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Chapter 4: Forest-hand Experience
They were walking in a group of three. Not because it was safer - they were the elite - but because it was more efficient. More lives could claim more lives, as the Yan said. All were dressed the same, dark, black robes, that blended in with the night, like a chameleon, with dark, onyx gems encrusted into the shoulder pads, wrists, and waist. Black hoods, pulled low over their faces, a spell allowing them to see out, but for no light to get in. Even in mid-day, they could remain completely unseen. The one in the middle was slightly shorter than the other two, but he was stronger, and better equipped. He was on the director's board, so, he had alot more power than the other two, and could kill them at any time he wanted. But, no, they were not out to attack themselves. They were out for their mission, C6543, as it was named, proper names were never used in missions, those were costly. They were walking along a gravelly path, towards the Dark Wizard's Tower, away from Falador. As they approached the gate, the one in the middle raised a hand, gloved in black leather, and fired a ghostly white spell at the gate, that, at it's touch, began to disintergrate into small white particles of nothingness, then, dissapear. It was not what they used to kill people, but it was good for clearing annoying obstacles out of the way. The three walked purposefully towards the Tower, descending into the shadow that the building cast. As they entered the shadow, they did not even have to change, the onyx gems shrunk away, the fabric on their robes smoothed, and the hood, slunk away, a dark wizard's hat perched on their heads. Of course, the faces that whoever was inside would see, were not real, they were mere holographic reconstructions, to phrase it neatly. Their real faces were never to be seen. As they reached the door, the one in the middle disintergrated the door as they walked in, this time, reintergrating it once inside. Two dark wizard's were dwelling on the ground floor, their head's turning as they saw the new arrivals.
"Evening, Ron, Kathryn, Daniel," the first wizard bid welcome at the three, who were impersonating wizards well known to the people in this complex, for safety measures. The real Ron, Kathryn, and Daniel were likely being cleaned up from the floor, skeletons, remaining flesh, and all. The second wizard merely nod his head at them. The one on the right, who the first had called Kathryn, spoke, a harsh, yet, still female, tone, that sounded like a strict, elderly school-teacher.
"We've come to collect some pure essence. The Rune Archive in RL34 needs a fresh stock." The second Wizard went over to the wall, where there was a 20-digit code-box, numbers 0-9 and the first ten letters of the alphabet. The code needed two people to put it in, the two Wizards standing in front of the three rogues. The second, inputted his half, and stood back for the first one. Soon, the code-box swivelled over, to expose the back, which was an concave box, a big handle inside. The first wizard stepped back, and the one looking like Ron, moved towards the handle. He grasped it in his hand, and, the second his hand touched the handle, a dark light glowed, and an outline appeared from nowhere on the wall, tracing a rectangular shape, that formed a door. As the edges met, the handle suddenly moved forward a little, allowing him to pull it outwards, and open the newly formed door. If this wall was ever knocked down, it would only lead to the stretch of grass between here and Falador, but that was not what the door opened up onto. Ahead, was another vault. Reality Leak ... 38, if the female rogue remembered correctly. It contained shelves, lined with rune essence and pure essence, this supply was unlimited. But, obviously, they did not want to refurbish the Rune Archive. Ghost Knife needed it for themselves. As the three stepped out of Dark Wizards' Tower, carrying a limitless supply of pure essence, they left behind two bloody corpses, leaving a mess for the Wizards' to clear up, as they returned to their normal robes. There was a gust of wind, and they were gone, swept up by the breeze. They were not to be seen for miles. And that's right where they were. Miles away, where they would not be found.
Daron sliced his way through the forest with the Dragon Sword Pre-MI6 had gave him, using it to clear away the bushes and flowers that got in the way, Tyora behind him, in the dark forest.
"You're not David Attenborough, Daron," Tyora told him, a small smile on her face.
"Who?"
"I dunno, he was in some Myths and Legends book I read a long time ago.'A man living on a heavenly world beyond the plains of Gielinor, who revolutionized his domain, by uncovering it's godly secrets,'" she quoted. "Sounds like a right nutter, if you ask me."
"Not ringing any bells," said Daron, as they made their way further into the night, with a magic light, filling the path in front of them with enough light to see clearly. Daron held the portable oaps in front of him, tracking the power surge with compass and map, only, the compass was a stick in a little bowl of water, and the map was a high-tech omni-analysis positioning system. Tyora glanced at the makeshift compass.
"Why didn't you bring a proper compass? Don't tell me you didn't have enough to afford one!" Tyora chuckled.
"No. If I'm honest, I just couldn't be assed."
"You mean, you forgot."
"That too." Tyora laughed again.
"You're hopeless, you are, you know that?"
"Least I have a hope of finding the damn power surge with this thing," he gestured at the ... poaps, he would call it, shorten the 'portable' so he could just use one acronym all the time. Whenever it was within a decent radius of a power source, it started to beep. It had been beeping, very slowly, just a while ago, at about three beeps a minute, now, it was starting to get faster, about 10 or 20 beeps a minute.
"We're getting close," said Daron, falling silent, to listen out for the poaps beeping every now and then. It was starting to get more frequent. Daron could see him and Tyora, marked on the map, and the power surge, about 1 centimetre on the map from them. Not much further. And yet ... was it Daron's imagination, or was it starting to get lighter? Dawn might be beginning to break, he thought. But, no ... he looked up at the sky. It was still a midnight black. And it was definitely getting ligher. Beep. A pause. Beep. A pause. Beep. Another pause. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep, beep, beep, beep - it was starting to get more frequent, the poaps was getting louder and faster. And, it was getting lighter. The light around the forest starting to glow, first, gently, and then, as they neared, more violently.
