War of Fire

Journey to Scaleswind

I woke up on my purple bed in my bedroom. Today was out journey to Scaleswind. I dreaded having to see the results. I sat up, and stretched. I picked up my backpack, and put it around my shoulders, as I went downstairs. Today I would be the one making breakfast, not Zoey. That was fine. Actually, I might be able to just grab something from one of the cabinets. I opened them up, and found cereal and strawberries. That would do. I grabbed a bowl, and poured the cereal in it. Then a smaller bowl for the strawberries, and it would be good to eat. I ate my breakfast and headed outside to check it on Laurence and Lucinda. I was in no way over seeing the empty village, without anyone I knew in it but the two left. I could make it through without crying, though. I cried on the inside, however. That was how I felt most of the time these days. I entered the guard tower and went upstairs. Laurence was sharpening his sword, as he does often. "Morning," he said, without looking up. "Morning..." I said. "Want to go get Lucinda?" I asked. "Sure," he replied. He got up, and we left. We went through the wheat field, and past a few trees to her house. Just was we were about to call her, she opened the door. "Hey!" she greeted us. "Ready to go?" she asked. "Yeah, we're ready," I said. We walked off, through the forest to Scaleswind. "I have very low expectations," I said after jumping over a fallen tree. "Don't we all," Lucinda said. The forest was not as thick as the one to Meteli, but it wasn't that open, either. We weaved through the trees, trying not to lose each other. We soon passed Kawaii Chan's old maid cafe, still boarded up. It's still standing! I didn't expect it to be. We were halfway there, now. The cafe was the landmark for that.
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After an hour of traveling, we left the woods to go into the mountains. The rocks went up far, some above the clouds. We climbed, and it was decently easy. We reached the top of a hill, and it went pretty flat for a while, with scattered spruce trees, and evergreens. We heard rustling in some bushes next to us, but we figured that it was just an animal. But the noise followed us, not going away. I drew my sword, and so did Laurence. Lucinda took out her wand. "Who's there?" I called. It was a long shot- I doubted anyone was there given the situation. "Too loud?" a voice said. This startled us all, and then a figure came out of the bushes that were climbing up the trunk of a tree. "Who are you?" Laurence asked the person. The man had a long purple sword, and it wasn't as shiny as the other swords. He wore a black jacket, with the hood up, and a red bandana around his eyes. "I would prefer not to tell you that." the man says. "But, I'm going to say that I am not here to harm you." "Then why are you here, then?" Laurence asked. "I am here, looking for any humans left." he replied. We were silent for a while, shocked. "Erm... Us too," I said. Lucinda nodded. "I'll be around. I'll come if you are in any danger, but you won't see me." He said, then turned and started to walk away. "We can take care of ourselves, thanks," I called after him. The man turned his head to me, and said, "You don't know what the Nether is capable of," he said. "I do." Laurence said, lowing his voice. "What?" the man said, interested. He was turned all the way around, now, even though there was a good five yards between us. Laurence looked down. He was ashamed of what happened to him in the Nether, who he became. "I...." he couldn't say it. "I'm a shadow knight." The man picked up his sword from the snow. "Your a Rebel?" he asked Laurence. We gave the man a confused look. He sighed and explained it to us. "A Rebel is someone who is a shadow knight, but doesn't follow the Shadow Lord," Oh.... "Then, yeah, I guess so."  Laurence said. He was still looking down; he was probably having quite a few flash backs right now. "We should get going." I told the man. "If you're going to Scaleswind," he started, "I'm not going to lie to you and tell you they're okay." He finished, and turned to leave. He walked past the bushes, turned behind them, and disappeared. We heard light footsteps in he snow, and we could tell he was walking away. I looked over at Laurence and asked him if he was okay. "Yeah, I'm... fine." I looked over at Lucinda, and said: "Are we still going? After what he just told us?" Lucinda paused to think for a moment. "I don't think he was lying. It's not like I expected anything different after all this, but we would've came all the way over here for nothing. We might as well stay there over night." she suggested. She had a point. "Alright. Then let's go, I guess,"
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We approached the red gate of Scaleswind. We stood there for a minute, then entered. We walked down the cobbled road, looking around. The man was right- there was again, no one in the streets. The curse had happened early in the morning, so not many people were up yet. We walked around some more, and eventually split up. I went down to the church that I had been to when I was looking for Levin's mother. Not much has changed. There was the Irene statue, sitting on it's small stage. Then I remembered this was where I found the letter that helped me find Levin's mom. I wondered if I could find the crack I found the letter in... I walked down the isle and ran my fingers across the stone wall, looking for the crevasse. Soon, I found a deeper crack, and wider too. This was it. I tried to look in, but it was too dark to see in it. I reached into it, feeling around. On a hunch, I guessed that the shadow knights were the ones who left the original note, so maybe they left another one about this... curse. The crack was deeper than I remembered. I felt a bit further to hear a crinkling sound. Was that paper? I tried to find where the sound was, and I got ahold of the paper. I pulled it out, and held it in front of me. As I read the note, I realized that this was exactly what we needed.