Valhalla's Chosen

read and find out :*

            “James I’m tired of walking!” I say irritated. It is a warm day, the skies are clear in the fields of Prontera. The smell of pine fills my nose, a warm breeze brushes past me. The local monsters scurry about making there distinct sounds. The monsters of Prontera fields are harmless and only attack people who attack them; they are mostly Porings, tiny pinkish round creatures that travel by bouncing. “Well that’s a given we’ve been traveling for days, and you carrying around a pack full of jellopy, do you really have to loot every useless thing these monsters drop” he says sounding sort of angry. A thief bug scurries past us and manages to snatch an apple from my pack, natures jerks I think to myself. James and I have been traveling from days to get to Prontera, the capitol of the Rune-Midgarts Kingdom, so we can become certified Rune-Midgarts adventurers. Growing up in Alberta was quite boring for me and James, we heard stories of Rune-Midgarts adventurers and couldn’t help but want to be like them. Most kids think about becoming a powerful Lord Knight, a fearless Assassin Cross, or maybe even a deadly Champion; not me though, I dreamed of becoming a SuperNovice. SuperNovices are jacks of all trades but master of none, they dabble in all of the jobs of Rune-Midgarts adventurers but exceed in none, they are considered to be weak but with any luck I’ll be like Ray, a hero among SuperNovices. James and I walk across a small bridge and Prontera begins to enter our sight. So many thoughts raced through my head as Prontera entered my sights, City of dreams just head. Everything I thought about when I was a boy is just ahead, we’ll speak with the Job Changer and he’ll make me into a SuperNovice and James into a priest, we’ve earned it, we had run all the quests asked of us. As James as I walked through the cool grass, I suddenly heard a voice. The voice was unfamiliar yet so comforting, like the days when I’d sleep uneasy and my mother would come sing me a lullaby, the voice sounded in pain though, there was desperation in the voice. “Dear Angel” that’s all I heard the rest was too low for me to hear. James is now looking at me strange because he can see something’s wrong. “What’s up” James says with an extremely concerned tone. “You didn’t hear that” I fire a confused look at James and he returns it, He looks back towards Prontera and continues walking probably assuming that I was making some distasteful joke. Prontera was roughly fifty feet away and very visible now.

 The legendary stone walls of Prontera rise above the moat thirty feet of magnificence, guards standing on the walls of the city ever vigilant protecting its inhabitants, the walls are a faded gray and look as if they had many stories to tell cracks and other signs of weathering give them a look that as if they could speak they would be wise in there years. The sounds of busy people in Prontera now fills my ears as we are ten feet from the city, the city is loud and I can see the excitement on James’s face he runs towards the city, the guards who have probably seen this excitement a thousand times smile at the hope and ambition in James’s face. The fresh mountain air rolling from Mt. Mjolnir has gone and the air now smells of business and other vital organs that a growing city needs. “Dear angel” the mysterious voice whispers again. Now there is a high pitched ringing in my ears it feels like someone has just rung a large bell in my ears and the pain is immense. “Dear angel, can you hear my voice!” the voice is yelling now “I am Ray! SuperNovice!” the voice no longer sounds desperate , he sounds brave, fearless. The pain rises and rises , the ringing gets so loud that I forget where I am and don’t feel James pulling at my side. “Help me out!” at the sound of the final words in this chant I recognize it, it is the chant of the legendary Ray used to call upon the guardian angel of SuperNovices. Upon completion of the chant I feel a tremor through the ground and I am knocked onto the floor, the piercing tone rises and finally falls to a silence and my vision fades.

                I open my eyes and I am in a daze, I no longer see James anywhere, I can’t see very far through the immense darkness and the mist is so thick I can hardly breathe, this isn’t regular mist though, it is cold like death and I feel as if I'm engulfed in evil. I manage to pull my shivering body up and look around. I’ve heard rumors of a place as dark and cold as this once, the only place covered in this unearthly mist , Niflheim the land of the dead. Humans do not travel to Niflheim, at least not the regular ones, the inhabitants are powerful monsters, undead, demons that would gladly devour the soul of a mortal foolish enough to venture into the mist. There is the sound of conflict in the mist, it is horrifying deep breathing and scorching flames. As horrifying as the sounds of the mist are I feel as if I'm being called through the mist to venture further. My feet weigh a thousand pounds each and I attempt to drag them forward but they won’t move, they are anchored, set against not venturing forward to my death. I take a deep breath and move forward on the thought that I won’t get home by standing here and I have to get home, I can’t die without becoming a SuperNovice, who will remember my name then?

