Atlas stood up with a content expression on his face. He grinned widely at Kronos and Asmodeus happily exclaiming “Well that was delicious.”
“Glad you’re happy man, just make sure to bring that corpse with you cause I’m pretty sure we can use it for something.” Asmodeus replied with a slight smirk on his face. Atlas then proceeded to grab the beast by its ankle and dragged it behind him as he started to walk over towards Kronos and Asmodeus.
“About time you got done eating, now it is time to get moving!” Kronos barked at Atlas.
As the high noon sun beat down on them they continued to walk along the river, making sure to stay alert as to prevent such an incident from happening again. Atlas, as oblivious as ever, began to whistle one of his favorite tunes from Earth with a cheer filled sound. Asmodeus walked next to him with his bow on his back and his hands behind his body with a peaceful look on his face. While Kronos walked to the left of Asmodeus making sure to walk slightly in front of him with a pondering look on his face.
As the day wore on and their walk continued the group noticed that the trees’ were gradually thinning out. As the sun started lowering half way past mid-day they spotted a massive structure in the far distance. Intrigued the group started to head towards that direction and it quickly became apparent that is was a colossal stone bridge. Arriving near the base of the bridge they saw that it appeared to stretch far into the horizon with no apparent end in sight. The river, which was similar to white river rapids at this point, rushed by underneath the bridge with nary a single crack or scratch appearing on the bridge supports. Picking up their pace the group hurried towards the start of the bridge in hopes of civilization. When they finally reached the front of the bridge they stopped and marveled at the sheer size of the bridge. It looked much like a medieval stone bridge with massive support columns the size of redwoods and arch’s the size of overpasses but with little to no damage on its surface signifying that it was either recently constructed; which was doubtful as it appeared to be an ancient structure, or made of highly stable materials unlike any found on Earth.
“Woooow, that bridge is freaking massive!!!” Atlas screamed at the top of his lungs. “Shut up you fool, do you want everything around us to know that we’re here and possibly get us killed,” Kronos growled at Atlas with a large hint of anger in his voice.
“Whoops sorry I wasn’t thinking about that.” Atlas replied running his hand through his hair in guilt. Ignoring Kronos’ expression of annoyance Asmodeus asked, “So should we try crossing this long apparently unending or do we use the smaller path leading away from it?”
“It is unclear at the moment how long this bridge is so we should follow the path to the right,” Kronos answered back. “Yeah we could do that oooorrr we could just see where this giant bridge leads.” Asmodeus quipped back at Kronos. Asmodeus and Atlas then started to walk towards the bridge only for a sound similar to an explosion to ring out as a giant shadow rushed out from the water. Asmodeus stiffly looked to his left to see a massive creature hurtling through the air that was reminiscent to a sea leviathan. With two jagged pincers next to a set of six eyes, three on each side, and numerous gigantic spikes protruding from its back set in rows of three the leviathan jumped clean across the span of the bridge. While abruptly turning around Asmodeus stated “Yep how about we go this direction” completely ignoring what he had previously said. Atlas looked wide-eyed at the monstrosity slightly drooling while it went over the bridge commenting back, “That sounds good to me.”
While rolling his eyes Kronos was clearly exasperated at the reaction of both Asmodeus and Atlas. Deciding that it was better to not mention what they had just seen he turned towards the heavily beaten gravel path and began to walk down it without an ounce of hesitation. Atlas and Asmodeus followed behind him in a slightly embarrassed silence. The path appeared to have been used recently and often due to the lack of vegetation by its side.
As the day wore on the group continued to walk down the gravel path and unbeknownst to them there was a set of eyes observing their every move. He had the appearance of an older scout roughly in his mid-thirties with a heavily built body and a short stature. Leaving his hidden spot amongst the upper branches of the trees he dashed away from branch to branch at a break neck pace making almost no sound. As the man bounded through the trees he eventually arrived at the boundary of a small town with a staggeringly tall wooden wall about twenty meters high. He leapt down from the tree he was in, and gracefully landed on the ground without so much as a single leaf being disturbed or single branch being snapped. He ran towards an arched wooden gate reinforced by steel. On the sides of the gate there were two guard towers overlooking the entrance and tree line.
As the scout approached the gate he yelled loudly, “Open these gates, I have an urgent report for the Skymaster that needs to be delivered as soon as possible.” Alarmed one of the guards on the tower glanced at the man recognizing who it was after a moment. Silently the guard turned to his side to signal those down below to open the gates to let the scout in. The gate slowly creaked open with just enough space for the man to squeeze through as the man ran forward. As soon he was through the gate it began to close back behind him creaking as it closed shut with a large wooden board slamming back in place.
The scout then proceeded to run through the town heading towards a moderately sized two story building directly down the main road. This building or rather hall was built out of rough cut stone with a wooden terrace above the entrance supported by several vertical beams with half of it being made out of stone which merged with wood the rest of the way up. The roof had five square pyramids placed at highly strategic locations with one for each of the four corners and the largest in the dead center of the roof. These pyramids were made out of an unusual metal that projected off a sense of power.
