Synava2/2

Escape
Once Fikar was asleep, the twins whispered to each other, as they always did, every night

“I think we should run away.” Neltor muttered again, like all the other nights, “We can use a soul bond to have two advantages, he’s out numbered and we can soul bond.”

“But now we know he can morph. Besides he told us we can soul bond, why would our enemy tell us our strengths.” Elorn pointed out.

“He never told us how though.” Elorn objected.

“... You’re right...Fine, we’ll leave tonight... ” Elorn thoughtfully remarked.

It rained that night, nevertheless the twins traveled through the path, and, in the next morning, had cinnamon ground for a meal. They walked for two days without sleep and slept deep within the forest.

Fikar’s three days
When Fikar awoke, he saw the runts had left and immediately panicked. First he called out for them and looked around the area when he found their tracks in the mud. He tracked them, using his rune blade to run for the day down the trail, but he hit a fork in the path. The mud had dried and the trees had blocked the rain. He went left, but the twins had gone right, had he looked at the cinnamon trees, he would have seen one tree 3 meters away peeled in one area. He traveled on for three days down the empty trail...

A Warlord Disagrees with his Master
It was a bright, hundred meter tall room with a pure diamond dome at the top, from it hung a titanically enormous chandelier that reflected the sun’s rays of light with every jewel one could possibly name, it had many meters of height and width and a perfect diamond at its very lower tip. The entrance door was larger than two human adults and was made of fine topaz. The enterer would have a golden velvet rug to walk to the master. The walls were pure silver and the floor was tiled with the finest ceramics, encrusted with an assortment of jewels.

At the southern end of the room, regally sat an elf, young and powerful, yet far from his prime. He wore a peacock-blue robe(to fit his peacock-green eyes) and had his jet-black hair cut at chin length at the back and the front of his ear’s top. He wore peridot earrings. On the northern end, an odd creature lazily stood, it wasn’t of the eight races but was a creature that looked as if it didn’t know what it was supposed to be.

The creature had black goat legs (with rusty orange fox feet), an emerald-green snake’s head (with mystically metallic teal colored cat eyes that when gazing at directly seemed as if they were reading your mind), rusty colored cat ears, white mouse hands and black bat wings that could wrap its ferret like body. The only tokuru-like thing about it was that it had a human-like anatomy. It wore a dark-green short-sleeved shirt with dark-red sleeves coming out from beneath the short sleeves(with two holes in the back for the wings to squeeze out of).

The creature wore a dark-blue hood that pointed at the top (at the end of the point were three long and very acute triangular strands of dark green silk. Underneath the hood was a titanium tiara, it had an opal eye (the pupil being a pure amethyst) in the center and the sides were ruby, with emerald bordering around the tiara. The pants were dark-aqua-green silk and baggy for its thin legs. It wore black gloves that had holes for the razor sharp mouse claws that held a diamond katana, containing an energizer rune, an energy-absorber rune and an anti-gravity rune.

“I need more turf. How much longer until the two runts get here?” demanded the elf.

“Fikar is the escort, not me.” the odd creature replied. “now, why did you call me?”

“I need more turf.” the elf stated again.

“We are dealing with intruders, we don’t have enough warriors to ambush another guild.” the creature calmly replied.

“Draft the villages.” the elf retorted.

“We are here to help them, not draft them.” the creature countered.

This was replied by the elf yelling out while standing up “...You might be the most powerful mortal here, but I will not tolerate your repeated refusals to obey orders anymore! You will cooperate or be expelled from this guild, fiend.”

At this, the creature took a rune out and threw it at the dome saying "Yes, I am quite a fiend am I not?”. As the rune hit the dome, it cracked, letting out its true rune, a destruction rune. The diamond shattered at contact with the rune and the creature flew up and out of the room, away from the palace, away from Juroz...

‘That fiend!’ the elf thought to himself in disgust ‘breaking my dome! It takes a year to fuse diamonds together...I’ll have to summon my alchemists...’

Soul Bond
The twins had woken to the sound of a birch twig cracking under a foot. They suspected it was Fikar and were more alert. They had been resting in a secure area, thick with trees around them, on a hill that contained strong minerals in it, holding it together and not allowing trees to grow well on the hill, this way they could see anyone coming near them, couldn't be easily seen and had the higher ground.

