The Vault of Kings

by Matt Taylor

  “I’m alright, I got shot in the leg with an arrow. I tried to pull it out, but it took several tries and drained my energy pretty bad. Where’s Torren? Is he alright?”

  “A large group of skeletons ran past us and started running through the city, it looked like they were searching for something…” She replied.

  “I think that they might be searching for the amulet. We can’t let them get it, Samara.” Sylas said, cutting her off.

  “You’re probably right.” She said in a worried tone. “Torren told me to find you and that he was going to go into the city and try and warn everyone. He said he would try to lead the people away from the skeletons and keep them safe. What should we do?”

  “We have to go back to the Great Tree and tell Nydria.” He said, surveying the battle once more.

  “Looking at the way this battle is going, I don’t know if we are going to be able to fend off all the skeletons, especially with that mage and his dragon. We need to get the amulet from her and go before it’s too late.”

  Samara nodded and took Sylas by the hand, she was about to start running towards the tree when something caught her eye, “Geode!”

  Sylas spun around to see where she was looking. Geode was standing in front of the dragon with his hands held high above his head. His eyes and hands were glowing with the power of Nature Magick as he brought both arms down towards his side, and several bright circles of white light appeared in the sky. Then, beams of moonlight descended from the circles, carrying orbs of energy down with them. The moonbeams killed a dozen skeletons that were surrounding him, and a much larger beam struck the dragon in the head. The dragon reared back in pain and sent a jet of black flames towards Geode.

  He twisted his body and sank into the earth with a corkscrew motion, disappearing into the ground. Moments later, two pillars of rock shot up from the ground, one under the dragon striking it in the chest and throwing it up into the air, the other shooting Geode high into the air. He brought his hands up above his head again and sent a large moonbeam down towards the dragon. The dark mage riding the dragon jumped off as the moonbeam struck, causing the dragon to roar and then fall to the ground. The light in the dragon’s eyes slowly faded away as both Geode and the dark mage landed on the ground.

  The dark mage looked at his now dead dragon for a moment, then back to Geode. He walked over to the dragon and raised a glowing purple hand in the air. A large wispy white orb exited the crumpled dragon and was forced into the thirsting lantern, making it glow brightly. He then pulled his hood off of his head and let it fall back on his shoulders. His eyes glowed with the purple color of Darkness Magick as he raised his hands in preparation to fight.

  Geode brought his hands out in front of him, making the symbol of Fire as his eyes turned from green to red. He let out a scream, and his muscles bulged as he ran towards the dark mage. The dark mage threw his hands out in front of him as several shadowy figures appeared, surrounding Geode. In unison, each of the shadows brought their arms together before extending them outward and shooting beams of Darkness Magick towards Geode.

  Geode crossed his arms in front of his chest as a sphere of red flames appeared around him. The beams of Darkness struck the flaming sphere and dissipated. Geode then threw his arms outward as the sphere extended itself in an outward explosion. He then quickly made the symbol of Nature as his eyes and hands changed from red to green as he sank back into the earth. The dark mage then disappeared from his original position, leaving a shadowy figure in its place as his body traded positions with one of the shadows, dodging both the fiery explosion, as well as the attack that Geode made as he came up out of the ground where the dark mage had just been standing.

  The dark mage then held his hands out in front of him as he conjured a spectral door. Grabbing the door by the handle, he opened it, revealing a dimension room like the one that Sylas had been transported to while in the crypt, then closed the door behind him and disappeared completely. Geode looked around in confusion for a moment until another door opened up behind him. Stepping out of the door, the dark mage was now holding a two-handed sword with a dark, black blade. Geode slammed the ground with his foot, and a large chunk of earth floated up behind him. Taking two short steps forward, then punching towards the dark mage, the rock and earth flew at the mages location. The dark mage again flared his arms outward, creating shadowy images of himself and teleported to one of them, allowing the rock to fly through a shadow instead of himself.

