Tales of the Dark
Disclaimer: I don't own jack squat so don't sue me you won't get jack cause I got jack.
AN: This is set 400 years after Phantasia. If someone can tell me the name of the world Phantasia is called, that would be dandy. And plz tell me the average life-span of a half-elf is that would be Big Fat Oprah Tits.
If you get confused don't worry because this is a sequel to a story i haven't written yet, (so im as confused as you. Sarcasm, but not really. Brownie point if you know the what the last part was from. Jelly points for people that don't like brownies, but come on, who doesn't like brownies) so bare with me. Kenlie used to be Euclid FYI! The first part of the story is written kinda rough so stick with it. This is my first OC Fantasy story type so bare with me...twice. Please R&R. No flames Please just constructive criticism.
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Chapter 1 A Fateful Meeting
Somewhere in Kenlie,
The room was pitch black, the cold air stood still in the room. Warriors liked it cold before fights. It heightened their senses, made them less prone to pain for the first few minutes. A warrior stood in the room, wearing only a chest plate, leggings and boots made of gold. Every other body part was open to attack. The warrior stood, waiting for the gate to lower so he could fight. Thousands of people outside cheered. They all waited for bloodshed.
The man stood in the cold, thinking of how these people were only here for entertainment. They didn't care about these warriors, all they cared about was their own amusement. They didn't want to know anything about the Gladiators. This warrior, the champion, they didn't care about the hundreds of people that died at his hands, or the friends he lost, the family that he no longer has. The only thing people paid for was to see these warriors kill each other . This warrior was here to forget the past which haunted him.
"Welcome all, to the Kenlie Arena." A man outside announced , "Today, A nameless newcomer who only refers to himself as "Pain" wants to challenge the champion, Roku "The Raider"! Can this newcomer defeat the champion of 3 years? Will the champion be dethroned? I doubt it! But you never know what is going to happen! Lower the gates!
And start this battle!" The crowd started to cheer and clap.
Back in the dark room, the warrior was torn away from his thoughts when he heard the sound of gears and chains. This warned him that the gate in front of him was about to open, and that he was going to fight to the death with a man he's never meet. As the gate slowly lowered, light began to shine through. His dark brown hair shined in the presence of the sunlight. The sunlight strolled down to his face, his black eyes had to adjust to the light before he could see outside the room. The tall man of 6"1' was of medium build. Even though he didn't look it, he was strong, but as strong as he was, he was faster. The man was not as handsome as most men, but he wasn't sore on the eyes. He wasn't as book smart as he was street smart. He's also known as the best swordsmen in all of Kenlie. The largest city of Aselia.
Roku stepped outside of his cold room into the bright, warm sunlight. His golden armor clattered against the sheathed sword strapped to his hip. Roku reach his right hand around to his back to make sure that his short blade was securely strapped to his armor. Roku was shield less, a dangerous tactic, but it gave him more speed.
"Roku Carries his famous sword, Ice Coffin, and his short blade, Fame Face. All Pain is wielding is a Steel Sword. This looks to be a short match." The announcer states to the crowd.
As Roku looked up across the giant field, he saw the man "Pain" running at him. Pain had a copper shield in his left hand, and a Steel sword in the other.
Pain ran towards Roku, his sword was held above his head ready to throw a vertical strike, Roku snickered, "Amateur". Roku didn't draw either of his weapons, he just focused on the man, blocking out the screams of the crowd. When Pain was in striking range, Roku pivoted to the left. In that split second, Pain dropped his sword to a horizontal fashion. As he flew by Roku, he swung his sword from right to left with all his strength hoping the blade would catch his stomach.
The blow connected, but it was anything but deadly. The strike only grazed Roku's golden armor. "Whoa!" The Arena announcer shouted as the crowd roared, "That must of even made The Raider nervous." But it didn't, not very much made Roku nervous anymore. Nothing that happened in the Arena startled Roku.
As Pain kept running trying to recover from his missed attack he tripped over his feet.
"Ah! Damn it!" Pain mumbled
"What's this? Pain just tripped over his own feet! This is a laughable performance. If he wants to when this brawl, he needs to focus!" The announcer rambled.
