keeping slaves in line. The brutish fairy next to the two slowly strolls over to the ninja and kicks him in the face. The ninja spits up a bit of blood as he glares viciously. The fairy crosses his huge arms again and laugh manically before beginning to talk.

“Since you two are still able to perform manual labor, Lord Candi advised me to send you two to mine mithril ore. Don’t worry. With your job, you both get a break…when you’re dead. Haha.”

The brutish fairy laughs again in the same manic tone, and readily lifts the two up with little effort, then throwing them into a deep endless pit of a hole nearby. The two scream with terror as they plummet into the darkness below. They both fall long enough for them to run out of breath to scream.

“Po, are you still there?” the ninja says as the wind muffles the words. They continue to fall as the air around them starts to get warmer with every passing second, and then a light is seen towards the bottom. A fiery orange glow envelopes a glassy stone floor as they approach at terminal velocity. The light reveals the terrified expressions on both of their faces as they look at one another, causing the two to start screaming neurotically again. However, just before they hit the ground, a bright blue flash of light jets towards them and holds the two suspended in midair, canceling all the velocity they had. The two look around the room as they notice a strange, homely fairy wizard barely lit by the bright molten ore being hauled up to the surface by a pulley system. The strange wizard starts to speak in a monotone voice.

“They look decently strong.” The wizard scratches his beard as he holds the two up using a staff. “I’ll send them to sector twelve.”

“Sector what?” the ninja says sporadically with the snap of the wizards fingers. Po and the ninja find themselves teleported to a dark cave, diffusing any light touching it with a gleam of silver, as they both fall to the rocky ground. Tensions run high as the silence passes almost immediately with a surprise bucket of water splashing against their faces and a guard yelling out: “Get up you human scum and get to work.” The two are forced up as the guard chains their legs to the wall and their hands are cut free. “Here.” The guard hands them a pair of worn and bloody pickaxes. They gaze at the pickaxes as they begin to adjust to the low light visibility, but are shoved again to a wall with the silvery, mithril ore jutting out of the warm earth.

“Well, Po. Looks like where fucked.” The ninja says as he buries the pickaxe into the wall.

As the days grow longer and with no end in sight, the two continue to work without reprieve. days pass as the two start to grow angry with one another. The endless torturing and whipping proved to be no solace even after the weeks of hardening made them grow weary and dulled to the pain they received on a daily basis. From weeks, turned to months and the months turned to a year. The anguish and menial tasks they were put through made them bitter towards each other for putting one another in the most dreaded place they could be in. But from a year of getting to know one another through arguments and fighting and talks about their old life, the hatred calmed back down to resentment. After a year of being in Lord Candi’s domain...

“Look I don’t care who you are. It’s not ok to just try to kill me out-right and expect me to be ok with that.” Po: A man wearing tattered and torn druid clothes and brown hair shouts in anger. The back of his robes are torn from the multitude of whip lacerations from the fairy guards. The look in his eyes; one silver and the other gold, show the mental anguish he’s been put through in just a short time frame as it sticks out of his soot covered face.

“Get back to work.” A whip cracks on Po’s back as a fairy shouts in Sylvan: the native language of the fairies of Sugarwillow.

“Ouch!” Po shouts as he rubs his back.

“Ok I get it; you don’t have to be an ass about it. I’ve been apologizing for a year now. Isn’t that enough?” the ninja’s worn dark blue fatigues scrape against the stone wall as he stands up to retort. His muscles: very refined and toned as they’re covered with sweat and dirt with his torn shirt tied around his waist. A large Lichtenberg figure scar runs down his right shoulder all the way to his right nipple. Along with a multitude of elongated scars from swords and whips run down his back; some healed, some not. His gold eyes are the only thing that is seen through his mask which he insists on wearing as he glares at Po.

“Apologized?!” the Po shouts in disbelief and then sarcastically says, “Oh boy, you sure did. Wow I feel so much better now that you’ve cleared that up.”

“Well it’s good to see that you’ve finally come to your senses.” The ninja coldly states.

Po lifts up his hand in an effort to retort, but decides against it and instead stares the ninja down before roughly stabbing the earth with a pickaxe. The ninja starts to mine again as well, but looks uneasy about how the conversation ended. Po forcefully stabs the earth again.

“Look.” The ninja starts. “The only reason I tried to kill you was because it was part of my mission.”

Po slams down his pickaxe into the rocky earth and slowly looks up at the ninja.

“A mission, huh?” Po says discontent.

“Yes, I’m an assassin. It’s just what we do for a living. I did travel quite a ways to find you.”

“How far?”

“Well, I started in Elchea.”

“How far is that?” Po says as he wipes the sweat from his brow with his hand against his forehead.

“How do you not know, were you raised by wolves or something?”

“Yes...how did you know?” Po says with a serious face. Yet the ninja remains shocked at the question.

“Well, it’s at least a six month trip.” Takeshi answers after getting over the initial shock from the imagery of wolves teaching Po how to hunt.

“Wow, that’s pretty far to travel just to kill me.”

“Yeah, and I guess you were my first and last mission now that we’re trapped in this rat hole.”

“Silence, you disgusting humans!” A fairy guard shouts angrily at them in Common while simultaneously whipping the ninja’s back.

*Wha-pssh*

“Ow, fuck!” The ninja shouts in pain. He freezes briefly as Po watches his eyes begin to change, as if he snapped. After all the anguish the fairies had put them through over the years had finally gotten to him. He slowly turns to face the fairy guard and says in the fairies’ own tongue of Sylvan: “Do that again, and ill break your tiny head with one hand.”

Po, with eyes wide open, takes a few steps back away from the two. The guard flaps his wings stiffly and throws his hand back to ready his whip. The ninja squints his eyes and positions himself accordingly. The fairy lets loose his whip as it comes crashing down upon the ninja at the speed of sound. The whip makes a loud, thunderous crack in the air, but misses.

The fairy looks around for the ninja in a bewildered manner. “What, where did he- ack!”

*Crack*

The ninja reappears behind the fairy as its lifeless body fell to the earth. Po says bewildered, “Holy Pugh, what did I just witness?”

“Eh, it’s not my best work, but it’ll have to do.” The ninja says while pulling a pickaxe out from the rocky wall, rests the pickaxe on his shoulder, and turns Po.

“I didn’t know you could speak Sylvan.” Po says as he walks closer to the ninja, brushing off a bit of soot from his face.

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“Well, I only know that one phrase only because the brutish one that beats me in the mornings kept saying it to my face when I'd retaliate.”

