Dark Kingdom

[Deity]

((I will use this first post to post story data. For the map, same one I've been using applies. Now, for those of you who are not aware of what the term FEE means, it means Fireemblemempire. This is a story that will pit both members from FEE and SF into a chaotic story. The realm of Broah will be like FEE, and Vanezia would be your Serenes Forest. Asaki refers to SOO, something or other, another forum I went to. Yvia, is a cold and inhospitable realm, yet now-a-days peeps from the other realms have begun to go there in an attempt to populate it and turn it into a governed realm.

Anyway, aside from that info, if you wish to be in the story ((you most likely will appear, however, I will randomize the way your character looks, etc.)) with a created character of yours, pm me with he/she details. And again, no feedback will be posted, and I dont want none here either^^

So, here is the map, just so you can know where villages, towns and cities are located.))

Cities and Villages

YVIA: Leader: none atm

1. Hrieska (large village)

2. Sagä (Capital)

3. Rella (small village)

4. Fareen (small village)

BROAH: Emperor: Blitz

5. Shoieh (city)

6. Fenn Arch (city)

7. Ghorla (Capital)

8. Temple of Hope Academy

9. Blessia (city)

10. Fhor (large village)

ASAKI: Empress: Gen Hui

11. Hao-Yin (village)

12. Oyuki (large village)

13. Kikure (capital)

14. Port Xin

15. Port Kaos

VANEZIA: King: Vincent

16. Ozarka (city)

17. Alöria Academy

18. Port Serin

19. Dhagria Keep (Capital of Vanezia)

20. Valen (city)

21. Uria (Mine city)

DRAGONIA: Leader: unknown

22. Port Lothnia

Edited December 28, 2008 by ömegablaster

[Deity]

Of all the myths and legends that existed in Phydoria, none was more credible than the ancient war.

This was a tale that had become legend since long ago, when the people in Phydoria were barely beginning to grasp the understanding of records.

Times, dates and years began to be kept as records a hundred and forty years ago, by the order of Broahn nobleman Tricky Trickster, who was long ago deceased. Now, in this era, many discoveries were made in several different places all over Phydoria, discoveries that pieced together many of the the beliefs and speculations of the ancient war myth...

-xox-

Edited December 28, 2008 by ömegablaster

[Shuuda]

You do realise that on the first page of the writing section alone, there are five of your stories; all of which are unfinished and are pretty much the same. Now, you seem to think that you are a good writer, but I'm not seeing it; all I see are attempts to write.

Having some focus would help you. Take time, think of a good story, and write it!

Now, on to what you have written so far for this story. One thing: I smell a boring infodump prologue.

[TLSothe]

As much as I hate the thought of agreeing with my darling Shuuda, he's right. You need to concentrate on one good story, and put all your focus into that.

[Deity]

You do realise that on the first page of the writing section alone, there are five of your stories; all of which are unfinished and are pretty much the same. Now, you seem to think that you are a good writer, but I'm not seeing it; all I see are attempts to write.

Having some focus would help you. Take time, think of a good story, and write it!

Now, on to what you have written so far for this story. One thing: I smell a boring infodump prologue.

Lol, I thought I said no feedback, not here, not there, not in the hell anyway. ^^ Aside from that, yes, I know that the first page contains many unfinished stories, or attempts. But this is the one. And as short as the first post was, that was the prologue. ^^

As much as I hate the thought of agreeing with my darling Shuuda, he's right. You need to concentrate on one good story, and put all your focus into that.

Yes, I believe this is the one. I even pmed a mod to erase the others, because I am ashamed of never even finishing them. But this story has what I am looking for. Now, I wanted this story clean, and so dont hate me for telling a mod to come and clean up these posts. What I will do, however, is make a feedback thread. There you can tell me what you want. I can take feedback, I just wanted to avoid trouble. ^^

[riariadne]

Lol, I thought I said no feedback, not here, not there, not in the hell anyway.

As TheEnd has stated to me before,

TheEnd: Thread ownership is highly overrated.

Deal with it.

EDIT: *reads below post* There's another topic? Ok then. Sorry.

Edited December 28, 2008 by Sniper Unleashed

[Ϲharlie]

Omegablaster would like to keep this topic as clean as possible, so please place any further feedback in the appropriate topic. Thanks.

[Deity]

Omegablaster would like to keep this topic as clean as possible, so please place any further feedback in the appropriate topic. Thanks.

Thank you. ^^

[Deity]

((Moving On with the story))

To most of his students, Rad Quetz was simply amazing. He was truly a force to be reckoned with when it came to fighting, for Rad knew many of the fighting styles that were available to the world of melee combat.

"Come on, get up, guys," Rad said, keeping his two short pole swords at the ready while he eyed his fallen students. All three of them had fallen quickly to Rad's expertly placed thrusts and sword swings. The master of the school watched as all three male students began to get up, two of them glancing at him with contempt looks, probably because Rad had made them all three look like idiots in front of the other two students, which were girls. Or, perhaps Rad had struck them with a little more force than he had intended. Either way, they wanted to simply strike him anywhere they could.

