Ryünda

Chapter 5: The Quest Begins

The Quest Begins

In total we picked four other mages to join us on our quest. Terra and Dom were from Darco, and both possessed skills in elemental magic. Dom was by far the cool-headed one of the pair, so it came to no surprise that his element of choice was water. A few of his spells could summon large volumes of water from any nearby source, and once it was within sight he could shape it into whatever he needed it to become. He could also freeze it or change it into steam if water was not the best thing to use. Terra, being so aptly named for her element, chose earth to be her first choice. She had also dabbled into fire magic a little, but the most she could do was make small fireballs. Her earth magic, on the other hand, was so strong she could level a city block with rolling shockwaves or make it sink like a ship into bottomless quicksand. Neither of them had strong attacks or defenses with pure magic the way Roche and I did. Instead they used their elements as the tools to get the job done. It made for very impressive shows of skill because to control something other than one's own magic required a steady hand and a very strong will.

Bram of Helios didn't have any true spells to speak of, but his magic manifested into something much more potent, illusion. He could trick an entire army into running for the hills just by thinking of something to scare them. Whatever his devious mind came up with was created in the real world and would be real to everyone who saw it. Even powerful mages would be fooled by the figments and could be sent packing in fear. Lastly, Heather was one of the mages that worked in the palace back in Soldre, but her skills had been largely untapped until she revealed them to us that day. Heather had been thought not to have any real power when she tested to become a mage, but that was because she was too scared to let it show. Her powers stemmed from her emotions, and for her to be so frightened meant she hid most of her power away during the tests. After she told Roche and I what she could really do, we couldn't get her to come along fast enough. Her true power almost rivaled our own in raw strength, but only if she went off the deep end in rage. There had been a couple of random explosions outside the city over the last couple of years, and the shockwaves created had knocked almost everyone to their knees with their force. Heather had been outside the city during those times, and she revealed that both times she had been attacked by bandits and lost her temper. Needless to say there wasn't anything left of the bandits.

This rag-tag group of mages was the one we chose to join us and we knew from the start we had chosen right. They befriended each other on sight and immediately started to trade spells and techniques while Roche and I worked out the final details of our trip. King Viridian supplied us with the finest horses he could muster, and before the night was done we had ridden out of Windsong Gorge and crossed the border into the Dark Hemisphere. For better or worse, our task was under way and we would not give up until we had destroyed the Sira citadel or died in the attempt.

We rode for five days straight, stopping only to rest for a few hours and then continuing on. The horses had strength to spare at each rest and I thanked King Viridian in my mind for giving us such well-bred steeds, for we would have never gotten this far so quickly with father's bulky warhorses. We made great time and reached the first ring of defenses around the city by the end of the sixth day. Roche proved worth his weight in gold because he knew where the gaps in the defensive rings lay. Forging carefully we crossed the first six rings without incident, though we hit a small snag on the seventh.

"I thought you said it would be easy to get past the rings?" Dom said as he hit a group of wolf-like Darklings with a rush of water, "This is more like a day at the zoo without cages."

"Nice to see your sense of humor is still intact Dom," Terra said as she launched boulders at a pair of huge trees that had come to life and where smashing everything with their blade-tipped branches, "but would you mind spending less time making puns and more time destroying Darklings."

"Knock it off you two." I yelled as I sent a wave of fire out in all directions, incinerating all of the Darklings within twenty feet of me, "There will be time to argue later but right now we need to get past these defenses."

As one we corralled the remaining Darklings into a tight group and Roche blasted them with pure magic from above. They howled and screamed as the magic tore through their twisted bodies, but soon it became deathly quiet as their systems were overloaded to breaking point. Roche landed and Terra returned the ground back to somewhat normal while Dom and I looked around.

"Has anyone seen Bram or Heather?" I asked, not seeing them anywhere, "They were here when we triggered the traps, so what happened to them?"

"I remember seeing a plume of smoke coming from the north behind those trees." Terra said, pointing to indicate a thin trail of smoke wafting up from the next hill, "I think they got separated from us and found some trouble of their own."

"They might be hurt." I yelled as I ran past Roche, "We need to get there now in case they need help."

We all ran over the hill, dodging the tight-knit trees and forcing our way through the thick brush. We came up to a clearing to find Heather holding a limp Bram in her arms, a pool of blood already forming at her feet. As we came up she looked at us with tear-filled eyes and said, "He tried to scare off the Darklings with his illusions, but for some reason they could see through them and I couldn't stop them in time." She pressed her head into Bram's shoulder, "I wasn't strong enough to save him. I couldn't get over my fear in order to save Bram." She gently lowered his body to the ground and stood up, her hands red with his blood and tear stains covering her shirt. "I can't risk letting someone else get hurt because I can't control my power." She looked at us, her eyes now hard with determination, "You have to avenge Bram for me, because I won't let someone else get hurt because of me." She turned away, "I'm leaving this quest, so you'll just have to finish off the Sira without me." Her voice grew soft again, filled with pain and sorrow, "I'm sorry, for everything." With that she ran off into the woods, casting shining tears in her wake, leaving us with Bram's body in the clearing without any idea as what to do.

In the end there really was nothing we could do, so we buried Bram with all of the proper rights and moved on, leaving an unmarked headstone in the center of the clearing with a single rose resting above his grave. We moved on through the last ring of defenses without incident, though the loss of Bram and the desertion of Heather lay heavy in our hearts. As we came into view of the capital city of Coldren, we stood in a line on the edge of the hills overlooking the city, and as one we made a silent vow not to let our friends' sacrifices be in vain.