“Wow, i’m surprised they didn't kill you earlier.”

“I’ve trained for torture routines. there’s were fairly weak.”

“Now that you mention it. They did like to do weird shit to us; especially with the whole nipple twisting thing.”

“Why that one specifically?”

“Well, it’s just that they kept shouting ‘titty twister.’”

“Ha!” the ninja belts out a cheerful guffaw as he grips the pickaxe harder.

“Here.” The ninja begins. “Let’s restart, my name’s Takeshi Himura.” He lifts his hand up gesturing a friendly handshake.

“There they are, get them!” a group of alerted guards charges towards the two. Po puts his hands together and forges two thorn javelins out of thin air, throwing the two javelins at the same time lancing a few of the guards in the chest. Takeshi chunks his pickaxe and it embeds itself into the head of the last fairy charging after them. With multiple, solid thuds, they all fall to the ground within a few seconds. Po walks over to Takeshi and puts his hand on his shoulder. The laceration on Takeshi’s back starts to heal and disappears completely. Afterwards Po grabs Takeshi’s hand and shakes it awkwardly.

“My name is Po. I’ve been on that island for so long that I never really talked to many people for long. So in a way, you saved me from boredom.” Po smiles forcefully.

“Well then I propose a pact, and a plan.” Takeshi starts.

“Go on.” Po says with anticipation as he folds his arms together.

“Let’s bust out of this rat hole, and I’ll show you the finer things in life. The self indulgences that you missed out on for all those years.” Takeshi says while putting an arm on Po’s shoulder and pointing up towards the cold dark ceiling.

“The finer things in life are in the ceiling?” Po questions.

Takeshi droops his hand down and stares indifferently at Po.

“No, the finer things in life are not in the ceiling.” Takeshi stiffens his hand and vigorously points to the ceiling again. “The finer things lie beyond the ceiling. All we’ve gotta do is find a way up.” Takeshi sits down to think up a solution. After a few seconds pass, Po sparks an idea into fruition.

“Wait, I know what we can do.”

“What is it, Po?” Takeshi looks at Po with one raised eyebrow.

“I can do this.” Po points both his hands to the ceiling, and the earth begins to quake as he opens his palms ever so slightly. Takeshi tries to stabilize himself, but is unable to find his balance as he staggers onto the ground to witness Po’s strange druid powers. From the ground, and a few feet in front of Po, a huge swirling, massive tree explodes out of the ground and pierces through the rocky tunnel ceiling. The sound of crumbling earth and debris falling drowns out the screams of terrified slaves and Takeshi shouting, “Holy Pugh!” After a minute of tunneling, Po puts his hands down and looks up at the giant hole the tree’s ever reaching branches have made. The crumbled infrastructure and the inner workings of other tunnels become connected by the sudden appearance of a massive tree standing tall at over five hundred feet. The light from above shines down through the cloud of dust settling into the mineshaft, exposing the faces of other slaves condemned to the mines; a sunlight they haven’t seen in years. Takeshi and Po’s eyes squint and adjust to the blinding light above to see a small glimpse of the tree already beginning to sprout large, lusciously green leaves.

“Come on, we don’t have much time.” Takeshi shouts while jumping onto the giant tree stump and starts climbing. Po quickly follows behind. As they climb up the various branches, they pass by different tunnels; from them, others have started the journey upwards as they cling to the bark to escape. Before they knew it, thousands of humanoids start to climb up the tree, prompting Takeshi to shout with excitement he hasn’t felt in a year, “Everybody, onward to the surface!”

As Takeshi and Po get closer to the surface, the sound of whips cracking and metal clashing fills the air.

“Looks like we’ve got company at the surface.” Takeshi says eagerly awaiting whatever the surface holds for him. The sound of warfare starts to get louder, and louder. Upon reaching the surface, the afternoon light revealed the scene before them. Takeshi and Po witness a massacre of slaves being tormented by the Fairies on a beach front. One after another; the bodies of slaves litter the ground and drench the sand and ocean to a reddish hue. The ocean’s waves crash down upon the corpses of the fallen and are dragged into its cold, watery depths.

“This is what the finer things in life are?” Po asks pulling the splinters out of his hands.

“Well,” Takeshi starts while looking around the war zone. “We’re off to a bad start, but we’ll find something eventually, I assure you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you just have to give me some more time. But for now let’s just call this a sight of the stranger things in life.”

The two are splashed by a bloody wave from behind, causing Po to accidentally swallow some of the coagulated sea water as he starts to cough vigorously. The water pours into the long, burrowed path the tree made in the ground, splashing many others taking the climb up. The gentle breeze from the sea begins to sway the green leaves back and forth, calming the shot nerves of the slaves brought to the surface to face a perilous demise.

“Quickly, I see a couple of horses in the distance!” Takeshi shouts while grabbing Po’s arm to get him moving. The two swiftly jump out of the ground opening and onto the moistened, red sand dodging flying spears and arrows, which seemingly to block out the sky. Takeshi notices a sword on the way to the horses, but accidentally picks up an arm from a corpse instead.

“Damn it, this isn’t what I wanted.” Takeshi promptly shouts as he swings it at fairies in their path causing them to become shaken by the obscene gesture. A fairy blocks the arm, but without hesitation, Po shoves an open palm into the fairies exposed side and let’s loose a barrage of twisted branches; exploding his guts out from the giant exit wound, and littering the slaves and fairies behind them with blood and entrails. Takeshi steps on and over the writhing fairy, smashing his head into the bloody sand, and continues to sprint alongside with Po directly to the horses without faltering. As they approach the horses, the blurry, decorated soldiers riding them come into view as they wave spears and flags, directing the onslaught.

“No one escapes the great fairy nation of Sugarwillow. No one!” One of the captains shout in rage while thrusting his spear at Takeshi. But he dodges it with ease and grabs the spear, ripping it out of the fairy captain’s hands, and stabs the staggered captain in the gut. The wounded captain falls off his horse and onto the ground as he starts to breathe heavily, looking up at Takeshi standing over him with his spear in hand.

“Who are you?” the captain asks with his penultimate breath and desperately flapping his wings, but his armor and mortal wound weighs heavily on him. Takeshi pulls out the spear and raises it above his head, while the solider begins to show terror within it’s gleaming eyes.

“Your worst nightmare.” Takeshi says with a cheeky grin, thrusting the spear down into the chest cavity of the fairy, and twisting it for good measure. The fairy lets out a gasp of pain, slowly closing his eyes as his body goes limp and turns pale.

Takeshi jumps on the captain’s horse and shouts, “Are you ready Po?” Takeshi quickly turns his head around and realizes that Po is already on the horse with him.

