Shadow's Curse

Shadow's Curse: A One-Shot

Kinti sprinted out of his flaming house, terrified of the dragon soaring and roaring after him. The heat seared his skin, forming blisters at a swift pace.

This is what I get for breaking one measly law, he thinks. If I actually managed to summon that thing, who knows what the dragon would do to my village. Heh, oh well, serves the bastards right. "That's the Shadowfell way!" they always said. Now see how they cower when encountering a real challenge! Ha!

The Dragon, the Dark-Bringer Shraegalax, swooped down and sliced Kinti's back as the boy rolled out of the talon's snatching path. He cried out as he felt the searing tip cut through his back, just barely missing the spine. Shraegalax banked and encircled Kinti with fire, thinking the boy an easy catch, but when he dove into the circle, his prey was gone, a small Dimension Door closing underneath the massive claw.

Kinti slips through a dark hall lined with thousands upon thousands of doors, each one pleading him to step through, that behind their grim entrance is a peaceful world waiting to aid him in his dragon slaying. He ignores each and every door until he reaches one that is widely known as the door to the Material Plane, the main hub of any and all mortal activity. The shock of the situation presses at the back of his mind, but he slinks onward, and only lets the whole scene unfold completely in his imagination once he's collapsed through the passage and into the sun of his new and hopefully temporary home.

Kinti hardly believed anything- the feel of the soft grass, the safe warmth of this plane's sun, the sound of life bustling around him, all the bright light, and the fact that his plan worked.

His grandfather's training had paid off, despite the people of the Shadowfell scorning him for it. Magic has always been a bit taboo, considering the only way to kill their ruling lord- the very dragon that attempted to murder Kinti- was a spell that has been broken apart and reassembled by the one or two mages of the various towns. That spell was in his father's books, and is the precise reason why Kinti's house and family are probably ashes by now.

"Hey, Mister, are you okay?" a voice cuts through his scatterbrained thought process. A small boy in an apprentice's robe prods his burnt side with a rounded rod.

"I will be once you stop poking me with a stick," Kinti replied. "Look, I need a way to kill a dragon lord of darkness and a healing salve. Do you have either one?"

"I don't," the boy said, "but my dad should! I'll be right back!" The kid spins and runs off, leaving Kinti laying face-first in the field he teleported himself to.

Kinti begins assessing the situation, sorting it all out aloud. "My house is gone, I'm on a new plane and this kid seems friendly enough, so I don't think I'm going to die just yet. Good. Now, I need to find a way back so I can set my people free from that bloody dragon... Then I'll be a hero! Haha!" The sudden movement rips pain through the burns and the open wound stretching the length of his torso. "First things first-seal up that wound before I bleed out..." Kinti weaves himself a spell, and uses the last of his strength to sew the jagged pieces of flesh back together, tiny rivers of scarlet dripping down his ashen skin and staining his snow-white hair a deep crimson. His hands shake as the last of the spell flows from his fingertips into the scarring skin of his back. "That should do for now, at least. Blood loss is no longer a major threat, fantastic!"

Kinti flops over on his back painfully as the child returns. The billowing cloak tickles his nose as boy calls out to his father from his side. The thumping footfalls shake the ground, sending vibrations up the Shadar-kai's back and beyond, causing the trees to quiver and quake to the steady marching of the giant.

The giant pauses and glowers down at Kinti. "You never told me this was a Shadow-man, Anak. If I had known that I would've left him here to die." The giant turns away, and begins his hike home.