Jump to content

Chapter three in They'lair Rises


Recommended Posts

So me and a Co-Author are working on several books together and this is chapter three in a book we are writing together as chapters 1 and 2 need ginormous edits. this chapter will also receives some touch up but has been mainly worked out. this was my favorite chapter to write too.

Spoiler

 

Chapter Three

The Elf 

 

Sixteen year old elf Wheaton Berkeley stood above the edge of Mountain Kalre where he and his seventeen year old friend, Draco Tavis, were rock climbing together. Wheaton was slim and not really buff. Instead he used his time to learn magic and the science behind it, like most elves his age. He had bright green eyes and blond hair, he had a hooked nose that one of his friends had commented as being enough of a hook to hang a coat on.

They were hanging onto the cliff face and climbing up. Noise floated up to the rocky cliff from the elven tree village down below. Their leaf spirits, Whitemane and Veragon floated with their leafy four wings up in the air catching the wind, their leafy bodies had pieces of bark sticking out below them.

“I still don’t like this,” commented Draco, Draco had smooth red hair that enhanced his bright blue eyes, he had the common hooked elf nose, “It makes me really nervous.” Wheaton rolled his eyes. Even though Draco was older than him, he still was the one who made all of these bad excuses. Wheaton put his hand into an open slot he found on the edge of the mountain and put his foot in another adjacent slot and propelled himself forward onto a ledge where he could see better. He inhaled a deep breath and exhaled. Wheaton loved the fresh mountain air, Draco on the other hand hated it like death itself. 

“It’s fine!” responded Wheaton confidently, “Even if we fall our Leaf Spirits will catch us. Remember, they’re bonded to us?” Draco looked down a hole that he just crossed and saw just how far down the hole was and in return just how far the fall would be if he fell down. He tossed a rock down and heard it thud against the side of the mountain three minutes later. 

“But what if I don’t want to fall?” asked Draco nervously, he fingered a small rock in his hands. Wheaton immediately face plamed. Draco and him were close friends but sometimes it was extremely difficult to take him seriously. Wheaton jumped off the ledge and found a nearby crevice to go through.

 “If you don’t want to fall, then climb well,” stated Wheaton seriously, “Oh and if you take too long I’ll leave you behind.” Draco frantically hurried up to him to make sure he wasn’t left behind. He didn’t know these mountains just as well as Wheaton did.

Wheaton went through the crevice in the rocks just as Draco asked, “What happens if a Necromancer comes and kills us to use as part of his undead army?” Draco quickly went through the crevice as well. Wheaton thought this guy was desperate, Necromancers haven’t been seen in Lyroc for about one and a half of a century so Wheaton was pretty confident that no Necromancers were coming. 

“No one has seen a Necromancer in two hundred years, Draco,” commented Wheaton, he sighed “Now come on, we are almost done.” He climbed up a bit and he could see the tree village, which was named Molotath, below him. Molotath was a peaceful village, one with fun activities to do. There were parties about every weekend after the students finished their magic classes and they had feasts and fun things for the students and the little kids. In fact a party was just about to start right now, Molotath was Wheaton’s favourite place to be, he would never want to leave it behind for anything.

“See you at the party!” yelled Wheaton as he fell off the edge, his blond hair flying past his fair elven face.

“WHEATON!” yelled back Draco as he ran towards the edge. Wheaton then flew up with his leaf spirit Whitemane, as Whitemane rose towards the cliffside Draco backed up. The wind rushed against Draco's face, quite refreshing from the lack of the mountain’s oxygen.

“Good job Whitemane!” said Wheaton to his leaf spirit. Being on his leaf spirit again was exhilarating! Long protrusions out of Whitemane’s head allowed Wheaton to hang on without bothering the leaf spirit. Looking around was an awe inspiring experience as he saw leaves swirling around him as Whitemane flew through the morning air. Draco jumped warily onto his leaf spirit who jolted from the jump. Draco began to urge his leaf spirit onward, but was failing mostly because Travis, Draco’s leaf spirit, was particular rowdy. Wheaton loved being in the air with his leaf spirit Whitemane. It was way more fun than horseback riding, because he was in the air and the leaf spirit didn’t jerk and was more connected with him than just a horse. The world seemed to blur around him and Whitemane. 