Pain pulled himself back to his feet, and brandished his sword. The crowd cheered. "Look at this! Pain strikes a pose for the crowd. How will Roku react from this act of disrespect?" The man yelled.
Roku stared Pain down. Pain darted for Roku again. He decided to do a spin attack, he readied his sword at his side. When he was close enough, he started to spin clockwise. As he turned into a 180 he noticed that the crowd was dead silent, and as he kept spinning into a 360 for his attack, he saw Roku crouched, and he heard him yell, "Rising Phoenix!"
Pain felt his metal armor start to sear his skin as he saw Roku was engulfed in flames. Pain felt Roku's boot slam into his chest plate, plowing the burning metal deeper into his skin. Before he knew it, Pain was flying through the air. After a few seconds he felt himself falling back to the ground. His back slammed against the ground. He couldn't decide what hurt more, the fall, or his armor burning his chest.
After recovering from the fall, Pain shot to his feet. He tried to get his chest piece off, but the leather strap that kept his armor on wouldn't rip. Pain ripped a hidden dagger out of his boot and cut the leather holding his armor in place. With all the straps cut the armor still wouldn't drop. Pain dropped his dagger and grabbed the edge of his metal chest piece.
He tried to peel it off, but he felt a jolt of pain shoot through his chest. He knew what was keeping the armor stuck to his chest. Pain knew what had to be done.
Pain grasped the edge of the armor, and started to count, "1.…2.…3!" He pulled with all his strength.
"Ah! Son Of A Bitch!" Pain yell out.
The crowd gasped. Pain's chest was covered in blood. He threw down his chest piece to reveal that the inside was covered in skin.
"Owe! The flames from Roku's special skill heated Pains chest piece. It get so hot that it made the skin on his chest melt onto the armor." The announcer explained.
"You bastard! There's no way that was legal!" Pain shouted out.
"This is a fight to the death! There are no rules!" Roku told him.
"Fine, since there's no rules, I'll use a skill out of your own book! Demon Fang!"
Pain slammed his sword to the ground making a burst of energy shot towards Roku.
Roku was caught of guard by this. But he quickly jumped high into the air, unsheathing his short blade Fame Face. Roku shouted, "Demon Fang!" and threw the blade in the ground. A burst of energy shot at Pain, but both the bursts of energy collided and made a small explosion, just as Roku planed.
When Roku landed on the ground, Pain was already running at him again.
When he was in ranged to strike Pain raised his sword high above his head. But it was to late.
"Beast!" Roku thrust Ice Coffin into Pains chest. Pain looked down, blood poured out where the sword penetrated. He looked back up at Roku and noticed a blue aura forming around him. Then he felt pain all over his body as the aura took the shape a beasts head and shot him off Roku's sword.
"Roku The Raider wins!" the announcer screamed. Then the crowd exploded in applause.
Roku rushed to Pain, and knelt by his side, he was barely alive.
"Where did you learn that move?" Roku asked
"My mentor. COUGH! COUGH!" Pain muttered
"Who's your mentor?"
"You of all people should know." Pain replied.
"Who's your mentor!" Roku shouted.
"You know the man you killed 4 years ago, your mentor? He was my mentors brother." Pain said as his breathing quickened.
"What? That's impossible." Roku told him.
"He's looking for you Roku. And he won't stop until you're dead." Pain explained as his breaths got farther spaced out.
"Where is he? Where is your mentor?"
"He…is………here." Pain said softly as he died.
Roku stood up. He scoured the crowd for anyone suspicious. As he scanned the thousands of faces he noticed a man in a black cloak. When the man noticed that Roku spotted him he headed for the exit.
Roku sheathed his sword and grabbed his short sword out of the ground and headed for the exit of the arena. Roku had to go through the basement to get to the ground floor.
He spun around scanning the crowd for the man. "There's too many floors for this guy to hide. I'll never find him." Roku thought to himself
There were five levels to the arena. The basement was where the warriors trained, slept and ate. The ground floor was where everyone bought there tickets, and for the arena pit itself, but they had to go through the basement to get to the arena. Then the next 3 levels where all for seating.