So those two came at him again, as soon as they were on their feet, but the quick master easily parried their pole strikes as he moved backwards slowly.

“In a real fight, you have to be moving all the time,” Rad told them as the two youngsters relentlessly attempted to hit him. “The enemy will rarely give you time to breath, but the real reason why you should always be moving is to improvise your fighting style on the fly. Remember that.”

Seeing that master Rad was occupied explaining and defending himself from Yggy and Yogurt's attacks, Ether Ghale got back up from the ground and rushed to the back side of his master, carrying his long pole along and wanting nothing more than to be the first to ever hit the master.

Edited December 28, 2008 by ömegablaster

[Deity]

Blinded by their rage, the two young students that wielded similar practicing sword poles as their master, had come at Rad with quick strikes, but master Rad was quicker than he looked. He dodged one of his pupil's wide swings and managed to trip him down using one of his two wooden poles as he ran by him while dodging his attack. Down fell the poor young peasant, hitting back first like a heavy sack of potatoes and groaning in pain. The two young girls who were enjoying the show from afar in the cozy room of the dojo, laughed at Yogurt’s fall and felt pity for him.

Rad recovered faster than the other peasant, Yggy, had anticipated. Yggy had gone after Rad but his downward slash met one of the poles his master wielded, and Rad easily kicked him back swiftly using his right leg. Back stumbled Yggy, moaning and realizing how much Rad’s carefully placed kick in his abdominal area had suffocated him. Enraged even more, Yggy turned and saw how Rad fared with Ether, who had come behind him. Teasingly, Rad was deflecting the young man’s pole thrusts aside using but one of the poles. “Do keep them coming, you will tire first than me.”

“And so what should I do?” Ether asked him, though he kept on coming at him.

“You guys are doing okay,” Rad said, glancing past Ether to see Yogurt standing back up. “But you got to be quicker...”

“Right,” Ether nodded, smiling, and kept the attacks coming. All of a sudden, Rad deflected Ether’s pole aside and came on with a sudden fury reflecting in his fair face. Ether, surprised at how easily his master had deflected his pole away, expected to fall harder than Yogurt, but he did not.

“Else you will die quickly out there.” Rad said and he finished Ether off by touching him gently with the tip of one of the poles right in the chest.

“I am beaten,“ Ether admitted and fell down, as was the rule. Yogurt, who saw Rad coming his way with that crazed look in his face, was smart enough to let the sword pole fall aside and rose his hands in surrender.

Edited December 28, 2008 by ömegablaster

[Deity]

“Never throw your weapon away,” Rad stopped and told him. “Pick it up.“

Quickly, Yogurt obeyed and retrieved his sword pole.

“And never do a shameful thing in battle such as surrender. Only cowards do that, the brave fight on until the end, no matter what that end turns out to be.”

Ashamed of himself, Yogurt lowered his head down. Rad turned his attention back to the others, who were still on the wooden floor, yet paying him good attention. The two pretty young girls began their approach toward the master, thinking the practice session ended. Behind his master, Yogurt thought he had an opportunity to strike the master and teach him a few things about letting his guard down.

He started to say as he rose his weapon to the air, “And you should never turn your back at an opponent.”

However, midway through his sentence, Rad crouched a bit and took a quick spin to the right side. A step later to the front put Rad close enough to his foolish opponent and the master was able to put one of his sword poles on Yogurt’s exposed neck.

“Very smart,” Rad smiled at him, Yogurt keeping his raised pole up but very surprised at how quickly the master had spun on him and out of striking distance. “Attacking like cowards do. You have much to learn, Yogurt, if you want to become a true warrior.”

Rad took the sword pole away from him and turned to face the others. He saw the girls had started to help the fallen guys back up.

Edited December 28, 2008 by ömegablaster

[Deity]

“That was another awesome display of skills, master Rad,” said one of the girls, who wore long, dark hair and had a set of beautiful dark eyes as well. Freohr Datia was her name, and she was dressed in typical nomadic clothing. Freohr, instead of a wearing a red bandana like her tribe did, wore nothing. She had abandoned their ways long ago, yet she still wore the nomadic clothing because she still had not had the chance to buy something new. Soon though, when the group headed into Ozarka, Freohr would completely dish the clothing and her ancestral customs.

“Perhaps,” Rad nodded at her. “Though it is not my intention to simply show off my skills, I want you to learn them and put them to practice in your every day life. I want you to become strong. To help those in need, and to always do the right thing. The world out there, as you all know, is a harsh place. If you are not very careful, your life can end in an instant.”

