Why was everything dark? Was he blind? Was he alive?

He had to be alive. He could see if he was a spirit in the spirit world. There had to be a reason everything was dark. He just needed more information.

He raised his hand. He could feel the movement. He said his name, the name of his hand, and the name of a glow. The sudden light made him blink. He waited for his eyes to adjust before making any sudden moves.

He lay in an enclosed space. The only light was the glow from his hand. He didn't see a door to push open. He didn't see any gaps to allow air to get to him.

He needed air first. He doubted that he could hold out without air now that he was awake.

He said the name for stone that made up his crypt. It didn't make up all of the walls from the way the surface vibrated. He had to make do with what he could shift.

He spoke the distance and direction he wanted the stone under his command to go. He asked the air around him to protect him from a collapse when the stone not under his command decided to obey gravity. He spoke his activation word.

The space above him split apart. His command pushed the unaffected stone along with what he had named. He smiled. That had worked better than he thought. Water fell through the opening he had created and started filling his tomb.

He commanded the air to keep the water from drowning him as it pounded against his body. He struggled with the activation word as the liquid pinned him against the floor of his grave.

The air formed a shield, pushing the water away from his face. He had a bubble around his head he could use to ask things to help him out. Maybe he could use the water filling the burial spot.

He didn't have a better plan. He just needed to figure out how much water he could use before his air ran out and he died from drowning.

He stated a cube just big enough to hold his body to come into being. He put in a description to show that it should carry him to the surface as fast as safely possible. He commanded his own body to adjust to conditions as he headed for the surface. Then he said the activation word.

The water took on the consistency of pudding. It pulled him upward into the cleft he had created. He hit an obstruction as the water kept pulling him but the opening was too small to let him through.

He told himself to be smaller for the amount of time it would take to get to the surface. He said the activation word.

He slipped into the crack. His cube of water had changed to accommodate its new obstacle, but it still pulled him upwards. He floated in his bubble of air in the middle of the insistent water.

He broke the surface and took in fresh air. His bubble of air and cube of water returned to their original states since the condition for their paragraphs had been met. He floated on the surface of a lake, or a sea, and took a moment to think about his next step.

He needed to get out of the water and dry out before he tried to figure out what was going on.

He might be miles away from a shore. How did he get there from where he was? Which way should he go?

He looked down at his glowing hand as he tried to think about a solution. Options filled his mind. None of them were perfect. None of them had to be if they got him out of his predicament.

He stated the name of the light. He told it to point toward land. He built in a drag so it would carry him along. He said the activation word.

He realized he had made a mistake when the sea buffeted him as his hand pulled him through the water. He turned his head and placed a description on the height where he wanted the light to pull him. It lifted him above the waves and carried him along.

He saw a rocky coast approaching. It obscured the stars above as the water beat against it. He saw a watch fire on a cliff to let boats know they were too close. He supposed there had been a lot of wrecks in the past.

He asked for the glow to lift him over the rocks on the shore and drop him on dry land. He could walk into town from there.

There should be a town if there was a watch fire. He realized that might be a mistake. A watch didn't necessarily mean that a town had been built. It could mean that one man was on the job.

He would know soon enough when he arrived and had to answer questions about how he had arrived, and what he wanted.

He needed a story to tell, but he couldn't think of anything. No one would believe he had arrived by boat when no one else stopped at the local inn.

He decided that he would worry about that when it became a problem. He needed a place to rest. An inn would do that for him. Food and drink were next on his agenda. An inn would help with that.

Once he had a place to base his activities, he could think about finding out where he was, and what he needed to do. The stars seemed the same but he didn't remember a sea where he was. It should all be desert.

He decided that he could find a town in line with the watch on the cliff. He figured that only one house would be close to the cliff so the watchman could watch for ships in the night. A line from that light into the middle of the land should give him a path to walk.

And he felt a town would be close to the shore to welcome sailors and allow for fishermen to prosper.

He took a bearing on the spark in the darkness. He looked down his imaginary line until he saw another light in the distance. He squinted at the second light. Maybe it was a matching fire, or a few fires crowded together.

He started walking toward the second light. He wondered if they spoke the same language. He had a translation effect he could put on his ears to say every strange syllable in his own language.

He wondered if there was some kind of record in his suspect town. He could try to figure out where he was from that. Then he could make his way home.

His command of the spoken word should allow him to investigate things and find answers to his questions. Once they were settled, he could work his way home in the guise of a humble sailor.

He made his way through a small forest as he used the second light as a beacon. He nodded when he saw a cluster of wooden and brick houses. He did have a town where he could ask questions.

All he needed now was shelter and vitals, and then he could look for someone to tell him about where he was and how to get to Ardton. Then he could plan the second leg of his journey from there.

Once he was home, he could go back to his studies and write papers on what he had learned.

He heard a howl in the air. He looked behind him. A face hovered in the air. It howled at him as he kept walking. The air moved to help him along his path in a way that would earn him some broken bones.

At least he knew Typhon was still around and willing to fight for anyone with the will to command him. Where was the key? That would stop the elemental in his tracks.

That was another thing he could research. He needed to run from the cold air gathering behind him at the moment.

He sprinted toward the town. Did they have to deal with the wind elemental on a regular basis. The wind picked up behind him.

He needed to get to cover, or he had to disperse the wind somehow. He doubted it would depart peaceably.

He jumped over a rock and dropped behind it. The wind howled as it gathered its strength. He felt he was dead if Typhon could rip him up behind his natural shield, or even use the rock against him.

He told the rock a story about how it was the defender of mankind, and how no wind should bully its way past it. He said the activation word.

The stone gathered more of its kind to it. The conglomeration turned into a stone house around him. He listened to the ground as he waited for Typhon to get tired of pushing on the walls of his house and move on.

Typhon looked diminished. Did it have any of its old strength? Did he want to go out there and face it? He decided he could wait until daylight and finding a place to get something to eat so he could figure out what had happened since his fight with Gai.

Once he knew what kind of ground he was on, he could try to put Typhon to sleep again. He needed Gai's key for that. That meant finding his enemy and wresting the artifact from his hands.

He didn't know if he was capable of doing that, but Typhon was his responsibility. He should do something about the situation.

Was Gai alive? That was one of the things he needed to find out. Their battle had centered around moving Typhon to strike at each other. He thought Gai had been batted down by the elemental.

He needed to find the scene of their last battle. The key should be close by. Gai was holding it in his hand when he had been struck.

The key would bolster his strength enough to put Typhon to sleep with the right words.

How long would Typhon try to blow his fort in? Would he give up when he saw he couldn't move the rock in any way? He laughed at himself. He had too many questions and not enough answers.

He decided that there was nothing he could do about that. He had to wait the wind out. Then he could try to fix things. He didn't forsee this being a problem when he decided to confront Gai. He should have, but he thought that removing the other's influence would calm things down. He had miscalculated.

It wasn't the first mistake he had ever made, and it probably wouldn't be his last. He just had to make sure his mistakes didn't kill him.

He settled in the dark that was so much like the tomb he had escaped. He lit some of the grass up with an inner light. He began drying his clothes and checking what he had for supplies.

He decided to call himself Kid when he was free to leave his refuge. He didn't want Gai to find him by using his name to call his location out to him. He wanted to be obscured until he knew what was going on.

Then he could change things for the better.