4 months ago

Ander looked around. He was in a room of friends, many of them he had led in battle. The old fortress, the Lion's Watch, was their sanctuary. But it couldn't remain that way for long.

The king had searched for them as long as he could, and they were eventually found due to one of Ander's own. Honorius, Ander's spearmen's leader, sold them out for a pardon. He chose his life over a hundred others.

Now the king had Lion's Watch under siege. Ander's army was running low on food, many of his soldiers were getting old, and his second in command, Caedric, wasn't able to heal his arm after their scuffle with the pyromancers.

The king was furious at Ander for obvious reasons. After all, he couldn't replace his arm.

Half of Ander's men couldn't fight, and Ander wouldn't risk them even if they could. All he could do for them now was try to divert the king's attention.

"Than," Ander said to his shield leader. "Can you get the gate open for me?"

"You sure?" Than asked. Ander nodded.

The massive stone gate was slowly lifted. Ander ducked under, and the gate was dropped behind him. The king has thousands in tow, and more were coming. Ander walked by them slowly.

Out of their ranks, an arrow flew out at him. Ander batted it away, but when he looked up he saw a lot more coming for him.

Ander ran out of the way and tossed a random person in the direction of the arrows. The red and gold kingmen uniforms blurred past him.

Ander ran towards the kind, passing all of the resistance with ease. It was like all of them were moving in water.

A row of swordsmen blocked his path, but Ander just crouched and punched past them. He didn't want to kill the tyrant's pawns. Many of them were in his same sort of situation.

The king was within grasp. Ander just had to reach out and all of his troubles would be over.

Ander was launched away by a hurricane. He was thrown onto the riverside with a few rolls.

As he got up, he felt different. His eyes felt like they could tear through the army easily. He leapt toward the tyrannical king, making his way in a few strides.

The winds screamed behind him. A pillar of dirt threw Ander into the air before getting lacerated by the hellish winds under him.

Shard of the pillar shot of at the mages opposing him.

"It'll be easier without them around," Ander said to himself.

Ander sped after the king. His fist shot towards the king, but it hit another man's face. A group of dark circle runts had joined in.

"Stop stalling," Ander snarled. He tore at the newcomers, ripping them to shreds.

Arrows shot at him in all directions. Stones burst free from the ground and spun around him, counting all of the arrows. The stones then spread out, causing mass destruction in the kings ranks.

"Do you still want to fight me?" Ander coldly asked.

"Who is doing this?" The king quivered as he spoke.

"You didn't answer my question," Ander grabbed the man's throat and lifted him up, and soon after he did so, he felt a sharp pain in his chest.

Honorius had stabbed him, Ander dropped the pathetic man, and knocked Honorius down with his turning momentum.

Ander felt something hit the back of his head. "Don't worry Ander," The king's voice rasped from behind him. "I'll keep you around long enough for you to know what real pain is."

Ander's last sight was Lion's Watch being left as he fell down from his knees.

* * *

Today, what Ander felt from the castle he looked at was determination. Him, Elliot, and Ithikar would take Ithiles no matter what. They stood outside its gates waiting.

* * *

The group was split in three sections. There were two people in the back, one in the middle, and three in the front. Flyte, Jim, and Lanus were in front, Hilda was in the middle, and Thameus and Azalea were in the back.

Their intentions with this setup were to keep Hilda safe from all directions, while having a melee heavy back, and a long ranged back.

The group had already three more of those strange, decapitated guys, and they were rapidly approaching the center of the chasms.

All of the monsters had gone directly of Flyte so far.

Up ahead, Flyte noticed a small formation of knights, but none of them had visible limbs. Where legs or feet should have been, there were odd shadows that looked like handfuls of dust picked up by a gentle breeze.

The knights noticed them, and ran at an inhuman speed towards them.

Flyte made sure not to break formation, and Tim granted them all speed. Flyte readied his sword.

