Chapter 7: Wyndia

The sun had just begun it's ascent over the horizon, early the next morning.

It was eerily silent as three fully armored guards soared through the sky as if the armor didn't weigh them down a bit.

Though they appeared human at first glance, all three guards had two brilliant white wings, each with a four-foot wingspan that easily held them aloft.

They circled over the landscape, a barren wasteland for miles in any direction, searching for something they apparently couldn't find.

"It's definitely gone, sir. What else are we looking for out here?" one of them asked.

"Not sure yet," another answered simply, but he knew in his gut that there had to be some remnant of the city. "But their has to be something left of Nanai! A whole city doesn't just disappear overnight!"

They each wore full plate mail armor, though, judging from their ease of movement through the skies, they were most likely crafted of a metal much lighter than steel.

The three of them spread out a little more, trying to cover a greater radius. They surveyed the wasteland for a while before one noticed something out of place.

A survivor, or so he had hoped.

The winged guard that first noticed the lifeless body pointed in its direction.

"You guys see that?" he asked as the other two flew to his side. They hovered there a moment, flapping their wings as he showed the others what he had found.

A small speckle in the distance, though its color stood out among the dull browns of the Wastes.

"Looks like a dead body to me," the one to the right said.

"What's so odd about seeing that here though? People die in the wastelands for all sorts of different reasons."

"Well, the lack of any vultures for one," the wyndian who had pointed the body out explained. "Anything that would've passed out from hunger, dehydration, or just plain old exhaustion would've been picked at by the vultures by now.

"The absence of them makes me question this situation, however," he explained.

"What color hair did they say he had?" the final winged patrolman said.

"Blue," the second one answered.

"That's definitely him, Captain. Not too many with blue hair around these parts," the third one said, laughing while he reported.

The three guards swooped down and picked up the unconscious boy. As they got closer, the three of them soon realized that he was holding something tightly in his right hand.

Closer inspection revealed it was a key. But the winged-men knew that it was no ordinary key. Its size and the rune on its side were dead giveaways. The largest of the three was eventually the one to get it free from the boys grasp but it took all three of the men to pry the key from his fingers, even while he was unconscious.

They flew southwest, opting to take the more direct rout over the River Camlonian, which made their trip that much quicker. They rested for a bit at Castle Camlon a bit later and requested an audience with the Lord of the town.

"He is in a pretty bad state. He needs to rest here for a bit," one of the winged guards, the captain, said after they had had met with the Lord, a certain Renault whom Ryu had met previously. Though he was unconscious and being held in the larger of the three guards arms, Lord Renault instantly recognized the blue-haired boy.

"Where did you find him?" Lord Renault asked.

"In the Nanai Wastes. Except," the Captain thought over how he should explain the disappearance of an entire city. "It's Nanai, sir, it's gone."

"This is interesting, indeed," Lord Renault thought out loud.

"I'm not sure how, but I know that he is somehow behind this. He went there to find a way to Scande and to free his friends, I think. He must have given up Nanai to destroy the Dark Ones forces. He has single-handedly loosened their grip on the region," Renault thought out loud.

"Scande, you say?" The captain seemed both surprised and intrigued.
"I'm sure it was no easy choice to make, but destroying Nanai was a bold move," he continued.

"But it was quite the feat no matter how you look at it," the Lord of Camlon said. "Perhaps a necessity, even. They had discovered the Quake Control deep beneath the city I believe."

"But why was he headed for Scande?" the captain wondered.

"I'm not sure," Renault told him, honestly. "He never said."

Renault looked to his own guards then.

"Get the bedside nurses to dress his wounds," he ordered. "Quickly!"

After the human guards had taken Ryu from them, the three winged-men stretched their wings out, displaying their brilliant white feathers proudly. Though they looked nearly identical to humans, the only difference was in their large wings that grew from their shoulder blades.

Despite how close the Lord's town had been to the bustling city-state of Wyndia, which was not far up the river from both Camlon and Nanai, he hadn't had the time to get out much lately. Despite that, however, he was as much in awe of the wyndian race as someone who had never seen them before.

"What was Wyndia doing in the area if you don't mind me asking?" Renault asked as Ryu was whisked away by his own guards.

"We were under orders from the King to search the wastelands around Nanai. We had heard that the area had experienced a cataclysmic earthquake last night. Everyone felt it," the Captain explained.

"And today, there is no Nanai left," another one of the guards noted.

"By order of the King of Wyndia?" Lord Renault gasped. "But isn't he still recovering?"

