The Heart of the forgotten

Chapter 2

The night was dark and cold, and no one had come to a decision, the numbers of those who wanted to go forward tied with those who wanted to go to the mountain, three people hadn't decided, these were Augromat (Who didn't count), Barty, and Reginald. The captain of the royal guard said that if they didn't come to a decision by morning, He would choose for them. Reginald and Barty sat there, staring into the fire as it danced, heat radiating off of it, like the sun on a cool summer day, the majority of the skeletons and some of the people, stood guard, the people would switch out for another every hour or so, some of the skeletons thought that they were weak because they couldn't go all night without sleep, and still be refreshed the next morning. "What are we doing?" Asked Barty "The choice is obvious, I choose to look for the flower, that way Augromat will be safe." "what's the point if everyone dies in the process?" Reginald asked "we need more numbers so we should venture into the mountains for more numbers and a better chance of survival." "n...n..no don't...." Augromat opened his eyes and looked at them both "split up... the fastest and those who can get there and back in time, go into the mountains, Th..th.. The others look for the flower." Augromat fell asleep.

The next day everyone lined up in front of the captain of the guard who had spoken to Barty and Reginald. "Line Up Maggots!" The Captain said, someone was chatting to another person next to him "What was that Maggot?! If its so important Why don't you say it to everyone! After that you can do my morning workout with me: climb up the top and down that tree 100 times, every second you stop to rest is one time you have to do one hundred pushups, if you get past a thousand you can give me two thousand crunches followed by a ten mile run in 2 hours, every second your late is one time you start back over climbing the tree." the Captain shouted "Now for the news, We will be seperated into groups, Matthius has two long speech stones, one for me, and one for Tom. my group will be heading to the village, and tom's group will be looking for the flower. Fall Out" No one, and mean it NO ONE messed with the captain and lived to tell the tale, Tom's group continued east, every day he would get word from the captain who would go down a list of questions in this order, if they found the flower, if they had found the capital or any structures indicating the ancient kingdom's whereabouts, and where they were. There was a rumor that there was going to be a solar eclipse right were they were standing, Barty knew of the power that came from solar and lunar eclipses "I have an idea" Barty said to Tom "I need these three gems" He handed Tom a list " and the horn of a Dark Unicorn" "A DARK UNICORN?! HAVE YOU GONE MAD?!" Tom Gasped "SHHH!" Barty said "You don't want people revolting do you?"

The Days felt like months, searching for the flower, there were rumors of a wild, glowing blue flower, it would appear in the corner of your eye then vanish when you turned to look at it, as they traveled north east the fog started to lift and the swamp turned into woods, birds were singing, flowers were blooming, but there was no sign of the flower. Before he left town Barty had gotten a "Telescope" and used it to look at the moon, and guessed that they had about a month before the solar eclipse "The spell will take time to perform, sadly it will make the solar eclipse go by faster, three sconds to about a minute." Tom set off with one half of the group that they had, Barty pulled out a big stack of books and started to read outloud " Aboliths, Kobolds... Gelatinous Cubes.... Dragons...... Ah! here we are, The Dark Unicorn: Dark Unicorns, thought to be extinct, are very much alive, unlike unicorns they are attracted to death weed. Not much is known about Dark Unicorns, no one knows what they look like, no one truly knows what they eat, but people always disappear when around dark unicorns anyone who looks at its true form goes insane. DO NOT APPROACH" Barty closed the book and opened another one about plants "Basic plants, legendary plants, magical plants, Ah ha! Mythical Plants! Now lets see no... no... no..... No.... there we are! Death weed! Death weed is quite rare! Often found at the east edge of the kingdom of the sun. it is mainly used in dark magic and always has at least ONE Dark Unicorn nearby, the amount of branches missing from the death weed is how many Dark Unicorns are nearby, usually it has ten branches, death weed can not be harvested normally and has to die inorder for it to be taken out of the ground. Huh." Barty started to think, everyone knew because, you could see the cogs in his brain turning "a new moon means dark magic... and a few days before new moons it is said that Death weed bloom to soak up the dark magic." Barty pulled out three vials, one had a silver powder, one had water, and the last had ten large grains of what looked like black sand, he took the silver and poured it into a circle, then he made another circle around it, then he poured it in the shape of three triangles within the smaller circle with the points connecting making a fourth triangle, just big enough for someone to sit in. He drew weird symbols in a circle then muttered a spell, then the symbols got burned into the grass, He started sweating bullets as he took three of the grains of black sand and carefully set them in the center of each of the first three triangles, and constantly going back to each one to make sure that they were perfectly at the center. Tom was getting impatient and finally asked "What are you doing with those sunflower seeds?" "what...... WHAT?!?!? HOW DARE YOU DISRESPECT THEM, THESE ARE ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL INGREDIENTS IN MAGIC KNOWN TO MAN! THESE ARE SO RARE THAT THERE ARE ONLY A HUNDRED IN EXISTENCE! EVEN ONE COULD TURN A MEAR SLEEPING SPELL INTO A COMA SPELL!! IF NOT CORRECTLY PREPARED IT COULD GO FROM GIVING ONE A COMA TO A PAINFUL DEATH! SO PLEASE LET ME CONCENTRATE!" Tom took a step back then turned and signaled everyone to follow. They set up camp not far from the symbol and started to unpack, getting hunting gear, assigning patrols, and discussing plans. Barty took the water and poured it in between the two circles, Then barty sat down in the center of the middle triangle, weird symbols of hands, faces and objects burned into the ground in between the two circles, and the silver powder turned to gold.