"What's tha -" Daron put his finger to his lips. He put the poaps on silent, and extinguished the light source floating above him. Finally, they reached a clearing in the forest. It was a mistake. Daron and Tyora caught a brief glimpse, of a tall pillar, rather like one he had seen at rune altars, glowing a violent white, emanating power, spreading it across Gielinor. And, illuminated by the light, were about 20 or 30 hooded figures. Ghost Knife operatives. That was a definite. And, every one of them had seen Daron and Tyora. Daron was ready for this. He had the scrying orb in his pocket, set to emergency teleport, and, he brought it out in a flash. Before Ghost Knife could do anything, he had grabbed Tyora, and the Orb, and teleported away. He and Tyora raised into the sky, and faded away. Suddenly, the pillar let out a thrash of energy, and, glowed even brighter than before, as Daron and Tyora were returned to where they had stood. The power source had not let them go. They were trapped. They were about to be killed, Daron knew it. He grabbed Tyora's hand, as if in farewell, and closed his eyes, as he saw them raise their hands. Every one of them had a precise aim at the two of them, Daron shut his eyes even tighter, waiting for it to happen, clasping Tyora's hand tighter, biting his lip. He could make out, through his eyelids, more white light, start to raise from nothingness, and channel towards them.
Daron woke. That was funny. Had he fallen asleep? What had happened? All he remembered was he and Tyora, hand in hand, as he felt a hard whack in the stomach, bowl him over. What had happened, since then? He had expected to find himself lying, but, he wasn't. It was ... hard to make out what was happening, at first. He looked around him. It certaintly wasn't heaven. Neither was it hell. So, what? Purgatory? Daron hoped it wasn't any of the three, and he was still alive. He was. He was within a small cubicle, surrounded by a rapidly fluctuating electric forcefield, that Daron didn't want to touch. It was only as Daron looked down, and felt around, that he realized he was naked. He didn't have any of his clothes on, or any of his weapons. They had all been taken. What was going on? The peculiar, cell, Daron would've described it, was about a metre and a half by a metre and a half, it had enough room to contain him, and a little leway, but that was it. He tried making out the distorted shapes beyond the electric forcefield. He could see a cell next to it, and, trying to look through two forcefields, he could just make out a woman, looking around nervously, also naked, her genitalia standing out to an extent that she didn't like. It was Tyora. It had to be. They must have been captured together, and locked up. Then, Daron looked in front of him, to find half a dozen black shapes, studying the two cells, none of them could be made out, all of their faces were hidden. As their heads turned to one another, Daron realized that they were exchanging conversation, and that he could merely not hear them through the forcefield. Finally, one of them raised his hands to silence them, and reached out to his side for something, Daron could not see what through the blurred electricity. It looked like something square, with a wire routing to the wall, and, as he or she spoke into it, Daron realized that it was a radio transmitter, linked into the cells.
"We, are Ghost Knife. You, are our prisoners." The man was merely stating the facts, Daron could make out no emotion. As he looked into Tyora's cell, he realized that she had heard, too. "You've come across a top secret facility, and we probably aren't going to keep you alive. We've removed all your weapons, and forms of contacts, the clothes were for safety measure, you can hide alot of weapons and gadgets in clothes. We know who you are, 9Daron99, and Tyora, and we know that both of you have Code 5 Authorization. Ergo, as a small consolation, you get to choose how you can die. You've got two days. You won't starve or thirst in there, it's an enchanted cell, oh, but, I wouldn't touch the walls, we don't enjoy cleaning up dead bodies. Anything you wanna say? The sound blocking system works one way, you don't hear us, but we hear you. There was a pause. Then, Daron broke the silence.
"Yeah, can you keep me and Tyora in radio contact?" There was another pause. The Ghost Knife operative considered for a moment.
"Yeah, fine, I guess you and your girlfriend can keep in touch. Use the radio in the wall, we'll patch it through to the one on the other cell. But, mark my words, we'll be listening 24/7." A Radio? Daron turned round, and was surprised to find a seemingly obvious radio situated in the wall, that he hadn't noticed before. Daron swallowed. He spoke no more. Tyora didn't say anything either. She seemed to be crying, hunched down on the floor, wiping her eyes. Daron wanted, more than anything in the world, to just open up her cell, and hug her, tell her, that it would be alright. As Daron sat down, his face buried in his hands in contemplation, Ghost Knife left the room. Daron wiped a single tear from his eye. This couldn't be happening. It was all over, and it had been so soon. He moved closer towards the radio, and spoke into it.
"Tyora ... it'll be okay ... we'll be alright ... I promise you we'll get out of this." The words were empty. Daron had no feasible means of getting them out of it at all. He no longer had any communication with the outside world. He didn't even have the infinite rune, his one ticket to getting out of here. He could have hidden it in his mouth, or between his legs, or ... other places Ghost Knife would have been very unwilling to check ... Daron shook his head. He could have, but he didn't. He crouched down, curled up on the hard floor, and, tried to put his mind on other things, when, he heard the radio crackle, and, a choking voice reply back.
"N-no, there's n-no way o-out of this," she sniffed, "We can't ... we can't escape, there's n-no way ..." Daron knew that those words were true, but it crushed his heart to see Tyora lose so much self-confidence. He paused, considering, still laying on the ground. Then, slowly, he raised himself up, and spoke into the radio.
"Then, there's one thing, I wan't to let you know," Daron chose his words carefully.
"Yeah?" Tyora choked.
"I love you." Daron had his hand resting against the wall, supporting himself, he had lost all energy, and yet, saying these words, seemed to make him feel a little better. There was another, longer pause, before, he heard Tyora say:
"I-I love you, too." Daron smiled at the woman in the other cell, hoping she would see him and smile back at him.
