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Ryden stroked his hair, looking around the forest they were entering. The wind was starting to get worse. He noted that some clouds were appearing in the morning sky. If the weather continued to grow they would probably have to stop.
The trees shuddered like shaking in the cold. Brinn shivered slowly and looked ahead, “Are we going through there?”
Looking excited, Ryden pointed to a small brown trail, “I guess so, I would suggest it because I think it will lead through the forest.”
Brinn squinted as the wind blew in her hazel eyes,“I wish we didn’t have to walk against the wind.”
The wind slowed for a few seconds and Brinn looked up with full eyes. What she saw made her stomach drop.
“Uh, Xavier?” she said with her voice rising in pitch as she gazed at it. She slowly took a step back back, “I mean Ryden! Look!”
Quickly, Ryden ran to her side and looked through the trees. He gasped quietly.
There, standing about fifty yards away, was a large wooden structure about 2 stories high. Clearly, whoever owned it had neglected to take care of the structure. Grass, shrubs and flowers grew through and from the house. The wood splintered in at least a hundred places revealing flowers with bright shining colors. Strangely the path to the structure was nicely kept free from weeds and looked beautiful.
Ryden walked slowly towards the house smiling, “Nice place they got here.”
Liala jumped, “are you seriously going into there ?”
Brinn seemed to relax a little, “I definitely am going inside if it means getting away from the wind.” as she said that the wind blew in her face.
Ryden walked to the door with a puffed chest. Then with a smile, knocked on the door three times. After about 10 seconds nothing but gusts of wind was heard.
“Right, nobody's home, now let's leave.” Liala started to march away.
“Wow there,” Brinn grabbed her staff and pulled her back, “If we stay here longer, we will likely get pulled into the sky with winds like these.”
Liala looked into the sky. The trees danced in the wind as dark clouds started to form around them.
“You know what, your right,” Liala started to walk towards Ryden.
Ryden knocked again. When nothing happened he tried turning the knob. It was locked. He grunted and started to cast a control spell on a grape vine when a bang of thunder made everyone jump. The dark clouds were starting to rain. Soon they would be soaked. Brinn was especially worried. Being wet ment no fire magic.
“Hurry up!”
“Thanks for the help,” said Ryden sarcastically. The grape vine started to shine white as he manipulated it towards the lock. It’s green arms slowly reached for the lock.
“Can’t you just kick down the door?” murmured Brinn.
“Yah and then the owners, who keep their yard nice, will love a broken door. Especially since the nearest hardware store at least 30,000 miles away.”
Liala looked over his shoulder, “almost there…”
The vines now stuck into the lock and where moving the small buttons inside.
CLICK
They three of them swung the door open snapping the vine’s arms to pieces. Ryden closed the door softly making sure that no leaves stuck out of the key hole. It was pretty dark, so Brinn summon a flame on her finger and looked around the small room.
“Nice place they got here,” Brinn commented.
The room had wooden walls on 3 sides and a hall that turned out of sight. In the middle was a coffee table with a a light blue stone and cream white gem right in the middle. A cupboard of covered one wall. It had a few books on it as well as a fresh parchfruit sitting in a bowl. Ryden walked to the gems and held one up to his eye.
“Oh gosh, it is a Life Crystal!” Ryden looked at the two of them wide eyed. “Do you know how amazing these are.”
Brinn and Liala both looked at its translucent cream color and shook their heads. They hadn’t heard about this particular gemstone.
“They can command and influence magic or creatures,” explained Ryden, “so you can make things pretty much come to life. I once made a rock pile turn into a rock golem of some sorts. I named him Granite.”
Liala stared with interest at the gem in Ryden’s hand while Brinn started to walk around the room.
Ryden started to explain the details to Liala, so Brinn decided she would search the hallway. It was dark and devoid of the tightyness of the entrance. The walls were barely four feet apart. She had to walk really stiff to avoid brushing her arms on the walls
Suddenly, she felt something sharp touch her right arm. It nearly stabbed her, but she jerked back so the object didn’t peirce.