Ether Ghale, Rad’s favorite pupil as of late, nodded at his master, for it was true. The world of Phydoria was very dangerous, and getting worse by the passing day. He caught the sword pole that Rad tossed his way, the one that Yogurt had been using. Ether couldn’t help it but glance at the ornamented gem that Rad wore around his neck, along with several other type of necklaces that made the young Ether wonder. That necklace was so beautiful, and it was a rare piece that neither Ether or the other students had ever seen.

“It is almost dinner time. I shall go fetch some wood for tonight,” Rad took notice of Ether’s stare on his neck area. “You all can start preparing the meals.”

“What should we prepare for tonight, master?” asked Yuli To’relles, the other girl. She was shorter than Freohr, but thinner, and like Freohr herself was, Yuli was beautiful too. She also wore her hair long, tied into a ponytail and was dressed in dirty, ragged clothes.

“I am up for anything,” Rad said as he went, without turning back to face them. They saw as he exited the subterranean room.

Edited December 28, 2008 by ömegablaster

[Deity]

“I am glad he’s gone,” Yogurt said aloud when the master was long gone. “How I hate him now.”

The five pupils started to head to the exit as well. First, they all went to leave the training weapons where they belonged, on top of a rectangular wooden table that was set near the wall. There were many other wooden weapons set there on the table, yet only Rad the master knew how to fight well with them.

“Rad is our master,” Ether eyed Yogurt. “And he is a good one. He does not intend any harm to us, he is just trying to teach us. I am sure there is no reason to hate him.”

“Although he is a little stern with Yogurt,” Yuli was very observant, apparently.

They all exited the room and came into the underground corridor that connected the lower rooms to a stairway that led upstairs to the ground level rooms of the old citadel that they all called home. Up Ether led the others.

“Well if Yogurt would act like a warrior should,” Freohr said, defending the master. “Perhaps master Rad would treat him like the rest of us.”

Yogurt, a stout young man who wore short, darkened hair, eyed Freohr curiously when they came out to the large living room, which felt a little colder than it should. Freohr noticed why, and she rushed to the fireplace to toss a few faggots in to the burning fire. Yogurt believed that his stare upon her had scared her, and he smiled as he followed the others to the kitchen area, which it too, was a large room.

“I mean,” Freohr rushed after them afterwards. “Today you were acting foolish, Yogurt, and you know it.”

“How so?” Yogurt turned to her, wanting to know.

“Well, your actions speak for themselves. You know master Rad is all about fighting fair and his world is based in justified ways. You tried to strike him down like a coward would.”

Yogurt just stared at Freohr, unable to say anything, for it was true what the girl said.

“Master Rad has told us more than a few times,” Yggy assisted Freohr’s reasoning as he sat down on the large, rectangular wooden table that was set in the middle of the kitchen area. There were many culinary objects hanging on hooks on the brick-made white walls. “That warriors who fight dirty generally end up serving the bad guilds such as the thieves and assassins guilds. I don‘t want any of us to end up like those bastards who have no honor or valor.”

Yogurt rolled his eyes. “I am not a dirty fighter. I just felt like striking him. I mean,” he sat down beside Yggy, who was his favorite friend of the lot. “He did expose his back to me, and I was a little pissed off since I was hitting the floor hard.”

“We all hit the floor hard,” Ether laughed from the side. The young merc wanna-be had crouched down and had reached with his left arm inside a white sack. He brought that arm out, with three large potatoes in his hand. “But the master deserves no blame at all. When we agreed to be trained by him two weeks ago, we knew what we were getting ourselves into, right?”

Yuli, Freohr, Yggy and even Yogurt nodded.

“I have to admit,” Freohr said, sitting down next to Yuli with several potato peelers in her hands. She passed them around while Ether kept setting potatoes on the table. “Training under master Rad is much better than soiling some farmer’s land. I am glad he came by my village.”

“I wasn’t off much better than you,” Ether said and then sat down, after he had set like ten potatoes on the table for them all to peel. “Being a skinner takes quite some skill, and I did not like the blood and guts from dead animals.”

“So where is master Rad originally from?” Yuli seemed to want to know. At the moment, none of them knew, and so they all shook their head, frowned or simply shrugged.

“Never felt like asking,” Freohr said. “That is not my business to know, although I’d like to know. He‘s probably a Vanezian, like the rest of us.”

“Yeah, perhaps he is.” Yggy reasoned. “He’s never asked me where I was from, and so why should I? I am just glad he saved me from the Uria mines. I was getting tired of working hard for that damned general Gaunt.”

“So nobody has asked him?” Ether laughed. “Perhaps if one us does, he’d tell, though I doubt it, and I wont do it since I don’t want to be seen as the fool who tried and failed.”

Yuli laughed at Ether. “I dare you to try it.”

“No way,” Ether shook his head right away and started peeling a potato.

“I’ll do it,” Yogurt said, and they all turned to face him. Yggy was the first one to laugh out loud.

“You?” Yggy asked. “I thought you hate him. So why would you want to ask him that?”

“I don’t know,” Yogurt said, glancing at Yggy. “I guess I have the nerves you don’t.”

