Part I
A man stood at a massive stone wall, with two guards at the gate. One approached him and demanded, “What is your business here?” He just grinned and flared his wings. The guard stuttered and fell limp. The man looked to the other and said, “Here’s my invite,” dropping an envelope into the man’s hand. He opened it, skimmed it, and opened the gates. Once the thing was inside, he shoved the gates closed and leaned against them, panting. He hoped it never left the city.
The tavern was far too noisy for Blakon. He wasn’t sure at all why his dad kept forcing him to come here, saying, “You’re going to spend most of your free time as an adult here.” Many of the people were creepy and didn’t take too kindly to a child being allowed in. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew through the room. As the door creaked open, all the tavern-goers swiveled their heads suspiciously. In walked the man, grinning as before. He walked straight up to the owner as if he owned the place, and said, “I’ll have a mug of water.” “A-and who would you be?” the owner asked defiantly. The man smiled and said, “Kladtiom Hackfire.”
Kladtiom had been born in front of a fire, and would never forget the experience. The heat, the brightness, the freedom to expand wherever it wanted. He’d relished it, as much as he’d relished it when he’d figured out about matches. Now he carried a box wherever he went. Bal’TeMore had treated him rather kindly, with his many friends and family. However, he had decided to accept the invitation, and the journey had been pretty tiring. He’d had to trek most of the mountain because it had been raining, and the rain froze so fast at that altitude that it immediately turned into hail. Kladtiom didn’t think he’d ever been away from fire for so long. Now, at the other side of the mountain in the desert, it was far too dry and plantless for any campfires. Luckily, his matches and spells still worked, but he couldn’t rest until he was done. Still, it was very hot, and he could see many mirages. He kept using his detect magic spell, but eventually he had exhausted himself and couldn’t cast it anymore. Once he’d seen a group of humans, but hadn’t gone closer for fear of it being a mirage, and he could’ve sworn he’d seen a huge lizard trudging across the sand. Eventually he’d made it to the city, but because he’d been feeling ticked off, he’d shocked the soldiers. He’d been hoping for a rest at the tavern, but seeing all the hostility, he showed himself out. As he walked out, he saw a number of people staring. One came up to him and shoved him, just to see what his reaction was. Kladtiom ignored him and kept walking. At one point he found a bipedal turtle that smiled mysteriously at him. Feeling uncomfortable, the first thing he did was walk up to an inn. He paid 15 gold pieces for the night and walked in. He’d picked up on the rumors from the other guests, about him, the king’s funeral, who killed him, and other things he presumed useless. This turned out to be a mistake though, as that very night a new guest entered. Kladtiom stared in shock: The man was two feet taller than him, with a huge arsenal of weapons and a group of bodyguards. He was clearly very important…which was no good for Kladtiom. He had to get out of here, or he was dead meat. He immediately fled upstairs, only for the bodyguards to be there already. One had a bow and arrow already pointed, and the other had a sledgehammer ready to pound his skull in. He grimaced. He still hadn’t rested, so he could only cast one more spell, and he definitely couldn’t burn it down with all these people here. Instead, he took the more direct approach: he drew his scythe and readied himself for a fight.