  Geode and the dark mage continued exchanging blow after blow of advanced Magick, both of them seeming to be on the same level of expertise; Geode changing elemental forms periodically, while the dark mage stayed with Darkness Magick.

  “He will be fine, Sylas, we need to go!” Samara said, grabbing his hand.

  Sylas struggled to pull his eyes away from his mentor, but finally agreed and let Samara take him by the hand as they ran towards the center of the city.

  The battle raged on as they ran, the sound of swords clanking on metal mixed with the occasional crackle of lightning filled the air. The crashing of living trees swinging their large branches at their enemies and the cries of war and fear that escaped those who were fighting and those who were fleeing sending chaos throughout the night. The warning bells in the city continued to chime loudly, sending a warning to their people.

  Several groups of skeletons had made it into the inner parts of the city now, running through houses and climbing up the towering trees to the higher levels of the city in search of their objective. Sylas hated to run past them instead of stopping to help, but he knew that it was essential that he find the amulet first.

  The sun began to poke up from the horizon as he and Samara ran for the Great Tree, signifying that it much later into the night than he had initially thought. Its warm orange glow splashed against the cloudy horizon, spreading its light onto the city. The long stone bridge came into view as Sylas and Samara rounded a street corner. Several rows of warriors stood with spears and shields raised at the ready, a line of men and women in battle mage robes standing behind them. Nydria sat upon a large brown horse at the very back, her eyes and hands glowing green with Magick. Upon seeing Samara and Sylas, Nydria kicked at her horse and closed the distance between them.

  “I knew you would come here. Where are the others?” She asked.

  “Geode and Uthren are fighting in the front lines,” Sylas responded. “Torren is somewhere in the city trying to fend off the skeletons that have broken off from the main army.”

  Nydria quickly removed the amulet from around her neck and held it out towards Sylas. “You need to take this and leave. Get your friend and your mentors and go, before anything happens to you. From what my guards tell me it doesn’t look good for our city. You must continue your quest and obtain all of the stones so that you can defeat Maelos. We will keep the armies of the dead occupied as long as we can so that you can make your escape, but you must go now.”

  Sylas grabbed the amulet from Nydria and hesitated for a moment. “Nydria, we…”

  “That’s an order, Sylas! If Maelos gets ahold of that amulet, there’s no telling what evil and destruction he will be able to amass upon Evendreil. With it, we have a chance. I’m sorry that I did not listen to you when you first approached me, that is a mistake that I will take responsibility for. You must not let my mistake cost us our one chance at victory.”

  Sylas nodded and turning to Samara, stated in a firm yet shaken voice, “Come on, let’s find Torren then get Uthren and Geode and go.”

  “Before you go,” Nydria said, letting the glow of Magick fade from her eyes. “The Stone of Nature. It’s here in Gelendor. You won’t have time to retrieve it now, but hopefully, we will be able to fend off this attack so that you can come back one day and obtain it. If I’m not here when that day arrives, I need you to know where it is.”

  Nydria jumped off her horse and approached Sylas. Placing her lips next to his ear, she proceeded to whisper to him the location of the st
one.

  “Keep that a well-guarded secret, Sylas. That knowledge is meant for the royal family of Gelendor alone. I ask that you only share it if it becomes absolutely necessary, and if so, only to those whom you trust completely. Can I count on you?”

  Sylas nodded, “You can count on me. We will return one day and get the Nature Stone, I won’t let you down.”

  “Thank you, Sylas,” Nydria said, returning to her horse. “Now go, find your party and leave. As for me, I ride into battle. I won’t let Gelendor be overtaken so easily.”

  Her eyes and hands flared green as she made the symbol of Nature and kicked at her horse. Her guards ran to her side, then they all took off towards the main battle.

  Sylas placed the amulet around his neck and tucked it under his shirt. “Right, Torren first, then Uthren and Geode, then we get our things and leave.”

  Without any warning, Samara threw her arms around Sylas.

  “I’m scared, Sylas. I don’t want to die.”