Freohr shook her head, as if the whole thing was absurd. “What does it matter where he’s from? He’s given us an opportunity to become better in this miserable life. Lets respect all about him, his life, I mean. Perhaps one day he will tell us, I mean, its not like he is a quiet man, he does talk to us. But we should definitely let him be and learn from him what we can.”

All five students nodded in agreement.

-xox-

Edited December 28, 2008 by ömegablaster

[Deity]

“He wont talk, captain,” said one of the three man doing the torturing. “Should I proceed with the sharp objects?”

“That wont be necessary,” replied captain Bread, also known by many in the realm of Broah as the Light Warrior. He was tall, wore his hair short and blonde and he was fair when it came to being handsome. He carried a scar in his right cheek, one that appeared to any who saw it as having been made by a knife or sword. It ran all the way from his jaw-line to his right eye. The Bread was dressed in his one of a kind armor. It was of a dark brown color and adorned with golden emblems.

The mighty man approached the torturee, a man who had his hands tied behind his back and his eyes covered with a dark cloth. He was also sitting on a chair, with two Broahn knights stripped of their armor standing close by and having done the torturing. Captain Bread smiled when he saw one of those men hitting the torturee again and hard, with his clenched fist. The tortured man’s head swiveled to the side and blood came out of his mouth to splatter down on the black mosaic floor.

“That is enough, Yoshi!” captain Bread shouted, making the man stare at him. Yoshi Quack nodded in understanding and took a step back, so did the other torturer, who went by the name of Matsuo. “Our laguz friend here will soon enough talk.”

The tortured man, who had tanned skin and dark, short wild hair, turned his head to the front again, as if he was ready for more punishment. He was very muscular and the captain knew that he could take much more damage than what he had already taken. Mi’kel Omega was a dragon laguz after all, or as the humans liked to call them, freaks.

Laguz were humanlike creatures, except that they could transform into mighty beasts. They were first introduced to the world long ago, when magic in the world was first discovered. Dark druids had combined beasts and humans in a morphing process, and the results had been the laguz. In order for a laguz to transform into a beastly state, they needed an imbued gem with magical powers, powers that answered to that creature’s innate magical sewn properties. Without the stones, they were unable to transform.

((Offtopic: I will go with size 5 from now on, it makes it easier to read.))

[Deity]

“Come, Mi’kel,” Light Warrior said as he started to walk around the battered laguz at a slow pace. “I don’t want to go as far as to kill you. Out with it. Who, of all the laguz, carries the aeiil stone?”

Mi’kel stared straight ahead, did not speak and did not even move. Just then, the laguz prisoner felt his interrogator grab him by the hair. The Bread pulled at Mi’kel’s hair with abandon, almost attempting to rip it off. “Who...carries the damned aeiil stone?”

The laguz grunted in pain, for the captain’s hold and pull on his hair was indeed more than forceful. The grunt issued forth by the laguz made the other three Broahn knights laugh.

Mi’kel did not say a word, and captain Bread let go of his hair in a rude way. “You don’t want to talk, do you?” The laguz did not see the captain signal to one of the man inside the room to head out to the room. “We shall see about that. I am very persistent, you know? And we shall see who wins in the end. The prisoner who acts tough and doesn’t wish to speak, or the persistent torturer.”

A few minutes passed by, and moments later, the door was swung open, and Mi’kel was alerted suddenly when he heard the moans of what appeared to be a little girl.

Roughly, Durf Aion, tossed the girl onward to the captain.

“And my oh my,” laughed captain Bread. “Look who has decided to join us. What is your name, little one?”

The little dark haired girl responded by kicking the captain in his leg chins. He laughed at her pathetic attempt and grabbed her by the hair as well, making the girl moan in pain.

[Deity]

“This of course is your sister Bizz!” shouted Light Warrior, who had now run out of patience. “If you don’t start telling me what I need to know, I am personally going to choke the living life out of her!”

Mi’kel shook his head and finally decided to speak. “You think you fools can trick me? That is not Bizz! She is some small girl that you cowards kidnapped in an attempt to fool me.”

Light Warrior became agitated. “Remove the blinding cloth from his face and let him see.”

Matsuo moved in to do so, and the asakian lifted the dark cloth off the torturee’s head. Mi’kel quickly knew that he had been right, for the captain held not his sister but an asakian girl.

The Bread laughed at him but did not let go of the girl. “Very good. It appears that you were correct. Nonetheless, the rule remains the same. If you don’t tell me what I need to know, I will take this sweet little girl’s life away.” The Bread motioned to one of his guards, who gave him a long, toothy and sharp dagger. Mi’kel noticed how the girl’s small, dark eyes widened in sheer horror when the mean captain placed the edge of the dagger on her throat.

“It looks like she does not want to die yet,” Yoshi Quack teased and saw how his captain covered the little girl’s mouth just to keep her from screaming and making a scandal in the room.

