The Sketch: The Voyage of Soal

The Sword That Fends Itself

Soal awoke to the sound of hissing blobs, and found himself lying near the entrance of the sword hall with a few Dark Soldiers. He could hear the thunderous bombarding of Flameberg, signaling him that the battle was still going on. But how long had it been? Had his friends- of the army- survived? Getting up and drawing his sword, Soal, well... he didn't have his sword! Neither was on him, nor his shield. Looking to his right, the Dark Soldiers pointed to him with their gloppy wings, and pointed their own spears at him. One ran over to grab his swords, which Soal beat him too and got his gear back. He slayed the pack of beats with a few swishes of the Pure Light sword, and made his towards Kiwi and the others- they were nowhere to be found. Perhaps the Dark Soldiers did have a kind side after all... sprinting out of the fortress, to the Archer's Overpass, the storm of Dark Hands had disappeared, and were now swooshing all about in the air with kiwi soldiers in their hands, dropping them into a pit of Dark Soldiers with spears held high in the air. And more Dark Soldiers were still approaching. Soal held out his arms above his head, watching above, and caught Anter herself in his palms! "Well, how silly! I guess I came back just in time. But I must return to the army; I've got work to do!" He put her down and bowed as though to a queen. She still had her bow in her hands, with one notched and ready now that she was back on her feet, but thanked the lively young general first. "Why thank you! That was ridiculous! You have to see this. Retna's up on the hills doing something of her own, but Porter's pushing back the tide. Look!" She pointed into the valley. "I may be the former princess of Lubreigha, but you bow to no one." The pleased, energetic kiwi bowed to Soal and ran off to a later section of the bridge, and Soal blushed. The remaining kiwi archers cheered as the Un-Character ran off, up the stairway, and up the mountain, away from the battle. He was going up onto the dull, flat hills bordering Meinhaym; where the camp once was, and where Anter had told him Retna had ran off to.

Meanwhile, in the valley, Porter was, against the odds, discovering ways to defeat the enemy army. Archers continuously shot straight up, with dragon crossbows, to destroy Dark Hands, and Soal's tactics were used to defeat the fatally oozy Dark Soldiers. A blockade was formed; a blockade made of kiwis and their shields. Shields were whipped out in front of kiwis all along the border, creating a barrier that trapped remaining troopers, and now they were surrounding the Dark Soldiers. Now they were plowing through them, destroying the nearly quarter-mile across army of cornered caramel. A small resistance was formed, but as time went by, the numbers of Articulus's ground troops went from a million... to a thousand.... to a hundred... to, after about two hours' worth of closing in, zero. Zero Dark Soldiers. Porter had never led such a victory. As his army cheered in accomplishment, they turned their cross-hairs towards the Dark Hands, and Shadow Hand who was lurking inside somewhere. Half the army had been defeated. But could the other half be killed? Shadow Hand was a ruthless, unpredictably vile creature, a steward of Articulus designed to kill the Un-Character and his armies. But this was only his third time meeting him head-on, or at least later, so he had much to learn about human battle habits. They had some pretty good ones.

But Porter was worried; and a scout of his had told him that Soal was situated in the camp, so he left the army for a short time to check on him and fight alongside the Un-Character. It was thirty minutes before he reached Retna and Soal, blueprinting in a tent.

"Archer Retna! General Soal!" his front head gasped for breath, and they turned to him.

"I'd like it more if you called me Queen Retna the Prestigious and Legendarily Great Archer, but I'll take that. We were developing a plan... since you destroyed all of them Dark Soldiers, we're looking for a way to summon the Great Hand, the leader of the Magical Hands, to help us throw all these Dark Hands in the garbage. After all, the only thing that can kill a hand... besides the Pure Light sword... is another hand."

"But you can't attract Great Hand; he was killed by the Hole, along with the entire Okay Sea, a long while ago. But if you mean a Century Flute, then that means business. Do we have diamonds and a good smithy?" Porter considered her words.

"See, that's our slight problem... we don't have diamonds or a good smithy. But maybe we could use this after the battle. For now, though... well, ah... I guess something will happen. Soal will probably come up with another crazy plan again. Come on, think!" Retna sarcastically said to the old general, and Soal. Now it was his turn to join the conversation.

"Could you imagine what I could do if I could do all I can?" Soal smiled and quoted Porter's quoted quote from a long time ago. "If I could do all I can, then I would kill Shadow Hand. After all, I still have that sword."

"Good," Retna nodded like an insane assassin who was going to kill the most powerful dictator in the world. Then Porter joined in too, and said, "Then let's do that."