[Present Day]When Alexei emerged from the depths of the tapestry's vision this time it was without any pain at all. Whatever process had happened to him to make him immune to the debilitating effects of the first time he had immersed himself in the Demon Lord’s past. He wasn’t sure if he liked that fact, it implied that there was something going on behind the scenes that he wasn’t aware of. “What did you see that time?” Risa asked, “Did you gain any more insights onto what the Demon Lord was doing, or how this place came to be?” “I think I can figure most of it out now, yeah,” Alexei sighed, “And it’s as simple as it gets really. The Demon Lord was attempting to wipe out anyone who used the Power Divine, as they were the only ones who really stood a chance against him… but…” Alexei trailed off, he hadn’t seen the end of the fight that the Demon Lord had ended up having with whoever had attacked him and blasted him through a mountain, but Alandria still existed and this was the D
[Present Day][Analysis Complete!]Alexei came back to reality with a snap, a seeping horror sinking into his mind. The Demon Lord… wasn’t dead at all. He was alive. Biding his time. For all Alexei knew the mad bastard already knew that they were there. What was even worse was the fact that the Academy had been corrupted. They weren’t being groomed to fight the Shades, they were being groomed to be fed to the shades. It was like all his worst fears were being confirmed at once. [New element: Darkonium discovered!]He couldn’t think about his power right now, even if it had picked up something from his time with the tapestries. They needed to focus. “We need to get out of here,” Alexei hissed, “and we need to get out of here right now, back to the Mage Temple in Alandria… we need to tell them, warn them.” “AnD wHaT WoUlD yOu Do ThEn,” A voice boomed throughout the room, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.“Alexei… Who was that?” Risa asked, she was terror-strick
Alexei paced back and forth across the sand.He'd been trained for situations like this, but now he wasnt sure how strongly he trusted any of his training. All of that had been a ruse to fatten him up for the Shades, after all. If he were going to follow those instructions he would have hunkered down, made a defensible base of operations, and waited for assistance. It sounded logical when he thought it out, but it also sounded like a trap. Waiting would just allow Shades to creep up on you in the dark. He looked around with wild eyes at that thought before immediately calming back down. He was being paranoid now. Seeing potential traps and ploys where there probably were none. Either way, they still couldn't stay where they were. Someone had to warn the Mage Temple about what was happening. They were the only ones who could stop the plan of the Demon Lord and the Administrar."Any thoughts?" Alexei asked, "We cant just sit around here waiting to be rescued, too much is at stak
The caravan came to a skidding halt just before the stone path came to an end. The final rays of sunlight were just beginning to dip below the dunes, which Alexei knew meant the sand wyrms would be stirring soon. He couldn't help but grin at the insanity of it all. It wasn't like he was having a good time or anything like that. Not with Demon Lords resurrecting themselves from the dead and betrayals stabbing him in the back. But their plan to get back to the village? Or rather, his plan to get back to the village. If he didn't laugh about it Alexei thought that he just might scream."If you can propel this blasted caravan like that with your power divine then why the hell do we need a wyrm!" Risa said, which was followed up by a swift punch to his shoulder. "Ow! Uncalled for!" Alexei retorted, "and besides, the only reason I could use my empowered air like that down there was due to the sheer concentration of manacules the tomb is putting out, back up here it's as desert like as
The final rays of sunlight had passed over the horizon, and Alexei could hear rumbling deep below the sand. He took a long slow breath and then said, “It’s time, Risa.” “Are you sure we have to do this?” Risa asked, “We can’t just hang about until the morning?”“The Mage Temple needs to know what’s coming,” Alexei replied, “We have no idea what the Demon Lord will do now that we know of his existence. He might do nothing or he might begin to wage war against the kingdom anew. We can’t be responsible for all those deaths, but we will be if we don’t try to at least warn them.”"And if we die without ever making it to them? Who's going to warn them then?" Risa shot back.“If we die then there’s no helping them, but if we don’t get back in time then there’s no helping them either, don’t you at least want to give them a chance?” Alexei said. Risa scowled, when the argument was presented like that there was no way that she could turn it down. “If we do die I’m going to be really annoyed
There were many parts of Alexei’s plan that could have gone wrong. The wyrm may not have shown up. More than one wyrm may have shown up. Risa may have been killed by the worm. Risa may have killed the worm. There were so many points of failure that Alexei had stopped trying to count them, because if he had it may have made him too leery of the plan to go through with it. But that meant he’d overlooked one fatal flaw in the plan. He had no idea how Risa was going to get onto the caravan now that it was moving. Moving fast, too. The moment he had managed to loop the harness around the sand wyrm’s meaty head it had gone wild, thrashing and tugging at the thing to try and get it loose. That resulted in the caravan being yanked along in its wake, leaving Risa behind. Fortunately for Alexei, Risa was neither stupid nor slow. The moment the caravan started moving Risa was off like in a blur of burned atmosphere and arcane lightning. She zipped across the sand, making her footsteps
"Well, I can't believe that actually worked!" Alexei exclaimed as he stood up from his heap in the sand. "I don't wanna hear it!" Risa snapped, she shot him a glare from her own position on the ground. "that was a genuinely terrifying experience and I never want to even think about it again!"Alexei fought the impulse to roll his eyes, he was sure that would make an angry Risa even angrier and he didn't really want to risk something like that. "Alright, alright, fine," Alexei said, "I'll defer to you now, then. What should we do next? Head straight back to Alandria or tell the old man what happened to his dragonhorse?"Risa stood up from the sandy ground and shook her head, which made sand fly in every direction. "Obviously we need to tell him what happened," Risa said, "otherwise he'll never know whether his dragonhorse is dead or not and I find that quite sad."Alexei nodded, he didn't disagree with her.It had seemed like the old man had a pretty strong relationship with both of
“How could they do this?” Risa breathed the question more than said it. “I don’t know,” Alexei replied, his voice was as hard as steel. “He was old… He was just trying to make some money where there was no money to be made,” Risa said, trying to rationalise what had happened, “And why did the dragonhorse have to die? The beast hadn’t done anything.” “Because the old man helped us, I imagine,” Alexei said. There was a wave of anger bubbling up in Alexei’s chest the like that he had never experienced before, not even when he had been cast out of the Royal Defence Corps and the Academy. He had never expected the world to be so… cruel. He and Risa had never done anything to the people of the village, and yet here they were doing anything they could to destroy the two of them and anyone who had helped them. Just average everyday people, corrupt and dark. Almost as bad as the Demon Lord. Alexei wondered, just for a moment, if perhaps the Demon Lord had been right about humans. Maybe