The Quest for the Doomed Hammer - I

Thunder rolled weakly and disintegrates into deadened silence, as if afraid that it might wake up something unwanted.

Another lightning flashed from afar and illuminated the whole crypt, but the accompanying thunder was muted out by the silence.

I slowly passed through the graveyard, my summoned shadow master, an exact magical replica of myself, perhaps more stronger in strength, followed without making a noise. Darius, the ice-mage mercenary I hired from Ureh was nowhere to be seen.

Hiding behind a looming gargoyle, I heard the crushing of a fallen leaf beneath a light footfall. Someone was coming... I quickly cast a fade spell to make myself invisible to unfriendly watchers.

Slowly, the silent footsteps came closer towards the gargoyle...

It began as a soft tremor, then suddenly the ground seemed to tremble under a great weight; without warning, a skeletal hand broke open the ground; pulled it's whole skeletal body up and looked around its as if looking for someone to blame for its condition. Many more have emerged by then. Someone or something already knew I would be here, and they have awaken the dead to stop me.

At that moment, the fool a mercenary I hired form Ureh came running shouting some nonsensical things which I could not understand.

When he saw the undeads, he stood frozen. He might have wet his pants but I could not see clearly in the dark. The Sightless eye grants me visions but it is not particularly helpful to pick out particulars in normal vision.

One of the death sentries I placed around the crypt exploded. They are contraptions that shoots lightning charges to anyone in range. Many more followed, each explosion killing, if killing is what you call when you destroy and undead' many of the skeletons but many more were emerging from the ground.

My shadow Master went off in a burst of speed and silently started attacking those that are newly emerging from the ground.

The fool of a mercenary regained his senses and now held his long weapon proding one of the fallen skeletons.

"Oi, don't play around and help me dispose of these undeads" I shouted in anger and exasperation
He immediately activated his magical aura, for which I hired him, that rushes towards me and filled me with renewed energy and heightened my power and senses.

We battled hard, after a while the skeletons stopped emerging... but of the horrors that came next, I could not have even imagined...

tbc~

A day in our lives

It would be wrong to say the phone rang; there was no sound whatever that morning. But someone was calling me on the phone. The phone shows an unknown number; I stared at it for a while. Lei was still asleep. Of course I could not have picked it up. Not this early in the morning.

The cell phone rang 18 times more, from three different numbers. Who would want to reach me this desperately? When Lei woke up I told him about the calls. He threw me a look that clearly said his annoyance, "Why didn't you wake me up, you moron?". He was quite worried; something bad might have happened and someone was trying to get the news across. He tried calling back the numbers. The first one didn't picked up. The third one didn't either. But the second didn't picked up. This perplexes Lei for a while. I told him not to worry, it must be nothing important

All of us were awake by then. Cloud was rubbing his eyes, looking still sleepy, Lei took wind for his breakfast. While there, the phone rang suddenly ( but silently). It was the second number. Lei picked it up: the call was just to let us know that our mother has reached City A and going to City B. Which I already knew as I talked with her only yesterday night.

Wind managed to spill food on his shirt. Again. Lei is telling him off to be more careful. Ice is talking how irresponsible the whole of us is and some of us needs more growing up. The day was otherwise uneventful. Lei promptly took up his huge book he has been reading these days. Wind is watching Naruto/Bleach/One Piece; I don't know which. Ice was doing laundry, Cloud is on the phone. He hogs the phone all day long. I don't know how he can stand that offending contraption.

We all have classes today, some of us have the same ones and others different. The first class, as soon as I entered the classroom, I felt the air stale, the air conditioner circulating the same stale air repeatedly. And all the doors and windows were closed. I felt claustrophobic but Cloud calmed me down, that nothing is wrong with doors and windows being closed, and that I was just being paranoid. And here I am, not listening to the prof, but writing this post. Oh, wait, the prof just ended the class early. Got to go :)