"Ah... You know of his condition," the Captain said. "I didn't think they had told anyone outside of the castle."

"They didn't. Or tried not to, at least," the ruler of Camlon explained. "But you know how much the youngest of his daughters talks. Word spread pretty quickly."

"So it would seem," the Captain went on. "Regardless, we are under orders to retrieve any survivors of the Nanai incident. That includes the boy," he said, nodding towards a still unconscious Ryu.

"He has shown great promise and Wyndia may have need of him shortly. The King has received a threat from the Dark Ones," another of the wyndians, the larger one, explained.

"We believe them to be the cause of his recent illness," the captain continued for him.

"I thought so myself as soon as I had heard," Renault added.

"We were approached a fortnight ago by an emissary of the Dark Ones and the King had declined their offer of allegiance," the captain went on.

"As had I, though they simply took Camlon by force when I denied them. I didn't think they had the gall to attack Wyndia head on," said Renault.

"They didn't. They poisoned the King. It was an underhanded move!" the youngest looking of the three said. Even in anger, the lines around his facial features were vaguely reminiscent of the captains.

"Regardless, we need the boy. If what one of our scouts had discovered earlier is true, he may very well be the key to curing the King's ailment," the captain said.

"I am in no place to stop you, Knight," Camlon's Lord exclaimed. "But how?"

"If my scout is to be believed - and I dare say he is - then one of the Dark Ones have found something remarkable in his blood... Something that they want to harness," the captain continued.

"Something that we can't let happen!" the larger wyndian added.

"And, even more curiously, when we found him he was holding the Earth Key," the Captain informed the Lord of Camlon.

"One of the Goddess Keys?"

"Precisely such Key," he answered.

"But I had heard that Nanai had lost the Earth Key when the Fou Empire raided the region for its artifacts?"

"As had I. Forgive me but I've said too much already. Can you have someone escort us to wherever the boy was taken? We must depart for Wyndia as soon as he's bandaged well enough for him to make the trip. "

"I'll take you myself. Right this way," Renault said, leading the captain and his men towards the medical ward within Castle Camlon.

Not much later, after all of Ryu's wounds had been dressed, the larger of the three wyndians threw the still-unconscious boy over his shoulder and they headed for the fields just outside of Camlon. They were maybe two minutes outside of the city when they stopped at the sight of a large figure on the horizon.

An enormous bird, similar in shape to an eagle but colored white with a somewhat violet hue, landed just ahead of the the guards and as they approached it, the larger of the three wyndians stroked the animals neck.

"Perfect timing," he said, placing Ryu on the huge bird's back. "Make sure to fly carefully, my love. He's quite injured."

And with that, the bird took off high into the sky, heading northeast from Camlon. The three guards flew beside the great bird for the entirety of the trip, watching after the injured boy with great care.

As soon as they had landed, the larger of the three wyndian soldiers grabbed Ryu's body off of the large purplish-white bird.

"Take good care of her, guys," he said to the people who worked the roost where they cared for the birds in the castle. The three guards rushed towards the main gates of Wyndia Castle, closer to the city-proper.

They each wore the emblem of their king, a pair of bird like wings with a spear, on their armor.

The lightweight material that clanged as they hurried through the castles halls didn't seem to weigh too much. It didn't hinder their movement in the least as they quickly navigated their way into Wyndia Castle.

Two of them looked very similar, the lines in their faces resembling each others ever so slightly. They were clearly related, though their armor was slightly different. They were both likely of a different rank within the Knights Tempest - Wyndia's royal guard.

The plate-mail of the older Captain was decorated with golden scales over his helm, shoulders and wing-guards. The entire back of his wings were shielded with a yellowish leather that was covered in the golden scales.

Dragon scales.

The rest of his armor looked identical to what the other two wore. A suit of shiny silver plate-mail that covered the majority of their bodies, with the only exception being their heads and their wings.

The two siblings were each close to six feet tall and both had long silvery hair. The third, however, had black hair though all three of their heads shined with brilliance.

The largest of the three, the black haired one, was only a tad taller than the others, though he was nearly twice as muscular. In fact, the only similarity between him and the others were his large white wings.

These were veterans of the invasion of the attack from the Fou continent to the west, that took place roughly two hundred years ago. When the Fou Empire tried to take over the world and, thankfully, failed though they had nearly decimated most of the planets population by the time their crusade had ended.

Thankfully, that time had passed.

The larger one also carried the blue-haired boy over his shoulder, who was still as unconscious as ever. He didn't seem bothered by the additional load in the least.