“You have ten seconds,” Light Warrior placed a very serious look on Mi’kel. “Starting now. One...”

In his inner thoughts, Mi’kel was fighting a battle. Should he give in and save the little girl? Or should he keep the secret, his laguz honor and die with dignity?

“Do as you may with me,” he said, trying to buy time, although he knew it was futile. The Bread would kill the little girl and him if he refused to talk. “But let the little girl go.”

“Two,” counted the captain. Off to the side, Durf laughed lowly, as did Yoshi and Matsuo.

“Three.”

Mi’kel attempted to free himself of the chains keeping his hands tied up. Had he been transformed into his true being, those heavy chains wouldn’t of had stood a chance. Even from his standing position, The Bread saw how Mi’kel’s muscles bulged in his attempt to free himself.

“Four.” The captain went on with the count.

“Let the girl go,” Mi’kel ordered. “Your beef is with me, not her. Don’t use her as a pretext to get out of me what you cannot have otherwise.”

“Five,” Light Warrior went on, realizing that Mi’kel, who was a laguz, did not feel hatred or animosity toward the girl, just as humans felt it for the laguz. That did not matter to the Bread, though, all the captain wanted was to hear Mi’kel say who carried the aeiil stone, a gem that was needed to open the portals of the other three extra-planar realms.

“Six.”

“Do you know what you are planning to do?” Mi’kel cried out, his stare and his tone of voice serious now.

“Seven,” Light Warrior nodded at him but did not say anything else.

“You have no idea what you are playing with! This is madness.”

“Eight,” the captain blinked several times.

“Even if you manage to acquire the aeiil stone, the world of men will come to an abrupt end!”

“Nine!” Light Warrior more than shouted, just to remind his prisoner that time was almost up.

-xox-

[Deity]

Rad had proceeded on to a nearby forest that surrounded the old temple that he had reconstructed years ago as a school and home. He felt the chilly wind smacking his face as he walked about the leaf infested forest ground, looking for twigs. There were plenty twigs visible on the forest floor that the dragir could pick up, but Rad usually enjoyed taking extra time when he was out here. Aside from patrolling the surrounding areas of what he called home, Rad very much enjoyed being outdoors, just as he had loved it back in Dragonia, his homeland. This forest reminded him of the huge forested areas that made up almost seventy percent of the Dragonia isle way to the south. In those forests, Rad had enjoyed the company of his dragir friends, his sister Fia and the company of a certain little fairy. How the dragir noble missed his chats with Janine Ginginevra. And how he missed teasing his platoon soldiers and his sister Fia, who was a guardian soldier in his platoon.

He now had the company of the five young students he had picked up from around the realms weeks ago. Rad bent down to pick up a good sized twig, thinking about today's practice session. He knew that the five youngsters were becoming better, and soon, Rad knew that they would become a reckon to be dealt with.

"Geez," Rad said to himself as he walked over to a large boulder sticking out of the ground. He sat there, holding the twig, examining it. "If only my squad had been allowed to come with me, my time here would be much fun, and they‘d help me train these kids far faster."

But he, for being the best of the best guardians of Dragonia, was the only dragir that had been sent in to the neighboring realms. Not as a spy, but rather as an observant. His appointed task was not to spy the humans, laguz or monsters, nor any other creature for that matter. He was just to observe their living ways, to find out whether in the future it could be possible for all races to co-exist as one large family. The dragon king of Dragonia cared nothing for whatever information one noble dragir such as Rad could manage to obtain from such creatures, and so Rad had just been sent in by the dragon king himself, to find out about their living ways. Even though the realm of Dragonia was but a simple, small island, it was five times more powerful than the realms of humans, laguz, monsters and other living creatures combined. However, dragons did not like abusing their power, in fact, they cared about the rest of civilization. The human realms did not know it but the realm of Dragonia helped the human realms in many ways.

Even though they cherished all other races, dragons kept their home island magically sealed away from the view of the rest of the world, so humanity knew nothing of their existence.

[Deity]

The southern Vanezian sea was full of repelling spells that would turn an incoming ship back to another direction. These spells differed, some would turn a small storm into a nasty hurricane, others would make the sea spin in huge whirlpools; sea storms that would suck in anything that sailed on the surface, while other thwarting spells would make summoned sea creatures appear to scare off the incoming ships. Many of the sailors in Phydoria were afraid to sail the southern sea, because of the many rumors that abounded about the place, yet there were many who had brave hearts and would not scare easily. Still, the island of Dragonia remained undiscovered, and that is how the dragons liked it.

Two hundred and five years was the time that Rad had spent in the human realms ever since his arrival. And he had not gotten a visit from a single dragir during that time, so it was fair to say that the Rad missed his home and his friends, and most of all, his family and relatives.

