Lore/Story Scourge

I don't know why, but the word "anticlimactic" seems very fitting for this chapter.
I'll probably enjoy writing Chapter 38...It's hard to explain.

Chapter XXXVII
Two Birds and No Stone​

Jonas jerked his head in the direction of the arrow embedded in the road, and, in just as little time, to where the arrow was shot from. And it was there he saw it: a shadow hidden behind a tree, a ragged bow held in its misshapen arm, pointed right at him. The figure already seemed to have loaded another arrow, but just as it was about to fire, it suddenly collapsed.

“Nice try, whoever you are,” Jonas said with a grin as he pocketed his wand and observed the attacker. He didn’t have to crouch down and observe it, or cast any sort of spell, to know who - or what - it was: a zombie. Its flesh green and rotten, clothing torn, and eyes dark and empty, the real thing up close seemed even more gruesome and frightening than what the books had described. Even as he looked around, he could see others of its kind lolling behind trees, or out in the open, where they would wander aimlessly until something exciting were to happen.

At about that time, Robin finally caught up, and when he skidded to a standstill, his eyes went from Jonas, to the collapsed corpse by the tree, and lastly to Jonas’s pocket, where his wand was concealed. A brief moment of contemplation passed, and he said, “Would...would you mind waiting up for us for once?” Jonas didn’t answer. “Every single time that you charge in blindly, every time,” he continued, “something bad happens. Would you please, please just slow down for one min- Hey, Julie!” His head turned to his left as his voice rose to a shout. “What are you doing over there!”

Julie, who seemed to be standing in the middle of an empty field, faced Robin, shrugged, and promptly walked over to where they were.

“Sorry,” she said. Jonas could tell the spider venom was still in effect by the lack of character in her voice. “You see,” she continued, “I was following this bee when someone came out of nowhere and told me to be careful, but you started shouting and suddenly he vanished.”

“It’s a hallucination,” Robin told Jonas. “We’ll just have to get to Ragni-”

Julie interrupted him as though he had never been talking. “The guy never told me what to be careful of, but just after that I got stung by some other bee, so that’d be what he was warning me of. It hurts. I’m glad he warned me that the bee was coming. What a nice guy.”

Robin punched her in the arm. “Shut up,” he said with irritation.

Nothing out of the ordinary was in sight for the next few miles. There were a few zombies, and a couple of accidents involving Julie’s hampered ability to shoot a bow, but otherwise, things couldn’t have been smoother for them. They walked down the Emerald Trail with the city of Ragni in mind, and every once in a while Jonas would bug Robin with questions about their destination.

“D’you think the people there will be nice?” Jonas asked Robin as they passed a small shop. “Why is it called Ragni? Why would the Qu-”

But a nearby scream drowned him out. Immediately, all three of them turned to their left and saw, just outside the shop a short way from them, what looked like the shopkeeper and someone else surrounded by people with masks.

“Bandits,” said Robin quietly, and then he vanished without a trace.

Jonas stared at the place where Robin had stood, but after hearing another yell accompanied by a low, rough voice, he whipped out his wand and pointed it at the crowd. But he didn’t have to do anything; the person beside the shopkeeper raised a hand, a bolt of lightning surged through the crowd, and all the bandits collapsed before Jonas had the time to cast a single spell.

As soon as the shopkeeper saw the bandits out cold on the ground, he whooped and, looking rather embarrassed, began furiously shaking the other person’s hand while making dozens of offers. Jonas watched as the person handed over a wand that seemed to glow with electricity, and they both walked into the shop.

“What just happened?” Robin asked, as he appeared at Jonas’s side.

“Dunno,” Jonas replied as he brushed a leaf off his arm.

“Hold on, where’d Julie go?” said Robin.

Jonas looked around quickly. “She’s already walked a hundred feet down the trail!” he said suddenly. “Hurry up, let’s go!”



“Hold on, let’s slow down. I’m exhausted.”