“Fikar?” Elorn asked to the form below.

“I’m not Fikar, I’m Tezre, the skullka.” the voice came low and powerful, as the skullka they had met walked up the hill.

The twins wanted to run but the skullka’s legs were much longer. Lorn threw an energy orb at Tezre, but he held out a rune and the energy diminished to nothing.

“This is an energy nullifier, it absorbs and then destroys the energy.” Tezre explained to the vomiting Elorn, “Now come with me, magick is useless and I overpower both of you by a long shot in strength.” he took out his sword while talking.

“You're going to kill us anyways.” Neltor spat out at Tezre while taking his dagger out and shruiken designed to tear deep into flesh.

Elorn had an idea, if he sent his mental waves to Neltor they might be able to converse, if Neltor could use magick...As Elorn sent his thoughts to Neltor he remembered that Neltor had a smaller secondary vein too, it might allow enough blood to get to the brain. As Neltor received the message ‘focus your thoughts to Elorn’ the vein expanded to let blood through to the mind. Elorn, unfortunately, received an emotion, not a message, an emotion of confusion.

Neltor vomited from his first telepathic message. Now it struck Elorn that maybe a soul bond is combining the energy of two minds. Elorn sent the message to Neltor to send his energy to him. Elorn than focused on sending a weak strand of energy to Neltor. As the weak energy wouldn’t be enough to feint Neltor. Neltor sent a slowly growing strand of energy to Elorn. Elorn and Neltor now thought as one and sent a weak strand of energy towards Tezre.

Tezre took out his energy nullifier rune. The rune was absorbing the energy but as it had no time to disperse the energy, the second law of thermodynamics came into play and burnt Tezre’s hand, who then dropped it and was struck with the strand. He passed out after awhile, as he would be for the rest of the next day due to his mind's incapability to deal with an energy overload.

Meanwhile Elorn and Neltor, after taking the energy nullifier and Tezre’s entire rune sack (That also contained a flask), walked away vomiting and delirious, while Neltor mournfully remarked “I don’t like telepathy or anything to do with magick anymore, I no longer envy your ability to use magick, but pity you...”

Conversation at the Pub
Fikar ran for many more days until he reached the place where the three had been traveling to, Kizo. Kizo traded many products, specially minerals, with the humans and fikos, since they had solid minerals in its soil and there was a mine there. The foundations were wide and tall, at the entrance was the only structure with more than two stories in the whole town, it was very tall.

The port had seventeen docks for trade ships, three for cruisers, thirty for small sized crafts and another ten for warships defending the port. Most of the town was built on a large hill with a central tower. The town region was owned by the guild of Serval.

Fikar knew that the Whoppin' Wallop pub, in Kizo was a prime source of information (if you could tell the were drunkards from the sobers). The pub was large, but it was still crowded most of times, mainly by drunks. It’s rock floor was lathered with different alcohols and the scent was revolting to the nose. When he reached the place, he paid the fee of one copper coin to take the stage. When he reached the top he asked “Have any of you seen two kinor runts?”

The crowd first erupted with the drunkards laughing and yelling that the runts were left on Nizo a decade ago. But one of the people who had come to talk of gossip, had some coffee and tea to be social...maybe some alcohol to sip at for a couple of hours, yelled out “Juss zis...ziz mornin'...shme mashked rish...zish...rich guy...he ashked ze shame thing...only he alsho...alsho ashked for a Fikos named Fikar shoo!”

Fikar immediately responded anxiously “Where is he?”

“I’m not...not! Going sho yell over theshe shcreaming drunkardsh...shum...shume...cume over here!” the person screamed over the drunkards.

Fikar leaped off the stage and jolted towards the gossip table. Three Tors and two Lornis sat there, one of the Lorn was having dark coffee, the other green tea, one Tor was drinking light coffee, the second was sipping at her beer and the third was having herbal tea.

The dark coffee drinker immediately spoke up in a quick voice “He asked and when he saw everyone laughing he hopped off the stage ran down the path that leads to the Forbidden Forest.”

