The Lightning Scroll

Ch4, Pt I: Wake Up

(1E 2920)

"Mo'nazar!" The word echoed in his head. His thoughts were a jumbled mess. He began to hallucinate, while his eyes remained glued to the corpses of his parents below him.

"Let go..." the voice echoed again. "Mo'nazar!"

Mo'nazar gasped awake, finally snapping out of his trance. "Dexpa?" he pondered. "What happened?" He noticed a strange green amulet resting in his father's hand. He picked it up and analyzed it, front and back. He got up and dashed out the front door to survey the area. The once small hoard of silver knights was now an army that covered every corner of the village.

Off in the distance, beyond the knights, Mo'nazar could make out two familiar figures making their way towards The Fringe. It was Dexpa and Jo'navir. His throat was too tight to speak, and his attempts at screaming became a hoarse whisper. "Don't leave me." But they were too far to hear him now.

He took a step in their direction, but a crystal knight blocked his path. It swung its sword his way, forcing him to fall backwards into the house. The green amulet fell out of his hand and tumbled to the ground alongside him.

The silver knight's sword lodged itself into the door frame. It made many failed attempts to pull it free. Mo'nazar took this chance to escape, grabbing the amulet and making a dash for the first place he could think of to hide.

"The hatch," he thought to himself. The hatch was open with its doors laying in pieces on the floor of the house as if they were blasted away from something inside.

The knight finally dislodged its sword and continued towards Mo'nazar once again. Mo'nazar's heart skipped a beat, as a drop of sweat slid down his forehead. He jumped down the hatch in a hurry.

"What is this?" he said to himself as he scanned the room. There were bloodstains on the ground in the shape of a summoning circle, and several strange spell books and purple crystal gems scattered about. The room, however, was a dead end.

He gazed back at the hatch entrance and could hear the knight's steps getting closer by the second. "Oh no," Mo'nazar said. He ran to the other side of the room and began desperately banging his fists against the walls. "Come on!" He stopped banging on the wall as soon as he noticed his own blood beginning to smear across it.

Mo'nazar glanced around every corner of the room in search of another way out. He smacked his palms against the sides of his head in an attempt to spawn an idea. "Think, think!!!" he shouted with urgency in his voice.

He spotted a bookshelf near the entrance of the hatch. It was the same width as the hole he jumped through and it matched the height of the ceiling in the room.

"Arggg!" he groaned as he attempted to push the shelf with his shoulder. He leaned all his weight into it, but it wouldn't budge. He began tossing books out of it as fast as he could until it was finally light enough to slide over.

As he did so, the knight appeared above and began slashing at Mo'nazar's fingers as he slid it into place. The sword struck the top of the shelf, barely missing Mo'nazar.

Finally, the entrance was blocked, but its slashes continued to slam against the top of the bookshelf.

Mo'nazar stepped back, watching to make sure it would hold. Suddenly, a slash cut a hole through the top just big enough to peep through. Mo'nazar's limbs began to shake as his breathing hastened. "I'm going to die," he thought to himself. "Jo'navir...Dexpa," he whimpered.

He leaned his back to the wall and began to sob. His tears ran out of his eyes and onto a book that sat at his feet. The book caught his eye. It had a symbol engraved on the cover that Mo'nazar had never seen before. "Conjuration: Bone Colossus," it read.

Mo'nazar glanced back and forth between the book and the summoning circle on the ground, carved in blood. The purple crystals were spread suspiciously even around its perimeter.

He slammed the book and opened it on the floor next to the circle and began flipping through the pages. Every time he heard the knight's sword hit the bookshelf, he would flinch and lose his focus for a moment.

Finally, he placed his hand over the circle and began to cast the spell. "Please," he begged. To his surprise, a portal opened over the circle and a huge bone colossus began to climb out of it. Its body was humanoid but consisted of a jumbled mess of bones that gave it a muscular looking build. It stood up with its back to Mo'nazar.

Suddenly, the silver knight's sword cut all the way through the bookshelf, and it jumped inside, continuing its pursuit towards Mo'nazar.

"Kill it!" Mo'nazar commanded, wondering if his words would reach the strange new abomination.

The bone colossus launched its fist into the knight cracking its chest like glass. It continued pummeling the creature into the floor with its fists until it ceased all movement.

Suddenly, two more knights appeared and jumped into the cellar together, focusing their attention on the bone colossus. The colossus smashed one of them against the wall, but the other sliced its arm off with a sword.

"No!" Mo'nazar yelped, as his summoned creature began to fall apart. He rummaged through the spell books spread about the floor. "Portals, portals, portals," he repeated to himself, searching for a book that could help him escape instead of fight.

A huge thud interrupted Mo'nazar's search. He looked up and saw the bone colossus now lying on the ground. The crystal knights stepped over the body, now slowly making their way towards Mo'nazar.

"No no no," he cried as he continued to skim through the other book titles. "Soul Trap?" He opened the book and saw pictures of purple crystals labeled "black soul gem." They looked just like the ones spread about the room. He grabbed one of the crystals and held it in his hand, backing into the corner.

The crystal knight was now within arm's reach, preparing to swing its sword for Mo'nazar's neck. Mo'nazar cast the new spell, holding tightly to the gem in his hand which now began to glow.

He watched as the sword approached his neck, and then suddenly, his vision went black. He could hear his own thoughts. "Did it work? Where am I?" A sense of defeat washed over him. "I was too late, wasn't I?"

Mo'nazar's vision returned, and he found himself now standing in a world he'd never seen before.

Storm clouds covered the purple skies above, striking lightning to the wasteland below every few seconds. The whole area was covered in a thick layer of fog, with the occasional structure poking out of it. A few towers stood far above everything else, reaching into the clouds and shooting massive beams of purple energy beyond them.

Mo'nazar gazed down at his hands and saw a transparent blue silhouette of himself. "I guess I didn't make it after all...What didn't I make?" he asked himself now feeling lost. He looked ahead and began journeying forwards with no destination in mind. "What am I doing here?" he pondered again. His head felt empty, and he could feel his sense of self vanishing with every second.

Eventually, he reached a tower with skeletons and blue phantoms just like himself wandering about.

"Hey!" Mo'nazar called out to one of the phantoms, waving his hand back and forth.

"Hello," an older woman replied. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm..." Mo'nazar paused and felt his throat clench and mind scramble. He couldn't find the word he was looking for. It was right there, but he just couldn't pick it out. He eventually gave up on his answer. "Wait, who are you?" he asked back, suspiciously.

"I don't know," she replied. Her gaze turned away from Mo'nazar and she continued to wander the structure aimlessly.The short conversation left Mo'nazar feeling hazy. Nevertheless, he continued onwards with no goal or location in mind.

As time in this new world seemed to push on, Mo'nazar's grip on reality released more and more. His sense of self began to disappear as he wandered from one building to the next.

Sometimes he would laugh to himself, but not understand why. Or trip and fall, but appear seemingly unfazed, both physically and mentally. The experience was pain-free, but only because he had forgotten what it felt like to hurt. But there was one thing he did understand. He was trapped.