“You know there’s two horses right?” Takeshi says to Po as he trails off to look down at the other captain lying on the ground with multiple javelins jutting out of his body.

“That’s fucked up, Po.” Takeshi says in response.

“If you think that’s fucked up, watch this.” Po quickly jumps off Takeshi’s horse and touches the dying captain with multiple spears sticking out of his chest. The captain stabilizes and starts to gasp for air desperately. Po casually gets back on the unmanned horse, and forms another javelin.

“You two…are…monsters.” the captain says while gasping for air. Without hesitation, Po thrusts another javelin into the captain’s neck; killing him for good as blood spurts out his neck like a fountain.

Takeshi stares at the lifeless corpse of the fairy captain and slowly looks up at Po.

“Damn, Po. Remind me never to piss you off.” Takeshi says nothing more as he slowly turns back around. After a moment of looking at the slaughter happening on the beach front, with the out cries of many unfortunate slaves and soldiers meeting their timely demise, Takeshi looks back at Po and says with a crack of the reins: “Let’s ride like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Right.”

They kick their horses in the sides, forcing the horses to whinny and kick their front hooves up in the air, before taking off at full speed into the dense forest beyond the beach front.

They rode on. They rode on until they managed to pass the first checkpoint, but now they are in the forest. The two horses were galloping at a stampeding pace, but even at that speed, the fairy guards had no problem catching up to them with a hardy flap of their fairy wings whispering softly with the wind, even at full speed. The constant weaving through trees adds no disadvantage to Takeshi’s trained senses, but Po is caught off guard by the rapid progress of the fairies as one of them is within reaching distance of him. Po gets tagged in the arm by the spear head of a guard shouting in Common,” Surrender, you human scum.”

“Ack, Takeshi!” Po shouts in anguish as a bit of blood spurts out from his upper arm.

“Po!” Takeshi rapidly maneuvers to slow down the horse and crouch on top of it. A fairy readies and throws a spear steadfast at Takeshi, whom dodges it with ease as he watches it sail off into a flanking fairies chest.

“Ha, amateurs.” Takeshi mutters, watching the speared guards limp body plummets to the ground and disappears into the brush below. The trees seem to get thicker and taller in size with about ten guards flying past them at a break neck pace. In the distance, a dirt road appears that seems to lead out of the forest, but one of the guards catches up to Takeshi as he gazes at the distant road; through his peripheral, he notices the oncoming fairy and with a quick maneuver, he dodges the spear, but it pierces into the neck of his horse. The horse whinnies in a bloody cacophonous voice and tumbles limply to the ground with a loud thud. Takeshi reacts fast, and jumps onto the fairy’s back. As Takeshi rides on the shoulders of the fairy guard, barely keeping afloat from the extra weight, he grabs his neck with one hand and the spear in the other.

“Ack!” the guard says in an asphyxiating voice.

“Too bad!” Takeshi says nonchalantly as he squeezes the guards tiny, fairy neck. With a swift pull, Takeshi forces the fairy to fall back to the rest of the fairy guards positions. One of the fairies swiftly thrusts their spear at Takeshi.

“Whoa.” Takeshi says in a surprised manner as he is barely able to dodge the spear. But Po protects him with a set of tentacle like veins catching and breaking it in mid air. The vines swing around rapidly as Po takes out the rear guard, swatting the fairies like flies as they slam against thick trees and the hardened ground. Takeshi, after hesitating to admire Po’s handy work, then takes the asphyxiated guards spear and lances it into the fairy next to him. The spear plows through the fairy’s chest cavity. Takeshi pulls out the spear and watches as the fairy tumbles into the brush below clenching his chest in anguish.

As fast as they could Takeshi bends the fairy onto the dirt road, along with Po following close behind on his horse; the fairy guards trail close behind them, yelling obscenities at them as they prepare another flank attack.

“Takeshi, help!” Po yells desperately as he waves his hand in the air to cast a spell. Takeshi breaks the neck of the fairy he’s riding and attempts to balance on his feet as the guard begins to wobble in mid-air. At the last second, before the fairy slams into the hardened dirt road, Takeshi jumps over to Po’s horse. He lands on the back of the horse as it kicks its back side up, and the full force impacts Takeshi’s groin. A sound of displeasure hurdles out of Takeshi’s voice.

“Mmm…give me a minute, Po.” He says with an asthmatic tone while rubbing his groin. But the bumpy ride and pissed off fairies behind them provide no solace.

“We don’t have that kind of time.” Po’s attention refocuses on his hand as a small black cloud appears in the palm.

“What the Pugh is that?” Takeshi asks Po with astonishment as he stares at a pitch black orb spawn in Po’s hand out of the dark cloud as it dissipates. Po without hesitation chunks it at an oncoming fairy guard. The guard screams in agony as he is reduced to ash and blows away in the wind of the fairies flying by. Takeshi watches in amazement, with his unbroken gaze watching the fairy disappear into obscurity.

“It’s a negative energy ball, it destroys plant life. Good thing we’re fighting fairies.” Po says as he prepares another one to throw at one of the remaining eight guards. A few of the guards reach the two, but Takeshi stabs them out of the air before they can hinder their progress. One by one, they dropped limply into the dirt road like bloody sacks of meat. Squishing and spurting blood out of various holes from the impact.

“Five left, Po. So tell me, are we close yet?” Takeshi asks as he readies the spear for the next attack.

“Close to what, what could possibly be out here?” Po says in an impatient manner.

“You don’t know?” Takeshi begins, stabbing another guard out of the air. “When we’re at the edge of the country, we’ll run into the fairies’ barrier wall. We need to find a way to break through the spell.”

“A barrier spell?” Po begins. “Maybe I can counter it.”

“Well, that might be a problem. It’s a wall of force spell.”

“Wall of force? That’s an advanced wizard spell. There’s no way we’ll get through.”

“Don’t doubt yourself Po. I mean, look how far we’ve come. I think the sky’s the limit at this point.”

Po takes a moment to think, and refocuses ahead to witness the trees thinning out and the road widen. “T, look, we made it past the forest.”

“Holy Pugh, we’ve made it.” Takeshi says astonished as Po pulls the horse’s reins back to stop their forward progess. The horse whinnies coming to an abrupt halt, and the two jump off the horse to make a mad dash towards a fifty foot high wall made of a dark red light refracting in the sunlight. They both stop within touching distance of the wall as the fairy guards get within lancing distance.

