Here's a long ass chapter for you!!
Prince: you will have me destroy the sands or i will have your head
...
Prince get's bashed in the head with a hammer
...well onwards and outwards
--
The Prince comes to lying on a rocky shore, pecked at by squawking black birds. He stands quickly and shrugs them away. All around in the gloom of dawn the wreckage of his ship is tossed in the surf, but no sign of his companions. Nor yet their attackers.
As more birds threaten, he feels instinctively to his back. "My swords! Gone." He picks up a length of wood and strikes his tormentors. Each fades in a wild cawing flurry of feathers, and not only blood but also the curious yellow substance of sand. No ordinary wildlife this; he is in a cursed place of demons.
Though strewn with spars and wreckage, the turbulent cove is devoid of life, but for more possessed crows which caw and circle to assail him. He wearily hacks them aside, and considers his lot. "My crew! All are lost. I will find the one who did this," his voice cracks with emotion, "and she will pay."
Scattered on the shore is the wreckage of many ships, not just his own. Here too, as a warning perhaps, dismembered corpses strung on a gibbet. The cove is set into a cavern of rock. Waterfalls tumble to the shore. A broken walkway leads up. On steps at its foot, lit brands gutter in the wind.
He moves to them, the only way off the shore. He negotiates gaps and ledges, works his way steadily upward. He passes a decorative stone basin where water flows as the tears of a maiden carved at its head. The clear fountain water is greatly refreshing. At a wall of split rock he dislodges nesting birds, which scatter but do not threaten him. He works meticulously around rocks and ledges, not risking a fall from these cliffs on a clumsy maneuver.
He looks out on the cold misted ocean, wind and waves and the desultory flapping of dislodged birds the only sounds in this desolate place. He comes soon to solid stone walls of a fortress built into the rock. He must find a way in.
At a gap between rock platforms he runs out on a wall, passes easily from one to the next - easily that is for the young agile Prince, but much beyond any lesser man. He comes to broken columns, part of another walkway still partially erected above. He clutches at the most slender and shuffles to its top, reaches back to another and on to the next.
From his hold on the last column he jumps to grab on to the walkway, and pulls up. A thick tree trunk blocks up the way ahead, evidence of disuse of the walkway for very many years.
Close by stand massive wooden gates. The foot of one gate has rotted out. He ducks and rolls through. "Stop the intruder!" a voice shouts, "He's the one the Empress wants dead." Enemies lie in wait, hideous horned creatures the same devilish spawn as the Pirate raiders, their words confirmation that this is the domain of the Empress of Time and these her willing servants.
He engages swiftly, using his length of wood to batter one aside as he deals with the next. He steals a weapon from one and then turns to finish both. The Prince had not sought this confrontation, but with each enemy slain he took account of the lives of his murdered crew.
Now inside the fortress walls there would surely be more sentries ready in wait. He clambers on stone blocks to shallow steps, broken in front, to make his way further in. Wind howls. With another agile run along a wall he comes to a broken platform with a bigger gap beyond.
Set about in niches in the fortress walls stand statues of knights in armor, one at his side now crumbled as ruinous vegetation takes hold. The gap ahead is crossed at a run with a leap backwards off it, to land face to face with more Raiders. "Let's finish him." Practice for his new sword.
Tall gates stand open ahead. All seems quiet. He makes his way over blocks and stones to an iron gate that bars his way. Beside it a collapsed block, off which he climbs over the wall in front.
On the other side of the gate, stone statues stand mute yet impressive. These appear to be of the Griffin, a mythical beast he had learned of in school, with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. What could be its significance here? Light breaks through the ceiling above and tree branches hook in.
A door at one side is firmly shut. The Prince moves through a high arched doorway to gray light ahead. High in front of him stands the entrance to a mighty castle building.
He is certain that his quarry has passed this way. "Come on, I know you're out there," the Prince mutters as he looks about. "Show yourself." Black boots step out nearby.
"Where I come from," continues the Prince, "we face our opponents. And if our enemy is unarmed we offer them a sword." On this last he slashes quickly at the creeping figure of the girl in black behind, cuts her gasping to the ground. In a second, Raiders gather to her aid.
She gets to her feet and commands them. "Kill him!" The first minion charges, yellow eyes burning with blind hate, and is knocked to the ground. The Prince steals its weapon and impales the wretch with it.
