by Asher, Yarid
“Listen son,” said Azar “I am as disappointed just as much as you are, but know that Lamfari would never do something like this. He is favored preciously by the gods and he would not anger them by sending the queen’s son, the prince of all gods on a sham quest.”
After talking, Azar got up and went to his sister “Neiham, write a letter to Lamfari and ask him what do we have to do next.”
“What about the boy” said she “We have to tell him something. He is losing his mind.”
“I will figure something out but for now, just write to Lamfari and ask what we have to do next.”
With that, Azar left and Neiham began writing on a parchment:
Lamfari,
I am happy to tell you that we are fine and we have an army now but I am sad to tell you that the boy cannot see the hidden valley and is annoyed. Will you please help us and tell us what we shall do in order for the boy to see the valley.
Neiham.
Leosher was very angry but then his brother went up to him “Brother, this is no way to act.”
“Virgil, please, I am not in the mood of getting a lesson right now. Please leave me alone.”
Just as he was talking, a fireball came down to the ground from the skies. It surrounded with blue and gold fire. It also had a tail of golden flares and sparks and left a trail of black smoke. It came down with a thrashing and thundering sound and the impact was so great that Leosher’s soldiers went flying into the sea. Some fell in the forest and some just fell on the beach.
Leosher, seeing that it was trouble, grabbed his spear and immediately got up to fight. He swaggered up to the crash site and after the dust and smoke cleared away, he saw that it was a goddess, a goddess from Aseroth.
She was dressed in all gold and had a scythe for weapon in her hand. She also had a long golden cloak that left gold dust where she walked. She was the same color as Leosher, brown, and her hair were dark. Her eyes were big and blue. Her eyes also had a thick layer of mascara. Her lips were rouged and she was a little shorter than Leosher. Her facial features were very sharp which made her look VERY beautiful.
When she got up from the ground, her glory was beyond comprehension. Her beauty was limitless. Most of those who could see her had gone crazy with the beauty but Leosher and the original warriors stood clear, for Leosher had a new found love for power, and the rest were not lustful. Their minds were not clogged.
“Who are you?” said Leosher, in his heavy voice “And what do you want?”
“I am Arusus and I am looking for the one named Leosher.”
“What do you want from him?” Leosher said.
Virgil who was standing close to Leosher quickly tried to break the tension and sent all of the men away and pulled Leosher back and began talking to Arusus himself.
“I am sorry about my brother’s behavior.”
Arusus smiled back and came out of the pit her landing had made “Now where is Leosher?”
“You are looking at him,” Leosher said “Now what do you want from me?”
Arusus was astonished to see him. He was not wearing his armor and his body was highly toned and was showing every muscle which made him stand out of every man there and in Thraenus, the more muscle you had, the more beautiful you were.
“I should have known, you looked like a god.”
“Now what do you want?”
“I was just here to see you, I have heard about you for 17 years but this is the first time I am seeing you” said she, with a pause “Brother!”
Everyone was shocked to see that it was Leosher’s sister. Leosher looked at her and said “So you are my sister, but I have been on Thraenus for more than 17 years”
“Yes, brother, but I started hearing about how you were to save everyone since my birth. I am 17 years old.”
“What are you doing here” asked he “And have not you seen me before?”
“I had not seen my own brother therefore I came down to Thraenus from Aseroth to meet you.”
Virgil was confused so he came in the conversation “Wait, what is Aseroth and are not the gods able to see everything from the heavens?”
“You must be Virgil. I have heard about you too” She smiled “And Aseroth is the home of the gods. That is where all the gods live and yes gods can see anything from up there but mother has cloaked Leosher to protect him from all the evil that lurks above.”
Afterwards she looked at Leosher “You are awfully strong for a god as young as you are.”
Leosher nodded and looked around and when he did, he saw Azar coming towards them. Azar came and introduced himself. Usere and Urey followed him and finally, Neiham came too. After the introductions were done, Leosher and Virgil took Arusus into his tent to talk to her.
“You possibly cannot be here just to see me. What do you want?” asked Leosher.
“Brother, I am here to help you” replied Arusus “I know your weapons are weak, so I am here to give you a new weapon.”
She took her scythe and gave it to Leosher “This is a gift from a sister to her brother. This will help you in hard times.”
Leosher took detailed yet brief look at it. It was a shiny scythe with an extremely sharp blade at the end and was made of supernatural gold. Its handle was coiled and was about an arm’s length long.
Virgil asked Arusus “What is your power, whose god are you?”
“I am the goddess of Wisdom and Weapons and know exactly what type of weapon one deserves or needs. This scythe is not just a weapon, it represents something. I can tell you that you should use a sword, not battle axes.”
Then she looked at Leosher “I have to leave now. I do not have much time to waste here but I would like to tell you one thing, be good to your loved ones and treat them nicely. If you lose them, you never gain them again and trust me, by the rate at which you are changing, you will need them.”