Takeshi dodges one of the guards, and quickly counters him with his own spear. Takeshi forces the guard to loosen his grip, and thrusts the spear into the guards heart. The guard could only grunt with pain as Takeshi twists the spear in his hands and pulls it out, showering the other’s with the blood of their comrade. The sound of blood splashing down to the ground fills the air, alongside with Po throwing another four energy balls at a blistering pace.

“Ack!”

“Ahhhh!”

The screams of the disintegrating guards catches Takeshi’s attention. The ashes quickly disseminate in the wind.

“Good, we’ve killed the first wave, but we still have to figure out how to break the spell.” Takeshi steps towards the wall of force and gently knocks on it with his fist. The wall of force brightens up around his fist and pushes him back onto his ass, sliding across the dirt road.

“Whoa…Po, ideas?” He finally asks after a long pause while lying on the ground, and then quickly jumping back on his feet to brush of the dirt.

Po pants with a laborious rhythm and states, “I don’t *pant* have a spell *pant* to counter with.”

“Son of a Pugh,” Takeshi yells in frustration as he notices a group of twenty guards far off in the distance trailblazing down the dirt road. “How are we gonna get across?”

“Maybe we should go through that open gate over there.” Po exclaims bluntly as he points with a limp hand at a gate, with doors wide open no more than twenty feet away. Takeshi takes a moment to stare at the gate.

“Well, obviously we’re gonna do that.” Takeshi finally exclaims as they both start another mad dash to the horse and jump onto the saddle. Po kicks the horse in the sides and a loud whinny belches out. The two speed past the gateway just before the fairies catch up. Upon reaching the other side, Takeshi turns around and spots a single, lurking artillery cannon.

“Po, javelin spear.” takeshi shouts and watches Po quickly morph one out of his torn robe sleeves. Takeshi primes the spear with a hand, gauging the distance of the cannon.

“Chew on this!” Takeshi shouts as he launches the spear to the artillery fairy. The fairy is unable to dodge and is hit in the chest. The spear explodes out of his back as the fairy gags on blood; the sudden impact makes the fairy fall onto the already lit cannon forcing it to point down at the rest of the infantry storming through the open gate. As the stampede of fairies made it out the gate, the cannon fires a ball of steel and shrapnel straight on them causing a massive explosion of fairy guts to go everywhere, leaving nothing but a large crater of where they once were. The stone masonry of the gateway crumbles from the shock wave, completely blocking off the passage. And nothing but dirt clouds and squashed fairies are seen as Takeshi and Po ride off into the horizon.

“Whoa.” Po says mildly amused. But after a minute of silent riding into the distance, Po begins again.

“Hey, T. What do we do now?”

“Just keep riding east. Keep riding until they stop following.” Takeshi exclaims in a calm manner as he stares back at the destroyed gateway drawing ever farther away.

“You mean West, right?” Po says after realizing Takeshi’s error.

“You know what I mean.” Takeshi frantically states as he kicks the horse in the sides to ride faster.

And so our two heroes ride; they ride until the horse died of exhaustion, then they ran; they ran until their sweat profusely poured out their body and their blood pumped with overused adrenaline, and then they ran some more. After an exhausting full day run, they reach the sea.

“Look, Po.” Takeshi says while catching his breath. “We’re at another beach. Oh, the irony.”

Takeshi leans over and puts his hand on his side while propping the other on his bent knee. “Woo, now I know how the horses felt.”

“Those poor bastards.” Po says while taking a deep breath. Their reprieve is interrupted by the distant sounds of very pissed off fairies charging towards them.

“Shit, I guess there’s no rest for the wicked.” Takeshi says in a sarcastically fatigued manner.

“Come on let’s go, get inside me.” Po says while slapping his ass and readying a spell.

“Whoa, hold up; when I said ‘let’s form a pact,’ I didn’t mean like that.” Takeshi says as he distances himself from Po while putting his palms up.

Po looks at Takeshi with a confused expression on his face. “What? No you doofus, I mean…ugh. Just watch.” Po begins to cast a spell as his body begins to morph and twist into a small wooden boat. Within and instant, the homely druid transforms into a shipping vessel big enough for a group. Takeshi snaps his fingers and says while laughing.

“Oh, ok; ill roll with it.” Takeshi promptly jumps into Po’s shape shifted boat body and the two sail into the distance. With the angry mob of fairies abruptly halted at the water’s edge, they thrust their weapons in the air and start to yell violent obscenities at the two. Takeshi stands up in the boat and thrusts his fist into the air while shouting “Yeah, I bet you weren’t expecting that shit now, were ya?!”

“Wait,” Takeshi begins again as he sits back down into Po’s boat-body. “Couldn’t they just fly to us?” within that moment, the fairies begin to dart towards them without stopping for a break any longer.

“Damn it. You just had to say something.” Po says with a snippy tone, forming a face at the bottom of the boat to look at Takeshi. His wood face begins to irritate Takeshi as he plant’s a dirty boot onto the splintered face.

“Hey, cut that out. I’m trying to swim here.”

“Swim?”

“Yeah, the boat has my limbs underneath to paddle.”

“just make a sail you dumb ass and hand me some javelins.”

“Oh,” Po take a moment to realize his error. “Why didn’t I do that before?”

Quickly, Po begins to recede his limbs from below into a mast and sail to catch the wind. Po then begins to make hand signs out of the side of the mast as Takeshi watches his contortionism at work in awe. With the hand signals finished, a large gust of wind picks up from the beach front, unfortunately propelling the fairies even closer towards them as they too pick up speed. The sudden gust makes Takeshi fall flat on his face, but he quickly recovers and begins chucking spears. One by one, the fairies fall, wounded by blunted sharpened javelin’s piercing their frail bodies, into the dark sea water blow. The screams of them drowning echo far and wide as they flail helplessly. The screaming ceases as Takeshi begins to tire from throwing javelins and falls to his knees to watch the last of them drown in the bluish hued water; quickly turning a dark red from the blood.

“Oh, shit.” Takeshi begins to speak with panted breaths as he throws an arm over the edge of the boat to feel the cold sea water. His hand creates a small wake of its own and watches as it assimilates with the wake of the boat. “I can’t believe we made it.”

“I’m just happy that those fairies can’t swim worth a damn.”

“Yeah, me too, Po...me too.”

