mystogan's CODEX of Creation

[mystogan]

so this chapter is continued from the previous chapter,my updates on the story will probably be late from here on because of the college, but please be patient and thank you for reading the story so far,
like always i will appreciate any of your thoughts on the story and pointing out my grammatical and writing mistakes.

the name of the chapter 7 is "Cure of Blood"

Spoiler for Cure of Blood:

Gilbert was lurking in the eastern borders of the woods at the outskirts of the city, he was going from one tree to another, he landed on a high rock scouting for something, there was a solitary brook passing by edge of the rock on which he was crouching, he came down to the water stream, dipped a finger in it and tasted the water then spit it out

(Gilbert)i’m near

He went past the current location on the ground he found drops of blood, he looked nearby and saw more such drops of it, he followed the trail of blood, after passing over some rocks and couple of broken down tress in which rodents and insects lived, beyond the huge fallen tree he saw the front side of a hut constructed on the base of the truck of a huge tree. He came at the entrance of the hut, he looked around the entrance, there were some creepers growing with support of the side wall on to the entrance and some wild flowers at the bottom of the door. At the higher middle of the door a Green colored crystal of diamond shape with an edge coming out was framed into the door, through the crystal nothing of the other side was visible.He knocked with two hits on the door,there was no response, he again knocked with three hits this time, even now there was no response but he heard a small creak of someone walking on a wooden floor, he then took out his pendant bearing the guild’s insignia and slipped it from under the door, a few moments later he heared the latch of the door being opened, he slowly pushed the there was no one infront in stepped in and went forward, after a few steps he felt a pipe like thing touching the back of his neck, he stopped and slowly turned around, he saw an aged woman pointing a musket at him and his locket hanging by the tip of the gun, he was sure that the woman he was looking for was old, the one infront of him had very few wrinkles on her face, telling her age from her appearance was almost impossible, she was wearing a long dark blue frock dress with frills at the bottom and dark brown cloak over it, a broad belt at her waist from which a crossbow was hanging,

“since when did you advanced to magical weaponry” he said, while taking off the his locket from the tip of the gun,

She lowered the gun,”one need to change and upgrade with time to survive”.

Gilbert looked around the hut it looked small from the outside but was very spacious from inside the huge tree was carved from the inside and a living place was constructed from within, he saw object hanging from the ceiling bottles and jars containing weird potions other stuff in a far off shelf, there was shelf off books near the desk, with books as thick as a tree branch and as old as the huge tree in which it was, there were other magical things in the hut like orbs, staff, gemstones,crystals.... etc and a fireplace by the side with a cooking pot hanging in it.
“but why such an unpleasant and suspicious welcome?”he asked

She walked to the desk to place the musket at the side of it,”these are tough times, you never know who comes at your doorstep with a smile on their face and a dagger up their sleeve”

“and what are you doing here?, i assume the city has a situation, shouldn’t you be there, just what filthy business of your guild brings you to my doorstep”she said with a poisonous tone

“don’t forget it’s your guild too Muriel-“

“it’s not”she cut his words in the middle.

“anyway here-”he said tossing a half filled beer bottle at her”it’s poisoned i want you to brew an antitode for it”

she opened the bottle and smelled it first,she then poured the drink into a saucer”don’t tell me this is about the liquor crisis in the city”, she placed the saucer on the desk, a small creature in silky white fur and black at it’s feet with pointy tail and ears, it seemed like a mutated cat created using alchemy,it came onto the desk on four legs, sniffed the drink and started licking it.

How cruel she was, thought Gilbert, making the creature drink poison just to test it, even after she was told about it.The creature drank the liquor and was on it’s way out of the window but stumbling on the way as it was high by drinking alchohol.

“the answer lies infront of you yet you can’t see it, and you people call yourself mages”she said in an insulting manner.

“what do you mean?”said the confused mage

“this drink is not poisoned but enchanted using blood magic”said Muriel

“how?”he asked

“tsk, you people don’t understand a simple statement of magic and yet you go around calling yourself a wizard”she said with distaste”hmph, someone enchanted some blood and mixed it with the manufacturing of the liquor, however the enchantment only works to weaken humans.Or in more simpler words so that you can understand, this drink is cursed”

“And how do i break it?”he asked

“yeah great, then you will ask me to come fight for you”

“i don’t give a rats ass about what business you messed up with the guild, but if you don’t mind your tone and come up with a solution fast or else......, i know there is a special Pendant of the guild’s insignia with your magic etched into it, in the guild’s vault”said Gilbert

“bastard!,how do you know?”she asked her expression had suddenly gotten serious

“look who’s asking the questions now, you don’t need to know how i know about it, just do as you are told and just may be something good might come out of it for you”he said

“fine, the blood magic is used to link the life of the one who’s blood was used for enchantment, if his blood stops then the curse will break, you have to kill the person who’s blood was used for the enchantment and curse will lose it’s effect on the people who were affected by it,they will be fine”she explained

“it better work then”he said as he turned around and was leaving
She stared at his back as he left the tree carved hut and on his mission.

Outside Lord Ferenz’s mansion, crowd of commoners had gathered at the gates. Curses were heard from the crowd there was rioting against the noble. The guards were trying their best to control them with minimum force, trying not to cause any casualties or damage to the crowd. At the corner of the street were Arwin and Emily.

“great now how do we get in”he said

“look there”she pointed towards the construction and architecture surrounding the mansion”you think that could do”

“may be it can help, good girl”he said as he patted on her head

Luckily for them this time he din’t had to go climbing walls and jumping from roofs, near the mansion compound wall was a clock tower on the outside, they went on the top floor and were on higher ground than the mansion walls.from above he saw some cables connecting in the interior.Arwin asked Emily to climb on his back and hold tight as if giving a piggy back ride, with the girl on his back he took a long leap above the mansion grounds, and was then falling down. As he closed to the ground,he grabbed the cable inside the mansion grounds and slashed it using his sword with the other hand, they swung across the compound area with the guards watching them with their mouths open, they swung across and landed right in the middle of the mansion gardens in front of the entrance. Both were on their feet and were surrounded with guards with their swords poking them from all directions.

“not me, he is the leader”said Emily

“hold it right there!, you are not allowed here indentify yourself and face the consequences”said the head guard captain of the royal guards of the Ferenz household, who was standing right infront of arwin, arwin took out the request parchment from Lord Ferenz and hung it on the tip of the captain’s sword

“your master wants to see us”

“that’s alright let them in”commanded an aged man in his forties, who was standing at the main door and was dressed in royal outfit consisting of long white coat with purple on the shoulders and a cravat over his shirt with a pair off polished black shoes, below his pants.

“you heard the man”said Arwin teasing the captain”now get these things off”he pushed away the swords with a gentle push of his fingers and made his way inside the mansion, with a rage filled stare from Captain

“My name is Bernard, i work for Lord Ferenz in his legal issues, this has been a sudden crisis on us”said the man as he was leading the two through the hall of the mansion that had marble flooring and arch windows in it’s walls and work of art hanging by some of the walls.They went up a grand staircase stair case with beautiful statues at it’s corners.

They entered the study of the Nobleman, “please be seated, Lord Ferenz shall join you soon”said Bernard and left the room

They sat on a green leather couch which was decorated with fine art by the edges of it,which was sure to be an expensive work,arwin saw around the room, a shelf of books at one corner and a fireplace near to it, at the centre of the end wall was a desk with papers and quill lying on it,behind the desk was large window and on the other side was shelf that held remarkable bottles of wine,brandy and other alchohol.

Arwin saw a bottle of wine on the table infront of him with a couple of glasses with it,of which one was half empty, he picked up the bottle”wonder if this is the same”he spoke

“it’s not”said a man at the door, he walked in and took the half filled glass and emptied it in his throat”you can trust the bottles of the mansion atleast”, he took the bottle from arwin and a glass from the table and poured a glass for arwin”please have some”he offered

“and does the little miss prefer wine or should i get brandy as per her age”he said”it is good to see you Dragon Nest mages”said the NobleLord

“wine please and i am not little”said Emily

“as you say dear”he said”my name is Ricardo Ferenz, i am pleased to meet you”

Ricardo Ferenz, head of the Ferenz household was a middle aged man, he had a clean shave, his hairs were light brown, silky and tucked backwards, he was dressed in rich clothes, a long cravat over his plain white shirt, a long green coat with black finishing, frills at the end of the sleeves and a silver broach with sapphire in it was pinned to his coat over his right breast

“My name is Arwin Klein i am put in charge for the response to your request of assistance”

“Mr.Klein as you already know the situation, more than half of the city is thirsty for my blood as my products has great caused damage to them”

“yes it has at my guild as well”said arwin

“it pains me to know that, i have been a supplier for the guild for many years and on the trust between the guild and my position as a noble, i am asking for your help”said Ricardo

“help in what?, it is a fact that you drinks have been fatal to people, what do you think doing would make things any better ”

“you are indeed right, but i do not stand for my company, it is a conspiracy against me and the city,to over throw me and take over the city as a single duke and the conspirators are none other than the Roussel famiy”he explained

“you mean the other highest noble family other than yours is plotting against you, and on what basis do you say it"enquired the young mage

Ricardo went to his desk and removed a couple of papers from the top right drawer of his desk and placed it infront of arwin”these are the receipts of withdrawal of few thousand crowns of the state treasury from Alberto Roussel’s account, they aren’t assigned to anyone, these are without doubt payment to a band of criminals for working out his dirty work of poisoning my drinks, he most probably mixed something within the raw material at the manufacturing site itself”

Arwin checked the receipts, he could indentify them to be the state treasury paperwork as he had seen them before somewhere else,”why would they go as far as harming the common people for the sake of business competition”he asked

“it’s not just that, you see Roussel and Ferenz have been rivals for generations, they were the first two higher nobles of this city, ever since this rivalry has been passed on”explained the Ferenz family head.

“so what do you need us to do now”asked Emily

“i want you to attack the Alberto Roussel and kill him, when the Roussel fall down i
shall prove my innocence to the people”

“why don’t you go ahead and prove it straight out, why do you need him dead

“asked the girl

“ah, little miss you are too young to understand the politics among the nobles, you see the people are angry right now, they see me as the criminal, Roussel has probably already spread even more dirty talk about me to provoke them, the people are on his side, no matter what i say now the public will not listen and he will have a back up plan to counter me, as it is a fact that the people were harmed by my drinks.If he dies there will be no one to oppose me and then i can put out the truth to the people”

“and you think killing him will do the job for you?”asked arwin

“Mr.Klein are you saying that you are against killing the man who is already responsible for the pain he caused to me and more importantly to the people, even deaths”

Arwin was considering the words that were befalling his ears, killing noble guards was one thing but killing an equal noble Duke was different, he had to be careful not to compromise the guild in the noble business, suddenly they heard loud voices from the outside, the three of them went to the balcony and saw the view of the market district, Bernard was standing upon a platform in the market protected with half a dozen of guards,

“My fellow citizens”he spoke, his voice louder than any in the market, as he used a magical crystal to amplify his voice,”we are facing a terrible time, but let me tell you that the man who has been providing us drinks of quality at cheap price is now being targeted, this is a conspiracy against the good noble Ferenz, who has done his best in providing the city it’s needs and to prosper the city, but alike every good man he has fallen victim to political conspiracy , this my friends is a attempt to overthrow Lord Ferenz and the people are been used in it”he said

“then how do you explain the fatal booze”said someone from the crowd and the
crowd supported by further adding agreeing voices to it.

“the drinks have been tampered, they have been poisoned and this act has been done by none other than the Duke family of the Roussel household, the Roussel family are the ones who has attacked our warehouses and soiled the drinks. They have not just brought harm to Lord Ferenz but also to you”a commotion had started in the public, he continued”Alberto Roussel is the villan, he sees not just to destroy the good Lord but also you!”

“stop this absurdity,you now target us as you have no way escape, this is baloney, the Roussel family guard shall not hear any of this nonsense”said the Guard captain of the royal guards of the Roussel Family, who had arrived with his party.”attack!”he ordered.

Guards of both nobles engaged in battle, the situation had gotten brutal, Bernard backed down and looking for a way out, he ran down the platform but was confronted by the Roussel Guard captain,Bernard pulled out a stiletto and charged on the captain, the captain drew out his sword and countered bernard’s strike, he caught bernards’s armed hand and buried his blade into his body,the captain pulled out his sword with a splash of blood coming out of his body, Bernard fell to his knees in agony, the captain swung his sword once at his neck and beheaded Bernard in front of the public,his head fell down rolling on the ground and blood spurting from the body, the other Ferenz guards were as well killed.the public bursted in an chaotic scramble screaming and running for their lives and not to get caught up. The guards of both the families had now engaged in a battle across the city.

Lord Ricardo and the mages witnessed the scene from the balcony and were silent for a moment.

“Now it seems we don’t have any choice but to kill Alberto Roussel to put an end to this, but now we are working under you word, any responsibility or any kind of action from the nobles should not fall on me or the guild”said arwin

“the responsibility is completely mine, the guild already had signed papers from me”said Ricardo

“alright then”said arwin,the young adult and the little girl got up and made their way out of the room.

“Mr.Klein”Ricardo called out, arwin paused for a moment”i expect you keep your guild’s name, failure is not an option in this, as for now we are at war”
.
.
to be continued....

[Vexx]

I think watching you improve over the seven chapters is almost as interesting as the story. Massive improvements.

I'd recommend you go back and overhaul the first few chapters so they match the quality of your more recent chapters, in terms of story content, descriptions, and formatting.

You're not using 'standard grammar rules' (especially on dialog) but you're very consistent so it is quite easy to read anyway.

For the moment, I'd suggest putting a space outside of quote marks:

“Mr.Klein”Ricardo called out, ---> "Mr. Klein!" Ricardo called out,

amplify his voice,”we are facing ---> amplify his voice. "We are facing

Makes it a little easier to read.

Make use of punctuation to end sentences, especially for questions or shouts:

"What the hell!?"
"Where might you be going?"
"That's quite a cat."
"Maybe. What are ... oh my goodness!"

The story is a good fast paced read.

[mystogan]

^first of all thanks millions for replying and giving your thoughts about this
and by overhauling the first few chapters, do you mean that the quality of the first chapters was better than the recent ones, i agree that i have reduced the amount of surrounding description but that is because i thought that general set up would have been created in the mind by the time you reach the 7th chapter and also because of the content if you go into more detail descriptions then it will become too long, i try to keep it as short as possible without compromising the story,because if it's too long people might not read it

and the reason i do not put spaces after commas and at the conversation is also the same to save space,

and i will try to make good use of the punctuation from now

[Vexx]

I actually like descriptive text, it helps the reader visualize the scene. Mostly I just meant the formatting. If you compare the first and last chapters - the first one has all the text crammed together. It is just hard to read. The last chapter makes good use of white space to help group dialog and descriptions.

