Authors note:

This is a personal and interpersonal challenge, as it’s an entry for the National Novel Writing Month - as a result the author(Yay that’s me!) is on a tight schedule, and will do very little proofreading, editing and rewriting - You’ll have to excuse this, and complain your heart out in the comments instead, which I will read. Also, feel free to add ideas in the comments. Inspiration will be sorely needed towards the middle.

Story:

--------------------------------------------------

“What do you mean I can’t have the flower?” Aitken asked.

The steel-clad man, carrying the typical white tabard from the church of light, scoffed. “As I said, you can’t have it.”

“Let me get this straight. My entire village is infected by a plague... and you have the flower that can cure it, right in there… But I can’t have it?”

“That’s correct. Orders from higher-ups.”

“What if I had this little pouch for you?” Aitken shook a small coin purse.

“I’m a church guard… You think I can be bribed so easily?”

“Then what do you want? I need the cure!”

“You can’t have it. End of discussion.”

With that, Aitken had to leave the church empty handed. He threw a last glance at the building. The building was square, and had an open garden in the center, surrounded by walls on all four sides.

I could sneak around and get there from the back. Aitken thought as he put his hand on an old sword placed by his right side.

Aitken followed the road for a bit, until he was out of sight for the church guard, after which he snuck around and attempted to enter the back entrance of the church.

The wooden door in the back of the church creaked as Aitken opened it. He was met by a stone hall.

The stone hall had plenty of wooden doors to enter, but only pointing towards the middle.

Aitken froze for a second, before walking to the nearest door, grabbing it and slowly pushing it open. He was met by a small room with a lot of empty vials standing around on a small wooden desk, along with a small note.

Aitken squinted and slowly moved closer to the note.

Test this on the water supply in Dragonsbreath. The guilty will die in a week, the innocent will survive for two. ~Ramiel

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside.

Gotta hide.

Aitken’s eyes darted around. The room was completely empty except for the table with the vials and note.

The footsteps got louder. “That door is open.” a male voice said.

Aitken started shivering and put his hand on his sword.

The door slowly opened, and several church-guards stared Aitken down.

“uh… Hi.”

One of the guards pulled his sword, and pointed it straight at Aitken. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

Aitken’s heart beat faster, and sweat dripped from his forehead. “I’m… The new cleaning boy?”

“Funny, they are all informed not to enter any rooms… No, I believe you are an intruder. Do you know what we do to people trying to steal from the church?”

“You… let them go?”

“Of course not. We kill them. I will give you a moment to pray, before your death.”

“Wait! Can I at least have a last request? I need a cure for the plague.” Aitken said.

“No…” The guard took a deep breath, and waited in silence for a brief moment. “Your time is up, I hope you prepared yourself for the forgiveness of the holiest one.”

All the remaining four guards pulled their swords.

with shaky hands, Aitken unsheathed his sword as well.

The guards lined up, and each of them put their left hand behind the back. The sword-tips hovered around eye height, extending from the hilt placed a hands-length from their stomach.

Aitken grabbed his shaking hand with his other hand, putting both his hands on his one-handed sword.

The guards slowly crept closer, still maintaining their stances.

The guards reached the range of attack, and a rattling of teeth could be heard.

Aitken grit his teeth, as his vision tunneled. “I need that flower!”

He leapt at the nearest guard, holding his sword over his head.

Splosh.

Aitken looked down, to see a hilt extending from the middle of his chest. His shirt turned red, and the unmistakable smell of blood spread in the entire room.

No. Not yet. I need to save my family… I need to save sis Akane!

The fire in the pit of Aitkens stomach flared up. “Not yet!”

Aitken forced his sword down from above and as the sword danced through the air, it sounded like the very fabric of reality was split in its path.

The guard flinched and threw a boot to Aitken’s stomach, while simultaneously pushing himself backwards.

SHIING!

the rusty sword slid along the guard's face, creating a deep-red rift in its wake.

With a juicy-crunchy sound, the guardsman’s left eye was shredded open.

“ARGH! Damn cultists! Damn you all! May you return to the fiery pits of damnation from whence you came!” the guardsman howled, as Aitken fell to the ground.

The guardsman held his hand to his eye as deep red blood dripped to the stone floor.

Aitken coughed, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Black spots appeared before Aitkens eyes, as the sinking feeling of blood leaving his head struck. a single image of his little sister Akane filled his mind.

With his dying breath, Aitken howled. “I will tear your entire church apart! Even if I have to do it from the afterlife itself!”

The darkness caught up to him, and overwhelmed him. He thought he heard a faint whisper, before suddenly a complete silence fell over him. Aitken was left in the vast emptiness of nothing for what seemed an eternity.

When Aitken could finally see, he was inside a small sphere or something - much like an egg. One side of the egg had a faint red glow, and the entire area reeked of sulphur.

Aitken pushed all the sides, until he found that the glowing areas had the consistency of wet clay - it was also warm to touch.