He had been living disguised as a human, of course. But Rad had the power to transform into a huge dragon or to a human form with dragon horns, wings and fangs, sort of like the laguz he had come to know while exploring the realms. He wore many magical rings and amulets in his fingers, neck, wrists and arms. As a noble dragon and guardian of Dragonia, he was granted such items. But during the passing of years here in the human realms, Rad had learned to adapt to the human ways of life. He also carried a silver sword, two brown leathery satchels on his waist and a strap around his torso that held four throwing daggers, enchanted as well. He very much resembled one human mercenary. He wore his hair short and of a brown color, his eyes were also a deep brown color and his skin was light tanned. He was dressed in dark pants and black, leathery boots and a dark leathery sleeveless vest covered his upper body.

Rad stood up from the boulder and decided that it was time to keep gathering wood. His king, would keep his word and sent in one of his kin to tell him that it was time. Until then, Rad would continue to carry on with the mission. However, that dark night as he walked retrieving twigs from the ground, one of his magical rings alerted him of a nearby presence. Sensing the danger, he headed toward the area that the ring had magically pointed out to him, oblivious to the fact that his life would get more interesting.

-xox-

[Deity]

The southern sky above the southern Vanezian waters was dark as far as the eye could see, with many low, dreadful clouds announcing a furious storm.

The threatening view had many of the sea dogs onboard the Sea Lion on edge.

"It appears the rumors were right, my friend," said Gatling Von, the captain's second. He, along with the captain of the ship, was viewing the horizon with a long scope that allowed the viewer to see far away things closely. The captain, a young stud who wore his hair blonde and short and who was dressed in a dark outfit, was also eyeing the horizon. "This area is deadly. How suddenly the sky turned into this threat. We should turn back, it's gonna get nasty here soon."

He was right, Sean Storm knew, for the weather conditions had changed abruptly in a matter of minutes. Captain Sean Storm was a legendary figure, along with his second, who was his best friend since childhood. There was also a third named Sothe, but that other friend was in Vanezia, recruiting sailors for the Sea Lion for the upcoming pirate hunting season in the spring.

The Sea Lion had answered the call of a magical distress signal from a fellow pirate-hunting vessel four days ago. That had brought them here, way south of Vanezia, where the area was rumored to be a death zone. Many were the stories about the place, and remembering about them made the captain lower his scope down in a concerned way. Sean Storm turned to face Gatling Von, or Gatrie, as many sailors knew him as on the ship.

"You wouldn't be afraid of a little storm, now would you?" Sean had actually laughed, but Gatling knew his friend too well. He perceived a bit of nervousness in his friend's tone.

[Deity]

"The crew is on edge," Gatling Von pointed out, staring past the captain to take a look at some nervous sea dogs that were working on getting the main mast's sailcloth up. What with the breeze suddenly turning into ferocious gusts, the Sea Lion did not need to have its sails down, the mere force of the wind was sending the ship forward and into territory that many in the ship feared more than anything else. "They fear the stories, and I do too."

Sean stared at Gatling, in an investigative way.

"What?" Gatling responded when he saw Sean's look upon him. "Oh come on, even you feel a little scared."

-"I aint scared."

"Me neither," Gatrie said right away.

"Just a little edgy, that is all," Sean Storm told him. "But come, let us issue some orders."

His second followed him to the middle of the deck. Both pirate hunters wore magical pistols near the waist and each carried a fine cutlass inside a scabbard that hung from their waist belts. None of the two wore the typical captain hats.

"Your attention, crew," Sean Storm rose his arms while in the middle of the deck. The sailors that had been working here and there stopped their work to listen to the captain, some even approached him and his second, forming a large circle around the two men.

"Now, I know that you all are nervous due to the zone where we are at the moment," Sean started to relate what he had in mind. "It's okay to feel nervous, Gat and I are too. But we cannot abandon a fellow ship's call for aid. The distress signal came from around this area, and we will sail two more miles south."

That made many of the sailors murmur to each other incoherent things. Sean did not pick up anything of what he heard coming from those whispers, but he well knew that his crew had not liked the idea about sailing in farther to the south. Just then, as he was about to pick up where he had left off, the captain felt a tiny droplet of water fall on his nose. And then, others did as well, and like the captain did before them, they all turned up to take a look up to the sky.

The clouds issued forth a loud thundering noise, action that made several over-the-edge sea dogs jump in fear, and the rain began to fall harder.

"And what do we do now?" Gatrie wanted to know, keeping calm despite the rain beginning to soak them all.

"As I said," captain Sean rose his voice so that everyone around him could hear him above the noise of the raindrops hitting the ship's wooden made deck. "We shall continue to look for our allies, two miles deeper to the south we shall go. If we find nothing, then we will turn back and call it a season's end of sailing."

That last part actually brought a cheer from several sea dogs, from those who shared a little of the captain's own brave spirit.

"Everybody back to work, then," ordered Gatrie. He watched in satisfaction as the sailors around the pair moved along to take care of their roles, and then he looked upon his captain to find him smiling at him.

"Back to our cabins, I suppose."