The object took a while to see due to the poor lighting. Using her fire ruby necklace around her neck, she summoned a small flame on her finger to light the room. A snap was heard as the small flame flashed into existence. It didn’t hurt to much as she was a fire mage, and nearly immune to fire. Although, she could feel a small amount of energy slowly draining. That didn’t hurt. It actually was kind of comforting.
The small flame danced with warmth. The light glinting off a smooth metal object. The object that nearly stabbed her arm was proven to be a halberd. Brinn looked closely at the halberd. The bladed side of the pole glinted in the orange light. It was beautiful, in a deadly way. The pole was orange with green metal lining the sides. The blade was freshly polished and reflected perfectly.
Brinn noticed that on the side of the blade was a word, a word that she could read…
SRAH DRAKEFORD
Brinn didn’t recognize that name. Not caring too much, she continued down the hall, flame still on her finger. Curiously she looked at the walls, raising her light to infront of her so she could look. It was so dark she could barely tell that a picture of someone was on the wall. She leaned in to see what it was a picture of.
BANG!
The ground shook as if a hundred Woolpers decided to tap dance in sync. Her feet were quickly betrayed her and she started to lose balance. As she fell her flame went out. Another sound was heard as she narrowly missed the halberd leaning on the wall. As soon as her back hit the ground, her head smacked against the wall.
Brinn heard Ryden yelling. The sound sounded like he was in pain or desperately scared. She felt dread when she heard it. What was happening in that room?
She tried to get up but felt pain in her head. The pain was starting to leave but she was impatient and leapt to her feet. She felt intensely dizzy. Despite all that she started to walk down the narrow hallway. She could still hear the yelling. Ryden and Liala were still yelling, but Brinn could hear someone else yelling with them. Or was it at them?
Her thoughts were turned elsewhere when she saw something gleam at her. Brinn’s footsteps were not synced and she slammed against the wall at a smashing speed. Even with her vision blurred along with everything seaming like it was underwater. She could still see what was just inches from her face so clearly that it appeared like her vision was supercharged.
The halberd was merely 1 inch away from her face. Her light brown eyes widened as she saw the sharp point of the blade threatening her.
Taking a deep breath she stood upright and grabbed the halberd in her left hand. It was heavy and made her even more off balance. Unstably ran as fast as she could to the room with Ryden and Liala, crashing into the walls on the way there. The headache still was affecting her senses.
Brinn felt worry grow in her as the yelling still sounded muted and far away. She came around the corner.
What Brinn found was a boy, maybe thirteen standing with his back to Brinn. His hair was a dark blonde. He was slightly crouched on the table in a battle pose, like he was threatening anyone to come close. He was wearing a dark maroon cloak with shady green jeans. The boy stood on the coffee table in the middle of the room. In his right hand he held a dagger. The dagger seemed to be made of a strange stone and looked deadly sharp.
Ryden and Liala were in standing in the far corner of the room eyes frightened and angry.
“Why have you broken into my house!” yelled the boy standing angrily on the table.
“We needed shelter from the rain,” Ryden explained, “we mean no harm.”
“LIAR!” the boy shouted, “I will give you one more chance to tell the truth.”
Ryden looked at Liala, she just stared back.
“We really don’t mean any harm,” Liala whispered.
Ryden agreed, “we are here to shelter from the rain, nothing else.”
Brinn still hadn’t been noticed by any of them. She didn’t know what to do though. Should she stop this guy before he did anything more threatening?
The boy stood still for a few seconds unmoving. He seemed to be thinking. The boy turned his head to look around. Luckily he didn’t turn all the way around, or he would of seen Brinn standing behind him.
The boy seemed to realize something. Then suddenly jerk his gaze back at Ryden and Liala. The boy was radiating with anger.
“I don’t like it when people lie,” he said trying to hold back his rage, “but I still was patient and let you have a chance.”
“I didn’t lie,” Ryden explained.
“And now you have lied 3 times,” the boy crouched a little more.
Brinn realized that he was going to attack. As carefully as she could, she stored her staff in the collective memory and grabbed the halberd in both hands.