Finally, he noticed his hands. Scaly and soft red-orange, his hands had three fingers on one side and an opposable thumb on the other. All his fingers had long black nails with a gentle curve protruding from the fingertips.

What the heck. He thought.

Aitken started digging and pushing the soft wall, slowly working his way out. For each fistful of soft warm wall, the underlying layer was glowing even brighter and lighter in colour.

Finally he fell through the wall, into a stream of white-glowing liquid. Aitken felt as if he was swimming through warm honey before he finally reached the end. With a greedy breath for air, Aitken stared in front of him.

Right in front of him was a wrinkly, red-orange, scaly and small creature. Leathery, bat-like wings extruded from the back of the Imp, and the imp had the very same clawed hands Aitken had noticed from himself. The imp had horns extruding from the upper corners of his forehead, curving gently upwards. A long, slim tail with a sharp barbed tip whipped around behind him.

The wrinkly imp wore tiny imp skulls in a necklace around its throat, and held a staff with a larger skull with long horns on the top of a black staff.

“Me Ate’thu’khol’laad’da, the mightiest sorcerer-god-emperor-grandfather in the entire pit of damnation!” the imp said.

“You did what now?”

“... No… Me is Ate’thu’khol’laad’da!”

Oh great, an idiot.

“Okay, and you are my grandfather?” Aitken said.

The small imp frowned. “What? How did you know?”

“You said that.”

Thu’khol’laad shook his head. “No me didn’t.”

“...Moving on, who am I, and where is this?”

“Me don’t know who ‘I’ is, but you is imp Zagmar. You is only hope of Imp-kind” Thu’khol’laad waved his staff behind him.

Aitken finally noticed the vast plains of black sand. The plains had large hills, mountainsides and cliffs as well as volcanoes spewing lava everywhere - just like the one right behind him.

Aitken thought the most peculiar thing about the place was the blood red sky and the one large purple eye-like sun in zenith.

“Can you sense that?” Thu’khol’laad asked.

a tingling sensation overcame Aitken. “You mean… that feeling?”

“That’s a summoning happening.” He pointed at the eye in the center of the blood-red sky.

A ray of light shone from the eye, and landed on a large area around a fleeing imp. The ground made cracks, and the entire piece of land was suspended from gravity, and lifted towards the sky - the imp floating around splashing helplessly.

“We will never see this one imp again. The great eye is our greatest adversary.” Thu’Khol’laad explained.

“What does this have to do with me?”

“You are the chosen one! Only you can defeat the demon king and attain one of his pendants - the pendants that can cancel the very summoning itself!”

Thu’Khol’laad waved his wand at a large volcano. “on top of the volcano, you will find your destiny!”

“Why me?” Aitken peeked over at the imp, who was now facing a new imp hatchling that had just crawled out of the volcano.

“Me Ate’thu’khol’laad’da, the mightiest sorcerer-god-emperor-grandfather in the entire pit of damnation! You are the chosen one!”

“Really?” the imp-hatchling said with sparkly eyes.

… So in other words, I could become king of the demons with this pendant? that might not be such a bad idea. Aitken thought, ignoring the old imp and the hatchling. I wonder why the old imp wants anybody to go there in the first place.

Aitken decided to undertake the journey to the volcano to meet the demon king.

Rumble rumble rumble.

Aitken looked around, and saw a small plant.

“That’s a potato, you can go ahead and dig some up to eat.” Thu’khol’laad said

“Oh, you didn’t run off yet?”

Thu’khol’laad shook his head.

When the potato plant was dug up, a single, large potato was underneath it. The potato was pitch black, like the volcanic-ash from which it came.

Aitken opened wide, and Thu’khol’laad intently stared at him, with a small smirk, holding his hands clenched near his face.

“OWW! It’s a freaking rock!”

Thu’khol’laad fell to the ground in laughter cramps “hahahah!”

“Ahaha! you bit it… without ahaha! without cooking it first!”

Aitken’s lips tightened, while he glared at Thu’khol’laad. “Then what am I supposed to do with it?”

Thu’khol’laad slowly composed himself. “Here, me’ll show you.”

He grabbed the potato and walked over to the fresh stream of lava seeping down the volcano.

Thu’khol’laad put the potato into the fiery lava.

Pop!

A popcorn-like structure the size of an imp came out from the lava.

“Soft in the middle, hard on the outside… Great to eat.” he promptly threw the popcorn in his mouth.

“My potato!”

“Consider it payment for me teaching you.”

Aitken found his own potato and ate, then he started walking towards the volcano

“Are you gonna follow me all the way?” Aitken said

“Most certainly.” Thu’khol’laad answered.

“Couldn’t you have followed that other hatchling?”

“But you are special.”

this is going to be a long walk.

--------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.

My worries for this chapter:

Pace of story, too much/little description, Not even remotely catchy start.