Yeah, you shouldn't have to repeat descriptions after the first few times. You might say what the character is wearing or if they've changed their hair but otherwise you should only need facial expressions.

I'll admit I'm more prone to Tolkien style writing - I say what the weather is like, the dust in the air, etc. For action writing, that doesn't work quite as well. The only thing I don't like to see is a page of dialog where I lose track of who is saying what - there's a happy medium.

[mystogan]

well i hope my writing live upto your liking,
mind if i ask exactly how have you pictured the universe up till now, don't need to explain in detail words you can give examples of other popular works like, novels or movies or anime and tell which one is similar to your imagination of this universe
and what more would you like to see in it.

[Vexx]

Hang on ... not ignoring you. Just very distracted by crocodiles in the swamp :0

[mystogan]

first of all thank you a million to all those who read this story and for so many views,
i have been very busy with my end-sem finals, so could not post further chapters, but i am almost over with my finals and now i have time to take the story further, i have already written the next two chapters only editing is remaining and they will be up soon,
soon i will be also posting some other details about my writing and inspirations so that you can have a better view of this universe

as usual i'd like to know your thoughts on this and i hope my writing has improved and less mistakes and i hope you enjoy reading this

so i have the 8th chapter "A City at War"

Spoiler for Chapter 8: A City at War:

The city once lively and noisy with the chatter of people, was now noisy with the chatter of blades, , where the markets and streets were filled with people were now filled with men killing each other, from where aroma of delicacies and fragrance of perfumes and flowers, now there was only the smell of smoke, blood and death.

The battle took place on most of the main points in the city, at every main square, market, gathering spots, among the battle of the nobles it wasn’t just their men who fell the ground never to get up again, the common people suffered collateral damage.

Arwin and Emily were running through the narrow back alleys of the city trying to avoid confrontation with the noble guards. They were somewhere in the in alleys of residential colonies, the doors and windows of the houses were tight shut and locked as if no life ever lived there but the reality was that, inside these houses the people were taking shelter for safety and hiding in fear, where the father of a family looked out for any threat around their house and the mother consoled the child that everything is going be alright

(Arwin)what else can they do, how helpless and .....useless

The duo soon met a dead end with a high wall blocking their way
“great, now what do we do”said Emily, Arwin looked around and saw that a corner of the roof of one of the side walls was broken and under repair, and small flower pots were hanging from the roof as decoration.

“get out of here, what else” he said, the alley was quite narrow and the side walls were close enough for arwin to make his way to the top, he jumped at one of the walls and grabbed the corner of a window, he placed his feet against the wall with a push and jumped on the opposite side and grabbed the another window, did the same on that side and back to the same side, he climbed a height in a zig zag pattern between the walls and grabbed the base of a balcony and climbed in it. He jumped from the balcony along the wall and caught one of the hanging flower pot at the corner of the roof, he swung across and got to the other edge of the roof. He grabbed the roof tiles and pulled himself up. He surveyed the roof and as he expected found a ladder on the roof because if the roof was under repair then someone would surely need a ladder to climb to the top, he placed the ladder by the side and slide it down for Emily to come up.

“well that was quick”she said

“a mere wall is not enough to stop me”he said and lead on the way on the roof

“huh, show off”she said

They were going on the roof got from one building to another as most of the commoners houses were connected with parallel metal bars it was easy to do so, from above they saw at the opposite side of their way, there was a figure in the market district who was leading a part of the Roussel guards, but himself was not wearing armor or uniform but instead was dressed in rich noble clothes, it was a man in his mid twenties, he was leading the party, but instead of a any weapon used magic, blasts of fiery red flame escaped his palm and stream of liquid red flame lightened the bodies of his enemies,

“who is the hell is the person”said awrin
“he is using magic, looks like the roussel have hired mages from other guild as well”said emily

(Arwin)but that doesn’t look like a mage, dressed in noble attire like that.

“anyway, we must move and quickly to our task”said arwin soon they got back to the ground they were going through the main streets.

The local gangs took advantage of the commotion and attacked the guards at random, some gangs fought against the rival gangs and some attacked the civilians to loot them. As they were going through the streets they saw random bodies of noble guards, thugs and commoners lying by the side of the road beaten stabbed with weapons and drenched in blood, there were splashes of blood on the ground and walls, at the far wall arwin saw the body of a guard hanged by the balcony from the throat using a wire, he had stabs in his torso and a stream of blood dripping from his mouth, this sight created uneasiness in arwin’s stomach, he speeded up and passed the sight, at the corner of the building, a small kid was standing on a pile of dead bodies and crying loudly but his voice couldn’t be heard by anyone around him, the kid was just standing there and crying, arwin saw it from a far, another war party of guard came near the kid fighting each other but the kid was non-existent to them, the kid was trampled in the midst of all fighting, arwin was froze by the horror of the sight and couldn’t do anything but saw the kid getting crushed under the feet of the men, arwin got near the scene and saw the body of the same kid who was crying before at the top of his voice now lay among the same pile of dead bodies on which he was standing, body crushed marinated in blood, as arwin saw this he quickly broke away from emily and went behind a nearby building, emily followed and behind building saw arwin was bent over, his eyes were wide in fear and horror, he grasped his mouth tightly with his palm as to avoid screaming or to avoid puking, he was breathing heavily and sweating,

He himself had killed before, but killing a single man or killing in a fight was different than what he saw, his kill would be quick with a stab in the heart ,but this sight of gore ,massacre and death had scared him,from a distance emily saw arwin’s reaction even after witnessing the same things as him she wasn’t scared at all, even though being younger to him.

(Emily)huh, he acts all cool infront of others and is disturbed at such a sight, he acts strong and is still a weak child inside.................tsk, i never knew he was such a pussy.

After few moments he got straight and got hold of himself, cleared his mind and focused at the task at hand got back to emily and continued on his mission

“are you okay”she asked
“i am perfectly fine”he said, there was again the serious and cool expression of his face.

They came across a big open space which would serve for gatherings and functions on special occasion for the people, there were many guards of the Ferenz and Roussel battling it out,

“it’s probably good that we don’t expose our presence”said arwin while the two were hiding behind a cart

“then how are we suppose to get to the other side”asked Emily

“i am working on it”he replied, a metal orb shining came rolling under the cart behind which they were hiding, arwin looked at it for a moment

“Fuck!, ....”he sprang away and pulled Emily with him, and an explosion followed, they were thrown away even more, they fell in the open,he fell bruised all over, next to him Emily with a few scratches

“get up quick!, we got to break our way through”he said picking her up

They were running from between the battle, he drew out the Greywand and blocked away random swings of weapons coming at him, the guards were attacking anyone other than their party randomly, a Ferenz guard attacked him, he deflected the attack, locked his armed hand in his own arms, moved in round and broke his arm, another Roussel guard came at him, the guard swung his large spear , arwin slide on his knees bent backwards and slide below the moving spear, he fixed his hand on the ground and with a swipe kick threw the guard on the ground, arwin quickly got up and buried his sword in the guard, which was blazing with black lightning, after another few such encounters and defending and attacking still while moving forward they got to the other side.

They got out of the big square and were on the other side and more near to the Roussel mansion,as they progressed through the street they found less carnage,as they were moving ahead suddenly they stopped, ahead of them was a special party with Head Captain of the Roussel Nobel guards on the lead, with no other way around they got closer to the special party,

“get ready,i want you to back me up”he slowly said to Emily in low tone”i won’t be able to fight these many at the same time”
“alright”she said

As they walked into the party, the captain stepped forward, infront of him was the young mage dressed in black long coat jacket, over an untucked chocolate brown shirt,a black wrist band on his right wrist with the Dragon Nest Guild’s insignia framed into it and holding his sword shining green and blazing with black lightning, behind a few yards of him was a little mage girl,

“My Master expected the traitor to hire some magicians doing tricks to defend himself, but i din’t expected it to be a young boy and a girl child”said the captain with a chuckle

“i am enough to take on you boot licking nobles slaves”said arwin

“huh, fuck off boy. My name is Flint i am the Head Captain of the Roussel noble guards and i ain’t got time to waste on you”said captain Flint”shouldn’t you just go ......and play with your cock instead of a sword”the other guard start laughing and cheering on the captain

“i bet you can’t even do that since you don’t have one”said awrin, even though he was saying, inside his heart was beating heavily, and his limbs were shaking

“you sure talk a lot for your age and size, looks like i’ll have to teach you the hard way, how to talk with adults ”said Flint

The captain with 6 other guards with him were advancing towards arwin while he held his ground, then next moment, arwin and the special party sprinted towards each other , from one side Captain Flint with his 6 other special guards with their weapons out, the captain drew a different sword with a broad blade, red colored with white at it’s edges, a blue crystal studded in it’s hilt and runes written on the blade, from other side arwin alone was running towards them with the Greywand out from which the black lightning was spilling like liquid.when they came close a force field around arwin got formed and pushed all the guards away except the captain.
(Emily)what the..did he cancel my magic..?
Flint and Arwin were the only two closing towards each other, the next moment they were face to face, flint started with a horizontal swing, arwin placed the point of greywand in the ground and pushed himself up, evading the attack he flipped over flint and landed on his other side,242 made another strike, arwin blocked, but the swing was too powerful and pushed arwin behind, arwin swung his sword and fired an arc of black lightning towards flint, he countered the lightning with his sword and cut through it to arwin’s surprise,arwin attacked with a straight strike, flint deflected it, turned in a circular motion and attacked with a powerful swing, realizing blocking the attack will do no good arwin dodged it with a backflip and took a high jumped towards flint, and attacked from above, flint just moved slightly and the greywand went barely touching him, with arwin defenceless in the air, flint thrusted his sword into arwin’s body

Emily pushed arwin with the force field around him out of the trajectory,arwin fell to the ground but was saved from the Captain’s sword.Flint looked behind and saw the small girl wasn’t just standing at a distance, arwin was lying on the ground on his back, a guard from the other six attacked arwin,he swung his legs above him and kicked the armed hand of the guard and got on his feet, another one came from behind and one from the side, arwin buried the tip of his blade on the ground and blasted black lightning around him which pushed away the guards dealing moderate damage, one of them appraoched arwin head on with another guard behind the one in front, arwin countered the first and pulled him down, rolled over his back and kicked the second one, the second one quickly attacked, arwin blocked his attack and caught his hand twisted around blocked the attack of the first guard from behind using the second’s hand, he released the arm hold, bent on his knee and stretched his hands in the opposite direction, with greywand going through one of the guard and a bolt of black lightning into the another guard. During the entire time arwin wasn’t able to fend off all the blows few bounced of his body due to the force field Emily placed around him.

“there!, the girl!, get her!”yelled the captain to the guards.arwin quickly sprinted towards Emily to defend her ,two out of the remaining four approached Emily,and other two charged to stop arwin, he stopped when he saw two of them coming at him,the other two reached Emily and attacked her with a long javelin and a war hammer, both bounced off from the her own protective shield,the blows kept coming and the shield cracked and was slowly shattering,arwin was fencing with the other two and the captain advancing towards him, he pushed the guards and made a quick hand gesture, a mage circle appeared beneath Arwin and another behind Emily, instantly arwin was transported behind Emily, before anyone could see what happened he launched out a big spell

“river of lightning”,as Emily was protected with her force field, he covered the two guards attacking and her as well in the range of his spell as he was now standing behind her, a large wave black lightning erupted from arwin’s hands and struck the guards dead, if not dead atleast put them unconscious for long.
Flint approached Emily but was blocked by arwin, the other two guards went the way round and surrounded Emily sideways, her force was broken now because of arwin’s attack, as the two guards closed in she she erupted a massive force field from her body throwing off everyone around her, the two guards were slammed into the buildings at either side of the street, arwin and Flint were thrown ahead on the street, now of the special party only the head captain remained

“you’ll pay with your, life for my men”he said grinding his teeth in anger

Arwin stayed silent and tried to keep calm, both broke out at each other in a frenzy of sword fighting, flint easily deflected arwin attacks due to his massive sword, flint swiped his sword, arwin dodged with a small jump and kicked the captain in chest with a round up kick in the air, the captain was pushed back, arwin fired a bolt of lightning, flint blocked it with his blade, closed in and attacked arwin with a heavy blow from above, arwin blocked but due to the force of it, fell to the ground, without wasting a moment flint tried to bury his sword on the fallen mage, but a mage circle appeared beneath arwin and he appeared behind flint, he attack the captain with a backstab but the captain blocked from behind , flint bend down and turned around with an upward blow arwin stepped back but the blade made a slight cut from the right side of his chin to his right cheek and left him defenceless, flint kicked him and threw him back. Arwin held himself and placed his palm on the ground, a mage circle appeared under flint’s feet which was about to go off in a big explosion, flint pierced the circle with his sword and twisted it, which broke the circle into pieces, the captain’s sword was blazing with red magic, arwin was in shock to his realization, flint quickly stepped ahead and made for a straight strike into arwin’s body , Emily placed a force field before him at some distance,the captain’s sword sliced the shield like butter. Arwin was still left in shock, Emily quickly casted a spell on herself to amplify her movements immensely for a short time, she quickly moved towards him, flint’s strike was just a hands distance from arwin’s torso, Emily dashed into arwin and fell aside with him evading the strike,

“are you out of your mind?!”she said

That was when arwin had realised he couldn’t beat the captain in a sword fight or with magic

“his sword, it’s nullifying all our magic”said arwin with a fright in his voice

“what!?”she said

“it seems you have figured it out”said the captain”that’s right, this sword of mine is specially made to battle a mage,it nullifies all the magic, you think i’d come unprepared “

“damn it!, he is too skilled for me to defeat him in a sword fight and we cannot attack him head on with our magic”said arwin with nervousness”without our magic there is no way we could defeat him”

“there has to be a way”said Emily who was also nervous now, Arwin was thinking all the possible ways he could, but none he could come up with.

