The Vault of Kings

by Matt Taylor

  “What did you say that was? A tiger rabbit?” Torren asked.

  “Ohh, yes, sorry I forgot that you are from the northwestern part of Evendreil, Shilvrst, did you say it was? Honestly, it surprises me how in-the-dark those smaller towns can sometimes be. Before Maelos attacked, the ports around Evendreil were actually used for more than just sending goods wherever Maelos commanded. One could actually get out and explore the world. You know about the geography outside of Evendreil, do you not?”

  “A little bit, are you talking about the four other continents?” Sylas asked.

  “Precisely! I’m glad that you at least know something about them. Other creatures live on those continents that are very different from what you are used to seeing here in Evendreil. The scorched Isle with its dragons and other fiery creatures, Northrinde, and its Tundra acclimated species. The mystical fey and wonderful, whimsical creatures of Mithrendane along with its creatures of Darkness…” Fiskee exaggeratedly shivered, then paused for a moment.

  “You know… I’m not really sure what kinds of creatures live in TrindJhim… there might not be much at all, seeing as it’s mostly just a massive trading post… Anyway, those continents contain creatures that are very different than what we are used to seeing here, but we also have things that live here that they would think are crazy, like your moon fox, for example. It’s wild how it all works out!”

  Fiskee took the spectacles that he was holding and again placed them back on his head.

  Sylas smiled, thinking about whether or not he would lose them there again anytime soon.

  “A tiger rabbit is kind of like a regular rabbit that you would see here, but about three or four times larger. Instead of eating purely vegetables or green leafy things, they are carnivorous and hunt small prey. You could almost compare them to a coyote or small wolf, but with long rabbit-like ears and fur that has a striped design like that of a tiger, thus we called them… tiger rabbits! Quite imaginative, wouldn’t you say?”

  It was hard to tell whether or not Fiskee was trying to be facetious or if he really meant what he said sometimes, so Sylas did the safe thing and just nodded in response.

  “That’s really interesting, I’ll have to talk to Uthren and Geode and see if they can tell me more about what those places are like. I was wondering, though, were you able to finish enchanting that ring for me yet?”

  Fiskee jumped backward and ran to the countertop where he had been searching in the boxes before.

  “Dear me! Yes, I have! I was so caught up in our conversation that I completely forgot the reason for why you would be here in the first place!”

  After shoving several boxes aside, Fiskee opened a small wooden box and produced a silver ring with a small emerald fastened in the center face.

  “Here it is, Sylas. I think it turned out rather well if I do say so myself.”

  Fiskee walked over to Sylas and held the ring out in front of him, “Go on, take a look!”

  His heart skipped a beat as he reached out and plucked the ring from Fiskees open hand. The emerald in the center shone brightly against the silver contrast of the band in which it was set. Curious as to why it looked as if the emerald was giving off some of its own light, Sylas asked, “The emerald looks like its glowing… Am I just crazy? or…”

  “You’re not crazy! That’s how you can tell that it has charges of the spell in it still. Nature Magick has been infused into the gemstone, giving it an unnatural glow. As you use the ring, it will gradually get dimmer and dimmer until the stone looks like a normal emerald, that’s when you will know that it’s time to charge it back up again.”

  The cool metal band snuggly wrapped around his skin as Sylas excitedly placed the ring on his finger. “This is so incredible Fiskee, thank you so much. Can you tell me how to use it?”

  “Not only that, but you are going to help finish the enchantment, as it’s still not quite complete. I’ve done all of the complicated work, but you are the one that needs to finish it. In order for it to be complete, and to be tuned to you, you will need to open your second mind using the symbol of which the enchantment is originated, in this case, that would be Nature.”

  A grin spread across his face at the thought of being able to be a part of the enchantment process. Sylas excitedly made the symbol of Nature and focused his thoughts towards the pool of inner life that dwelt within him. As he brought that energy into his head and opened his second mind, his hands and eyes began to glow with the same color of light that the emerald produced.

  “Now, all you need to do is touch the emerald with your ethereal bodies finger. That will complete the enchantment, and bind its use to you, and you only. When items are enchanted, they are imbued with a specific spell or in some cases, a range of spells that they can perform, but for the item to have the ability to cast the spell, it needs a part of your internal energy bound to it. Once you have finished the enchantment, the ring will act sort of like your second mind does. As long as you are wearing it, all you have to do is simply will the request the object has been enchanted with to be done, and it will be done using the energy that has been stored within the object instead of your own energy. Torren, you will need to stand behind Sylas in case he needs you to catch him. Depending on how much energy you want in the ring, this might leave you a little light-headed and weak. And be ready, it goes fast!”

  With Torren standing behind him, Sylas reached his ghostly hand towards the ring on his physical finger and touched it. The ring flashed bright green as the energy within his body began to decrease rapidly. It felt like someone had just opened a floodgate within his body as his energy was sucked out of him and placed into the ring. Not knowing how much energy he needed to sacrifice, he tried to hold on as long as he could but eventually was forced to remove his ghostly from the ring and close his second mind.