"I shall stay and see that the ship runs smoothly through out the two mile course," Gatrie countered, eyeing his friend.

"Very well, then," Sean Storm nodded at him, pat him on the back, and then headed away toward his personal cabin, where the captain's soul mate awaited him.

-xox-

[Deity]

Rad proceeded with caution, using the large forest trees to his advantage. They kept him well hidden, and more than once, Rad actually climbed to the sturdy branches they offered and stopped to survey the area. Seeing that nothing was out of place, he went on, following his magical ring's reading.

Soon, he was able to get to the area of trouble, keeping himself securely oblivious to the folks that were about, using the magic contained in one of his necklaces. Concerned, he noticed that a group of five humans were chasing after a small being, one that he quickly made out not to be human, but rather a laguz girl. With his innate infrared sight, Rad was able to see clearly in the dark as if it was day. He noticed that the laguz girl had been hurt with an arrow, for one stuck out of her back's right side. That view on the girl made Rad boil inside. He turned his attention to the group.

The group was dispersed, separated apart by mere ten feet. Two carried bows and the others wielded short swords, and they were all dressed in the typical merc clothing, but their faces were covered with dark masks that covered everything but the hair. Rad perceived that those masks were imbued with some sort of magic spell. A night-vision spell perhaps? He thought to himself.

"Stop, damn it!" one of the men shouted in warning. "We don't want to kill you. We just need what you carry." He rose his bow up to fire at the running away laguz girl, thinking to put another arrow right through one of her legs, but had he known that an invisible foe was right beside him where he had stopped, the man would of had taken another action.

Edited December 29, 2008 by Zakelina

[Deity]

In his invisible state, Rad simply pulled the bow away from the man and quickly punched him hard in his left cheek.

"Aughh!" the abused man cried as he fell to the ground, his magical mask cracked. Hearing his cry, the other men turned back to see what was going on. They saw nothing but their leader on the ground, with his bow laying closely on the ground, broken in two. The masks they wore actually had a night vision spell imbued on them, but they could not see past their normal world sight and into the extra-planar world to which Rad had gone when he had disappeared.

Seeing the leader down and perfectly still made another of the man say. "You two, after the girl. Lune, you come with me."

Rad noticed that two swordmen had gone after the fleeing laguz girl, leaving another and the other archer behind. He needed to act fast, because he noticed that the men were fast and would soon catch up to the girl.

He came to view just to the side of the fallen human, and when the two walking humans realized he had appeared, they stopped, both of them feeling quite scared due to the fact that the enemy had appeared quite so suddenly. The archer lifted her bow to fire after four seconds or so, but Rad was quicker. He simply rose his left arm up and a magical gauntly hand appeared in mid air, grabbed the archer before she could get an arrow strung, and kept her tightly secured in mid air. The other human, dumbfounded at the magical display of skill, almost lost in a snap. But he reacted in time and avoided another magical gauntly grasp that his enemy had apparently summoned with his other hand. The bony hand grasped nothing but air, but as it tightened its grasp in mid air, many leaves that had been on the ground blew away and the gaunt had disappeared.

"Clever, friend," laughed the man. "But I am not a regular. I actually felt the air bubbling behind me."

[Deity]

Rad had to give it to him, the man had avoided his magical grasp. In front of him, the man quickly nodded at him and then revealed several rings that he wore himself in his left hand.

"Lets see if you can actually hurt me now," the man told him, cynically, and then Rad saw as the man's body was slowly covered with some sort of defensive spell. Everything about the man changed then, his skin tone, his face, everything. Seeing the enemy's concerned-like face as he changed from human to something else, the man went on to explain as he started to approach with his sword in his right hand. "Stone skin, my friend. With it, I am able to withstand even many magical attacks. I do hope you graduated with honors in magic from academy Alöria, cause I did."

Rad said nothing, but he was already working on his next action. He reached into one of his satchels and brought out a medium-size sapphire stone that glowed despite being of a dark color, almost black. The stone-transformed man saw it, and was surprised at the beauty of it. Never had the druid seen such a stone before.

Rad threw the stone to the ground, summoning forth its magical properties simply by thinking in his thoughts. The sapphire stone actually was a cage, containing in it the soul of a long ago deceased beast that Rad's ancestors had felled millennias ago.

"I have a girl to save," Rad told the man. "Have fun with one of my pets."

The man had actually stopped when he noticed that something was coming out from within the stone. He was too busy staring at the form that was forming out of the dark-gray mist that had started to come out of the stone to notice Rad running by him.

A dark grayish mist had surrounded the sapphire stone when it had hit the ground. And this mist was taking the form of what the druid believed to be a mighty beast, something that he had never witnessed before.

