Rune of Oldfyre

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Rune of Oldfyer

He stood there in the snow; that angry god, so filled with pain and hate that there was no more joy and delight left in his heart. His eyes began to burn a pure sapphire light. His veins could be seen shining through his flesh. He could feel the fire pumping through his blood. He never came to terms with the fact that, regardless of this flame, ice had formed in his heart. Two diametrically opposed forces acting as one. He spoke in the deep and old voice of pain. It struck terror in his enemy, one that had never been terrified in his life.

At his chest, glowed the Rune of Oldfyre, the most powerful object ever forged. This was the first instance, in its long history, that it had finally been used. It worked better than origanlly estimated all those centuries ago. It created a god from a single man.

That man never returned.

I stood, staring at the space in front of me. Once a powerful wizard stood inches from my face, now he lies a hundred feet a way. I moved towards him, reaching him in only a few quick strides. The look in his eyes showed terror, primal and absolute. A master had been knocked down and shown the face of true power.

"Bad move." I said to him. I pulled a metal object from my bag, a gun. I had never used a gun before. I could see how it worked though. A trigger would be pulled, some flint makes fire, fire makes explosion, and explosion sends piece of metal into this asshole's skull. I aimed at his head with the gun in the same way it had been aimed at me, and cocked the flint piece back. He raised his hands as if to shield himself from it. It didn't work.

I, with out consciously deciding, spoke a strange series of syllables. There was another flash of light that made the previous flash cower in shame.

Three things happened, and not in any particular order. First, a gun went off. Its controlled explosion sent a piece of shrapnel flying at great speeds through a tube and out one end. Second, I had finished the speaking portion of a new powerful spell. One that future generations would call the Storms of May. And third, the Rune of Oldfyre acted on these forces like oil on flame.

Arcs of lightning, like blades, cut down from all sides. His head exploded into a spray of blood and bone as a tiny chunk of metal hit some vital part of his brain. He didn't have time to yelp or make a noise. He simply died. So ends the pitiful tale of Giaus Ortavius Mengsk, master of seventeen schools of magic.

I turned around and approached the convoy. I picked May up out of the snow and carried her to the sled. She hung low in my arms as I carried. When her body was secure in the sled, i sat down next to her and we rode towards New Qurat.

I didn't sleep. The insomnia wore off roughly the same time that the bullet penetrated the skull of that monster. Instead I had no desire to sleep. I was too far into grief. I just sat by her side day and night, wondering what she had meant to tell me when she... when she. Tears never left my eyes.

I stopped seeing the world's beauty like I had when she was alive. I saw things in their most basic of details. Trees were simply green and prickly. The sun was bright and yellow, no longer emitting colorful rays of white light into beautiful amethyst eyes. The moon was just a rock, no more was it a white eye in the night that guarded the world during its darkest hours. I paid no attention to the world of wonder. Joy and delight had been drained from me with a leech. I pointed animosity towards everything and everyone, even my friends as they tried to console me.

The Eldritchbane Archive  sat outside of New Qurat, atop a large hill in the middle of the snowy waste. When we entered through its main gate we were stopped by a tall thin man wearing a tweed jacket and bow tie.

"I'm sorry gentlemen we're closed." He told us.

I am not going to have travelled this far and lose so much just for the fucking place to be closed. I thought as I angrily punched the side of the sled with my fist.

Allister sensed my intense aggravation and looked at the man. "We're actually delivering an item to the archive. Powerful rune, should have a list or something."

The man looked at the clipboard he was carrying, flipping through some pages. "Sorry, no runes scheduled. I can't let you in, sorry again."

I punched the canvas covering the sled hard enough to rip a hole in it. I hopped out of the back, the farthest I've moved in days, and approached the man. "I have walked across the world, I have fought pirates by the side a kraken, I have ridden on the back of an unholy hell beast, I have gotten a succubus laid, I have killed one of the most powerful casters on the planet, and above all... above all... above all, I lost the woman that I loved and held dearest in this world. So I am not leaving from this fucking location until this fucking chunk of fucking bone is behind a fucking pane of fucking glass!" I yelled, tears streaming down my face as I tore the rune from my chest. I was going to electricute a few fuckers if one more person tried to stop this stupid fucking quest.

When his eyes caught sight of the rune he stumbled back in fear. "Don't swing that thing around like that." He said referring to the rune, "It's incredibly powerful. You don't know what could happen if its activated."

"I think I do." I said shaking and throwing it around in my hand. "I just used it!"

"What!?" He shockingly asked. "It's never been activated before, it could have incinerated you or any one of us."

"Someone is going to be incinerated if they don't let me in and put this fucking thing in a fucking box so it can rest for the rest of fucking eternity!" I yelled, throwing lightning arcs in a direction vaguely towards him. I leaned back against the gate and slid to the ground, holding my head in frustration.

He stumbled further back almost falling onto his ass. "Okay, okay." He frantically said, "You can enter, just don't break anything. Although I should war-" we didn't hear what he said as we were already heading underground by the word "enter".

The archive was immense. The stair we trekked down would level out at every floor to allow entrance to the maze of corridors that this place was comprised of. We travelled down, all the way to the bottom.

The stairs finally leveled onto a cliff face. The cliff over looked a chasm that appeared bottomless. I looked towards the other side of the cliff and discovered what the man at the gate wished to warn us about.

Before us stood a large black-scaled dragon. It's head was the size of Molly. It had gargantuan wings and talons that could rip through solid steel. Smoke emerged from its nostrils.

When it's gaze meet ours, it roared a powerful howl that sounded as if a volcano had erupted. The party assumed attack formation, which we totally had. I grabbed the rune trying to activate it, lightning spitting from my appendages. I was about to crack the code of how runes work, when I felt something crash against my side. Knocking me over.

The dragon had swung it's monstrous tail at us. The rest of the party seemed to have dodged it, we're as I was preoccupied with the rune to notice. I was sent over the edge into the dark abyss, swinging my arms wildly in the futile attempt at gaining the ability of flight.

My life flashed before me. From that day I discovered magic, to the moment I said "why not" about joining the king's army, to that minute I was handed the most powerful object in the world by a transvestite dwarf, to my entrance into Incursia, the moment I first laid eyes upon May's dark hair and purple eyes, that night in my apartment, the moment I met the Kraken, the crazy nights at Rolenov, that evening sitting atop the Temple of the Disciples of Light, and to the moment I wish I could purge from my memory. I looked back at the friendships I made and companions that I've travelled with. An undead playwright, a rogue, Death himself, and of course May. I felt so much grief for losing them all. I was filled with pain and hate. I was someone I didn't want to be.

I held the rune close to my chest as I fell, hugging it tightly. If not for this bone I would still be stuck in Fraywood or long dead. I would never have gone on this journey. I would never have fallen so deeply in love. Sure, I probably wouldn't be falling to my death had I not brought the rune to on its journey, but everyone eventually dies, right? Though this stupid thing was the cause of so much grief for me, I had reason to thank its existence. And as I plummeted, I smiled for the first time in days. I smiled a content and sad smile as my body made its final, crunching contact with the rock below.

I and the rune had arrived at our final destination: the bottom floor of the heavily guarded archive.