Chaos

Stages

   We sat in a large tilted room with broken wooden floors, red wallpaper with stains and a long beat up wooden table in the center of the room with 10 barley standing chairs.
   Unknown and the tall lady in the cloak were talking about business that I didn't understand. "Havoc is overflowing and Chaos wants war" said the tall woman (I'm gonna call her Tessa, since EVERYONE is technically unknown) Tessa took a look around at the people sitting at the table and paused when her eyes landed on me," Odd how, Chaos wants to charge itself into war with Havoc when you bring a human here, right Unknown?" She states grimly glaring my way as Unknown stands to defend herself, "If she is a human how did she get here and she can read spells unless all humans posses that power." Unknown says as she as well looks my way "She read a spell from two Ancient books" she continued which caught the attention of Tessa. "Prove it" she says "If the girl passes the books stages then she lives, but if she doesn't well the stage fails with be the cause of her death and her final resting place" with that Tessa grabs the books I was reading earlier and shoved them into my arms. "Good luck" she said with a not so friendly grin before leaving the room. When she left out Unknown ran up to me trying to prep me for the upcoming task. "You were reading the book right?" She asked hurriedly as I half nodded because I kinda skimmed one book and was disrupted before even opening the other, "So that means you can do it again. Just-" as she was talking the books began to rumble in my hands and getting hotter by the second. "What the hell!" I yelled out as I dropped the books looking at my now red hand as a symbol slowly started to etch itself into my palm. While I was focused on my hand Unknown's silence made me look up at her terrified face. "Hey! What's going on with the books? And my hand!" I asked but received no answer. She just stared at me and the books. Slowly my hand began to cool down and I took a look at it. "What the actual f-" I was cut off by Unknown who grabbed my hand (still staring at the books) and dragged me out of the old oak door that Tessa walked out of. As we were walking I realized I had no idea about a lot of stuff here so the game of twenty (20) questions began. "Why is there a rune on my hand? Can I eat? Am I able to give you guys nicknames since calling everyone Unknown is a little bit weird? What happened to the bo-" Unknown slapped her hand over my mouth in an attempted to shut me up (which it did). As we went on my questions were unanswered and my legs were cramping. Finally after all those twists and turns we made it to a much neater part of the building. Don't get me wrong the building did not magically fix itself it still looks inhabitable this part is just partially my habitable than the rest of the place. The floor boards are dark wood that wasn't broken, but did have several cracks and could give someone a killer splinter. The wall paint wasn't as faded and stained as the other rooms but the paint is chipped, and there is only one door in this long hallway. (I wonder where the room we are going to is (sarcasm)). We walk down the hall to the door and walk in without knocking. There Tessa sat at a makeshift desk which consisted of an off white plastic and kind of melted rectangular table with two rusty foldable chairs, looking over several papers not even looking up as she said "Why are you back so quickly?" She sat the papers down stood up from her seat and swiftly walked towards me. She grabbed my arm in one hand and opened the door to shoved me out of her "office" with the other after seeing what was on my hand. Once I was out she closed and locked the door. From the loud banging and yelling between her and Unknown I knew this day just got longer.