The cloaked man could be anywhere, the arena was closing for the day. Thousands of people were leaving, there was no way for Roku to find the man, then Roku felt a rush go through his body.
"What's this? I know this felling. But the last time I felt it was….." Just then Roku saw the cloaked man run out an exit into the giant city. Roku rushed to the exit, pushing people over. "Hey man! What's your problem?" A man yelled as Roku pushed him over. But Roku paid no attention to the man as he kept running.
When Roku got outside he searched the crowd again. At the base of the stairs leading to the road of the city, Roku spotted the man turn into an alleyway on the right side of the street. The stairs leading to the Arena were highly elevated, and there were dozens of houses right below the edge of the stairs. They lead into the city, and to the alleyway. Roku lined up the jump, step a few paces back and ran. Roku did a small jump onto the brick hand rail, and leapt across the gap to the roof of the house.
Roku tucked his body, and slammed on the rooftop. Luckily his golden armor absorbed the impact. He kept running jumping from rooftop to rooftop. When Roku reached the alleyway he couldn't find the man. Roku followed the alleyway inwards to the city, he followed the alleyway to a fork in the pathway. One way lead to the rich portion of the city, but the other path lead to the poor district. Roku looked for foot prints in the dirt pathway. There were at least six sets of foot prints. Roku remembered the cloaked man was shorter than most, so he looked for the smaller set of foot prints.
Roku spotted 3 sets of small foot prints, 2 went off into the rich part of the city, while the other set went towards the poor part. From atop of the roof Roku examined the foot prints. The two going left were far to small for a full-grown man, they were more like children's feet. Roku decided to go right and follow the set towards the poor district.
As he ran along the pathway and entered what people called "The slums" he saw children wearing rags for warmth eating scraps off the road. Groups of men beating women in the middle of the road. Generally Roku would stop and help, but he needed to catch the cloaked man. He kept running and jumping across rooftops following the foot prints.
As he did, he finally spotted the man in the black cloak. Roku slowed to a brisk walk following the man for 50 yards when the man turned around and looked at Roku.
Roku noticed that the man was mouthing something, but he couldn't make out what he was saying. The cloaked man shot his arm up towards Roku, a split second later, a ball of fire was flying at him.
Roku brandished a look of surprise while the ball of fire flew at him. He tried to dodge the fireball but it was to late. The fire slammed into his gold chest piece and knocked Roku off the rooftop. When he slammed to the ground he lost conciseness.
When Roku awoke, he was striped of his armor and laying in bed with bandages around his forehead and around his right elbow. His vision was blurry and he couldn't make out where he was. His head started to throb, he could barely lift the upper half of his body.
As he sat up in his bed, his head started screaming out in pain. "AH!" Roku yelled as he clenched his head.
A woman about Roku's age burst into the room.
"Lay down! You need your rest!" She lashed out as she pushed him back down.
"Who are you? Where am I?" Roku questioned weakly.
"Shhh! You need sleep!" The woman told him.
As Roku's head receded back to his pillow the pain went away and he drifted back to sleep. The woman sat in a chair next to the bed. She stared at Roku. Then her mind wandered to his golden armor and his purple short sword.
After awhile she stood up and left the room.
When Roku awoke again, his vision was still blurry. Instead of sitting up right away, he waited for his vision to center. He could see clearly now. He was in a dark room with only candle light. There was a window above his bed, but there was a large square piece of wood blocking the light from coming in. Roku slowly sat up in his bed. The pain in his head was now gone. He lifted open the piece of wood and peered outside. The sun was half way up the sky. "Must be Mid Morning." Roku thought to himself.
He dropped the piece of wood making a loud slam. The woman rushed in the room again.
"What's going on?" She inquired.
"How long was I out?"
The woman scoffed, "Almost two weeks."
"Well I'm starving. Is there anything to eat?"
The woman gave him a glare slash confused look," Yeah, there's oatmeal in the kitchen."
Roku followed the woman to her kitchen and sat down at the table. She walked over to her fire place, a pot hung above the flames. She grabbed two bowls and scoped the oatmeal into them.
"I'm Roku by the way."
"Roku huh? Interesting name." She said as she put seasonings in the oatmeal.
