Elven Magic: Book 1,2, 3 (6 page)

Elven Magic

The return journey to the village was easier than it was entering the portal to Shaan.

In the village there was a chieftain and that family was very set in its ways, the newer entry’s to the bazaar would also be charged a higher amount to sell their wares.

We were not that disadvantaged by this taxation from the village due to the sheer value of the wares we had to sell.

Tobias was very eager to arrange the artefacts to sell and was constantly trying to be in the limelight, even though most of the village were refugees, the party Kris brought from Egypt fitted right in and they all had a lot in common.

Kris knew this would be the perfect place to settle down and research the ties between the elementals and the planet and awaited the return of Fae and Mindy to help with and explain in more detail with regards to the planet Imparla and the way it is bound to the glass sculpture atop the Tower in Elven Lands and the relationship that has started between Elven Lands and Human Lands in our time.

So were the Elementals of Imparla to be set free on Elven Lands or Human Lands, well it didn’t appear to be on either now, but it does seem to be that they will be released on Imparla someday.

Kris knows that releasing them will not be that easy and there will be a lot of work to allow this event to transpire.

Witch Wraith

Of

Windy Woods

Like the monopoly man playing with everybody’s sanity looking at them through his spectacle.

Ellen walked over the glass sculpture and can look at those who are frozen and motionless in time through her glass spectacle and they would suddenly be filled with movement and life again until Ellen moved the spectacle away from them again only to return to their frozen state.

She could do this anywhere on the sculptures path and on Imparla they would go into a frenzy when unfrozen through no fault of Ellen’s and only having themselves to blame for breaching their own sanity barriers.

Ellen looks at this as her pain and duty as it adds to her stature in the community of elves although she would never say this and only thinks so.

Time in the Village went by with many markets and an old lady named Sienna who said she was Ellen’s aunty making potions was her craft and she did this week in and week out for the small tight knit community.

All that remained of the woman where her potions and elixirs in her small quaint little hut with shelves and very little room to move because of it being a cluttered shop on Imparla.

Mindy speaks of this old elf as though she knows her very well, “She went into the Windy Woods one day and the rumour said she had a very powerful potion to protect her while trying to retrieve the Wyvern’s Talon and when she found it was scouring the forest for food and attacked her while on horseback and as soon as it went in for the killer blow the potion began to work and turned all three of them into wraiths, the horse named Zed, the Witch named Sienna and the Wyvern named Winter.” Said Mindy to the group who were now in Siennas Shop going through her items.

The story has it that not one of them could stand still in the wind except the horse. Although the Wyvern still being very destructive by nature would still tear you apart if its talon came in contact with you and the wind didn’t come in contact with the Wyvern first and transport it quickly to another part of the forest.

It is said on the old lady’s notes left in her hut that only when past and present and future meet that the spell can truly be broken and everything will return to what once was.

There were clearly written instructions of what to do to return the now Witch Wraith back into Sienna in her diary to whatever end that is left unsaid.

First, you must retrieve something from each creatures past involved in the spell. We still know the horse owners in the Village and could quite easily get something from their past.

For Example, it’s saddle.

Second there’s Sienna’s Potions and elixir shop, but because it’s a potion that caused this spell we couldn’t use a potion to break it.

We really had to think about it because we only had one chance to break the spell and still had to learn the words Sienna had written in the Diary to actually reverse the potions effects.”

The more difficult thing would be to find something from a Wyvern’s past because it’s a wild beast. And if we do find anything I doubt that Tobias would surrender it easily.

The only part of the three wraiths that would stand still long enough without tearing us to shreds is the horse and the three items need to be placed on the horse and the words uttered.

The Diary speaks of Sienna needing the Wyverns Talon and maybe, just maybe she got this before the effects of the spell made them into wraiths.

The group decides to get enough equipment to make their way into Windy Woods to look through the area the Wyvern was last sighted by the villagers.

This would involve selling many of the treasures from the previous treasure hunt at the plantation and also involved Mindy who had managed to return from fencing her items at Shaan actually making it back before the party even got back to the village.

The villagers speak of the fact that the dragons around the territory of the Wyvern Wraith’s are culled because even though it is natural for a much larger dragon to have attacked a Wyvern it’s not in the Wyverns nature to attack a dragon, it had just kept away from the dragons but their numbers are mostly on the decline since the Wyvern had in fact become a Wraith and the dragon is no match for a wraith really and the dragons all attack and get killed by the Wyvern Wraith.