“Emily”he slowly spoke”i want you to run from here”

“what are you saying, you want me abandon you, no way i- “

“listen!, do it, run but don’t go far,get away from this site and hide yourself from the normal view, do as i say”he explained

“tsk, alright”she said

The two got up and stood against the captain, suddenly emily broke off and ran towards the side building and turned from the corner and was out of sight,

“being the brave one to let the girl escape, but she will die either way”said the captain

Arwin placed his sword back by his belt which was now of no use to him and suddenly broke into a run in opposite direction of Emily followed by the captain, arwin went through the streets and was on the side of the river, the captain was quickly catching up to him, ahead of him he saw a bridge


he quickly went over the bridge and stopped and so did the captain, both were on the bridge now,

“and i thought you would fight like a real warrior”said flint

“that’s not it,i was not acting brave by letting her get away at all, i let her get away first to make sure that when i run you would follow me”said arwin with a grin.

“what do you mean?”asked flint in confusion,

Arwin quickly placed a palm on the ground a mage circle appeared beneath his palm and the bridge crumbled into pieces of concrete and dust and both fell below, the captain splashed into the water while arwin created an air platform and stood above the surface of the water, the water flowed into the captain’s armor and he was wet from head to toe, he was looking for something grab but he saw only the young mage above him,

“you can very well cancel my magic with your sword, but you can’t control your surroundings, can you “

“you fucking son of a whore!”yelled the captain , arwin created the lightning in his palm and dipped it into the water, and electrocuted the Head captain of the
Roussel household, after a while only his body remained floating on the water with smoke rising from it, arwin took the captain’s sword placed it on the ground and broke the crystal on it’s hilt with the Greywand, making the massive sword useless.

Emily stepped infront of him

“that was nicely done and for a moment i thought you were actually sacrificing yourself for me”she said

“please, i would rather use you as a shield “said arwin with humor

“ya very funny”she said,it was dusk, they could see the sun setting at the horizon, that spread a golden color in the skies.

“come on now, we are there”he looked between the buildings and could see the Roussel mansion.

[mystogan]

the story, the characters, the plot are all my own thoughts but here are some of my inspirations for the universe.

Anime: Fairy Tail
Books: Lies of Locke Lamora
Game: Assassin's Creed(2,brotherhood)

and the 9th chapter "The Roussel"

Spoiler for Chapter 9: The Roussel:

“What!?”exclaimed Erica

“yes, arwin and emily have gone to the Ferenz mansion, they are probably trying to work things out and Gilbert returned, he said he now knew what the cure is and quickly left”explained Irena

Marco and Erica had returned from their meeting at Agarot with the council and now witnessed the situation, the guild and the city was in

“alright i shall at once join them” said Erica and was making for the guild entrance

“No, wait” said the master “the job has been assigned to them let’s see whether they succeed in it, let’s wait here for now”

“but master, we can’t let the city’s fate be in the hands of those idiots, people are dying out there, if he fails , if he-“

“calm down Erica, if he fails there are other ways to handle it, and besides most of are mages are bed ridden, the war hasn’t reached here, so we need someone here to defend the guild in case that happens. For now wait here is all we can do” said the master.

It was starting to get dark slowly. At the western edges away from the main city was ware house area, in which a strip of ware houses was owned by the Lord Ricardo Ferenz, somewhere around the ware houses a young mage was lurking with lighting his way with a blue flame in his palm, he was surveying the Ferenz liquor storage house, at the main war house, a party of Ferenz guard were posted to their duty,

(Gilbert)i can’t just walk upfront and ask them for information, specially now they will be extra careful

At the entrance of the ware house four guards were posted, suddenly the guard heard some noise that caught their attention, they heard the sound of moaning of a young woman in pleasure,

“hey you hear that looks like someone couldn’t wait till they got home” said one of the guard with a grin

“looks like it is coming from behind that warehouse over there” said another “let’s go take a peek” they broke of their position
“hey stop!”said the incharge “don’t you understand that we are in a critical situation, not even a slightest mistake will not be tolerated”
“oh come boss just a little while, there is no one here it’ll be alright” said the guard

The voice of the woman grew louder and intense, and faces of the guards grew more desperate and their pants grew tighter with their rising manhood.

“you here that boss, it’s as if they are calling us to watch” said another guard

“alright you people wait and guard here, i’ll go and check what this noise is” said the incharge



“aww, no fair boss!, you want all the fun to your self” said the guard
“hey someone needs to guard here, i’ll be back soon” said the incharge

Much as gilbert had expected that the one with the highest authority will try to hog the fun for himself, the incharge guard went to the opposite building to enjoy the show, he went behind and turned around the corner away from the sight of the other guards, he reached the sight and found a crystal glowing in the dark, he picked it up

“what the fuck is this” said the confused head guard, suddenly a drop kick landed on him from above gilbert quickly grabbed the neck of the head guard landed a few magic infused punches in his guts, he slamed him into wall, he strangled his throat not to kill but just enough so that he couldn’t shout.

“hey listen to me, now answer what i ask” said gilbert in a raged voice

“fuck you motherfucker” said the head guard in compressed and tiny voice, gilbert slamed his head in the wall again

“you hear that” said a guard where the guard were waiting” looks like it’s getting wild” he said

“now answer me” said gilbert

“wait, who are you what do you want” said the head guard in a tiny fearful voice

“i want information” said gilbert “did anything unusual occur within the past few days with the supplies and good of Lord Ferenz”

“i don’t know what you are talking about” he replied, gilbert landed another punch in his gut

“ok, ok, ...yes yes about two days ago, a party of roussel guards came here, they beat us down, but when we recovered nothing was stolen or damaged and .....”

“and ?”asked gilbert

“there was someone with them a young man in mid twenties in rich noble clothes leading the party, he was the one who first attacked us with magical red flame, it saw all blurry but he did something, he...he poured a small flask of blood on a parchment and then ....then i don’t know anything, ..please don’t kill me!”

“alright then” said gilbert, gilbert took the glowing crystal and turned it and increased the volume and left it on the ground

“oh! yes, oh! God!,... yes yes, ....ah..ah..ah.ah!!”were the words the guards were
hearing from their posts

“oh man”said one of the guard”you hear that, they are doing it pretty hard, damn it! Why hasn’t boss returned yet”he said

“let’s see now”said another guard, all the guards moved from their posts and went to the scene, there they found their head captain was all naked except for his undies, and was all tied up with a piece of cloth of his own clothes stuffed in his mouth and tied.

“Boss!!, what happened to you!?

Gilbert was going over the roofs in the city, there were no guards on the roof or the ground to stop him, he saw that most of the fight was over at the main points, there was smoke rising from some parts and a few parts were lit by red flame. The guards had battled out dealing great damage on both sides, only at few sites the battle still remained.

(Gilbert) so she was right someone did curse the liquor, and that someone was leading a party of the Roussel guards, there is no doubt in it, i have to kill that
“someone” member of the Roussel family.

At the Roussel mansion, the area was secured from all the fighting and many of the guards were stationed at every corner, arwin and emily were hiding in a narrow dark alley in the neighbourhood of the noble mansion, a guard was checking the area, he went through the alleys to make sure no one breaches the security, as he was patrolling he was suddenly pulled in the dark and struck unconscious by an unknown figure, at the gates of the mansion an injured dark brown haired guard was heading towards he entrance he, the incharge captain stopped him,

“hold on!, what happened to you?”the captain saw the guard was bleeding from him temple and a cut at the right side of his chin, half of his face was covered with bandage to prevent the bleeding from his head,

“Captain, my unit was attacked by a mage, probably hired by the Ferenz, the mages killed all i managed to escape but my face...., also the head captain is dead” said the brown haired guard

“what!?, the head captain....”, this news caused a ruckus in the guards which lowered their confidence, it caught the attention of all the guards there, everyone passing comments and discussing on the topic

“everyone!, be at your stations” said the incharge captain to control the guards and keep them steady, the brown haired guard fell to his knees in pain.

“you, go the infirmary and get yourself fixed, we will now need every arm we can”he ordered

The injured brown haired guard entered the mansion grounds, all the security was working outside which left almost no security in the insides, he went in the backyard of the mansion, arwin removed the roussel guard uniform and tore off the bandaged from his face, he had successfully infiltrated the mansion and breached it’s defences, behind he found a small back door and entered into the back entrance to the kitchen, he found the chef and a couple of other cooks, before anyone could react he quickly casted a spell and blasted a smoke screen of black smoke in the kitchen, everyone was stunned at their places, arwin used another spell and quickly transported from one person to another and knocked them unconscious, the smoke cleared and he was left alone in the kitchen on his feet, he looked around and found the kitchen was impressive, stacked with vegetables, meat and booze and had all the machinery and tools required for a real royal kitchen to cook real royal delicacies. He found some dishes of shrimps, lamb, fish on the main table, he grabbed a bottle wine which was a different production from the ferenz, took a few bites and few sips of wine and relaxed for a while, he was exhausted by all the fighting and running from the day, if only there was a bed in the kitchen he would has dozed off, but he was now very close to completing his mission, he got up was made for the door inside.


“i’ll finish this real quick now” he spoke to himself

He opened the door, to his luck there was no one outside, he slipped in to the hallway and blended into the noble house, the Roussel mansion was at par with the Ferenz mansion in it’s style, royalty and wealth, there were great hallways leading to various parts of the mansion, there were sculptures and paintings around, marble floored, he went from one direction to another and finally reached the great hall which had a fountain right in the middle, plants which were given various shapes at the corner, the floor was covered with velvet carpet, the great hall was a perfect place to have a grand royal party, on the other end he saw a grand staircase which led to the upper floor, he saw a few servants and a couple of guards on the opposite side going about their business, he quickly took cover behind some plants and hid himself, after they were gone he moved in the hall whirling around the decoration and rolling the floor, he went over the staircase to the upper floor,

(Arwin)now where will i find him, at a time like this he would be either in his bedroom or at a command hall, but how do i enter such a room, it is surely to guarded at the entrance

Alberto Roussel the head of the Roussel family, was resting in his arm chair at a long meeting table, in the meeting hall of his mansion along with a few advisors sitting beside him,they sat close discussing the current situation, the hall was lit only around them with magical orbs hanging in mid air, the corners where filled with darkness of the night and the moonlight was shining entering from the huge arch window behind the table which covered almost the entire wall, there were other windows at the other walls facing the backyard of the mansion.

As they were discussing, one of the servant messenger rushed in

“master i am sorry for barging in, but i have urgent news, the Head Captain Flint is dead”said the messenger

“what!?, ........where is Charles” asked Alberto

“the young master is leading his party in the battle,.........and master there is something else,....someone has infiltrated the mansion, one of the servants found the cooks and a servant unconscious in the kitchen”

“what!?”said alberto in disbelief, ”how did this happen!? , where were the guards!, ....call everyone in and find him now!”he yelled

“yes master, at once” said the messenger and went running

“......and listen” he called, the messenger stopped” summon Charles back, i need him here”

“yes master”

Arwin was wandering through the mansion in stealth avoiding the servants and the guards, hiding in the dark or using magic to camouflage himself in the surroundings, he avoided killing them as more dead bodies lying around would create more trouble .After sometime he noticed the guards activities had increased inside, he realized that his cover was blown and they were aware of an uninvited guest in the house. At the end of a hallway he found a window , he went to it and looked out, he saw the backyard of the mansion below, he looked up and saw another large window on the second floor, from there he could see some lights and some voices, the room above was a happening one, he looked around and saw the outer walls were made of stone masonry, he climbed out of the window and grabbed it’s edge, above was a line of lanterns hanging by rods lighting the exterior, he jumped and grabbed and pulled himself on it, he climbed above further along the wall, holding on the edges of the stones used for the construction, in sometime he came to the above window and peeped inside and saw the head of Roussel household along with his advisors.

As their meeting continued one of the advisor got up and came to a backyard window to get some fresh air, he opened the window a double kick landed on his face from above, he fell back and arwin stepped inside the meeting hall, arwin blasted another smoke screen and the room was filled with black smoke, Alberto stood still in his place frightened after a few moments the smoke cleared and he saw his advisors fallen to the ground and in front of him stood young mage his black coat and hair flying by the wind coming from the window and shining green eyes in the dark like a demon,

“Guards!, Guards!”he cried, there was smacking on the entrance but it was magically sealed now

“w-who are you, what do you want?”he asked, his feet trembling

“you are the one responsible for this chaos, you poisoned the city and the guild” said arwin

“what are you talking about!?, you stupid man”said Alberto

“oh but i also need to thank you for doing so, atleast some deserved to be poisoned” said arwin referring to Gus, “anyway, you are needed dead, i am just doing my job”said arwin and stepped ahead

“you fool, you don’t understand!, you-“ before Alberto could complete his words arwin was standing close to him and the Greywand was half way through Alberto Roussel’s body, a stream a hot blood from the noble man ran along the sword and dripped on the floor, in the dark silence the drops of blood falling in the floor was the only sound that could be heard.

[mystogan]

the 10th chapter, just a note, the action in this chapter might be complicated,i mean their moves and all,
and as usual tell my mistakes and your thoughts

Chapter 10: "The Flame Wizard"

Spoiler for Chapter 10: The Flame Wizard:

It was the darkest hour of the night, the long going war between the nobles had ended and now the city remained in the after math of a war,smoke rising from various places many architectures damaged and bodies of people piled at places , in one of the noble house the floor flooded with the blood of it’s master

Arwin pulled out his sword and watched Alberto roussel at the brink of death, from a backyard window another figure with coal black hairs and golden eyes jumped in,

“what are you doing here-!?” exclaimed arwin in confusion, Gilbert dashed at arwin and pushed him back

“hey!, you messed up my dressing, what the hell is wrong with you !?”said arwin

“you fool, you killed the wrong person, killing him will not accomplish anything” said gilbert

“what are you saying i was assigned this mission, now get out of the way” said arwin pushing him aside

“you don’t understand --, this is---“

Both broke into an argument each trying explain their side of the story, suddenly they felt a change in the atmosphere around them, the glass wall on the other edge of the room blasted and shattered away ,the blast blew off the roof as well, a young man in his mid twenties dressed in rich noble clothing stepped in the room from the blast, the man saw the head of the roussel family on the floor with stream of his blood flowing from his body , he quickly came the Alberto and held him in his arms.

“Father!, what happened, what...what...”