Then she got up and started to walk out of the tent but then she stopped and looked back “And one more thing, take the path of the Mermaids. There might be a surprise for you that you might like and you might get a chance to test your new weapon.”
Then she got out and looked up, and suddenly, her body caught on the same blue and gold fire and she shot up in the sky with the same golden tail and soon she vanished away.
The Empirion army was left star struck because it was the first time they had seen a goddess at her full glory. Then suddenly, a hawk came and gave Leosher a parchment. The reason why they received the letter so fast was that the hawks fly very high in the sky and fly very fast, which makes them very fast.
The letter was from Lamfari. Leosher snatched the letter and broke the red seal on it and began reading it:
Leosher,
I have heard you have grown impatient and intolerable and that you have accused me of being a scam and sending you on a sham quest. I am sorry if you had to wait a bit but I have returned the letter as fast as I could. Thank Neiham for she chose a hawk that could fly fast and did not keep you waiting any longer. Now, I know that you are angry but you have to do some work. You are the only one that can see the hidden valley. You have to build a galleon and go towards the mermaid waters. That will give you an area to search for the hidden valley.
Lamfari
Leosher called Azar and said to him “Do you know how to build a ship?”
“Yes,” he said “My lord, we can and we shall.”
Leosher nodded and called Virgil too “Take the men and use them and build a ship as fast as you all possibly can. The beach is connected to a forest. Go there and get the wood.”
Virgil nodded and took Azar and the entire Empirion army to the forests and Leosher was left alone, all alone on the shore of the Big Sea….
It was now night so Leosher started a fire. He sat around it and thought about how to gain more power. He was truly going evil now and it was showing on his face. He had a sinister look on his face. He sat around the fire and stared in the fire but then he fell asleep, into a deep sleep. It was instant, withi
n a matter of seconds. In his sleep, he saw a shadowy figure. It was wearing a hood on his head and had red eyes, bright red eyes with no pupils. It looked like a god but was very different too. Its face was hard to see but it was sitting on a throne made out of bones and skulls. He sat around fire and lava. The man was looking very malevolent and there were creatures, hailing it and praising it. The creatures were hideous. Half of them were burnt and half of them were on fire.
Their skin was melting off of their bodies and some Minotaur like creatures were whipping them with chains. The man got up and said loudly “Join me and I will give you an empire bigger than you will ever have. Just give me control over your brain, sell me your soul and you shall see my power.”
Leosher’s face was covered too. This was exactly why Asurot had cloaked him, to save him from creatures like this one. There was some sort of black smoke that kept his face hidden, no matter how hard he tried, it did not go away. This saved Leosher by the potential threat of getting killed by the creature in real life.
The shadowy figure walked up to him and tried to move that smoke to see his face but all of his tries were futile. When he finally realized that no matter how much he tried the smoke was not going away, he simply began talking “Join me, and all your desires shall be fulfilled.”
“I am the prince of all gods, what do you have to offer me?”
“If you do not join me, you will only gain control over Thraenus and Aseroth, but if you join me, I can give you control over the entire Universe. There are other worlds that you can conquer, such as Earth.”
Leosher listened to him but thought he was bluffing “How can I trust you?”
“I have no reason to prove anything to you. I am doing a favor” said he “All you have to do is give me control over your mind and soul. I can unlock your inner beast.”
Leosher smiled again “Why does a shadowy figure want control over me? Why my mind? Why not somebody else?”
When Leosher said that, the figure’s eyes opened wide and produced and sharp beam of red light that woke him up.
He was lying in the same position, near the fire but something seemed different. There were shadows around him and when he finally got up to see what was going on, he was surrounded by men, not his own, but somebody else’s. Leosher quickly got up and got ready to battle “What is the meaning of this?”
Then a man came from between the men. He was wearing eerie clothes. He was wearing a mermaid’s skin’s jacket and was looking like he had not showered in months. He also had a long thick and very dirty beard. He wore leather pants and high boots. His teeth were yellow and had a curved sword in his hand. He also wore a laced white shirt which was no longer white because he had never washed it.
“You will be held captive if you do not tell us who you are?” He said.
Leosher laughed at him “I am the prince of the gods of Aseroth, the rightful ruler of Thraenus, Leosher you ignorant fool.”
“Oh so you are the son of Asurot,” said the man, “Well then prove it!”
Leosher took the Scythe that Arusus had given him and held it tight “How many are going to fight me?” he asked “I have to know.”
The man laughed “I have plenty of men and at least 3 quarters of them will fight you.”
Three quarters of his men were almost the size of his own army. Leosher looked around and smiled and got ready to battle. He put the blade of his Scythe down in the fire and suddenly, flicked it. The ashes and sparks from the fire blinded many of the men around him and this marked the beginning of the battle. He spun the Scythe in a spiraling motion and killed many.
He was brutal; he took their heads off in one blow. There were bodies and heads lining up everywhere. The beach was covered in puddles of blood and the entire atmosphere suddenly turned grim. The giant empty ships in the sea made it even grimmer.