With a four foot wing span, the elder silver-haired wyndian - the one clad in the golden scales - folded his wings in, and stepped forward to approach an elegantly dressed woman in the main corridor of Wyndia Castle. She had been talking to two guests of the castle but the guards took her attention away the moment she saw them enter the room.

Her physique was immaculate and her long golden locks didn't hide her beauty. She was maybe forty years old but seemed to hide her age well. She was the Queen of this region and she looked very much the part, adorned in many golden necklaces and braces, some with jewels, some without.

She had small wings despite her age. They didn't look to be of much use to her anymore actually and her skin tone was just as fair as her wings.

"We found him in the Wastes, your highness," the older silver-haired wyndian explained. "He's a little beaten up but he'll recover. Give him a few days. He's not wyndian, clearly. He should do. It seems he liberated Camlon of the Dark Ones too. I spoke with the Lord there."

"Interesting, she said, leading them through the castle's corridors. Ultimately, they were heading toward the castle's Royal Quarters. "Very well, Captain Raifel. Come with me."

The Queen folded her elegant wings behind her back as they made their way through the halls. Despite her beauty, it was plainly obvious that she was stricken with grief. She worried deeply for her husband.

"The Kings condition only worsens," she explained, once they were out of earshot of her guests. "I'll make sure that they move our guest to the medical ward. He may be our only hope," the extravagantly-dressed queen explained, as two of the castles guards took the boy from the larger soldier.

"Get some rest. When he wakes up, I want you and your men to accompany him to the Tower," the Queen had ordered.

"Your highness, I hope I don't sound rude but how can you be so sure he'll help us?"

"I'm not. If St. Eva wills it, it shall come to pass," she said and simply walked off.

Her eyes had long since welled up with tears. Her father had meant a lot to her and she couldn't begin to fathom the idea of losing him.

He had fallen ill not long ago and all of the members of the Royal Family believed the Dark Ones to be the cause of it all but Nina couldn't be so sure.

She had heard the tales of a wizard who had made the Temple Karma his home. As rumor would have it, he possessed an antidote that could cure any ailment - be it a curse, a poison or otherwise. She knew deep down in her heart that the Skygrass elixir, as the remedy was called, would be her best bet to cure her king's sickness.

She had heard the patrol come in that night and had eavesdropped on their conversation with the Queen when the guards had first arrived in Wyndia. Through their chatter, she had learned that they had discovered a boy, not of the Wyndian clan, out in the Nanai Wastes. Though that wouldn't normally alarm her - truthfully, many who were not of their clan traveled through the city-state of Wyndia - it was anything but a normal day in the region.

Aside from her fathers plight, Nanai had reportedly fallen to the Dark Ones and had subsequently been wiped off of the face of Edenia. One lone survivor had been recovered - a young boy with blue hair. He had been found in the desert, tattered and unconscious and had been taken into Wyndia Castle's medical ward not long after their arrival.

The Queen had hoped to use the boy to bypass the wizards defenses and retrieve the remedy, but in order to do that they had to tend to his wounds first.

Nina believed differently. She felt that they didn't have time to be waiting on outsiders to do their work for them. Her father could die while they waited.

She closed her eyes and steeled her nerves. Enough, she told herself. They didn't need the help of some outsider. Let alone from someone not of noble lineage.

She wished it was one of her sisters that could have dealt with the situation. Either Mina or Elina would have both been better qualified but they were otherwise indisposed at that moment.

Mina, the eldest, had been held under the spell of a Dark One, forced to live as a mere twilight hawk. She had decided to undertake the trials to be granted wings from the goddess and, when the Dark Ones attacked only a few weeks ago, they had disrupted the ritual, leaving her forever trapped in the very form she sought to attain.

Elina, the middle-aged of the three sisters was born only a few years before Nina but she had taken up her mothers role as tutor of the Wind Temple in Winlan - Wyndia's sister-city in Fou.

Nina, however, was viewed as too young to be heading outside of the Castle wall's without protection. She thought that notion ridiculous, having heard of the blue haired boy that had been dragged in earlier that day.

He couldn't be much older than her, she thought to herself as she checked on the boy who, hours later, was still as unconscious as ever.

He did indeed have blue hair, and he was quite handsome as well despite his impoverished attire. His clothes were torn and covered in both dirt and blood and he couldn't look any worse off. She felt bad for him, truly, as she looked him over from the shadows late that night.

