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Ben Medinets / story2s

Chapter 19: BLACK MAGE’s Strike

In a secret lair, Claus brooded at what kind of terror he could next unleash upon the blessed land. As he studied Soren’s manuscript, he continued to ponder his next course of action. Suddenly, as if out of the air, an idea sprang into his head that it was time to again defile the temple and this time make it his place of power.

So he hid himself in the form of a storm cloud and he was able to travel, unimpeded because everyone was afraid of his terror. His minions travelled behind him, not as disguised, but were also not confronted because of the aura of death and decay that they brought. The element of surprise also played a key part.

The temple was the same one as the BLACK MAGE had terrorized earlier. Now he was bent on retaking it, and making it a place of worship to him and him alone. This would make him even more contemptable to ADAON, the divine creator. The temple was located on the west isle, in the heart of the kingdom of Avon.

In normal circumstances, the King of Avon was solely responsible for the security of the temple. But the rot of the kingdom was slowly making its course, and the kingdom was suffering in a sharp decline. No Avonian soldiers could be spared to defend the sacred temple.

This allowed the BLACK MAGE to bring his malice upon the temple. The druids that were in charge of taking care of the temple were no match for the BLACK MAGE’s minions and there was an utter blood bath. Only the the head druid, Soren’s good friend, and his primary assistant made it out alive. Most of those who died, died very quickly. There were a couple who refused to acknowledge the BLACK MAGE’s power, so he applied his cruelty to them, and had them painfully tortured before he had them killed.

Once the place had been secured, Claus began to search for other sacred stones. But they had long been hidden. Claus looked around but there was nothing else that came to his evil mind that would be immediately useful.

Then he remembered the throne in the middle of the temple. This place was reserved only for ADAON, the divine. It would be utter blasphemy to sit on the throne. With much evil and pride in his heart, the BLACK MAGE sat down on the throne. With the power of the BLACK MAGIC Crystal, and all his minions at his command, he thought he was on par or even more powerful than ADAON the creator.

Meanwhile, at the GUILD HALL, Benny was, at the moment, in the middle of a guard shift. Theat was until he mysteriously fell back, landed flat on his back, hitting his head, and went unconscious. He began to sweat like he was feverously sick. The other GUILD MAGES panicked. This had never happened to them, and especially not to the MAGE that was supposed to be that of healing. Benny was carried into the GUILD HALL, and he became quite pale like he was losing his life force.

Soren was notified and was greatly perplexed. In all the years of being the WHITE MAGE, nothing like this had ever happened to him like this. He consolled Benny and extorted him to hang on, that he would do everything in his power to help Benny pull through this. He asked Princess Lisa to watch over Benny for the moment, while he went and withdrew to think and pause for a moment for this new happening.

Soren began to pray and meditate on the current couse of events. In his head, he thought that they really didn’t have the energy to deal with this new problem, when they should be focussing on defeating the BLACK MAGE. None of them at the GUILDHALL had yet knew of the new treachery done by the BLACK MAGE.

Then as he coninued to ponder these thoughts in his head, he deducted that the only thing that could have caused Benny to become deathly ill like this was that the Temple of Avon had been utterly defiled.

He called an emergency meeting with Prince William, his wife, Princess Sara, and Tommy. These were the RED, GREEN, and BLUE Mages respectively. Benny’s health remained constant but he was still extremely ill and pale. Soren told the others about his theory, and they asked him what he planned to do.

“The first course of action is to see if indeed the BLACK MAGE has indeed struck again. Only untile we find out about this can we truly know our next course of action.”

The guards were to be alerted that there could be an increase of attack. Then all the guards present were to be divided into 3 groups. Each group would rest for 8 hours and pull guard for 16 hours. Two groups of guards would be on at a time to maintain a higher level of security and keep it sustained as long as physically possible. The RED, GREEN, and BLUE MAGES would each be put in charge of one shift, and two of the them would be on duty at the same time. The MAGES agreed this would be the best course of action and all the people assigned at the GUILD HALL were now more determined not to allow the BLACK MAGE’s tyranny to be influenced here.

So the guards were divided into the groups and the 3 MAGES also. The things at the GUILD HALL then were returned to normal. The only thing that did not return to normal was Benny’s health, which continued to be bad, and Benny remained gravely ill with Princess Lisa remaining at his side, nursing him as well as she could.

Soren then departed to see what had indeed happened at the temple. He flew across the channel and soon arrived near the temple itself. As if running to the temple was an act of war, a flock of bats loyal to Claus took to the sky and was there to prevent Soren from investigating the newly happened events.

But Soren did not have to fly too near to the temple, for he could see that the temple, which was once filled with Glory and Righteousness, was now filled with Darkness and Wickedness. Even though Soren did not need to see that the BLACK MAGE was behind this new treachery, he wanted to see what actions were done by the evil necromancer.

His first task was to get by Claus’ flying minions. He would need to see if he could deek them out as there was no chance he could take them all on, at least not in his flying form. There was also too many for him to take on, if he changed into his normal self, and blasted them with a powerful spell.

So he decided to use his amazing agility, the agility of a great hunting bird, to get by the numerous bats, by using his his razor-sharp talons and beak. He flew as fast as he could and used his momentum to help him further. He was ultimately able to get passed them relatively unscathed.

He flew up to a window and peered in. He did not fly in for he knew that would be next to useless to attack the BLACK MAGE by himself with the BLACK MAGE having his minions festering about. The BLACK MAGE detected Soren’s snooping presence and laughed a cruel laugh.

“There is none who can stop me. Try if you dare,” taunted Claus. As if silently guiding the bats, they began to swooping down, and attack Soren.

Sensing the futility of staying there any longer, Soren narrowly missed being taken out by the bats, and then flew in the direction of the GUILD HALL.

Soren could hardly contain his anger. Not only had the BLACK MAGE not only desecrated the temple, but also ADAON’s throne that was inside the temple. Time was not yet ripe for attack, but they would now need to do more than just sit back and wait for the next act of agression. They would need to prepare for war, even though this might mean the last battle. They would need to stop the BLACK MAGE, if they could. Soren’s anger turned to both hope and fear. Hope in that there was still a chance that the BLACK MAGe would fall. This was already pronounced by ADAON many years ago. His fear was that his doom wouldn’t be at this moment and that he would prevail.

After flying a great distance, he realized that he was no longer being chased by any of the BLACK MAGE’s minions so he slowed his pace a bit as to not tire himself out. He soon made it to the GUILD HALL once again. It was soon time for not just another meeting at the GUILD HALL but a council of war.

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