Okay, I finished mine. I gave it a bit of a plot twist at the end.
And… done!
I put my book down onto my desk. Finally, I was done studying. Sighing with relief, I plopped down onto my bed. The sun was already setting, and just reading that boring textbook made me tired.
Ow!
Something dug into my back as I lay down. I sat up for a moment, and fished around in my pocket, pulling out a medallion I’d recently bought at Synara City. It had some strange mark on its metallic surface, which is mainly why I bought it in the first place. Briefly, I fingered it, wondering what that mark was. As I did, a stray beam of sunlight reflected off the medallion, resting right in the face of my sleeping Pygmy Gemdragon, Lanian. I quickly hid the medallion under my pillow. Lanian was like most Gemdragons, and loved to hoard things. He had the habit of taking anything shiny and hiding it up in the attic, where I couldn’t reach. I wasn’t about to let him have this, at least not until I’d figured out what that mark meant. Lanian stirred, and opened an eye. His tiny purple head shot bolt upright, and his expression was easy to read. “No, I don’t have any more trinkets for you, Lanian.” He snorted disbelievingly. I swear that little guy could just sense whenever there was some interesting little trinket around. “Um, how about some food? He perked up at that, and I took the opportunity to distract him from my belongings. Just as I was about to leave, I realized that the medallion was still under my pillow. If I left it, one of my other creatures might run off with it. Lanian wasn’t the only one who couldn’t resist shiny things, but he was by far the most troublesome. So, when he wasn’t looking, I slipped the silver disc into my pocket again. Lanian alighted on my shoulder, and we set off to get some dinner.
We didn’t get back until much later. I had crossed paths with a few of my friends, and we ended up getting dessert as well as dinner. My money pouch was completely emptied. Oh well, it was almost worth it. I enjoyed the outing, and I was pretty sure Lanian had forgotten about my medallion. I slipped it under my pillow again once we walked through the door, and Lanian flew up to his little treasure-filled nest. He was exhausted, and his stomach was probably full. He had been flying to whoever seemed to have the most delicious food, and snapping morsels off of any plate he could get his tiny little claws on. I lay down on my pillow, exhausted as well. At least I was done studying.
The next morning, I awoke to a small shuffling noise by my bedside. I carefully looked over and saw Lanian on the floor, playing with… you guessed it, the medallion. “Lanian!” He turned and saw me, awake, and aware of his thievery. His gaze flicked quickly around the room, finally settling on one key escape route.
The door!
I must have forgotten to close it last night! Lanian shot up into the air and out the door. Throwing on my cloak, I scrambled after him as he took off down the hallway, with the medallion in his talons. Looking back, it must have been a rather comical scene, with me madly chasing a tiny purple Gemdragon down the empty corridor. Anyway, Lanian led me across and out of the keep, past the gardens and the koi pond, to a rather rocky part of the woods that I have never seen before. A tunnel was carved into the side of a rocky cliff. Lanian disappeared into the darkness that the tunnel seemed to radiate. Without hesitation (that maybe I should have had,) I followed.
The tunnel was pitch black. It spiraled in twists and turns that had me (and Lanian, judging by the squeaks and fluttering I heard,) crashing into every stone corner. After a few minutes of blindly wandering through the tunnel, I heard an eerie rumbling noise. The ground below (As well as above and at both sides) of me shook. I heard Lanian wail in terror, as I tried to find where he was. Suddenly, a bright light blinded me from ahead. Not wanting to know what the rumbling was, I ran to the light, which marked the tunnel’s end. It consumed my vision entirely, since I’d been blundered through pitch darkness. When I finally recovered my ability to see, I realized I was standing in a familiar field, not far from the keep. The tunnel had closed behind me, but I didn’t really care. If I knew where I was, than it wouldn’t be worth worrying about it. Lanian suddenly appeared, screeching his head off, and madly flying towards me. “Lanian!” I smiled. Although, he seemed terrified of something. He flew right back into my arms, and put the medallion back into my hand. “All this for nothing, Lanian? Seriously?” He whimpered and buried his head into my shoulder. Let me tell you, Lanian is hardly ever sad. He usually has more energy than a kitsune cub that’s had too much caffeine. To see him like this was certainly not normal. “Okay… um, let’s go home now, Lanian.” I started off in the general direction of the keep, trying to comfort Lanian along the way. I reached the end of the field, looking up the mountain to where the keep stood, and stopped dead in my tracks.
The keep was gone.
“What…the…heck?” I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Completely gone. What, where, how? How in the world could an entire castle vanish into thin air? There wasn’t even a sign that anything had ever been there. Lanian whimpered again, and I held him closer, afraid that he might vanish too. A voice interrupted my confused thoughts.
“Um, are you looking for something?”
I turned around and saw my friend, Alana, standing behind me. “Alana!” I was happy to at least see someone I recognized. She looked at me, confused.
“How… do you know my name? Who are you?”
I stood, dumbfounded. “Don’t you remember me?” Alana looked just as confused as I did.
