The Wyvern’s head lurched back and the skeletal structure that seemed to move on its own attempted to enclose its jaws around Sairek. The Prince quickly bent down on the ground, swinging his staff across the dirt as he chanted ‘Yggial!’ The child immediately leaped backwards as small saplings along with grass rose in the area that he had swept his staff along the ground. The Wyvern’s jaws snapped shut on the saplings, collecting splinters of bark and small leaves in the process that got stuck in its jaws. Sairek felt a mental growl of frustration emit inside of his head that was from the Wyvern. Stamping forward slowly, the trio retreated backwards together.
“It’s a corpse… it doesn’t even have any flesh on it. How are we supposed to kill something that’s already dead?” Nayleen hissed quietly so the Wyvern wouldn’t hear.
Cyial kept his eyes on the Wyvern as he spoke. “One way that I know of is to severe the connection the Necromancer has with this thing… To do that, we’d have to make the Wyvern itself lose concentration… the fact it’s able to speak to use using telepathy though, it would be nearly impossible to break with only our abilities...”
”There’s one other way to break a connection with a body…” Sairek began, his emerald eyes danced with fury. “...and that’s to break this Wyvern into pieces! If you destroy the body, a connection cannot be made, even if the undead itself is still capable of moving, it won’t possess a threat.”
”Wait, there is another way--“ Cyial started.
”Enough talk, children!”
The Wyvern roared, sending a swipe at them. Cyial and Sairek jumped out of the way. Nayleen screamed a bit as the swipe just bumped into her, sending her tumbling a bit away, but still unharmed. She quickly began pushing herself up, when she gasped seeing a large bony paw coming to slam her into the ground.
”Ralopa!” Cyial chanted out, holding his spell book open as he stood next to Sairek. A barrier appeared above Nayleen just as the claw was about to smash into her. The barrier of Ethereal vibrated and the Wyvern screeched out telepathically both in pain and in surprise. It’s claw bounced upwards with enough force that the entire body was uprooted from the ground and sent into the air; it’s body collapsing down with a crash that rose dirt clouds everywhere, landing on its back.
”…You must teach me that spell sometime...” Sairek muttered in astonishment.
”Later, maybe.” Cyial quickly commented as he closed his book again before glancing towards Nayleen. “Quick, get over here!”
Scrambling up on her feet, getting rid of the fear that paralyzed her on what just nearly happened, she quickly sprinted over to the other two.
”Let’s get the out of here.” Sairek ordered as he quickly spun around and began to run. He didn’t care if the direction he was running in wasn’t towards the town. As long as they lost this thing he would be happy.
The other two quickly followed pursuit after Sairek and they only made about a hundred feet of distance before the Wyvern’s screech came out again in their heads. As they sprinted, they turned their heads around and Sairek heard Cyial yelp out in surprise as the Wyvern was gliding like a missile towards them.
”Cyial, use that spell again!” Sairek ordered. The boy quickly turned around, opening up the book.
”Ra--“
A strong gust of wind blew as the Wyvern changed direction, suddenly shooting up. Nayleen gasped as it swung around and was dropping dead above them now. Cyial quickly repositioned himself again as he aimed upwards.
”Rapola!”
Cyial began forming a different kind of barrier above them and wrapping all around them, so the Wyvern couldn’t get them no matter where it aimed, although Cyial concentrated most of the energy on the top, the Wyvern crashed on top of them. The reflection wasn’t nearly as strong this time, but it still flung the Wyvern up away and sent it spiraling back down towards the ground. Cyial dropped the barrier and the three began sprinting once again.
”We can’t keep it up like this until we get to the town!” Nayleen panted. “And even if we did, how would the town deal with this thing?!”
”Hate to say it, but we can’t bring it into town. Too many people could be killed!” Sairek grunted out.
”What?! What else can we do?! Cyial can’t keep this up forever!” Nayleen argued back.
Sairek glanced towards the Acolyte who was tailing behind. He already knew Nayleen was right. The silver-haired demon was already looking rather winded, between casting barriers and having to sprint at full speed, he was wearing down fast. Still what else could they do other than buy time to think up a plan? But thinking like this was too difficult.
”Let’s start off with the--“ Sairek began before yet another roar emitted inside their heads. Sairek stopped and spun around. Once again, the Wyvern was gliding like a missile towards them.
Cyial turned around, but Sairek waved his hands, signalling him to keep on going. The Prince himself held his ground, holding the Yggdrasil staff up with two hands, he positioned his feet ready for spell casting. He began charging the Ethereal around him into his staff, he lowered himself down to a low crouch in a slow motion. When he felt the energy ready, and the Wyvern was close, he thrust the staff upwards, chanting ‘Ethirul!’ With it, he pushed the dirt into a thick wall in front of the Wyvern.
