Round robin. WAR OF LORE!

momsrascal93 · **Posted:** February 3rd, 2009, 1:26 pm

Momsrascal awoke, the area was bright with holy light. Was she really dead? She sat up finding her strength again.

"Ok... So... If I'm dead... Then what?" She pondered. She saw a young man no older than in his twenties.

"Where are we?" She asked him. She suddenly remembered an old picture of her grandfather. The young man's features matched the picture.

"Grandpa?" She asked, stunned to see him so young.

"Yes. And... you've died." He answered both of her questions.
"So what happens now?" She asked.

"Saradomin is not here right now. I could send you back but not right away to fight. I can send you back as an etheral spirit." He explained.

"Wait. What do you mean Saradomin isn't here?" She asked.

"He's not in this realm." He said. "Would you like me to temporarily send you back as an etheral spirit?" He asked. "You may roam free but can't influence anything in the realm of the living physically nor can anything influence you. " He explained.

"So I can't for example, pick up an object, but I can communicate, and someone like Darkrascal can't harm me physically?" She asked.

"That's right." He said.

"All right. Send me back." She said. She faded back into Gielinore to the spot where she died. She looked at her corpse. She saw Darkrascal look at her and stuck her tongue out at her as the look of priceless shock was on her rival's face. She then headed for Lumbridge.

Adbot · **Posted:** February 3rd, 2009, 1:26 pm

Alex 43 · **Posted:** February 7th, 2009, 12:11 am

"Wow! This is amazing!"

Holurathra liked the energy in the kids' curiosity. Everything, from a shiny piece of mithril to a fragment of a potential gemstone got them jumping in excitement. Holu smiled as he watched them suddenly take off to a nearby wall, clawing and punching at it after "believing" it may hold a treasure. Several times, he was asked (or rather "implored") to swing his axe there by the thought alone. However, despite Holu playfully appeasing to their requests and swinging the axe much to their awe and amazement, nothing extraordinary was found on the way through the mines. There was disappointment, but the dragonytes perked right up again when one of them reminded the rest that this wasn't what they came for.

Holu never wished he was young again. He liked the way he was right now; a fully experienced miner and inspiration to any kid brave enough to approach him and his great tool.

The caverns were not decorated nor reinforced in any spectacular way. This was not the formation of their own underground city, nor was it to be presented to a higher power at all. No, this was simply a mineral mine, of shallow slopes, cracked rocky walls, hastily placed reinforcements, and thin, narrow spaces all around. It was a network of walls, with several "rooms" carved out to represent the locations of potential or discovered ore seams. Sometimes, Holu would greet the darkness of one such room, and a friendly, fatigued voice of a fellow miner would respond. The first few times, it made the kids jump, but now they were shouting "hi" in every dark room in the hopes they'd discover a miner sooner than Holu could.

"Hello? Anyone in there?!?"

"... darn, nobody in there ..."

"Hey, what's up?!?"

"... aw, it's empty ..."

"Hey, Gyok, how's the iron supply in there?"

"Still lasting, Holu. If I knew any better, I'd say someone was trying to prank me here."

"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!?"

"Field trip, Holu?"

"Yup. Keep up the good effort, Gyok!"

Alas, how disappointed they were when there was nothing there to return the greeting, and how shocked they were that Holu called out a greeting and had one returned before they even found one of these rooms. The kids thought it was some sort of magic ability Holu had. Holu simply told them it was; they were too young to understand the priority of co-worker schedule memorization.

"Dad, how far do we have to go?" asked Chio, carrying the torch.

"It is quite a ways down." replied Holu, "But remember, the farther down we go, the older the artifacts and treasures we find will be. Keep in mind that these things could have been buried for millions of years to have stayed undisturbed for so long."

"Who buried them?" asked Cani.

"Pirates! Duh!" Galn proudly said, "Pirates are always burying their treasures!"

Holu laughed, "Yes, it could have been pirates. Or it could have been the ancient ones. Who knows, maybe Saradomin himself decided to hide a little something of his own."

The kids suddenly grew excited all over again, but Juar was skeptical.

"But, wouldn't He get angry if we find something He wanted to hide?" he asked quietly, almost as though he was afraid their master Lord was listening in.

Holu was thinking that too. Upon finding the underground temple, the miners grew skeptical and called in the sages to commune with the Holy One and ask about it. However, he did not know of the temple, and the symbols carved into the walls were unlike anything that even He recognized. So, the sages told them that the Temple was to be said to belong to Sartranomin then, since he owned the planet and everything on it, and that's what they would say about the discovery. However, even the Holy One had told the White Dragon sages that this was a temple before even His time, and any information they could unearth from its mystery would be something even He would want to take interest in, so they were allowed exploration rights.

Holu decided to invite his son over to check it out as well; to get a child's impression about the place and potentially, by pure coincidence, get a clue as to its origin. Of course, Chio went and invited all his friends to come as well with the promise of treasure without letting him know as a consequence, but who was he to disappoint? Especially since many heads think better than one, even if they are of mere dragonytes.

"Don't touch anything then, OK?" Holu simply replied. Disappointment filled Juar's eyes. He wanted treasure too.

They have been walking for a long time. In the mines, time is irrelevant to the miners. They worked as they pleased, and rested when they needed it. The miners all work hard, so they are rewarded for their work through their honesty and success about their job. This is what happens in a society that uses no currency. They kept on going, occasionally meeting the odd miner here and there ("Teach us how to do that!"), and sharing stories of possible past-time events like pirates and the ancients. Holu smiled as they suddenly started contradicting each other due to a feeble impossibility. They should being the kids here a lot more often since it was so fun to have them. Even the miners paused to listen into their ideas until they were out of ear-shot.

After it seemed like they were going to give up the walk and start complaining, Holu called for their attention. He pointed to the cavern ahead, which after being illuminated by the glowing eyes of the explorers, revealed itself to be abruptedly stopped and gave way to a large hole in the ground.

"This is it." Holu said, gesturing for a group gathering.

"It's just a hole." Galn complained.

"Indeed it is," Holu said, "One of our miners was digging through this tunnel when the underside suddenly gave away and he plummeted nearly [60 feet]. [The White Dragons have their own metric system, so I will specify an average]. He was stuck down there with a broken leg for almost two sun rotations before someone finally heard him calling for help."

The dragonytes stood, transfixed at the hole, as though it was a ghost story about it they just heard.

"We don't want that to be us now." Holu continued, "So whatever you do, proceed carefully. I will go first, and one at a time, follow me down. But remember to be careful."

Holu peered down the hole and, after some hesitation, dropped his large pickaxe. After a while, they heard the loud clang as it struck the bottom. Then, Holu turned and jumped down the side of the cliff, latching on the wall with his tough claws. The kids watched as he slowly descended into the darkness, seeing nothing but his glowing eyes and torch. Finally, he jumped off the wall, lay the torch down to reveal the ground, and whistled for them to follow.

Obediently, the young ones carefully turned and climbed down the wall, one at a time, while Holu stood ready to catch them if they fell. The enthusiastic Galn went first, followed by Chio, Shyll, Cani, and finally, after hesitation, Juar. Despite climbing rocky cliff-sides as a physical hobby, this was perhaps one of the most hard-core climbing walls any of them had to scale. With each careful placement of a claw, they wondered more and more how they were going to climb back up. One by one, they made it to the solid ground which, they were surprised to find, felt very sloped.

Ahead of them, they saw unending darkness. There was no visible walls anywhere and the air, strangely enough, was pleasantly cool and fresh.

"I can't see anything." Shyll said, "Where is it?"

Holu wordlessly gestured for them to wait where they were. He proceeded ahead, watching every step as though he might fall through the floor if he didn't. Then, he stopped, turned, and gestured the kids to approach him, which they did.

He pointed over the clifftop they stood and spoke over their sudden, hushed squeals of excitement.

"There it is." Holu proudly said, introducing them to one of the greatest White Dragon discoveries of all time.

________________________________________________________

"So, Oocon blood, provided it's not exposed to air or water, contains a reparation agent that almost fuels the wounded cells into massive reproduction to completely heal and fix their bodies?" Alex asked Macan.

"Precisely." Macan replied, "Material composition also contains a mind micro-relaxant that eases cellular structures and thereby allows more life to them."

"In a nutshell ..." Alex said, thinking, "They are practically a fountain of youth."

Making instant contact with the air after being in comparatively freezing water came as a great shock to Alex. He was thankful they didn't have Skee with them now, because such a shock would've easily stopped his heart as a consequence. Since he didn't have one, his body only tingled for a while before relaxing and recovering the experience. It was nice to feel fresh air again. He felt so much lighter and fluid now that he didn't have the movement restriction of the water.

Venos was still annoyed at Alex, and flying in the front so that she didn't have to deal with him. Upon shooting to the surface, Venos had assumed out loud that Alex lied when he said he couldn't understand the Oocon, since Venos had just witness him speaking to one. Alex tried to explain that it was only Koyl he could talk to only by contact, but Venos once again blamed K. Alex agreed - perhaps the power K granted them both came with an unusual side-effect. But once again, trying to appease Alex like this almost did make him quite suspicious. Naturally, K was going to want something in return for all this. Or was there something that Alex had done in the past that really made K owe him this much?

Macan, however, was more interested than anything in Alex and his findings of the world around him. He would explain something to Alex, and in return, Alex had to explain one of his own discoveries. Flying high in the air with the clouds obscuring their view of the ocean, Alex explained the Scabarite race and the religions of the desert peoples. He talked about the economies of the human race and their diplomatics towards other races like the gnomes and dwarves, the habitations and rituals of the biological dragon race, and just about every story of Gia's that he could remember. However, he wanted to avoid talking about Dex. That was something that really should never have existed on this world.

In return, Macan explained the crystal city. Under the crust of the Earth resided these great crystals that folded over a type of magnetic (Alex assumed he meant "magical") field that prevented psychokinetic communications and everything based off of that. Being so close down, the crystals themselves would hide everything nearby or below them to any sort of detection, by Gods and beyond. He also talked about himself and Venos; how Venos was summoned by the White Dragons to the underground to reside and Macan finding refuge with the Oocon after the first "payment" to the Unknown, which Venos stopped Macan from revealing.

After the White Dragons were seemingly wiped out by the dragonkin, the only reason Zaros never had any true victory was because there still resided the Underearth, who with Venos' power, instilled added ability and introduced magics to the races on the surface, namely the humans, elves, and gnomes. With this newfound ability, they rebelled against Zaros with subjected loyalty to the rebel mahjarrat, and in the end, he was wiped out by the Zamorakian forces. Alex asked just what and who the mahjarrat were, but Macan said Alex would need to earn that information.

So Alex discussed his finding the Stone of Jas - an artifact said to create Gods. The mahjarrat Lucien attempted to steal it, but Alex severed a piece off of it and escaped with it, exercising the fact that the stone would not work unless whole. To which, he had sealed the piece away from known existence with Dex's help (but he called Dex a "wise mage"), so that there would be no danger to its abuse. Indeed, Macan had heard of the stone before, but he also held an entirely different back-story as to what it really was. Alex decided it was best to keep this description a secret from any mortal and immortal questioning.

That was the past. Now, Alex was riding Macan on the base of his neck like a horse-rider while Macan was talking about what was in the Oocon blood that made it such a potent healing agent. He didn't want this little game of revelation to end, it was just too fun.

"I applaud your analytical skills." Macan replied, "Yes. For that, they have been sought out by a great number of predators looking to increase their own life-span. Through natural advancements, they have been developing stomachs that syphon all liquids out to dehydrate their prey and directly extract the blood directly into their systems."

"Almost sounds like their sterilized blood defense is all for nothing if that's the case." Alex concluded.

"Not quite." Macan said, "While is it agreed their system poses a threat, almost even a gamble to the carnivores' desires, it is still a difficult and time-consuming process, in which they can only directly consume one or two at a time safely. Otherwise, the entire race would've been devoured in one fractionated segment of time."

Upon leaving the water, Alex expected Macan to shoot out grey wings of lightning similar to Venos. After shooting up out of the water and just hanging there momentarily, he found himself to be half-right. Macan did shoot out great wings, but they were nothing like Venos'. While Venos' wings were sparky, random, and seemingly skeletalized, Macan's were more smooth, whole, and controlled. Much more rounded and brilliant, as though newer and unused. Alex didn't doubt that was the case, since Macan was based underwater and had no need to use wings. Even still, Alex couldn't help but thing that the wings of both the animated dragons were simply for show.

"Unicorn blood boasts the same sort of property." Alex said, "Are the two races somehow related?"

"In the past," Macan explained, "They both used to derive off of one, seemingly immortal race that could fly. Something happened, though, I cannot speculate what, that literally separated them into two completely different species - one water-bound and one land-bound. They still had that capability in their blood, but it was even more powerful than current-day Oocon blood, and said to even bring back the dead if used right."

"I take it the race itself no longer exists, then?" Alex said.

"I have heard stories on the wind that there potentially are survivors, since their lifespan is an extreme length." Macan said with hope, "But, similar to the Oocon, they choose to conceal themselves in fear they would be split apart again."

"It would be interesting to meet one of them." Alex speculated.

"I assume they would not mind your presence." Macan agreed, "As you are a spirit-based form, their blood would be of no use to you."

Alex momentarily gazed up towards Venos. She accelerated slightly, adding a little more distance between them.

"I gotta be honest, I'm almost scared to have you hate me as well." Alex admitted, purposelessly stroking the back of Macan's neck.

"You house great knowledge from experience. I cannot hate one with that trait." Macan replied, "However, I try to remain neutral from poor decisions unless performed intentionally without regards to future consequence."

"Likewise." Alex agreed.

"I will try to carry your apologies to Venos for you." said Macan, "Due to required direct approach, recommended backside mounting during negotiation."

Alex agreed, and shifted himself backwards to hold onto the base of Macan's tail while Macan attempted to get Alex a status of forgiveness towards his sister. Since this involved Macan flying alongside Venos, Alex wanted to stay back as much as possible from Venos until she was cooled off.

Interesting. Oocon blood had that property. Perhaps there was some way he could incorporate it into his new potion formula. He couldn't wait to return home and give it a try after they finished their objective. Provided, of course, he could find an Oocon and somehow transfer the blood right to a vial without exposing it to air or water. Perhaps he could create some kind of vacuum sack to keep it in? Ah yes, but then he'd have to substitute the distilled water already in his potion with something less oxygenated. Perhaps a type of powdered mineral extract can remove the oxygen without-

"Hello, Alex."