“Alright now lets see your reflexes,” Wheaton said to Whitemane. In response Whitemane seemed to roll his eyes. Wheaton put up a defensive gesture in return. Wheaton then summoned a fireball with his hand which in turn made the air around him far colder than was usual in Ethalia. Combat classes were paying off for him. It was pretty easy for him, seeing as people started learning magic when they were about six years old. He felt the fire making sure it was powerful enough and tested it by putting his hand over the flame. The flame itself was more than hot enough for the exercise that Wheaton was about to put Whitemane through. He launched it at a cliff making some rocks fall. The damage wasn’t that bad, so it didn’t cause a ton of rocks to come tumbling down but instead enough for a decent exercise. Wheaton gripped onto Whitemane’s neck tighter than ever. Whitemane saw the rock tumbling down and flipped over completely and easily avoided the rocks. Wheaton used his connection to Whitemane to say, Is that all you got?

Whitemane jerked forward as if saying back, nope.

"Okay", said Wheaton to himself, "okay.” He saw the sun coming over the trees and then remembered, “Dreasin’s Lamp! I forgot about world history class! I’m going to be late!” 

Draco, it seemed, had already noticed this and had started towards the lesson. Wheaton cursed and started towards the village of Mololath. Wheaton urged the leaf spirit onwards. 

The view of the village was breathtaking. Elves of varying sizes were going about their morning work on the large wooden platforms that made up their village. The village encompassed thirty trees with about five houses per tree. 

Whitemane soared around a large tree in the center of the village where the village counsel met. Wheaton saw two members of the village counsel down below, one wth a long beard and bushy eyebrows. The other with a spindly mustache and a bald head. Wheaton smiled as he launched a jet of water out of his hand and into the air and then down towards where the two elves were meeting.

“WHEATON!” shouted long beard.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!” yelled the one with the mustache.

Wheaton grinned as he flew away as fast as he could. He landed Whitemane on a platform a bridge away from where his class was taking place. Today was World History which was always interesting. 

A group of leaf spirits loitered around the trunk of the tree, a few of them Wheaton remembered, and Whitemane headed towards them. Wheaton patted Whitemane on the head one last time and walked across the rope bridge and into the large platform which made up his class.

The teacher had a fiery expression which clashed horribly with his already red hair when Wheaton was inches away from the platform, “Wheaton, Wheaton, Wheaton, late as always?”

“Yes Master Reltenan.” said Wheaton dully. The class watched the two as Wheaton sat down next to Draco who had arrived several minutes ago. 

Draco turned and whispered, “what took so long?”

“I had to prank a certain member of the counsel.” Draco looked scandalized at this remark.

“We begin where we left off at the Eonic Empire,” said Reltenan, smiling evilly as always, “remember to pay attention, this will be important to the test at the end of spring.

“In the land of Uthar there was an empire called the Eonic empire in the land that is now Uthar, it had just established itself as one of the major powers in the world when their famed leader Emperor Durshan himself died of a stroke.

“Rebels began to flood the country and take control of small sections of the empire, declaring themselves as sovereign rulers of the land.”

As Reltenan rambled on, Wheaton noticed on a platform nearby a girl who seemed several years older than Wheaton watching them. She had dark hair and carried a roll of parchment and a quill.

“As Wheaton seems so focused,” said Reltenan, “how about he answers the question.”

Wheaton turned back and stuttered, “well it was because the rebels were weak in their organization.”

Reltenan stared at him, “Wheaton, I asked whether or not the Eonics had a stable government in place by then.”

Wheaton blushed and the girl on the other platform giggled. Wheaton rolled his eyes and decided to pay attention a bit more. 