As the scout approached the door he passed by a signboard which had a thundercloud pierced diagonally by a jagged sword similar to a flamberge. Continuing past the sign into the building he started to head towards a stairway on the right of the hall that went upwards. Understanding the urgency of his message he quickly walked up the stairs with the steps creaking with each step. Rounding a corner he saw another flight of stairs with a doorway at the end of them with the same symbol as the outside signboard.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Once he reached the door he promptly knocked three times with a short rustling sound coming from behind the door. After a brief moment there was silence followed by a voice seemingly out of nowhere stating, “You may come in now.” The voice had a deep baritone voice with an air of someone in high command. After hearing this confirmation the scout proceeded to open the door to reveal a man leaning against a large desk with a few papers scattered about. This man cast a very imposing figure as he had a large amount muscles with a height that let him tower over others. Going up to his head he had a scar across his left eye seemingly caused by a blade. He also had a bald head that reflected the light of the sun nearly blinding the poor scout.
Glancing downwards the scout promptly stated, “A party of three stocky men in unique cloths are heading our way.” The bald man projecting an air of authority while questioning, “Are they armed?”
“As far as I could see one had a bow and arrow strapped to his back. While the largest of the three carried a glaive about the same size as his body. As for the last one…. Well I don’t think we need to worry about him.” The scout reported to the bald man.
“And pray tell why shouldn’t we have to worry about the third individual?”
“He seemed utterly oblivious to his surroundings and he even yelled out before that obviously not aware of where he was. The only odd thing is the fact that he was dragging a dead beast behind him.”
“Hmmm…” the man replied while pondering over this piece of news. Coming to a conclusion he stated, “I shall greet these individuals in order to determine whether they are hostiles or not.”
“Do you really think that is wise sir?” the scout questioned at the man’s sudden interest. “Are you insinuating that I don’t know what I’m doing? Now correct me if I’m wrong but last I checked I’m the Skymaster and you are the subordinate.” The bald man angrily stated as he glared down at the scout.
“Not at all sir!!” the scout said frightened by the glare he was receiving from the bald man.
Around the same time that this discussion was happening Atlas, Kronos, and Asmodeus remained completely unaware of the attention that they were drawing. After a while longer of walking they started to notice signs of civilization with several indents in the road that looked to have been formed by wagon wheels. Along with these treads there were also several footprints that appeared to be very fresh. As more and more traces of people started to appear the group grew increasingly on guard with their bodies highly tensed in order to be ready for anything. As sun finally started to set a large wall was visible in the distance immediately drawing the groups’ full attention.
“Ugghh finally some semblance of civilization aside from that bridge awhile back,” Asmodeus exclaimed.
“Agreed, let go check it out but remain cautious” Kronos answered back.
As the group got closer to the wall they were able to spot a huge wooden arched gate with metal linings. The sun started to completely set as they got closer to the foot of the gate. Out of nowhere they heard a voice loudly yelling “Stop where you are, someone will be out shortly to greet you.”
“Well at least we can understand their language,” Atlas happily said as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Let me do the talking here Atlas.” Kronos stated at Atlas in order to keep him quiet.
Slowly the gate crept open creating a gap barely wide enough for a large muscular man to walk through who was waving his hand at them. The man got a closer look at the three strange individuals in front of him. The man on his right towered at two meters tall with spiked pitch black hair with a set of intimidating red eyes. On the mans’ back was a large glaive that was about the size of his body. The figure in the center of the group was a dark skinned man with braided white pulled behind his head with a black bandanna. A few loose strands drifted to the front of his face with his eyes being a piercing yellow color. He also cast a towering figure standing at one and nine tenths of a meter with a longbow and quiver strapped to his back. The final man on the left stood at 1.8 meters tall with short shaggy dark red hair, with light blue eyes. Oddly enough he was dragging the carcass of a large beast behind him.
“Greetings young men my name is Skymaster Doug, might I inquire your purpose for being here?” stated Skymaster Doug. Asmodeus turned to side, snickered and said to himself ‘What kind of name is Doug’. Ignoring Asmodeus, Kronos replied, “We came here hoping to gain information as to where we are.” “Well you are in the kingdom of Astride in the town of Amsterdam. Though I can’t help but notice your strange attires. People round here usually do not have those kind of cloths.”
“We came from a very far away land where these kind of clothes are more common place.” Kronos stated. “Ahh that make more sense, though what is most odd about your group isn’t your cloths but the unusual level of mana that you all are emitting” stated Skymaster Doug.
“Hey so what is this mana you speak of???” questioned Atlas with a confused look on his face. Surprised Skymaster Doug spoke, “It should be common knowledge as far as I know.”
Before Atlas had a chance to speak again Kronos interjected, “We came from a very small village so we are not aware of most common knowledge.”
“Oh, well to put it simply there are two main forces in the world; Mana and Ki.” Skymaster Doug explained. Continuing he stated, “Mana exists in every living and non-living thing in existence and is the basic for all magic. Ki on the other hand is the body’s mana converted to internal energy that circulates through all the meridians of the body. Ki’s main purpose is to allow its practitioners to gain increased speed, strength, and endurance.”
“So how would one go about utilizing Ki and magic!!” ,Asmodeus asked with a pondering expression.
“Well as for the nature of magic I am not entirely sure as I’m predominately a practitioner of Ki but I can refer you to the local mage so that he can further explain it. For Ki though you have to circulate it through your body clearing out any impurities in your meridians allowing for greater physical strength.”
Asmodeus, Kronos, and Atlas just stood still while digesting this new piece of information surprised at all this news.