The locals speak of a crypt that Ellen supposably had made for her aunty Sienna many years ago when she first found out that she had died and was buried there possibly until she resurrected from being dead to become a wraith although what really happened remains a secret only known by Sienna and possibly Ellen.

“Fae, do you know what happened and how Sienna had become a wraith?” said Kris.

“No, I only knew that Sienna had met an awful fate worse than death according to Ellen.” Said Fae.

“Why didn’t she ever find out what happened to her aunty?” said Kris.

“She is not meant to be an adventurer I distinctly remember her saying when she had her ceremony at the crypts all those years ago.”

The archaeological crew all made their way up to the crypt along the road which was basically left untouched they all still made sure to not actually walk on the path still not to alert Ellen to their continued presence on Imparla.

As they made their way up to the crypt they were suddenly ambushed by a very angry dragon and everything happened so fast before they could even blink there was an electrical shriek and the Wyvern wraith at the same time launched from behind the crypt and sat down upon them.

It must of thought they were merely just harmless humans and even though it hadn’t seen a human in many years since they aren’t around to tell the tale we didn’t know how many had ventured up into the Windy Woods.

The dragon now approaches from another direction and attacks the smaller Wyvern Wraith and it is no match for the not undead wraith and is killed. The Wyvern Wraith now quite startled by the larger dragon quickly fly’s away.

The crew all descended into the crypts quickly to escape any further approaching dragons.

Kris thinks back to what the wraith looked like and quickly starts speaking of it.

“That thing wasn’t the usual dragon and looked a lot like a smaller Wyvern and it looked almost electrified and all I could make out in the middle of the dark blue light around it was its bones they looked old and black from dirt.”

Inside the crypt it was very dark and musty and the statues of elven elders are all in mint condition although hard to see in the conditions they had to view it in.

Suddenly a gust of wind comes flying through the now only half closed doors and makes them now aware of all of the bones on the floor of elves or even possibly humans that ventured from the village who have met their fates, somehow many have wounds or great gashes on their bones and some broken bones which may indicate they died from injuries from the dragons or the Wyvern wraith.

Suddenly something comes shooting out of the shadows in the crypt and attacks the crew they manage to overpower it but it seems to have an awful bite on it and bites one of the crew.

They shine their torch on it in the dark musty crypt and its face looked very much like a vampire Tobius quickly uses the spade for the archaeological dig to cut its head clean off.

“I’m not taking any chances with that ghastly looking diseased vermin.” Said Tobias.

“It looked human though, I wonder how it became a vampire?” said Fae.

“I’d say it’s to do with the skeleton dragon, little did it know it assisted us that day with regards to that dragon.” Said Tobias.

The First Crypt

“I think you can safely say don’t get bitten by that Wyvern Skeleton covered in some kind of blue flame, crew.” Said Tobias.

They all looked over at what Tobias had found.

“It’s a map of some kind, crew.”

It was a very basic map drawn on a tablet block using some kind of metal chisel which also was lying next to it on the floor. Tobias looked up from the tablet and along the chisel only to follow the hand and then the arm and then the rest of the poor guys body who managed to chisel the map before dying on that very spot.

“I think we should take caution with following these guys instructions since they didn’t manage to get back there in one piece.” Said Tobias

Their stare went straight back onto the vampire now headless in the middle of the crypt doorway.

It had a few really deep tears in its face and neck which did indicate that it had been in contact with the Wyverns razor sharp talons, but is this how it became a mindless terror blood sucker?

“Do you think these crypts are all just little rooms and don’t lead anywhere?” said Tobias to Kris.

“This woman Sienna must have been really important among elven lands.” Said Tobias to Fae.

“She is Ellen’s Aunty who is the most skilled in the arts of magic which is now forbidden in every way accept for the good of the empire.” Said Fae.

“So they both knew a lot about magic?” said Kris.

“Yes. It scares me to know even how much I know from Ellen teaching me the art.”

“So you know little compared to Ellen?” said Tobias.

“No, I know everything that’s important in surviving this infernal planet and getting back to Elven Lands.” Said Fae.

Fae mixed a potion on the bench in the crypt with the torch sitting next to her.

The potion was for extracting the poison bite from the vampire which is worth a fortune in Shaan and is even said to have given immortal properties if mixed correctly and just strength if not.