Robin couldn’t agree more to Jonas’s words after a half-hour of tedious speedwalking. The scenery had changed little; bright trees dotted the plains, steep mountains rose far off to their left, and an empty field lay ahead, with nothing but a dirt road to keep them company. Jonas slowed to a stop and began to catch his breath. Robin, however, continued walking, albeit at a much, much slower pace. Jonas swept more sweat off his face and leaned against a fencepost beside the road, breathing spastically. Julie simply stood there, wondering why everyone was so worn out.

“How long d’you think it’ll take to reach Ragni?” Jonas asked between breaths, as he leaned further towards the fence. Before Robin replied, a curt voice following them spoke.

“At your rate, quite a long time!”

Jonas nearly fell over in shock as he looked around for the source of the voice. His eyes shortly fell upon a man not too far back - the same one who was at the shop, strolling down the Emerald Trail. Thoughts raced through Jonas’s head when he noticed the spear in his hand, bright silver and glowing with electricity.

“Do you actually know how long?” Jonas shouted back, clearing his throat afterwards.

The stranger stopped when he reached them, and answered simply. “An hour, give or take.”

Jonas glanced at the spear in the man’s hands again before asking, “Have you ever been to Ragni?” Robin tried to steer him back onto the road, but the man replied before he could do so.

“I’ve...been there several times,” he said. “Why are you on your way there?”

“We’re looking for a-” Jonas began to reply, but Robin punched him, and he instead said, “A- visiting a friend. There’s a, er, an interesting...book I want to give to him. Yeah, that’s what we’re doing.”

Jonas could tell he didn’t quite believe him, but no looks were exchanged. Robin finally managed to drag him and Julie back to the trail, and they set off towards Ragni.

“Take care in your travels!” the stranger said, his voice fading as they walked. “And watch out for the haunted house!”

“Haunted...house?” Jonas asked curiously, looking back. The man was gone. “Is he talking about Ragni? Hold on.” He retrieved his book from the bag and began to read as he walked.

Another short while passed, and Jonas finally closed his book shut. “Nothing,” he said, disappointed. “Nothing at all on a haunted house in Ragni.”

“Perhaps the author never caught wind of the story?” Robin suggested.

“Or maybe,” Julie said suddenly, “its official title isn’t a haunted house, and it’s actually just a normal or run-down building! It might be floating, too! Or it could be haunted with ghosts.”

“When will we get there so this will all be over?” muttered Robin, as though he were trying to sound as irritated as possible.

“Ragni!” Jonas shouted without warning. Robin flinched rather visibly at the sudden sound, causing Julie to laugh. But as they looked down the trail, a massive stone gate was clearly visible amidst the empty green fields. “We’re here!”

“Now, there,” said Julie anomalously. “We’re not quite there, yet. If you haven’t noticed, we’ve still got a little walk to go, not to mention we haven’t had a bite to eat in over a day.”

Those simple words caused a sharp pain in Jonas’s stomach, and he nearly collapsed to the ground. The inconvenience of hunger had always plagued him, except for that fortunate moment once or twice a day at home when Robin or Julie arrived with fresh food. But the real problem struck when Jonas realized that he had no food in his bag, and neither did anyone else, it seemed. He recalled having nearly the exact same dizzying feeling now as he did during the last few moments of the mushroom cow attack a few days prior. But unlike then, just before he passed out, he suddenly felt an odd strength again, along with a voice.

“Get up.”

Jonas rose from the ground, his mind still struggling from the quick turn of events. Standing there was a tall, hooded figure, looking down at Jonas with an appearance of deep disappointment. Rather than feeling thankful, Jonas jumped a little.

“What, did I startle you?” she said.

“Uh, yeah,” Jonas replied. “You did.”

“Then get moving, I don’t have time to sit here all day.”

Without any verbal communication, Jonas stood up and began looking around shyly to examine the landscape, without paying any attention to the woman standing next to him. Robin shrugged, and, with a confused look, took a few steps down the road before looking back.

“So?” Robin said dismissively. “Does this mean we’re going?”

Jonas snapped out of his trance and looked covertly at Robin, but turned to the woman and said, “What’s your name?”