Whirling through the air, he lashes out and the rest are dealt death in similarly gruesome style. The Prince turns to his now unprotected opponent. She gives a look of loathing and signals to a second wave of loyal servants as she makes her escape. Once more surrounded, the Prince readies his weapons.
"He's no match for us." "Few can match blades with me," he warns. Though at first sight outnumbered, the Prince executes dazzling moves upon the attackers as he sees fit, whirling and slashing, chopping and slicing, dealing decapitation and dismemberment until the last shriek. "Slaughtered," comments the Prince with some understatement.
He sheaths his swords and looks around. He stands on a short ruined platform. Stunted vegetation gnarls the foot of broken steps that lead away to end abruptly in collapsed blocks.
Much higher are seen the rest of the flight, at what must be the Fortress Entrance. He will have to work another way to get within. He returns inside to find a door now ajar, through which no doubt his craven quarry fled. He takes sustenance at a fountain basin.
The gray stone passage in which he stands is much damaged by time. The floor bears intricate decoration, now broken and ruined. He leaps first one gap and then another. In his way a small wooden rack, that when smashed reveals a useful weapon. He returns to the open through a doorway ahead.
Evil black birds watch balefully, orange eyes aglow. At a squawk they rise to a dense flock and form themselves as an ungodly black-cloaked demon. It rises from one knee to flourish a sword. The Prince, undaunted, rushes to its challenge. On a narrow stone bridge, with circular decoration cracked at its center, the combatants clash.
The Prince learns soon that this Crow Master is swift to block and swifter to strike. Though tall, it takes little effort for him to vault over, and it seems weakest then. It stumbles with a shocked shrill cry as he deals down a savage blow on its back. A flurry of dust and feathers rise. He repeats the move but the creature blocks. He tries again and gets through, and again it gasps and reels.
He keeps up this leaping tactic, though it oftentimes blocks, and with persistence breaks through. The demon collapses and scatters as screeching birds. These flap wildly and rise in a furious cloud, then settle on a higher ledge, where as the Crow Master they reform.
The Prince senses that on that very path his course lies, and searches about for some means to get up to it. As he moves away a thick watery voice echoes. "You'll need to try harder if you hope to best me." "Your time would be better spent seeking sanctuary," advises the Prince. "Run while you still can."
The platform created by the broken floor allows no way forward. Steps in front lead only to a closed wooden gate. Twin columns stand at one side, too high to reach on their thick bases. At the side of his entrance a low wall rises to a ledge. An upward wall run and jump back bring him to a small platform formed by its canopy.
The Prince looks across to broken walkways where the Crow Master waits. It seems almost to be showing him the way, daring him to come to it and face its challenge.
Very well.
The two slender columns are between them. The Prince runs out on the wall, leaps at a trail of ivy aligned to it, and catches the first column. With a swift shuffle round he grabs for the second, and straight from it, over bottomless depths to land on the walkway with its stern standing obstacle. "So it's a fight you want?" the Prince shouts. "I can smell your fear from here."
"Unfortunate that you have fallen so easily," returns the avian demon. "I find this display of weakness surprising." The narrow walkway is not the best battleground but a few timely attacks of downward slashes upon it bring the towering foe to a crumble of feathers and dust as before.
Yet again it reforms to the black-cloaked figure on a higher ledge. "Rise up, Prince, let us continue this, I'm not finished yet." "I grow tired of this," he replies. "Why do you bother?" The Prince moves to it in determined pursuit.
By a wall run to a block and another to return, he climbs ledges overhead, and on to a precarious hanging column. A last jump and he faces the Crow Master once more. "Do you see now how it's done?" it mocks.
The Prince is unmoved. "I have faced far worse than the likes of you." He moves constantly, rolls at any attack and leaps in at first pause, not letting the Crow Master's mighty sweeps come under his guard to knock him off his feet. Still the demon taunts him. "I am sure you can do better than that." With but a little more exertion the Prince hacks at the Crow Master and lands a blow that cleaves the demon through.
It dissipates once more, and this time he senses for good. There comes grudging respect even from this unholy creation for the skill of the Prince. A disembodied voice echoes: "It is an honor to die by your hand." The demon leaves behind an impressive sword, which the Prince eagerly snatches up.
This combat has led him up to high ledges. Beside him is a barred gate. Broken steps downward lead nowhere and there is no obvious vantage point. On a wall nearby, a brightly colored square tile hints at a method by which the barred gate might open; a symbol upon it matches one on the gate.