“ch..cha...rles”said the dying man, he pointed towards the two magi stood across the room

“Father hang in there!..., i’ll get you out of this”said the young master with tears rolling down his eyes

Arwin and Gilbert saw the scene and made a move to escape the room, a stream of red flame flowed in the hall and encircled them, they saw the heir of the Roussel standing before them, his expensive clothes were now stained with blood of his father, his eyes burning with rage like the red flame surrounding them

“you will pay for this”he said and launched a huge fireball at the two dealing moderate damage which threw them back, both wizards fell back by the attack

“damn...it, how is it that a noble such as him is able to use magic at this level”said arwin struggling to get up on his feet

“just because he is royalty doesn’t mean he is restricted to magic” said gilbert

Charles appeared behind gilbert and hit him in the neck, gilbert used an elbow block but fell back, Charles sent another stream of red fire towards arwin,he dodged, Charles got near arwin, he saw gilbert coming at him, he grabbed arwin and threw him at gilbert , both crashing to the floor,Charles launched a flaming tornado around them to roast them alive, gilbert saw his attack and cancelled it by a similar blue flame emitting from his hands.

Gilbert and Charles saw each other, both the flame wizards shared a cold stare for a moment, Gilbert covered his body in blue flames, Charles did the same with his red flames, both launched upwards cracking the floor below them and bursting the roof above and escaped into the sky like a ball of red and blue fire,half of the mansion was on fire and crumbling away with the guards running in confusion, arwin took his chance and exited the Roussel grounds as well.

The war had left some parts of the city in ashes, the streets foiled with blood and corpses, the people were now moving out of their houses and cleaning up the mess. In the dark sky above them they heard the sound of flame bursting and saw two balls of fire, a red and a blue in the sky moving and clashing against each other, they people pointed towards the sky and saw the abnormal activity with astonishment. They followed the balls of fire to where they landed in the city.
Gilbert and Charles were enveloped in their fires and clashing each other while going over the rooftops of the city, they landed on a concrete bridge which connected two buildings in the air like an archway, as they landed they put out the fires around them,

“Now you die wizard!”said Charles

“it was you wasn’t it, the nobleman in mid-twenties dressed in rich clothes “said gilbert” you were the one who infiltrated the warehouse of the Ferenz and cursed the liquor stored over there”

“i don’t care what you are accusing me off, it doesn’t matter now ‘cause you’ll be dead in a few moments”said Charles, he sprinted towards gilbert,gilbert launched a blue fire ball towards him, Charles bursted flame below him that propelled him higher into the air , he flipped in mid air and landed behind gilbert ,both swiftly turned around and clashed with a blazing fist of red and blue, Charles used a round house kick glbert ducked and used a swipe kick, Charles jumped above parallel to the floor and spit fire from his mouth, gilbert rolled over and evaded the red flames, Charles landed and closed in to gilbert, Charles used blazing side kick, gilbert bend over and dodged then made a hand stand and kicked in Charles face with the back of his leg, Charles fell back, gilbert got to his feet and lunged toward Charles with his fists blazing, Charles moved back an inch, gilberts fist went past his face, Charles caught his arm quickly twisted it behind his back, placed his hand on gilbert’s back and launched a fireball, gilbert fell ahead with the blast of fire on his back,he got to his feet while Charles attacked with a blazing fist with his right hand, gilbert fired up his right hand with blue fire, he caught Charles’s attack with his right hand,he rolled on charles’s right arm,placed his left arm on his shoulder and held his head from behind , he released his right arm and placed his flaming right palm infront of his face and fired a fire ball directly on his face, Charles went flying and crashed to the floor,

blood was running down gilbert’s arm from his shoulder due to the blast on his back, and his face covered with a few scratches, Charles stood against him with a mark of shoe on the bridge of his nose and a few red burns on his face and neck, both broke towards each other, gilbert caught his punch his palm and hit the inner side of his with his free hand , Charles hit gilbert using his other hand with a blazing fist in his lower right abdomen, gilbert had caught charles’s right arm in his left palm, he placed his palm infront of face and fired a fire ball, Charles hit his palm with elbow of his free hand, the fire ball went from the side of his face barely grazing and burning a few strands of his hair, gilbert had held Charles right hand Charles grabbed gilbert’s same hand, ducked below and placed the palm of his free hand on gilbert’s torso, gilbert saw what’s coming he quickly caught Charles free hand and twisted, both twisted around each other like a dance move and got stuck back to back, gilbert held his hand in the open and a stream of red fire emitted from his palm, both released their holds and stepped back,

“you’re quite good with your hands, for a man dressed in royalty”said gilbert,

“i only have one question” said Charles with rage in his voice “...why did you kill my father?”

“that question is meaningless, because i am not the one who killed your father” said gilbert “but i will kill you,... today is the day your clan perishes!” he added with equal anger

“let’s see if you are as good with magic”,said gilbert,he got some distance and placed his stretched palms together and cast the spell,”river of flames”, a blue mage circle appeared infront on his palms and fired large stream of flames from it, Charles placed his hand on the ground and a red magic circle appeared infront of him, a huge wall of red flames rose from the floor and blocked the blue fire

It had gotten dawn and a thin line of the sun could be seen rising from the far horizon, during the entire fight the people of the city from the surrounding area had gathered below the archway and witnessed the fight,

They both broke their spell, gilbert placed his hands on the ground several mage circles appeared on the floor for a moment and disappeared, Charles made a hand sign and emitted a several streams of red fire, gilbert fired an arc of blue flames to slice the red streams, the stream spit and still advanced towards gilbert, he quickly rolled aside to dodge the one from the front, another came from above, he quickly blasted blue flames on his hand and held it up which shielded him, another one hit him from side, he blasted his flames on his both sides to counter the next two, one hit him from the back and he fell ahead, he looked up and saw Charles was moving his hands in the air and the streams moved accordingly, he saw Charles moved his both his hand towards each other, gilbert was attacked with streams of fire from all directions, he enveloped himself in blue flames and blasted his flames on the surface of his flame cloak, he negated Charles attack, suddenly all the flames around him dispersed and a blazing fist landed hard on his face which threw him back several yards, while evading the flames he hadn’t seen Charles had closed in to him, he got up with a bruise on his cheek and spit blood on the floor.

“you are one tough bastard”said Charles” but now it ends”

“you are right, now it ends” replied gilbert, suddenly a mage circle appeared beneath charles and he realized he couldn’t move,

“i had set up a mage circles all over the floor which would trigger to paralyze you with your movements” explained gilbert “your magic is restricted only to fire element isn’t it, or else you would have placed protective wards around yourself just in case, so a simple mage circle was enough to catch you and you fell into it”, now Charles realized what the several mage circles on the floor from earlier were for.

“you did manage to restrict me movements, but you haven’t restricted my magic”said Charles“...and i am not the one who fell into the trap”, gilbert’s eyes widened and his expression changed at the sudden change in his surrounding, a gigantic red mage circle appeared beneath gilbert covering almost half of the bridge in length under it’s area, with gilbert at the centre

“while you were busy defending against my flame streams, i was preparing for this final spell, the reason i stepped forward and hit you physically was to throw you in the range of the spell”said Charles, “i am the one stuck, but you are the one under attack”

“And now i’ll roast you like fucking pig on a skewer!........... “flame geyser” activate!”

The mage circle began to glow and large amount of red flames erupted from it, the flames covered the entire bridge in it’s area, the flames were very large in amount and rose very high and fierce, turning even an insect in it’s range to ashes, in between of this burning inferno gilbert stood still, Charles could see the figure of the mage in the flames slowly fading away, more and more flame erupted, even though stuck at a distance Charles could feel the fierce power and heat of the red flames, after the few minutes the flames started to go out, the floor had completely blackened and cracked everywhere, now only the smoke rested on the floor.

With the sunlight shining on them, as the smoke cleared Charles could see a figure, when the smoke had entirely cleared up Charles was in deep shock and disappointment, Gilbert stood there with his coat completely turned to ash,some parts of his shirt,pants and boots burned away as well, his body was covered with red burns, blood was dripping from both sides of his face, a stream of blood flowing from the corner of his mouth along his neck into shirt but with a long grin across his face and confidence in his eyes. Charles body was shaking with shock and fear

“no, it’s not possible” he spoke to himself “my spell was accurate there was no mistake in my magic...you should have become dirt!!”

“yeah, there was no mistake in that spell, it was absolutely correct” said gilbert

“ho..how..how...did you survive that?”he asked, the spirit in his eyes had broken down

“you worked so much on your final attack, but you ignored the simple thing infront of your eyes, you forgot that i am the Flame Wizard, a fire based attack such as that is not enough to kill me”,
charles eyes widened to Gilbert’s words,

“know this, i have nothing personal against you but other lives are at stake so you have to die”said gilbert

“what nonsence are you spouting now?”

“you cursed the Ferenz Liquor and risked other lives for your stupid noble takeover and—“

“is killing me not enough, you now frame me with the lies!”said charles

“it’s finished now”said gilbert “now i’ll show you how it’s done..... “flame geyser”activate”

“you fucking fool, curse you wizard!”


A gigantic blue mage circle appeared beneath Charles and large amount of flames erupted not just upwards but sideways the blue flames were leaking even from the base of the bridge the flames rose high and destroyed everything in it gilbert saw the figure of the young Roussel fading away for good, he deactivated the spell any more destruction would collapse the bridge he stood on, when the fire was out there was nothing left in it, gilbert had successfully defeated Charles Roussel and ended the Roussel line of nobility.He looked down the crowd was cheering on as the war had ended finally,Gilbert drew out a vial of the same cursed liquor he had taken to Muriel, he opened it and drank from it, after few moments when the curse did not took effect only then he was relieved that his analysis had not been wrong.

From above he saw emily in crowd cheering on with the people who had stayed behind when arwin infiltrated the mansion, from the tower at the other end of the street arwin saw the entire battle from the shadows,he had never seen gilbert perform this level of magic, he now realized that gilbert was holding back when they fought, he din’t had a cheerfull face at gilbert’s victory but he acknowledged that gilbert had ended the war at that thought he grind his teeth and clenched his fist and left the tower. From far Lord Ricardo Ferenz saw the red fire of the young Roussel going out from his hand held telescope, he went to his study, opened the top right drawer of his table from where he removed and opened a parchment and tore it into two pieces and then put them into the fire in the fireplace.

After some time a good amount of people had gathered outside,people who were cursed by the liquor had begun to recover rapidly in the market district Lord Ricardo Ferenz made an appearance along with his security, he stood on the platform,used a magic crystal to amplify his voice,he spoke

“People of Isengard!, the darkest night of the city has passed and i stand here before you, i realize that my source have caused pain and damage to many of you and it is time to tell the truth that is just like you people, i have also been victim of a conspiracy, a conspiracy against the city...and against myself, my guards are the witness of the acts committed to soil the drinks that i provide to you, these acts committed by the same conspirators none other than Duke family of Roussel. The Roussel family is the one who brought this chaos upon us,...” he explained the people his side of the story

“...how should we believe you!....”came a voice from the crowd

“yes, i am aware that just my words are not enough after everything that has happened”, he pulled out the bottle of the ferenz liquor the same that was root of the war, he drank the liquor from it infront of everyone, “as you people can see i have drank the same poison but it has lost it’s effect, that is because it was cursed by the roussel and now the curse has broken along with the Roussel family”

A murmur began among the crowd and everyone was looking towards each other,
to this the people could not oppose as they were aware that the sick ones were recovering now.

“The one who plotted against the city has been slained by our city’s finest and now i promise to you all, that the people of this city shall not face such crisis again, give me your support and together we shall return the city to it’s former glory”

The people clapped and cheered at the end of his speech, Ricardo Ferenz had gained the trust of the people once more and now was the only Noble of the city, hence the governing and the powers of the city had fallen into his hands.

Later Arwin meet up with Emily in the city,arwin had gotten himself fixed with a bandage on right side of his chin and one on his arm with one or two scratches on his face, they both later meet up with gilbert, he had returned his apartment with new clothing, and patched up with a bandage across his forehead, shouder,one on his neck another on his cheek and few scratched and red marks of burns on his face and hands. The trio then visited the Ferenz mansion, there gilbert explained about the curse of the liquor, how he had found it from the guards and how he managed to break it, however he left out the part where he visited Muriel and kept her existence a secret.

“and thats how it is”said gilbert

“i see”said Lord Ferenz,“either way the death of the head and his successor was necessary to end this war and you accomplished it, rest assured your rewards will be sent to the guild”he said.

At dawn the three of them returned to the guild, they were standing out some distance from the entrance, from outside they could see that there was celebration going on in the guild.

“ready to go?”said emily,the three walked together to enter,

“oww!”arwin suddenly stopped a nail had gotten in his boot, he stopped behind to get rid of it, while gilbert and emily went inside,

When they entered everyone set their gaze on them and welcomed them, everyone cheered them on, everyone congratulated them and patted their backs,they were celebrating and partying on their success and achievement, Fiora came to Gilbert and hugged him and he responded equally. Arwin got the nail out and entered the guild with a cheerful face and happiness in his eyes, when he entered everyone was shouting and partying, the crowd was carrying Gilbert and Emily, they were floating over the crowd.

“yeah, yay!....yay”said arwin along with others,
but his voice was not heard by anyone, as everyone was busy cheering on Gilbert and Emily,they circled around the two, the crowd didn’t pay attention to him as if he wasn’t there, no one even saw him, his face lost him smile and he felt outcasted, he again tried to join in the crowd but could not get in he was pushed out by the crowd, he lost the will when no one noticed him, his face became somber and sadness was growing in his eyes, he came out and stood in the courtyard and watched from outside through the window, everyone partying and enjoying and praising Gilbert and Emily, he walked a little ahead and closed his eyes in sadness, slowly the lines on his forehead became hard and he grind his teeth so hard that it’s voice could be heard out of his mouth, he formed a fist and punch very hard on the wall, a drop of blood flowed out of his fist and a few more from his knuckles, his eyes opened which were filled with happiness little while ago were now filled with anger and hatred, he started running away and headed towards the grassland and forest from the back side of the guild .

He was running as fast as he can so that he can go as far as he can, after some time he slowed down and stopped, after a few moments tears started rolling down his cheeks, he fell to his knees and broke into tears, he started crying and shouting at the top of his voice, but his cry was lost among the trees around him, tears flowing from his eyes, he held his hairs above his forehead, he couldn’t handle the despair of being ignored and not being appreciated, he expected that someone would pat on his back and say “Good Job” or “Well Done”, but all he got was rejection, every tear that fell from his eyes was the enjoyment every person was having at the guild, the tears didn’t stop, he got up, and again started running away from the guild and kept running into the dark.