Two wyndian priests, a man and a woman, tended to his wounds, praying to St. Eva for her aid. She had apparently heard their pleas. Each of the priests had their arms stretched out over the boy as a radiant white light permeated from each of their fingertips. It helped to illuminate the areas that were the most badly damaged as well.

Nina could see the wounds healing on the surface, but her schooling had taught her that the actual injuries were probably far deeper than her eyes would let her see and would take much longer to heal, even with St. Eva's blessing.

"The guards had said that they believe him to be the one that completely obliterated the Dark Ones in Nanai, as well as the city itself," the male priest said to the other.

"How many innocent lives were lost during the cities destruction, I wonder. Surely the Temple is in ruins as well," the woman replied. Some of the cities villagers had fled the town when the Dark Ones first arrived a few weeks ago, Nina had heard, but that didn't mean that they had all left. Some of the shops workers and the Temple's priests were likely still around, she thought to herself.

"One would assume. The patrols said they found no trace of the city at all," the first priest continued.

"Enough. We should concentrate on his recovery. The Queen would like to see him on his feet by daybreak tomorrow."

Nina refused to wait that long. She figured it would be days before the boy had recovered enough to be able to leave the city. Not to mention that her mother, the Queen, simply assumed that this outsider would be willing to help them. Nina, however, didn't share her optimism.

She returned to her room to gather some things she had planned to use for an event such as this. Namely a large backpack, which would have hindered her flight had she actually been old enough to maintain flight for more than a few minutes. Whatever else the bag contained, Nina could not remember.

She had planned to sneak away a few weeks ago, when she had first packed the bag, though when her father became ill she had decided against it, opting instead to stay at his side.

But reality had forced her hand.

She would sneak out of the city under the guise of night and set out for Tower Karma.

She didn't need the help of an outsider. She would acquire the Skygrass elixir of her own accord.

Nina slipped the backpack over her shoulders. She tiptoed out of her room and made her way towards the castle's secret exit, being careful to avoid any unwanted attention.

Captain Raifel had woken up both his brother and his closest friend earlier than usual the next morning.

The Queen had wished to see them again, and as they hurried back to the Royal Quarters the three of them wondered what it could be that was so urgent. They had each seen the boy's wounds and highly doubted his recovery to be over so soon.

"Captain Raifel, I apologize to you and your men for such an early meeting, but my hand has been forced," the Queen explained with tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She appeared to be doing everything in her power to hold whatever was bothering her back, but it was a losing battle.

"Your highness, is the king..." Raifel never finished the sentence but he didn't have to.

"No, this is about something else entirely," the Queen said as she collected her emotions. "I have another request to ask of you. But first, I will have your names, Knights," she said to the other two soldiers, alongside the captain.

"I am the Captain's brother, Jiiku," he explained. "I was the one who spotted the boy in the desert."

"A commendable job, warrior. And you?" she asked, nodding towards the larger one.

"I am Enon. I'm the one who lugged him all the way here," he laughed.

"They're my best men," the Captain explained. "My brother and my best friend."

"I can't thank the three of you enough. You serve your country well," the Queen said. "Though it pains me to ask you to do so again so hastily."

"What do you mean?" asked Captain Raifel.

"My daughter. I know she only wishes to help but I believe she had grown tired of waiting for help from the surrounding towns," she said, her face growing more somber by the second. "She... She ran off in the night."

"By herself?" Raifel asked, stupified.

The Queen nodded.

"We believe she was headed for Tower Karma. We received word from the village of Romero that their might be a remedy for the toxin near there and I believe that she has somehow learned of this and decided to take matters into her own hands."

"But by herself? Doesn't she know about the Xeon gas?" Raifel's brother asked.

The question itself was retoracle. Every wyndian knew what he was referring to.

Xeon gas was made by a powerful wizard of the Fou Empire who had died over two hundred years ago. Before he had died, however, he had fought his way towards a tower. He had used the gas to ignite a crusade between the Empire and the Kingdom of Wyndia.

The Xeon gas was extremely lethal with long exposure, but only to the wyndian race.

At first, it made them feel week. Minutes later, it would become difficult to walk. Within an hour, if they inhaled enough of the gas, a wyndian could find his or her heart stopping altogether.

Eventually, the wizard - who's name was Malak - was slain at the entrance-way to the tower. Because he had taken his time to discuss political leverages, the gas had been stopped not long after it had been released.

Malak's soul was forever bound to the tower where he was slain. His strong prowess for the wonders of arcane magic had ultimately saved his life, but eternally cursed his spirit to walk the halls of the Tower.