He heard the Wyvern guffaw in his head in a provoking manner. “Foolish brat. Do you think a wall of dirt of all things will stop me?!”
Sairek ignored the taunt, and concentrated as best as he could to solidify the wall. Within a few more seconds, he felt the ground vibrate a little as the Wyvern collided into the wall. The dirt cracked like stone, all was silent for a few seconds before Sairek soon swung his staff as if he was striking someone in front of him. The wall of earth began to move, pushing the Wyvern away. It took every ounce of concentration Sairek had to move something that large. Instantly beads of sweat began to form on his brows. He groaned in strain.
”Lousy child! You dare shove me around?!”
Sairek lifted the staff higher. The wall of dirt not only rose, well past the Wyverns height even if it had been standing, but thickened in mass as well. Sairek panted in effort, but his determination kept him going.
”Return whence you came!" Sairek shouted in retort. "Go back into the distortions of despair where you were sent from!!”
Swinging his staff down as hard as he could, the wall at his command quickly collapsed on top of the Wyvern before it had a chance to get away off the ground. The entire Wyvern was covered in the pile. Inhaling and exhaling deeply in exhaustion. Sairek looked only for a second before he turned himself around and jogged off to catch up with the other two who had ran ahead of him like he had ordered.
Sairek didn’t even make it more then ten feet before he felt the rumble under the ground. Butterflies instantly fluttered in his stomach at the mistake he had just made. Only seconds later did the Wyvern emerge out in front of him, creating enough force that he was flown onto his back with a grunt. He propped himself up with his arms behind him as he stared at the Wyvern towering over him.
”You truly are an idiot.” The Wyvern chuckled in disbelief. “I can’t believe you would have tried to trap me after already witnessing I can burrow through the earth with unfathomable ease… I will be frank boy; I truly, honestly, did not think you would be that stupid!”
Sairek mentally cursed to himself. He wasn’t an idiot but he made a really bad mistake much like one admittedly. The Wyvern reared its head back, going to strike with its jaws.
Sairek only reacted on instinct. He held his staff out and in desperation he quickly chanted “Vulkenhei!”
Not knowing the staff was a Yggdrasil staff, the Wyvern attempted to taunt Sairek by biting the head of the staff off. Sairek stared as the explosion occurred inside the Wyvern’s mouth; snapping the top half of the jaw off and up into the air and cracking the bones of several other locations of the undead creature's head. A deafening roar reached inside of the Sairek's head which made him flinch and bring his hands to hold his ears even though it did nothing to block out the screeching roar.
Ear drums ringing, Sairek watched as the Wyvern stumbled away from him as it screeched.
”GrrrARRRGHHHH!!!... You are nothing more but a mere insect… a human… child…! How could you possibly have--- GrrAAAAGGGGGHHH!”
Sairek slowly pushed himself up onto his feet, using his staff to steady himself. He could only watch as another claw raised towards him. He felt himself soon tackled just in time as the swipe missed him. Half dazed, he didn’t remember falling to the ground, but he looked to see Nayleen with him now.
Rolling his head up, he saw Cyial cast a spell, although he had no idea what it was, his senses dulled considerably. He saw balls of light however launch from his spell book into the back of the Wyvern, diverting its attention from Nayleen and Sairek, however. Seeing the sight, Sairek shook his head as his senses sharpened and he could see and hear clearly once more.
”What is he doing?!” Sairek soon snapped. His tone could be mistaken for anger despite it being complete worry.
”Saving the both of us! Can’t you do something?” Nayleen answered and asked quickly. Sairek thought for a couple seconds as he watched the Wyvern stomping towards Cyial.
”I don’t know but I have an idea. I only hope it works.”
Nayleen quickly helped him to his feet as the Wyvern had swung at Cyial. Once again, another 'ralopa' deflected the attack, but at the same time, the barrier broke apart and Cyial was thrown to the ground as well from the force. It looked like Cyial had just been slapped down like a fly face down to the ground. Unfortunately, the Wyvern, with only two thirds of a head began rising again. Sairek quickly rushed behind the beast with the last ounce of stamina he had inside of him. He lifted up his staff, channeling ethereal energy into it as fast as he could.
”Yggial!”
