Author's Note
Good day. I am Aardvark123, son of Aardvark122, and this is my first fanfiction. The Sword of the Mushroom King is an epic adventure story set in the world of Rythian and Zoey's Tekkit series, with plenty of humour, action, drama, and maybe even a little romance. It doesn't necessarily follow their plot perfectly, but isn't that the point of fanfiction?
As of now, the story is complete, so there's no need to worry about being left hanging if and when I forget to update it. Please enjoy it, leave a review, and above all, don't take any of it too seriously. This is a Yogfic, after all.
Now, without further ado, on with the story!
Chapter 1: Of Mushroom Farms and Wraiths
The sun rose over the great pine forest, shining its light like warm, friendly, golden honey between the dark green needles and casting shadows upon the crisp snow beneath. The light slowly crossed the forest, and then the swamplands beyond, coming eventually to a mighty black stone castle, known to its inhabitants as Blackrock Stronghold, situated on a flat bit between the swamps and the towering mountains of the west. Sunlight glinted off the railings on the walkways between the stronghold's four mighty corner towers and shone through its clear glass windows, coming at last to warm and brighten the eyelids of the powerful mage and alchemist Rythian.
Rythian awoke with the yawn of the truly well-slept, stretched, and brushed some sleep out of his glittering purple eyes. He rolled gently onto his side to awaken Zoeya, the red-haired woman slumbering next to him on their massive blue four-poster. She was his apprentice, girlfriend, and occasionally his interior decorator, as well as a serious mushroom enthusiast.
"Good morning, Rythian," said Zoeya once she had woken up, with a lot more cheer than most people managed this early in the morning. She spoke in a bright, cheerful voice with a Cockney accent.
"Good morning," replied Rythian, not quite so cheerfully. He had a loud, fairly dramatic voice.
This lengthy and informative dialogue complete, Zoeya sat up and leaned forwards to awaken the third person upon the bed.
"Teep, it's time to get up," she said, giving him a gentle shake. Teep was a dinosaur, a fairly generic scaly green carnivorous therapod with lots of teeth, but considerably smaller than usual. He lay curled up in the sun at the feet of Rythian and Zoeya, keeping their toes warm when necessary, and when not warming feet he was a world-class archer and marksman. (Or maybe markosaurus?)
Although Teep awoke as requested, he made no reply to Zoeya, nor did he speak once as the three went about their morning ablutions. He maintained his rugged silence as Rythian garbed himself in a manly adventurer's outfit, including a billowing black cape and one of those face-masks bandits wear. He spoke not one word while Zoeya dressed herself in a somewhat less outlandish outfit and arranged her bright red hair into a rather large and messy ponytail. While this could be explained by how long, complicated and engrossing it was for Teep to brush his many enormous teeth, he had actually been rendered mute by a massive nuclear explosion that had completely destroyed the Old World, killing everybody in the process.
Fortunately, they all got better and were able to found the New World, where Teep, Zoeya, Rythian and their friends (not to mention enemies) now lived.
Having finished their ablutions, Rythian, Zoeya and Teep gathered around the large wood-and-glass dining table near which they kept their blackboard, upon which Zoeya had drawn a smiley face that nobody could be bothered to rub out. Rythian settled himself on a comfortable wooden chair, gazing at the familiar surroundings surrounding him, definitely not as an excuse for me to describe the room to you. The black stone walls, the gleaming white marble floor, the eternally burning torches lighting the walls, the ornate double doors between each room and the corridors beyond, the bookcase, the bed, the modest screen behind which Zoeya dressed herself, the vase of flowers on the bedside table… He loved Blackrock Stronghold, built from scratch by Zoeya, Teep and himself after they left the Old World behind.
"So, what shall we do today?" asked Zoeya. "Play hide-and-seek? Read? Watch TV? Research the darkest mysteries of the Arcana?"
"The last one, of course," replied Rythian, "but we won't be doing anything dark, per se. I think it's about time we got a proper security system."
"Oh, right. I could rig up some CCTV cameras, if you like," suggested Zoeya.
"I said a proper security system," Rythian reminded her. He despised science, which, in his mind, included any even remotely advanced technology not magical in nature. "I think some Animated weapons should do the trick, maybe some-"
He was interrupted by the booming call of a cockerel, causing him to jump high into the air, knocking his chair backwards and colliding with the ceiling, which was made from the same white marble as the floor.