Alex froze on the spot, horrified. If his spear or staff was in his hand, he would've dropped it. That was K's voice! He tensed up, shifting his gaze slowly to Venos. She glanced at him, curious at his sudden movement, and he quickly forced himself to relax as though nothing was wrong. Once she was back to conversing with her brother after a careless shrug, Alex whispered.

"I can't be talking to you!" Alex hissed, "I'm already in enough trouble now!"

"That's a real shame," said K, disappointed, "Because I need to talk to you. In private, preferably."

Alex glanced towards Venos again. She almost looked towards Alex again, but changed her mind. Did she suspect something? Could she hear him?

"I don't think that's going to happen." Alex whispered, "Unless we land soon or I am separated from Venos and Macan."

"That can be arranged, if you desire." K said, "But it is unnecessary. "This" method can still work. Just don't say anything, and I'll be the one doing the talking."

Venos was now almost hissing at Macan. Yeah, she definitely suspected something about Alex.

"Allezyamos, are you once again conversing with this unknown entity you identify by the letter 'k'?" Macan calmly asked, turning his head to face Alex. Both dragons eyed him down.

Alex paused. Again, Venos knew something was up, so it was better to be honest about it than get in twice the trouble for lying.

"Yes, but I didn't contact him." Alex said desperately, "He contacted me!"

"How is that possible?!?" Venos almost screamed at him, "Gods can't contact others unless through a direct network! You would have to have desired a contact with him!"

"I know!" Alex shouted back, "And I didn't, I swear! I don't understand it either!"

"Then what is happening?" Macan asked, "No logical explanation towards this phenomenon."

Alex thought hard. Maybe it was the enchantment K had given him against the Gobonat. A permanent anchor and contact directly with him. Even still, Alex would have had to have directly activated this enchantment in order to start a telekinetic conversation between the both of them. Something that he didn't, or believed he didn't, activate. The symbol that K gave him? Alex checked his gauntlet, but it didn't appear.

With that an improbability, there was only one more likely outcome. That K wasn't using this system. That K was telepathically sending his thoughts to Alex directly.

And to do that ...

"We've got a follower." Alex said quickly, in realization and shock.

Turning, he was just in time to see a small black blur rocket up from below the clouds and shoot right at them. Venos and Macan reverted their attention towards it. All three of them didn't think it was friendly.

"SCATTER!" Alex cried. Venos and Macan pushed off each other and split apart, letting the black blur shoot in between and down out of sight. Alex pulled himself up far enough to wrap his arms around Macan's neck, who along with Venos, quickly accelerated. The three of them slowed down, trying to get a visual on either the target or the source through the clouds below.

"What did I say?" Venos shouted at Alex, almost triumphantly, "Don't trust ANYTHING you don't know about! Now that you've received his blessing, he knows where you are and can attack you!"

"I would like you to think I don't intend to attack." K's voice resonated in Alex's head, "But if it satisfies your sister, then so be it. Brace yourself!"

The blur shot up once again, in more of an arc for a better aim. Venos spun around upside-down and fired a stream of yellow lightning at it. However, a barrier of solid light took in the attack without so much as hindering its speed. It shot right for Alex and Macan. Alex drew his spear out, ready to fight if he needed, but it was unnecessary. Venos followed up her lightning attack with a full head-on tackle right at her target, knocking him off-course. There was a sudden blast of light, and Venos was launched back. The blur, now slowed enough to reveal itself as a humanoid, leapt upwards as though off an invisible platform and once again came at Macan. Alex knew it. This was K they were fighting.

Macan didn't know what to think anymore. Alex told him that K was an ally, and Venos said it was an enemy. But one thing jumped in his mind. It had just attacked his sister. If it attacks his ally, then it is an enemy. His eyes squeezed to a line, and he started muttering in some sort of language, almost in a trance.

"If you can, pay attention as to what I say." Alex heard K say, "I doubt I'll have enough time to get to everything."

Macan then flipped over himself and fired a more focused beam of grey electrical energy from his mouth. Like his wings, it was much more smoother and refined than Venos, and even with its barrier up, K was pushed back somewhat, but twisted off-center from the beam and fired his own right at Macan. He threw up what looked like a crystal shield from almost nowhere, but the beam cut through it, splitting into different colors, and blasted Macan back as well. Alex had to tense himself to stay holding on.

"Unless you have suspicions towards it, which I don't doubt you have, we were allies once before against the Unknown." K explained, falling out of the air and below the clouds again.

Yeah right, Alex thought, why is it then that I have never heard of you by now?

"I thought you had died, that's why." K said, apparently reading Alex's mind, "It was what was expected from our alliance. In fact, it was almost what you wanted as a result, whether or not we succeeded or failed."

The blur reappeared, shooting straight up at Venos. She met it head-on with her own electrical barrier, and an explosion of conflicting power blew the both of them back. K, however, used that force to direct himself back towards Macan, who aligned himself upright in the air and used his claws to fire a 6-beamed hexagon of lightning to home in on, imprison, and strike the target without fail. It worked, and K once again fell.

So did we succeed or fail, Alex wondered.

"Neither." responded K, "We battled, but nothing really was achieved. All we did was expose myself as an enemy to the Unknown and make him more angry. More desiring of more power."

So why do you think I'm Allezyamos now, Alex asked in his mind.

A black beam suddenly shot out from below the clouds and forced Venos off-course to dodge it. K once again shot up

"The Gods, namely Zamcatristak and Sartranomin, had left the planet for a meeting as a response to the Unknown's sudden attack." he transmitted to Alex, using his black beam to keep Venos at a distance while Macan fired his own attacks, "Saradomin had also left for similar reasons. So that their loyalists on the planet wouldn't notice their absence, Sartranomin hired a loyal friend, which was really myself in disguise, to imitate the Gods and pretend to be Saradomin so that nothing would change during the wars that followed."

K spun around in the air, twisting himself around as an intense acceleration.

You're a loyal friend to Sartranomin?!? Alex didn't know what to think now. Why doesn't Macan and Venos know about you?

"A secret for a later date. My substitution went flawlessly, since the Unknown didn't suspect me coming back to this planet. I could watch the planet and still hide from the Unknown."

K shot at them in a spiral of energy. Macan fired his lightning beam again, but it bounced off. A collision was imminent.

"At least, that was until I felt a spell-summon. The signature of an ability I was familiar with, that I had assumed had perished."

K stomp-landed on Macan's back, forcing Alex back and against his tail. With one hand holding his spear defensively, he rose up and came face to face with a small, black creature. Well, its uniform, mid-length hair, and flat-topped cap were all blacker than space, but its skin was a sickeningly pale white. While its body resembled a human in every which way, its eyes did not. They were large, covering almost half his face, and similar in shape to the Unknowns. Very, almost too similar to the Unknown's. Except they were pupil-less. The way it moved its head, in correspondence to Macan's back-side attacking it and Alex's recovery let Alex in on a strange, but very plausible assumption. It was blind.

"Fight it!" Venos shouted.

"Yes, fight me!" K ordered, jumping at him. Alex had no choice. It resembled the Unknown almost TOO much.

He thrust his spear towards the creature who whipped out dual knives in mid-air and blocked it with a swift, relaxed movement. It then attacked with a knife with one holding the spear down, and Alex thrust the handle up to defend himself. The knives seemed to resemble rithlyte, but closer examination revealed them to be a much different metal, since rithlyte wouldn't fade that pale over time.

"Risking exposure," K said, "I decided to lend my power just to see if it really was my suspicion and you would try contacting me, but you didn't."

Knives and spear made contact, over and over again. Macan stopped in mid-air, and Venos was approaching fast. She was definitely in range, but wanted to see who would win that skirmish. Whoever the victor was, it would satisfy her in some way.

"Not immediately, at least. But then, when you were cast down and prayed for help, mentioning me being in your favor, I thought that it had to have been you, so I revived you and watched you battle against the Unknown."

K kick-flipped off Alex's spear, sending him back and almost off the edge, but then K rushed over and grabbed Alex to thrust another knife at his face, only to have it blocked. It looked like a perfectly legitimate attack, but Alex knew that K did it just to stop Alex from falling off.

"The style, the effort, the confidence - you were the one I thought to be dead. I was sure of it. Now, duck and thrust!"

On "duck and thrust", K made a sudden horizontal lunge-swing at Alex. Instinctively following the command, he squatted just enough to avoid the attack altogether. Noticing that K's defense was temporarily down now in recovery of the move, Alex thrust his spear forward. K took the hit, and almost used it to allow himself to fall unsuspiciously off Macan and back down through the clouds. Did K just tell Alex how to beat himself?

"I had to get my mark on you so I could keep watch on you, but the first time, your sister cut me off before I could do it. Underwater, though, you were undisturbed, so I took advantage of it."

Macan and Venos dived. They didn't want to let K sink below the clouds and recover like this all the time.

Why did you put your mark on me like this?

"I need your help again, Allezyamos." K said, shooting a beam of light right at him. Seeing it coming, Alex leapt up off of Macan, letting the beam pass in between them as they shot down towards the ocean.

You say you're an enemy of the Unknown, Alex thought.

"Indeed, I am." K replied, "A rebel. Perhaps more than that, in some eyes. I have fought against corruption, engaged against deceit, stabbed lies straight in the face, and even denied death a few times."

Macan yanked himself upwards to dodge K's sudden charge attack. He fell back down towards the ocean, and Macan fired another stream of lightning towards him with a loud KERBLAM! Ah! It's impossible to think like this! He had to get everyone to stop fighting K somehow.

"Macan," Alex shouted aloud upon regaining his footing on the crystal dragon, "This guy is our ally. We need to stop fighting him! He's only fighting because we are!"

Macan wasn't listening. He was in a trance-like state of attack now. He picked out an enemy and will continue to attack it until it is vanquished. Just like in the crystal chapel, when he was about to eliminate Alex even though he did guess Macan's name correctly and had to have been reawakened by Venos.

"Venos-" Alex tried.

"NOT A WORD!" Venos shouted back, using her wings to instantly brake and intercept the now-ascending K in mid-air with another lightning-charge attack. Attack after attack he dodged with relative ease.

"Thanks for trying," K said, taking the attack head-on once again with another explosion of energy, "But I understand they cannot trust me yet. After all, I am seen as an impostor. There's no fooling Venosyvan, I've learned."

As Macan neared the ocean and Alex saw K shoot back down again, he then finally understood the methods behind K's attack. It wasn't really all about strategy, recovering, and the element of surprise behind all his attacks. He simply couldn't fly, and had to rely on extremely powerful jumping off the water at high-speeds. At the same time, Alex watched as Macan shot his lightning power directly at the water, and also understood why Macan was moving lower. It wasn't to directly engage K and prevent him from escaping his sights. It was because water was his element, and he posed much better of a fight with it. From below the water, large shining shards of magic ice flew up at Macan to form a barrier similar to the one he used against Alex. Macan was in business now.

You gave me some sort of power, Alex thought, what is it?

Not having to jump as high now, K's attacks became far more frequent. He bounced up and collided against Venos, using naught but his knives to defend himself from her attacks. Despite being such a silly weapon to use in this situation, K was going incredibly well. He only resembled the Unknown by his eyes; his attack style was an entirely different form.

"Look at your gauntlet." K said.

Alex did. As K spoke, it flittered on and off, almost as though it was this symbol that was doing the talking. Alex quickly ducked K's sudden penetration of the barrier and used his spear to shove him back out after several exchanged strikes. Macan quickly repaired the barrier and continued moving.

"Consider it my own sort of anchor." K replied in his mind during the fight, "A side-effect of it granting a sort of mind-joining ability that lets you directly converse with those marked with similar energies. Since it would be impossible for us to talk privately, I decided this was the only other option."

That would explain why he could understand Koyl. A clever technique. He could talk to K without Venos and Macan's knowing. K came straight for them, but Alex could relax, since Macan's seemingly impassable shield was living up to its name and capability. Macan shot down and suddenly pulled up along the surface of the water. K, now no longer having to jump, landed directly on the water and suddenly started running on it at an intense speed, matching their own.

"The Unknown is getting stronger, Alex. Or, Allezyamos." K said, his voice relatively calm despite his jumping and weaving in and out of Venos and Macan's combined attacks, "This is not something that any of us can afford to allow. If he is allowed to retain power at such an increasing rate, he will eventually become indestructible."

Why doesn't anybody else know about this?

"The Unknown is more powerless then the Gods think." K replied, performing an impressive-looking spiral twist in mid-air to narrowly fly past Venos' charging attack, "It wants to keep all of this; our battle, its powerlessness, the thought of rebellion itself, a secret. Hidden out of sight, out of mind. At least, until he can face up to anything that comes his way."

Alex suddenly lost his balance and wrapped his hands around Macan's neck. They were vibrating now. Macan didn't look it, but he was very annoyed at K. Alex knew that it was only dodging moves so it could talk to him, but Venos and Macan were easily persuaded that it was making fun of and playing with them. Below him, Alex saw several iced-crystals form along his shadow, flying inches above the surface. A harsh gray electricity was being poured into the water, and Alex felt the tingle from where he perched. It was no different from Venos' lightning. Except definitely more painful in smaller quantities. Macan was going to do something. Something fierce.

K sensed it too.

"I don't have much time. Listen to me." he said quickly. The calmness remained, but his voice still seemed a lot more urgent. Macan rose up, and a huge series of ice crystals formed around him.

"You must convince Sartranomin to ally with us against the Unknown. I know after what I did to him initially, he still hates the idea, but I need you to understand that you can do it. After all, this rebellion against the Unknown ..."

Macan rose upright, eerily floating above the water. A large, almost literal castle of crystals sprang up around him. They flipped and twisted into themselves, pointing all sharp ends right at K, who was being forced to loop around by Venos right towards him.

"... was all YOUR idea in the first place." K said.

MY idea? You're blaming ME for all this?

"You were killed and your memory was lost for good reason," K said.

Macan unleashed all fury. A sudden outburst of crystals shot away towards K. He swung his knives furiously, deflecting a huge number of them, but there was far too many coming his way.

"Find Sartranomin! Gain his audience! In private, preferably. He has the truth, about your past and all that happened. He knows it all! Get it from him! By whatever means necessary!"