The camp was full of activity, people were setting up tents, others were unpacking, some a couple where climbing trees to map out the land. Tom was in the planing tent with a four other people with a table showing groups of people, "Alpha patrol will map out the west flank, Beta will do the east, they will circle around until they have switched sides, then they will come back to base." Tom said, "If I may, we could send out Omega to the north, and Gama to the south, that way it could get done faster" a man said "No, Gamma and Omega are both weary and heavily wounded from the fight with Gideon, They need to rest" he pounded the table with his fist "I Will not lose anymore good men!" He took a breath then continued "Sending Gamma and Omega out to patrol, would be like sending out old men, they are heavily wounded and they are on there way to recover. By the time they recover we will have recovered and will be read to continue." they all looked at each other, then nodded they all pulled out their swords and overlapped them, Then they recited the Oath "For Honor, For Justice, For Knowledge, For Wisdom, For the King, For Family." Then put away there swords. Tom walked out of the tent and signaled everyone to come to listen to the news the news.

It was cold and dark, The echoing sound of distant voices could be heard, everything around him was the same but.. Something was off, the sky was dark and cloudy, the trees had almost no leaves, the ground was barren. The portal home was next to him, showing the ground where it had been cast, in the center of the portal he saw himself meditating, when he looked at his hands he saw that his hands were glowing a transparent light blue, "it worked..." he saw glowing lights thru the trees and decided that it would be a good place to start, as he went the voices grew louder,as he wandered he realized that all of his weapons, his stuff his maps and books, where gone all left behind. As he traveled he started to recognize the voices but he didn't know whose they where, when he arrived at the lights he was filled with saddened, saddened to see that he had founded the camp where Tom was, but then he heard a voice behind him "it's amazing isn't it?" he turned, then he started to cry "Tirvern? I missed you so much!" she said as she started to cry, Barty ran up to hear and hugged her " I missed you To Grandma!" "So, What so important that you needed to see me?" she said, Barty responded with "recently i made new friends grandma, but now... one of them is going to die" Barty started to sob "I'm scared, Grandma, I don't know what to do! We've been searching day in day out for the cure, and... And I feel like I could do more but... I need help! Grandma, to be honest with you... I didn't cast the spell to find you, I used it to find death weed. Can you help me find it?" She chuckled and said, " I remember when I was your age, I searched for years for death weed, I Was Researching and writing all day and all night, i got a degree because of a paper I wrote about death weed, one day me and a team of explorers were investigating ancient ruins of a library, I picked a book up one upand started to read hoping to get information on death weed, and I did. During an event called the great purge the ancients wiped it all out in an attempt to kill the dark unicorn, it worked. Now all unicorns, real and fake, live here, in the land of the dead, they can be summoned, but the only way to get death weed is to come here, it's real common if you know where to look." They started walking and soon they came to a grove, Gold glowing flowers where everywhere illuminating the darkness and making Barty feel calm, His grandma said "Death weed was never meant to be in the land of the living, it is a flower that was meant to be here. You can have some but don't forget, that when you pick it, Run as fast as you can, Unicorns were meant to protect it, and they will kill you if they catch you. Good luck." "Thank you" barty responded.

Barty Dug it out of the ground,but as soon as the last root of the flower snapped, silence, all the flowers went dark, he heard the pounding of hoofs toward him, and immediately started running, the sky turned red, and the ground was littered with gravestones the nearby river turned to blood. And he could hear the shrieks of the dead behind him, the trees started attacking him, and he could see the exit, time felt like it slowed down completely as he saw it, The true form of a dark unicorn, he charged and ran under it, the portal turned from blue to blood red, the dark unicorns circled him, he reached for his violute, but nothing, the faces of the creatures would vibrate, contorting in weird ways before snapping back to normal. They got ready to charge and-