A Tale of Two Knights

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The druid led them into a living room inside, and motioned for them to sit down at two fluffy colored chairs at the base of the room. A table was between them, and on it were bottles of mana, extracted from many elder cones and arch cones. Trinkets and talismans were scattered around the room, seemingly at random, and the smell of sweet flowers in the room.

"You know manæ do you?" the druid asked, raising up a bottle filled with a black substance, which looked different from the blue mana, with Ludo looking confused. "What is it?"he asked. "Manæ is similar to mana, however different in their own ways. White magic is magic used for good reasons, while black magic is used for one's own selfish reasons. Mana is white magic, manæ is black magic. I do not have a name, you can simply call me the arch druid. Combining the two special life forces create something incredibly, peculiar"

At this point, she took the two flasks, and crashed them together, breaking the glass, and mixing the two together. The mana and manæ mixed, and eventually formed a white ball of mystical energy that floated above her hand, sparkling in the light.

Ludovicus and Sullivan sat there, perplexed. They had never seen manæ, nevertheless whatever this magic was. "What does it do?" Ludo asked, looking at the substance with interest.

"This is called a mana orb. It is used by sorcerers to drastically increase their magical power." The arch druid said, smiling. She then grabbed an empty glass vial and sealed the mana orb inside. There it was, dormant. It still shining.

"Mana orbs increase power by twice as much, and they can be taken in unlimited amounts. However, too much can prove deadly, as the manæ begins to overpower the mana, and therefore causing the wielder to turn evil. No hope in turning them back. The only way to deal with them is to kill them. This is the reason why almost all extremely knowledgeable elder wizards have taken no more than ten mana orbs. Any sorcerers that take more become liches, necromancers, the same way with some that use black magic."

She then took two flasks with mana orbs inside and set them on the table. "These are for you," She said. Ludo immediately grabbed them and set them on his edge of the table.

The arch druid then took out multiple golden colored, sparkling small bottles out of seemingly nowhere, and placed them on the table. The bottles were small. Not even 5 inches tall. The neck of the golden bottles were rectangular shaped, and then it was curved, resembling a sort of miniature wine bottle, except with the neck a lot shorter.

"Healing flasks?" Ludo asked, inquired to know the answer.

"Yes, in fact, a deadly slash wound that would kill one in minutes can be healed by one's own flask."At this moment, Sully jumped out of his seat, and grabbed one of the golden bottles. He popped out the cork which flew out of the open door, out the balcony, and into the ground beneath, hundreds of feet below. This in turn, released the magic inside the carbonation. Bubbles floated to the top of the drink, and then he took a big swig out of the flask.

Immediately, the cuts and wounds visible on Sullivan began to fade. Within moments, his entire body was healed. You wouldn't even tell that he was extremely hurt just moments before. Sullys eyes lightened as he realized what had happened. He was unaware for a moment, and that caused him to accidentally drop the glass vial, and on impact, exploded into tiny glass shards.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" "It's fine" The arch druid waved her hand, and the mess was blown off by what seemed to be a magic wind. Where the glass went, no one knew. "I can see you two having an ... peculiar future relationship. Whatever that means" The druid followed this up with a laugh that stunned Ludo and Sullivan for a bit.

In a flash, the arch druid was gone, literally disappeared from the room. It was so sudden that Ludo and Sully sat there in shock, wondering what just happened for a moment before realizing.

"This is our cue to leave" Ludo said to Sully, and then the two stood up, and left the room, and onto the balcony that was on a branch.

They both stepped back on the platform that he had arrived on, and it was in the process of bringing them back to the start of the tree's trunk, giving the two a time to enjoy the stunning view of the forest below them. However, Sully had a question that he had been holding for some time.

"Ludo, what are those things in the distance? Why are they coming near this tree?" Ludo looked in the horizon and saw lots and lots of winged creatures, with what were they? Spears or tridents? Black and grey in color, with a sharp spiked crown and a tail with a sharped point. Definitely a lot more humanoid than animal like, however, an animal like aura was around them. It was a no-brainer that things aren't looking so good now. Ludo knew the names of the creatures. His hard years of experience told him that. Warm saliva filled Ludo's mouth.

One of the laufs summoned a huge fire blast from his scepter, and blew one of the branches of the elder tree to smithereens, which in turn broke some mana lights, which caused a chain reaction that set off all the mana lights to break, pieces of glass falling from hundreds of feet up.

The wooden platform swayed from side to side, until one of the wood hinges came off, causing the entire platform to tilt to one side.

"QUICK HOLD ON TO ME BOY!" Ludo shouted, as the platform was falling. Sullivan, stuck in fear, quickly grabbed onto Ludo, and he jumped off the broken platform with mere seconds to spare. The two went spiraling down into the trees below. THUNNNK They landed in the bushy tops of high trees, and were able to stay conscious, however not for long, as they were upside-down. Ludo quickly fell asleep due to asphyxiation, his armor being the problem, while Sullivan looked in horror at the elder tree above him. It was an extremely bad view, however he could see exactly what was going on. The lauf's were destroying the everlasting tree, and killing all inside. At least a hundred lauf's kidnapped and killed maybe thousands of elves and druids and others that were in the tree. They didn't stand a chance. The trees were setting aflame by their destruction, while the others took anyone, young or old. They were not picky at all.

Before Sully passed out, he saw one thing that made him absolutely angry. The scene made his blood boil.

The last thing he saw was two lauf's flying in the sky, taking the bloodied arch druid that he and Ludo had spoken to moments before, eyes closed, clothes ripped. The helplessness filled Sully. he couldn't do anything. He couldn't save them. He couldn't save her.

Bloodied tears filled his eyes, as he drifted off into a regretful sleep.

 UPDATE: hey guys, due to school and stuff, I will try to make a chapter every week or so, I will keep you updated. 

wegfêrend, wîtan êower uppan ûser nêarra!