[mystogan]

i hope my writing style and this story has been pleasing you, i am still trying to improve on my writing and grammatical mistakes.
i think the length of the chapter has been getting bigger, but the content has been growing as well

Here's the 11th chapter: "A Scheme in the Dark"

Spoiler for Chapter 11: "A Scheme in the Dark":

Ricardo Ferenz was sitting at his desk, now that he was the Duke of Isengard, he had more documents to sign and more letters to read, as he was making his marks on the papers with a quill a man stepped in his study infront of him, Ricardo looked up and saw Charles Roussel, the very person who turned into ashes against gilbert was standing infront of him, they exchanged glances

“Now,that form was useful that time but you shouldn’t walk around in the guise of a dead man”he said

The figure of Charles turned into a vapour of magical energy and reformed on the couch in the shape of a cat with cream colored fur and black paws and tail.Lord Ferenz got up from his chair

“come on now, we have to go” he commanded the cat.
.......................

Arwin was in the centre of Isengard, in the market area, he entered a crafting store beside a cafe,he walked up to the manager

“do you have any polish for a sword?” he asked

“and what metal is it made from” asked the manager, an old man with oval spectacles on the bridge of his nose. Arwin did not know the answer to his question, even though the Greywand was hanging on his waist for years, he did not knew what it was made from, but he knew an alternative.

“it’s Aglotium steel” he said, the old man went inside to the storage after a few moments of fetching came out with a small flask of liquid. Arwin paid 146 crowns for it, slipped in into the pocket and exited, when he came out, in the neighbouring cafe he saw the same guys who were mocking him of being a girl at the guild on his starting days, arwin pretended them to be nonexistent and walked away, after few steps, a hand came on his shoulder, he quickly turned on reflex and saw the guy with he had picked a fight in the guild, he put his hand on arwin’s shoulder in a friendly manner and gave a big smile

“hey, remember me, we met at the Dragon Nest” he said

“ya i do....now excuse me” arwin turned and tried to leave.

“oh! come on, you are not still mad about our last meeting are you, we were just having fun” he said

Arwin ignored him completely and was getting away, he came to him blocked his way

“hey come on cheer up, i am Bryce by the way” he said

“ya ok, i am Arwin and i am in a hurry so if you’ll let me go....”said arwin

(Arwin)oh man i just wanna get away from this guy

“oh sure, but hey the other guys who were with me they want to apologize to
you, there are just past that building, so just..” said Bryce

“fine”

Bryce took arwin to the guys, they went through an alley, arwin alanalyzed bryce and saw an insignia of a mage guild unknown to him on his belt buckle,he figured that bryce was also a mage, after a few steps into the alley bryce slowed down, arwin got ahead suddenly arwin realised that he was standing in the alley alone, a big load of grease and oil fell on him, for a moment he just stood there and thought what big of a fool he was to trust that guy, more grease fell on him, his clothes gotten all soaked in oil and stickiness, he got blackened from top to bottom, grease was dripping from the tips of his hairs, he wiped his face trying to get the grease out of his face. He turned around and saw bryce and his lackeys at the start of the alley pointing at him and laughing in amusement, the more they laughed the more arwin’s blood boiled, he sprinted towards them at once, bryce pulled out a flask of a red liquid and smashed it in the alley, flames rose from the walls and the floor creating a wall of fire between them, arwin quickly slowed but slipped and fell, they could see each other from either side of the fire wall, Bryce and his Lackeys enjoyed the scene and then went on their way while arwin stood there glaring them from the other side and then went other direction.Arwin checked his pockets which were now empty, Bryce had pickpocket him and stole the sword polish as well, at this he couldn’t stay silent anymore

“that fucking son of a bitch!!”he yelled,

as he was out of the alley drenched in grease and oil, he saw Gilbert standing there and with a smile on his face, he was also enjoying the scene.

“instead of laughing here, would it have hurt you to come give me hand”said arwin

“oh, is that a call for help?, i though you didn’t need my help”replied gilbert

“ya right i still don’t”said arwin angrily, they crossed each other and went their ways with arwin leaving a trail of oil behind him.

(Arwin)Such an asshole

(Gilbert)Such a clown

Arwin cleaned himself at his place got a change of clothes and made his way to the guild.

“really that happened to him”asked Irena, as she brought gilbert’s drink to the bar desk

“ya, you should have been there, it was so funny”said gilbert chuckling making her smile as well

At the door she saw arwin entering, he had switched his usual clothing and gear, he wore a simple white shirt over which he wore a green shirt with three long fitting buckles along the torso, his black insignia wrist band in right hand, a long elbow length fingercut glove in his left hand, a brown belt on his waist with the greywand hanging on his hip, black pants and grey leather boots with buckles on it from his shin to his feet and little heel.

He walked to the desk and joined the others,

“don’t you think it’s a little too much heel for a guy”said Erica who joined them
from other side

“it’s enough ...........plus it gives a little raise to my height”said arwin

“where is Fiora”asked arwin“i haven’t talked to her properly since the Ferenz Liquor conspiracy”

“she has gone to the tower of Nubos”said Irena

“what’s there?”asked arwin

“the tower is basically a library that contains information on many things, she has gone to get some study material for her magic”explained Irena

“what’s wrong with the our library, in the guild”asked Erica

“we do not have detail material for her magic”said Irena

“Zaiphon, it’s a script magic” said gilbert

“yes, exactly” said Irena

They kept chatting and filling their stomach with small snacks and drinks, arwin was surprised at the knowledge of magic the barmaid possessed , someone entered the guild and every pair of eyes was locked on him.

“Looks like he completed another high level quest”said Erica
Lukas came to them,

“where is Father?”he asked to Irena

“in his office ofcourse”said Irena, Lukas went toward the office and then inside

“what did he mean by father”asked Arwin sipping from his glass

“he meant his father, Master Marco”said Irena

Arwin spat out the drink in his mouth in a spray and started coughing

“he is his son!”exclaimed arwin

“He is adopted”said gilbert “he has been here since he was a small child,that’s why he is the strongest one here”

“so he was raised and trained by the old man, no wonder he gives off a powerful aura around him”

Lukas went in the office and saw Marco standing by the window and gazing outside

“you came quite early”said Marco

“you said it was highest priority for the guild”said Lukas “tell me why have you summoned me in between of my important practice”

“I had been to a meeting among the few guild masters and the head member of the council”said Marco “in the city of Lybster, the mage guild has gone rogue, they murdered the duke and have taken over the city, as you know such an act by the mages will not be tolerated, so destruction of that guild was placed as the heighest priority”

"oh dear, did you took it upon yourself again”said Lukas

“you don’t understand there is something else in this than rebellious wizards, it is practically not possible for a handful of mages to defeat the entire force of the royal guards and then kill their master”he explained “they are using a secret weapon”

“what kind of weapon are you talking about?”asked Lukas

“the council spoke to me about this personally, according to the information gathered, it is life magic”he said

“you mean a weapon to control the lives of other people?”said Lukas

“No,not control, manipulate life, we are all humans and humans often seem to operate on their emotions and feelings, in every human being there is a killing impulse or madness that drives you to kill your opponent. the weapon is used to amplify this impulse immensely making them go beserk, you can estimate what damage this can cause when used on those blessed with the skill of arcane, and that’s the reason this assignment is upon us, because---“

“because i am the only one who can stop such a thing”said Lukas

“Yes, such a weapon will not affect you, that is the reason only you can do it”said Marco

Marco came to Lukas and placed a hand on his shoulder

“listen boy, men are easily given in to anger and madness, no magic tricks can help you here when you are fighting against your own mad-side, but you have a special gift of absolute control over mind, if you are able to suppress this impulse then you can defeat your enemy ”said Marco

Lukas smiled and said “i’ll do it”

“gather your team and set out, you should reach there before nightfall”

Lukas turned and was making for door, but stopped midway, “which guild are we up against?”

“Scourge Chaos”said marco

Arwin and the gang were sitting at a table chatting and passing the morning time. Irena came to the table “hey guys this just came in, get ready for an important mission”

“cool, finally some action”said Erica, she and gilbert got up and proceeded to get ready,while arwin sat uncomfortably and din’t move,

“you too”

“i don’t want to go”he said, Irena was surprised at his behaviour, she sat next to him

“so you just want to sit here all day”she said

“if it’s an important mission, why do they need me, they already have very capable people for it”

“if they didn’t needed you they wouldn’t have asked for you”

“so they expect me to do some great feet or something”

“just do your normal thing, i don’t see what the problem is here” saying she got up and back to her work

“darn it”he said to himself and got up

Later they all met in the yard, when arwin got there everyone was already there with three hawkzile ready to fly and of all people he saw Gus there as well.

(Arwin)No, no ,no,no,no,no!! please anyone but him

“Alright it seems everyone is here”

“hey Lukas, are we going for a few days cause then we will require someone to carry our bags and that’s exactly why arwin is here”said Gus, everyone laughed at his jokes expect one

“ya, very funny, can we get down to business now”said arwin annoyed

“Now are main aim is to destroy the ‘Scourge Chaos’ guild and it’s members, they have taken over Lybster and we have orders from the council to disable them”said Lukas “..now how did they took over?,why?, that is not the concern, our only job is to eliminate them. Now let’s get going”

(Lukas)it’s probably better if i don’t tell them about the weapon,that way it will be easier for them.

Lukas, Erica and Gilbert took the driving seats on the hawkzile, arwin didn’t wanted to sit behind Erica or Gilbert so he went towards Lukas.Gus saw arwin and quickly cut him and took the seat behind Lukas.Now arwin was left with either Erica or Gilbert, so he took the less annoying option and went and sat behind
Erica.

“why would you do that?”said Erica in a low voice, “i want to ride alone, go sit behind him”

“please, please i don’t want to ride with him. I promise this won’t turn out like our previous few rides”

“tsk, you better sit properly if you fall down, i am not going to catch you”

“ya, fine”he said

(Arwin)uh,one annoying person after another. May be i really should have stayed back

The wizards mounted their rides and lift off in the air, they began progressing towards their target and were soon into the skies.
.................................................. ..................

Lord Ricardo Ferenz was riding on his horse, he wore a cloak that hide his royal attire and wore a hood to hide his face as well, he was riding in the dark of the night with a raven flying right above him all the time, away from Isengard at an unkown place, he had sneaked out of the city without anyone knowing, even his own guards. soon he came near a horse stable, adjacent to it was a watch tower, he dismounted from his horse and entered it, the raven got in as well, he closed and locked the door behind him, he took off his hood, there were stairs that lead above, on the adjacent wall he spotted a torch that was slightly tiled than it’s normal position, he grabbed it’s handle and pulled it out, it extended like some sort of mechanism, he positioned it right and released. There was a sound of click and clack in the tower and at the base of the stairs the floor started to move and the stairs extended below the ground floor and then the noises stopped, he went down the stair which lead to a secret room, the raven had turned into a cat again from before, he entered, the room was lit with magical orbs on opposite walls, the room was nicely decorated, there was a table and couple of chairs at one side, the contents on the table included some papers, a quill and a bottle of ink, a bottle of wine few glasses, the room was a perfect noble hideout, on the other end of the room stood a hooded figure in black cloak

he turned around at Ricardo’s entrance, the upper half of his face was covered by the hood, but the cloak was put on shoulders like a cape, he wore rich clothes inside, a white cravat over a white shirt, a thin blue short jacket and a long black full sleeve coat, there was a broach on his left breast studded with a single big sapphire cut with the finest craft, there were golden linings on the jacket, he wore silver cuff pins with diamonds, dark brown pants, and boots
the man clearly had a higher status and wealth than Ricardo Ferenz

“good evening Lord Sanza”said Ricardo

“ evening” he replied, he noticed the cat by Ricardo’s side

“i believe you have made proper use of the supplies i gave you according to our plan” said Emilio Sanza

“yes but that plan cost me a huge loss of my liquor and my men” said Ricardo angrily “i even lost my butler, do you know how tough it is to find a capable butler these days”

“you shouldn’t be getting worked up over such minor losses our ambition is far greater and to achieve it such sacrifices are necessary” he explained

They both sat and poured wine in their glasses

“now i would like to hear the story of your victory at Isengard” asked Emilio

“let’s begin from the start then” said Ricardo, the cat climbed on the couch and lazily lay there giving no attention to the two noblemen

“you gave me a scroll with a spell of blood magic and a shape shifting spirit and asked me to plot against the Roussel to take over the city, what i did first was acquired a vial of blood of Alberto Roussel the head of the Roussel family, then i asked the spirit to take a small group of my men and curse my own Liquor supplies using the blood magic spell in the scroll and the Roussel blood that i had acquired, while he did this i instructed him to guise as Charles Roussel son of Alberto Roussel and the heir to Alberto, so that when he committed the act my other guards at the patrol could witness the crime committed by Charles Roussel. Once that was done i instructed the spirit to disappear. By doing this Alberto Roussel’s blood was attached to the curse, so in order to break the curse in was necessary to perish his bloodline.

Then when half of the city was poisoned by this, and the city turned against me, then i hired a couple of Mages from the Dragon nest, i persuaded them with false treasury papers and the act by fake Charles and sent them to assassinate Alberto Roussel, there i confirmed his death, i knew Charles would come to save his father and the mage will kill both of them then.

However i did not accounted for another mage who discovered the secret of the curse but that did not caused any interference in the plan, that another mage went after Charles, after a big magical showdown he killed Charles, after that i destroyed the scroll to completely nullify it’s effect, then the people of the city were out of danger. Once the Roussel household was ashes i persuaded the people with a glorifying public speech, they were so easy to fool.

And now i am the Duke of Isengard and the city is in my hands”

“i have just one question, how did you acquired the blood of Alberto Roussel”asked Emilio

“Bribery and blackmail are powerful tools, Alberto’s health was sick during the time so i bribed his doctor to get me a sample, then i killed the doctor once i got it”

“you’ve done your part Ricardo, you should rest for now, Isengard is in under your command we are sure to be benefit from it in future”said Lord Sanza, he got up as he said, he finished his wine in a single last gulp

“now i must attend to some other place, where my presence is needed”said Lord Sanza, he went towards the exit he tapped Ricardo on his shoulder and exited the room and then the tower.

Soon after Ricardo also came out of the tower and was on his way, soon he was back in Isengard as if the secret meeting never took place.

[Vexx]

i hope my writing style and this story has been pleasing you, i am still trying to improve on my writing and grammatical mistakes.
i think the length of the chapter has been getting bigger, but the content has been growing as well

Definitely getting better and at this point - even if the grammar is off the storyflow and dialog is very readable. You're consistent in how you apply grammatical construction and that helps tremendously even if it is non-standard.

yeah, chapter length will probably keep increasing just naturally. My first pack of chapter releases, I struggled to create more than 10 or 15 pages. Now it's rare I don't hit 30 even in rough draft.