“No… “
Okay, this was getting weird. Very weird. What the heck was going on?! Wanted to test if Alana, or this other Alana knew anything about, well, anything, I asked her the questions that were burning in the back of my mind. “Where’s the keep? And do you know where Archmage Thane is? Can I talk to him?”
“What keep? And what the heck is an Archmage?” She looked at me again. “Are you okay?” I stood there, looking like an idiot again, until Lanian poked his head up and squeaked. Alana II took one look at Lanian and gasped. Slowly, she pointed her finger at him. “What… is… that?” Great. How was I going to explain this?
“Um… that’s Lanian, my, er… iguana.” Lanian glared at me. Sorry little guy, but what am I supposed to do? Alana II took a step back.
“That… that’s a dragon!” She stepped back again, looking terrified. Suddenly she turned tail and ran back into the woods. Just great. Now what? I decided that I probably shouldn’t stick around. The only problem was, I had no idea how to get back to the real world, because this obviously wasn’t it. I wonder if I stumbled into an alternate universe, or something. Lanian squeaked and waved his tail in my face. I looked down, mainly to tell him to stop it, and I noticed he was holding out the medallion. I’d completely forgotten about it. What’s more, the strange mark seemed to glow from within. Then I remembered the strange person who’d sold it to me. “Be careful with it,” He’d told me. “It’s very special.” I had thought he’d said that just because it was genuine Nareaun silver. Maybe there was more to this thing than I’d thought. I gave Lanian a pat on the head, and decided to go back to where that tunnel collapsed. After all, it was pretty much the only hope I had.
It was almost midday by the time I got back. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to spend the night in this place. Alana II seemed pretty terrified of Lanian, and she had probably gone to get help, or to tell someone that there was some freak with a dragon in the woods. I hadn’t seen a single magical creature here, or even any sign of magic at all. I confirmed that once I tried to move the collapsed stone tunnel with a simple spell. Nothing happened. It seemed as if I couldn’t even draw out the power, as if it didn’t exist. Lanian was trying to push his way through the rubble, which was cute to watch, but not really helping the situation. I plucked him up once I saw him trying to bash through the rocks with his head. My poor little Gemdragon was exhausting himself. Even his face had lost its playful gaze. He looked utterly hopeless. “Hey, don’t worry about it, buddy. We’ll find our way home.” I put Lanian down, and sat down to think. The medallion obviously had something to do with all this, but what? How could a piece of metal move stone without magic? I pulled it could of my pocket and stared hard, which I was actually able to do without worrying about Lanian stealing it. It wasn’t a perfect circle, as it seemed to be. It looked like a faint oval, and one side seemed to have small indentations, which I had first assumed to be simple imperfections in it’s forging. I wonder if… I thought hard. The medallion started glowing only after we’d come here. Which hopefully meant that there was something about this place that was familiar to it.
Could the medallion be a key?
It would make sense; perhaps some Magi created this doorway between two worlds, and kept it hidden by using this normal, medallion-like key. I smiled at this sudden surge of new hope. “Lanian, I think this thing is a key,” He looked up, realizing that we might be able to go home after all. I smiled again. “And if there’s a key, then somewhere, there is a keyhole!”
It was a seemingly impossible task, to find a tiny hole in the half-destroyed cliffside. We only found one by the time the sun was setting. Well, by ‘we’ I really mean Lanian. He gave an excited squeal, which brought me running towards him. He stuck his claw into a well-concealed hole in the stone. I don’t think I’d ever been happier to see a simple hole in all my life. Just as I was about to try the keyhole, I heard something crashing through the brush behind me. I whipped around and saw a band of people, some armed with swords and spears approaching, fast. They were being led by none other than Alana II. Upon seeing us, she yelled something to the others, and started running in our direction. Uh oh, I had the feeling that they weren’t here for a friendly gathering. Knowing that I had one shot, I jammed the medallion-key into the keyhole. By some odd stroke of luck, it fit perfectly. Alana II and her armed comrades were almost here. I threw my entire weight against the key, just barely turning it. With another ground-shaking rumble, a stone door pushed its way through the rubble, and the darkness of the tunnel yawned out again. I reached back to shut the door, but there wasn’t really any need. One of the soldiers yelled something I assumed to be an insult, and ended up knocking his shoulder into the door. With an echoing clash, the door shut and we were again surrounded by pitch darkness.
It was harder going back than it had been coming here. Maybe it was because I felt like I had been awake for a solid 3 days, (which I hadn’t), or maybe it was just the darkness getting to my head. Lanian curled around my shoulders while I blundered through the tunnel with outstretched hands. It seemed like an eternity before we came to the start of the tunnel, but you could hardly tell. It was the middle of the night, and the visibility was almost just as bad. There was no way I was getting back to the keep until the sun rose. Instead, I sat down on the grass outside the tunnel, with Lanian lying next to me, and fell fast asleep on the grass.