The Scythe was extremely powerful and proven to be a great companion to Leosher. He killed everyone who battled him with the help of the scythe and just when he was about to kill the leader, the man yelled “Stop! Stop!—okay, you win, you are Leosher, the son of Asurot, the prince of all gods—I believe you.”
Leosher stopped and took a deep breath and when he looked around he sighed “What have I done? What has become of me?”
Though he was becoming evil, there still was some good and humanity left in him but it was of no use now. He had done what he had done and there was no going back.
“Although you have killed 3 quarters of my men, you have proven that you are a god.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Barian,” said the man “a pirate who steals booty from trade ships of Gelus and Strinthius, and a mermaid hunter.”
“Really?” said Leosher “Can you help me then?”
“Yes my lord, what is it?”
“I want those,” Leosher said while pointing at the gigantic ark-like galleons “I want your ships and your crew to take me to the hidden valley.”
Barian looked at his ships and then back at Leosher and smiled “I know everything about the Big Sea and know about your quest. I would like to join the King of The Empire.”
“Yes, you can, now bury your men and order the rest to get ready.”
After they were done talking, Barian ordered his men to give a proper burial to the bodies of the fallen and they did just as he said and right after they were done, Leosher’s men came too. They had brought all the wood necessary for a big ship, a galleon. Virgil, seeing that his brother is surrounded by strange men, ran towards him to help him with his axes drawn and his self, ready to battle. Usere and Urey followed him but then Leosher stop them “It is alright. They are friends.”
“Well then how do you explain the puddles of blood on the ground?” asked Usere “And the blood stains on your Scythe” added Urey.
“I got involved in a feud nothing big.”
Leosher looked at Virgil after he was done talking to Usere and Urey “I have arranged ships for us. We do not need to do make them anymore.”
Barian smiled to show that he was offering it with pleasure and introduced himself to all 5 of the main warriors and then informed Leosher “We will be sailing tonight. Get your men on the ships and get ready to go.”
Leosher nodded and yelled out “Everyone, on the ships, now! We are going to the hidden valley.”
His men were a little angry and disappointed, because they had been working as hard as they could hours and they had cut down so many trees to get the necessary wood and wasted so many axes, but alas they could not do anything about it. It was Leosher’s orders and no one could go against or express their feelings about them. They all quickly dropped everything and packed up their armory and their provisions and took the lions, tigers, rhinos and elephants, and boarded the ships.
Leosher knew that his men were disappointed but he did not care and went to Barian to tell him the route “We sail over the mermaid waters, now let us sail.”
He boarded the main and the biggest ship in the fleet. The ships were light brown in color and huge. Their sails were black with a huge skull on them. On the edges of all the ships, were harpoons to hunt and destroy ships. The front of the ships was armored and had a metal ram. This was to protect the ships from damage while they rammed and destroyed their enemy ships. The ships’ bowsprits were like arrows, they were made of iron and bronze. The ships also had large pedals. Each ship had 6 pedals on each side and the pedals were made of oak wood to give them more buoyancy. The ships were amazing and though they had gone through a lot of abuse over the years they had been used, they were in great shape.
Virgil, Usere, Urey, Azar and Neiham saw Leosher board the biggest galleon and they followed him up there and just when all had boarded and none was left on the shore, Barian began sailing and soon they were sailing over the deep waters, for the ships were incredibly fast and had great maneuverability.
Leosher went up to Barian, who was steering the ship with the large wheel on the far end of the deck “How long have you been hun
ting mermaids?”
“It is a long story” replied Barian “I will tell you later sometimes.”
“I have plenty of time because we are not going to be reaching our destination until a few days have passed, so you might as well tell it to me right now.”
Barian finally agreed and began telling the story,
“It was a long, dark and stormy night. It was about 25 years ago, when I was a young man of course. I was a fisherman and fished with my young son. That night, we had been out, fishing for a long time and we had accidentally sailed into the mermaid waters, when suddenly, a storm struck, leaving our boat incapacitated. Our pedals broke and our sails were ripped. It was devastating. There was lightning and thunder and rain everywhere. It was foggy and hard to see and the boat was rocking too much. Even standing still in the boat was a struggle.
Just as I was trying to get our boat steady, I saw a dark creature lurking in the water. It was hard to see but it looked somewhat like a mermaid. It swam under our boat and just as I went to the side to see it clearly, it came from the side and took my son. It took it deep inside the waters and I was left alone. The only thing I saw afterwards was a swarm of mermaids running towards where my son fell and then there was blood everywhere. It made the waters murky. I jumped in the water to get my son but something knocked me on the head and knocked me unconscious. Next day, I woke up on the shores of Gelus, helpless and childless and hungry. That was the day when I vowed to kill every mermaid.”
“Well that was sad,” said Leosher while giving his condolences to him with a straight face “If you need anything, I would like to give it to you.”
