We landed in the small opening. I had to manipulate the sand away for us to get good footing. The sweltering heat surely didn’t help our level of comfort.
“Why your quests always gotta be such a pain in the ass, man?” August breathed out, wiping bits of troublesome sand away from the crevices of his steel armour. “Fuck this armour, dude!” He began stripping it off, unable to deal with the heat of Inferno Desert.
I gloated, laughing at his pain, but in truth, my robe was a pain in the ass too so I discarded it, leaving me only a pair of trousers and shirt. And no, I wasn’t naked you dirty, dirty readers. I made a bit of ice and had it hover at our sides, then manipulated a gentle breeze to give us relief of this hell.
Trekking farther in, the walls of the tunnel began hardening, becoming more manageable to walk in. After a sharp turn, the tunnel ended abruptly. “Well then, this is some weirdly ominous shit,” I commented on the orb sitting snug in a pedestal. Both things were clearly quite unapologetically out of place, donning a metallic gold and deep reflective glasslike blue as its intricate designs. The entire thing almost looked, mechanical. Sure, adventurers and treasure hunters would see it as an entity of this world because of that mechanical feel to it, but it was clear this thing was no ordinary sphere made by some smith. We circled it, inspecting the pedestal even, wondering if to trust such a – somewhat literally – shady character.
“Bah! If we die, we die,” August the madman placed his hand on the orb and a bright light spread forth from it, sweeping us away into another world.
“Hydra’s ass, man!” I quarrelled after we landed on the ground. All around us was nothing more than ground. Just a grey, unassuming terrain that spanned far enough to the point where our horizon consisted of nothing else but that terrain. The sky was awfully similar to the spirit world, but this place didn’t exist in the spirit world. What’s worse was, unlike other worlds that I went to like Jynnak and Hyzek, the item that transported us didn’t come along for the ride.
August folded his arms after a minute or so, “The hell are we supposed to bear witness to here? There’s literally nothing here!”
Quite right, he was. This place even lacked colour. “Except the creepy-ass vibe,” I added, and began using Hawk Eye to find the nearest, something. Hmm, nothing… I wondered if the orb was a magic construct that did more than teleport us somewhere. In fact… Were we even teleported?
“Yes,” a somewhat husky yet wispy voice said. Its choice of timing had me pondering over whether or not it could read my mind.
“Show yourself already,” August wearily hunched over.
“I already am,” it corrected. “This place, is me. But perhaps ones such as yourself are more familiar with a tangible humanoid form.” A mass of black smoke began forming, like a whirlpool. A middle-aged man appeared, heavily bearded with the occasional follicles of grey assailing his youthfulness. He wore a thick grey robe, almost as if he meant to camouflage with his environment. “Follow me,” he said, turning his back and walking off.
Where to? I thought, finding it stupid because there was literally nothing around us for kilometres on end. Suddenly, he disappeared. August and I looked at each other in surprise. We shrugged together. “If we die, we die?” I repeated his line and he nodded. We walked in the man’s direction and our scenery immediately changed from the drab, colourless world of nothingness to a bright, nature-filled world that stimulated all your senses.
It looked like a square room but, there were trees growing inside it. Flora and even fauna here and there. In the middle though, was a cleared space with four braziers. The man led us to them and sat in front of one of the braziers.
“You’re not going back, Hethekk?” a voice asked and the man answered, concreting to us that he was Hethekk the Scryer, not the mutated lizard we saw in Inferno Desert.
“No. They prefer humanoid forms.”
“Is that right?” a brazier suddenly lit, its flame a rather dark amethystine colour. The voice fire turned into a woman, dressed the exact same way as I did with a big beaming smile plastered across her face. “Hiya, the name’s Vena! I’m the void!” she exclaimed excitedly, only confusing me even more.
Hethekk, sitting in his meditative pose with his eyes closed, told us he’d explain everything after they introduced themselves.
The two other flames appeared, one bright pink and one white. They eventually took the forms of women as well. The white flame, sticking to her colour, had pure white hair, not a single one deviating from that particular shade of white. The pinkish flame had long black hair, reaching near her navel when she placed it in front of her. And Vena, also with black hair, had hers cut rather short. It was dropping around her jawline.
“I’m, Qora,” the once pink flame kept breaking eye contact with us, and when she did watch, most of it was focused on August. A malicious grin appeared inside me, but I kept my face devoid of the mischievous expression that married my teasing. It was quite obvious Qora was intrigued by August. And apparently it seemed true for Vena to me, as well. “I am space,” Qora concluded her introduction.
“You’ve met me, but for formality’s sake, I am Hethekk, the mind.” He still didn’t budge from that meditative form.
And at last, the woman with white locks of hair, even the eyebrows and eyelashes, gave her introduction. “I am Arcana, born of arcane. Child, you have the essence of Phoenix around your hand,” she pointed out, her face wanting an explanation.
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“Y-yes, well, it’s his offspring. Phoenix left the little guy in my care,” I explained. “Were you a friend of Phoenix?”
Hethekk opened his eyes. Qora kept stealing glances at Arcana to see her reaction. Vena, on the other hand hadn’t taken her eyes off of me. “So, the death of the previous fire, do you know what caused it?” inquired the mild-mannered, yet assertive Arcana.
Why are we getting into this conversation? I asked myself, but dismissed the thought anyway. At this rate, there should be no problem having a little chitchat with these folks before Pyro and the other mages were returned to normal. “…he went berserk,” I explained to them the story of Phoenix in Tyrr, “and it was up to me to stop him. So, I did. After we fought and I was at his side, one of his feathers were burnt into my hand and kind of acted as the catalyst for his heir to trust me.”
Qora, eyes engrained with tears, sniffled every now and then.