  Sylas held her for a moment before pulling away, “I won’t let you die. I swear it. We need to go now, though, before it gets too late. The sun is already starting to rise, and I feel that we’ll need as much cover as we can get if we are going to escape unnoticed.”

  They ran from house to house, searching for Torren with no success. Where could he be? Sylas thought to himself as he ran into another house, finding it empty. Just as he exited the abandoned home, he heard Samara scream, “Sylas! Over here!”

  Her voice had an air of terror in it, which made his heart skip a beat. No, he thought to himself, no!

  He ran towards Samara’s voice pumping all of his energy into his legs. Please be okay, Torren. Please be okay! He ripped around a corner and jumped over several skeleton bodies that had been slain the saw Samara kneeling on the ground next to someone, several others stood in a semi-circle around them.

  “No!” Sylas cried out in agony as he slid on his knees next to Samara. It wasn’t until then that he noticed that her eyes and hands were glowing with Light Magick. More than a dozen dismembered skeletons lay strewn across the ground around Torren, who had a giant wooden spear protruding from the right side of his chest. He was still breathing, but it was in small, sharp breaths.

  “He-y bud-dy,” Torren said, coughing out the words.

  “Torren, I said, be quiet. Don’t Talk!” Samara said, tears running down her face as she continued to pour healing Magick into Torren’s chest.

  “Sylas, hurry, we need to get this spear out of him. Get ready to help me heal him once we take it out. I’ve never healed anything this bad before, so we’ll need to work together.”

  Choking back the tears, Sylas made the symbol of Light and opened his second mind. “Don’t even think about it, Torren.”

  Torren let out a choking laugh wincing at the pain. “Th-ink a-bout wh-at?”

  “Can you save him?” A girl standing next to him asked, her voice just as distraught as Samara’s.

  Sylas placed his hands on the shaft of the spear, ignoring her completely. Just as he was about to pull up on the spear, a man standing next to the girl he had ignored stopped him. “Wait! Let me pull it out, then you can be ready to heal him as fast as possible.”

  The man was large and burly, and most likely much stronger than Sylas was. He remembered the incident where he tried to pull the arrow out of his calf with several unsuccessful attempts and decided that might be the best idea. Sylas nodded and allowed the man to kneel down next to him.

  “Alright, on three, then.” The man said, wrapping his hands around the shaft of the spear. “This is going to hurt, my boy. One. Two. Three!”

  The man pulled up hard on the spear, which exited Torrens chest with a sickening Slunk. Torren screamed and then fell unconscious as the spear left his chest. Sylas and Samara quickly placed their hands on the wound, trying to stop the blood from exiting as they poured their Light Magick into him.

  Sylas focused intently on aligning his desires with his second mind to heal Torren. He’s a protector of the innocent, and my friend, he deserves to be healed.

  He repeated in his mind over and over again as he poured his energy into the wound. It took much longer than any other injury that he had healed, but eventually, with the help of Samara, the wound began to be sealed up as his muscles wove themselves back together. After a while longer, the blood stopped pouring from the wound, and a large scar formed as his skin pulled itself together. Sylas and Samara removed their hands from Torren and let the Light Magick fade away. The man placed his hand behind Torrens head and lifted him up slightly. The girl standing nearby kneeled down next to him and with tears streaming down her face called out to him.

  “Torren?”

  Torren cracked an eye open and gave a faint smile, “Hey guys.”

  She began to cry and hugged the man next to her as he looked at Sylas with admiration and thanks.

  “How do you know Torren?” Sylas asked, still confused as to why these random people were acting so emotionally towards Torrens near death.

  Wiping away her tears, the girl stopped embracing the man and explained. “Sorry, my name is Ahri, Torren and I went on a date yesterday. You must be Sylas and Samara, he told me so much about both of you. And this is my father, Jhort.”

  “Torren saved our lives,” Jhort said, still looking at Sylas. “We would have been dead for sure if it were not from him. I may look big, but I’m not a fighter. We owe our lives to him.”