Days pass as they drift about in an uncaring and unforgiving sea, the sun beats down upon the motionless bodies of Po, unpolymorphed and face up as he and Takeshi float about along with the salty current. Their mouths, dry and unable to speak. And with their minds wandering in hopes of greener pastures, the two begin to forget how fatigued they are from no food or drink for the past week floating around in a desolate sea as everything becomes brighter, as if a white light was taking them away. The gentle current moves the two further inland, but they still show no movement. Hours pass as the sun began to set further down the western sky, and the two fail to realize that they had finally reached the dry land of the west coast. An indeterminate amount of time passes as the two are greeted with a splash of dry sand to the face. Takeshi and Po wake up with a coughing fit.

“What the Pugh!” Takeshi exclaims in an angry voice, filled with sand, towards the thrower.

“Hurry, you don’t want to die in this forsaken place. Get up. I’ll take you to my village.” The mysterious man says as he sits upon a large camel. His muscular figure is draped with faded desert fatigues, covered by a worn, hooded cloak. His face is concealed by the shadows casted by the bright desert sunlight raining down an afternoon’s summer’s heat; yet the man seemed unfazed by this, as a very strong aura emanates around him, causing Takeshi and Po to take notice almost immediately.

Takeshi and Po get up without hesitation and examine the unknown land before them, shaking the sand out of every orifice. It is a sandy and deserted wasteland with no end in sight. Gentle winds brush upon the endless dunes as the sun begins to set.

“Well, are you coming?” the hooded man asks impatiently. Takeshi and Po quickly snap out of their daze and hop up on the back of the hooded man’s camel. Surprisingly, the camel is large enough to hold all three of them as the man whips the reins, making the camel sound off. Po turns around out of curiosity and begins to ask.

“Um, excuse me, kind sir, but what is that thing you’re carrying back?” Po points to a rather peculiar, rather colossal, worm being dragged behind them on a sled just big enough for a dragon; and yet the worm dwarfs not only the camel in size, but the end of it seems to be hanging off the back edge of the sled.

“Ah, that, my friends, is a sandworm. I’m the chieftain of a small village a little ways to the North, and I must feed my people.”

“Holy fuck!” Takeshi shouts in a dry voice. “Why didn’t I see that before?”

the two continue to ponder many questions on their trip to the unknown village. As they continue on camel back with the man for a few hours, they see a small village of dusty huts made of sandstone with a well in the center of town.

“Oh, thank fuck, a well.” Takeshi says out of desperation with a hoarse voice. Takeshi and Po quickly jump off of the camel, run over to the well, and start vigorously drinking from it. The villagers stare at them in silence as they splash water up to their faces and make loud, slurping noises.

“My people,” the hooded man began to speak loudly. “Do not fear these men. They have been lost at sea for quite some time now. And I've brought food for the whole village. Take what you must.” the man casually steps off the camel and unlatches it from the sled.

With the reassurance of their chief, the people went back to their everyday lives. Some of the villagers walked up to the sandworm with daggers in hand as they cut out large chunks of red meat and bring it back to their respective huts. The children play around as they celebrate the fresh worm kill. But take notice of the two strangers in town and begin prodding them for information about the strange world outside the village.

“Hey, Mister, why do you wear that mask?”

“Did you fight off monsters to get here?”

“What does the East Coast look like?”

“Run along you squirts, it’s getting dark outside, and our friends here are very tired.” the hooded man states warmly as the kids run along back to their huts to eat. Takeshi and Po look on with intrigue as the man begins to talk again. “Ah, warms my heart to see those little shits so lively all the time.”

“You two,” The chief walks towards Takeshi and Po. “Come with me, and I’ll help you on your journey.”

“We’re on a journey?” Takeshi states while taking a handful of water and slurping loudly.

“Indeed so.” The hooded man says plainly as he takes a few moments to gaze upon them drinking from the well.

“How can you tell?” Po finally says as he stands up to brush the sand off of his dirty brown cloak.

“I can see it in both of your eyes.” The mysterious man states in an unusually booming voice as he digs around in his satchel. The smell of fire and smoke begins to fill the air as the sun begins to disappear behind the sand dune horizon and the bright sand turns into a dark blue by the veil of night. The villagers gather up some wood next to the well and go into their huts for the night, and then the hooded man takes out a very peculiar lantern. Takeshi and Po watch in curiosity as the hooded man conjures a ball of light in his hand and throws it into the lantern. The small ball of light suddenly bursts out as the glow radiates most of the small, quaint village.

He takes a moment to look around the village as he holds up the lantern and looks back at the two to say “Don’t worry. Like you two, these people have been through the same scenario: Adrift, and what not.” He then lifts a hand up and gestures for the two to follow. “Come now, we have much to discuss.”

They walk over to a large adobe house made of dried mud, much like the other huts. As they approached the door, the two notice strange magical symbols drawn on the outside walls of the mud hut. The door, made of very ordinary wood, seemed to be harboring a secret on the other side. The hooded man begins to speak casually.

“I haven’t cleaned up in a few decades, so I’m sorry if it’s a little messy.” The man turns the door knob and a flash of green light bursts out from the doors perimeter.

“Decades?” Takeshi and Po inquire at the same time.

From the inside, the hut seems ten times bigger; decorated in strange and unusual tapestries depicting dragons and oddities alike. Some even depict a man performing magical feats. Sitting on the shelves: hundreds of strange vials and bottles hold a myriad of different fiery liquids, flashing gases, and twisting solids. A very large book case sits adjacent to the dining area; within it holds many unusual books in many different languages; and some even seems to pulsate with dim magic, or quiver as a fins jut out from the book spines.

“Whoa, you have all three volumes of ‘Eragon’s Advanced Spellcasting?’” Po says with amazement as he grabs the first volume off the shelf and eagerly flips through the pages with a joyful grin.

“Feel free to take the first volume, I’ve read through all those books long ago.” The hooded man says as he sits and leans back in a nearby chair while sighing loudly, proping his feet up on the table.

“Po, I’m surprised you know something beyond your little island.” Takeshi says with slight astonishment as he gazes upon an eager Po with eyes fixated on the old pages of the book.

“It’s one of the few things I remember before I was stranded on that island.” Po says with eyes still fixated on the book. Takeshi looks around at the rather large hut before the old man begins talking in a soft, but deep voice.

“Drink?”

“Yes, I’d love one.” Takeshi says as he gazes upon the hundreds of books scattered, and stacked around the hut. His eyes are quickly drawn back to a pitcher full of a twirling, reddish liquid as it appears before him in an instant.

“What is this?”

“It’s a very hard to make concoction I call: Balor Water. An old friend and I hunted down a balor lord and fermented it’s horns. The whole process is a bit uncanny, but you get the point: A nice strong drink for a strong warrior.