When it was finally fully formed, a huge beast of flesh and bone stood in front of the druid, who took more than a few steps back when the beast issued forth a loud roar, revealing many razor sharp teeth. To the scared druid, the beast had to be something that had been brought out from the depths of Hel itself. It was hideous to his sight, full of dark colored scales and large, fiery red eyes. It had no wings, but spiky plates ran from its head all the way to the tail. At the end of the creature's long tail were many foot long spikes. The beast was wide, and it stood in its four, strong legs. The beast's head was actually bigger than the man standing in front of it, so it was a terror for any human to behold. It was a Ghöxira, an ancient type of monster that had lived long ago before humans ever made their presence in the continent.

Up above, remaining in the gaunt's hand grasp, the archer cried in horror when the beast advanced upon the druid. He fought it off bravely with several spells that he carried with him, but the beast was something out of this world, and too much for him. Millenias ago, beasts such as these had ruled the world, and even the mighty dragirs had had trouble defeating them in groups. A mere human such as the druid was not a match for it, the Ghöxira quickly made of the druid lunch. Even though the beast was wide and humongous, and weighed more than a ton, it still moved with the agility of a feline. It tore at the druid's stone spell and quickly dissipated it to nothingness.

An agonizing scream filled the forest that night, when the mighty Ghöxira devoured the man fully in one gulp.

-xox-

[Deity]

Rad had gone after the other two swordmen and caught up to them in a matter of minutes, however, when he did, one of them already held the girl and the other one was tying her hands behind her back with some sort of strong rope.

The two henchmen were able to see the approaching figure thanks to their magical masks.

"Halt," called the one who had been tying the girl up, and he stepped aside, readying his sword, while his partner turned around but kept the girl held by the shoulders as he did. He quickly got behind her and decided to use her as a shield, for without a doubt, this stranger was trouble to them.

"Let the girl go," Rad said and did stop. He did not want the two men to take rash actions. The two swordmen laughed loudly and they even traded glances. "Give her up to me, unless you want to finish like one of your partners."

Nervously, the two men stared at the figure in front of them. He was not tall and did not look menacing at all, but there was an aura of great power about him. Rad noticed the other man withdrawing a curved, small blade, and he positioned it right in the girl's throat.

"Stay back, fool. I will kill this stinking little laguz if you so dare to take another step!"

The threat made Rad obey, because he did not know whether the man would carry on with his threat.

Rad felt confident when he noticed the man that held the girl started retreating back. No, he would not harm the girl. There were two reasons why he wouldn't, and Rad was sure of this. One was that perhaps they had to take the girl alive to whoever was the leader of such a band. The other one was simple and a genuine fact. The laguz girl was a bargaining piece that the men could use for their benefit. If they did kill her, they would have no piece with which to bargain with, and they would probably have to fight for their lives and probably lose. The guy holding the laguz girl did not like that last though at all.

[Deity]

"Fine, but I cannot allow you to harm her nonetheless," Rad said, calmly. "You do know you two will die if you persist in not letting the girl go. In fact, it is already done." Rad held up his right hand and showed them the top end of it, where a ring that was set in his index finger was flashing in a blueish light.

Before any of the two could act, they both felt a stinging sensation in their brain, and before they knew what had actually hit them, they both fell to the ground, unable to move at all. Neither could talk, nor move their arms or legs. Rad had incapacitated them with a paralyzing spell to the brain. They could try and try, but the spell would block their brain signals, until Rad ended the spell.

Knowing that the two men were down and out for a time, Rad walked calmly toward the much scared girl.

"Do not be frightened," the dragir told her, just to calm her down. "I am not your enemy. I'm here to help you." The laguz girl said nothing, but simply nodded. Rad rapidly untied the bonds that held her hands, and as soon as she was free, the girl turned around to take note of him better. She could not see him clearly, for it was dark already. Rad noticed that after she took a stare at him, the girl turned to see the fallen men.

"They are fine," Rad assured her. "But you are not. You are injured. If you permit me, I can heal you right away."

The arrow sticking on her back sure hurt the girl beyond any pain she had ever felt. She turned to Rad as soon as he had offered his help to her and nodded at him. The fear the girl had at the moment was dying due to the loss of blood, which was much already, she had begun to feel weak minutes ago when still she had found herself running away from her pursuers.

"It wont hurt a bit," Rad promised as he began digging inside one of his satchels. He brought out a small vial that was filled with a light-greenish substance. Rad walked behind the girl and simply emptied the content of the vial on his right hand. With his left hand, he placed the empty vial back in the satchel and then stared at the wound, which bled slowly. Slowly and carefully, he expertly spread the greenish substance all around the wound and even on the arrow. As soon as the substance had touched the wounded area, the laguz girl began to feel the wound healing, the pain going away. Rad pulled out the arrow without the girl ever knowing it. She still thought that the arrow was sticking out and that a painful pull would soon ensue. But Bizz was a laguz dragon, and laguz did not like to demonstrate weakness. She would endure the pain, if it came to that.

The laguz girl stared curiously at Rad when he walked up beside her, holding the arrow, which was visible to her thanks to a lighting ring that Rad had commanded to shine.