“As I was saying,” continued Reltenan, “if it weren’t for Eleran the first the Eonic empire would have collapsed as suddenly as it had began, Eleran, son of Durshan quashed the rebelion if only barely in the battle of Gromar creek which was in the year 1783, got that down?”

The students nodded. As Reltenan continued Wheaton realized that one of the two resident elvish Grands was standing behind the girl on the other platform. She was probably an apprentice grand then and none of his business.

Reltenan cleared his throat, “Ehem? Wheaton?”

“Hm?” asked Wheaton.

“Wheaton, please pay better attention or I will have to contact your grandfather.”

Wheaton lived with his Grandfather who had taught him loads of magic before he had actually came to school. 

“Fine,” said Wheaton, “but it is quite hard to pay attention when all there is to pay attention to is a large bat pretending to be an elf.”

Reltenan’s eyes widened with fury, “I AM NOT A BAT!” 

A few of the students laughed. Most of them looked either quite scandalized or very disappointed in Wheaton’s behavior. 

“Wheaton!” said Reltenan, “go to detention NOW!”

Wheaton smiled and said, “my pleasure, supreme battyness.”

Draco groaned as Reltenan burst in fury. Wheaton walked on the bridge towards the leaf spirits. Whitemane pawed towards Wheaton and snorted with derision. 

“Hey!” said Wheaton, “language!”

Whitemane seemed to roll his eyes.

Wheaton hopped on top of Whitemane. Whitemane seemed to read his thoughts and flew off the platform and down to one of the lower levels of the tree where detention was held continually by a sentient mirror. 

Sentient creation was mostly prohibited and very dangerous, but the grands occasionally create a sentient object and give it to a village as a gift. The mirror, though sentient, was very ignorant of elven mannerisms and emotions so they gave it a job as a detention teacher.

Detention was usually held directly underneath the large tree at its roots in a large chamber created out of the bottom of the tree. The doorway was five feet above the ground and had enough space to hold several leaf spirits as it seemed to have. 

Wheaton jumped off Whitemane and walked in. The large mirror stood in the center of the room and instead of reflecting the dull room it showed what appeared to be a large theater mask except that the lips moved. 

Twelve students sat at desks in the room repeating lines on pieces of parchment. Wheaton sat down at a desk for a few minutes watching the proceedings when the mirror noticed him, “Wheaton! My most frequent visitor! How’s it been?”

The mirror was anything if not eccentric, it seemed to take everything lighthearted. Wheaton sighed and said, “good, good, that old bat sent me down here for detention.”

“I figured,” said the mirror in a happy sort of way, “we are copying lines. Isn’t that fun?”

Wheaton groaned as he grabbed two pieces of parchment from a large desk in the center of the room, he also grabbed a quill. 

The other inhabitants of the room seemed less enthusiastic as the mirror. Most of them were younger than Wheaton, so he did not know their names. Four of them though were about Wheaton’s age and in a younger class but one of the four was from an advanced class above Wheaton. The four were named, Hays, Relacar, Gefferik and Werren. They were a gang of bullies who went to the school.

At the top of the first piece of paper Wheaton had grabbed were the words “I will not break rules.” Wheaton sighed and began copying.

….

“Well,” said the mirror, “Wheaton it is time for your next lesson I think, you are going to have to leave.” The mirror seemed sad, “visit me sometime will you?”

“Sure,” said Wheaton chuckling as he left the room. 

Wheaton got on Whitemane, still chuckling about the fact that he had gotten out of World history class. They left the low platform and flew upwards and towards Magical Theory class which was a class which Wheaton was better at. 

The class was held at a platform similar to the world history one, except leaf spirits were kept closer to the main platform. 

Birds flew above, nesting in various trees and causing the load squawks to make a background for the atmosphere.

Magical theory had twenty five students including Wheaton and had a far more popular teacher by the name of Doran. Doran was what you would call cool. He had been to Uthar with some of the elvish army and had killed orcs. 

Doran it seemed was also late. Instead of chairs they had cushions which the teacher said helped stimulate ideas. Already many of the students had arrived and were sitting on cushions and were talking to each other about the upcoming lesson. 

