13 years ago
The Broken Castle
Excors escorted the boy to his own chambers, and gave him only one instruction: "Find your way out. You have two minutes." Abruptly, he slammed the door fashioned from rotting vertical planks. Instantly, a black film rose from the base of every wall of the room, coating the room entirely, before the film fled from sight.
The young Nero ran to the door, and tried to open it, but when his hands were an inch from the very standard handle, but was halted by the film seeming to reappear exactly how it was before, but showing only the portion Nero had touched and a slight area around it as various colors rippled out from his hand's contact point. It seemed the barrier had never left. Nero searched the room for various things to use on the barrier, eventually finding what appeared to be a wand, which he pointed at the barrier in the exact spot the door was being barricaded. A bolt of electricity escaped the glorified twig before the frail piece of wood disintegrated in Nero's hand. "Whoa, Thunder!" But upon rescanning the barrier, it seemed as if its existence being unchanged by the spell was mocking Nero. And perhaps it was, as Nero had at that moment no idea what the barrier was in reality. A minute had passed, and he was no closer to breaking the invisible darkness. Perhaps as incentive, or perhaps to snuff out weakness, the wall showed itself, and began to move inward, frightening the boy at first, but as the seconds passed, the barrier did not stop, and the walls and the ceiling were becoming closer to him, and his fear was turning to terror as they did.
Consuming the room with his eyes, he discovered nothing else. He decided himself a failure, so accepting his fate, he assumed the fetal position, unaware there was anything else he could do. Finally the barrier reached him, and he contorted himself in several ways, screaming, before suddenly, he released within him a great flame of black, annihilating the dark walls, shattering them into thousands of shards before tearing apart even those shards into bits so small the naked eye could not see. But the flame could not be stopped, as in its insatiable hunger, it began to feast on the chambers of Nero's new master. Nero was at first mortified, but when he realized the flames were not harming him, he was comforted by the warmth. Another moment had passed, and two things had occurred to him. Firstly, he thought "ᴬʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉˢᵉ ᶠᶫᵃᵐᵉˢ ᵐᶦᶰᵉ﹖"and second, "ᵂʰᵃᵗ ʷᶦᶫᶫ ᵗʰᵉ ᵒᶫᵈ ᵐᵃᶰ ᵗʰᶦᶰᵏ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵉ ᵈᵉˢᵗʳᵒʸᶦᶰᵍ ʰᶦˢ ʳᵒᵒᵐ﹖" Not another second had passed before crystallized ice entirely enveloped the wooden door, which was now mostly black char. A white gloved hand burst through the ice and blackened wood, which grasped at the door, and pulled towards the body it belonged to, breaking the door into a few parts, most of which landed in the doorway, but one remaining on its hinge. Excors had been waiting just outside for the test to conclude, when he saw the fire inside. "Are you alright, my..." Excors began to speak, but he stopped when he observed the arson's dream that was now his chambers"My, my, was this flame of your doing?"Nero hid his face by directing it to the ashen floor of the decimated room, and muttered "Yes... sir..." "Well that's remarkable!" Excors told the young boy. "Would you like to see the death fields? There is much I wish to see burned there!"
Now...
Tremor
Two figures appeared on a ledge that overlooked the carnage of the town, both stepping out of the black portal that was the signature of a Blood Hero. Puppet, the guest of Nero, inquired of the fiery one "Whydid we stop Leon? Was it not our plan to get him ready?" "He was ready." Nero answered "Too ready. He untapped nearly all of his powers at once, and learned everything. I sought to make him aware of only what we needed, but our endgame was spoiled and it wasn't something he wanted anything to do with. At least we were lucky in that he forgot everything in Corpus." "Everything?!" The Necromancer shouted "You mean we have to start all over? THE LAST is too close, we can't start over now, what on Earth do you mean lucky?!" Nero held his wrinkled forehead in his hand, and said "Corpus told me it saw his intent before his memory was lost. Leon intended to run away with Stella, and with his newly untapped powers, he could find where we were hiding her father no matter what we did, and do exactly that. He had lost all desire to save anyone except those he loved, and even Corpus could not see how to fix that without stealing his memories. But you can put them back once we've won the day, can't you, Sorcerer Supreme?"
Puppet turned his head from the host of Fire, and told him "I am not the Sorcerer Supreme of the Earthrealm. I did not win. An enemy of the Last bested me." In truth, Leonidas had allowed his desire for freedom to prevent his true power to carry him through the battle, but he would keep that to himself. "You what?" Nero responded "How are we to complete the plan now? We cannot create the First's return without your increase!" Leonidas responded "The First did not inform me of anything else I was required to do besides feed it power! In any case, why did the thing choose me?" Seething, Nero said "I don't know! And the First is not a thing! It is VEA ITSELF! It's said the First is partial to the name Leonidas. That is your name, correct? Perhaps that's also why it chose Leon to... nevermind. What do we do, now?" The necromancer pondered the question. Finally, he came up with something of a solution. "A boy." Puppet answered "We need a boy. Without the proper power, we have to use a young boy to bridge the halves. And he must be linked to at least one of the two." "I know who. Corpus told me." Nero said. "You mean Cornelius told you." Leonidas corrected "You don't think this will bring him back, do you? I've told you before, he is doomed to haunt that place forever!" Nero spoke no more, but stared knives at the necromancer, who quickly said "I apologize. I did not ask before, but I will now. Why is it we have returned here?" But Nero was still silent, and took his time to approach the wrecked town.
On reaching it, Nero searched for something, but what, Puppet could not decipher. Several times, he asked Nero what it was, but every question was met with no answer. Leonidas asked once more, but instead of an answer, the entire town began to blaze from Nero's anger. Finally, every part of the town's remnant was obliterated, but Nero and Leonidas remained untouched. And there he saw it. A very tiny red sliver, that of a jewel. "I broke this off of the Bloodstar when I apprehended Leon. I had to reacquire it. Now let us leave." Nero's black door reappeared in front of him, and both he and the necromancer left the planet of terror behind them.
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