Vena was entertained, “So, quick question, Mr Mage. Do you have contracts with the other draconic spirit lords?”
I nodded, “Yeah. All of them. Including this little guy,” I pointed at my enflamed hand. “So,” I yawned, “someone wanna tell me why my friends are going crazy? Why are we here?”
Their story was even more insane than the one I told them about Phoenix. It turned out all four of them were actually spirit lords of their respective magic type. The reason I never met them was because this place was indeed the spirit world, but the void of the spirit world dubbed ‘spirit void’ by Vena – the one responsible for allowing Hethekk, Qora, and Arcana, along with all their subordinates to live there. Arcana was their leader, even of the draconic spirit lords I contracted. She was the top gun. It’s no wonder she was concerned as to the story behind Phoenix’s passing.
Hethekk had caused this commotion, knowing that only capable mages would investigate the lizard in Inferno Desert. They had their fingers crossed that one with the power necessary would find them. Apparently, I was that someone. All this came from Hethekk the Scryer’s Scry spell. It basically allowed him to see visions of certain things that would come to pass. He said, in his husky voice, that a demon unlike anything he’d seen will come to consume the world. A demon named Apollyon. This demon was said to wield a magic type that had never been seen before.
“Wait. Can you list all the magic types you know of?” I asked of Arcana and she was happy to oblige.
“There exists the ethereal void in which we converse. In both the ethereal and corporeal plane, there exists space, another type of magic. To rule with infallible insight is mind magic. The culmination of the elements, said to originate from dragons is draconic magic. And my speciality, the jack of all trades, arcane magic.”
“So that’s five, huh? Well, I’ll tell you this at least – you’re right about Apollyon having another magic type. I have the exact opposite of what Apollyon has, so I can confirm there are seven magic types in total.” They all seemed surprised, but I didn’t give them time to formulate any questions. “When is this demon expected to arrive?”
“In about seven years,” Hethekk answered.
August’s rolled his eyes, and I couldn’t help but have a similar feeling. Seven years? That’s an eternity from now. We were expecting to hear days, not years. “If you want me to save your hides, then you wouldn’t be opposed to helping us get stronger, would you?”
“How do you suppose we do that?” Arcana asked, but my eyes were fixed on Hethekk instead.
He stood up, after sitting in that same position for so long. “He’s referring to his sword-wielding friend,” the mind master cleared up. “Mana power, correct?”
I nodded. August, a bit confused, shrugged it off. I’d no idea what Hethekk showed him in the Phantasm spell, but the blacksmith came out of it in nothing but a matter of minutes with a boosted mana power. I knew there was absolutely no way he was more versed in anything than the witch, so why did August overcome something as difficult as your worst fears so easily? Was his heart made of ice? Were his balls made of steel? Then again, ever since we went to Ulanos, he began changing dramatically, yet unnoticeably to those who weren’t close to him.
As we were about to leave, Vena stopped me. “Come on, Arcana… Can we?” she asked her leader.
“You are not prisoners to my service. You may do as you wish.” She smiled, at both Vena and Qora. She had quite the motherly vibe to her.
Vena’s gaseous form floated over to me, “How about a contract, Mr Mage?”
“Sure?” I replied, unsure of why she wanted it. I had a knack for attracting the crazy ones sometimes.
“Uhm,” the soft-voiced Qora pulled on August’s shirt, like a child afraid of strangers and hiding behind her big brother, “if it’s not too much trouble for you, Sir King…” she fidgeted, unable to look him in the eyes. Everyone’s attention surely didn’t help her anxiety, but she summoned whatever dwindling courage she had. August remained quiet through it, not even giving her a pat on the shoulder to tell her it’s okay. He let her fight through her apparent obstacle of speaking on her own. “Would you, form a contract with me as well? I might not be the best company, b-but, I’m confident in my magic.”
Vena began clapping, reducing the attentive eyes focused on Qora. It was like watching someone confess their love for another for the first time. Arcana smiled and nodded at the spirit lord of the space faction. Hethekk remained apathetic as usual. Finally, August patted Qora on her head, quite like he would his own daughter, Tara.
August and I formed the contracts with Qora and Vena respectively. But before we could finally leave, Arcana stopped us. “The staff of Scien. Use it,” she advised right before we were warped back to the evening sun of Inferno Desert. Vena’s fiery form surrounded my staff when I summoned it to me. Qora swept along the blade of August’s sword.
“Guess they don’t like the heat,” August commented whilst I prepared Riftshear. “Did you figure out what the staff is for yet?”
I shook my head with minimal effort, preferring not to focus on answering him too much with Riftshear in the works. We went right into the library of the Order and all the mages who went crazy were asleep. Once Renew woke them up, they proved to be back to their old selves, not remembering what had transpired whilst they were in Inferno Desert.
Volt welcomed Pyro with open arms, much to Pyro’s surprise. August was there with me. “Buddy, I’m going to be honest with you. This ‘Apollyon’ business, I can’t beat that guy. I can just feel it.”
“Eh, you too, huh? I felt the same way. We’ve got seven years to get stupidly strong.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” I rubbed my chin, then massaged my temples.
“It’s simple,” Vena spoke to me through the staff, her dark purplish flames dancing about the gemstones at the top, “use your staff.”
“Wow, that sounded really dirty, Vena,” I quipped, but she didn’t reply. Wasn’t too sure what to make of her presence, neither Qora’s just yet.
“What about me?” August inquired of Vena, pointing at himself, but Qora would be the one to answer.
“Sir King, your calling is elsewhere, a world not of here,” she told him.
I frowned, jealous that he seemed to get the amazing quest and I was told to use my staff. “You’re going too,” Vena told me. I lit up like a kid finally able to do something fun.