That was how the tower had got it's name: Karma.

But lately that spirit had stirred.

"There's no way she could survive the gas for long," Enon added.

"Not to mention that Malak has now allied himself with the Dark Ones as well," the Captain said. "It doesn't bode well for the princess."

"Exactly why I need you to find her for us. The Kingdom may already be losing it's King, but we can't lose another family member," she pleaded.

"We'll head out at once, your Highness." the Captain said.

The three began walking towards the entrance to the castle when Captain Raifel stopped suddenly.

"Enon, I know the Queen asked the three of us to go but stay here with the boy," he ordered. "Me and my brother will find the princess. If he wakes up before we get back, bring him to the Tower."

Enon nodded in reply, walking off towards Wyndia's medical ward.

It had been a few hours since Nina had left early that morning and the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon to the east.

She had sat up the night before, unable to sleep. She worried for her father ever since he had become ill but that night her insomnia had driven her to walk the halls of the castle, where she had learned of both the outsider and the remedy in Tower Karma.

She remembered when the Dark Ones had first come to Wyndia a few weeks ago. They came, represented by a man in gold armor, and spoke of an offer of allegiance.

But the King had refused their offer.

And the letter he had received as a thanks for their audience had been poisoned, or so the guards had believed. All of Wyndia's clerical and medical personnel could agree.

The last few nights had gotten increasingly worse. Her father had entered a comatose state and nothing they could do - not her, her mother, or any of the medical staff - made him stir.

Why wouldn't she be worried? He was the king, true, but he was still her father and Nina refused to sit by any longer.

She had heard the stories of the wizard's spirit and how no wyndian could survive in his presence for long.

But she had to do something. She refused to sit idle any longer.

"I must do my part," she said to herself. "For my king and my country."

She was young, near enough to Ryu's age, and though she didn't wholly act the part, she sounded very much like her father in his younger days.

Her poofy pink dress didn't look to be suited for travel either but her tiny little wings, barely a foot long, helped pushed her forward as she ran through the plains surrounding Wyndia.

She had hoped that her wings were strong enough to carry her aloft but she was not yet old enough. One day, when she would get closer to adulthood, they would be nearly triple that size and she could soar as far as her heart's content.

She still had a few more years to go before she would reach that age, however, and she could undergo the Rite of Flight.

The most devout wyndian's undertook the Rite and learned to change their shape into that of a great bird. They had learned the art ages ago from an ancient race of people called the Shaman.

Or were they an ancient group of people? Nina could not remember any more.

However, something she could never seem to forget was what happened to someone who had failed the Rite. They were forever turned into a twilight hawk.

She could never shake the thought from her mind because it was something that had recently happened to her sister. Mina had become a twilight hawk and there was nothing that Nina could do about it.

It had happened when the Dark Ones had first let themselves be known only a few weeks ago. While she was undertaking the Rite, she was up in the mountains performing the ritual as a Dark One came upon her and she inevitably failed because of it.

Nina had been there. And she had been unable to do a thing to stop it.

As the sun began to sneak over the horizon the next morning, Nina thought of where she had to go to help her get her mind off of it. She was headed west to Aura Cave. There she planned to make her way through to the other side, where Romero was. From there Tower Karma was only a little further to the west.

She was mere feet from the cave when Nina began to hear the unmistakable sound of wyndian wing's flapping in the distance. She had been discovered missing, and earlier than she had anticipated. The two wyndians came from the east. They were still pretty far off then but there was no doubt that they were sent after her by her mother and she saw few options open to her: run for the cover that only the cave could provide or fail.

She knew it was foolish enough to head into the Tower, for any reason, but her fathers life depended on it. She had to dodge those guards.

She was only a few yards from the caves opening and she didn't think they had spotted her yet so she made a break for the entrance. She made it to the cave opening and blindly rushed in.

It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and she had to guide herself with her hands at first but that changed soon enough. She made her way through the caves damp corridors, her only source of light coming from several small mushroom caps that somehow glowed in the darkness.

She had traveled through the cave for no longer than ten minutes until an odd gargling sound, coming from deep inside, drew her attention. It sounded like churning water, she thought, but it wasn't constant. The gargling sound came in and out constantly and it sounded as if it was moving.

Her heart beat was louder than the eerie sound that echoed throughout the cave.

A few minutes later, the odd noise stopped her dead in her tracks. She had heard it coming from right behind her but she turned around to find nothing.