The knights hit their lines. Flyte was able to redirect two of the swords away from him, but the others hit him.

"Nelar," Flyte yelled. He could barely get the word out.

As the light burst around him, the desolate knights all crashed to the ground. Flyte took a knee and let glow through the rune on his sword.

"My," she whistled. "You got hurt. I'll fix that." Glow reverted back to her third plane form and shot into Flyte's chest, and the bleeding quickly stopped.

"What is that?" Hilda asked.

"That's Glow," Flyte answered. "She's a healing spirit."

"Wait, really!" Hilda exclaimed. "That's amazing!"

"I really am, aren't I?" Glow whistled pridefully from within Flyte's chest.

Hilda was dumbstruck. Flyte was ready for the dumbest series of events possible to happen.

"Thank you for letting me see her, Flyte," Hilda said.

"Yeah, no problem," he said. He really hoped it wouldn't be a problem.

Flyte heard clanking behind them. The knights were surrounded by a wreath of shadows and the started rising.

"I'll get these guys," Thameus said. "You get the guys up ahead." Flyte looked up the hill, and saw a hoard of insectoids. They each had four arms and six eyes.

Flyte activated the runes on his boots, and Star confirmed that she was ready.

Flyte ran in the air. Star's hardlight plates worked nearly perfectly, only lacking in efficiency. When he was directly over the insectoids he showered them with fire.

A few jumped up at him, but all he had to do was step out of their way, so they couldn't really mess with him at all.

When they were all dead Flyte walked back to the group, and saw that Thameus did exactly as he said he would. Around the abandoned armor were scorches from his armor.

"Thanks Star," Flyte whispered.

"My pleasure," Star hummed quietly.

"Guy's, we're very close to the center," Flyte said. "You might want to get ready now."

As they walked along, Flyte noticed that the stone around them was really beautiful in a different way from the forests. The dips and rises were grand, and it all seemed very regal. Sort of like Ander.

He was very haggard and rough, but his morals never seemed to falter. It was one of Flyte's favorite things about his good friend.

"Fight up that hill is the last rise before we get to the center," Flyte said. He had seen it all from atop his hardlight plates.

A strange beast-man crested the hill before the group of six. It was eight feet tall, but it's left arm reached down to its ankle. It's other arm wasn't there, having been replaced by a large tentacle. On its stomach was a large, gaping mouth, but the hair all over the beast's body nearly hid the mouth.

The best ran at them, and Flyte heard the sound of a bundle of hay being dropped on stone. He looked back and saw that Azalea had rammed her hand into the stone walls around them.

The stone around her hand glowed green. Flyte felt something wet slam into him. He looked down at his clothes and saw dark purple blood all over them. His eyes opened wide and he looked to where the monster was.

Its dead eye stared at him, right in front of his face. It had been impaled from behind by a mass of green vines. Flyte's fingers wouldn't be thin enough to fit in the gap between the vines and his own chest.

"What in the name of Ralna," Flyte muttered. He should have been afraid, but he wasn't. He felt the adrenaline run through his body, but it was more out of excitement than fear.

"Thank you Azalea," Flyte said. She nodded and the group continued.

The small group was up the hill in just a few moments. Below them, and army of monsters awaited them. Flyte smiled.

"Send your strongest attacks available at them." As he looked down at the sea of amalgamations, he felt something odd in himself. It was almost like he was experiencing Deja Vu, but it wasn't quite there.

Flyte blinked, but when his eyes opened back up again, he was in a larger ravine and was completely surrounded by monsters similar to those he had just seen.

He looked down to his armor. It was a sheen black, very different from the armor he had donned before starting the trial.

A man turned to him. "Lord Ithilles, what should my men do?"

"Survive. I can whittle the scourge down myself." The voice came from Flyte's mouth, but they were not his words.

The body Flyte possessed walked to the edge of the hill. Aggressively he said "Nelar." Hundreds of bright spears of light shot from his around him and pierced through rows of the mindless monsters. Several hundred died with each projectile.

