Hexblade's Charm

Three and then some - Blood Of Chaos

The next morning, Hexi awoke from a terrible nightmare in cold sweat, only to stare at Oswald's pumpkin-wide grin. He jolted in surprise. Reflexively, he crawled back against the top of his bed. His hand accidentally hit Malyck, who also woke up with a gasp.

"Gods, you scared me!", Hexi shouted and attempted to kick Oswald off the bed, but he just dodged the attack and stood up with a cackle. Hexi saw that the window was open, and screams and wails from the Realm of Torment were flooding in.

"Why in Lyriel's green name are you opening the fucking windows?", Hexi demanded to know and rubbed his head, trying to slow down his pulse. "That shit gives me nightmares."

"I myself hate how those funerals are always so early – I'm not much of a mourning person", the Mad King replied, and Malyck groaned and covered his head with a pillow. "But", Oswald continued, "I have made some discoveries last night, and we have to get together as soon as possible. Please do get your attractive behinds into the library. We do not have all day."

He left the room and deliberately did not close the door; Hexi cursed quietly, stood up and closed it – and the window – before slumping back onto the bed. Malyck wiggled over and curled around him.

"Staaaay..."

"Sorry, wildflower, I think he's right", Hexi said grimly and stroked his leaves. Malyck grabbed his hand and pulled on it, eyes still closed.

"I know... but I need you too... just one more minute..."

Hexi rolled over, took him into his arms and squeezed him tight. "There you go."

He felt Malyck's hands traveling down his back, reaching down, and carefully but decidedly disentangled himself despite the Sylvari's groaned complaints. "I wish we had time for this, but we don't. It's adventure time, wildflower. We have to postpone this."

"But I miss you like this. It's been more than two weeks."

"I miss you like this, too. Later. After we fix the Mists. Then I won't let you go for about ten years time, and you can put all the weird spells on me that you always wanted to try out, okay?"

Malyck pouted and opened half of an eye to wink at him. "Okay. That sounds fair."

He closed his eye again and felt warm lips meet his. The kiss was so sweet, so promising... until Hexi pulled away and Malyck could hear him get up and dressed. "So mean", he muttered to himself, but finally followed suit.

They had some breakfast in one of the sitting corners of the library while the Mad King was walking up and down in front of them with an almost fanatic energy.

"I have learned that this is not the first instance of such an occurrence. They are far between, but they have happened in the past, though they have never been of this magnitude. Apparently, every time too much draconic energy accumulates in the Mists, the plane attempts to protect its magic by creating an anomaly. You could think of it as a self-destructing mechanism to keep the magic of the Mists far from the dragons' hunger."

"This may sound stupid", Hexi said with a mouth full of apple, "but how do we destroy destruction?"

"Well, technically it destroys itself", Oswald explained. "If you get together the right ingredients and spells and shoot them all at the heart of the anomaly, it should start consuming itself. Of course, the spells are quite complex and the ingredients hard to get, but I believe we have just the right team at hand."

Malyck had pulled the book the monarch had pointed to off its pile and begun thumbing through it. "Right... good thing they had records on it. This book must be ages old! I don't think anyone in Tyria knows this kind of stuff. You're right, the assembling of this projectile, as they call it, sounds very difficult. You need something draconic to implement the destructive element, the 'blood of chaos', whatever they may mean by that, and the bones of someone killed, preferably by a draconic minion. Oh, and to stabilise, some part of Tyria. Hmmm... I wonder if one of my leaves would work for that."