“I’ve been calling myself Laryn lately,” she answered. “I read about it in an old paper recently, something about a person named Laryn, who died in a freak accident during an expedition.” She sighed loudly. “The name reminds me of my late mother, Lauren.” Jonas noticed that she looked much like Sam did then when he had mentioned his mother.

“That’s okay, my- I mean, I- er…,” Jonas replied earnestly.

Laryn looked at him. “What?”

Jonas wiped away a tear, and said, “It’s fine.” Just like that, his expression went from sad to excited. “What’s Ragni like?”

“You can see for yourself in a minute or so,” Laryn replied dully. “Let’s get going now.”

It felt almost exciting, seeing the Ragni gate approaching so rapidly, with another person to guide them through these last few moments after all that traveling.

“Um,” Jonas began suddenly, before stopping nervously for a second. “What exactly did you do to give us the energy to walk again? I was starving at first, and now I don’t feel anything at all.”

With an unsatisfied look, Laryn replied, “Just a bit of magic trickery I know. If you’re starving, it should keep you going for an hour or two before you begin feeling exhausted again. It’s just one more favor I could do.”

“Thanks, then,” said Jonas, glancing at Laryn before putting his eyes on the gate ahead. He couldn’t quite tell what the expression on Laryn’s face was, but he didn’t care much. The massive gate of Ragni loomed over them, and Jonas finally felt, after all this time, that their adventure was nearly complete.

 

I'm in tears of joy readying this

 

Shoooooot how did I miss this, the thread is watched!
Good luck continuing and know we'll keep supporting u!

 

Nothing special, I just want to congratulate the folder in my Google Drive for being alive for an entire year. My internet's too slow for the story document to load, so...

I'm ~75% done with chapter 38, too...With any luck, I'll have it finished by the end of next week at the latest.

P.S.: Nearly everything but those two unblurred docs aren't actually anything important to the story, just unfinished and now-irrelevant background chapters, the character app forms, etc. Don't go hyper trying to figure anything out.

 

O.O
Nice job dude! Also what did you use to edit in the blurs?

 

I used Gaussian Blur (Links to Wikipedia) on paint.net

 

I just read through the whole entier story nonstop from the start. It is simply amazing. I also poested a character and have a few conspiracies.
The creator of the weapons is alive.

 

This is an amazing story!
(I'm still at ch 9 though)

 

Loving this story read it all in two days and now I'm waiting for the next chapter. So with that out of the way I think the weapons are in the following location (Well I know 3/4 are)

The Quake is in a house Ragni (Probably the "Haunted House")
The Inferno is in the possession of Master L
The Falcon is in possession of Fahim
And The Tide is in the possession of the mysterious person who turned Stellan into part of the wand along with 3 other people. Or in the possession of psychotic scientist who was in the beginning of the story.

Please don't stop this story I love it and I need to know if one of the siblings die.

 

I have a feeling we haven't actually seen anything to do with the Tide yet. Or if we have, the hints were very subtle and we might only realise them if we re-read the whole story.

 

Oh I have read this story 3 times already



(I have a lot of free time)

 

We need dat spider pet! WAIT CAN THEY HAVE THE SPIDER BOSS IN THE SPIDER DUNGEON AS A PET?

 

Im surprised that no one's mentioned how Master L could actually be the Creator.

Or was there someyhing I missed?

 

Drama and expectations.

 

I was wondering if he could be, but if so, why didn't he keep the other weapons?

 

He could have some kind of uncovered ulterior motive. But so far, it seems that he's most likely to be the creator.

Also, I believe that Master L (I think it mightve been mentioned somewhere) was the one who fused the guy with the wand, creating Tide.

 

Well my guess it is Master L that fused the Stellan with the wand but what he said doesn't fit "I have no finally created the strongest wand" bringing the question that maybe no one has found the Tide or its lost forever

 

Tide and "The strongest wand" could be the same. The person who fused Stellan with the wqnd did say that there were three others.
(Quake, Falcon, Inferno. Exactly 3.)

 

True true but the wand was also fused with 2 other people and Stellan so the person could of meant that instead of the weapons

 

I...don't think there's much to say here.

Thanks to everyone who's read the story this far