She walked over to the table and placed a bowl in front of Roku. Than sat down on the opposite side of the table.
"What's your name?" Roku asked.
"My name's Sarah, Sarah Merik."
"Merik?!" Roku thought to himself as he stared at Sarah.
"Is there something wrong with your oatmeal?" Sarah asked him.
"NO! Uh, I mean no." Roku stated awkwardly as he shook his head and look down at his oatmeal. Roku dug his spoon into the oatmeal and took a bite of it.
" HACK! COUGH! HACK! HACK! Okay, there's something wrong…..with my oatmeal." he said in a strained voice as he chocked the bite down.
"What's wrong with it?" Sarah asked, oblivious.
"I don't know."
"Want me to make you some more?"
"No thanks!" Roku stated, hands up defensively.
Sarah scoffed at him again. "Suit yourself." She said as she kept eating.
"So where's my armor and my weapons?" Roku questioned.
"They're in the back room. Follow me."
Roku followed Sarah to the back of her house. When she opened the door Roku only saw his Chest piece and his short sword Fame Face.
"Where's the rest of my gear? Roku questioned.
"When I found you this is all that was left. My guess is whatever else you had was stolen. I mean it's not every day you come across an unconscious man wearing gold armor, and carrying what looks to be a very rare and unique sword."
"Why didn't they take my Chest piece? Or my short blade?" Roku quizzed.
"I think they didn't find the sword on your back, and they couldn't get the chest piece off you. But who would want a ruined piece of armor?" She responded.
"What?!" Roku flipped his chest armor over. There was I giant whole in the middle of it.
"Good thing whatever hit you didn't get all the way through, otherwise you'd probably be dead." Sarah stated.
"Damn it! I had to stay champion for two years to get that armor." Roku muttered. "Did you happen to see who took the rest of my gear?"
"No, when I found you, you were in front of the arena." Sarah exclaimed.
"The arena? I was in The Slums when I fell. How did I get to the arena?" Roku wondered out loud.
"I don't know, it was at night, I noticed you as I was walking by and brought you here."
"Well what part of town are we in." Roku asked
"We're in the middle district." Sarah responded.
"That's pretty far from where I was when you found me."
"Took me about 2 hours to get you here." Sarah declared. "What were you doing in the slums anyway?"
"I was chasing someone." Roku told her.
"Who?" Sarah questioned.
"I don't," Roku exclaimed as he sighed. "A ghost."
"A ghost? There are no ghosts in Kenlie. King Willson has gone through special measures to keep ghosts, goblins and other monsters of the sort out of the city." Sarah explained.
"Then it was someone I thought was dead! All I know is I need to find him." Roku declared.
"Well I don't know if this will help, but when you were sleeping, a man wearing a black robe came and gave me this letter." Sarah told him.
Roku's eyes widened, "Let me see it!"
Roku grabbed the letter out of Sarah's hand and read it.
"Well? What does it say?" Sarah asked.
Roku thought to himself before saying anything. "It says if I want to know who this guy is, I have to go to the West mountains."
"The west mountains? That's a very dangerous place. It's got loads of monsters, not to mention during spring, it rains a lot up there. The ground is unstable."
"I don't care. I need to find this man." Roku stated.
"Why? Why do you need to find him?" Sarah wanted to know.
"Because, 4 years ago something happened to me, and this man might be connected to it."
"Fine I'm going with you!" Sarah told him.
"No! It's too dangerous! This man is somehow using magic. If he wants to fight, nothing good can happen. I would have to defend myself, you, and fight him all at the same time."
"Don't count me out so fast! I'm a Cleric in training." Sarah announced.
"What? You can use magic to?" Roku asked.
"Yes, but just recently. About a year ago, I was able to use my magic again. But I only know two spells, Cure, and Reflect."
"Okay, you're coming. But if anything happens to me, you head straight back here ok?" Roku told her.
"Okay I will."
"I need to head to my house, I need to get my other armor, and my sword." Roku explained.
Sarah and Roku head for Roku's house.
"So what happened four years ago?" Sarah pondered.
"Sigh It's too long of a story." Roku told her.
"It's too long of a walk." Sarah responded