Fikar asked curiously “Why is it forbidden?”

The Lorn replied in complete hysterics “Because it has canorks nesting in it, always has, it’s their territory, because the soil has a mixture of hard and soft minerals, that helps grow the rare canork bean tree. They like its beans, I hear it makes a very dark coffee, and a delicious one at that, I’ve always wanted to try canork coffee! In fact now that I think about it, I think he had fox feet, I saw them for a moment. Though it would likely be of delusion!” and with that the Lorn was laughing with his head against the table.

The beer sipper responded “She...Sho...He getsh a little out of hand...hiccup...but you learn to ignore it.”

Fikar thought for awhile and responded “Thanks.”, getting up to leave for the Forbidden Forest...

The Forbidden Forest
Fikar ran and ran into the forest. The cinnamon, birch and bean trees (So famous in that region) were merely blurs as he ran. At each passing second there were more and more bean trees, slunking down like weeping willows, taking up space and making the path wider and wider.

He noticed fox-like footprints in the dirt, with the depth showing the muscle power of a goat’s hind legs. He followed the tracks deeper and deeper into the Forbidden Forest. Then he noticed new foot prints, much bigger and much deeper. He ran faster. After some time he saw an immense creature jolting towards him. Its fur was a tangled smear of brownish colors. Its legs were muscular and its jaws containing 243 layers of serrated teeth (as it was 243 years old and at its prime). It was a canork.

The canorks kept their population down by eating each other, for no animals ventured into the Forbidden Forest. They don’t eat their young, they eat others at the age of around 150 years of age. Their natural life span is around 500, rarely will they live this long without being eaten. They can mate at the age of around 50. A pregnant canork will be pregnant for an average of a few years, only giving birth a few decades later, giving birth to around 10 canorks.

Fikar immediately pulled himself up a canork tree branch and climbed as fast as he could. Some of his coins fell out of his sack and landed in the snapping mouth of the canork, it snapped on them and Fikar cringed as he heard them grinding and being crushed into dust. This gave him just enough time to climb out of reach of such a fate.

But the canork was hungry, the herd being far away. It was bashing the tree and Fikar had to hold on with all his might. While holding for his life nervously glancing around for a means to save himself, he saw a form on a nearby tree. He crawled closer in-between bashes and leaped forward, managing to get a grip on a branch and crawling it up again with the canork leaping towards him. A bean came hurtling by his head and into the canork’s mouth, this gave Fikar time to climb, like the coins had.

When he reached the top he saw that it was the creature. The creature immediately asked “Where are the twins?”, and Fikar answered: “They ran away, It’s been 4 days.”

The tree shook, the canork walked away up a hill. The reature spoke quietly “We’re going to go find them and then take them to Zixra, making our own guild. Zovna is drafting, so I was willingly expelled.”

The tree shook hard, the canork had ran down the hill and bashed the tree, Fikar flung in the opposite direction yelling for help. The creature easily created a dense energy field that held Fikar and brought him back to the tree, getting a major headache as consequence.

Fikar fully understood what Nero, the creature, meant. He immediately responded “Thanks, but the twins took a left turn probably, when I was tracking them.”

Nero coldly replied “Then we’re going to go and get them...when the canork gives up from its attempts to eat us.”

Later that afternoon, when the canork left the tree, Nero slowly descended to the ground, followed by Fikar. They took a short-cut through the Forbidden Forest that would lead to the fork Fikar had encountered in the forest path...

Two Groups of Two Combine into One Group of Four
The twins had traveled fast and were soon going to enter the Forbidden Forest. They also noticed the same differences that Fikar had noticed when he traveled through the Forbidden Forest.

They stopped when they heard the sounds of crinkling leaves and saw the form of a fikos. Immediately, they got into back to back formation, keeping their heads close together, to have a stable soul bond.

Elorn warned to the form “We can soul bond, Fikar.”

At this, another form, hidden by the shade appeared. The second form moved forward and approvingly replied “Good, let’s see how much you can charge it and what form it takes.”

The twins immediately caused a steady stream, weak, but stable. It struck the form’s hand, and Elorn immediately remembered his first usage of magick. Neltor, due to the soul bond, also remembered Elorn’s memory as his own memory and they corrupted the link, giving the usual effects of magick. But the form didn’t toss it back, it absorbed it instead.

