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CHAPTER
12: Enter the Jedd
As Jedd dashed around the corner, the wall
of spikes slammed into the wall
where
his body was a half second ago. Another
wall went came after him from
the
opposite hallway. Jedd knew it was
coming, he didn't have to look.
These
Ancient Lupile traps were becoming WAY too predictable.
He summoned up a throwing dagger. He only carried around a single
dagger...
during its forging, he had cast a spell upon it that would allow
him
to copy it over and over again, it had long since been his only physical
weapon. He won the dagger during a contest. It was very intricately made,
yet
aerodynamic. And it was almost as old
as his 850-year-old cape.
Which was almost as old as he was.
He threw his copied dagger behind him,
without looking. It hit directly
where
the wall of spikes met the stone wall surrounding the hallway, which
succeeded
in not only creating a great display of sparks, but it also caused
his
steel pursuer to slow down a bit.
"Jedd?"
He tripped and stumbled to the ground.
"Can you hear me? Jedd?"
The wall was less than a yard from him.
He held his hand out.
"FAXLZ!!!", he screamed.
Jedd's signature technique hit the wall of
spikes, turning it to nothing.
Dammit, Jedd only used magic on his
treasure hunts during emergencies....
and
even then it still pissed him off.
"Jedd???"
"WHAAAT?!?!?!?"
"Oww!!! Don't do that!"
"Well, what the hell do you
want?!" Jedd stood up.
"Losnyr just arrived, and..."
"What, don't tell me Kennen took him
on foot?!"
"I'm afraid so, but lis..."
"Dumbass." Jedd raised his
hand. He was surrounded by a black
light.
"Listen! We don't have much time."
"I'm right in front of you,"
said Jedd, "so you can stop the telepathy
stuff."
The Lord of the Night opened his
eyes. "We need you to find the
orb. It's
guarded
by several of Deranral's creatures, and you are the only one who is
powerful
enough to defeat them. Not only that,
but you can magically
breathe
underwater."
Jedd laughed. "Heh, you mean you can't beat them? You haven't been
fluffing
off your magic training.."
Mortimer smiled. "Of course not, I could easily dispose of them. But I
have
to guide you there telepathically."
"Okay, but I think it would be best
if I beat the monsters and he," said
Jedd,
looking at Losnyr, "got the orb. It's
his master that died, after
all."
LotN nodded. "Fitting. I'm going
to train him a little while you are
looking
for the temple. I suspect it will take
about 8 hours to go under
water
and find, it is extremely deep underwater, east of the city of Cope.."
"Oh, I know what you are talking
about... that area with all the underwater
temples? The ruined city?"
"Right. Once you locate the right temple, I will teleport Losnyr to your
location
when you say it is clear. He will then
go inside and take the orb
while
you deal with the monsters outside."
Jedd started casting his teleport
spell. "Anything else?"
"Not really," replied LotN.
Jedd disappeared with the sound of
thousands of zippers unzipping at once.
CHAPTER
13: Fishing for Elementals
Jedd had very little fat on his body, so
he could let himself peacefully
sink
deeper and deeper into the water. Not
only did he need to use a spell
to
create oxygen in his lungs, he had to protect himself from the water
pressure
that would normally crush a man, especially as deep as Jedd was
going. Both of these spells were quite basic,
however, and required very
little
effort.
After many hours passed, Jedd finally
arrived at his approximate
destination. Hundreds of long abandoned temples of marble
lay below him, on
the
ocean floor.
“Alright Mort,” he said,
telepathically, “Which one is it?”
“Okay, you’re there? Let’s see…”
there was a long pause between LotN’s
words. “Okay, it should have a blue tint, and the
pillars should be
coloured
black.”
Jedd looked down. “Um, there are a LOT of them like that. Perhaps you
could
be more specific?”
“Er… okay… it should have the symbol of
water on the leftmost pillar. I
could
guide you there as soon as my senses find you…”
“Uh,” Jedd interrupted, “how bout I just
go to the temple guarded by the
thousands
of summoned water-based creatures?”
There was another long pause. “Sure, that works.”
Jedd started to magically glide himself to
the temple in question. He knew
that
each temple represented some god of Flaerie, or at least used to. He
also
knew that this section of land once saw the light of day. It was
apparent
that having just a few acres of land try to worship several hundred
gods
at once would piss quite a few of them off.
Many of the temples saw
signs
of damage; some from earthquakes, some from traditional bolts of
lightning. Some even had stains from god-sized tomatoes
and eggs.
As Jedd neared the temple, a large army of
water elements all turned to
face
him at once. They charged.
Jedd watched the faint shapes in the water
advance. He could barely see
them,
but his magical senses told him where each and every one of them was.
Jedd wondered how he could win this
battle. Difficulty wasn’t that much of
a
problem, but creativity was. He could
just absorb some of them and fire
them
back at the others, as they were beings of pure magical energy, but he
had
done that before against elementals, it wouldn’t be original. Jedd
didn’t
like using the same tactic against the same enemy more than once.
He summoned up a single dagger, and then
he saw the ice dragons, ice
golems,
and greater water elementals behind his current approachers.
“All right,” he said out loud, “Let’s get
this party started! Who loves
ya, baby?”
CHAPTER
14: Kicking ass, taking names
Jedd took the time to fully charge his
dagger up with dark magic. Usually
he
could charge up his daggers as soon as he touched them, but compressing
the
entire dagger with as much magic as he could fit too a little more time,
but
the resulting explosion was always quite worth the three second wait.
Jedd teleported behind the water
elementals, who were then but a few yards
from
him. Before teleporting, however, he
left a magical after-image of
himself. This after-image was a perfect decoy, of
course. The elementals
fell
for it; they didn’t know any better.
They surrounded the after-image,
now a
blur from Jedd’s point of view.
Jedd pointed a finger, and detonated the
dagger left behind in the hand of
his
decoy. There was a flash of
darkness. Water rushed in to fill up
the
spherical
empty space in which no water elemental escaped.
“Hey Mort! I think it’s safe to send Mauriac over here, these monsters are
REALLY
pissed off at me, I don’t think they’ll be paying attention o anyone
else…”
From the time in which Jedd left, Mortimer
had been training Losnyr. He
had
used Space magic to put Losnyr in an astral simulator, which used the
different
“rules” of magic for Flaerie, Alteria, and Amtgardia. But with
this
recent interruption, Losnyr was now preparing to be teleported back to
Jedd’s
location.
“Are you sure you can teleport back here
when you are finished?” asked
LotN.
“Yes,” replied Losnyr, with a nod of
determination.
“Good.
Go straight inside the temple, get the orb, and tell Jedd to stop
screwing
around and get back here.”
Losnyr nodded. LotN then touched him, and surrounded him in a silver
light.
Right after his arrival, a large ice
dragon head shattered into the temple
wall
a few feet from Losnyr.
“Jedd!
I’m going to go for the orb! The
Lord of the Night told me to tell
you
to stop screwing around and get back to the tower when I’m finished!”
shouted
Losnyr.
Jedd frowned. “Damn, I have to finish this up early? I was just starting
to
have a good time.”
Losnyr glided himself quickly into the
temple. The design of it looked to
be
very much like that of a small church.
On the back stone altar rested a
small
orb. Losnyr rushed toward it.
Halfway to his destination, a greater
water elemental crashed through the
back
wall. Dodging the flailing gigantic
arm, Losnyr grabbed the orb, and
quickly
teleported away with a blue flash right before he was succumbed into
the elementals body.