Macan roared, which strangely sounded more like a deep humming sound. The crystal barrage boosted in frequency and size, and K struggled to keep them all away.

"We'll meet again soon, don't worry." K smiled. Almost on cue, a crystal hit him in the leg, knocking him off-balance. Waiting for this moment, Macan suddenly unleashed the entire castle of crystals on K, which surrounded him point-first.

Before you go, Alex quickly thought, where IS Sartranomin now?

"His room, of course!" K replied, "Farewell!"

"Wait!" Alex shouted aloud, but it was too late. Without a moments hesitation, the crystals all joined together over him, there was a great flash of gray light, and the crystals all merged together to completely seal and encase K inside. Macan removed his connecting lightning bolts, and it fell into the ocean with a great splash. Alex thought hard, but K didn't say anything.

Macan watched it sink out of sight, relaxed and satisfied, and he joined Venos to continue their flight towards this so-called Mountain of Solen. They thought they had scored a victory, but Alex knew, deep inside, that K was merely using this victory to help Alex regain his comrade's respect. With K out of the picture, or so they thought, Venos hardly had any other reason to hate him. He didn't doubt that K would be out and free in no time.

"Grr. Thanks a lot, Allezyamos," Venos muttered, "I'll never get these scratches out of my hide."

Maybe not. But it was a step in the right direction. If he really could trust K, at least Alex now had some resolve on this mission. Continue to the Solen Mountain, and find out why Venos and Macan chose there to find their Lord.

"Minimal damage sustained." Macan said, leaving his trance and returning to his old self, "Peculiar. Hypothesized result involved colossal damage. Perhaps combined abilities conclude effortless victory over any godly impersonators?"

"... yes to whatever that means." Venos muttered, not even caring anymore.

Alex chuckled despite being deep in thought and anticipation. Sartranomin knew everything, huh? If only he could get to him now ...

Jasonmrc · **Posted:** February 7th, 2009, 12:08 pm

"These will be sufficient." He said, handing the two swords to a small, skankly creature.

The creature took them and moved (not walked) over to a large table with a body on it and a claw like device over it. He attached the two swords in a criss-cross like fashion on the claw above the table. The claw was attached to some sort of machine which had 9 orbs on it.

"It's ready." The creature said to the man and backed away.

The man was Vigorn, who used to be a commander of the Star Knights. He was the one who had stolen Momsrascal's swords and brought them here.

"Good." He said.

Vigorn shot a fire wave at the orange orb. An orange lightning-like bolt shot from the tips of Momsrascal's blades and from the end of their hilts into the body.

Vigorn waited a moment, and then shot a water wave at the cyan orb. The same thing happened except the glow was cyan.

He waited a moment again, and shot an earth wave at the brown orb. The same exact thing happened except the bolts were brown.

He did this 5 more times. Air wave, white orb and bolts, Saradomin strike, blue orb and bolts, Claws of Guthix, green orb and bolts, Flames of Zamorak, red orb and bolts, Magic Dart, light green orb and bolts.

"Hmm." He mused, and then fired another, fire based spell, at a red and white swirled orb. The same lightning-like bolts hit the body, but this time all the colors hit again at once, and in one area.

The heart.

The creature moved over to the body again and looked at it and felt its arms.

"It is moving, but Saradomin's power was not put into it." The creature said, and then started taking Momsrascal's swords off. It laid them on a table next to another sword, Jason's Skrealing.

"Blasted darn god. Of all the times he choses to leave it has to be now." Vigorn said in complete disgust as he broke a table with one hand.

After a few minutes, Vigorn spoke again, almost as if to himself, "If Saradomin will not do it...then we shall get another, for the moment."

"But we'll need Saradomin's power to complete It." The creature whined.

"I know. We'll get it, when he or one of his followers comes to us." Vigorn said, walking up to the machine.

The creature had slunk back after putting the swords on the table.

"Jaldraocht Ancienean, Zarosian Nomaldacht, Meshen-kabold!" Vigorn shouted in a demonic way towards the body. When he finished the word 'kabold' four colors shot fourth from his hands, two from each. Grey and Black, and Red and Cyan.

Smoke rose from the body, then a shadow covered it, then it glowed red, then ice encased it.

Vigorn had an evil smirk on his face.

He blasted it directly with a fire wave and the ice dissipated.

Then, IT moved.

Its right arm raised, then lowered. Then its left arm raised and lowered.

"Arise." Vigorn said towards it.

The body disappeared and quickly reappeared infront of Vigorn.

With an evil chuckle he said, "Very good. This will put a stop to those so called 'heroes'."

"But it's not finished! They will defeat it and all our work will be lost!" The creature whined.

"I know!" Vigorn snapped back at it, making it cower, "That's why it will know when to retreat. Its purpose right now is to kill any heroes it can without engaging them all. I want them to see the power we have. Then when we have a few more we'll charge it fully and let it destroy them."

"It is time for you to go on a little adventure." He said to It, "Wait until only a few of them are together, then strike."

It gave a slight nod, and then disappeared.

Turning to the creature, he said, "You must make a leeching and containing device. Since Saradomin is no longer, available we must use the next best thing..."

Karl 67 · **Posted:** February 8th, 2009, 12:18 am

The Stranger looked up at the three-story high Grand Demon, with its face made of fire. He waved up to the Demon, who looked down. The Stranger planted both his feet in a fighting stance. The Demon knew that he was being challenged.

"Analysis: Armament: Mace in left hand, long sword in right hand. Shield slung on back. Chances are that he'll end up discarding either weapon... Sword more likely... to replace with shield."

The mace slammed down, but the Stranger dodged by mere inches. He than jumped onto the mace and slammed a fist into one of the Demon's fingers. The demon twitched. The Stranger dented the gauntlet finger, forcing material into the demon's bone. He snapped one of the Grand Demon's fingers.

Or rather, if the Demon wasn't made of fire, he would have broken a finger anyway. Alas, the Grand Demon was made of fire and super-heated armor plating. The extreme heat didn't seem to matter for the Stranger, however. The Grand Demon swung its gargantuan sword down at the Stranger, who stepped aside and grabbed the sword when it came close. He then forced the sword into the ground, effectively disarming the demon of his other weapon.

Annoyed, the Grand Demon attempted to stomp the Stranger, who darted out of the way. The foot embedded into the head of the mace, "injuring" the bottom of the Grand Demon's giant metal boot. The Grand Demon stepped off, losing balance with the damaged boot. The Stranger expected the Grand Demon to tumble and fall to the ground, but the gargantuan monster remained standing. It grabbed its sword from the ground and stabbed toward the Stranger.

He side-stepped just when the sword slammed into the ground. With a flash, he dug a fist into the sword and yanked it away from the Demon. The sword flew a couple of meters away. The Grand Demon would have to get through the Stranger to get his sword back.

The Grand Demon grabbed its shield and swung it downwards. The huge shield was too big for the Stranger to dodge effectively.

One slam caused an earthquake. Some paused to see the Grand Demon holding onto both sides of the shield. If its face was made of flesh, its grinning would be more obvious.

The Grand Demon attempted to pick up the shield again, but it didn't budge. Confused, the Demon stood up, letting go of the shield. The giant kite shield suddenly jumped and stabbed the demon point-first through its torso. The Stranger, who remained seemingly unharmed. One of his eyes seemed to be forcefully closed, much like most people with splitting headaches.

The Demon's chest plate was damaged, and the kite shield was stuck in the armor pretty tightly. The extreme heat of the Grand Demon practically fused the plate mail and the shield together.

The Stranger ran up the shield and started landing punch after punch into the Demon's chestplate. Every punch left a bigger and bigger dent. The Demon attempted to grab the Stranger, but he was too fast. A leap got him right in front of the Demon's firey face.

Unlike some comical villain, the demon attempted to grab the Stranger rather than attempt to punch. The Stranger anticipated the move, however, and dodged. He ended up on top of the Grand Demon's helmet, and started laying punches into the helmet, denting it inward.

The Stranger grinned in satisfaction when the Demon roared in anger. The Demon swung a fist at the Stranger, who caught the punch and re-directed it down upon the Demon's head. The helmet was crushed entirely.

The Grand Demon tore off its own helmet, and started scanning around for the Stranger, before it felt an apparent sharp pain in its left shoulder. It turned to see that the Stranger tore off its shoulder plate, just in time for the Stranger to slam the plate into the Demon's face.

Fire spewed as the plate slammed into its apparent head. The Demon was not dead though, not yet. The Stranger jumped down onto the Grand Demon's arm and started disassembling it's left gauntlet. Piece after piece hit the ground lifelessly. The Stranger then jumped and slammed two feet into the Demon's chest. The force caused it to tumble backwards and hit the ground.

The Stranger knew that the Grand Demon was not close to being dead yet.

momsrascal93 · **Posted:** February 15th, 2009, 11:33 pm

Momsrascal had gotten back to Lumbridge. Seeing the fighting she went to draw her swords only to realize two facts. A) She didn't have her swords, and B) She couldn't fight anyway. She would simply then stay out of sight until the end of the battle to communicate with the others.

Alex 43 · **Posted:** February 15th, 2009, 11:44 pm

From a sudden, incredible burst of inspiration, I have literally completed Alex's story. Now I just need to write it all out. So, for now, I'm going to relieve everybody's minds by writing a nice quickie.

"Allezyamos, I am in a state of confusion." Macan said.

Night had blanketed the vast ocean. Despite the speeds in which they traveled, they still couldn't make the whole trip in a full day. The world was a much more vast place then Alex had thought. A vast ocean sprawled out in front of him, hiding its underwater secrets under a mirror of fast-moving currents. The discovery of the Oocon was simply a freckle in the face of this vast body of water. Once their quest was complete and the world was in a state of peace, Alex vowed that he would seek out Koyl, invent some potion that allows White Dragons an unlimited lung capacity and simply spend the rest of his life underwater seeking out marvels, species, and relics of a lost age. It was exciting to think about.

They had been flying non-stop since the encounter with K. His prediction to the result of his defeat was only half-right - indeed, Venos did calm down somewhat, but not yet enough to let Alex ride on her again. It wasn't as though he wanted to as much as he should've, since Macan was made of such a smooth material that Alex found himself constantly pulling himself back up after sliding either back down to his tail, where a quick squeeze on the bulging end stopped a minor detour, or holding onto Macan's slender neck without friction turned him occasionally into a large, ugly amulet holding on for dear life. Of course, Macan would always notice this and react accordingly, either curling his tail back or pulling off a sudden barrel-roll at the perfect velocity to flip him back square on his back again. Venos had a lot more friction to her, since she was made out of rough, bumpy rock, and if she didn't hate him right now, he would gladly have taken her over Macan. At least it kept the trip interesting for him if his having to decipher Macan's technical speech got too annoying.

"What's up?" Alex asked. He was on Macan's neck this time with his legs out in a bit of a splits to prevent a roll-over.

"How did you first learn about K?" Macan asked.

Alex tilted his head. Didn't he already tell Macan about it?

"It was from an envisionment." Alex repeated, "He told me he owed me a favor or something."

"Define "favor"." Macan said.

"I don't know." Alex shrugged, "Must've been something that happened a long time ago. Probably when I was Allezyamos. Was I ever prone to keeping secrets from you guys?"

Macan shook his head.

"No. In fact, the opposite. No secret was safe when exposed to you." Macan said, "I remember ... you were always the one to reveal our concealed truths from moral honesty and land us all in disastrous trouble in several situations. Venos hated you for that, too."

Alex laughed. Sure wasn't that way now ...

"With that revealed, what I do not understand is how you could have met K without us knowing." Macan said, "Not me, not Sister Venos, and not even Sartranomin himself."

Alex froze. Yeah, there really was something strange going on. Judging by Macan's description of his past personality, there was no way he could've known or met K without informing the others. Also st, in his whole life, he had not once remembered conversing with this God, nor did he recognize the voice or form. Unless he was one of his friends in disguise some other place, Alex simply did not know how he could've known K long enough to have done him, a god and deity, something worth owing his favor.

He groaned. Ah, he thought all this mystery was done and over with. But all he had done was graze the tip of the iceburg. There was still so many unanswered questions.

"I don't understand it either." he admitted, "Something happened. Either there's something I'm not being told, or there's something that I'm simply not telling."

"Is there?" Macan asked. His head twisted around just far enough to expose a glowing eye in his direction.

"I don't know." Alex shook his head, "I honestly and truthfully don't know."

Macan literally shrugged. Alex almost lost his balance and tightened his grip.

"Don't hinder your mind and ability on the unknown." Macan advised, "Both types, I mean. Just focus on what's ahead of us. Eventually your mind will realign with past events and you will be able to tell us stories of what we should have known together as a team."

"Are there any more of us?" Alex asked, "Or were there?"

"No." Macan replied without hesitation, "Just the three of us. Born together, raised together, taught together ... we were princes at one point. Memory recollected and resurfaced."

Alex gripped his hands around Macan's neck even tighter and prepared for yet another barrage of words he never knew existed until now.

Adbot · **Posted:** February 15th, 2009, 11:44 pm

Jasonmrc · **Posted:** February 16th, 2009, 1:03 pm

I'll put the hot cocoa on so we'll have something to drink while we read your books-err...posts

Two distracted, two to go. The Star Knights and Elduvian Knights would have to be enough to defend Lumbridge from the lesser demons and black knights that the heroes had to let by. They couldn't combat both the four Grand Demons and the dark armies.

"I hope he told Jason to get reinforcements." Timrak said aloud to no one in particular.

The two Grand Demons were coming to them. It looked as if they would have to combat both.

The Grand Demon on the left shook his head towards the left, then the right, then he hit the top of his head with his empty left hand.

"I didn't know demons danced." Timrak said with a chuckle, the other heroes chuckled lightly also, they all knew the cause of this Grand's 'dance'.

But they couldn't watch the performance for long, for the other Grand Demon was still advancing towards them.

"I'll try to always take the hits, though we need to not take any. Those weapons could break any of you, probably even you, Karl 67, if they hit. I'll move my spirit from the form I'm in when he aims for me." Michael said as he grew into his golem form.

Michael started to charge at the incoming Grand. Right after his feet left the ground for the last time before hitting the Grand they saw his form grow still. As it momentarily flew through the air it was stone solid. It crashed apart as it hit the Grand's chestplate, denting it slightly but obviously not effecting it much. Michael grew out of the ground behind the Grand and slammed a two-ton mallet-hand into the shield on the Grand's back, causing it to shatter.