Most important, I'm enjoying the story. I don't have to guess who's talking. When they talk, they're making sense and referencing things that are made clear by context or earlier description.

There is some minor verbal static easily fixed in second or third draft fixes. One example:

Then when half of the city was poisoned by this, and the city turned against me, then i hired a couple of Mages from the Dragon nest

The first comma and the second "then", remove them and the sentence reads more cleanly.

Then when half of the city was poisoned by this and they turned against me, I hired mages from the Dragon Nest to ...

I'll often read my dialog out loud to see if it sounds awkward, missed a word, etc.
OTOH, I most often spot errors the instant after I hit the post button

[mystogan]

ah finally, i was wondering whether you are following this story or not
thank you very much, i'll pay more attention towards the mistakes and errors and i am glad that you are enjoying the story. it get's more exciting afterwards

[mystogan]

sorry for the late update i have been locked up in a lot of college stuff,the days are just getting very tiresome, but somehow making time for this, the next chapter might also be a little late but i'll try to get it up as soon as possible


so here is they next chapter "Chapter 12: A Night in Lybster", i hope you enjoy it

Spoiler for Chapter 12: A Night in Lybster:

They were flying towards lybster at twilight, the three hawkziles were floating in the sky which was surprisingly calm, the scene before them of the red disc drowning into the endless horizon that painted the sky with a golden red colour.

“hey so this Lukas, what’s his deal?” arwin asked to Erica, with their mutual ride going smoothly was a bigger surprise than the calm sky.

“what do you mean?” she questioned his question

“i mean he is raised and trained by the old man and he is very powerful as everyone says”said arwin

“so he is raised by our master, you think that is his deal?.well many people have this misunderstanding, but the deal is ,he himself have something special”said Erica

“would you mind to explain please”asked arwin

“sure but first stop grabbing my shoulders so hard i am not going to try to throw you down”she said

“oh ok, sorry”he released his grip on her

“well, before Lukas came into the guild, he was very young and abandoned. Don’t know how but he was lost in this world and was dying, in his final breaths he heard a voice in his head, he followed that voice and it led him to the guild, ever since he has been living at the guild. He believed that voice to be of the god, many times he visits places nearest to gods” she said

“So he is kind of a battling priest”said arwin

“not exactly, he does not follow any religion he just follows his belief in the God that saved him that day, that is why he is so powerful”said Erica

“...because he believes in god?”said Arwin

“not because he believes in god, you see everyone has doubts and confusion in their minds and there are many magic to exploit it, but not him, his belief is so strong that he has no doubts or confusion about himself which makes him almost immune to such magic”she explained

“he is not a priest or anything of that sort, of course he drinks, fights,gambles, beds women but that’s just living. he is just a very resolved person”she added

“he told you all that”asked arwin

“no that’s what master told me when i asked him the same question you asked me, that “what is his deal?””she said with a touch of humor that gave smiles to both “well our chat covered up for the remaining journey, we are there”.

They lowered their hawkzile and landed on a hilltop few hundred meters from the entrance to Lybster.They scouted over the city from afar it looked awfully quite and calm for a city gone through an all out war of a mage guild and a noble house.there weren’t any major damages to the city done, Scourge chaos had managed to take over the city without damaging it.

“All right everyone conceal you guild insignia ornament, we will be under cover in there”said Lukas “ we split up and enter the city separately and meet up at the inn, let’s go”

They all entered the city separately at different time intervals, they did not face any hinderance any where in the city, even though the city was taken over by the guild the city was not slaved, the city was the same with just the noblemen dead, the common people did not gave it much thought either as long as they were good.

Arwin entered and was wandering in the city alone, the city was small compared to Isengard but still had a good market and architechture, also there were a few beggars by the street, a couple of men beating each other in an alley, a man running behind a thief but there were no guards around,he thought with no guards around, it will give immense rise to criminal activity and soon the city will destroy itself but surprisingly he did not saw much of it around. With the guards gone the local gangs should have taken the streets and started gang wars but there was nothing to be seen of that sort.

He had some time to kill, he walked into a building what appeared to be a tavern, he went in to reception and looked upon the showcase and ordered a bottle of an exquisite wine he hadn’t seen before, he was about to open the bottle, heard someone crashing the door, a man entered in an unpleasant manner, trying to avoid trouble arwin quickly paid and made for the door, the man grazed arwin and went to the reception, arwin exited the tavern, the man banged his fist on the table

“Now where is that bottle” said the man to the bartender

Arwin was walking down the street,he was opening the bottle like a little kid eager to open his new candy suddenly he felt a vigorous push on his back, he fell ahead, he held himself placing his knee but the bottle fell and shattered with the wine flowing on the street like a dog had pissed, awrin stayed still for a moment he felt the presence of a man behind him, he got up with a turn and swift swing of his arm and hit the man with the back of his hand, he hit in the face but had equal to no effect, arwin saw it was the same man who had barged into the tavern behind him, he looked a some of years older to arwin.

“who the fuck are you?”said arwin “..and why did you do that”

“i had to get that wine but you bought it, if i can’t have it no one else can” said the man

“what bullshit is this!”said arwin “apologize and pay up right now or i’ll beat the money out of your ass”he added

“well i do have to pay for something”said the man and punched on arwin face directly, he hit him so hard that is lip busted and started to bleed, arwin got back few steps, he licked the blood off his lip and spit it out, the nerves in arwin’s fist started to bulge with to anger and irritation.

The two started a fist fight,the people going by noticed the two men fighting, some stood by and watched the show while some just walked away, it wasn’t a surprising scene in the city. The man attacked with a side jab, arwin blocked it and hit with him elbow, he blocked with his other hand and pushed arwin behind, arwin attacked with an upward punch , he blocked using both hand and hit arwin in the nose with his forehead, arwin fell back holding his nose which was running with blood,

he wiped it off his face, the man attacked with his fist, arwin jumped high and countered his fist with a kick turned and hit his face with another leg, the man backed up with a shoe mark on his face, the man jumped close and hit in arwin’s face with a round up kick, arwin whirled spitting blood,the man went for another hit

“enough of this!”, arwin grabbed him by shoulder and jumped and got his feet behind the man’s head, he caught his neck with his feet and released his grab, he twisted around his neck and pulled him down that threw him flat on the ground, arwin powered up his hand hit a palm strike on his back with lightning sparks flying around, arwin stepped behind after a few moments the man got up with a grin on his face and wide eyes, the attack had less effect on him, suddenly awrin started to feel strange aura from the man, heavy magical energy was flowing out from the man that was dominating arwin’s , next moment the man’s expression changed back to normal as if nothing has happened till now, the man dusted of his clothes and started to walk away, arwin stood still in confusion. Arwin started to walk his way suddenly he turned around and looked back he saw the crest of Scourge Chaos guild on back of the man’s clothes.

(Arwin)Oh, fuck!

Later arwin found his way to the inn, when he entered he found rest of the gang already there waiting for his arrival

(Arwin)Oh man, just kill me now

They saw the state arwin was in, stains of blood on his face and clothes, blue bruise on his lower lip and on the bridge of his nose,Erica came to him

“what did you do now?!”she asked “don’t tell me you got into a fight with a mage from scourge chaos”she yelled

“Well....”arwin looked towards the floor “it was not my fault, he came on to me first”

“you bastard son of a whore!”yelled Gus “you blew up our cover, i knew bringing this guy along was a mistake”

“you stay out of it!”arwin yelled at gus

Gilbert simply sat there with his drink enjoying the amusement from others fighting, Lukas sat quietly for some moments trying to figure what to do, with their cover has blown off

Gus closed in to arwin, “can you for once think out of your ass, we are here on a serious mission, you took away our element of surprise now if anyone of us dies it’s all because of you”he said

Arwin simply stood there with embarrassment that he had let down others of his group, he couldn’t look anyone in the eye

“its you fault you get it your FAULT!”said gus poking on arwin’s chest with his finger, arwin caught his hand

“it’s not my fault!”he shouted and punched gus in the face, Gus having more physical strength grabbed arwin and threw him in nearest table.

“Stop it!”yelled Lukas and banged the table with his fist, everyone froze at their place.

“get some rest everyone, we speak tomorrow”he said

Gilbert went to his room with his wine glass in his hand, Erica and Gus followed, Arwin got to feet and dusted himself. Lukas looked at him with disappointed eyes and left. Arwin got to the bar picked up a bottle and stayed for a little while.
The man after dueling with arwin, walked in his guild, he entered the main hall,at the other end of the hall was a large throne like chair in which sat an aged man in his early fifties.

“Fynn,i sensed your magic essence going wild, i had to shut it down” ,the old man stretched his hand out with his fist gripping on something ,Fynn was lifted in air with his neck being strangled by an invisible force,

“why did i had to do that, look at the pathetic state you are in beaten up like that”said the old man

“Master Wolgrim, i am sorry, but i encountered a mage, not of this city”said fynn in a small voice struggling to breath
In the hall were the rest of the mages of the guild, two men in their mid thirties and a woman in her mid twenties, of all the people in the hall Fynn was the youngest in his early twenties.

“A Mage?, was he alone?”asked Wolgrim

“may be not, he seemed to be heading to some place, he might have accomplices” said Fynn

wolgrim put his hand down,Fynn fell to ground, released of the magic.

(Wolgrim)guess i had this coming

“My guild mages”he spoke “it seems the council is acting, they have sent a bunch of mages to put an end to us, but they do not know that our power exceeds theirs, nothing can stand against us”he said

“allow us to deliver their death right now, they won’t see it coming in the darkness of night”said Edmyg one of the man

“i have a better idea”said Raegan another man,“let us welcome them in our guild and deal with them one by one in a grand killing streak,ever since we took the city we haven’t had any fun”

“ alright you have your fun, it’s not like they match my elite mages”said wolgrim,

“and bring their leader to me, i’ll send his head to the council that will give them the message that their time is over.”
The next day Lukas came down from his room, he saw arwin already there fresh and ready

“Hey about yesterday, i am sorry i should have been careful”said arwin
“it doesn’t matter now”he replied,soon others came down and gathered around.

“alright, Scourge chaos hasn’t made a move yet, even thought they have gained knowledge about us last night, it means they are giving us the first strike. Now according to the info we have, these handful of mages, we engage them as a group.Erica and Gus will be the main strikers, Gilbert you are the ranged attacker and arwin you will be the supporter.you people deal with the mages”he explained

“What about you” asked Erica

“i will deal with their Guild Master”he said “..even after all the planning and strategy there is a chance none of this will work, worst case scenario we will have to fight each one of them one on one”

After further discussion they set out for battle to their enemy’s lair.They stood at the entrance to the castle of Scourge chaos, each of them ready in their position, they went forward to the entrance, with a sound of clink, the floor beneath the opened and they went straight down sliding their way through the tunnel, at the other end arwin popped out first and land flat on the ground on him fell Lukas then Gus then Erica then Gilbert on the top

“oh well,looks like i got a soft landing ”said Gilbert “but i think someone is missing here”

“i am down here”said arwin in a weak voice “please get off”,gilbert stood up and got aside, others were getting to their senses slowly.

“Get off!, all of you right now!”yelled arwin, everyone got up and dusted themselves

“well looks like you were of some use after all”said gus to arwin to which he din’t respond

“alright let’s get a move on”said Lukas

They went the way through the dungeon and came to a dead open space in the shape polygonal dome , everyone started looking for signs for a way out suddenly the floor below them started sliding, the tiles on which each one of them were standing started to split apart and the rest of the titles fell down into the dark pit beneath them, everyone held their ground until the shifting of the floor was stabilized, after it did there was empty space with five tiles floating in the mid air with a Dragon Nest mage on each of them,the tiles were drifting apart and came to halt at each wall of the polygonal dome.In Each wall a slit opened up and opened into a door.

“it’s pretty clear now”said Lukas,“it seems we have our own battle to fight.Now listen everyone, no one will dies this is an order.We will meet at the top alive and in one piece”

Each of them shared glance at each other and nodded to each other and left to their own path.

[Kerspunkle]

Aw! Now I feel sad because I want to know what happens next! Must...be...patient! But I will say that I'm glad that you're still updating despite your busy schedule.

Anyways, I think you've really improved not just in your writing but in your storytelling as well. I also think you've gotten clearer in your descriptions of what's happening.

A tip on quotations is that anytime someone initiates a sentence, there's a capital letter after it.

I enjoy reading the descriptions of the clothes they wear. Some Lies of Locke Lamora influence there?

[mystogan]

of course there is an influence of Lies of Locke Lamora, i mentioned it earlier, i am happy that you are enjoying it, i'll see to it what you mention about the sentence initiation

and yes it had been getting difficult to write regularly but i'll try my best

[Kerspunkle]

Oh, I was meaning it as a compliment. I think it's cool when I get to know what inspires an author. I also think the descriptions of the clothing were done well because they were detailed but not so much that it gets boring or anything.

Well, it's good to see that you're still writing. It's always nice to see updates to this story.

[mystogan]

so recently i have been in bad shape so i wasn't able to put an update here,
but here is the next chapter and it is filled with action from start to end and it is more than just magical energy blasting here and there.

this time i had to work hard a little bit for this chapter, i hope you enjoy the action

a Note: the battles are happening simultaneously

"Chapter 13: Dragonest vs Scourge Chaos"

Spoiler for Chapter 13: Dragonest vs Scourge Chaos:

Arwin was on his way passing by some rooms and hallways he came to a big hall, there was no piece of furniture or so much as a carpet on the floor, the walls were grey and the ceiling was high there were four huge pillars in the hall attached to the ceiling, he walked in the centre gazing around.At the opposite end at a higher floor was a person waiting for him

“i am glad that it is you who made it here”said Fynn
Arwin quickly spotted him, Fynn jumped and landed down infront of arwin,

“it is you”said arwin “so that’s how it’s going to be”

“yes and i have a little payback from the last time”said Fynn

Arwin chuckled“you still owe me a bottle of wine, guess i’ll take the compensation for it the other way” said Arwin

Both sprinted and clashed at centre, fynn caught arwin’s punch in his left palm, arwin caught fynn’s left wrist in his right hand, both were applying pressure to push the other one down, arwin placed his foot on fynn’s bended knee and used it as a foot hold and jumped above him and landed a kick with a back of his leg on his shoulder, fynn fell flat on the floor, arwin quickly got some distance with a back flip, fynn anticipated his next move he placed his palms and feet on the ground, arwin pointed toward fynn with two fingers a mage circle appeared beneath fynn and made an explosion, but fynn moved fast and evaded it. Fynn appeared behind the smoke unharmed.