"Jesus!" cried Rythian, gritting his teeth against the pain of the collision. "That wasn't funny!" he added, as Zoeya collapsed with laughter, and Teep calmly retrieved the fallen chair.
"He was late, you know," commented Zoeya, once she had stopped laughing.
"Indeed, and you know what that means, don't you?" asked Rythian.
"Yep. We're having an omelette for breakfast," declared Zoeya.
There was a pause, while Rythian and Teep tried to reason out the logic behind this statement.
"And how, exactly, do you come to that conclusion?" enquired Rythian.
"Well, if the cockerel slept late, he must've been up late last night doing things, and those things might cause certain female poultry to produce more eggs, if you catch my drift, so we should have an omelette to avoid ending up with a surplus," reasoned Zoeya.
"We've got more than enough room to store some extra eggs, Zoeya."
"Yes, but I fancy an omelette."
There was another pause.
"Okay," said Rythian, "we shall have an omelette."
"Yay!" rejoiced Zoeya, getting up from her chair. "I'll get some mushrooms."
"Mushrooms?" repeated Rythian.
"We can't have an omelette without mushrooms," replied Zoeya.
"Okay. Fine. You go ahead and fetch some mushrooms. Teep and I'll start on the actual omelette," said Rythian, who had long ago learned that the best way of dealing with Zoeya was to just go with the flow.
Zoeya felt quite at home in the cool air of Blackrock Stronghold's underground. Before they built the stronghold and met Teep, she and Rythian had spent most of their time down in the caverns below, carefully pickaxing ores and gemstones out of rock, and then Transmuting them into more useful materials, such as dark matter. Transmutation was one of the many Arcane Arts, and the basis of alchemy. Everything had its own value, depending on how rare and useful it was, and Transmutation involved changing stuff into other stuff of equivalent value.
Lighting her way with a small handheld fire, Zoeya made her way down a steep staircase Rythian had created down to the caverns. She passed various alcoves and cave openings, as well as the entrance to a derelict computer facility known as B.A.R.R.Y, which Zoeya had built in secret for complicated reasons. She was not altogether sure Rythian had fully forgiven her yet…
In one of the damper caves, Zoeya had made a mushroom farm. It looked the same now as when she had first made it, except with a lot more newly grown mushrooms. They were everywhere: They grew from some mud on the floor, from mouldering logs, from cracks and crevices in the walls, and even from the ceiling.
Enjoying the heady aroma of fresh moist earth mixed with fungal spores, Zoeya gathered the finest fungi, stashing them in a wicker basket she had taken with her. Only the best would do for an omelette, of course. She trod carefully between mushrooms, making sure not a single piece of fungus ended up between the ground and her shoe, until the basket was full, and she was ready to head back up.
And then she saw it.
"Zoeya's been gone for quite a while, hasn't she?" commented Rythian, sitting next to Teep on the enormous bed with an omelette rapidly cooling down between them.
From the shadows of a dark cave came an eerie blue glow. Three iridescent purple eyes stared out of the gloom, tracking the red-haired woman as she advanced cautiously towards them. As the creature stepped forth, the woman extended a friendly hand, but the creature could sense her fear, a pale, skittish, yellow smudge on the Aura.
"Hello?" she said nervously.
"Tremble before me, mortal, for I am Ĕħîøłþĵæç, Destroyer of Worlds!" replied the creature, in a loud, booming voice.
"D-destroyer of Worlds? Um, tha-that must be an interesting job," stammered Zoeya, backing away to the door. "It'd probably be a r-real turn-off if… if you ever want to m-meet people, though."
"At last, after ten thousand years of imprisonment, I have awakened to consume the world in the Blaze of Wrath!" declared Ĕħîøłþĵæç, striding out from the shadows towards Zoeya.
"G-good for you, but I r-really must be going. Bye!" called Zoeya, dashing out of the cave and away to safety. She had only run a few steps when the roof of the cave began glowing white-hot, dripping globules of magma down upon her. Shielding her head with her mushroom basket, Zoeya sprinted away, then was knocked head-over-heels by a sphere of dark purple energy.
"There is no escape, worthless rat! All shall burn in my wake!" roared Ĕħîøłþĵæç, stalking after her with surprising speed. "Prepare to die!" he added, his hands (all four of them) blazing with blue fire.
Thinking fast, Zoeya set alight the wicker basket with some fire of her own, and tossed it into the face of the Destroyer of Worlds. Saying a quick prayer for the noble mushrooms who had ridden it to their deaths, she ran for her very life.
And then the fire came.