Of course, it seemed like a few minutes or so before I was awake again, with the sunlight illuminating my surroundings. I was still exhausted, and soaked by the dew on the grass, and Lanian, as usual, was getting himself into trouble. He had cornered a terrified Numbul against the Cliffside, and seemed to be having a rather good time tormenting the poor creature. Sighing, I scooped Lanian off the ground and looked back at the tunnel. It probably wasn’t a good idea to leave that thing open, considering I had the key, and there was a few bad-tempered soldiers waiting on the other side. The door on this side of the tunnel was still ajar, but I didn’t exactly have the strength the shove it back into place. I put Lanian down and tried anyway. Of course, I only ended up looking like the fool I was, trying to shove an enormous chunk or stone back into place, and then looking behind me, realizing I’d just lost my Gemdragon. Lanian was gone, again. I must have been really out of it, to be that stupid. Just as I thought the situation couldn’t possibly get any worse, Lanian came back, followed by my Onyx Gryphon, Eomer.
I just love that little dragon.
Eomer landed beside me, giving an affectionate head-butt to my shoulder, and Lanian flew right into my face and crawled up to my head, as usual. “Thanks, buddy.” I said to Lanian, and I meant it. Small as he was, I would have never made it back here alive without his help.
With Eomer’s help, the tunnel door was shut, and we were soon on our way back to the keep. From the air, I realized just how far I had run chasing after Lanian a few nights before. I laughed, thinking about how ridiculous that must have looked. The idea brought me back to the key. What exactly was I going to do with it? It was certainly far more than I had thought it to be, and with my organization issues, I honestly didn’t trust myself with it. Just as Eomer landed beside the Keep gardens, I had an idea. After thanking Eomer, Lanian and I entered the Keep, and began the long ascent to Archmage Thane’s study.
I knocked a few times on the wooden door, while fishing through my pockets to retrieve the key. It wasn’t long before I heard Thane’s voice from the other side of the door.
“Come in.”
I entered the room with Lanian to find Thane sitting at his desk, an Anaugi sitting next to a tall stack of papers.
“Archmage Thane, sir, I need to talk to you about something…”
“Perhaps you have come to explain why you were missing from the Keep all day yesterday? You have missed all your classes, and no one had any clue where you were.”
My face reddened a bit. Was I really gone for an entire day?
“Well… uh… that’s part of it, I guess. Have you ever heard of… um… alternate worlds? or something like that? And maybe places that lead to them?”
Thane looked up from the paper he was reading and studied me closely.
“Yes, there are a few instances of Magi discovering such things, although there hasn’t been any recorded instances for the past 60 years.”
“Well, sir… I might have found something like that.”
Thane laid the paper down on his desk and leaned back on his chair.
“Care to tell me what happened?”
I told Thane everything that had happened since last night. I mean, two days ago. I really couldn’t believe that I had missed an entire day of my life without even noticing it. Thane seemed concerned when I spoke about the tunnel not too far from the keep, and how there was nothing to prevent anyone from entering the tunnel except a bit of stone.
“… And so Eomer, Lanian and I closed the door, and we came right here. Well, me and Lanian did. And sir, I… I thought I should probably give you the key, I don’t really trust myself with it, and I think it’s really important that it stays safe.”
Thane took the key and examined it closely.
“You said you got this in Synara?”
“Yes, sir”
“Most unusual for this sort of thing to be sold like a simple trinket. You may have been given it for a reason.”
“Pardon?”
Thane put the key down onto his desk and pulled an old leather-bound book from his desk. He blew dust from the cover and flipped through the pages, stopping about halfway through and pointing to a few nearly illegible paragraphs.
“There are much fewer Dark Magi now then there has been in the past. However, it is possible that this key was actually forced by one of these Dark Magi. You said there was one alternate plane of existence, but there is far more than that. Dark Magi could easily use this key to go into these alternate worlds and retrieve resources, people, weapons, even creatures. The world you went into contained no magic, but some contain a tremendous amount more then we have here. All those things that have no resistance in this world have the potential to be weapons of mass destruction. The man who sold you the key was most likely giving it to you to divert negative attention. How he managed to get it, I’m not sure. ”
“But there is another possibility right? We don’t know for certain that it was made by Dark Magi?”
Thane shook his head and pointed to the runes along the side of the key.
“This is the alphabet used by such Magi. There is no other civilization here that uses these runes. The language of the Dark Magi is a closely kept secret. The wisest thing to do is to record the runes and information displayed on this key, and then destroy it.”
I nodded. Thane closed the book, and put the key down on the table.
“It was extremely fortunate that you were able to escape alive. Understand that this tunnel and key must be kept secret. Do not tell another living soul.”
I was rigid with fright. All along I was carrying something that had the potential to destroy the Keep, or even a whole other world. Thane walked back to his desk.
“You are dismissed. and don’t forget to make up the schoolwork you missed!”
I dipped my head respectfully and left. Lanian nestled on my shoulder and whimpered. I picked him up and hugged him close. In all honesty, I was more terrified than I had ever been in my entire life. As I walked into my dormitory, I laid down on my bed and waited for sleep to come to me, but it didn’t. All I could think about was the danger I had brought to the keep, and how everything I knew could so easily be lost, all because I bought a simple silver medallion from a merchant of Synara.
You had me fooled also. Then I looked at my clock this morning and was like 'Wait... what?'