The Prince runs nimbly up over the tile. As he does so the tile illuminates. The pressure of his feet triggers a mechanism, and a hidden switch activates. The gate behind is now unlocked.
He enters and looks down on a ruined chamber of ivy-covered walls and broken stone pillars. Raiders stand waiting on the floor. "Alert the others!" a voice commands, "Help me with this." To one side, a long red curtain reaches almost to the floor. In the manner he employed on the sail of his ship, the Prince runs out to it, strikes through the material with his sword, thus braking his descent, and slides smoothly down.
Safe to the ground, he whirls into the waiting pack. The last beaten Raider groans as he falls. "Forgive my failure." With the room now clear the Prince makes exploration. An impassible gap splits the stone floor ahead.
No way through the doorway there from here, and no other exit. He sees up above a serviceable walkway that surely leads somewhere. A pillar to one side offers access. He runs up off a block at its base to grab hold of a ledge, shuffles to one side and hauls up on the walkway, covered in rubble and home to a Raider. He sees it off with scant exertion. "Others will rise to take my place," comes its dying threat.
Very well, the Prince's thought. Come one, come all. He will be ready. The walkway ends abruptly, but he sees a ledge around a pillar nearby that he might reach by a wall run. Clinging on here, he shimmies around the wall, over the misty depth of the impassable gap on the floor below.
Once round, he drops off to a niche and from there to a block on the floor of a passage. This leads in pale light to a gap rent across it. He hears a mechanical squeak and sees below in the gap a spinning saw blade, grinding sparks. Although wary of its likely effect, it seems somehow stuck fast and he runs easily over to the other side of the gap.
As he rounds a corner at a run, spiked poles rise from the floor with a hollow 'Clunk!' to surprise him, but likewise halt uselessly. These must once have been formidable defenses but were now crippled by decay. He looks on, to a bright shimmering doorway ahead. He approaches cautiously but sees that the sheen is nothing more harmful than a shower of water, and passes safely beneath. Lichen-filled basins of water stand either side of a short dank passage of arches and pillars.
Leaves swirl in drafts, the ruined chamber where he stands is open to the skies. He steps warily forward. To either side, a pair of thick square pillars bear a tile with a distinctive blood red symbol.
A thin stream of intensely glowing yellow liquid runs from each pillar to gullies in the stone floor, forming an intricate design ending in a spiral, where a vortex of light rises. As the Prince steps forward he is stopped in his tracks. The girl in black looks over her shoulder with a sly grin. He draws his weapon from his back and runs forward. She stands on the edge of a circular platform, an abyss beyond.
There is nowhere for her to go, she cannot escape his sword this time. To his astonishment the girl is drawn into the air and appears suspended by some unknown force. She gives a moan of satisfaction. He runs to strike her with his sword but connects only with air. She is gone! "Madness!" he gasps, "What magic is this?" Sparkles of sand glitter. As he stands bewildered, his body is wracked by a spasm and he too is drawn up into a beam of glowing light. Before his eyes, the decay of time is rolled back.
Clinging vegetation shrinks its clawing roots from broken pillars that resume to the full splendor of light and decoration as new. The beam of glowing energy released the Prince from its grip. As he fell to the floor and looked around, a boot kicked out to his head and knocked him down. The girl in black ran off.
It seemed to be the same chamber room, but now very different. He could not explain it. No sign of ruin or decay, all brightly lit with candles and torches. He turned back between the four pillars, their tile symbols here brightly illuminated. Ahead lay the doorway with its curtain of water.
He paused at a now pristine fountain basin and tried to make sense of the circumstance. "It seems I have discovered one of the time-traveling portals the Old Man spoke of."
Whatever lay beyond this portal he must chase down the girl in black. She could explain this. He steeled himself and left the portal chamber through the curtain of water. Torches now lighted the passage beyond. Where daylight streamed before only thin rays penetrated at slits.
As he rounded the first corner he heard traps spring into action. Here again were the twin spiked poles, now fully operational in their deadly intent, spinning back and forth across his path, raising dust as they whipped round and round.
He stepped carefully by and found a second hazard at the turn. Wall blades had become active, buzzing relentlessly up and down either side of a pit of spikes. Across it, a Raider waited; it seemed that this Past bore no better welcome from its inhabitants than the Present he left behind.
He observed each rise and fall of the saw blade and judged the moment to run over on the wall. The lone sentry offered little sport. With a few acrobatic jumps the Prince grabbed it and snatched its weapon, which he then tossed in its ugly face. "I can't beat him alone," groaned the dying creature.