The heroes rushed under the Grand as Michael's first statue-golem crashed on the Grand chestplate. Karl 67's Blaze Elf sword sliced through the Grand's metal boots like butter. Karmadin's longsword bounced off, causing no damage except to his own sword which chipped. Timrak found where two plates met and stabbed there, causing some damage.

The Grand didn't seem to notice Karamdin, Karl 67, and Timrak much, atleast not in comparison to Michael. It swung around after Michael hit him from behind and smashed Michael's golem-statue again, only to be met by another two-ton smash from behind, again. The Grand retaliated the same way, smashing Michael's golem-statue each time, and each time Michael would reappear behind him and smash him again. In this way the Grand started to look like an anti-hunch back. Years later Michael would joke that he could've put some water in the hole and sold tickets to compete with Balnea's Resort Ooglog.

After a few more hits on the Grand's armor, all resulting in chips flying from his blade, Karmadin resorted to firing arrows at the Grand's unprotected neck from below. He tossed his sword to Timrak who was fairing alot better than he was.

Timrak had been jumping around on the Grand's lower legs looking for weak spots and places where the Grand's armorplates met. He would stab his sword into them whenever he found one and then jump to find another.

Karl 67 hadn't stayed below. Being an Elf, more importantly an Elf with his dexterity, he was able to jump and seemingly fly around on the Grand's body cutting slices and gashes in the Grand's armor. He had to continually move because of the Grand's attacks at Michael.

Karl 67's attacks weakened the Grand's backplate enough that Michael's next smash, which he had coincidentally brought up to three-ton, smashed right through the plate and into the Grand's back. Nobody heard any distinct sounds over the battle sounds but judging by the Grand's actions it hurt...alot.

--

The Grand that Skyrate had been attacking was now devoid of head gear. Skyrate's blades cut through the Grand's armor almost as well as Karl 67's. He had cut the helmet in half down the middle-top of it. It had fallen off onto some lesser demons, which did not get up.

Up until now Skyrate had only actually hurt the Grand three times, and those were only light. Now that he had its helmet off he could do some real damage. He stabbed both his katannas, Coreth-Nil and Corion-Dialect, into the Grand's exposed head where he knew two skull bones met.

The Grand roared in pain, the bane effects of Skyrate's sword had taken affect.

"A headache a thousand times worse than human ones." Skyrate thought to himself.

Skyrate pulled his swords out and appeared on the ground a few yards away from the Grand. Two Black knights tried to sneak up on him. As they were about to swing at him he spun 360 degrees around and then sheathed his katannas and looked up at the reeling, stumbling, Grand. Two black helmets rolled out from behind him.

momsrascal93 · **Posted:** February 17th, 2009, 2:32 am

Momsrascal watched the battle. It was really all she could do. If she were a little more solid, and if she had her swords, she wouldn't hesitate to assist the other heroes. She thought about the man she saw earlier. She heard him introduce himself as Tenshi before she died.

"I wonder how his fight with Lawrence is going..." She pondered. "I miss being solid..." She said standing in the outside wall of the castle.

Alex 43 · **Posted:** February 19th, 2009, 2:23 pm

I hate cliffhangers as much as the next person, but sometimes, I just can't help myself ...

Gia spun his sword in a windmill-form above his head. Not the best method to stop a fury of embers frying Elise to a crisp, but enough to give her the time she needed to put up an aquatic barrier over herself. Gia was getting much too close to the demon to be healthy for Elise, so he figured he either had to change his tactics or find somewhere to let Elise off to give him a more safe covering fire. Unfortunately, that wasn't easy within a large crowd of charging, fighting enemies and a Grand Demon spewing fiery vomit over them.

"Elise, keep that barrier up." Gia ordered, "Stay protected. This is a fight I must do alone!"

Elise obeyed. Gia swung his sword back into a battle position and waited the next move. Since the demon was simply barfing embers on them, it was going to come quickly. He was right; in came the foot, and away went Gia. Had he Alex's speed, he would've darted just to the side, leapt up, and impaled the demon before it could lift the other. Unfortunately, all he could do now was jump away, missing the foot by inches, and drive his sword down right into it. Gia knew that the only way to defeat this one with his current status was to aggravate it as much as possible. That, and get its armor off. It had full confidence in its armor to protect itself if it went on a total rampage, and indeed, the armor was somewhat around the capability of impenetrableness. However, what the demon didn't know was that Gia fought one before, and he knew how to beat it.

It was only luck on the demon's part that Gia never got in a finishing blow. He was the first to be incapacitated upon figuring out its weakness. Since Alex didn't have the strength for it, they were forced to use drastic measures, and their exploration ultimately ended in a failure. Gia wasn't willing to lose this fight, though. At last, redemption.

Down came the mace in a crescent sweep and Gia jumped it. The Grand spun itself around and twirled its sword around in a windmill maneuver, but this one was slightly off-balanced, and Gia had no trouble ducking the blade. Propelling himself off the ground with all fours, Gia jumped at the demon and latched onto its leg mail with one claw while driving his sword in with the other. In came the hilt of the mace, and down went the White Dragon. Remembering Elise, he twisted himself in mid-air quickly to land on his frontside. The blow hurt, but was mostly concussive. He was used to that.

He managed to return to his feet quickly enough to dodge another swing of the sword. The mace followed up, but Gia once again swung his own sword up ad clashed against the heavy weapon. Again, the sword came around to add to the force, but Gia wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice. Timing the maneuver perfectly, he flipped his entire body around, gripping the blade with a foot-claw, and used his leg-power to bash against the demon's effort behind the blade.

The stunning maneuver worked, and the demon felt a hard jarring against its arm. Gia pushed himself upright with both arms, kicked up his sword's hilt to a tri-claw, and charged at the staggering demon. Unfortunately, it recovered quicker than Gia anticipated, and it was only luck that he managed to prevent the mace from hitting any vital points.

This wasn't working. If he kept on fighting like this, Elise was going to get crushed by either the demon or Gia. He had to do something, and he had to do it now.

"Argh! I'm sorry, Elise, but I just can't fight like this." Gia shouted, regaining his footing from the sudden forced move, "I need what little agility I have. Head back down the ranks and give the castle defenders some magic support."

"How?" Elise called back from within her barrier, "There's no way to get through all those enemies!"

Gia sighed. Yes, there is.

Gia stabbed his sword in the ground and literally used it for cover. It held up against the force of the demon's horizontal swing against him. Sorry about this, Gia muttered as he reached behind himself through the barrier, grabbed Elise by the torso, and winged her like a javelin towards the castle. Fortunately, she was good sport about the unexpected feat, and managed to catch herself on one of the guard towers after letting out a comparatively loud scream. There was nothing to it. If he hadn't done it, it was only eventual that they were both dead.

Forcing himself to now reminisce that there was now no longer any restriction to his movements, he ducked the mace, retrieved his sword from the ground, and blew another electrical barrage up at its face. It remembered the last time it took such an ability and took a step back, allowing Gia enough room for a proper charge and jump. Once again he was latched onto the demon's leg, and once again, in came the hilt in an attempt to get him off. The force was incredibly hard and nerve-shattering, but Gia's hide endured it, and he forced himself up the mail towards the torso. If only he could get that plate off ...

Gia wedged his foot-claws into the gap between body and leg mails, used both hands to drive his sword into the demon's gut, and literally balanced on his own sword as it toppled in anger. Gia took a quick second to think of a quick strategy. The armor covered the demon's entire torso and arms, and even being in contact with it burned him. However, due to this intense heat, there was no doubt it was nothing less of fluid. A severing of the two upper shoulder-supports, which are held together by a separate metal piece similar to a handle, should make the heat itself literally peel the armor plate off. Rip off both sections, and then yank down the metal handle-bar with his weight. All the while avoiding contact with the mace and the- YIKES!

Gia gripped the armor and heaved himself up just in time to evade the claw coming at him. The demon was twisting itself around, trying to shake Gia off, and in this struggle, it abandoned its sword, which crushed an already-burning house somewhere off to the side. Gia used his tail to swat the arm back down so he could continue ascending the plate. His assumptions were accurate - with every claw mark he made to grip it, it glowed red from the heat inside. Interesting that the real reason for such heavy armor was so it wouldn't melt all over the wearer.

The shoulder-blades bore protruding spikes that could only be used for show, unless the demons really liked rolling over their enemies. Claws searing from the heat, Gia heaved himself up, batted another attempt to grab away, and grabbed onto one of the spikes. After a quick test, Gia found it could hold his weight, and almost without thinking, yanked it downward with his whole body. The demon yanked back upright to stabilize itself, and the force sent Gia up and over onto the spike-ridden handlebar.

Now it was only a case of evading the demon's horns long enough to actually pry the sections off. Despite being right at the helmet now, Gia knew that anything to the head wouldn't do anything permanently. Sure, decapitation would pause it for a few moments, but then it would get right back up again, completely regenerated and ready to go. Even chopping the head off, all four limbs, and the wings and tail off, dividing them into pieces, and broiling them into a sauce would only buy at most 5 minutes before the torso spawns new limbs and has at again. There was only one way to kill a Grand Demon: a direct stab at the heart itself, poised at the direct center of its body. Gia didn't know the anatomy of physics behind it, but apparently a Grand Demon's heart and brain are all the same muscle.

He intercepted both horns with both claws and struggled against them as he moved his way over towards the first plate. Deciding to heck with it, Gia wedged the horns around, brought his foot to the base of its neck, and yanked, causing a loud sickening crack that echoed for miles. To his surprise, he heard some cheering coming from his side by soldiers who thought he just took out the demon assassin-style. Far from that, I'm afraid, Gia thought with a smile.

He jumped at the first plate and yanked it with the weight of his body. Unfortunately, it was looser than expected. It tore off all too easily, and Gia was forced to drive his claws into the backplate to stop himself from plummeting at least a tower-length. He gritted his teeth from the burning and slowly tried to recover enough to pull himself back up. Below him, the plate support struck a black knight. Funny.

But something was wrong. Since he got onto the handlebar, the demon had stopped struggling against him. It didn't swing its mace, or try to grab him or anything. Was he wrong about the heart, and the neck-break actually killed it? Or something else?

Gia finally couldn't take the heat anymore, and switched hands. The red holes blazed brighter and brighter, and he even felt a heat coming straight from the armor itself. Looking below, even the demon's tail began smoking much more than it usually did. He smelled burnt metal. Was it increasing its own body temperature? No, they couldn't do that. Not unless ... no ...

Gia heaved himself down to the side, grabbed his sword out of the demon's side as he fell, and propelled himself off the demon's gut in the nick of time. There was a sudden explosion of flame around it. Relieved of Elise, he let himself land and skid on his back, into several unlucky enemies who apparently never experienced two tons of White Dragon at high velocity firsthand. Clearing himself some room with a sword spin, he regained his feet and watched at the demon immersed itself with fire. Then, to Gia's surprise, it gathered up this newly formed heat into a condensed form above its head. Broken neck or not, its head was twisted around to face him.

"Shoot!" Gia found himself blurting aloud, "It can use MAGIC?!?"

With one terrific impound of force, it leaped high into the air, flipped the great ball of fire over, and brought it down right at Gia in a slam with its mace, letting out a loud shriek of attention and anticipation. Gia knew he couldn't dodge this. Gravity took over and sealed his potential fate as the Grand Demon shot straight at him from above.

Gia had no other option. Five years in the making, and he never really tested it yet. Either it worked, or it didn't - either outcome deciding his fate. With two seconds to impact, Gia held his sword up, twisted the handle, and pulled it down from the hilt. Something made from a yellow metal exposed itself in the form of a button underneath the grip. With one second to impact, Gia's thumb pressed hard against it.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

__________________________________

"Behold, Brother Allezyamos. Destination reached: The Mountain of Solen."

Alex looked, but with disappointment. Despite the night sky, it was very apparent. It looked no different from any ordinary mountain, isolated on an island only big enough to contain it and a surrounding forest. The mountain itself was big and tall, though, almost reaching the clouds with its snow-capped peak. There was nothing to suggest that anything even remotely civilized even came across this island. Due to its size, he even doubted that it housed any interesting sort of wildlife save for a few birds and a few varied species of herbivore. No carnivore would be able to survive here with such a confined restriction to animal-life, and even if they did, no herbivore would either.

They had been flying at such an extreme speed that Alex didn't doubt it would be impossible for any sailor to make it here. They had traveled such an extreme distance, almost against the natural wind, and in the middle of nowhere to an uncharted territory altogether. Alex had tried to chart out the location of this hidden land, but had been unsuccessful since Venos and Macan liked to vary speeds in with their conversations. Macan would annoy Venos, and she would suddenly veer him off. Venos would insult Macan, and they would speed up in a quick chase, weaving in and out, but still never losing their knowledge and idea of direction and location of this land.

With K's defeat, Venos was cooling off far more easily now. She actually began acknowledging Alex's existence as something "good" for once and began talking to him again, telling him about their solitude and watching the world. Venos didn't lie when she said it was boring. Even Macan admitted to spending much more time with the Oocon rather then watching. Venos retorted that he at least had them and she was left alone for a few thousand years, a spat was carried out, and another chase ensued. Like the others, though, it was resolved quickly, and they continued flying silently until Alex broke the silence with a new line for conversation, to which this process would more or less repeat. From experiencing this interesting method of interaction, Alex only wondered what it must've been like with them and he being Allezyamos.

The mountain came at them quickly. Both dragons increased their speed as it came into view, and were only now beginning to decelerate. They were not aiming towards the top, but rather the mid-section where it was somewhat warmer, but not warm enough to sustain any plant-life. Squinting, Alex noted almost a section that was less slanted then the rest that they were heading towards. Probably just to properly land on and they would continue to walk.

"I heard there's a tower here." Alex said, "Where is it?"

"Observation not misinterpreted." Macan replied, "Future events relevant to revelation."

Alex tilted his head. Venos glided towards him.

"For the record," she whispered, "You used to be Macan's translator. If I could've chosen who to have gone insane and killed, it definitely would've been Macan."

"Visual confirmed." Macan announced, and touched down on a plateau. Glad to properly stretch his legs again, Alex jumped down and looked ahead. Up ahead, the mountain base conformed into a slight cave - just enough to protect the inside from a rainstorm or sunlight in the given direction that the mountain was. Ahead, he did see something else. The only thing on this island that looked even the slightest bit manufactured.