“What do you think we will be covering today?” said a girl two cushions over.

“I hope we are not going over water again.” groaned an older boy.

“Its the teacher!”

All the students quited as their teacher, Doran, landed in front of them with a loud thud. He wore his characteristic grin that matched his enthusiastic eyes. He could make even magical theory sound as exciting as goblin revolts, Doran was the complete opposite of  Reltenan in many ways.

“Good morning class,” said Doran happily, “I see you liked my entrance.” the class nodded and he continued, “good, good. Wheaton, getting into trouble already are we?”

Wheaton flushed and said, “uh, yeah.”

Doran smiled, “I remember when I was in school, I used to get into trouble all the time.” Doran leaned against the chalkboard, “but now is not the time to reminisce. Today we are going to discuss,” he paused for the drama and then flipped the chalkboard revealing a diagram of the magic, five circles overlapping with different labels on each circle, in between each circle was another label, he pointed at one on the bottom, “force fields.”

The class buzzed excitedly. Doran smiled again, “as you know Forcefields share the ability of Fire with Heat and the ability of Enchanting with Terra Manipulation. Forcefields have long been regarded as the purest magical ability that stems from pure M.E. magical energy.

“Force Fields have been used for many purposes besides the general forcefield, namely energy weapons, flying on them and the rarest configuration energy armor.” 

The students nodded. Flying on forcefields was uncommon because of the amount of balance you have to maintain while doing it. 

“Can someone give me a demonstration of the use of normal forcefields?” Doran turned to Wheaton, “Wheaton can you show us?”

Wheaton obliged, making a small purple ball of energy appear around a leaf that was falling from above. Wheaton made the ball soar around the platform and disappear when it was a few feet from the edge.

“Excellent Wheaton,” said Doran, Wheaton beamed, “Now, I will show you my energy armor and my energy weapon.” He moved his hands around his body and purplish energy fit around his body like a glove, it was mostly opaque except for the part around the head, “Luckily class this armor is light and breathable which allows for better warfare.”

The class oohed and aahed at the armor, not many of them would become warriors of course but it was still amazing to see the armor. 

Doran chuckled at their amazement, “and now I will show you my weapon.” He tapped his ear and the head portion of the armor retracted, revealing his long reddish hair. He swung his hands around and a long purplish sword appeared that was paper thin but seemed to hold in place. The sword was 2 feet long and the purple energy hilt was covered in runes and symbols. “This, class, is my sword, Brightmaker.”

Wheaton stared at it, the weapon was beautiful, Wheaton wanted one when he was older and more skilled. But for now it was good enough to look at one and wonder what his was going to look like. You only got one to three weapons your entire life if you chose to become a warrior. 

“I created and bonded this weapon when I joined the warriors when I turned 22 for my advanced training.” Said Doran, “you will too if you join the warriors, but you do not have to, there are many other amazing professions to choose from, I nearly chose becoming one of the healers myself.”

But nobody listened to him, at that moment everyone wanted to become a warrior. Everyones’ attention was on the weapon as Doran brought it down through the crisp air. 

“Now,” said Doran dismissing the weapon and armor, the class sighed sadly at this, “we will discuss the making of weapons, you are not to try this unless you become a warrior…”

….

Overall the lesson had been one of Wheaton’s favorites, Doran was one of the best teachers in the school. Wheaton was hanging on to Whitemane as the descended down to the cave where combat magic was taught. The cave was at the foot of the mountain Wheaton and Draco had been climbing hours previous. 

Whitemane descended onto the dewy grass and went into a kneeling position, Wheaton hopped off and grabbed his two personal books and walked into his Destruction Magic class building, which was etched into a cave, and tried to sneak his way past. He walked in and sat by a student named Jasper Torak. Jasper was a nice guy who wasn’t particularly friends with Wheaton, but they were nice to each other.

The teacher, Horak Larence, gave a lecture about how to use combat magic properly. Wheaton got so bored that he actually fell asleep. Jasper woke him up after a while. 

