The Age of Solace: The Silver Wolf

Chapter 34: City of the Dead Part 1

"He's awake!" A gruff voice shouted as Faradeigh's eyes blinked open.

His head was in great pain. Investigating with his left hand, Faradeigh found what appeared to be dried blood in his hair, running down from his head and down his neck. Whatever he had hit, he had hit it hard. A dazed Faradeigh looked up to see the familiar bird-mask that covered Raven's face.

"You couldn't even bandage me?" Faradeigh grunted as he picked up his weapons, which were lying before him.

"Do I look like a caretaker to you?" Raven asked as though annoyed. "More importantly, where did you even come from?"

"Long story..." Faradeigh spoke weakly, struggling to stand. "Not important either. What's going on?"

"Long story." Raven retorted.

Faradeigh sighed in defeat as he took in his surroundings. He seemed to be inside of a small house. By the looks of it, he was in the West district, the very same area that he and Thayo had lived in years prior. Outside of their shelter was a large statue, lying on its back. The enormous statue found itself surrounded by a vast amount of crushed several buildings, as though it had fallen on top of them. Several other buildings along the streets were smashed or broken as well, and the streets themselves were full of craters or destroyed completely. Whatever had gone on throughout Raven's battle had not been pretty.

'But wait, those particular statues were built along the outer walls...' Faradeigh thought to himself.

And then he realized, that the statue outside was the alveolate that Raven and Phoenix had been fighting before he was involuntarily pulled through that portal... the portal that Stella had created!

'Is she okay? What happened?' Faradeigh asked himself, beginning to panic as he recalled the recent events.

"Would you calm down!?" Raven requested with anger, shoving the younger warrior hard into the wall. "You flew through the sky into the alveolate's head; the one we were fighting that is. You bounced off and fell to the ground, somehow with minimal damage. Then a glowing silver wolf-thing appeared and jumped straight through the gargantuan monstrosity! It had ripped the spirit within out in the process, and destroyed it! After that, Phoenix dragged you in here, and then left to investigate the red energy lines that appeared."

"You sound insane..." Faradeigh noted as he shifted into a more comfortable position, rubbing his blood-caked hair., "So it must be true. Where is the rest of Alpha?"

"We split up. Cornelius, our alveolate, and Valiant went to explore the northern half, while Phoenix and I took the South." He answered. "A statue in the distance came alive while we were investigating an old building, and proceeded to attack us. After that, you showed up and all of this happened!"

"You can't seriously blame me for this, can you?" Faradeigh requested.

"You tell me..."

Faradeigh was about to reply when the smell of smoke entered his nose. The smell was followed by the glow of a fire. Phoenix, who had been the source of these new occurrences, walked calmly into their hideout. This was not the first time Faradeigh had seen the lich, but the sight of the skeleton with the internal fire at its core was still a sight to behold. Some might have found it scary, but Faradeigh only felt interest. Considering the story about Phoenix that Faradeigh had heard from Phara, he was surprised that the lich would be allowed to be a warrior of Corvin's Blades.

'Perhaps they realized their mistake after all.' Faradeigh wondered. 'Perhaps it's not hopeless for Syckle and I... assuming Thayo doesn't ruin everything!'