Sairek swung the staff down, it looked like a worthless attempt at harming the beast as the staff made a tiny ‘clunk!’ against the bone. But the Wyvern completely froze stiff the moment contact had been made. Sairek stared in disbelief, panting in and out. He watched the Wyvern immobile before it soon just toppled over in a rack of bones; completely limp and unmoving as the corpse should have been.
Sairek breathed out a sigh of relief. His legs buckled from weakness but he managed to keep himself standing. He heard Nayleen come and jog up beside him, staring wide-eyed at him.
”How… How did you… do... I mean what did you do to possibly--“
”I don’t know… Since ‘yggial’ seems to have the ability to create life somehow... I figured if I tried it against an undead it might have...”
”…That it would bring it back to life…” Nayleen finished. "...Therefore disconnecting the control the Necromancer had on it..."
”Yes. I didn’t know how it would work though… It doesn't matter now. Thank the Lands that thing isn't trying to kill us anymore, that's all I care about. We’ll discuss it later. Let’s go check on how Cyial is doing.”
Nodding her agreement, Nayleen and Sairek walked over to the fallen Acolyte who groaned in pain. He slowly pushed up by himself on to his knees. He pried off his right glove, and with his naked right hand, slowly moved it behind his right ear. He winced in pain, as he removed his hand the fingers were dyed with blood that was his own.
”Are you okay Cyial?” Nayleen asked worriedly. The boys' red eyes slowly gazed up at them, a frown on his face.
”I’ll be okay for now. Demons can take a bit more damage than humans can, we are a bit more... 'sturdy' I suppose... But I won’t try to pretend; this cannot be left untreated for too long.” Cyial admitted with a quiet mutter. He was trying to bite back the pain but how much it indeed did hurt was in his voice as well as the grimace that was on his face. "It can easily become infected..."
”We’re going to need to clean the wound and keep it from bleeding all over you before we go anywhere. Sairek said below normal speaking voice. “I doubt we will get a chance to treat it completely properly until we get to town. Cleaning it and such for now should at least buy a fair bit of time and stop infection. We can probably stop the bleeding too but it won't be properly binded. I don't know anything that has to do with first-aid...”
Nayleen nodded. “Any cloth that we can wrap along his neck will do.” Nayleen said, and Sairek nodded. Turning around, his left hand reached up for the jewel that was his mother’s, releasing the energy and the pile of supplies. Dizziness wept over Sairek like a wave of water at the beach. It only warned him how dangerously exhausted he was right now. If they were going to make it to town, they were going to have to walk at a very slow pace and take it easy, or they will risk collapsing.
Nayleen came up beside Sairek, looking at him worriedly. “You look like you’re about to fall over. Maybe you should take a quick power nap while I work on Cyial’s wound?” She suggested.
Sairek slowly shook his head. ”We’re on the main path. We can't have people coming and questioning why me with two other kids are here, next to a Wyvern corpse that’s missing a chunk of its head. And we don't have enough time to sidetrack off the path to take a break, we'd waste too much time with Cyial's wound.”
”We’re not going anywhere while I am fixing Cyial up anyhow. I don’t see what we’ve got to lose." Nayleen protested. "Come on, just a ten, fifteen minute rest, Sairek. That's what I'll need to mend the wound."
Sairek acknowledged her reasoning with an affirmative grunt. He walked a small distance towards the supplies. Half sitting, half laying, his head rested against a bag of something. He didn’t care what it was; to him it felt like the best pillow he had ever put his head on for a while.
Sairek couldn’t keep his eyes open to watch Nayleen work on Cyial’s wound. They felt too heavy. The early afternoon sun provided warmth that made him all the more sleepy. He had soon fell into a light sleep for a short while. He wasn’t really asleep, but not conscious either. He only came around again because Nayleen began shaking him a bit and his eyes slowly fluttered open, he blinked a bit. He didn’t really feel any better but judging by the sun’s position, he had been laying like that for no less than half an hour, and no more than one. He almost groaned like a spoiled child that was reluctant to get out of bed in the morning, but he forced himself up anyways.
His emerald eyes did nothing to hide how exhausted his was. But his gaze changed slightly as he turned his pupils to Cyial and that reminded him that he should get up and go for the Demon's health. The Demon smiled slightly to hint he was alright. The Prince could see a handmade patch that was stopping the blood for now. Here Cyial was with a serious wound and he wanted to be lazy? Not going to happen. Sairek pushed himself up immediately and almost regretted it with because a sharp pain came to his gut, he buckled over, holding his staff out from toppling over.
"Oh great, don't tell me you're getting sick now." Nayleen muttered.
"No, no. I'm okay..." Sairek lied with a weak mutter. "Just still exhausted, it's making my stomach churn a bit..."
