Red sand stained his boots as he stepped off the boat. Elias started walking along the beach after pulling the boat into the sand. He scanned the cliffs for a good path up. The sky was dark and approaching sunrise. He could feel the corruption culminating up ahead. Elias searched the beach for Alice’s old craft.
Waves rolled into the shoreline. Up on the cliff stood the ruins of an old lighthouse. The wood attachments had broken off after years of storms and no upkeep. As he walked he was able to see more of the structures left behind and their rotting remains. He continued along the shoreline as it twisted and turned. Occasionally, he looked along the cliff walls for a path he could take upward.
“Where are you,” he said to himself. “Where did you put your boat?” Elias continued walking. The sky above was starting to lighten up with the sun rising beyond the cliffs. As it lightened up it exposed cracks in the sky. Dark lines of corruption streamed through the air much like the ocean, coalescing at the core.
Elias's eyes narrowed as he spotted the remnants of Alice's boat, half-buried in the sand further along the beach. The sight of it, abandoned and forlorn, stirred a mix of emotions in him. He paused briefly, his gaze lingering on the vessel that had carried Alice to this forsaken place, then turned his attention to the cliff.
“Where did you go from here?” Elias scanned the beach looking for footprints. The cliffs loomed above, daunting in their height and ruggedness. Elias's gaze settled on a narrow, winding path snaking its way up the cliffside. He began his ascent, each step carrying him closer to Alice and the heart of the corruption. The climb was steep, and the loose stones underfoot made it treacherous, but Elias pressed on, driven by a sense of urgency that thrummed in his veins.
As he climbed, his thoughts turned inward. “She had said to me that it was time to go. No discussion and little compromise. ‘it is a journey that I will finish alone.’ She said. ‘Your duty is over. I do not need to lose anyone else on my journey. Your time as my master is over.’ It was all cold and detached. Like she had already made the decision right after Thompson died. I should have realized the signs and helped her. Connected with her feelings right away and comforted her. I was too busy in my own grief. And then I handled it poorly. ‘You can’t be doing this.’ I said to her, hoping that that would change her mind immediately. Then the pleas to emotion and logic when she was already set in her ways. I wonder what she will say to me. Or even what I should say to her. Will she hate me for coming back? Will she even understand the pieces of the prophecy that I have seen? Has she changed so much that she is willing to do the final steps needed for the prophecy? Will she do it alone?”
He reflected on the journey that had brought him here. His mind replayed his final moments with Alice, her determined gaze, the unspoken words hanging between them.
The sky began to lighten, the first rays of dawn painting the horizon in hues of pink and gold. The beauty of the moment was not lost on Elias, but it was overshadowed by the gravity of his mission. He knew that with each passing minute, the battle against corruption grew more desperate.
Finally, reaching the top of the cliff, Elias paused to catch his breath, his eyes scanning the landscape before him. The ruins of the old lighthouse stood as a silent sentinel, its broken form a reminder of the relentless passage of time.
"Alice!" he called out, his voice carrying on the morning breeze. There was no response, only the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs below. Elias felt a twinge of worry, but he pushed it aside, focusing on the task at hand. He turned toward the direction of the core. The lines burned clearly in the sky like a multi-pointed star.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Elias followed the line until he reached the edge of a crater. The ground was gray with ash and edged with the red of the stones beneath. He began his descent, each step measured and cautious. The slope was steep. With every footfall, a small cascade of ash and stone tumbled down into the abyss.
As Elias moved deeper into the crater, the atmosphere grew heavier, the air charged with a raw, primal energy. The world around him seemed to warp, the very fabric of reality bending under the weight of the magic that saturated the air. In the center of this desolation stood a tree, a solitary sentinel in a land of ruin. Its branches, black and twisted, reached skyward.
And there, at the base of this alien tree, was Alice. Her hands were wrapped around the gnarled trunk, her fingers intertwined with the dark bark as if she were part of the tree itself. Her face, pale and ethereal, radiated a soft glow, a manifestation of the magic that coursed through her veins. The aura surrounding her was a kaleidoscope of colors, dancing and swirling in an enchanting, yet ominous display.
"Alice!" Elias called out. He looked around for something to pull her away from the tree. Something instinctual to his survival told him he could not touch the tree.
Alice turned slowly, her eyes locking onto Elias's. In them, he saw a depth of resolve and sorrow, a mirror to the turmoil that had brought them to this precipice. "Elias," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of magic in the air. "You shouldn't have come."
"Why?" asked Elias, his voice trembling with a mix of emotions. "Why are you doing this? Please, you need to stop."
Her gaze never wavered. "I can't stop, Elias. This... this is my path, the one I must walk alone. The corruption... I can reverse it, heal the land. But the cost..." Her voice trailed off, a shadow of pain flickering across her features.
Elias took a step closer, the energy around the tree prickling at his skin like a thousand tiny needles. "You don't have to bear this alone, Alice. We can find another way, together."
Her smile was sad, yet there was a fierce determination behind it. "There is no other way. I've seen what this corruption will do, the future it will destroy. I can't let that happen. Not when I have the power to stop it."
“What you are doing now won’t change things. You haven’t been cleansing the corruption with your Sword Breath. It has been corrupting you instead. Stop letting it make yourself a vessel for its power.”
“You know I can’t do that Elias. I have accepted that this is what I must do to let the world survive. It will be completed by me,” she said as branches fell off the tree and crumbled into ash.
“I have seen the prophecy. Not just the words transcribed in the capital but…”
“I have seen them too and I know my role in them. Here as we are now, I will save the world and you will then end me. Even though I tried to turn you away and even now you must leave, you still found a reason to follow me here.”
“There has to be another way. Something we can do. Stop this process. Funnel the corruption elsewhere.”
“It has taken the land as its host for so long that a hero is the only thing that has the ability to collect the corruption elsewhere. In myself. With you here the process will go faster.” Elias felt a tug in his chest that momentarily stunned him into silence. The realization that Alice was using his magic, the very essence he had honed over years, against him was both shocking and painfully ironic. He had taught her and guided her, and now she wielded his lessons as a weapon.
"No, Alice," Elias protested, his voice firm. "This isn't the way. Using my magic to empower your absorption... it's dangerous. You're becoming the very thing we swore to fight against."
Alice's expression hardened; her eyes gleaming with a cold light. "You don't understand, Elias. This corruption is beyond what any of us imagined. It's not just about purifying the land; it's about survival. My survival as the vessel is inconsequential if it means the world is saved."
Elias took another cautious step forward, feeling the oppressive weight of the corrupted magic around them. "But at what cost, Alice? You're sacrificing your humanity, your soul. You're becoming the embodiment of the corruption."
A bitter laugh escaped Alice's lips. "Humanity? What good is humanity if there's no world left for it to thrive in? I've seen the future, Elias, a world ravaged and broken. I won't let that happen." Another few pieces of the tree fell off and crumbled to ash leaving only the base behind.