Prologue: Alarms in the Night
In the Dimension of the Gods…
A full, blue moon shone over the city of Kingrah, the silhouette of a dragon soaring past it for one moment. In the shopping district, all of the store windows were dark, and the doors had been sealed tight with different sorts of locking spells. The only sounds were of the crickets chirping and the breeze blowing through the enchanted wind chimes which gave off various soft noises from bells ringing to birds chirping.
Suddenly, two crouched, shadowy figures darted across the store rooftops. They continued running all the way until they got to the roof of a store marked with the sign Postulates for Potions.
"This is the one?" one figure whispered.
The other figure nodded. "This was the store the master specifically mentioned."
"Excellent."
The two jumped down from the roof. They held out their hands at the store and let them glow with red magic. The two chanted:
Alarms and locks and other security,
As of now, you are not to be.
Two rays of red magic shot out of their hands, and the entire store took on a red glow for a moment. One of the figures then walked up to the door and slowly reached out for the handle. They gently turned it.
Slowly, they pushed the door open. A tiny bell jingled above the door, but aside from that, there wasn't a sound from within. No alarm started blaring, and from within, there were apparently no motion detectors or security cameras on.
"All right!" whispered the one at the door.
"Hurry up, before someone comes!" the other cried, pushing the first into the store.
For five minutes, the two walked around the shop, using only glows of their red magic for light. Occasionally, one of them would give a small cry and grab a jar or an herb off of the shelves.
At the exact five minute mark, a blaring alarm suddenly resounded throughout the store, and all of the lights switched on, revealing the two figures were a teenage boy and girl with black hair clad in black clothing.
"What the-"the boy cried out, his arms filled with potion items.
The girl snarled. "Oh, geez-it's one of those alarms which go off only if some spell is cast that's supposed to turn alarms off!"
"What sort of person invents something like that? It's getting to the point where no thief could get away with anything these days!"
"Enough talk, let's go!"
The boy and girl dashed towards the doorway of the shop; however, they slammed into some sort of invisible wall which sent them flying back onto the floor.
"An invisible wall that activates with alarm-off spells, too?!" the boy yelled.
"This is not good," the girl squeaked.
Suddenly, a black beam of magic slammed through the invisible wall and shattered it into thousands of pieces. A boy with blond hair, dark eyes, and deeply tanned skin clad in black except for a red cape on his right shoulder walked inside, glaring at the two on the floor.
"By ze gods, Styx and Nox, must Ah always bail you two out when zings get tough?!" he snapped.
The other two quickly switched into kneeling positions.
"We're very sorry, master," Styx quickly said.
"It won't happen again, master," Nox added.
"Run now end kees up to me later!" the blond yelled, dashing out of the door and floating up into the air.
Styx and Nox quickly followed him outside. The three transformed into showers of red and black sparks and soared off into the night sky, leaving the alarm blaring, the former wall shattered, and the Kingrah police with a new crime scene.
Susiros was pacing back and forth in the stony, dreary throne room of Resheph's castle. "What's taking those three so long? I swear, if Styx and Nox somehow got my love captured, I'm going to-"
She was interrupted by two showers of red sparks and one shower of black sparks soaring through an opening for a beautiful stained-glass window that had been shattered long ago. The showers soared up to her, rearranged themselves into human-like forms, and transformed back into Resheph, Styx, and Nox.
Susiros dashed up to Resheph, embraced him, and gave him a kiss. "Welcome back, my darling, evil Resheph," she cooed. "Did everything go well?"
Resheph scowled and looked down at Styx and Nox, who had returned to kneeling positions, "Well, eet would hev eef zese two hadn't forgotten zat zere are alarms wheech go off only when spells are cast to speceefically turn zem off."
"S-s-s-sorry, master," Styx stuttered out.
"Won't happen again, master," Nox barely managed to get out.
Resheph sighed. "Get up end stop being so patheteec," he ordered the two. He turned back to Susiros and said, "Do you hev ze portal?"
Susiros nodded. She pulled a silver box with a small opening on top out of her red cloak. "You wouldn't believe how pathetic the people who owned this were; couldn't even put up a fight for more than five minutes."
Resheph took the box and placed it onto the floor. "Well, hopefully when we meet up weeth zose leetle brats een ze other dimension, zey will geeve us a leetle challenge." He turned to Styx and Nox. "Before we can do zat, however, you two need to make sure you get ze rest of ze ingredients for meh potion part ev ze plan in zeir world. And," he glared at the two, his eyes shining with dark magic, "you'd better not screw eet up thees time!"
Styx and Nox hung their heads. "Yes, master," they said in unison.
Resheph pointed a finger at the box and sent a dark spark of magic through the opening. A white ray of light shot out of the box and shifted itself into the shape of a circle. Once the circle was formed, a wavy image appeared in its center of what appeared to be a park in the nighttime.
Resheph took Susiros' hand. "Let's go, mon cher," he said.
Together, the four teens jumped through the portal; once they were through, the light receded back into the opening and vanished.