Alex stared. THAT was the tower? All it was was a set of doors hewn from rock and metal alike in so many complex patterns that it was more of a statue than anything. In fact, it literally was just the doors. They stood upright with nothing to enter them into, just poised upright in the middle of nowhere. They weren't hewn into the mountain, covering an entranceway, or even inviting to an outhouse. Just a set of double doors, with several spherical indentations covering it. They didn't even have doorknobs.

Alex jogged closer along with his comrades. He circled the doors, feeling them. Nothing. Nothing invisible. Nothing concealed. Nothing magical. In fact, Alex touched it very carefully, fearing that any attempt to push them would simply make the doors topple over.

"An explanation," Alex said, directly to Macan, "Is most definitely welcome."

"None needed." Venos said, almost sneering at the fact that Alex was confused.

"Any hypothetical menial attempts to foresee its purpose?" asked Macan, feeling his own stomach with one claw while sitting upright. Alex could faintly see a glowing object within his crystalline torso.

"Well, a portal, of course." Alex shrugged, "There's no other explanation. Apparently they're supposed to open some sort of teleportation hole."

Venos mimicked Macan's movements, and the both of them simultaneously drew out, from their stomachs (?), the orbs they had been concealing all this time. The ones that Venos would gladly risk life and limb to protect. The ones that Dex had searched all of Varrock for. Alex watched with anticipation. Now, at long last, it was going to be revealed what they really were for.

"Would you do the honors?" Venos asked Macan, bowing to him.

"Opportunity pleasured." Macan nodded, and approached the door with the orb in his mouth. Its light increased in intensity the closer it got to the door, and Alex felt a mild vibration coming from the ground. Slowly, Macan continued forwards, towards the shaking, rumbling doors, and with each step, the intensity increased. Unable to take such a destructive magnitude, Alex fell down and literally drove his spear into the ground to hang onto, much to the delight of the unmoved Venos. When Macan was just inches from the door, Alex was almost flying about, grabbing onto the spear for dear life.

Then, the orb touched the door, and all was silent.

Still gripping the spear, Alex looked up. There was Macan, just touching the door with his orb. Nothing else was happening. No glowing, no freaky light show, no exposed portal. Just Macan touching the doors with his orb. Alex looked at Venos. She was eying him.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Go on, while Macan holds the door open for you."

Alex tilted his head.

"Fiffher Fenofh ..." Macan said, his voice muffled by his pressing the orb to the door, "Yoo forhefhing hah Ayyeahahoes hawhent gnow."

"Ah, right ..." Venos said, rolling her eyes, "Just walk into the doors themselves as though they weren't there."

"OK ..." Alex cautiously said.

He pulled his spear from the ground and approached the door. He had no idea was to expect once he passed through them, but at the same time, he didn't want to seem hostile, so he simply held his spear like a traveling stick with one hand. He glanced over to Venos to get a visual cue as to how he was doing it. Venos sighed and shook her head. Good enough.

Without any more hesitation or fear, Alex steeled his courage, ran, and jumped at the door. It looked so solid still, and for a moment, Alex thought he was definitely going to collide with it.

What surprised him was that his prediction was accurate. Of course, it could've been spared had Venos not shot Macan in the back of the head with a lightning bolt causing him to break contact with the door at the last second. Macan was all over here even before the spear finished clattering onto the ground. For a full minute, he just hung there muttering to himself about almost thinking that he must've deserved it in his past life.

Nevertheless, Venos was the only one to laugh at the practical joke since Macan was too busy helping peel Alex off the framework.

"The sooner I get back, the better ..." Alex mumbled as he fixed his visor. Macan pressed the orb on the door again to stop the rumbling, and without a second's glance at Venos, jumped into the door again. This time, humorous collision was replaced with liquidly absorption, as Alex felt his entire body plunge right into the door as though it was made of some incredibly thick liquid.

He felt like he was being tugged in all directions by invisible hands within this occurring darkness. He couldn't see, as the material around him wasn't transparent. Any air-breather would've definitely drowned in this sensation, so he once again thanked Saradomin this wasn't the case with him. However, that didn't remove the fact that he couldn't move, and was now being pulled down some dark abyss into an entirely unknown destination. For all he knew, this could be a prison he was to spend the rest of eternity in, and Venos and Macan were really agents of Zamorak achieving this end. If that was the case, he would have had to hand it to Zamorak, since he was fooled by story and situation easily.

But it was short lived. His hand felt a cold, harsh air, and he was pulled out of the material along with it. He dropped to his knees, recovering from the uncomfortable numbness. The ground was carved and detailed with gaps glowing several different colors, so that alone told him he was somewhere new.

Slowly, he raised his head. The view alone completely blew him away.

"Oh ..." Alex stammered in complete shock and surprise, "... my ..."

"God?" Venos finished for him, pulling herself out of the door behind him with Macan, "Yup. You find more than your fair share up here."

Jasonmrc · **Posted:** March 2nd, 2009, 12:44 pm

He knew his attack hadn't killed the Grand. He had fought this kind of demon before at Schilt-Zenach, at the end of the third age.

In order to kill this demon he would have to attack its heart and mind at the same time. Since he'd already removed its helmet he only had to remove the chest plate now, which was easier said than done.

He must've got the Leader, because this Grand's chest plate was atleast 4 inches thicker than the others. His swords wouldn't be able to cut through the over foot thick plate. Though they could cut through the Grand's 4 inch helmet, they were not made to cut through metal this thick. He would either have to make many repeated attacks in the same spot or remove the chest plate another way. But how?

One of the few weak points of a Grand demon's armor was that it was still held together with a leather-like strap between the plates. There was only an inch of this strap visible and it would have to be cut in 7 different spots in order for the plate to fall off. With the Grand moving around so much from the re-occurring effects of his swords, this could prove quite difficult. He would have to get on the Grand's shoulders at just the right time to be able to cut the strap and then get off before the Grand noticed him there or moved his arms. Timing, however, was one of Skyrate's specialties.

Even with their continual smash and slice tactics, Michael, Karl 67, Timrak, and Karmadin were unable to cause more than seemingly flesh wounds.

Karl 67 jumped onto the Grand's shoulders and sliced with one blade and then the other. The armor peeled away slightly. Karl 67 heard a faint voice on the wind say, "I'm going to encase it, get on its head until its body is encased, then jump off or on to me." Karl 67 continued to jump around on the Grand's body, slicing and stabbing some as he went.

Karmadin's sword which Timrak was using had melted awhile ago from the heat of the Grand's body. Timrak's sword had faired a little better but was starting to glow red. Timrak jumped off the Grand's legs and landed near Karmadin who was still firing five arrows at a time up at the Grand's chin. About 3 out of every 5 hit, though they didn't seem to cause much damage.

Earth started to grow up around the Grand's feet. It spread to its legs and moved up its body. This time it was thicker than when it was used against the Gaardor. Karl 67 jumped to the Grand's shoulders, sliced, and jumped to its head as the earth covered its back and shoulders. The Grand extended his arm in an attempt to smash Michael again. It was covered completely in earth just before hitting Michael. Karl 67 jumped off the Grand's head right before it was covered in earth. He landed on the Grand's extended arm and ran along it and jumped onto Michael's shoulders.

"What a lovely lawn ornament." Timrak said to Karmadin. They both laughed.

The Grand 'statue' began to glow red. The earth was melting.

Michael's plan wasn't working. He had hoped the earth would be able to suffocate it. He knew the Grand was extremely hot, but didn't think it was hot enough to melt the earth. After all, this was his first time fighting a Grand Demon.

The earth glowed even brighter red and then exploded. Near-molten pieces of earth flew all over the place, killing and injuring many enemies. A strong wind blew a piece away from Timrak and Karmadin right before it hit them. Michael put up his arm to deflect any pieces from Karl 67. Any pieces that hit him melded into him or bounced off.

The Grand was completely engulfed in fire!

It had retracted its arm away from Michael and now roared as if in delight, a delight that was short lived.

A spear of stone, 3 foot by 3 foot round shot through the Grand's back plate and through its entire body, protruding 4 feet out from its chest plate.

The Grand stood still with completely flabbergasted eyes. All of its known enemies were infront of it so it hadn't expected an attack from behind.

Two more spires of stone shot through it, these were only 1 foot by 1 foot. Spikes shot up from the ground into and through the Grand's feet and legs. The first spear exploded into thousands of pieces of shrapnel that shot into the Grand's body. Two more spears, as large as the first, shot through the Grand's sides coming from opposite directions. They collided in the Grand's body. A central spire of stone shot through the Grand's body, up its neck and through its skull.

Karmadin, Timrak, and Michael jumped out of the way as the Grand fell forwards. Karl 67 was still on Michael so he held on.

They looked at the fallen Grand demon, with countless pieces of stone in it, then they looked beyond it to see if anyone had been behind it. They saw Elise hovering slightly above the ground, she looked like a living, flying, statue. She looked at them, smiled, and then fell down, unconscious.

Alex 43 · **Posted:** March 14th, 2009, 10:29 pm

How about a battle with a mysterious occurance to keep this going?

Five entirely unforeseen events had occurred once the demon had touched down with its great, explosive attack. All of which surprised Gia in the greatest manner he had experienced in an incredibly long time, and combined, was flat-out stunning in the highest degree manageable. At first, he was unaware of any of them, but when his brain had a second to register exactly what had happened around him, all five realizations came all at once, nearly stopping his own heart in the process.

The first of these unforeseen events was that his secret weapon had failed to deploy. The carefully manufactured and unfortunately untested button of doom had failed to achieve the desired result, and as a consequence, nothing had happened. Instead, he was meeting his destiny with his sword poised upwards like a warrior surrendering his life to an opponent he knew for a fact would kill him inevitably, and was willing to designate this precise moment to allowing such an event. That was definitely not on Gia's mind. He wanted to survive the whole ordeal, unwilling to surrender to a creature like this.

The second was the bubble. A large sphere of dark, swirling, semi-transparent energy ranging from dark purple to an eerie, glowing black, with a spot or two of blue in between. Everywhere he looked, this energy existed the same distance away from him, almost as though the world itself had become this strange energy. But since the war raged on despite this occurrence instead of stopping in confusion or fear, it was only affecting him and him alone. Such a dark, sinister energy sent a chill through Gia's spine, and he felt very cold. For a moment, he thought he had been sealed by a sorcerer.

The third was the fact that, instead of turning Gia into a creator hewn into the ground next to the former Lumbridge Forge (which would've been an alright place to be buried, he mused), the demon instead was launched into the air nearly a hundred feet and landed head-first into the distant pasture a half-mile away in an earth-shattering SLAM! Originally, he thought the bubble to be an opposing force to him, but it was only because of this strange field that the attack was thwarted in this manner. Therefore, the field had to have been beneficial to Gia, which meant that it was either an enemy mage misfire gone incredibly wrong, or that somebody on his side knew these darker magics.

The fourth was the symbol. Burnt onto the front of his wrist was a series of burnt, singed marks underneath his scales in a formation he had never seen before. The fact that its colors matched those of the energy field around him designated one likely hypothesis: this was a spell coming directly from him. But it was so dark and evil that he simply couldn't believe he had been hiding this sort of energy all this time. Was this the energy of the dragonkin trying to burst out of Saradomin's blessings, brought upon by rage and thirst for battle? No! Impossible! He wasn't angry. Nothing was different now then it was several battles ago. This shouldn't be happening! Perhaps it was a dream.

Finally, the fifth. He wasn't dreaming. He wasn't dead. He was still alive. An attack that, if his weapon didn't work, he was definitely going to die from. Yet he stood there, covered in this barrier, observing the familiar sights and sounds of the war he knew was occurring around him. This was no dream!

So was the Grand. Its attack failed and it was momentarily stunned. Gia forced his mind to focus. He was in battle. He had to react.

And it was his turn again.

The field vanished as suddenly as it appeared, and Gia, finding he was able to move his body again, instinctively raced towards the field with his sword in hand. He focused his mind. He wasn't angry. He was determined. He was fighting this Grand and this war to save those who wanted world peace. So long as he could oppose against those who opposed life, he was doing good. ... right? Yes, yes he was. But enough of that. Must focus ...

The demon was rising on its feet when Gia leapt at it. He wedged his sword into the backplate of the demon's leg armor, stood up on it again, and once again started to climb. The existence of the sword in the back of its leg paralyzed said limb due to added restrain to its leverage, and the demon staggered on the other. Its armor was so heavy that it could hardly rise up on two legs and added effort by the tail combined, let alone perform an unbalanced one-legged squat. The staggering movement helped Gia swing around to the left side of the demon, avoid an elbowing by its flailing arms, and up to the single intact support on its shoulder. Pry that off, and its armor was vulnerable.

Suddenly, the demon swung itself over and down on all fours, and the force was enough to knock Gia right off. Fortunately, he had gotten his claws underneath the plate once this happened, and at the sacrifice of a broken wrist, the support was torn away. Gia rolled to a stop, clutched his wrist in temporary pain, and forced himself to keep going and leap off to the right. Despite all that fighting, the demon had maintained its grip on the mace, and smashed the ground where Gia was crouched a few seconds ago with its one available claw (the other kept it propped up). With its hand down now, it swapped its weight and used the other to pry Gia's sword out so it could stand again.

But Gia was one step ahead of it. It got the sword out, tossed it aside, and forced itself back onto its feet. However, Gia had already leapt underneath its breastplate and seized both sides with both foot-claws gripped into the ground. Both efforts combined together with huge force to tear a large chunky strip of the armor clean off, exposing bright, blazing flesh. Gia felt something else in his body break, but he wasn't going to give up yet. He didn't get the whole armor off, but the hole was still enough for Gia to get the sword in ... which was a good several hundred feet away. The demon, now upright and realizing it was now exposed, jumped at Gia again in an attempt to crush him, and Gia was forced to leap aside off-set. Fortunately, the demon was more interested in retrieving its mace then finishing Gia, and he took those precious few seconds to righten himself just in time to jump a tail-swipe.