He was blasted out the window. Groaning, he got up to see the man, with four more bodyguards at the ready. This is a bit much for the night you got here, isn’t it? muttered the voice in his brain. He was outside now, so he could cast his spell, but he needed to make sure he was far enough away from civilization. He immediately flared his wings and leaped up, speeding away into the night sky. He heard an angry shout from behind him, and before he could twist around an arrow whistled through his hair. Barely keeping his cool, he flew above the gate and crash-landed on the rock. The gates burst open to reveal the man, King Cortus of Persia. The king had gained extraordinary powers that could even rival his own, the only reason he’d been blasted through the window. But now it was over for the king. He’d severely underestimated Kladtiom, and following him had been a fatal mistake. As King Cortus jeered at him, saying things like “You should’ve known I would catch up to you,” and “You can’t stand up against the Persians!” How sad it would be that he’d have to die like this. The Persian Empire had been so strong. The only reason they had been lacking recently was because of his father. 4 months ago, Ponig had been staring down the mess hall at the “Wanted” posters. One of them was a magic arsonist, a man part of a criminal family that had existed for generations. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt something wrong in the air, as though there was something infecting the magical shield. The very next day, the man on the poster showed up, rampaging through the halls with a cloud of fire following him. Guards had thrown everything at him, and he threw it right back. Seventeen dead bodies were on the floor right now. Ponig ran into the armory and grabbed a spear. The man had made it into the Royal Treasury, and was tearing apart trinkets looking for something in a mad trance. He snatched up a red orb, containing the magical powers that gave the Persians their strength, and practically salivated at the sight of it. Ponig froze, fearing that the man would steal the army's powers. Suddenly, he came to, and threw it at the man. The man, seeing it speed toward him, tossed the orb on the ground with such force that it shattered. A collective gasp rose up, followed by another as people saw the man lying in a pool of blood. The spear had gone through him, and fell on the shards of the orb. It coursed with power. King Cortus picked it up, and randomly glowed red. Everyone rushed forward to help him, but the glow vanished almost immediately, leaving the king floating. As the realization that the king had absorbed its powers, everybody cheered for their king. Except Ponig. He marched out, seething with hatred. And then, 3 months later, rumors of the arsonist being back came about… King Cortus, with a final snort of glee, began conjuring a ball of bright blue light in his hand. Unluckily for him, he didn’t recognize an arcane focus when he saw one. As Kladtiom breathed the incantation, his wand suddenly spewed flames from the tip, causing the king to realize what Kladtiom had been doing. As the fireball descended on him, he roared curses…and went silent. When Kladtiom had cleared the smoke, footprints running away were everywhere, along with the king’s corpse…with a spear through his back. Intrigued, Kladtiom looked around, but no one was there. It must have been one of the bodyguards. However, he realized something that sent the spear away from his mind: if the king was dead, who took his powers? The next day, Kladtiom was fully rested, and left for the king’s funeral. It was so boring that he dozed off for a minute or two. The only interesting thing was the people who’d been there: humans, elves, a lot of people from Bal’TeMore. But it made him wonder why so many people had come to such a dreary funeral. By the time it was done, he was almost glad he’d killed King Cortus; it had given him a reason to be here. As for what he’d done with the king, he’d seen a kid sitting outside the library, and asked him to touch the spear. Once Kladtiom was sure the boy had gained its powers, he buried the body and bade farewell to the city. Blakon, shaken from his encounter in the morning, was still confused: what had been the strange rush of power he’d felt? As he walked home, a drunken man walked in front of him with a knife. Blakon immediately threw his arms in front of him to protect himself, and a burst of magic knocked out the man. As Blakon took this in, he suddenly realized the power that he had been given-and began thinking about all the ways he could use this to improve life. As he walked along, a man stared with hatred at him from the shadows…
Part II
Kladtiom couldn’t shake the feeling that something would probably go wrong in Tarabt, but it was out of his hands now, so he had flown away. Since he had just visited Grand Arabia, he was in the mood for going to Saudi Arabia, so he flew to Makkah. After conversing with some of the men, he flew away again, growing increasingly worried about what he had just left in Tarabt. As it turned out, he’d been very right to worry. Tarabt was a ruin. Wood was dangling from the roofs of many houses, and sand was filling a lot of the houses. The tavern had been reduced to rubble. Kladtiom soared about in the sandy wind, coughing and spitting. He squinted down at the city square, vaguely picking out the silhouettes of humans racing around and swinging something. He immediately dropped down and shrieked, causing both of the figures to freeze. Suddenly, one screamed “YOU!!” and threw the same spear that had stabbed King Cortus at Kladtiom. He could tell from the odd marking on it, He whacked it away with his scythe and