“I’ll have a drink.” Takeshi says as he pulls up a chair while grabbing a glass cup. The hooded man slowly pours the oddly red liquid into Takeshi’s glass, they both glance over at Po still fixated between the pages of a book.

“That’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him.” Takeshi exclaims in a calm manner while looking at Po’s goofy grin.

“So,” The hooded man starts speaking softly to Takeshi. “Judging by where I found you, it seems like you boys have been through a lot.”

“Yeah, you could say that. We’ve managed to escape Candi Land a while ago and have been on the run ever since.”

The hooded man’s eyes widen from under his hood. A faint glow of purple jolts out and catches Takeshi’s attention, making him nervous in the process, but quickly snapping back to a stern look.

“You two…escaped Sugarwillow? Let alone Lord Candi’s territory?” The hooded man leans back and begins to laugh.

“Oh wow,” he leans back forward, with the chair legs slamming down on the wooden floor boards, and points a crooked finger at Takeshi. “You know, that might be the first time I’ve ever heard of anyone escaping that dreaded place. You boys are something special alright. I knew my hunch was correct.”

“Well,” Takeshi begins. “Thanks for the compliment?” he says with slight embarrassment while raising a hand up in the air and rubbing the nape of his neck.

“Coming from me, it’s more than just a compliment.” The hooded man says with a coy expression eschewed from the light of the fire. Right next to the table sits a sturdy fireplace with a pot of soup boiling above the fire. On the mantle, a lion head rests with mouth agape as a trophy.

“I like your lion trophy.” Takeshi states calmly as he leans on the table and points.

“Oh, that’s actually a manticore head.” The hooded man states with his usual, laid back tone taking a sip of the balor water.

“Whoa, you killed a manticore?” Takeshi says with amazement as his golden eyes widen and his open palms grip the table.

“Yep, back in the country of Rukshana.”

“The Elven country? I bet that was a challenge.”

“Well, with enough training, anything is within reach of obtaining and conquering.” The hooded man says as he stares into the fireplace and clutches one hand. He pulls his gaze away from the fire and takes a hardy gulp of the balor water again. Takeshi stares at his yet untouched glass, takes a moment to ponder, and takes a drink. He flinches and gulps it down quickly.

“Whoa, that’s a fiery burn going down. It’s very…fruity.” Takeshi exclaims in a surprised fashion, while gently rubbing his throat.

“Yep, and it also showed me a little about you as well.” The man begins with a bout of small laughter as he pulls his hood forward to obscure more of his face.

“Enlighten me, stranger.” Takeshi says with raised intrigue. They both take another hardy gulp of the water and stare at one another before the hooded man begins to converse again.

“Well, no ordinary humanoid can drink this concoction. You see, you have to at least have some resistance to fire to drink it.”

Takeshi’s eyes widen, then says neurotically, “Wait, does that mean-“

“Yes,” the hooded man interrupts, “It means that you have magical blood within you. you’re possibly half demon since you have no protruding horns and ninjas are only prevalent in Elchean forests”

Takeshi looks deeply into his cup with a fixed, thousand yard stare. Po’s attention is caught by the conversation, and pulls a leaf out of his pocket to set it in between two pages, then closes the book to walk over to the table.

“How...did you find out so much about me just from a drink?” Takeshi looks back up from the glowing red water to gaze at the hooded man cracking an obscured smile as he brings a rough hand up to his face.

“I know more than you could imagine.” the man says with self assurance.

“Can I have a glass?” Po asks, pulling up a chair to sit down at the table adjacent from the two.

“Sure, let’s see if you have a little fire in ya.” The hooded man says with mild amusement, pouring another glass and sliding it across the table to a quizzical Po staring deeply into the glass. Po looks into the cup and twirls it around with a pinky finger before taking a sip. Po’s eyes widen and a hysterical expression grows on his face. He spits it out onto the floor, the sudden reaction turns the water into fire as he spits, causing Takeshi to flinch unexpectedly as he watches Po grasp his throat and gasp for air. As Po finishes a barrage of coughing and wheezing, the hooded man begins to speak again in a guffaw.

“Well, now. That was eventful.” He downs his cup of balor water and slams the cup on the wooden table.

Po coughs up a bit of blood onto the table, unable to scream in pain from clenching his throat.

“That no doubt gave you a nasty burn. I’ll remedy that.” the man clears his throat as he brushes Po’s hands away from his throat and begins to rub it gently. After only a few seconds the pain subsides and the man moves his hand away.

“Agh,” Po with a cacophonous and irritated voice begins. “My fucking throat.”

The old man then pushes his cup away and crosses his hands as he brings them up to his chin. He stares intently at the two, with Takeshi staring back at him in awe. A long pause draws out as nothing is said, and the fire crackles a bluish hue for a split second before turning back into a comforting, fiery orange glow. They listen to the crackling of the fire and the pot of stew begins to boil over, with the lid squirting bubbles out from the creases.

“Ah, shit.” The hooded man swiftly stands up out of his chair and casts a spell with one hand. As he spells out a few words in the air, he points stiffly at the pot, lifting it into the air and onto a cloth in the middle of the table. Takeshi and Po are amazed at the man’s ability to cast with little effort.

“Now then, who wants some sandworm stew?” he says as he sits back down. The two raise their hands slowly and continue to hold their dumbfounded expressions. The hooded man pours another drink, and then takes a hardy swig as he twirls a finger in the air. The two look around and notice three bowls come flying out of a cupboard. They sail daintily through the air as the stew flies out of the pot and gently falls into the bowls. Spoons soon follow, sailing through the air into the bowls gracefully.

“How are you able to cast magic without saying or using anything?” Po exclaims with astonishment. Just before Po could get another word out, the man lifts his hand towards Po.

“Practice makes perfect.” The man begins. “This is all covered in E’s volumes. Once you learn the first volume spells, I’ll give you the second and so on.”

“Wow, thanks. But, why are you doing this for a couple of strangers?” Po asks suspiciously, clutching his hands together.

“Trust me if I could tell you with serious repercussions, I would. But now is not the time.”

“So,” Takeshi begins after taking another drink. “Who is this ‘E’ friend of yours; is he the same person from the earlier conversation about the manticore? And who are you?”

“I can’t tell you at this time.”

“Well, why not?” Takeshi begins indignant as he stands up and hits his fist on the table, almost knocking over the lumpy stew. “You’re saying that we were on a journey, but won’t tell us any of the details, or why the Pugh you’re helping us. Do you expect me to just accept this? Tell us damn it!” A long drawn out silence begins with Takeshi looks on furiously at the hooded man. A pop billows out of the fire in a radiant light of red; the sparks from it flicker in the darkness of the corner of the room.