The weapon now in its hand and Gia still a distance from his, it charged up another bout of flaming energy in its free claw. Gia knew he didn't have time to get to his sword before the next attack, so he had to make do with what he did have - a strip of metal nearly half his size, gripped in his good claw. The demon shot a fireball and Gia used the metal to absorb the blast, propelling him a distance back. However, that was intended, since Gia was now close enough to his sword to rearm himself in an instant. Blade back in hand and a little time to try again, Gia jammed down on the button in an attempt to get the weapon working, but something was stuck. Perhaps the exposed time in the demon's flesh during that one attack caused the metal inside to melt and stick together. It won't do him any good here, but at least the sword itself was still sharp. Back on the offensive, Gia dashed at the demon, jumping aside to avoid another explosive fireball.

In came the mace. With his wrist broken, Gia only had one hand to operate his sword - definitely not good for direct blocking. But there was still the aspect of interception. He swung his sword vertically in a wide arc and diverted the force of the mace to bounce above him and out of harm's way. With the demon stuck in momentary recovery, Gia aimed to get his sword into the exposed flesh, but he needed not only force to drive the blade in, but height as well. He quickly planned out a strategy - take out its leg again, get it down on all fours, and finish it off from there. Simple, but nearly impossible.

He never really cared for obeying the possible.

Another swing of the mace. Gia jumped in closer so he only had the shaft to avoid, which was easily done. Some lava-like substance was flowing down the side of the plate legs. Gia assumed it to be the Grand Demon's blood, since the several impalements he performed earlier would've had that effect. He parried through its legs, heaved his blade around, and struck it into the back of its right knee. However, the plate protecting it was a little too stubborn, and the sword bounced. At the same time, the demon's tail came down to strike him, and he used the propulsion of the bounce as added energy to swing the sword in the other direction. It sliced the tail in half, and lava-like blood spurted onto his hand.

"YOW!" Gia shouted, the lava burning into his arm.

The sword still in motion, Gia accidently let go of the sword in an attempt to jump back away from the demon, shaking off the lava. The sword flew and imbedded itself into the demon's left leg through the heavy armor, and it staggered backwards, missing stepping on Gia by inches. It wasn't in its knee, so it could still move properly, but now the blade was stuck in its leg. Gia recovered and prepared to leap directly onto the front of the demon in a last-ditch attempt to-

*SPROOIIIING!*

NOW his secret weapon deployed. The blade itself split in two and edged apart, powered by springs, to expose the weapon hidden within. However, it wasn't the weapon inside that sliced the leg in half, but the blades sprung apart with such pressurized force. Without a leg to stand on, the demon collapsed, and Gia stretched out his good claw out to stop it falling on him. Only problem was that he wasn't quick enough to unclench his fist.

*SPLEEERRRK!*

"Aww no ..." Gia bowed his head. In disgust, shame, and horror all at once.

The demon stopped falling forward. He felt the warm, lava-like blood seeping down his outstretched arm and burn his scales. The pain was searing and unforgivable, and Gia felt himself clenching his teeth tightly as a result. He didn't concern himself with the demon anymore. The object in his hand had throbbed a few times in protect against his squeezing grip, but it ultimately stopped, and with that, so did the demon. For nearly a full minute, Gia just stood there, holding the corpse up with his arm unable to bring himself to move away from the permanently immobilized demon. Then, finally able to bring himself back into reality, propped his bad hand against the demon's armor and literally ripped his other hand right out of the demon. What came out with it nearly made him barf.

This was the first time he had ever done something like this. Sure, he's beheaded and decapitated before, but never, in his life, had he even WANT to consider the art of disembowelment. He tossed away the demon heart and stepped aside to let the Grand Demon fall with a loud BOOM. He was the last one to defeat his Grand Demon, but at least the accomplishment was there. He picked up his deployed weapon, struck it on the ground a few times to close the blade up properly, and trying not to think of the incredible pain he was going through, dashed into the ending battle.

__________________________________________

And now, just for good humor: my progress on Varrock; a project I only just remembered and spent another hour on:

Jasonmrc · **Posted:** March 22nd, 2009, 10:48 am

Two down, two to go.

The first three straps were easy. They were the lower straps on either side of the plate and a strap connecting it to the demon's 'belt'. Odd place for a strap, no humanoid put one there for it impeded their movement. The last four would be difficult, more so the two right beneath the Grand's shoulders would be the hardest. With the Grand still moving its arms, both in pain and annoyance to try to kill Skyrate, it would be very tedious to cut those straps without being crushed.

The Grand demon lifted his foot above Skyrate and stomped down on him. He lifted his foot and looked and saw no sign of Skyrate, not even a corpse. Bewildered, the Grand demon assumed Skyrate dead and started to walk towards the Castle.

SNAP!

The Grand's chestplate started to swing to the right as he walked. Skyrate had cut the left strap.

The Demon looked around for an archer or mage and spotted a group of mages and archers in white. He ripped a tree out of the ground and changed his course for them.

SNAP!

"That was an easy one." Skyrate thought to himself as he cut the right side strap. Right after the Grand uprooted the tree he had raised his arms and the tree to scare the brave fighters. Doing so exposed his side and Skyrate was able to easily get to the strap and cut it.

Only two more straps, the left and right shoulder straps. These two should be the easiest if...

Skyrate had to dodge the Grand's club as it smashed down on its right shoulder. Dumb move? No. The Grand didn't even feel the tree crash down on his shoulder. All he cared about was killing Skyrate, or anyone for that matter.

"That's annoying" Skyrate thought to himself as he slid behind the Grand's neck, avoiding the tree. The Grand's attack might not have hurt him or Skyrate, but it did dent the shoulder plate which wasn't as thick as the chestplate. The strap was now almost completely covered.

He rolled out from behind the Grand's neck and cut the shoulder strap right before he rolled off the shoulder. The chestplate swung to the right, causing the Grand demon to stumble because of the shifting weight. The Grand's heart was almost exposed! But the plate swung back over it as the demon righted itself. Skyrate would have to take out that last strap. There wasn't enough of it showing for him to be able to use his katanna to cut it. The space, about a centimeter wide, combined with the movements of the Grand made it impossible for anyone, even Skyrate, to be able to get a melee attack in there.

But what about a ranged attack? The Magic aura around the demon would deflect any low level magic spell, and all the high level ones which wouldn't be deflected couldn't hit that spot. A bow would take to long to aim and would require both hands. There was only one thing he had on him which would work, a Tenkys or throwing star which only he and a few other people in the world could use. He would have to make the Grand think he was dead again in order to stop it from moving so much.

Skyrate appeared on the ground and soon caught the sight of the Grand demon who quickly brought the trunk down. When he lifted it he saw a black body on the ground with arms and legs in ways they should not be.

Timrak ran over to Elise, followed by Karmadin, Michael, and Karl 67. He touched her and checked for pulse and said, "She's still alive, but very weak. I'll take her back to the Tower." With a nod from the rest he disappeared with Elise in his arms.

Michael looked back to the castle and was surprised to see the group of warriors which Skyrate had requested, though only Jason knew that he had.

Celestina, the blue mage, led her troop of Ice Warriors. These were not the chaotic warriors of the Ice Queen, these were Elduvian Knights trained in the ancient magics. These Knights were so adept that they could cast unhindered by their armor.

Celestina led them to Michael and the rest. After a few brief words they all started to charge at the still advancing enemy.

Black Knights and lesser Demons shattered left and right as they were frozen and then broken to pieces by Michael and the other warriors. Some were shattered as they melted from Karl 67's Blaze Elf sword. This soon turned the tide in the battle. The enemy could no longer advance towards the castle, they had a hard time just keeping the Heroes from advancing on them.

Skyrate appeared on the Grand's head lightly, not being felt by the unsuspecting demon. As soon as he threw the Tenkys he would have to either get off if it missed or finish off the Grand demon by attacking the exposed heart and head.

"Now's the time." He thought to himself and threw the Tenkys.

CLING!

SNAP!

The Tenkys hit the shoulder plate right where it met the strap. At first it looked like he missed, and then the chestplate started to fall.

Now he could finish it off!

He pulled out Coreth-Nil, the Evil Bane and stabbed it into the Grand's head. The Grand roared in pain as the bane pain shot through him again. Skyrate jumped to the Grand's shoulder and then onto its flaming chest. He could only stay there a second, but that was all he needed. He stabbed Corion-Dialect, the Chaos and Extraplanar bane, directly into the Grand Demon's heart. For a moment the Grand stood completely still. Skyrate jumped off, taking Corion-Dialect with him and landed with a roll on the ground.

The Grand demon began to fall forward, following the same path his chestplate did just seconds ago. Skyrate rolled to the side as the Grand's arm passed right behind him, slamming into the ground. The fire on the demon started to die down as if someone had just doused it with water. Skyrate got up and walked over to the Grand's head and pulled Coreth-Nil out. He cleaned both on the grass and then disappeared.

Three down, one to go.

Alex 43 · **Posted:** March 30th, 2009, 8:12 pm

I'm almost scared to post what I now have on Alex 43's side of the story, because it reveals facts that will completely change your whole outlook on Runescape.

... ah, what the heck. Enjoy.

What stretched out in front of Alex 43 was unlike anything he had ever seen before. In comparison to what he was witnessing, the crystals of the Oocon city became mere uninteresting stones in the back of his mind. His beloved chapel seemed but a mere hut. Gia was nothing more than a grunt. He was nothing more than a small clump of adamantite, gazing upon a view so intense that everything else he ever knew seemed just that insignificant. The world and all its majesty ... yeah, not anymore. He felt he was never going to be intrigued by the planet ever again.

In front of him was space. An infinite number of stars stretched out amid never-ending blue and purple swirls of light, enveloping each other in a constant, endless game of cat-and-mouse in a perfect, fog-less area. Several of them suddenly turned into beams of light, darting here and there at speeds an Oocon could only dream of. The stars dotted the area in all shapes, sizes, and luminosities, ranging from a cool dark blue, to a crisp brown, all the way up to a crystalline white, and even colors Alex never knew existed that he just couldn't name off the top of his head. Strange, that he was now witnessing such colors, that he wondered just how they even could possibly exist. By some magic perhaps? Or something more? Perhaps he was even the only one able to see such colors.

Alex took a closer look. Upon squinting, he found that the closeby lights themselves were the outlines of tall, imposing doors of all sorts of varieties. A small courtyard boasting a decoration of some kind seemed to guard each of the doors, giving them more of a round shape rather than flat. Also, the majority of the stars he saw weren't stars or beams of light at all. They were creatures. Moving, traveling, conversing. Living beings. But so divine and calm in the way they gave off the impression they were no mere mortals. Alex didn't doubt it: these were all Gods he was looking at. Gods in their own designated avatars, chosen by choice, desire, or impression. He couldn't even begin to try identifying what the majority of them even were trying to represent. He could hardly do anything in his mind to familiarize himself with the place.

All this was witnessed from a solid stone balcony. In the middle stood a good tall railing composed of thin, glowing stone pillars, just low enough for him to peer right over without being able to slump over. On either side, the railings exposed a short ramp into the nothingness, as though some sort of invisible bridge was guiding them somewhere in the distance.

Realizing that if there was a balcony, there was a building, Alex looked straight down. A vast stretch of dark stone column shot down below farther than his eyes could perceive, dotted with balconies and doors similar to the one he gazed from with signs of thin, somewhat detailed pillars in between separating them. There simply was no end. He looked up and gazed upon a similar sight. Beside him, around the wall, he didn't doubt that there was another series of balconies and doors adjacent to his own. This building - a tower, was infinite no matter how it was looked at.

This was the Tower of Solen he was standing on. No question about it.

"Be thankful." Venos mused, "A normal being can't comprehend this sight as "possible" within their mind, so it usually kills them."

"This ... I'm ..." Alex stammered, unable to pull himself away from the awe that stretched out before him, "... I can't believe this place exists! That it CAN exist!"

"First time witnessing involves momentary paralyzation of solace." Macan said, approaching one of the ramps, "Present time limit irrelevant. Embrace the sensation as you are deferred, Allezyamos."

Alex finally fought his overly curious and intrigued mind hard enough to turn his head to face his comrades, "What do you mean?"

"You don't possess a key." Venos said, "This is a place that none who have never been here cannot access. If you were discovered without the right of passage into this sacred realm, you will be punished in the most severe methods any God can conjure up. Believe me when I say there are things worse than death, agony, and even pain."

Venos approached the other ramp and looked out into the distance with Macan. Then she hurriedly turned to face him again, almost as though she thought somebody was watching them out there.

"However, so long as you stay on this balcony, nobody's going to notice. Just stay here and wait for our return. Nothing else."

"Why? Where are you going?" Alex couldn't help but ask.

"To see our Lord Sartranomin. Face-to-face." Macan replied, apparently too serious to think of words that cause Venos to make strange faces at him.

"We'll return soon, so just sit tight and ... watch, I suppose." Venos shrugged, "But whatever you do, do NOT leave the balcony! Understand?"

Alex understood. Since this was the first time ever encountering a realm like this one, he was too afraid to not follow the rules. Both dragons walked to the edge of the ramp and just continued walking, as though there indeed was an invisible bridge. They weren't swimming or flying, but they walked with complete freedom through the air towards the stars. Once their feet left the tower ground completely, they suddenly began to glow similar colors as their orbs were, and once that was in full effect, their walking speed increased dramatically. They rocketed into the distance in two great long streams of light, together joining the others that lit up the dark void.

Alex peered over the railing and squinted, trying to see exactly where they were headed. If he could at least find where Sartranomin resided, he could possibly see his own Lord in person, and that might arouse something locked in the back of his mind. But they were moving so fast and so distant that it was only a matter of time before he lost their visual completely. Desperate for a method of tracking them, he looked around.

On the balcony beside him, a dark blue-robed figure was gazing out into the distance with an apparatus similar to a telescope propped against its eye. The gigantic lens in front was just about as wide as the one he was peering into, and Alex guessed that it was either to give a better quality image, or that the figure's eyes were that big. It seemed to serve as a telescope, though, since the user was slowly turning it around as though to follow something. However, after a moment, the figure lowered the telescope, shook its head, and started writing something down on a glowing piece of ... papyrus?

"Excuse me," Alex asked, taking advantage of its inactivity, "Could I please borrow that?"

For a moment, he was afraid that the creature didn't understand his spoken tongue, as it didn't make a move, but a few seconds later the telescope floated over to him until it was close enough to grasp. Such a strange, awkward design, but Alex had to admit it was effective. The edges were trimmed with a series of crystal-like weights, for protective gripping so that he could adjust it at will. The instrument seemed to be made out of some bright, almost transparent gold-colored glass, with the lenses inside just barely visible through the material. Alex nodded a thanks, but the figure was too busy writing something to notice.