The boy growled and shot the dagger backward to thrust at Ryden. Ryden panicked, and shoved Liala to the side to summon his staff to fight back.
Shoving Liala was a mistake and costed to much time, and he would of paid for that mistake if Brinn hadn’t shot the halberd in front of the dagger as it was being readied to use.
Brinn yanked the halberd back and the boy with it. The boy fell, still holding that strange dagger. He saw Brinn and slashed the knife at her. Brinn let go of the Halberd and jumped out of reach.
“My halberd! Don’t touch that!” the boy yelled getting up. He seemed so mad that the temperature seemed to rise in the room.
Brinn’s eyes widened as she realized he owned the halberd.
Drakeford’s face started to turn red. They knew his last name now.
“Let's get out of here,” said Liala.
Drakeford still seemed to want to teach his unwelcome guests a lesson.
Brinn stood, looking at Drakeford as he held up his dagger to Brinn. Her expressionless face showed nothing hostile or passive. Although Ryden knew she was tense, because she was in a defensive pose, Drakeford seemed to think she was threatening him.
Brinn realized that if she wanted to get out the door she would have to go past him. Drakeford knew that, and he grinned.
“Please let her pass so we can leave.” Ryden was standing at the door with Liala.
“Why should I do what you ask, when you don’t even tell me the truth?” Drakeford said with annoyance, “She even used my own halberd against me!”
Brinn’s eyes narrowed. She grabbed the halberd and tossed it to Drakeford’s feet. The halberd clatters and becomes still.
“Can I go now,” Brinn says slowly.
“Not until I teach you a lesson, you all need to be taught a lesson.” Drakeford held up his dagger and pointed it at Brinn. Brinn still seemed unaffected and continued to intensely glare at him.
Drakeford took a step closer, and another, his shoes scraping the floor. He slowly walked to her until the dagger was inches from her face. She glared at him. The dagger glinted back.
Suddenly Drakeford lowered the dagger. Brinn let out a small breath, and relaxed slightly.
Immediately, Drakeford swung the dagger at her arm. Brinn gasped and jumped back as the dagger swung inches away from her wrist. Angrily, Drakeford charged at her dagger raised.
Brinn summoned fire on her hand and swung it at Drakeford as he prepared to swing again. The dagger shot to intercept the fireball and it bounced back at Brinn. Brinn’s eyes widened as the fireball flew at her. She ducked at the last second and the fire exploded the bookshelf behind her. Brinn felt a burst of energy leave her as she shot another fireball and missed. The orange flames just harmlessly bounced off Drakefords dagger like a tennis ball. The wall behind her exploded with flames.
The explosion behind her made her hesitate to shoot another ball, and that small second was just enough for Drakeford. Drakeford jumped into the air and swung the dagger down at Brinn. Brinn gasped at the quickness of the motion and tried to dodge, but fire was all around her by now, she had nowhere to dodge. She was trapped.
The dagger came down on Brinn, but without warning, something slammed into him and launched him away from Brinn. His body collided into a wall.
Drakeford moaned and looked around at his house. To his left, he saw his bookshelf covered in red flames. Brinn stood their with her arms over her head. To his right he saw the walls starting to catch fire. Ryden stood with his staff up, he had just finished casting the spell that brought Drakeford into the wall.
Ryden looked at Brinn, his eyes caught the hot light and reflected almost orange “get up, we gotta get outa here, it may collapse soon.”
Brinn reached her arm out, Ryden pulled her up and they started to run to the door. Brinn stopped and looked at Drakeford, “what about the guy? You know, you caused this on yourself, Drakeford.”
Ryden looked at Drakeford as he got to his feet. The flames circled around him flared bright red as the ground came to a blaze. The fire rose higher and higher engulfing everything around them, just like Drakeford’s hatred. Then Ryden said firmly, “No... he isn’t worth the trouble.”
Drakeford’s gaze narrowed as he glared with all his strength left in him at Brinn. Then, as he expected, the smoke grew strong and he started coughing. And as he knew would come, the structure around him collapsed in red sparks and fire.