I take one step into the cold, dark , deathly mist and it feels as if a thousand souls are touching me. I hear evil whispers in my ear but I keep walking ignoring them. Suddenly I look ahead and see four figures standing out in the mist. The first figure is impossible to miss, a large creature made entirely of fire, with dark red eyes, the creature is roughly fifteen feet tall, I recognize the creature it is the powerful fire demon Ifrit. Ifrit is supposed to be in Thors Volcano what is he doing in Niflheim I think to myself. The second figure is a dark figure surrounded by an aura of death, he is fifteen feet tall with a skeletal face and wears a cape of darkness, he is surrounded by an aura of pure death, this creature is the Dark Lord, rumored to command the forced of darkness. The Dark Lord is one of the most powerful monsters in the world and rules over Niflheim and is said to lead an army of death. The third figure is the most horrifying of all he is about twenty feet tall with a skeletal face donned in a red and blue cloak. He is engulfed in red and blue flames his eyes look of pure death, but that’s not even the scary part, the creature holds in his hands two enormous blades, one red and one blue. Both Blades are about seven feet in length and about one foot wide, curved and unbelievably sharp, The red blade covered in red flames , and the blue blade in blue flames, they are the sharpest things I have ever seen. The creature holding the blades is Naght Sieger, I don’t know anything about Naght Sieger because most people who encounter him don’t live to tell the story, legends have it he rests at the top of a giant tower where he was sealed thousands of years ago. If that legend is true what is the demon doing here before me.

 I am so afraid of what I am seeing that I forget about the deadly mist that has wrapped around me and it is driving me mad. I heard howls of pain in my head, piercing screams and sinister voices filling my head with deathly secrets. I Fall to the ground and yell in pain, I feel myself slipping, losing my body to demons and evil spirits entering my body through the mist. I begin to lose control of my body and grab my dagger and begin slicing my own arms. The pain is Immense, the cuts are not deep, but the combination of those cuts and the demons filling my head with howls of pain are enough to drive me mad. I manage to gain control of my other arm and with it I reach into my pocket and manage to grab a vial of holy water James asked me to hold onto, he won’t be getting this back I think to myself and I drink the holy water. I snap out of my state of madness and realize I wasn’t cutting myself at all the demons were filling my head with lies. As I regain my body I stand up and look towards the fourth figure. This figure is human, he is wielding a godlike sword covered in a divine light. The man is a SuperNovice, and a blade like that can only make him one person. That is Ray, and the sword he wields is the Blade of Angels. Ray looks tiny standing before the three massive demons. The demons have eyes of rage and a fight is imminent. Ray smirks a little right before lunging fearlessly into battle. Ifrit launches three blasts of fire at Ray, the heat is immense and I can feel it from where I am standing. Ray lifts his shield and blocks all the blasts, his shield seems unaffected by the blasts, it must be imbued with the power of the Golden Thief Bug. The Golden Thief Bug is a formidable opponent that will imbue your shield with the power to negate magical attacks if you defeat it. Ray runs towards Ifrit now to counter strike but just at that moment the Dark Lord conjures up a wall of flames between Ray and Ifrit. Ray lifts his Golden Thief Bug Shield and charges through the flames, Naght Sieger takes a swing at him with his red sword and ray parries it with his blade, the blow knocks ray back ten feet. Ray seems to have stored the energy from the parry in his blade and releases it onto Ifrit with a swing of the blade and Ifrit falls to the floor, his flame extinguished. The Dark Lord conjures up four minions in his image, the illusions charge at Ray and surround him filling his ear with dark whispers. Ray is unaffected by the whispers and drives his blade into the ground and it stars to glow with flames, he yells magnum break and a fiery explosion explodes with Ray at the center, the four illusions fall to the attack and Ray turns his attention on Dark Lord. The Dark Lord attempts to attack Ray but Ray is too fast for the Dark Lord to hit. Naght Sieger uses the power of his blue blade to attempt to freeze ray but his Golden Thief Bug shield makes it impossible. Undeterred by Naght Sieger Ray charges at Dark Lord and his blade begins to glow with holy might, he stabs the Dark Lord and the Dark Lord turns into a cloud of dark smoke and the smoke retreats into the mist.