He held it up and pointed it in the direction he saw Venos and Macan vanish. The scope worked like a charm - he could see incredibly distant objects amidst their cover of light. The dots he saw weren't stars at all, but in fact even more glowing doors and courtyards! Doors that appeared to just exist there, as they didn't lead into anything. So many different distant creatures, standing in front of or within their respective courtyards, protecting one of a trillion different varieties of door design. Some were round portal-like openings. Others, great big stone-works that didn't look like they even could be opened at all. Some were even immensely small, even tinier than his hand. Others still were probably big enough to fit their whole planet through.

Alex squinted with curiosity. Within such a place, where DID all those doors go to?

He suddenly turned the telescope left, catching a sudden glimpse of the pair of colors he recognized. They were Macan and Venos, all right, heading towards a lone star that shone a brilliant white. Twisting the scope, Alex steadied it on the railing and gazed towards a door similar to the one that stood behind him. On the front, virtually supporting the door itself, was a large impression of the ancient Saradomin symbol - the same ones etched on Macan and Venos' foreheads out of gemstone.

The courtyard itself looked very magnificent. Glowing white marble pillars and plinths supporting apparently great figures surrounded the yard itself, which was covered in shining white grass. On the opposite end of the door was a large archway and opening to the outside. From this opening, a trail led through the "grass", around a great dragon statue in the center, and in towards the door.

Venos and Macan entered the courtyard and, for a moment, Venos was transfixed upon the statue. It looked as though she was talking to it for a moment; probably to say a password or something. Macan then said something to her, making her jump, and after a moment they both approached the door. He was just barely able to make out their orbs exposed once again, causing the door itself to slowly swing open. He zoomed in as far as he could, but upon opening, the glow greatly intensified, and he couldn't tell what was inside due to the incredible brightness of the doors themselves. After a moment, the doors closed, and Venos and Macan were nowhere to be seen.

Bummer. Even after that, he still didn't get to see Sartranomin. He twisted the scope back to its original state and returned to the ramp.

"Thanks." he said to the stranger, offering the telescope back towards the hooded creature, who took the telescope from him by making it float back over. It apparently finished writing whatever it was writing and started gazing out at the stars again.

Alex was about to return to the railing to just look around when the stranger spoke.

"... say that again."

Alex turned. The stranger had the scope up to its eyes, but it wasn't really concerned for what it was seeing. The rigidness of its body said it all.

"Say the word "thanks" again." it commanded.

"Uh ... thanks?" Alex asked, confused.

"Unbelievable. Completely, COMPLETELY unbelievable!" was the reply. Alex too grew rigid. No, it couldn't be!

The figure stepped off the ramp and towards his, enveloping itself in a pale yellowish-green light. Upon stepping onto the ramp itself, the color faded, and upon lowering its hood, Alex once again glimpsed at the incredible coincidence that he was, in fact, once again united with an old friend of the past.

"I swear, every time I see you, you surprise me somehow." said Dex Sonar, making the telescope set itself aside on its own. He wasn't at all pleased to see Alex standing there, but he didn't show any sign of aggression.

"I think I should be the one who's surprised." Alex retaliated, "What the heck are you doing here?"

Dex looked at him sternly, "I don't think you're in any situation to be asking that to me."

Alex crossed his arms, "Surprise me."

Dex repeated the gesture, "What, you don't think I have the qualities and capabilities to be here? What makes you more special than I? Oh, let me guess, your Lord Saradomin's taking you here on field trips now?"

Not to be outdone, Alex thought fast.

"If you must know, I've recently found out that I am a reincarnation of a spirit that used to live here, and my brethren brought me here for an important mission."

"Oh really?" Dex tilted his head slightly, "Then where are they?"

"They're talking to our Lord as we speak." Alex said, pleased he was able to follow through with this so well without resorting to improvised assumption.

Until Dex asked the expectedly impossible-to-answer-and-look-good-doing-it question: "And why aren't you with them?"

Alex was honest, "I don't have a key."

Then a thought crossed his mind.

"They're probably also going to retrieve it for me, though." he quickly added, "Again, I'm a reincarnation. My Lord has probably been holding my key all this time."

Dex nodded. Satisfactory reasoning. If the situation wasn't so serious and it wasn't Dex he was talking to, Alex would've done a dance.

"Your turn." Alex said.

"I too am on a mission." Dex said, "But it's confidential. Nobody, not even you, is to know anything about it. All I can say is that I was chosen for my capabilities to do this mission, and so I'm doing it."

Alex was skeptical, "You never seemed like the one to follow instructions."

Dex answered, "Even if it didn't regard the well-being of the entire universe resting on my shoulders?"

Alex flinched. Was Dex really telling the truth?

"But enough of that. Unless you want to ask me something quick, I need to carry on my job." Dex said, returning to his telescope and gazing out from the balcony.

Ask him something. Alex thought he'd never hear those words again. Despite their many talks, Venos and Macan were particularly restrictive as to what information they passed on. One would interrupt the other if they saw a conversation going the wrong way, and Alex even began to detect a pattern to which they only spoke half-truths. At least, for them and whatever secrets they were keeping from Alex. Something about himself, though, made them not want to trust Alex fully yet, and Alex guessed that it was either just himself not needing to know, or that K could potentially be listening into their conversations by the symbol he planted on Alex.

But now he was with an old friend who apparently and undoubtedly liked to be the know-it-all of just about everything there needs knowing of. Not to mention he probably couldn't care less who else was listening into their conversations. Alex took advantage of the situation and filled his head quickly with questions he desperately wanted to ask, and started his barrage of curiosity.

"Where are we?" was Alex's first question. He never got to directly ask Venos or Macan, but he desperately wanted to know. This was a very strange place.

Dex closed his eyes and lowered the scope, "I'm afraid I'm no scholar of the details and histories of this place, but I'll try to explain this in a way that you'd understand."

He floated up to and sat on the railing next to the scope, crossing a leg over. Then he began.

"This place is called "Joons El Ka Valgnifra", which in the mortal tongue, means "Eyes of the Divine". This is, quite literally, the realm of the True Gods themselves. This is the place where Gods basically live; to watch over their appointed "segment" of reality and, in a nutshell if there's no other word, "moderate" it."

He held a hand up to signify the distant stars.

"Those are the actual "housings" of the Gods themselves. Private dwellings and meeting places that exist in their own individual fabrics of space and time. Time doesn't pass here, or there, unless they want it to."

He held a hand up to signify the tower.

"This tower is the direct gateway to the realm of reality. So many places, so many existences, so many doors. The Gods use these if they want to directly become a part of reality. Of course, you'd need the appropriate keys to get through each one. You can't enter anywhere without ... "permission", you might say."

He knew it, "Those orbs really are keys, aren't they?"

"Consider yourself extremely lucky you get to bear witness to this place without one." Dex said sternly.

"Where did you get your key to get in here?"

"Varrock bank. Remember?" Dex rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I know THAT, but where and who exactly was it from? How did you know there, in fact, WAS a key there?" Alex asked. Could it be that, without his knowing, Alex helped Dex to steal his own key? If he was Allezyamos, he must've had one of his own at some point.

"Psychosis." Dex calmly replied, spinning the orb on his finger impossibly, "During the fight, nobody saw it, but it was knocked out of its grasp with the Third Eye. As I died, I instinctively traced its fall to somewhere near Varrock, but since then I had forgotten to retrieve it. For myself, of course."

"Why would you want to come here, though? How did you know about this place?"

"... I didn't. That's why I'm here." Dex said, "To explore and understand more about this realm."

Alex thought hard to make sense of what Dex was explaining. This was somewhat complex, but there was some logic from it. Psychosis was apparently a God of his own right, and no doubt that whatever realm Dex was from, it too had access to this same place. But still, there were some things that didn't add up. If Dex knew nothing about this place originally, how did he know what the key was for? He was about to ask that, when ...

... wait, WHAT did he say? He traced the key AS HE DIED?

"You said you died." Alex suddenly shouted, focused on that aspect of his explanation, "How are you still here, then, alive and well?"

Dex's eye twitched. He made a fatal slip.

"I am not allowed to say anything about it." Dex said, darkly making it obvious he is keeping a secret, "All I can say is that ... well, what I told you. I guess I just wasn't allowed to die. I wasn't supposed to go so far as to summon the Third Eye, and so my death had been denied. That's all I can say about it."

That was all he said about it, and it would've just stood at that for anybody else, but Alex heard it differently than Dex expected. Once Dex had said the word "denied", Alex had suddenly come upon a theory. In his head, the words of K came back to him: "I have fought against corruption, engaged against deceit, stabbed lies straight in the face, ... and even denied death a few times." Denied death? Could this really mean ...

Without thinking, without remembering that this was Dex he was doing this too, and it usually resulted in some sort of instant, but considerably painful punishment, Alex lunged forward, whipped out his spear-hand, and grabbed Dex's wrist without warning. He held it up to both their eye-levels while Dex was still stunned at the gesture, as though arm-wrestling with him on an invisible table.

"WHAT ARE YOU-" Dex started to shout and pull, but was stopped short. The bright yellow light form K's symbol shone from Alex's wrist, and judging by the reflection in Dex's eyes, his own wrist bore one and the same.

"I'm in your mind now." Alex thought, smiling.

Dex replied without moving his mouth. His eyes were wide and the look of shock on his face was genuine. The voice was that of awe.

"You ... you never ... EVER cease to surprise me."

Alex let go. Dex held his hand suspended in the air for a moment before slowly dropping it. The symbols vanished.

"But I can't say I like that about you ..." he added aloud, turning to look out at the stars again. There was something big on his mind now, and he didn't want to continue the history lesson anymore.

So that was it. It was all perfectly clear now. Dex had met K as he died, who brought him back to life. Since K was apparently a deity himself, and he knew Sartranomin, then no doubt he told Dex about this realm in the process. Dex, responding to the idea with curiosity, nabbed himself the key just to check this place out. Or was that the case? Only one way to find out.

"Who is he? Tell me." Alex sternly asked.

"Ask him yourself-" Dex started.

"TELL ME!"

"NO! STOP ASKING!"

Alex risked it all.

"No. You'll have to kill me to get me to stop! Tell me!"

Dex tensed, but bowed his head in defeat. He just couldn't keep K's secret anymore. Master of the Lost Art or not, he couldn't attack Alex. Not here, anyways. He was to be their ally now, since K trusted him this much, he thought. He walked into the corner and an invisible force pulled Alex there with him against his will. His visor was pulled so close to Dex's head that he was almost afraid that Dex was going to bite him. Around him, he felt some kind of barrier of Dark Majiya apparently shielding them from something. View and thought, most likely. It was uncomfortable, but Alex endured it.

"Listen to me, and listen well, because I'm only going to tell you this once!" Dex hissed.

Alex was listening. It was impossible not to. Dex had Alex's gauntlet firmly in his grip. If this barrier wasn't enough, they were using the mind-chanelling ability granted to both of them by K for extreme secrecy. Dex apparently didn't just wanted nobody to hear them, but also for nobody to realize they were sharing secrets altogether.

With his other hand, Dex manually pulled Alex's helmet to face him. Both sets of eyes were locked on each other.

"K ... he is the only hope for the universe and all who live as they are." Dex said.

Alex blinked. That was all he did. Dex peered upwards for a second, and then continued.

"I take it you already know who the Unknown is, don't you?" Dex asked.

Alex nodded. The creature's glowing blue form flashed in his mind. And that sword, that defied the visible spectrum, stood out completely.

"A while ago, perhaps a few thousand years in your time, there was a great battle to the permanent death in this realm." Dex explained, "One between the Unknown and ... K."

Alex's mind wandered temporarily to the battle he shared with K. Both these extreme warriors that ended the fights in their own decided draws when they were outnumbered 3 to 1 almost because they were simply bored of fighting. A battle directly against each other to the death must've been intense.

"The Unknown: grand king and ruler of the universe and all the Gods, and K: a rebel with sights of his own: to overthrow the Unknown."

Alex listened. Didn't sound like K was really a good guy after all if he was trying to overthrow the King of the Gods. Dex knew what he was thinking.

"They fought mercilessly. Trying to destroy one another. The Unknown wanted K destroyed to quell any further attempts of resistance against himself, and K wanted the Unknown destroyed to bring back universal peace and existence without sacrifice, and to lead the universe into a time of pure prosperity and discovery. Universal unity. Two big words, one huge resolve."

Alex had to agree. He had only heard K speak, and he had no problems believing that he was definitely unselfish.

"Tell me now: who's the good guy in this story?"

Alex didn't need to answer. The Unknown tore holes in the world from out of nowhere due to a misunderstanding in payment. K gave him the help he needed to stop him, if not temporarily, and saved his hide three times in a row.

"The Unknown hated- well, still hates mortals. Once before, its race had been living among them in peace. But after greed enveloped its own, they were banished and nearly exterminated by the mortals even before the Unknown was born. Since it first opened its eyes, it hated them, and wanted to revert the Universe into a time where there existed naught BUT the race of Gods. He deemed mortals as creatures without purpose since they only lived for so long, consumed the resources of the universe, and left hardly anything in return. He wanted all mortals of any kind, anywhere ... destroyed.

But it couldn't do that. For two reasons.

First, it had no power. In order for the mortals to banish them, the immortals were first cursed. By their own ancestors, too. They had lost all their powers of Godliness, and were refined to mere immortal creatures. Second, since then, things have quieted down. Lesser Gods had been born from the remnants of the race of Gods to supervise the mortals and their havens, and so far things had been going pretty good. If it went against the mortals then, it would undoubtedly have had opposition since it was alone in its belief. It needed power. It needed to become a God again, so none could stand up to it.

And it did. Somehow. I'm not sure, K never really hinted that part of the story to me. But it got power, and lots of it. He used it to overthrow the previous leaders and take full control over the entirety of Joons El Ka Valgnifra, squashing anyone who dared so much as merely rumor against.