  Sylas saw stars glittering in the corners of his vision as he fell backward into Torrens arms. He attempted to pull himself to his feet so that he would not fall unconscious but was stopped by Fiskee.

  “Hold on, Sylas, that’s my fault. I should have given more instruction. You should have taken your finger off of the ring sooner so that you did not give it so much of your energy. Just set him down in that chair, Torren, and let him rest for a second.”

  Torren placed Sylas in a wooden armchair in the corner of the room as Fiskee fetched a bottle of water to give to Sylas.

  “Here, drink this,” Fiskee said, handing the bottle to Sylas. “Sorry again, It slipped my mind to tell you that you needed to take your finger off as soon as you had put a sufficient amount of energy for your needs into the ring. You are lucky you let go before you passed out completely… but hey, the good news is now you will have plenty of energy to cast the spell many times before you will need to refill it, right?”

  Still dazed from allowing the emerald on his finger to basically suck the life out of him, Sylas just weakly chuckled. “Yeah, good news…”

  After Fiskee explained the actual process of how to use the ring now that it had been charged, then listening to him go on about other subjects and issues completely unrelated to anything that either Sylas or Torren cared about, Sylas felt his energy slowly return to him. At reaching a point where he felt that he could successfully walk back to the tavern, he and Torren thanked Fiskee for his help and gave him the gold coins that Geode had given them for payment.

  “Please come again! And tell everyone else how great of an enchantment you got on your ring, it will help with business! See you soon!”

  After retreating far enough away from Fiskee’s shop so that he could be sure he wouldn’t be heard, Torren asked, “Do you think that if you use Magick too much, it goes to your head and makes you crazy? I mean, Fiskee sure knows his stuff if he can do things that even Geode can’t do, and his job involves using Magick, so you think it has gone to his head?”

  Sylas looked at Torren, and they both laughed, “He’s a bit on the happy side, to say the least. But I’m glad he was so willing to hel
p, this ring is going to make talking to Sky so much easier.”

  On the way back to the tavern, they discussed whether or not they believed what Fiskee had said about the different kinds of strange animals that lived on the other continents. They came to the conclusion that they believed that there were other animals that they might never have seen before, but that they would be way less exotic than what Fiskee had made them out to be.

  Sylas pushed the door of the tavern open, and his eyes immediately fell upon the image of Samara sitting at a table in the middle of the mess hall. A silver and green decorative pin poked out of her hair that she had pulled up into a bun. Green battle mage robes clung to her body, showing off several of the curves that made the other girls her age in Shilvrst so jealous. She lifted her head, and her eyes met his. The robes she wore complimented her eyes fantastically, making her look even more beautiful than she usually did.

  “Hey guys, where have you been this morning?”

  Sylas tried to talk, but the words choked in his throat and wouldn’t come out. Torren graciously saved him and responded, “We went off to a guy named Fiskee’s so that Sylas could get a ring enchanted. Now he can talk to Sky without having to do the whole Magick thing every time.”

  He elbowed Sylas in the ribs, signaling that he was looking like a fool just staring at Samara. “Isn’t that right, Sylas? Show her your fancy new ring.”

  Sylas mentally shook himself and took the ring off his finger. “Yeah, it’s really cool. Here, take a look.” As he placed the ring in her hand, his fingers brushed against hers, sending a flush of heat straight to his head. Trying to recover, he quickly added, “I really like the new outfit, by the way, and the way you did your hair. It’s really pretty.”

  Samara smiled at Sylas and thanked him for the compliment. “Geode bought them for me. He said that every aspiring mage needs a set of battle robes. Although I think I’ll be sticking to Light, for now, I do really like the color. It matches my eyes, and I think it suits me well.”

  She moved the ring back and forth in her hands, admiring the soft glow of green light that emanated from the emerald that sat in its center.

  “This is really cool… It looks like the emerald has a store of Nature Magick inside of it… I’m guessing that’s why it’s glowing?”

  “Yeah.” He responded. “Fiskee had me dump a bunch of my inner life energy into the ring while I had my second mind opened. That’s how you charge it back up once it has run out.”

  “‘Bout knocked him silly when he did it too, you should have seen it,” Torren added in, surely trying to embarrass him. He slapped Sylas on the back and gave him a large toothy grin. “He put a little bit too much juice in there, but he’s doing all right now.”

  Samara looked at the ring for a moment longer before handing it back to Sylas. “You know, the truth is I’m pretty sad about our adventure ending so soon. Sure, I miss my family, and it’s scary having to run for your life away from Maelos and his minions, but I’ve enjoyed being out here with you guys. I’ve fallen in love with learning more about Magick, seeing new sights, meeting new people. I feel like I’m finding out who I really am out here.”

  Sylas pulled up a chair and sat next to her. “Just because we have to go home doesn’t mean that the adventure has to end though, we can still learn more about Magick and maybe try to explore the crypt some more as long as we don’t get caught.”

  “Yeah!” Torren added. “I bet you anything that there are other cool cities like this that aren’t too far away from Shilvrst. Maybe once our parents see that we can be out here on our own just fine, they will let us travel with some of the merchants or something so that we can see more of what Evendreil has to offer than just our boring town. I mean just look at this place, Gelendor is so amazing, there’s got to be other places that...” Torren stiffened suddenly and slapped his palm to his forehead.