She continued forward and, again, she was stopped by the noise. It came from behind her that time as well but it sounded much closer.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be following the princess. Her heart began to beat even louder as the thought processed through her head.

She turned around to see nothing more than a large misshapen boulder. She was just about to turn back to face the direction she had been walking in but, before she could, she thought she saw something moving above her.

The sound got even louder and seemed to be getting closer. The gargling noise was followed by what sounded like something being beaten but that last particular sound came over and over until it stopped all together.

She followed the sound before it stopped and could now see the creatures, not far above her. They seemed to be studying her when they suddenly jumped from their rocky perches and swooped down just over Nina's head.

They both flew right past her, however, as she realized that half of what she had heard was actually the wyndians that had been tracking her. Apparently they had seen her run for the cave.

"Princess! Look out," Raifel shouted, as he flew from the ceiling.

Nina saw another bit of movement behind the boulder this time. It appeared to be somewhat fluid as it pulled the rest of itself out of view.

Both wyndian soldiers landed in front of Nina with their weapons drawn. One wielded a large halberd, Ryu knew him to be Raifel, and the other carried a lance that was taller than his body.

Raifel was a much higher rank than his brother, whom Nina knew as well. His name was Jiiku and he too was a warrior of the Knights Tempest.

The captain spun his halberd around furiously, hoping to draw whatever it was towards himself rather than the Princess.

"Nina. Stay back," the one with the lance said. Jiiku was a skillful knight too, rivaling Raifel himself though they had simply joined the Knights Tempest on separate occasions.

"I'm not some helpless dame," Nina snapped back as she rushed behind them anyway. She pulled a rapier from her side, as if doing so proved her point.

In that instant, something large and with no particular shape lurched over the boulder. From the light that the luminous mushrooms provided, the three of them could see the creature plain as day then.

At first, what hit the ground in front of them seemed to be a large puddle of mud. As it hit the tunnel floor, it splashed every which way but Nina noticed that it didn't take long for the mud to pull itself together.

Almost instantly the mud took shape and formed a body and a face. The figure then formed arms from the mud but it moved on the ground like a slug, with it's torso, rather than sprouting legs.

The face gargled again.

The guards struck out at the mud creature but it simply bit at their weapons and swallowed them into its mass. Raifel and Jikku were now unarmed.

Nina still had her rapier drawn, however, but she quickly learned that no weapon, no matter if the creature swallowed them or not, would serve them much purpose in this fight. She didn't need any weapon though.

Nina had been trained from a young age in one of the Kingdom of Wyndia's outposts on Fou. The windy city of Winlan had been established during the war with the Fou Empire two hundred years ago and, at the time, the Kingdom had begun training their adepts in the arcane arts in the cities temple within the Fou continent.

Nina was born in Wyndia, but her heart would always belong to Winlan, which was located on the eastern part of the landmass. It was where her parents had met and where her mother was from. Her mother was actually a tutor at the temple in Winlan before she was Wyndia's Queen.

The temple there specialized mostly in wind magicks and, due to her royal bloodline, Nina was taught to protect herself when she was younger than most using those exact arts. At the time, however, she didn't understand how crucial that training would one day be.

Nina called out to the wind. Not actually in the vocal sense, but spiritually.

She asked the element of air to guide her hands, which moved ever so gracefully, as the wind itself would.

And then it formed.

It started as a small breeze. The wind picked up in gusts but within seconds it was forceful enough to lift her long blonde hair from her shoulders and whip it about. The gusts began to spiral in on each other and, as they did so, Nina could swear the wind would become a visible green for brief seconds at a time.

Almost instantly, a small funnel was formed and the wind became a tornado on a collision course with the mud creature.

It was over.

The wind struck the monster with such force that it was thrown into the cavern walls and simply splattered. It dripped down the walls and tried to pull itself together again, but far too slowly. Nina knew it would take the mud creature far too long and the three wyndians would probably be back home before it would be large enough to pose a real threat to anyone again.

The two soldiers retrieved their weapons and looked back at Nina in awe.

"Helpless, huh?" was all she had to say.

Ryu blinked. It was all he could do really.

"I wonder if he's okay," a female voice said.

"Who, the King or him?" another voice, this one male, said.

"His Highness, of course," the woman said. "They say he refused an offer from the Dark Ones. He wouldn't betray the other kingdoms and now this?"

Ryu groaned.

"Find the Queen, quickly, and get the other priests and the alchemists too. The boy's alive!" the woman said. Soon after, Ryu could barely make out the sound of footsteps fading away in the distance.