Dark Age Legends

[Dude Man]

"Yes, quite amusing..." Marshal sighed.

"Allright boys!" Rink yelled "We don't have anytime for chaceing. Let's get a move on!"

[Haraldur]

The tesla coil stops frying the ground around it, and returns to Tesla's hands. As the coil gets closer to him, Tesla notices the throbbing of the locket getting more and more powerful and frequent.

He places the coil down again, and turns it on, causing the sparks to only hit the ground. He takes the locket off from around his neck, and notices it is faintly glowing, and the glow becomes more intense the closer it is to the coil.

He puts the locket above the coil, so all the sparks enter it. It glows at a huge intensity and, slowly a glow in the air forms, shaping itself to the rough shape of a human, with it getting more detailed as he lowered it closer to the the coil itself (and so less of the energy is lost to resistance from the air.

He stops, and put the locket around his neck again, and picks up and turns off the tesla coil. He then flies away from the rest of the group without explanation.

[Xorlak]

"Hehehehehe..."

The small figure weaved though the shadows of the crates.

"Hsss...  Who am I?  What am I?  Who are you?  What are you?  Who are they?  What are they?  ...  In deathh all are the ssame... the ssame... the ssame!!"

He disappeared from Duilin's view behind one of the larger crates as a few more of the fallen pirates began to groan and rise...

----

Ven arrived at the opposite side of the town and exited the open gates at a jogging pace.  The forest around this area was fairly thick, but mostly sparse pine trees, so the morning sun illuminated the area well.

Mavas was some 300 feet straight ahead, halfway up one of the tower trees, his feet resting on one of branches, his back against the trunk, and his arms folded...

"Now now, you don't look like you're having a good time..."

Ven slowed his pace as he approached the dark man in the tree.

"Where... where are you leading me?!"

"Heh heh... now what did I tell you about trusting strange men?  There's only one person you can trust in this world, you know..."

Ven's eyes widened as he came to a stop some 100 feet from the tree, his blade poised at his side.

"So... you have memories from before..."

"Heh heh heh..."

"What?  What's so funny?"

"Heh heh HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

Mavas threw his head up in laughter.  Ven clenched his teeth.

"I can't take this ANYMORE!"

Ven brought the silver blade above his head as it flashed a brilliant white, bringing it down as sliver wave of energy shot from it.  The crescent tore through the air and split the tree at the trunk, which began to creak over like cleanly cut lumber.

But Ven took his eyes off of Mavas as he performed the attack, who had since disappeared from sight...

[Zeros']

Zeros' noticed the approaching undead pirates and sighed. He held out his right hand, palm facing away from him. His hand seemed to twitch before he slammed his hand faster then anyone could see, bar demons and very powerful humans (Draven...).

From where his hand slammed, the ground rippled outwards from the spot and formed a crater a few feet deep and wide with a spiderweb of cracks forming outwards from the crater.

With the ripples, came a white light. As soon as the white light hit the undead pirates, they moaned loud (in pain, not like that you perverts...) and collapsed into small piles of blackened ash.

But, as the ripple of power continued outwards, the buildings started to rumble and shake, pieces of the roof coming falling down to the ground, but, marciously, the builds stayed standing.

"Now," said Zeros', his eyes closed. "Come out and fight. Stop hiding behind your undead minions, or, is that all you can do?" he said mockingly.

[Dude Man]

Duilin, turned around "Show, yourself." He tossed his fireball at one of the crates.

Rink narrowed his eyes "Marshal, you have any idea who this guy is?"

"No, I don't belive so..." Marshal replied. He rubbed his chin. "A necromancer, you don't see very many of those."

[Xorlak]

The crate exploded, spreading flame to several of the surrounding boxes.

"Hehehehe... Very good!  Very good!"

The shadow danced around, avoiding the flames, before being forced to leap away from their protection, landing in plain sight near the edge of the pier.

He stood at about four feet tall, draped in dirty gray hooded cloak.  He leaned heavily on a short staff, made of some type of heavy oak.  His face was completely shrouded in the darkness of the hood, save two white slits for eyes.  He cowered at the morning sun, binging up his arm to hide his face.

"Hssss, later we shall resume.  Yesss..."

The figure leapt backwards (more of a unnatural diagonal levitation) as a red sphere circled him.  He fell into the sea and disappeared under the waves...

----

Ven held his position (blade in front to the ground) as the tree crashed before him, his eyes shifting back and forth...

"Hah hah hah haahh..."

The laughter echoed though the forest.  Directly behind the mangled tree there was a straight path.  Trees lined each side, merging towards the center as far as the eye could see...  Obviously the laugh emanated from that direction.

Ven released the blade from the grasp of his left hand and let it hang lose on his right side.  He began to slowly walk into the unknown, the pine needle ground softening his steps...

[Zeros']

Zeros relaxed his stance some and looked around. It seemed as if the remaining villagers sensed the danger was done and started to cautiously peek out at the strange group of adventurues. Some of them looked admiringly at everyone of the edenturures, but more then half tried to glare Zeros', Duilin and Rink to death. Zeros' was unaffected by all of this, used to it many times in his travels.

