Dark Shadows

Fate Is Never Kind

The Archmage turned and motioned for us to follow. "What do you think he wants?" Belial whispered softly, rubbing his arm a bit nervous. I shrugged, wanting to know myself. The Archmage was always busy and never sees anyone. No one knows a lot about him, but rumors around the school says that he once killed dragons for a living single handed. "You both. What year are you?" He begins to slow down to let us catch up and hear him a bit better. Within this school there is a ranking system that are called years. Not years as in the time aspect but experience wise. It starts from novice, honorable, exulted, screit, archmage, and dragon slayer. There hasn't been a dragon slayer in decades as they all went into hiding a long time ago. "Oh, we are both Exulted." I stated softly. Exulted warlocks are trusted with most of the higher classes. We had earned this when creating alchemy a few years back.

"Well we will have to change that." Zoul stopped and turned quickly into a wall, tapping it with two fingers in which the wall opens, air rushing out of it quickly. Belial and I look at each other astonished only to look back and see that he was already gone. "Come, come, we have much to talk about." Belial and I race to the room, finding a spiral staircase leading into darkness. Following down candles would light up, illuminating the pathway warmly. Arcane magic keeping each individual candle afloat, sparkling with the fire that seems to not be melting them in the slightest. Controlled. "You are a destruction warlock?" I blurt out, in which Belial punches my arm as if I had said something wrong. In reaction you can hear the Archmage's footsteps stop for a moment, as if noticing what I had said. But then he started back up again, chuckling. "Very nice observation. That is correct, I am a warlock who uses the power of destruction." Even though he was ahead of us, you can feel his smile as if he was proud of the destruction he has caused.

The farther we traveled down the colder it felt, even the torches on the walls began to flicker more and more. They even began to sway away from where we were walking as if to avoid what was down there. After a walk that seemed to be ten minutes, we found a large opening leading to a laboratory. Numerous objects can be seen floating around. Brooms were cleaning, bottles were mixing various fluids, and towels can be seen cleaning large tubes at the edge of the wall. Zoul stops in the middle of the room and claps his hands as he turns on his heels, facing us. The clap echoes through out the lab, every object stopping for a moment but then getting back to cleaning and mixing. "Welcome students. To AP Alchemy." He smiles and stands there, as if waiting for a reaction. But nothing came. Belial and I just stood there dumbfounded. "What is this?" I muttered, confused and trying to understand the situation. The Archmage frowns disappointed in our reactions. "I have been watching you two closely for the past few years. You have successfully caught my attention." He waves his arm and begins to sit down as a chair floats to him. He sighs and relaxes within it as if ready to tell a story. "With the attention gained I see that your experiments have become very intense. I see that you both are now trying them on..live subjects." Belial and I gulp. About a year ago we had started to catch bugs, putting them under some tests as well. We just needed more results. Belial blurted out frightened.

"We're sorry! We were just curious!" Zoul had a smile stretch across his face and began to chuckle, Belial and I just looked at each other confused. "You silly children." The Archmage rubbed his hands together and went to the side of the wall, grabbing cloth hanging off of it. "Tis is what curiosity..truly is." With a grunt he ripped off the cover to reveal a secret room, revealing test tubes of creatures floating in green liquid, dead humans just sitting there. Evolving.