Wheaton woke up when the teacher said, “Today we will be doing a dueling activity against your classmates!” That caused a murmur of excitement to burst. Dueling activities were everyone’s favorite thing in class, no matter what. 

The teacher exclaimed, “First up! Wheaton Berkeley and Shor Waton!” Wheaton was surprised and looked at the person next to him. That would be the person he would be dueling. That was Shor Waton. He walked up to the front of the class, heart pounding. This was his first duel in Destruction Magic V.

Shor had a slender body, shining blue eyes and long legs like most of the elves, but unlike other elves he had black hair.

Out of nowhere the teacher yelled, “BEGIN!” Immediately Shor created a fireball and launched it at Wheaton. Wheaton made a circle in the air and pushed forward with his hand. The action created a blueish shield in front of him. The shield blocked the fireball, but the center was cracked from the impact. He still held the shield up and then pushed it forward. He got the idea from seeing a Whitehaven soldier throw a shield at an Utharian Troll. No one had used that tactic before and it caught Shor off guard. The shield hit him and sent him flying into the side of the cave. Shor groaned and got back up. Wheaton was quite happy about the performance that he just did.

The watching audience of fellow students gave out an, “oohh.” He summoned a fireball quickly and launched it at Shor. Shor, who excelled in terra manipulation, made a piece of earth come up out of the ground and block the attack. The chunk of earth went flying and Shor ducked to avoid the piece of flying dirt.

Wheaton quickly tested his abilities and became invisible to avoid detection from Shor, he had an idea in his head. Shor looked around frantically trying to find Wheaton. Shor looked and bumped into the wall while he was trying to find Wheaton. Wheaton, who had just become visible, summoned a small lightning bolt and launched it at Shor’s arm. Shor yelped and went back from the lightning. Wheaton grinned. Shor launched his hand up and orange streaks appeared from out of his hands. They surrounded Shor and hit the injured parts of his body. This blast of energy healed him of some of the injuries that Wheaton had dealt upon him. While Shor was healing, Wheaton was summoning a barrage of icicles and threw it at Shor. Shor did the movement for a shield, so Shor was protected from the attack.

This had been exactly what Wheaton had wanted the elf to do. He wanted to keep Shor on the defence while he barraged him with attack after attack after attack. After Shor blocked the attack, Wheaton summoned more ice and caused a mini blizzard inside of the cave by holding large amounts of ice in his hands and unleashing it quickly and using wind to send it farther. Both Wheaton and Shor were blinded from the blizzard and couldn’t see each other. Shor began moving his hands around each other and all of the blizzard slowly went into a wind tunnel that Shor had created. Wheaton, who had not been expecting Shor to do this, knew what was going to happen next. Shor let the wind tunnel loose at Wheaton and the full force of Wheaton’s blizzard hit him in the face and sent him into the cave wall. The blizzard dispersed after the blast leaving Shor standing with his smug face. Shor made the cavern ground change substance and Wheaton started sinking into the wall of the cave. Wheaton started panicking, he had to get out or else he would be open to any of Shor’s attacks. 

Ice formed in Wheaton’s hands. He froze the wall that he was trapped in. Shor was currently summoning fireballs while Wheaton was trying to escape. He melted the part of the wall that was frozen and got out of the trap. This left him open though to an attack from Shor. Shor sent several fireballs at Wheaton who made a shield in front of him which blocks the first wave, but Shor was persistant. Shor sent barrage after barrage of fire until the shield began to crack. Wheaton’s muscles began to get sore from the amount of energy he was using. Wheaton in a sharp thought sent the shield at Shor which made the shield shatter from the attack. The fire still came at Wheaton but it was long enough for Wheaton to use terra manipulation to bring several boulders from the wall to create a wall to block the attack which worked. Shor threw the rocks towards Wheaton using terra manipulation too and Wheaton used terra manipulation to send the rocks into the wall and back where they had been before.

Shor had exhausted a lot of his energy on that fire attack. He thought that that attack would be the last attack before Wheaton gave up. Sadly he was mistaken. Both were worn out from the battle but it wasn’t over yet. One of them had to do one last powerful attack but they barely had the energy.