Erica and was in a hall on some upper floor, suddenly a rubble of stones came falling from above she moved fast and easily avoided it, Raegan confronted her

“Ah,what do i have hear. Looks like i get the hot chick with a nice rack”he said in a wicked voice

“how vulgar”she remarked

“name’s Raegan, give me yours atleast”he said

“Erica”

“that’s a lousy name for a such a nice frame”he said

Erica sprinted towards him, two mage circles appeared in her palm and she pulled out two same swords with red coloured blade, she swiped at his head, he ducked, she swiped lower, he jumped back, she attacked with dual straight strike, he kneeled down made a hand stand and kicked the blades from below and broke her attack, they kept moving over the rubble up and down, she kept on swing her blades while he avoided them in some or the other way.

“now now, no need to get angry i was simply complimenting you”he said

“you’ll be sorry that you talk so much”she said

Erica was successfully struck him with the tip of the each blade on his top right chest and lower left abdomen, she quickly stepped back and jumped back on the plain floor as soon as she struck, Raegan closed his eyes with a painful expression on his face, next moment he opened his eyes and saw he was perfectly fine the blades had not pierced his body but only touched him,a smile came on his face

“ha!,you backed out too quick i am absolutely fi— ”, explosions took place on his
body where the sword’s tip had touched him.

Now Erica was the one having an evil grin on her face, “oh, did you thought i needed to cut you with these swords?”

Raegan got up with few bruises on him and his clothes messed up, even though the magic exploded on him it only did minor damage to him,

“ah!, a fiery one i got here, this will be fun” he said with a wicked face.

Gilbert opened the door and found himself in large greenhouse, there were various plants many of them unnatural, created by alchemy, there were creepers growing on the sidewalls to the ceiling, paths with mud was made for walking, long working tables filled with papers, various potions and many other instruments required for a botanical lab. Some of the plants were moving continuously as if there leaves and stems were dancing. The ceiling and walls was made with glass like material but the sunlight that it let in was little dimmer than the sunlight outside.

Gilbert was walking observing the things around, behind him something was merging from the ground silently, two large green petals attached together. Gilbert sensed it, quickly turned and launched a fireball, it erupted and burned the top of the petals, the petals opened and a lady in green stepped out of it, she looked at gilbert.

“quite a fetching prey i have here”, she said, she had deep blue eyes and jet black hair, she wore dark green heels with light green stockings, dark green short skirt with frills, golden metal work on the waist,she wore a plain short white strap top with a tight fitting green jacket with dark green and golden lining work on it, the top was cut open from her lower chest till down exposing her abdomen overall showing off her curves.she had blood red lips and light green eye make up. Gilbert eyed her for few moments.

“Vanora here, and you don’t seem to be a talkative one,yes”she said

“what a lovely sight, but alas i’ll have to burn it down to crisp”said Gilbert

She got ticked off on gilbert for not admiring her beauty, she launched a green ball of magical energy, it hit gilbert and threw him back, she stretched her palms out forming a hand seal, a green light formed between her palms and a stream of leaves was fired at gilbert, gilbert got to his feet, the leaves had absolutely no power to hit him, but as soon as the first leaf went past him making a cut on the cheek below his left eye, he noticed the razor sharp edges of the leaves, he instantly fired up his entire body and held up a shield of flames burning all the leaves, but a few went through making a cut on his neck and his arms. The leaves stopped then he put out the fire. A single drop of blood came from the cuts below his eye and from the one on his neck.

Vanora casted another spell a straight wave of giant wooden spikes started thrusting from the ground,gilbert saw the wave closing in, as soon as he saw the closest spike came out ,he made a quick step and turned his body, a spike of the size of his body came right below from him, he moved with flexibility with the spike missing his torso and face by centimetres, he quickly caught the spike and kicked at it’s base and broke it, he set the spike on fire and threw and Vanora like a spear on blue fire, vanora ducked and dodged it

“i see what your magic is”he said and fired up a blue flame in his palm “ .....and you have picked the worst opponent of all”,

she could see the reflection of his blue flames in his eyes.

Gus entered an empty hall which seemed to be in use but was surprisingly empty there was another entrance across the hall way, from where a middle aged man wearing battle robes with metal armor on it came in.

“stop right there!”said Edmyg “you have come to battle and i shall be your opponent”

“well that was straight forward”said gus
“now prepare to die”saying edmyg drew a greatsword and charged at gus

Gus quickly moved and dodged, he kept swinging and gus somehow managed to keep distance from the blade,

“give me your name warrior”said edmyg

“i am not a warrior, i am a mage and i guess you are too so enough playing with toys and show me your magic”said gus

“you will have to make me”said Edmyg,he attacked with a direct downward blow, gus caught the blade in his one bare hand and stopped it, his hands were covered in yellow magical energy, he squeezed the blade and it shattered to pieces, he punched edmyg in the chest, edmyg went flying and crashed into the wall cracking it, he got to his feet holding his chest.

“so you use physical magic, you are enhancing you physical power beyond human level using your magic energy”said edmyg

“yes,plain and powerful” said gus and quickly moved, his magic not only enhanced his physical power but also his speed, he came close to edmyg with straight punch,Edmyg caught his punch in his palm which was more powerful than the last one, gus was stunned with surprise. Edmyg caught his wrist placed his other hand on gus’s waist and picked him up and slammed in the floor breaking it,still holding his wrist, he pulled him up and threw him in the centre.Gus slided on his feet.

“come now let’s see which one of us has more power”said edmyg

“alright then”said gus

Lukas had been walking for sometime going from one floor to another, one hall to another but did not meet another living soul until he entered large hall, it had large glass windows on either walls, decorative lamps hanging from the ceiling the floor was white marble, on both sides were long table and couches, at the end of the hall in the middle was big sized chair like a throne, in which an aged man with some grey in hairs was sitting.

“so this is how you arranged it”said Lukas

“come closer boy”said Wolgrin still sitting in his chair, Lukas closed in but cautiously

“before i blow you into oblivion, i want to know what you are planning, also where and what is your secret weapon?”asked Lukas

“you seem well informed, but awfully confident at your own death place”said Wolgrin

“you think i am a fool, you think i did not notice, if you wanted the city then your mages would be in the city preying on whatever they get, not hiding here in the castle. Still in a city with no guards , there should have been gang wars everywhere, people beating each other and destroying property, crimes should have been everywhere yet the city is calm,i did a thorough analysis there were no signs of criminal gang activities, no property destruction, no loots at major trading places and no group of men trying to rape a woman”

“You have suppressed everyone singles persons actions, and not let anyone go wild” said Lukas

Wolgrin got up from his chair and stood opposite to Lukas,

“Lukas of the Dragonest , i have heard your name i see it’s not for nothing. Yes, i have suppressed every soul in the city except you and your mages. I have suppressed the emotions of the people they are no better than my puppets right now”said Wolgrin

“it has something to do with the some secret object you posses, isn’t it”said Lukas

“Very clever,i’ll tell you about it, you are not going make out of this room alive anyway, yes i have a magical object in my possession and it allows me alter with people’s minds, i can make them calm i can also make them go berserk, if used properly i can make them function as i want depending on the situation”he explained

“why!?, just why!? Would you take over the city and then keep the city normal as always by taking control over the minds of the people”asked Lukas

“is it not good this way, you yourself saw there were no big crimes in the city, people behaving properly as they should”

Wolgrins words made Lukas wonder, regardless of what he did, what he said was not wrong, there were no crimes in the city, people functioning like the mob of a progressing city. Lukas was silent for a moment and then he spoke

“you expect me to buy this load of crap!”he exclaimed “you knew the council will take action against you, you---“

“the council is a bunch of fools. But if you don’t believe it is your choice not too, enough talk now lets us put the well known Lukas to test”

Lukas had no more words to speak either, he knew he had to fight the guild master of Scourge Chaos.They Both stood face to face and increased the magical aura, trying to dominate each other’s magical essence, the surrounding suddenly became heavy, they simply stood infront of each other but could feel the pressure of each other’s magical energy. The density of magic in the hall was very thick, cracks started to appear on the floor and on the walls and the next moment the surrounding was normal once again.

Lukas’s body was glowing golden, Wolgrin casted a spell and three purple mage circles surrounded Lukas and binding lightning was released, Lukas moved with speed and appeared behind wolgrin, he struck with direct magic infused kick, Wolgrin was thrown infront but settled quickly, Lukas placed his fist on his palm a mage circle appeared before his hand and released a golden beam of laser, he moved the laser to cut wolgrin, wolgrin used a spell a mage circle appeared beneath him and the laser went through him.

“magic hold”wolgrin stretched his hand outwards, Lukas was pushed in the wall behind with massive force, he swung his hand sideways, Lukas was swung correspondingly trashing along the wall, Lukas caught hold on the wall and released large amount of energy and broke the magic hold.

“Light Ray”Lukas formed a ball of light in his hands and many arcs of destructive rays emitted from it directed towards wolgrin, he placed his hand on the ground and the a circle was cut around him, on the floor a magic circle appeared, rock walls made of glass rose around him and he was enclosed in a tomb of glass, the rays of light hit the tomb and were refracted in different directions and blasted around the hall, the glass shattered after that and he was unharmed.

(Lukas)damn it he is tough, but he is a guild master after all.

Wolgrin knelt down on one knee, cupped his hands and spoke an incantation, a giant magic circle appeared on the floor covering most of the hall, Lukas used “Light Ray” again and fired more arcs of light, Wolgrin stayed still, the rays of light turned direction in between and blasted off in the hall again. The giant mage circle disappeared then. Lukas used a laser beam it was refracted in mid air and was went towards the ceiling.

(Lukas)what the fuck!, what did he do, my attacks won’t reach him, all my light spells are......unless.....

“the magic you performed just now its a nature shift magic isn’t it, you used air magic along with alchemy to change the nature of the air”said Lukas

“so you know about this magic, yes i did exactly that, i changed the refractive index of the air around us, your light magic is useless now”

“damn you”saying Lukas fired a couple of light spheres they just refracted away, Lukas just watched his attacks fail.

(Lukas)that’s not right, it’s not normal alchemy he is used, it’s an altered alchemy ,to perform a change against nature, he has to be sacrificing something to achieve such a feat, in any case my light magic is of no use now. i have to think of something else.

Lukas sprinted towards Wolgrin, he used “Magic Hold” and threw Lukas back to where he was. Lukas got up, there were stains of blood on the sides of his face, a line of blood flowed from his arm and dripping from his fingers, his clothes were bloodied by the injuries by getting smashed into the wall again and again. The furniture of the hall was a rubble now, the hall was damaged as a result of the battle.

Wolgrin used Magic explosions one after another, Lukas kept using basic spells to avoid or counter the attacks.

(Lukas)i am getting nowhere like this, come one think! Think!, ......................calm
down go through everything........................................ ......that’s it.

With a quick high jump he got on one of the large glass windows by the side walls, he stretched his hands and placed his fist in the palm of his another hand and fired a sphere of light towards wolgrin that got refracted and went elsewhere as expected, a wave of energy emitted out of him, the window behind him shattered outward and the hall was filled with sunlight, he was standing on a higher ground than Wolgrin in between the rays of sunlight that were coming in, his entire body started to shine, surprisingly these rays of light were not refracted away from Wolgrin, the light was so intense that wolgrin closed his eyes to prevent burning them, it was a shower of intense blinding light, one’s eyes would be easily blinded just seeing it from distance.

In a Few moments Wolgrin opened his eyes, Lukas was in motion his arm at the throat and he struck with his open arm, wolgrin fell back, Lukas quickly grabbed at his waist and pulled him back caught his collar with another hand and slammed him into the floor cracking it, he picked him threw him lightly in the air a sphere of light came from side and struck him and with blast of light wolgrin went flying and crashed into the throne smashing it.

Wolgrin slowly got to his feet, “what the fuck did just happened?”he said, coughing up blood as he spoke, blood was running down from his temple and the corners of his mouth. He saw along the walls, the window that he saw shatter before was perfectly intact now

“i see, so it was an illusion spell”he said breathing heavily “the few moments i was blinded by the illusion you used it to get close to me and engage in a physical assault”

(Wolgrin)Mother fucker!, he saw through my magic

“how did you figure it out?” he asked

“by your magic pattern”said Lukas

“first you tried to bind me, when that failed you studied my magic and casted a large spell to nullify my light magic, you used altered alchemy for it, but to use alchemy to change the nature of air, i did not see you destroy something first, even since your casted nature shift you maintained your distance and used only long range offensive attacks, you had to give up your physical strength to use alchemy to cast that spell, when i advanced towards you, you pushed me away with a magical force, that is what that magic is for isn’t it to keep the enemy away as you would we physically weakened” explained Lukas

“good analysis, but where did that last sphere of light come from?”asked wolgrin

“before i casted the illusion spell i fired it straight at you. You were too confident that you had failed my light magic so you chose to ignore it, ever since you casted the nature shift, i was studying the change in the air and i figured out it’s new refractive index, i calculated angle by which it refracts away from you and then refracts again at a different direction, considering all these factors i calculated it’s trajectory and timed my attack perfectly with it and threw you infront of sphere at the right moment”

Wolgrin was giggling with amusement “you lived upto your reputation, but you are just another fool, you should have went for the kill when you had the chance, i still haven’t dispelled the nature shift, your light magic is still useless and i will not be falling for any of your tricks now”he said

“i would have killed you, but i still want the magical object you possess”said Lukas

“you should think what you ask for boy”said wolgrin, he turned and kicked off the remains of the throne, under the throne was a small hidden space with a cushion in it, on it was placed a dark black orb, big enough to be held in one hand. He took it and showed it openly to Lukas.

“You can sense it as well, our mages are clashing against each other. Now let’s see if your mages are as good as you or not”he said, he held the orb up, a wave of energy emitted from it,Lukas felt it as well, after few moments he could sense the magic essence of the mages of Scourge Chaos going wild.