The form disaprovingly replied “That wasn’t very good. I don’t feel refreshed...Now stop fooling around, Fikar and I, have dealt with canorks because of your expedition.”

Neltor, remembering the stories about canorks, questioned “Canorks?”

Nero simply replied “Yes, canorks, now come along we’re going on a merchant ship.”

Elorn, understanding that they could be slaughtered right now, realized that no harm was meant towards them from Nero or Fikar. Elorn quickly sent Neltor this explanation. They had found that these tiny mental messages were dealt with easily and that only minor headaches came from doing so. They also had learnt that by thinking as one their disputes were solved less then a second.

Neltor, now agreeing with Elorn, replied sorrowfully “Well we thought you would kill us, we weren’t sure so we decided to escape for our safety.”

Fikar grinned at this and apologetically replied “Well if that was the case Nero and I would have already killed you both by now.”

Nero now spoke with authority “We should be traveling, the goblins reported Tezre is looking for you two.”

Elorn proudly replied at this “We met him in the forest and flared him and his energy neutralizer with a soul bond a few days ago. We stole his sack of runes, there are 6 of them, and we stole this flask.”

Fikar complemented the twins, saying “Great! May I see the runes? We’re heading to Kizo.”

Neltor gave the runes and the flask to Fikar. Fikar read the symbols on the spells and muttered “The flask is an energy tonic and the runes are an energy neutralizer, a smoke rune, an energizer, a negative magnet, a positive magnet and a magnifier rune... It’s a standard escape pack, it is pretty useful.”

That day the group exchanged stories about their split up. Though Nero was quiet about what happened before he met Fikar in the forbidden forest. That night, around midnight, they decided to sleep at the edge of the forest...

The Group Stocks up Before Setting off on a Merchant Ship
That morning they traveled to the town market where all the stores were placed, it was an early morning and so the people of Kizo were just waking up. They went to a restaurant, to talk of what they would do next.

Nero chose a table in the corner and stated “So what do we need?”

Neltor sarcastically commented “Anything but ground cinnamon.”

Nero jotted down: eat at a restaurant in his notebook. He then asked “Anything else? Don’t worry, Fikar and I have sacks of coins.”

Elorn, at this asked “Are there spells that avoid the effects of magick, Nero?”

Nero smiled at this, stretched his hidden scales, and gladly responded “Yes, energy tonics. And they're not very expensive.” he then wrote: energy tonics.

Fikar now spoke “You should get a weapon, Elorn.” Nero wrote: one dagger, “And we should get our clothe washed.” Nero finally wrote: four anti-bacterial runes.

They all ate breakfast at a restaurant, and the rest of that morning was spent buying their shopping list, Elorn got four more energy tonics, a light dagger and anti-bacterial runes.

At noon they headed for the docks, but at the entrance, a person in hysteria jolted at them, laughing uncontrollably. When the dark coffee drinker reached them, he squealed “You're alive! We thought you were mush now but your alive! Not that I don't like mush but I like you more and since I like you I don't want you becoming mush since that wouldn't be very pleasant I think. Did you get any beans!?”

Fikar looked at the hysterical Lorn and responded “No, I’m sorry. But we must be leaving.” at this they walked away, away from the Lorn who now was glum. The caffeine had lost it’s effects and his hopes were ruined. He sorrowfully walked back to the pub, shaking his head slowly.

At the dock, the four spotted a reliable transport ship and walked towards it. Nero handed the owner of the ship fifty golds for a one way ticket, and the quartet kept walking on. The merchant was so joyful that he forgot to ask Nero to remove the mask. Which probably saved Nero's life, as an animal-like person was wanted by Serval. The four settled for the next week.

The ship was a well built one. It’s frame was built with canork lumber and fifteen large oars came out of it’s side to propel it forward with miraculous agility. It’s front bow was a well decorated energy magnifier (with a enormous energy absorber, giving it a upper hand in a conflict). Its ten sails were high, quite wide and could be brought down with ease. When they departed, the wind was on its side, so it would travel doubly fast. Things were finally starting to go well for them.