Wheaton created a large wall of ice between them in the cave and started to summon a barrage of fire to send at Shor.

But before he could send it the ice wall shattered and he saw a huge shield come towards him. 

"What!"

Wheaton dodged it barely, he cursed, “Eastin’s eternal law!”

Shor stood at the other side of the shattered wall of ice summoning a ball of fire to launch at Wheaton. The exact same thing Wheaton had done at the beginning of the match.

Wheaton chose this time to launch his barrage of fire at Shor, taking him off guard. He hastily made a shield which quickly was destroyed. Shor made another shield as Wheaton sent another barrage of fire. But then Shor shoved the shield forward at Wheaton.

Wheaton saw this and he swiftly made a counter shield. Shields clashed. Purple sparks flew everywhere. The two boys grunted under the immense magic they were using. The crowd gasped as Shor's shield cracked on Wheaton's shield which cracked as well. A huge purple white blast sounded through the cave, leaving both boys fell to the floor, sweat dripping off their faces. They were spent from using too much magic. 

The teacher then said, "well done boys, well done."

"Thanks", groaned Shor, he took a deep breath.

"Yeah", moaned Wheaton, rubbing his head.

"Class", addressed the teacher, "this has been a perfect example of a well done duel, they performed perfect posture, they used good counter spells, they used unexpected moves", at this the teacher glanced at Wheaton nodding, "and they showed they were willing to never give up, class this was a perfect duel", then the teacher cleared his throat, "next up Dallin Baronar and Hal Corace…."

Before the teacher finished, everybody heard a loud screaming noise outside of the cave. Everyone slowly turned their heads to the exit of the cave. Wheaton walked out, being the youngest and the most curious of the group. 

They heard the screaming again. It was one of despair and it seemed to be asking for help. They knew it was not an elf voice, the voice was deeper and seemed to be more monotone. Most of the students went out of the cave to look for the screaming noise against the teacher’s wishes. It was not a scream of delight from a child. They didn’t really hear screaming that much and they wanted to know who it was.

Wheaton looked and knew that the sound was coming from the forest. He called Whitemane to him. He got up and started to look in the forest from above. The forest was lively green, which seemed deceiving because someone or something was screaming in this forest. He couldn’t find the person because the forest was too dense to see mostly anything from above. He kept circling the forest, still not seeing the screamer. 

He landed on the ground and said to Whitemane, “Stay here.” Whitemane reluctantly obeyed and sat down, sending a couple leafs into the air.

He started into the forest, the trees thick and almost everywhere. It took years for the elves to even create something a path and it wasn’t a very good one. He tried to detect the voice, but the trees were projecting the sound upwards, making it hard for Wheaton to narrow down where he was. He manipulated the earth a bit and moved the trees enough for him to make his way throughout the forest. 

He walked a bit making his way through the forest until he heard it again.

 The voice screamed again. He could tell that it was of help and somewhat of panic. He wondered about what Draco said. 

He remembered the lines in his head, “‘What happens if a Necromancer comes and kills us to use as part of his undead army?’” He wondered if this fellow, or whatever he was, was being chased by a Necromancer. 

Finally he found the source of the voice and it turned out that it was a dwarf.

The dwarf was of average height, maybe a bit bigger than most dwarves. His hair was black and his eyes were dark brown, like most dwarves. He looked shocked, almost traumatized.

“Please you have to help me!” said the dwarf in panic. 

Wheaton was quick to ask, “Wait, before that who are you?” Wheaton was curious why a dwarf came all of the way over here, to Ethalia. Dwarves and elves didn’t get along the greatest since the elves had broken away from the Ostein empire.

“I’m Dean Fulton,” said the dwarf, “And-”

Wheaton interrupted him, “Why are you here?”

“That’s what I was going to say,” started the dwarf, “Ostein, my country, is under attack by the forces of Uthar, Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, and even worse, Dark Elves!”

 

Hope you guys like it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...