rushed forward, striking the man across the face. The second figure had fainted on the ground, and turned out to be none other than the boy he’d given the spear to. He dragged both away into a building. “What happened? I leave for a day and you manage to destroy an entire city?” The man sat up and wiped the blood away from his cheek. He had a crazed look in his eye. “THE POWER IS MINE!!!!” Clearly, Kladtiom wasn’t going to get any more information from him. He shook the boy awake after binding the man. “What did you do? I trusted you with that power.” The boy, trembling, immediately started talking about what had happened: the man, Ponig, had stolen the spear back and had tried to kill him with it, so Blakon had summoned a storm. Unfortunately, he hadn’t known it was a sandstorm, which destroyed the city, and now most people were blocked inside the king’s old palace because it was so big. A few people had died. Kladtiom shook his head and grumbled. Even he was more responsible than this. Suddenly, Ponig started, and shrieked, “HE'S BACK!! HE’S BACK!!” Kladtiom, confused, dragged Blakon back into the shadows. “I KILLED YOU!!!!!” Ponig howled into the air. “Who did you kill?” asked Blakon. “YOU!!!!!!” he shouted, pointing at Kladtiom. Kladtiom relaxed immediately. “Oh,” he said casually, “you mean my father.” Turning to the boy, he said, “You have to clear out the sand. Now.” “I can’t,” said Blakon, shaking his head. “The magic only works for harmful things.” Good thing I didn’t take it, then, he thought. Then a thought struck him. “Hold on,” he said. Then he began murmuring the incantation for detect magic, and suddenly could sense the entire place was under the influence of the magic. He turned to Ponig, who was still trembling like mad. “Where did you find this orb anyway?” “It’s a mystery, but as far as I know, some old ancestor found it and created the civilization,” he grumbled. Kladtiom turned away and decided to try digging into the castle. Within the next five minutes, he gave up. There was so much sand that it would take at least 9 hours without magic. If only I had learned mage hand, he thought. He went back to retrieve Blakon and Ponig, and together they managed to halve the layer of sand over the main entrance. Still, Kladtiom was getting worried. As far as he knew, there wasn’t any water in the palace, and it had been quite a while since the sandstorm happened. He decided to go grab some water, and dragged Ponig with him. After everybody was refreshed, they set to work again. They started hearing odd noises, which turned out to be voices after they made a small hole. Eventually, they made the hole bigger, and people started crawling out. Kladtiom went to fetch water, and soon there was a system of people crawling out, drinking water, and tending to the homes. Kladtiom turned to Blakon and said, “I’ll cover for you this time, but don’t think you’ll be so lucky next time.” Blakon nodded meekly, and Kladtiom strode over to Ponig. “You, sir, are coming with me. Can’t have you running across the world with revenge in mind.” He grabbed Ponig by the leg and prepared to fly away. Suddenly, a hand grabbed him by the leg. Recoiling, he dropped Ponig and looked down to see King Cortus’s corpse, glaring at him hungrily. It stood up and swung a chunk of stone at him. Kladtiom quickly ducked away and pulled out his wand, preparing to use fire bolt, but suddenly changed his mind and used detect magic instead. His suspicions were confirmed; the corpse had been reanimated, which meant something in this city was very wrong. The wall next to him crumbled, revealing even more zombies, Kladtiom decided they could be called. He grabbed Ponig by the leg again(much to his protest), and rushed over to Blakon. He swung Ponig around, batting zombies away, as Ponig cried out in fear and indignation that he could be used for such a task. Kladtiom grabbed Blakon and flew them both to a roof. Then he set to looking for survivors. He found six, four adults and 2 children, and retreated back to the rooftop, where one of the adults was moaning for water. As he flew to the well, zombies noticed him and started chasing him. He got to the well and started collecting water, until one drew a knife and stabbed it into his leg. Roaring in pain and fury, he started shooting fire bolts everywhere, resulting in sixteen dead bodies. He grabbed the water and winged back to the rooftop, shoving the water down with great force. Ponig eyed the blood dripping from his leg. “Those things are fierce,” he growled. Blakon was curled in a corner, shivering. Kladtiom suddenly started convulsing, writhing on the ground and spitting up blood. Ponig jerked away, and noticed Blakon doing the same thing, shaking on the ground. He pushed them to the edge, touching them as little as possible, and then jumped down and rushed to the thing he thought might help: his spear. There was definitely something off about his spear, judging that it had taken that horrid power twice. Unfortunately, he had left it in that ruined building that Kladtiom had taken them to. As he rushed through the ruined city, he caught a whiff of the rotten stench from the zombies and ran faster. Puffing, he picked it up, and at once everything seemed to suddenly whoosh. He looked out the nearest crack and was shocked at what he saw: there was no crack. Instead there was a window, and everyone had returned to their original state. For some reason, it was like nothing ever happened. He overcame his shock and walked back outside, taking his time to get back, and observing everyone's joy. He stopped for a moment to get some water, and immediately spit it all out when he got back. Kladtiom was gone, with only a stain of blood left.