Now it is just Ray and Naght Sieger. The anger between the two is intense. Ray begins charging at Naght Sieger, fearlessly but is knocked away by Naght’s gigantic blade. Naght lifts his other blade and slams it down on Ray, Ray lifts his Golden Thief Bug Shield to block it and it is shattered by the impact. An Evil grin rises on Naght Sieger’s face seeing the shield broken, he raises his blue blade and suddenly everything gets cold. I can see my own breath as ice flies at Ray, Ray dodges ice bolt after ice bolt but he is hit by one and it freezes him on impact. Ray is immobilized, Naght Sieger speaks slowly with a voice that sounds of pure evil, his voice sounds like the voice you hear just before you do something bad “Farewell” he says smugly as he lifts his red blade into the air and begins to summon meteors from the sky.

The heat is so intense that my breathing is heavy and I begin to sweat. Meteors begin to crash down on Ray and without his shield he isn’t able to defend against them, the heat is too thick for Ray to move fast enough to dodge the Meteors so he continues to get hit and hit and hit. Rays eyes are showing pain for the first time in the battle. Ray stands there in the meteor storm unable to move getting hit over and over again. Finally Ray’s blade drops from his hand and suddenly he isn’t so godly anymore, The heat rises and rises and now even I am having trouble moving through the heat. I can’t just watch this, I manage to summon the strength to stand, I don’t know where I summon it from but with it I begin to charge to Ray’s aid. “Enough!” I yell and Naght Sieger sees me and lets out a maniacal laugh the heat rises as a large meteor approaches Ray so I speed up and manage to throw Ray out of harm’s way just in time but I am not able to escape the meteor myself.

               The meteor crashes down on me with more force than I’ve ever felt before, the heat is ten times hotter than before and I am burning alive below the meteor. The smell of my own flesh burning is filling the air and there is nothing I can do to avoid certain death. The meteor explodes on me and suddenly what’s left of my vision fades. Everything is disappearing, Ray, Naght Sieger, James, and everything I’ve ever known is fading. I am surrounded by nothing but darkness, I feel nothing. Suddenly a small light appears and then my vision returns. Standing over my body is a beautiful maiden with angelic wings and snow white hair. Her eyes are completely blue, she has no pupil her eyes are just an ocean of nothing but blue. Naght Sieger grows furious and combines his swords to make an enormous monstrous blade, I’ve heard of this blade, Violet Fear said to contain enough power to fight gods. In pure rage at his failure to finish me Naght Sieger Swings Violet Fear at me. The Angel standing above in an effort to guard my body lifts her shield to block Violet Fear and the shield shatters. The weapon had enough power to destroy the shield of an angel, I was more afraid than ever. Naght Sieger takes another swing at the Valkyrie and she lifts her sword into the air and it releases an orb of white light that explodes and leaves an apparition of a frozen clock, with that Naght Sieger is frozen and so is everything around us. The angel has stopped time.