He came presently to a chamber of decorated pillars and high balconies. In its now complete state he could scarcely recognize it as the room he had entered by the hanging red curtain. What had been open to the skies was here fully roofed, the bottomless pit in front covered by stone floor.
A number of Raiders waited on it. "Stop the intruder," one commanded, "Destroy him!" He moved swiftly, breaking their rash attack. At the center of the room was a short column that he could use to spin and slash as he went, and the many stone blocks and pillars proved useful as foundation for flying lunges.
A weapon rack standing to one side was easily smashed, yielding a convenient projectile. He was learning new tricks and methods of dealing with the inhuman foe as he went, and relished each opportunity for combat. "Honor and glory shall be ours," one creature declared. "You should be honored to die by my sword," he replied.
When he had peace the Prince made further exploration. Opposite the door at which he entered was another, though solidly shut. To one side of the room was a screen of latticed arched windows but no way to the room beyond. A high wall switch caught his eye.
He looked up around the balconies to find a route to it but saw no easy access. He remembered that he had once climbed up on a pillar, but there was no convenient fallen block to mount this time. Beside his entrance, a slender column looked easily climbable and proved so.
He jumped back to a ledge on a pillar. Up on the balcony, a simple wall run brought him to a ledge around a square plinth, atop which sat another stern carved likeness of a Griffin. It seemed an important figure to whatever manner of inhabitants dwelt here. Around a short section of walkway beyond this he came to a sudden edge.
The wall switch was set just beyond, a far distance from the ground below. Seeing a long hanging curtain an equal distance beyond gave him an idea. He took up his courage and ran out, over the switch, onto the curtain and down, his sword at the ready as before.
He fell safe to the floor and ran quickly to the side and rolled under the now open gate. It clanged shut behind him. He was in the open once again. He looked up to leaden skies. Steps led down to a short bridge. By a circular design at its center he recognized it as the place he first encountered the Crow Master in his own time. He needed to keep his bearings. Intent on arriving at the Fortress Entrance he could not afford to wander aimlessly.
An open doorway faced him; rotating spiked pole traps close within. A glance about showed two slender columns in the distance to one side, and a colonnade in the other. Looking up, he observed Raiders on a terrace above it pacing as sentries. He had no desire for unnecessary exertion.
He made his way in past the fast spinning poles. Around a corner a similarly spinning spiked log rose and fell in a groove across his path. He chose his moment to tumble beneath and forward to a corner. Here, two more poles spun in opposition, at one point meeting then dividing, leaving sufficient space at that moment to dodge through.
Such slight injury as clumsiness or hesitation had earned was soon mended in a draft out of a nearby water fountain. He ran on into the next passage. Guttural cries could be heard as from nowhere appeared two tall slender beings, gliding rapidly from side to side in black swirling clouds, of no greater substance than a mere silhouette.
Should he stand at one place they cast short daggers, one on another, knocking him back in a multiple assault. Though he blocked with his sword, should he try to attack in an instant they vanished and reappeared nearby to assault him afresh. "I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere," one hissed.
They could as easily glide straight through him, knocking him hard to the ground. To determine his strategy the Prince ran for such cover as he could find. "Poor Prince," came an echoing taunt. "Seems you're just out of reach." He didn't take kindly to having deadly objects thrown at his person. Choosing a moment when the assault died down, he stepped into view and hurled his own secondary weapon.
It cartwheeled through the air and caught a direct hit on one ghastly apparition. With a choked gurgle its head parted from its shoulders. The other redoubled its efforts. "Just like your own shadow, Prince, you'll never be free of me." Finding the numbers now more to his liking, the Prince dashed forward to strike with his sword.
He landed a few heavy blows that made their mark but the hellish creature was swift. "Don't you know, Prince?" it mocked, "You can't kill a shadow." A furious hail of blades caught the Prince unawares and he retreated to the safety of the passage once again.
Here was a weapon rack, which he split with his sword to claim another blade. He hurled this at the second shadowy foe and as with the other the touch of flying steel proved enough.
It similarly collapsed and disappeared in a puff of foul dust. The Prince claimed a blade from the trace left behind. These Silhouettes had been set to guard access to a steep flight of steps.
The Prince fancied them somewhat familiar, and as he looked up he saw the magnificent fortress, its gates now wide open. Proud banners fluttered all down either side. He had reached his goal, now accessible.