Part III
Kladtiom blearily shook his head-and regretted it immediately. Streaks of red pain ran across his vision, and he barely made out the face waving about before him. A severed head, with veins and arteries hanging out, stared lifelessly at him. It was his father’s head…and suddenly he could feel himself wrenched out of his stupor, falling and falling, until he landed on a smooth stone surface. Groaning, he stood up-and was immediately shoved back down. Something was on top of him, its breath hot on his face. He could see red orbs flying around with something etched into them. He screamed. It laughed. Ponig was panicking. He’d seen what Kladtiom could do, and he wasn’t an easy prisoner to take. Not only that, it seemed very suspicious that everyone on the rooftop had just disappeared while Kladtiom was in pain. Blakon couldn’t possibly have taken off like that, and he had been twisting around as well. Ponig started running around the city, finding people rebuilding houses and planting crops, and stopped. Blakon, perfectly unharmed, was walking home. He couldn’t believe his eyes, until he dug up another possibility: if the entire city had been under the influence of magic, couldn’t the people be too? Kladtiom woke up a second time. Something with red eyes and a spiky back was grinning down at him from the cave ceiling. Suddenly, four red orbs flew above his head and came together with a CLANG of rock. Kladtiom pulled out his scythe and flew up to the wall. He noticed a familiar marking on the orbs that he had failed to notice before: an eye with a chunk of rock smashing into it. Not the most tasteful symbol, but he recognized it with a flash of shock: it was the same mark on Ponig’s spear. And now that he thought about it, all the books he’d read about the famous Persian orb had the exact same look as these ones, meaning some Persian had stumbled in and taken one, or this thing had gifted one to them. He really hoped it was the first one, because it meant there was a non-magical exit, and he could get out of here. He prepared to fly away-then hesitated. How could he leave this thing here after the chaos it had already caused? He pulled out his wand, and cast fireball. Flames erupted from the metal stick, and engulfed the creature. It shrieked a horrible shriek, and crawled toward him. He didn’t have the advantage of height here thanks to the ceiling, so he flew deeper into the pit. It shrieked again and jumped off, falling closer and closer. He abruptly turned around and slashed at it, with the blade getting stuck between its bones, and drew his mace. He flew around it, pounding various places on its body, and then flew to the deepest part of the pit he could find. Unfortunately, he had gained the disadvantage of having no sight, and so he resorted to swinging his longsword wildly in all directions. He heard a howl of pain coming from the left, but as he swung around, three red orbs came flying down and glowed brightly. He heard a loud but distant thud, and suddenly rocks were falling all around him. He jumped and flapped his wings wildly, trying to find a route with no falling rocks. A huge boulder came hurtling down, so he swerved around it, taking his eyes away at the second the beast jumped underneath it in an attempt to impale him on its claws. He heard a squishing sound, and restrained himself from looking back. It was dead. He kept swerving, until he encountered a problem: who knew how long it would take to reach the exit? By the time he found it, the entire cavern could be filled with rubble, and he would be trapped. He kept flying around, only now with a hopeless dread, until he found a tunnel. He glumly flew down it, but then he had to stop because of the rocks pounding his wings. He sprinted down the tunnel, but when he came to the end, it was blocked. Of course, he thought bitterly, of course it would be blocked after all the effort I put in to get here. He started throwing aside rocks in a desperate bid for freedom, but every rock he threw aside was equal to two more in its place. He grew too tired to move any more, and any more attempts would be futile anyway, he was beginning to see. If only I had learned mage hand, he thought miserably, and fell asleep. He woke up three days later in the closest thing the city had to a hospital, and was told that Ponig had found the cave and gotten a team to clear out the rubble. He was also told that he would be moved to Bal’TeMore within two more days’ time. Ponig traveled back to Persia, where he resolved the conflict of the death of their king-by making Blakon king instead. He listened to all of this, and barely processed it before he fell asleep again. By the time he had been transported back to Bal’TeMore, he was already feeling better, though the hospital told him he had many broken bones and would have to stay for a week, to which he protested profusely. Below the city, in the cavern, one red orb was still glowing…
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