[mystogan]

i am being occupied by a lot of things, so i am not able to prepare a chapter quickly, i am having lot of work to do in which i am finding less peaceful time to write, but i'll try to post the next chapter as soon as possible
as always i am trying to improve my writing and make less mistakes and i hope it is turning out that way

for now here is the next chapter, "Chapter 14: Scared to Fight"

Spoiler for Chapter 14: Scared to Fight:

Black lightning sparks were flying everywhere, arwin swung the grey wand and fired a wave of lightning, Fynn was moving with inhuman speed and dodged the lightning, he instantly appeared infront of arwin and punched in his gut, arwin bent down and stepped back holding his stomach, he went for another attack, arwin quickly stepped ahead and swung his sword at his head , fynn twisted and moved, the blade went past his head cutting a few strands of hair, arwin made another swing, fynn caught his armed hand, arwin blocked his side kick with his free hand,with his free hand fynn using two fingers poked in arwin’s eyes

“ahhhhh!”he yelled, dropped the greywand and holding his eyes, he blindly ran away from fynn, yelling in pain,

“are you mad!?, who pokes someone in the eye!?”he said

“i am trying to kill you, how is poking you in the eye worse?”he said in confusion
Arwin felt hot liquid in his hands, he slowly tried to open his eyes and peeked

“Ahh!!, and now they are bleeding!!”he was yelling and running up and down the hall

(Fynn)i’m still here, does he even realize he is in a battle right now, is he an idiot.

He was running blindly yelling and he ran into a pillar and fell on his back, on the other side fynn watched arwin with a confused face, the atmosphere had suddenly gotten comic and light for a moment.
After sometime he slowly opened his eyes, his vision was reddened, he rubbed his eyes and cleared it, he felt the blood flowing out of his eyes, for a moment he just lay there.

(Arwin) just like tears of blood, how very suitable for someone like me

Arwin was lying on his back, instantly fynn appeared above him holding the greywand arwin had dropped before,

“die!”saying fynn made straight stab into him,arwin caught the blade with his bare hand, pulled his legs upward and kicked fynn in the face from the side, he fell back releasing the greywand. Arwin’s hand was bleeding, he had caught the blade in his sword hand that made wielding the sword difficult now.

He swapped the glove in his left hand with his insignia wrist band in his right hand, to cover the wound in his palm.Fynn had gotten up and stood before him.

(Arwin) come on, think!, since we started fighting he hasn’t used any proper magic
he only fought physically and he moves with inhuman speed, he is dodging all my lightning attacks.What is he doing exactly!?.......................if he want to fight like that the so be it.

Arwin fired a stream of black lightning, fynn moved and easily dodged it, arwin was above fynn and attacked with his greywand shining green spilling black, fynn moved and dodged the attack the greywand missed and hit the ground, arwin maintained a constant flow of lightning around him not giving fynn any opening to attacks physically. Fynn moved towards the far side of the hall, arwin sent a stream of lightning to the place where he will land, fynn changed his direction went to the centre of the hall, arwin continued the same pattern of attack four more times with no success, finally the two of them stopped. Arwin had tired himself out and was breathing rapidly.

“you are just tiring yourself out”said fynn

“i am not tiring myself out, if my attacks were a success” said arwin

“but they are not”said fynn

“really?, look around you”said arwin with a grin

Every time arwin’s attack with greywand missed and hit the ground,at all the spot where it hit the ground a green magic circle appeared and were connected with black lightning flowing from one circle to another, the circles were connected like dots forming a pentagram with fynn standing in the middle of it, markings and incantations appeared on the floor beneath fynn and he was paralyzed standing and was unable to move.

“And now you die!!”yelling arwin threw the greywand like a spear, the sword went right through fynn’s chest and came out from the back, spilling blood all around him, he coughed up blood, and was dying. After a few moments moment arwin felt the presence of a strange dark magic around him and then it was gone, suddenly arwin felt an enormous amount of magical pressure coming from Fynn, the magical pressure broke the pentagram and the magic circles disappeared.

Fynn started to move, he pulled out the bloodied sword out of his body, with a spray of blood from either side of his body, he tossed the sword aside like a stick and then looked at arwin with a wicked face.

Arwin was stunned with shock to see the man in front him still moving,fynn’s hands were completely stained red so were his clothes and there was a slit in his chest, more blood was running down his mouth as he spoke with a demonic smile on his face.

“so where were we”

..............

Raegan made a hand sign and a series of explosions followed, Erica dodged and jumped out of the smoke

(Erica)something is wrong he is only using basic magic spells, he is hiding something

Suddenly Erica felt a presence of a strange dark magic, she held herself feeling cold by the magic and then it was gone. She saw towards Raegan he was not to be seen. Reagan appeared behind her, she quickly turned around summoning a dagger in her hand simultaneously, she went for a stab, raegan caught the dagger , the dagger corroded in his hand and crumbled into particles of a rusted metal. He tried to touch Erica with the same hand. Erica quickly placed her hand on her torso a white magic circle appeared on her torso and threw her away from raegan.

She saw Raegan was completely different person now,before he was composed and cool, now he was wild, he had a demonic expression on his face.

“surprised?, well this is my magic, this is Decaying magic, anything i touch instantly decays and crumbles away, now let’s crumble away your clothes and see what’s bebeath” he sayed followed with a disgusting laughter.

(Erica) but he still as talkative and pervert as before. But something is different and that magic presence i felt before..

He advanced at Erica with his open bare hands, he simply had to land a touch on her, she moved swiftly and dodged his hands, simultaneously summoned a sword and dagger and counter attacked, Raegan caught both in one hand each and the blades crumbled to a pile of rust. She quickly got some distance and summoned her previous red blades of explosion. This time she powered the blades with her own magic energy and was able to execute an explosion from a distance, she swung the sword and began with a series of explosion, Raegan dodged the explosions as much as possible, but when the a large number of explosions took place around him at point blank range, he cast a spell and generated a field around him, the explosions just went puff in a cloud of smoke.

It worked as a smoke screen for him, he appeared behind Erica,she sensed him and turned, his hand landed on her arm, she quickly used a spell on herself and threw her away from him, the sleeve of her shirt was crumbling away , she tore it off the and threw away, saving her apparel from further damage.

(Erica)he even decayed the explosion into smoke, is he able to decay magic as well?

“You are right”said raegan “i know what you are thinking, i can even decay magical energy and i can use this property in any way i want”

(Erica)a close range fight is out of the question and he can even stop my long range magic attacks, there’s got to be someway.

“Godslayer” Erica summoned a katana, it’s thin blade was already cracked and chipped at places, the sword looked old. she swung it sideways with just one hand, the pressure of the swing was so powerful, a slash appeared on the wall. Raegan also felt the pressure from it.

“No matter how strong a weapon you use, it won’t cut me”saying he approached her, she thrusted the sword into the floor, the sword went inside cracking it, she then twisted it, the entire floor started to crack, she twisted it again, the floor shattered and both Erica and Raegan fell into it.

Fynn placed his hands on the ground and was crouching, his eyes turned completely red and were shining like rubies, steam was coming from his body, his skin tore open and black fur was coming out , as if he was wearing skin like clothes.

Infront of arwin stood a werewolf, three times the size of arwin, eyes blood red, saliva dripping from his jaws, with large claws he stood on his hind legs bending forward. The appearance of the beast was so terrifying arwin was stunned with fear by what he saw, he din’t move at all, sweat dripping from his chin and his legs were shaking while his heart racing.

The werewolf looked at arwin and let out a long howl, arwin started to move back step by step, fynn approached him and in moments was close to arwin, he kept running in order to maintain distance, the werewolf was attacking arwin with his giant claws and razor sharp jaws, arwin was moving along the pillars and the rubble trying to maintain distance from the monster. He was moving solely by his instincts trying to survive one attack after the other. Arwin remembered of the greywand, he did not look for it but blindly ran to the position where he last saw it, he used spell to give him a boost to run giving him a few second ahead of fynn.

Arwin spotted his sword running very fast and fynn closing in, he slided on his knees and quickly grabbed his weapon, he quickly turned and blocked the claws of his opponent with the sword, fynn pushed arwin behind and attacked again, fynn slashed at awrin twice, he was hit not only with sharp claws but also with brute force, he was thrown behind and crashed on the ground.

Arwin slowly got up, there were two large slash on his body from his side to the centre of his chest and cuts on his arm, his clothes were torn along with the attacks as well, blood was flowing out, there was also a cut on his right cheek from his right ear till the nose. He was breathing heavily and when he looked at the beast, started cowering with fear. Fynn started moving towards arwin slowly, arwin saw the beast advance, he got up in pain he tried to run in opposite direction, but could only take quick steps and came to the end wall and rested his back on the wall.

(Arwin)he..he is too powerful ,what the hell happened, how did he suddenly turned into a monster, i din’t see him cast any magic.......

Ofcourse!, he is not a wizard, he did not cast any magical spells even before, he was able to move that fast before because that is his normal speed in his human form, that explains the wierd magic i felt from him back in the city, he is a werewolf this is his natural form, but the way he fought he is not a savage beast he is an intelligent one, it’s like the soul inside him is still of that guy.

what should i do!?, i can’t go on like this,a close combat is suicide and i need to focus to use magic, b-but i am scared, h-he is going to kill me.No no no i don’t want to die! what should i do!, he is going to kill me!

Arwin’s eyes became watery, drops of blood were running down the wall on which he was resting. The werewolf gave out a howl ready to attack, suddenly the hall began shaking, arwin looked upwards the ceiling was falling down.He moved away from the falling pieces of ceiling, fynn did the same. Erica jumped landed right infront of him,

“Erica?!”said arwin

“Arwin?, it is you”

“what’s happening how did fall here from above?”

“it’s a long story”she said

“that’s enough reuinion of you two”said Reagan while fynn stood beside him, “so this is other one, huh. No matter let’s kill both of them”

“so you are fighting with the werewolf . That creepy guy, he uses some kind of decay magic anything he touches instantly decays, we’ll have to work together and think of a way to counter that”said Erica

“what do you mean counter that?, you have not seen what that beast is capable of, one straight strike and he’ll rip you to shreds and it is impossible to dodge him carefully and use magic at the same time and now there is another guy here too” said arwin, he was trembling with fear

“so what!?, they will kill us anyway, we have to do something, look behind you the exit is already blocked by the rubble of the ceiling” said Erica

“you don’t understand!, we cannot defeat them! We must escape somehow” said Arwin

“i never knew you were such a coward, i thought you were capable of better than this. If you are going to keep whining then stay behind, i can fight and defeat them myself”said Erica,saying Erica approached towards their enemy, while arwin stood still in disbelief and shock.

The beast dived at her, she jumped high with a summersault above him, “Soul Rapier”,she summoned a sword with thin blade that had crafting of metallic curves coming from it’s hilt, during the flip she slashed on his back with a long cut, the beast fell down squealing, “Archangel”she switched her weapon, and swung it firing a large magical slash towards Reagan, he used a decaying shield and countered her attack, she summoned Soul Rapier in another hand ,quickly turned and block Fynn’s claws and held him, she switched Archangel with a crystal sword and blocked Raegan’s hand from behind, the crystal blade held up against his decaying magic. She somehow blocked both of them from either sides for a moment, fynn swept his claw with force and threw her at some distance, she landed on her feet sliding, her unique weapons in each hand. For the next couple minutes she kept blocking Raegan’s decay magic with the crystal sword, but it started to crack, simultaneously she was sparring with the werewolf’s claws with Soul Rapier, her skill in handling blades was much better than arwin’s, so she was able to block most attacks with sharp things, but she was not able to attack any of them.

(Erica)Damn it!, i thought changing the arena would give me some advantage, but i ran into that idiot, what a pathetic loser. That guy was absolutely no help, instead because of him now i am fighting a werewolf as well, he only made things worse for me, curse that fucking coward son of a bitch.

Arwin hid behind rubble while the two foes were focused on Erica. Raegan got an opening and touched her stomach, she started to feel a burn on her skin, in that moment Fynn swept her and threw her at some distance.She quickly got up and tore away the lower half of her shirt, there was a red mark on her stomach, just the top layer of her skin had burned a little. She felt wet around her shoulder, she put her hand on her back to check and saw red liquid on her hand, she was clawed from her neck to the centre of her back. But she couldn’t afford to slow down, the two attacked her again, she was running out of energy to keep up with the two, raegan focused his energy and succeeded in breaking the crystal sword, his advanced and touched her arm, she quickly swiped with Soul Rapier, he ducked and touched her thigh, she stepped back and tore of the other sleeve of her shirt and one leg of her pants, she felt and powerful jerk, fynn caught her and pinned her down and was about to tear off her face with his razor sharp teeth, she pulled her arm from beneath his claws, making few cuts, she quickly put her hand between and locked his jaws by putting a dagger between his jaws, he pulled back making painful noise from the tip of the dagger poking the ceiling of his mouth, she pulled her feet and kicked him his nose, the beast fell back she quickly got up and took a safe position behind the rubble.

(Arwin)what is she doing, does she not understand that we cannot beat them, she’ll kill herself if she keep on going like this, she did not see how terrifying that monster is, we have to run somehow. What should i do!!!, my feet are shaking,.. i am scared!...please ...help me.....

He closed his eyes and held his head in frustration, he felt weak and useless, suddenly an image of Vincent came to his mind.

Erica was cornered to the wall, the werewolf stood blood dripping from his mouth and Reagan next to him eyeing her. They attacked her like hungry dogs on a piece of meat, suddenly she was gone from the place she was standing a moment ago, they both were surprised and looked around in confusion. At the other end of the hall on a higher ground, arwin landed on a flat surface which was like a higher floor, holding Erica in his arms. It was too fast and she flushed when she realised she was being held by arwin like that. He then just dropped her on the ground like a bag, she fell on her butt

“oww, that’s not how you put down a lady when you are holding her like that”she said

“you are a lady?, oh, thanks for the news flash”he said

“ya, very funny”she replied, “of all times you choose now to joke around”

He turned and was about to go back to the fight, he closed his eyes for a moment let out a sigh and opened them, Erica saw fear and disbelief in his eyes a few minutes ago, but now along with fear there was something else she saw in his eyes.

[Kerspunkle]

Entertaining as always! I enjoyed the battles in these last chapters. I liked how they each tried to outsmart their opponents. I thought the battle between Erica and Raegen seemed a little more confusing than the previous battles though. Rather than using so many commas, maybe you could try using character names and short sentences to make it easier for the reader to understand.

[mystogan]

i am glad you are enjoying the battles i hope the one between Lukas and Wolgrin was not confusing ,well i try not to use characters names every time i refer to them, but i'll see to it that it is not confusing and easy to understand.
thanks, point taken and i'll be posting a new chapter in a couple of days