He was certain the girl in black was already within, and certain too that she would lead him to her mistress, the Empress of Time. Eagerly he made his way up, hearing soon angry voices. "Help me with this." Then another, shouting: "Finish him!" Raiders swarmed down the steps to repel the invader.
He engaged the frontrunners and heard as he fought the familiar harsh roar of a shadow creature such as the two he had recently defeated. To his satisfaction, in its blind rage to assault the Prince with showers of knives, this apparition was as likely to damage any Raider between.
With this unwitting assistance he soon cleared them all, and in a moment cast a spare weapon to the direction of the raging Silhouette, slicing it to extinction at first touch. In triumph he entered the mighty fortress. Up a flight of steps he encountered a vicious sword trap.
A blade sprang from a rotating drum, swishing at a height and a rate that required a judicious wall run or a tumble roll beneath to pass safely. At its reach, a deadly pit of spikes. The Prince jumped expertly to a ledge on the other side, and up to another, though broken. From this he reached up to a third, and passed hand over hand along the wall at its extent, dust crumbling at his fingers. He dropped down upon other ledges to a leap back to a parallel passage.
A lone Raider was made aware of the folly of standing in his way. This passage housed two more rotating drum blades, quite easily passed under at a roll or above on the wall close beside.
He looked around the last corner to a vast room beyond. This was the Central Hall to the fortress of the Island of Time. Light came from windows set high above, and too from a dozen flickering bowls of yellow fire suspended from the ceiling on long chains, swaying in the light breeze about the vast open space.
Towering pillars flanked sculpted niches, a spout of water pouring steadily at the center of each. A large doorway faced his entrance, and others could be seen set into the walls either side, albeit with no obvious means of access. Huge blocks of stone were set round about an irregular central platform, cracked and ruined.
On this paced a number of Raiders. "Stop the intruder!" A repeated command: "He's the one the Empress wants dead." Now very well practiced, the Prince finished them easily and examined the platform on which he then stood alone. At its center was a shallow circular niche, a smaller circular depression inside.
On two sides of this were set carved motifs, one a depiction of a gear cog and the other what might have been the symbol of water. Their significance could not be guessed. Flanking this decoration, four slender columns rose to the ceiling high above. These were bound on the floor by a decorative edge that reached back to a curious device; a small stone sculpture that had the appearance of a rose.
The Prince observed a slot at its crown. Again, speculation as to its purpose would have been fruitless. He hopped over a gap to the large doorway. Through bars he saw stairs protected by traps. He would have to find some way to pass within but the gates here were as yet firmly shut. After refreshment at a water fountain beside, he returned to the central platform. He looked over the edge.
Mist rose from the bottomless depths. At one side an initially promising set of tall column blocks proved too difficult to climb. A second set at the opposite edge gave easier access. Turning to the slender columns at the center of the platform, from this height he jumped easily one to the next to land atop the first set of tall blocks. At this level he could see a balcony over the door he had entered. Another doorway led off it. A wall run and leap back brought him standing before it. A guard Raider ran silently forward to meet his death.
At a corner inside, spinning spiked poles broke his rhythm only a little across a series of spike pits. The Prince dropped into the floor at the passage end. A ladder led him to a waiting Raider, unprepared it seemed for attack from above. Twin poles ground up and down to a spike pit ahead but the Prince passed easily over them.
Again, the small effort belied the impossibility of passage that another man might face. A ladder at a drop presented the minor obstruction of sweeping spiked logs in his path but he slid down at a carefully judged moment.
Though Raiders came now in pairs he was yet undeterred. "I have more important matters to attend to," he declared. Through the following passage, light curls of smoke tumbled from a hanging bowl overhead to lick about the floor.
Partly obscured, the Prince did not notice rows of small holes set into the stone tiles under his feet as he stepped forward. Puffs of dust rose, and at a moment steel blades shot out from each hole. He picked up his feet to run fast in front, each deadly trap sprung by his tread, yet not swift enough to catch him as he ran on. He steadied his nerve at a water basin safe beyond reach of the last row of tiles.
--
ok not as long as i wanted it but...it's long!!
Prince wakes: why do you harm me so!? I only want to be rid of the nightmares that plague me!
Because...one way or another your gonna get rid of hem, so why not make it intresting. it will help others better understand you.
Prince: Fine! do as you wish but hurry!
ja ne
(sounds of a hammer hitting a skull is sounded)