“Please sit down; we’ve got a lot to discuss.” The man asks calmly while pouring Takeshi and himself another drink. Takeshi looks on at Po, tugging at his sleeves and shaking his head no slowly. Takeshi slowly breaths in and out before sitting back down and close his eyes meditatively.

“Po, would you like a drink with your soup?”

“Uh sure, what do you have?”

“I’ll bring my selection out for ya.” With a snap of his fingers, he settles back down, causing Po to become confused about which direction the the bottle will come from. And, out from the ceiling, a wide selection of ales and liquors slowly hover down to Po’s eye level as he reads the labels. Dwarven rum, elven whiskey, and sphinx absinthe; the accustomed drinks to Takeshi, but to Po, all is strange. Takeshi quickly notices moon juice, blood brandy, and goblin piss; very unusual drinks to a seasoned drinker like him.

“Hey, old man.” Takeshi says finally after calming down.

“Old man?” he began. The man took off his hood and reveals his face to the two. He looks like a conditioned, middle-aged adventurer with his long black hair going down to the shoulders and deep, seemingly glowing purple eyes. his face is very brawny looking with a few small scars on his cheek. He smiles powerfully through his bushy black beard and begins to speak in his usual booming voice. “Do I look like an old man to you?”

“Um,” Takeshi begins to act nonchalantly. “Well, you got me there. You’re not old, but who are you?”

“Just call me Gren for now.” He smiles bluntly.

“Alright...Gren...”Takeshi bows his head a little and takes a deep breath before beginning again.

“I’m-I’m sorry for earlier. It’s been a rough year for…for both of us.” Takeshi takes another big swig of the fiery water and gently sets it back down on the table. They sit in silence as they listen to the crackling of the fire, this time a crimson color again, and breathe in the smell of hot soup and smoky aromas. The two begin masticating as they taste the unusually spicy flavor of the sandworm.

“How do you know we’re on a journey?” Takeshi finally asks after taking a few spoonfuls of stew and pulling his mask back up. Gren says nothing for a solid minute, forcing Po and Takeshi to sit with eagerness.

Gren then takes a few bites of stew and downs another glass before taking a long inhale and a fiery exhale. “I seldom get visitors in this part of Anubis; mainly because its hundreds of miles away from the nearest big city or port. Also, you two remind me of myself and my friends during our younger years; and I just know these things after all of my years of experience. You two have to know something before you continue on this path.” Gren takes a moment to take a bite of the stew before beginning again. “It’s a very dangerous journey to the nearest settlement from where you’re standing now. And if you survive, you must continue on through Zod and to the capital city of Beelzebub.”

“The Zod capital? Why?” Takeshi exclaimed as he stands up rapidly with hands on the table again.

“What’s wrong, T?” Po finally says after a brief moment of silence. A crackle from the fireplace sounds off as the mood begins to calm down swiftly. Takeshi sits back down after a long pause of silence and takes another drink of balor water.

“Po, I wish you weren’t such a hermit.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault.” Po slams a balled up fist on the table while looking at Takeshi furiously. His eyes gleam from the fire light a bright gold as Takeshi begins.

“Zod is a country of demons.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It is, Po. Demons will kill you on the spot if they felt like it, because we’re outsiders. Yes, people do come in for trade, but they’re usually tough son’s of bitches themselves to command the respect of demons.”

“Oh.” Po says with little enthusiasm and begins to imagine the possibilities before snapping back into reality to ask a question. “So, what are we going to Zod for?”

“You’ll know why, when it happens. Until then, I cannot say anymore. Not until the next time we meet.” Gren says as he slowly pours himself another glass of baloe water, downing it, and pouring another.

“You, ninja, are looking for your father, yes?” The old man looks at Takeshi with a very serious expression. Takeshi stutters as he urgently tries to find the words.

“Uh-m-yes…How did you know? Can you tell me about him?” He says compulsively.

“All I can tell you is that your father is a very well-known man to demons.” Gren says as he bows his head and crosses his arms, taking a moment, and then turns his head to Po.

“You, you’re trying to find out why you were cast away on that island. And why you are called the harbinger of death. Why a pack of wolves raised you. And why only one of them could talk.” Takeshi turns to Po with a wide eyed, confused look jutting out of his mask.

“Po...you never told me that it was a talking wolf.”

“Well, it sounds outlandish, doesn’t it?”

“On the contrary,” Gren begins with a grin through his black beard and a gleam in his purple eyes. “Am I correct with both of you?”

“Y…Yes…You’re good.” Po playfully states as he shakes a finger at Gren. Gren nods his head slowly and closes his eyes.

“Good, because the answers you both seek is in Beelzebub; on the far-west coast of Zod.” After a while he opens his eyes and begins talking again. “To be fair, I can read you two like an open book; well, anyone really.”

“What?”

“Don’t be skeptical. You should probably expect this from a guy that’s my age, at least.” Gren shakes his hand in reverence. The two look at him with even more perplexed looks.

“Just how old are you?” Takeshi asks.

“That’s beside the point of this meeting. Now please, eat. You two need to gain your strength.”

Takeshi and Po look upon one another with confused yet understanding expressions before digging into their helping of hardy beef stew.

“Uh, chief; Can I have something I can drink without burning my entire being?” Po finally says as Takeshi snickers at his comment. The hooded man also laughs with a loud, jolly change of mood.

“Sure.”

The three of them finished their meals, then the hooded man showed Takeshi and Po to an empty room where they could sleep. As they both lie down on a hay pile inside the room, they stared at the ceiling saying nothing to one another. Not long after, they drifted to sleep; or at least Po did, while Takeshi stares at the ceiling wondering, pondering. He moves his gaze over to the window as the moonlight bathed him. The soft blue glow emanating from the window lights up the barren room.

“Hey, Po. You awake?” he calls out in a hushed voice.

*Snore*

Takeshi snickers, closing his eyes briefly and looking back up to the open window. From a distance, he notices the silhouettes of what appeared to be a set of two dragons as they danced in the pale moon light.

“What the-” Takeshi says in a muttered breathe while pushing up off the floor. He stands up gazing just outside the window, and begins climbing out to the other side to investigate further. He begins to go into a stealth position as he moves closer to the dragons landing next to another silhouette of a person standing close by them. The hushed thud of the dragon’s slamming against the cold, is barely heard from Takeshi’s distance as he gets close enough to make out the figures and hear their voices. The figures seem to be two very dangerous looking green dragons and Gren standing out with them. Hiding behind the camel stables, Takeshi peeks around the corner and begins to watch and listen. A few moments pass, and then one of the green dragons begin to polymorph into a human form with little effort. A scrawny man wearing a glowing robe with the depths of the cosmos seemingly stitched into the robe itself.