  Sylas nodded in acknowledgment then turned his attention back to Torren. “Torren, Nydria gave us the amulet and told us we need to leave. We need to find Uthren and Geode and go. Are you well enough to walk?”

  He sat up slightly, then looked at Sylas and asked, “So what’s the plan then? We leave and go looking for the other ones, but just skip the one that’s here? There is one here, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah, it’s here, and Nydria told me where it was, but we don’t have time to get it, so we’ll have to come back for it later.”

  “How do you plan on coming back if the city is overthrown? That will be a little hard, don’t you think?” Torren asked.

  Sylas sat for a moment pondering to himself. Torren was right, if the city was overthrown, how would they come back for the stone? They would have no way of getting in or knowing what the state of the city was even like.

  “Well, what do you suggest we do then?” Sylas asked.

  “My father told me a lot about what war is like,” Torren responded. “Most likely, when they aren’t able to find what they came here looking for, they will leave a group of warriors here to make sure that Gelendor can’t overthrow what they have already taken, and they will send the rest of the army out to continue the search. Times will be tough here, and there will need to be people that know what’s going on behind Maelos’s back to give them hope and a will to survive. They will need protection… I’m going to stay here.”

  Samara and Sylas both protested, but Torren raised his hand in defiance.

  “Listen to me, I can help the people that are here to survive through all of this. I can also maybe strike up a rebellion or something so that we can do what we can from the inside. If there are more of us in different places, rather than all of us always in the same place, Maelos will have a harder time accomplishing his goals. Let me stay here, let me help this city by letting them know that there is a plan and that there is someone out there who is collecting the stones and is going to defeat Maelos someday. They will need that reassurance, or this town will turn into what Shilvrst has become, a place of broken people struggling to survive and unwilling to fight back. Plus, if you are going to have to come back for the Nature Stone, you will need one of us on the inside to help with that.”

  Sylas listened to his best friend speak, knowing that he was right but not wanting to agree. He kicked a skeletons dismembered arm in frustration before finally replying. “You’re right… I hate to admit it, but I think that you should stay.”

  “Sylas, no! We can’t
leave Torren here.” Samara cried. “He could die! We just saw him almost die, what would have happened if we weren’t here?”

  “We can tell Geode to stay as well,” Sylas replied. “We’ll go back to the battlefield, grab our things, and tell Uthren and Geode the plan. Geode can stay here with Torren, and Uthren will come with us. That way, he will have someone else here to help protect him.

  Samara glared between her two friends before throwing her arms around Torren. She cried on his shoulder for a moment and told him repeatedly that he had better not be stupid and make sure he stays safe. Torren returned the hug and assured her that he would be fine. Sylas tried to not let the tears welling up in his eyes escape, but they defiantly broke free and rolled down his cheeks. Torren held out his hand towards his best friend, which Sylas clasped. They brought themselves together and embraced as friends and as brothers.

  “I’ll be alright, Sylas, you watch out for yourself too. I feel like I’m actually taking the safe road in staying here compared with what you guys will probably run into. You’d better hurry and leave, though, before it’s too late.”

  Sylas released the embrace and wiped the tears from his face. “Right, let’s go.”

  Sylas and Samara gave one last goodbye as they ran from their friend back towards the battlefield.

  The battle had moved further into the city as the armies of Gelendor were continually driven back by the endless swarm of enemies. As he jumped over a fallen townsfolk, Sylas caught sight of Uthren running through the streets.

  “Uthren! Over here!” Sylas called out, “We need to leave!”

  Uthren turned from his original trajectory and ran towards Sylas. Sylas could tell that something was wrong as he approached them.

  “Sylas, Samara, where’s Torren? We need to leave the city. Nydria told me that she gave you the amulet, we need to go before we’re caught.”

  “We know, we were just looking for you and Geode so that we could leave. But Torren… isn’t coming…”