K, however, didn't want to stand for it. He too is of the same race, and he too strove to break his curse. And he succeeded. But it was purely for good. He wanted to revive the age where mortals and immortals could live together harmoniously. And the Unknown knew about him. In fact, throughout the past, they were almost like rivals, forever fighting each other for the dominant position. The Unknown getting this power and control greatly upset the balance against K, but it also strengthened K's resolve to finally be rid of him. So, for a while, he hid himself away, but after some event in the past that I directly couldn't care less of, K had suddenly attacked the Unknown almost out of nowhere, and the great battle had begun."

Alex tried to take all this in. The Unknown and K were rivals in the past. The Unknown somehow gets power, and uses it to become the dominant God. Then K somehow gets enough power to resist against it.

"The battle was extreme, stretching from the farthest regions in the distance to the so-called top of the Tower of Solen itself." Dex said, "Huge bursts of blinding, deafening energy exploded from each clash of their weapons, lighting up the entirety of the realm itself. Those who watched from even the brightest and most powerful of stars watched with true envy. It was impossible for any of the Gods to NOT bear witness to such an extreme event. For so long, the Unknown had been the empirical monarch; putting the entirety of the universe and all that exist in its full control, wiping out any and all who dared to oppose him. To bear witness to such an inspirational rebel such as K, there spawned hope amongst the primordial galaxy that the Unknown, in fact, could be vanquished."

"What happened, then?"

"The Unknown fought K and the battle was forced atop the Tower of Solen, intentionally away from the eyes of everyone. Nobody knows what happened up there, but the Unknown had escaped and K had all but vanished from the realm. For a moment, it was believed that the realm was freed from its evil by K's sacrifice, but the Unknown had quickly returned, and was way more stricter than ever. He didn't want even another hint of rebellion to arise, so he drilled all his rage upon the universe and started consuming as much power as he possibly could. It had been incredibly difficult for anyone to meet his demands, and the glimmer of hope for the universe was completely wiped away. Thus, the universe had been cast into a great darkness, of weakness and fear."

Dex peered over his shoulder quickly, as though detecting something, but he relaxed after a moment's silence and continued.

"I'm sure that even you recall there having been a time where the Gods once walked the Earth." Dex said, "Somewhere in the distant past. The Gods, after feuding at one point, were then banished into the heavens to allow the mortal life to live, prosper, and regenerate. Am I right?"

Alex nodded. That was the history of Gielinor down to a nutshell, all right. Strange, though, that he knew this. Dex wasn't one for the history books ...

"You're not alone." Dex pulled Alex's head in closer, "After that fight, the Unknown had hard-pressed against the Gods, and pretty well banished them himself from setting foot on their own planets. He took all their keys and trapped them within their rooms. The only way they therefore could intermingle with their planets directly would be though specially-chosen agents. Yours being-"

"Saradomin!" Alex finished the sentence.

"Exactly." Dex said.

"So this ... is where all the Gods live, you're saying."

"Yes."

"And the Unknown ... took control over all the Gods for his own power."

"Yes."

"And K was a rebel and his rival, trying to free the Gods and mortals from him."

"Yes."

"So why are you here? How and why do you know all this?"

"For reasons unknown, K doesn't want to be here himself." Dex said, "So he sent someone he knew he could trust; myself. I am to K as Saradomin is to Sartranomin. Nothing but an agent."

Alex and Dex locked eyes. Dex was extremely seriousness.

"I told you on Gielinor that the war there wasn't mine to fight for you." Dex said, "That's because I'm already in one. The war you're fighting is far too insignificant for me to devote my time and effort to. This is more than the universe at stake here. This is the entirety of existence itself that we are fighting for."

Dex flipped his hand around to harshly grip Alex's gauntlet. Both symbols shone brightly against their faces.

"K has given you his gift." Dex said, "He does everything for a reason, and don't I know it. He wants you to fight with him. With us."

Dex didn't blink. Alex did.

"Not just wants ... NEEDS."

For the first time in his life, Alex saw a hint of true devotion in Dex's eyes. This creature was an incredibly obnoxious, self-centered, disrespectful "thing". He hardly did anything to aid in the existence of Alex or Gia, nor did he really do anything to earn his stay. He would always selfishly shut himself away or wander off as though he was his own boss, refusing 98% of all requests and doing the other 2% with utter distaste and annoyance.

And now, here he stood, devoting his whole well-being and entire life towards this goal in which, under any other circumstance, he would've easily rejected on a whim. For the first time, he was actually willing to do something for somebody else.

And, for the first time ever, Dex actually needed Alex.

"Will you join us?" he asked.

Alex, after much hesitation, gave his answer. It came out of his mouth whether or not he wanted it to. There just wasn't any choice to it.

_________________________________________

Lit by magical orbs enchanted for all these years stood the grand frame of a great majestic temple hewn almost directly into the cavern wall. A great mural of statues and sculptures portrayed around a single, double-doored entranceway, hoisted up by a large flurry of steps and half-bashed pillars. Surrounding it were several large, pink glowing crystals, barely illuminable due to the bright orbs floating in front along two lines on the stairs leading right to the entrance. The entirety of the area was littered with ancient corpses and skeletons; so ancient that they looked like they were directly part of the floor now. In front, at the base of the stairs, stood a large team of White Dragon elders, miners, and archeologists, chatting away at the potentials and dangers of continuing progress.

Of course, the young dragonytes were excited, unwilling to wait to get inside and see for themselves its internal wonder, but Holu stood his ground. In the entranceway stood a lone figure, holding up an old lantern and using its somewhat feeble light to peer inside. Either the elders trusted this figure, or they didn't notice him enter the area amidst their discussion with each other. With the essence of foreboding around him, Holu automatically assumed it to be the latter.

"Who's that in the doorway, Dad?" asked Chio.

Good, he wasn't just seeing shadows. The figure looked over its shoulder quickly and ducked inside, and Holu made his move. With one claw gripping the cliff wall, he slid down with the younger ones following automatically, gave a quick wave to the others ("Holu! What's the hurry?") and chased after the figure (Wait! Stop! It's still too dangerous to risk!). Truth be told, upon aiding the discovery of this temple, Holu had ventured forth inside a short distance, and knew there were no traps or the short within the first few halls and rooms.

"Kids, stay with the elders." Holu instructed, halting right at the entranceway. They obeyed and ran back down the stairs, but for how long? Without another thought, Holu dashed inside.

"What do you mean 'it's too dangerous', sir?" asked Shyll.

"Ancient temples like these have been known to house, if not traps, dangerous artifacts." the elder warned, "If Holu knows any better, he'll know not to disturb anything no matter how compelling it seems. The consequence could be disasterous not just to him, but to everyone and our whole race. We just can't risk it, since we don't even know if this really belongs to Sartranomin."

"But Dad and I saw something, or someone, enter the temple. Almost like he was sneaking in." Chio said, "That's why he dashed in."

The elders turned to each other in surprise. A Zarosian thief?

"Kids, stay with us." the elder instructed, "Kajm, Semet, go after Holu and this intruder."

The lightly armored, but well-armed White Dragon soldiers broke out of the group and charged up the steps. The younger ones huddled with the elders, but Chio, unable to restrain himself, also ran up the stairs.

"No! Child! What are you doing?" the elder shouted.

"That's my dad in there." Chio said, "Whatever happens, I want to be with him."

The elder didn't stop him. Amidst the whispers of the other children ("He's crazy!", "So unfair!", and "This is scary!" were distinguishable.), he heard the other members mumble praise and inspiring bravado towards the child's devotion to his own father. It wasn't going to be easy to keep the children here, so the most they could do now was to let Holu capture this intruder and hope they don't disturb anything sealed away inside. Several minutes had passed, but the children only began to grow more restless and disappointed.

"... Jamp." the elder said, looking once more at the disappointed dragonytes' faces, "Why don't you follow them inside and ... take these little ones with you?"

Jamp, another big burly White Dragon, smiled and nodded.

"Remember, stay close," he said, "And whatever you do, do NOT touch anything. Understood? Even if it compels you, even if it bears the Holy One's symbol, do NOT touch ANYTHING."

The children nodded. Though they weren't getting any treasure at this rate, at least they were getting adventure.

The elders watched them trudge quickly up the steps and vanish into the entranceway. They weren't going to be long, and there is a large probability that this temple houses nothing of the sort. Besides, with the cavern hollowed out like this, it was probably safer inside the temple than out there.

"If their parents knew we were letting them do this ..." one elder muttered.

"We are White Dragons." the first elder simply remarked, "What's life without a little fun?"

________________________________

Like a panther on the prowl, Holu crept through the hallways, almost on all fours. The intruder didn't leave a scent to follow, but Holu knew where it was going. Obviously through the larger main halls and through to as far inside as possible. At least, that's where any stereotypical thief would head first. The temple boasted a number of out-of-the-way rooms all over the place, each with signs of rotted cloth and wood. Most likely either barracks or hovels for whatever used to occupy the place.

Turning a corner, he caught a glimpse of it slowly peering around another, apparently checking for something. He slowly snuck towards it in a low crouch, trying to get as close as possible before alerting it to his presence. Suddenly, it turned to face him, and in a dash, Holu pounced across the hall towards it. In two bounds, Holu had the unexpecting intruder up against the wall by its torso, arms and legs pinned in one large tri-claw. The light of his eyes reflected off the stranger's dark-blue robes, trimmed a lighter color in a few select locations. They were so massed around it that they almost seemed to hide something.

"State your allegiance and purpose, intruder." Holu hissed, "I am not one for third chances."

"S-s-sartra ... nomin ..." the intruder strained to say. Holu was crushing it into the wall regardless of the answer.

"What is your business here?" he demanded.

"I am ... an ... explorer ... searching out ... an item ..."

"What item?"

"I ... just want ... to look at it. To ... confirm that it ... exists ... that's all. I ... I won't take it, I swear! I'll leave empty-handed if I must!"

Holu dropped it. The stranger dropped to his knees, his hood falling off, struggling to regain his breath. It was humanoid, but of a creature Holu had never seen before. Despite having human-like facial features, it boasted two large, blue-glowing eyes. However, it did bear the mark of Sartranomin on its otherwise bald head ... a descended monk of Sartranomin's?

"I ... understand you can't trust me." the stranger said, "Since I did try to sneak in. But I beg your cooperation."

"Cooperation?" Holu stood, one hand on his pickaxe. One wrong impression, and the temple would have a new corpse for its collection on its stairs.

"Yes." the stranger said, slowly rising to his feet, "I've been doing extensive research on an ancient artifact for a long time, one said to house powers far greater than the Gods' combined."

Holu glared at the stranger. Even if it was here, such an object was no doubt dangerous in the wrong hands.

"I thought that, by offering it to Sartranomin, we could finally purge the world of Zaros and have true peace forever." the stranger explained, "So I devoted my life to seek it out by whatever means necessary. But if it is here, I won't take it. I just want the satisfaction and revelation of knowing that it exists, that's all. I beg you will come to believe me. If not ... then do as you wish to me. If I am to die, at least let it be here."

Holu looked over the stranger. Amidst the paranoia came curiosity. He did research on this object, and went so far as to come all the way down here to find it. No doubt, then, that he would know directly more about the temple. Perhaps they could use each other.

"Holu!"

"Dad!"

They were immediately joined by Kajm, Semet, and Chio. Holu was pleased he got more leverage on his side by the bodyguards, but was stunned to see Chio there.

"Chio, what did I tell you?"

"I had to come warn you." Chio said, "Whatever is here, there's a likelihood that it's very dangerous, since this place bears no sign or mark of the Holy Lord."

"I am aware of the danger." Holu replied, "But I appreciate your concern for me."

Kajm and Semet confronted the cornered stranger. Holu introduced them.

"This one claims to be a Sartranomin explorer." Holu said, "He says he knows a bit about this temple and what resides in it. In exchange for letting him confirm the existence of a powerful artifact, he is willing to serve as a guide."

"I understand your precautions." the stranger replied, "Set whatever conditions you have for me. I just want to explore as much as you do."

momsrascal93 · **Posted:** April 5th, 2009, 7:16 pm

Momsrascal was growing bored of the fighting. This was probably due to the fact that she was completely useless to the others right now.
"If I hadn't been careless I'd still be able to fight." She thought, but all she could do is hope that they can wrap up this battle soon.

Jasonmrc · **Posted:** April 17th, 2009, 7:15 pm

Tenshi dodged a swing from Lawrence and rolled away.

"You're weak!" Lawrence said as he started to charge at Tenshi.

Tenshi stayed crouched until Lawrence came near, then he deflected Lawrence's downward strike with his left sword, stabbed Lawrence in the chest with his right sword and used his upwards thrust to throw Lawrence behind him.

Turning around to Lawrence on the ground, Tenshi said, "I may be physically weaker than you, but I'm smarter than you."

Lawrence squirmed a little and writhed as the holy affects of Tenshi's sword started to burn him.

Tenshi pulled his sword out of Lawrence and raised both his blades and said, "Now it's time to finish you-" but was cut short when he was struck from behind by a spell of dark magic.

"You are the power I need." A voice from behind Tenshi said.

Tenshi stood back up but was blasted down again by another spell. He turned over to look at the speaker.

Its legs were encased in steel up to its waist, possible just greaves Tenshi thought. Its right arm had greenish metal plates covering it, though something which looked like skin was still visible. Its left arm was completely bare, and looked like the left arm of a Barbarian Champion. A crystal chestplate covered its chest and wrapped around to cover its back. A dark red hood covered a black void where its face would be. Two red lights peered from the darkness.

"What power?" Tenshi asked, slowly reaching for one of his swords which he had dropped when he was attacked.

"The power of Saradomin." The Creature said as a black and red ball appeared before him and shot towards Tenshi's extended arm. Tenshi rolled one way and his sword flew the other. Lawrence started to crawl away and prop himself up against a tree. One of Lawrence's and one of Tenshi's swords flew towards the Creature, stopped, turned around, and flew towards their opposite owner - Lawrence's to Tenshi and Tenshi's to Lawrence. Lawrence got pinned to the tree he was against and Tenshi was pinned to the ground.

"You must come alive." It said as it walked towards Tenshi. It stooped over to pick Tenshi up by the throat but stopped as a katanna blade pierced its back and chest plate. It was then kicked over Tenshi.

"You dare attack me?" The Creature said as it launched two of the same dark spells at the attacker.

The spells went to the left and to the right of the attacker and hit harmlessly behind him.

"I've heard that one before." Skyrate, who was the attacker, said.

The Creature grunted as it fired more spells - four this time. Skyrate deflected them away with his two katannas.