“Hey, man, how’s it going?” the distinct voice of Gren echoes out to the other.

“Pretty good, pretty good. So, did you get my message.” the scrawny man with tattered glowing robes begins with a rather unusual handshake exchanged between the two.

“Yeah, I saw it in the fireplace. And what timing too.”

“I know, I wasn’t expecting the rifts to begin forming this sporadically, or this exponentially. It seems like every month the number doubles across the planes.”

“I haven’t found our other comrades either. Only Wanda remains as I see it.”

“Do you really think that those two hard-heads are dead?”

“Honestly, after all these years, I wouldn’t be too surprised, but-”

“Wait...someone’s listening.”

“Yeah, I know. What should we do with him? That curiosity will get him killed one day.”

Takeshi ponders what they’re up to as he hides behind the stable wall, but suddenly realizes that he is in the clutches of the scrawny wizard as he hangs suspended upside down.

“Hey,hey, hey wait!” Takeshi shouts desperately as he attempts to move but is locked upside down above the ground.

“Is this one of them?”

“Maybe.”

“Ah, I see. You must be Takeshi, right?”

“Uh, yes. Now put me down, Pugh damn it.” Takeshi states nervously, with blood beginning to rush to his head.

“I wouldn’t go slinging that name so haphazardly. Pugh-Pugh is a little sensitive about his name; the son of a bitch is pretty sensitive about everything really, including that card game I clearly won.”

“Huh?” Takeshi says confused.

“I’m sorry I have to do this to you, but you can’t remember this conversation.” The scrawny man hold up his hands as the begin to shine a bright, white light.

“Hey, wait, can’t I just answer one question before you kill me?”

“Kill you? Ha, what a joke. This guy can’t even tell a passive spell from an attack.” Takeshi is pulled right up to the man’s face. His long gray hair and beard, his purple eyes. To Takeshi, the man looked strangely familiar. The man looks sternly at Takeshi, examining him. “Hm, listen kid, you’ve got a lot to learn. Including Po. So, I guess, good luck.” a burst of white light flashes on Takeshi’s face. “Ah yes, the question.” the man pulls back the light and awaits Takeshi’s question. He pauses as the blood begins to pulsate in his head.

“Who are you?”

The scrawny man looks at him with a bored expression as he provides an answer. “I’m whatever you want me to be. Now, just think about hot dogs.” A bright white begins to pulsate from his hand.

“What the Pugh is a ‘hot dog?’” Takeshi asks, but fails to resist the urge to not fall asleep immediately. As he yawns, he closes his eyes and slowly drifts away.

The next morning, Takeshi and Po packed up their satchels and prepared for the journey ahead. The hooded man walks up to them with a set of new blue ninja garbs and brown druid robes.

“Here, I’ve figured you two needed new clothes to replace those ratty ones you have on now.”

“Thanks, chief.” Takeshi says. “But how-”

“I can make materials out of anything, so it was pretty easy.” Gren says with a smile.

Takeshi goes back into the room they slept in to change. Po does the same. The two pack a few satchels of survival utensils and gear to prepare for the journey ahead. Once they finished, they sling the satchels over a couple of camels the villagers were kind enough to give them. They quickly leaped onto the camels and whipped the reins as they began to spit and shuffle forward. As the two headed off just beyond the first dune’s peak, Gren called out to them.

“Wait!” he shouted. The two turned around to witness the whole village seeing them off. “What are your names?”

“My name is Takeshi Himura.”

“I’m Po.”

“Ah, yes. I see.”

“Oh, shit. Almost forgot.” The old man then quickly snaps his fingers in the air and then reaches into his robe. He slowly pulls out a perfectly made katana with a red hilt and a collapsible scythe; both brand new and freshly forged.

“Here, a parting gift from yours truly.” The old man hand the katana to Takeshi and the Scythe to Po. With the same and worn out expression of astonishment exposed on their face, they look at each other and look back at the old man. “When they break, come find me.”

“Wow, thank you. But are you ever going to explain who you are?” Takeshi asks as he inspects the gifted katana and sheath.

“That will be explained another time.”

“You’re really adamant about us meeting again aren't you? We’ll be thousands of miles away, and yet you’re certain we’ll meet again.”

“It’s just how I work. For now I leave you with this...”

Gren says nothing more, and instead only gives a thumbs up.

“Uh, what does that mean?” Takeshi says perplexed with a raised brow. Po scratches his head as he begins to think deeply.

“It means…‘good luck.’”

Takeshi takes a moment to reflect, and then gives a thumbs up to Gren, and Po soon follows with the same gesture. The two turn back around and face the sandy road ahead as they pull the reins on the camels to start their long journey. They both block the sun with their hands and look up at the burning sky. The feel of arid wind brushes by them, and a bead of sweat drips down their faces.

“Damn, with no clouds in sight, it looks like were in a dire situation.” Takeshi finally says, he brushes the sweat off his brow and begins to shuffle through one of the satchels for a solution.

“No we’re not.” Po says after a moment of hesitation.

“Oh,” Takeshi starts with a confused, but assured expression in his eyes. “How’s that?”

“Because, I can do this.” Po lifts both his hands up in the air, reaching for the sky. A thunderous crack is heard as Takeshi nervously looks around to see what’s happening. All at once, a small gray cloud appears out of thin air over them and starts to trickle down a cooling rain. The camels get spooked a little with the roar of thunder, but are then relaxed by the cool feel of the rainwater.

Takeshi looks over at Po and asks, “You could do this the whole time?”

Without moving, Po lets out a sly “Yep;” And makes a sheepish face towards Takeshi.

“You need to work on your memorization skills, Po.” After all they’ve been through already, Takeshi couldn’t help but laugh. “Well,” Takeshi started to speak after a good and hardy guffaw. “It’ll be a few months before we get to Zod; what do you want to do on the way? Do you want to see what armor the gnomes and dwarves can make for us while we pass through the country of Dales?”

“Sounds good to me.” Po says with excitement as they travel deeper into the desert wasteland with a single dark cloud pouring rain on them.

“I hope we at least make it to Zod in one piece.” Po finally says after a bit of silence. The crunching of the soft, wet sand emanates along with the sound of rain pouring down.

Takeshi looks around the deserts unremitting sea of giant dunes for a minute of reflection and finally says, “I have a feeling that we will, Po. I can feel it.”