He had noticed Tesla's coils fire off in the random direction, but he ignored it for the more...immediate threat.

"We can assume that wasn't an attack by Draven, at least the strange man. For one, he wouldn't send someone else to attack us. Even if he did, which I highly doubt, he'd have them attack us first," said Zeros' to his companions, then his last sentence to Duilin.

He had no doubt that the Crimson Empire Tax collecters were not here on one of their random visits... more like a ruse to lure himself and the ones he hadn't killed before...

"We can only hope that Draven doesn't drag this out long..." he murmurred mostly to himself, his arms crossed and eyes closed again... he had been thinking about it for awhile now, ever since before he came back. He hoped this grudge between him, Draven and Duilin would be done soon.

He just hoped their battle (the battled between Draven's force and the heros') didn't tear the earth from it's foundation like the events five years ago...

[Dude Man]

"Yes, he would." Duilin said to Zeros', walking to his position. "The one, pirate. With the shotgun. I overherd him call it 'Veronika', strange." He said, scratching his head "Probabbly nothing."

Rink, swiped the dirt of his shoulders, and turned his head and looked at the villagers "What the hell are you looking at!?" He said agresively, and a few looked away from him. He rotated his shoulders and cracked his knuckles and walked to Duilin and Zeros' position.

"Um, Zeros' is it?" Marshal said  "I recall seeing Ven, heading towards the other side of the town."

[Haraldur]

Tesla arrives at what he judges to be a reasonably isolated spot.

He places the tesla coil down, and turns it on. He then directly put the locket on top of it.

The locket glows, and disappears. The figure of a man forms within a bright light. Around him are ten other smaller men, with sparks connecting the centre one to the out ones, like on Tesla's tatoo.

The figure solidifies, accompanied by a bright flash.

"Hello, Nikola."

"Hello Haraldur."

"We should rid ourselves of our tiresome prophet."

"As you wish."

_____________________________________________________

Standing behind Zeros', The Great Prophet has just seen a premonition of his own death. He shouts, "The Aspyes are going to kill me!" before becoming mute again.

[Aminaga]

Aminaga used his powers to disappear, and while he was invisible, he walked away from the others, and began to try to find Ven, and follow him toward wherever he was off too.

He then spotted Ven, and then, Aminaga remained invisible, and continued to follow Ven...

[Trent]

"You are all in way over your head." Xenai snickered, and swung his blade in a complete circle, taking out the pirates around him. He then pointed the sword at Albatrash. "You're next."

--- --- ---

He walked directly behind Aminaga now, locked onto his ki signature, not bothering to cloak, yet concealing his energy signature.

[Zeros']

Zeros' whirled around suddenly and glared in a, seemingly random direction.

"WHO are they Prophet..." he aksed quietly, his voice barely concealed with contempt. That wasn't just a random spike of power... it was farmiliar...

"Did you feel that Duilin," he asked quietly again.

[Dude Man]

"Yes, I felt something." Duilin replied "What was it?"

"Felt what?" Marshal asked

"Seriously man, don't trouble yourself in trying to understand, all that." Rink said to Marshal, laughing.

"Hmmm..."

[Haraldur]

The Great Prophet looked annoyed. "How am I supposed to know? The premonition was not detailed, I have told you all it told me. My only guess would be that that picture I showed you has something to do with them. Now, if that is the case, then-"

He dropped to the ground, his head missing, his neck a burning stump, he had been hit by some super hot plasma. The head had burned away completely. He was obviously very very dead.

The attacker was nowhere to be seen.

_____________________________________________________________

Tesla smiled as he saw the bolt of plasma hit the prophet. He returned to where Haraldur was. Haraldur turned, and said, "Where is everyone else?"

Tesla replied, "The new Crimson Empire discovered them imprisoned by the Dark Empire, and have kept them there. Probably for the same reasons too."

"We should pay them a visit," said Haraldur.

They rose up, and flew towards the Crimson Empire. This meant they flew above Zeros' and the others. Grinning, Haraldur made some hand movements, causing a picture to appear in the air, hugely bright, with light coming from it. It showed one man surrounded by ten other identical men, with sparks connecting them, and below was an arrow pointing towards the Crimson Empire, and one word: "Follow."

Haraldur chuckled to himself, wondering what Zeros' reaction would be.

[Xorlak]

Ven continued through the forest.  The trees were becoming more dense, resulting in less and less penetrating daylight.  He paused for a moment, thinking himself followed... but it was nothing...

After a good twenty minutes, he noticed large vine-covered slabs of stone appear randomly on either side of the path as he progressed.  These became more and more common as he progressed.  It was evident that he was in the middle of some ruins of some sort.  The path was noticeably more treacherous as well, with undergrowth spilling on to it, fallen trees to leap over, and the like.

At the very end of the path was what looked like the ruins of a temple, the foundation at  least.  It looked to be a rather tall structure at one time judging by the size of what was left, although now it was little more than a pile of rubble.  Ven weaved in between the large stone slabs in his way as he progressed closer to the mysterious site...