“You fearlessly defended a complete stranger, against one of the strongest opponents in the world, even though you were powerless yourself, you are worthy” the angel says with a beautiful voice, if silk could speak this would be the voice of silk. With a wave of her blade the angel summons the armor of a super novice onto me and the Blade of Angels appears in my hand “Fight” she says just as she disappears in a beauteous flash of green and white light. I feel the power of the Guardian Angel flowing through me, I cannot let the chosen SuperNovice fall today, I use the blade of angels to summon a shield of holy light around Ray. The battlefield has fallen silent, after an intense staring contest between me and Naght Sieger I lift the Blade of Angels and charge at Naght Sieger guided by a power that I don’t fully understand. Naght Sieger separates Violet Fear into two blades again and attempts to freeze me with his blue blade. I dodge the blast of ice but the pure chill from the sword is enough to slow me down, I quickly jump toward his red sword and the heat coming from it warms me up. I maintain an equal distance to both swords as to keep my body at regular temperature as I charge at Naght Sieger, when I reach Naght Sieger I leap into the air attack Naght Sieger with all my might but he seems unaffected. He raises his red sword to the sky again and fear fills my body. I had seen what happened to Ray and felt the heat of the meteors crash down on me before. I am completely petrified now as meteors crash down on me. Just as with Ray the Blade of Angels drops from my hand and I am almost certain that I will die here. The heat continues to rise and once again I lose my vision. Suddenly a flash of light and the angel has returned, but she is not alone this time. She has brought James to me, She transformed him into a High Priest and bestowed him with Evangelist the mace said to channel power directly from Valhalla  James  begins to heal me and shield me from the meteors, unable to assist us anymore the angel leaves. With James by my side I am no longer afraid of the demon. “So maybe you were hearing voices!” James says to me jokingly, even in the middle of a life threatening situation James is making jokes. “Shall we?” I say smugly to James and as he shields and heals me I charge at Naght Sieger with a newfound confidence, James imbues my Blade of Angels with the holy might of Valhalla and attack Naght Sieger relentlessly. Naght Sieger attempts to defend himself against our combined effort but cannot so he raises his blue sword in the air and sends a blast of ice, I jump to the side but I didn’t realize he was not aiming at me, the blast of ice fly’s past my face leaving droplets of ice on my ear. It’s cold but not as cold as the touch of the mist I felt earlier so I can handle myself, the blast hits James and James is frozen in ice. With this Naght Sieger begins to focus on me and without James to heal me he starts to wear me down. I’ve got to free James I think to myself. I charge at Naght again defensively this time, I dodge Naght’s attacks and a narrow miss takes some of my hair off. I wait for an opening, left, right, jump, crouch, his attacks are coming from everywhere. I see an opening and bash my sword against Naght Sieger’s blue blade as hard as I humanly can and the sword shatters, freeing James of the ice blast. I leap backwards and yell out “Yeah!” James looks at Naght Sieger with worry and says “Don’t celebrate too soon” with that said Naght Sieger’s blue blade repairs itself. Naght Sieger looks at us “Times up” he says with that unearthly voice and he drops his blades into the ground and they begin to glow, the red one glowing blue and the blue one glowing red. “He is channeling his ultimate ability!” James yells. Naght Sieger then starts to be surrounded by a violet aura as he yells “Heat Signature!” The Arena is suddenly much hotter. Hotter than the meteors, hotter than anything I’ve ever felt, James and I try to run out of the heat but a ring of fire surrounds us. Just as I thought it could not get any worse pillars of flame start to rise out of the ground to burn me and James where we stand. James Is throwing all his power into healing me and keeping me alive, but he himself is dying in the process. The heat gets more and more intense to the point where our sweat evaporates seconds after it comes out, we are being cooked. “Keep yourself alive!” I yell to James, the statement confuses him at first but he stops healing me with that said and begins to heal himself as I run into the flames towards Naght Sieger.

 With the heat this intense and burns spreading through my whole body I shouldn’t be able to move but I am summoning the will from parts of me I didn’t know I had. The pain is horrible, I start to yell in agony which causes James to yell to me “Luke!” he sounds frantic. I try to yell back but all I can let out through the pain is a whimper. I get to Naght Sieger and nearly collapse from the heat and burns but I can’t die here, not yet, James and Ray are depending on me. Naght Sieger cannot attack me while he channels Heat Signature so I must act fast. I drive the Blade of Angels into the floor in between the Blades of Naght Sieger and it forms a healing sanctuary, enough to keep me alive long enough to end this. I summon all my left over strength to pick up Naght Sieger’s blades, the hand that grabbed the blue blade gets frostbite so intense it feels as if it will need to be amputated, the hand that grabbed the red blade swells up and it feels like I’ve cupped magma in my hands, with the blades out of the ground Heat Signature slows but does not stop yet and Naght is once again able to move, the mystical blades shrink to accommodate my size, I combine them just as I saw Naght Sieger do and then I sever Naght Sieger’s legs and he falls over onto the ground. Naght Sieger squirms helplessly on the floor as I walk to his head and behead him with violet fear using up the last of my energy before dropping onto the floor.

 James runs over to my lifeless body “Luke No! You can’t die here! We were supposed to go to Prontera to become Rune-Midgarts adventurers remember”. I can vaguely here him with what little life I am clinging onto but I cannot answer him. As my power fades, the shield I formed around Ray drops and he crawls half alive over to me. I hear James sobs and then Ray starts to speak. “Dear angel, can you hear my voice, this is Ray SuperNovice, Help me out”. Now that the battle is over the angel descends upon me and takes me into her arms. Her embrace is warm and I am not scared, I feel like a newborn being carried by his mother. “Do not weep” her beautiful voice seems to have reached to James and he stops his sobbing. With those last words whats left of my life fades, it all disappears, James, Ray, dreams of Prontera, all of it gone. The angel takes me away.

To be continued…