"That usually happens when you wake up without very much sleep. You will feel worse off and--"
Sairek couldn't hold himself; he collapsed onto his knees holding his head from the dizziness of his exhaustion. He heard Nayleen let out a sigh and turned towards Cyial.
"I'll carry him?" She asked.
"I'll hold his staff for him then." Cyial offered.
"Sounds good to me." Nayleen replied, but then looked over to Sairek. "But he needs to at least put our stuff back inside the jewel.
"But... with all the stuff, I will be too heavy to carry..." Sairek protested weakly.
"Maybe, but as far as I can tell, you are pretty light weight as it is. I've carried entire animals back through the woods to my house before. I'm sure I can manage." Nayleen said as she crossed her arms. "...Besides, I had to haul you up over that wall and drag you up the hill that one time. Don't see why you're protesting a third round. Now hurry up, we need to make it to town before dark, we don't want to camp outside with us all this exhausted, and we need to get to the town to have Cyial treated properly."
"But wasn't you complaining that I was too heavy... you know what? Nevermind..." Sairek sighed. He wasn't in the mood to argue. Slowly pushing himself up with his staff, he faced their belongings and let the jewel do its work. Thankfully, the jewel's spell took no effort on his part; it was the weight that was the problem. And thus, when it was added, Sairek nearly collapsed again until Cyial caught him. Nayleen crouched down as Cyial positioned the Prince on Nayleen's back and she slowly lifted him up. Cyial took Sairek's staff as he had offered. Lightly hanging onto Nayleen, Sairek's eyes began to fall heavy again as the two began to walk off towards town.
"You know, I've been wondering something." Nayleen started, thinking for a moment on how to word her question, and then she continued. "You two use spells, yet certain ones seem to tire you out, while others don't. Why is that?"
Sairek, despite how fatigued he was, worked up the will to answer. "It depends on the type of spell... some spells can be very stressful... and some spells are 'morphetic', meaning you can add more Ethereal into the spell to alter it's shape... 'ethirul' is one of these 'morphetic' spells... as well is 'balinzer', 'waert' and 'wuaie'...
Cyial continued for Sairek. "Spells like those require initial amounts of energy to be released and after that they must be fed constantly, which requires a lot of concentration and a lot of physical and mental strain depending on the circumstances. To make the spell bigger, you either have to concentrate harder, or sacrifice Ethereal from your own body to help fuel it, which can be very exhausting."
"In my case... I tried to do 'ethirul'... a pitiful mistake on my part..." Sairek muttered. "The wyvern baited me... made me think I was holding him off... then just burrowed under the ground anyways..."
"Well, I guess that makes sense, just like trying to concentrate a barrier, right?" Nayleen asked.
"Yeah, kind of like that." Cyial continued. "Although for a barrier you need to mend parts that have been damaged, so you have to concentrate energy in certain locations at times. For a spell like... 'balinzer', you merely just concentrate energy into the staff and release it at the same time."
Sairek once again was beginning to doze off again with the piggy-back ride Nayleen was giving him. His eyes were closed and his sense of his surroundings were beginning to become more dull and numb. Realizing he was drifting off, he lifted his head and shook it a bit, as if trying to shake his weariness away. It did little to no good.
"Wake me up before we get to town... I can't be seen like this..." Sairek muttered out under his breath.
"Why not?" He heard Nayleen ask with a giggle. It took a few seconds for his exhausted mind to even so much register, let alone come up with an answer. After a delay, he couldn't even remember why. "Just do it..." the Prince muttered. "At the very least, I don't want to be seen like this..." He then remembered why he didn't want to be seen. "I mean... if I'm see like this... it will cause a lot of concern... news will spread... father will drag me by the ear back to the castle..." He let out a tired chuckle.
With that, Sairek surrendered his conscious over to fatigue. He blacked out within seconds.
*CRASH!*
The King glanced over to the table that was in his room on a cup that had suddenly fell over and shattered on his floor without anything seemingly touching it. He stared at the white shattered pieces on the floor in bewilderment. Something like that made up his mind; something was indeed wrong.
He heard the doorknob from the door to enter his room turn. He looked up seeing one of his servants opening the door with haste. He looked at the King, saluted with a hand going over his head and then stared at the pieces of glass on the floor.
"Majesty, I heard something breaking--"
"That glass..." The King interrupted. "I just got a bad premonition... And right when I felt it, that cup flew off the table and broke..."
"Sir?"
"I feel like something terrible has just happened... something terrible has just happened to my son..." He growled. "We need to hurry up and find Shesta..."
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