[WP] Create a story of morbid discovery, with the main character maintaining childlike wonder.
...
Sola watched, eyes open and wide at the clash of power that ripped through the air in a violent clashing of light and sound. The shock wave came towards them from a distance, cloud of dust rushing out along the plains of black sand and creeping filth of the west to slam against the garrisoned wall of Doterra's territories and flood over-top.
Like a clashing of mountains: She had never seen a creature so large, or a spell so destructive.
The wind cut as much as whipped to force her eyes squint against it, and the dust that followed soon pressed them closed entirely- but it was the force of strength and turmoil that finally pulled her body from the window. Gusts of wind punched at her every bone and fiber not guarded by stone walls, pushing her backward. Yet, despite this all, even after Falling behind cover she still wished to peek out once more- even amid the panicked shouting, and the ringing of warning from the bell-tower over their heads.
"Sola! We're leaving!" Her companion was already yanking open the wooden door to the Chapel's hallways, panic-stricken look of complete uncertainty a sharp contrast to her own amazement. The circumstances that were underway were so monumental, yet he wanted to flee? She couldn't comprehend it. "Come on!"
"HA!" The only other occupant in the room had already pulled himself back to the window frame from the crumpled heap he'd previously landed- withered arm and hand pressing aside the winds that rushed him to stare in amazement as his laughter continued. "It's like a dragon of old, but greater than the legends! Stronger! A beast of the elements themselves! A beast formed by the world!"
Another crashing of spell-craft and tempest sounded from beyond the stone walls.
"Sola! NOW!" Her companion's voice urged her to move, despite her own temptation to fall in beside the old man cackling with delight, and bearing personal witness to the history being made. In the distant west, the Dark Lord was showing his fearsome power against the first true challenger to rise against him in centuries. Here was a monster that even he might not defeat.
Her considerations were interrupted by a rough palm settled like a vice upon her wrist, dragging her onto her feet and into a brisk pace, not waiting to hear complaints.
"We're getting the hell out of here before the whole building comes down!" His shout sounded muffled, blocked by a heavy ringing that Sola had previously overlooked: A sound that was neither bell-tower, nor true noise. "We're getting back to the car, and we're drive east before whatever is going on reaches the wall!"
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
The hand released her as she took stride beside him, her pace easily gliding equal to his own.
Legs pumping in a break-neck sprint beneath him and weapon slung over his shoulders, he was moving as quickly as possible, but her own motion was far more graceful. It seemed that humans were much less proficient at many things Sola took for granted, but she often had to wonder if her companion was a poor example for the majority of his kind. Perhaps the difference between elves and men was just that pronounced; Sola wasn't certain. She hadn't be out among the world long enough to know.
Another booming gust threw both of them from their feet as the gale swept the air beneath them, and the ground shook.
Sola landed much like a cat, bouncing back with hardly a second thought. Her companion surprised her as he rolled through- stumbling out in a two legged and one-handed, gait before resuming his previous pace with renewed vigor. His muted shouts and curses were just a buzz in her ears after the next crash of oppressive sound.
For a battle-mage so capable of impressive destruction, he didn't fit the stereotype she'd mentally constructed for the role.
"ROAAAR!"
A terrible bellow erupted through the sky like the fiercest thunder Sola had ever heard, so strong with the scents of mana that her vision spun and wheeled- turning her about to watch the sky again. It was incredible.
As if a giant serpent made of ocean, a beast was coiled about the clouds like a never-ending river of glowing sky. Fierce blue shattered by streaks of lightning, and teeth of ice: It screamed out as Sola saw the ground beneath it- far below, exploding with immeasurable torrents of wind and debris.
Her eyes narrowed, squinting through the bluster and whips of stray air, focusing on the familiar blackened towers on that distant horizon. The single point of resistance amid a plain of flat earth and fields. A place where one trained in the arts of magic might stare and recognize the equivalent of a sun's radiance forced upon a single tiny speck atop the tallest of the spiraling cuts of thick black stone: Staff raised and aglow.
The beast of river, sky, ocean and cloud, dived towards the speck- mouth agape to swallow towns and cities alike with indifference. Teeth of white mountain spires gleamed like crystals, eyes shown like precious jewels of the deepest blue, and the essences of wild magics sprayed like cresting waves as they encompassed the speck of glowing sun on the dark tower of blackened stone.
Nature incarnated to a solid form, brought with a wrathful vengeance upon the truest monster she knew of the mortal plane.
"Sola! We need to run!" Her companion grabbed at her wrist once more- efforts to pull her away, but she wrested it back from his grip, refusing to pull her stare at the history forming. She had to know, had to see it- to know for certain the answer to her question:
Was this the end of evil's grip on the world?
Was this the final desperate glory known as the Mage of Death: The Great Gillian, Lord of Darkness, Slayer and Drinker of Souls?
The elemental monstrosity closed its jaws with the resolution of a heavy vault, teeth collapsing like the bolts of unbreakable constitution, sealing away the spire, the towers, the walls and blackened rock it was carved from. Consuming the speck of gold that burned to look and stare at like the sun- yet drew eyes all the same. Sola watched and felt a weight in her chest lifting, a sureness she'd not believe she could still possess after a lifetime of believing otherwise.
The Dark Lord could be challenged.
The Dark Lord could be killed.
Then, same as her glow of child-like wonder: The beast shattered to countless shards of broken and jagged glass. Splitting along its seams, its wings and body broke to ashen fragments that fell as tainted wreckage towards the darkness below.
Then, and only then, did Sola run.