“Here Tobias take this potion and drink it, it will make you stronger and I think you will need to be stronger with that shovel in time on the Adventure ahead.” Said Fae.

“There are many dangers on this planet Fae. I want to leave as much as you do but we need to break this spell in order to restore favour for us at Shaan.” Said Kris to Fae.

Fae wrote the tablet map on her map and keeps it in her backpack, Tobias collects all of the ancient elven artefacts and gets ready to leave, for some reason the vampires must have been too docile to care about the treasures of those crypts.

They all leave the cover of the crypt ready to adventure to the next set of crypts with no idea of where they might lead because they were not mentioned in Sianna’s notes before making her way up to the woods all those years ago.

The crew all make their way alongside the path to the area marked on the map where it leaves the path into the woods.

Running into vampires in the woods was definately possible but not as much as some kind of creature or monster and the crew were eager to find the crypt to get out of the wind which is enough to knock them over.

Eventually they find another dirt track off the main cement path which indicated they were on the right track.

The track gets deeper into the woods and really was overgrown and dark, the crew find their way into like a cave of undergrowth and there are many spider’s webs everywhere which are very different to those of earth.

They were thicker and very large which indicates a very large monster must be lurking there in that forest.

The group have many trackers from when they were in the desert oasis and they are equipped with guns now which with a limited amount of ammo but they should have plenty to kill the beasts.

Very quickly the beasts come from the darkness of the undergrowth and attack leaving most of them dead until the final bullet and they had then to resort to daggers and shovels and speed to kill the remaining two spiders out of eight.

The Spiders were now outnumbered and the crew very quickly finished them off.

They all look around the nest at the surroundings and how the trees all fold over at the top like a cocoon.

Tobias and a few of the crew search through the dead bodies and retrieve whatever they can find in the spider’s nest.

The next totem glistens in the sunlight as the come to it, at the totem there are two water elementals which quickly approach and one quickly puts out the flame which causes them to disintegrate and really does seem to distress them.

“The fire causes me to turn to steam, we must stay away from the fire elementals because they try to trick us and we stay this side of the spiders cave because they are scarred of the spiders.” Said Jerry.

“The spiders are dead now”, said Tobias.

“No we doubt that there are more we have seen their nest because they can’t hurt us and they drink us a little. They all seem to need us really.” Said Al.

The wraith horse just stands near the totem and stares at us as though we were the enemy, but it doesn’t move except a few steps every now and then and it just seemed like a horse really.

The sunlight starts to move closer and closer past us then toward the horse and every second that passes and eventually reaches the horse then eventually the Elementals and as darkness settles we all decide to move on.

Fae takes note of the fact that the horse didn’t seem at all hostile and didn’t seem to be under control of some evil force like the Wyvern does as it was so quick to attack.

Fae would have rather the witch Sienna wasn’t under control of undead though, but doesn’t really know whether Sienna was or not and was in no hurry to find out.

Sienna was not there but can’t have been too far away because of her horse.

Fae decided they wouldn’t wait around for Sienna to return to her steed, the party all moved over the next hill following the dirt track to the Crypt which was in the side of a mountain.

Fae deceptively leaves a spy to preview Sienna’s return, one of the crew agrees to this named Sy.

Sy quickly hides himself in the bushes near the horse and totem until Sienna returns.

Sienna slowly walks up to the horse because of her old elvish cladding and armour she still wore even after all these years and it looked lopped sided on her bones which were similar to that of the Wyvern wraith’s bones covered in a blue electrified glow and black charred from the dirt from all of those years ago.

Sy takes note of the fact that Sienna when she reached the horse puts some ingredients into the horses backpack and the dust from the previous herbs and ingredients she collected falls out of the bottom of the backpack, he realises now what’s happening and a feeling of dismay covers him to the fact that she is repeatedly collecting these for her potions and never returns to her house a truly sad fate indeed.

Sy waited until Sienna mounted her steed and moves on and is completely out of site before he even moved from his completely stiff position and hiding place.

Sy returns to Fae and tells her of what he has been privy to.

Fae realises from what he had told her that he should have confronted her as she may not be under anyone or thing’s control, he was too afraid and admits this to fae.

“I was too afraid to attack the witch wraith, she looked so high and mighty in that armour and I couldn’t even bring myself to move let alone attack.”