  “No! Aww, man!”

  Confused, Sylas looked toward Samara for answers. Unfortunately, she was just as confused as he was.

  “What? What’s the matter?” Sylas asked.

  Pulling his hand off of his forehead and grabbing Sylas by the shoulders, Torren looked his best friend right in the eyes and stated in a tone of utter devastation, “The bakery! We forgot to go to the bakery!”

  It took a couple of moments for that sentence to register in his brain, but then the remembrance of a certain pretty girl at the bakery next to Fiskee’s flowed into his mind. The confusion he had was instantly washed away like a wave of water washing sand off of a smooth rock, and Sylas burst into laughter.

  Samara still had no idea what was happening, but she laughed along with Sylas at the obviously hysterical moment of sorrow that Torren was forced to pass through.

  After visiting with Torren and Samara for a while longer, Sylas excused himself and headed up to his room. He wanted to try out using the ring he had just gotten with Sky. He entered the room and found her still laying on her new bed, sleeping the day away.

  Fiskee was right, she is getting lazy, he thought to himself with a smile. She was still cute when she was lazy, though, so Sylas didn’t mind at all. He patted her on the head softly to which Sky opened her eyes and yawned, stretching herself out on the bed and arching her back. She lifted her head up and stared at Sylas with her bright glowing white eyes. Sylas thought about the ring on his finger, and then with his mind, attempted to communicate with Sky. The emerald on the ring flared with a slightly brighter green glow as he spoke.

  “Sky, can you hear me?”

  Finishing her long stretch, she sat on her hind legs and began scratching behind her ear. “Yes, I can hear you.”

  “Awesome!” He replied. “I’m not using Magick at all, I’m using this ring that I just had enchanted, and it’s doing all of it for me!”

  She stopped scratching her ear and looked back at him, her eyes returning his gaze.

  “Really? That’s exciting news.”

  “Yeah, check this out!” He said as he lifted his hand with the ring up so that she could see it glowing.

  “Very nice, it will be good to not have to walk in silence and constantly bump into you so that you know I’m there. How long does it last?”

  “Fiskee said that it should last a long time, I accidentally dumped more energy into the emerald than I should have, so we shouldn’t have any issues for a while. When it does run out, though, he said I’ll know because the emerald will stop glowing. When that happens, I can just add more energy, and we can use it again.” Sylas said with excitement in his voice. “Hey, would you like to go out and see the city today? You haven’t really been out of this room much since we got here.”

  “No, there are too many humans.”

  “You can just stay invisible, though, plus if you want, I could empty my bag, and you could get inside, and I’ll carry you around. You’re definitely small enough to fit in there if I take all of my stuff out, then you can just poke your head out of the top and look around while staying invisible.” He replied.

  Sky thought for a moment, then turned her head towards the window. Finally, she agreed but insisted that he keep a couple of things in the bag, so it didn’t look as suspicious. Sylas agreed, then emptied his bag of everything but his blanket and a few other soft items. He then picked her up and placed her gently in the main pocket of the pack.

  “See? Nice and soft even. This will be fun! I want to show you some of the massive trees that are around here. You won’t believe how big they are.”

  Torren ran his fingers through his hair one last time, trying to catch his reflection while looking at the store window. Come on, what’s the big deal? She’s just a girl… the girls all fall for you, right? What’s there not to like?

  Torren didn’t usually have to sike himself up to talk to a girl, but for some reason, this just felt different… He didn’t know what to say and was actually nervous that he would make a fool out of himself. Tightening his muscles, he took several deep breaths, then turned and walked into the
bakery front door.

  The scents that penetrated his nose were delightful. He could make out the scent of biscuits, pastries, and pies, but the most dominant of them all was the smell of freshly baked bread. It reminded him of better times when things were not so dreary and his family could actually afford to make fresh bread. Thoughts of his mother baking bread and his father coming home happy from work calmed his nerves.

  Of all the senses that were being triggered, the one that was the most pleasing was that of sight after his eyes laid upon the girl standing behind the counter in front of him. Her long black hair draped over her shoulders and shined in the light that was peering down from the sunroof above her head. Her dark brown eyes met his, and he was sure that she could see straight into his soul, knowing his every thought and intention.

  Shrugging off the idea, he approached the counter, then placing one hand on the glass top, brought the other towards his face in a waving motion.

  “Ohh man, it smells good in here! What’cha got cookin’?”

  A faint smile crossed her lips as she responded, “Well, it’s really baking more than cooking… but mostly bread right now, would you like to try a free sample?”

  Torren mentally took his hand and slapped it across his face for saying cooking instead of baking.

  “Yeah! I’d love to.”

  “Which kind would you like to try? We have regular wheat bread, some bread with cinnamon, or our newest recipe, herb and cheese.” She responded.

  “Woah, herb and cheese? That sounds crazy… let’s do that one!”

  Her faint smile turned into a full-on smile at Torrens enthusiasm. She even let out a small giggle, which gave Torren a massive confidence boost. Yeah… I got this…