Flyte looked out and saw that he was back in the Dark Guild's cavern. He could see Lanus readying a spell.

Flyte aggressively aid "Nelar." He was launched back as the luminous projectile shot from his hand. Ranks of the small army were torn to shreds as the spear of light touched them.

Lanus released his attack and a massive beam of lightning launched into their enemies and slowly shrunk down until it disappeared.

Thameus and Jim used their powers to take the rest of this 'Scourge' down.

As the last of their opponents were either burned or crushed, Flyte and the others walked down to see the heart.

While the group was walking, Flyte felt a little odd in the head, something had changed. In order to clear his head, he said "Nelar" truthfully. In that moment he noticed something. When the group walked in, they didn't see because of the darkness of the caverns, but they had crossed into a dome constructed out of shadows.

"Nelar," Flyte said truthfully, wanting their minds to be unclouded as well.

They each looked around with more clarity. "Thanks," Thameus said.

They each looked at he heart. It seemed diseased, and many parts of it were coal black. Holding it above the ground was a mass of dark chains going through its veins, or, where there weren't any veins, puncturing it. The heart looked very fragile, but Flyte had an impression that that was very far from the truth.

"Forslo," Thameus said angrily.

"Wait, no!" Flyte said, but it was too late. As Thameus' fireball hit the heart, a wave of darkness passed over the small group, knocking each of them out except for Flyte.

Flyte didn't care, he wanted the heart gone. He heard the word "Rishlow" echoed out deeply, and under the heart, the ground began to freeze.

"Nelar," Flyte said triumphantly. Rather than a burst of light, a beam of light launched from his hand, hitting the heart. The heart started melting. 'Good.'

The ice quickly spread, gaining ground extremely fast. The air around Flyte was frigid, almost like he was in a lake in the tundra northwest of here.

Soon the heart was completely gone, melted into the ice around it. Flyte was shivering, but when he looked down, he realized that he ice had only made it to the stone right in front of his feet.

"Well that wasn't very fair," Telin said right beside him.

"When did you get here?" Flyte asked.

Telin ignored his question "Your near monocast level of light magic is a little bit too much of an edge when all of your enemies are weak to the light, but your mission will also heavily involve creatures weak to the light, so I guess you can still go." He paused. "It is a little sad that I can only rank up six people today, but I guess I was gambling with you anyway."

"What do you mean?" Flyte questioned.

"Well, I knew you were good with light, but I hoped you wouldn't be too good with it."

"Can't everyone do what I can do?"

"No Flyte, not everyone can do what you can. Facets of light like the triumph facet are extremely powerful, albeit only useful when fighting the scourge or shades. If everyone could use that, Nareal would still be around."

"Nareal?"

"Never mind that Flyte, let's go up."

More guilders arrived and took up Flyte's friends, which he knew they were, because what else could such a cohesive unit be.

"Flyte," Telin said. "There is so much I wish I could tell you, bu-"

"Then tell me, Telin!"

"I can't," Telin said. "Flyte, you simply cannot bear it yet."

"Ah, I see." Flyte snarled wolfishly. "You don't believe in me!"

"I know you can't, Flyte. To learn what I could teach you this early on would ruin you, then the great beacon of the spirits would be lost."

"Great beacon?"

"I've been in the third plane recently, I know what they say about you. They call you a great beacon of light"

"Well, maybe they're wrong."

"Oh, so you think every single spirit is wrong about you?" Flyte stabbed at Telin, who caught Flyte's arm and twisted him around, locking him. He placed his hand on the top of Flyte's head.

"Nelar," Telin said truthfully. Flyte's head cleared. The heart had put him in trance and he never even realized it. "Do you understand what I mean about you not being ready yet?" He pushed Flyte forward onto the ground.

"Yes"

"Good," Telin said. "Let's go up. You have to prepare for your mission to the castle Ithiles."