Karana and Minaki
Their First Adventure
Chapter One
Karana packed her things as fast as she could and rushed down to the stairs for lunch with her mom and dad. Her parents already sat there, munching on the grilled ham and cheese that had finished cooking a few minutes ago. She wondered if her parents would actually let her go somewhere for once. She figured they would, since she was sixteen and all.
"Hey Mom, Dad, it's ok if I go to that Underground portal for awhile right?" Karana asked innocently.
"Sure. How long will you be gone?" Karana's father asked, "And remember not to actually go through it. It's very dangerous."
"I don't know how long I'll be gone. Probably for a little while. But the thing is... I'm going through the portal. I want to see a different world. I've read all about the world the portal leads to. It's called The Outworld and -" But Karana was interrupted.
"Absolutely NOT! You could be killed by the demons there!"
"Father, I'm taking my rod, I think I can handle them. After all, Minaki's mother trained me herself. I mean, come on Dad, I'm sixteen remember?" she asked.
"Karana, you're just sixteen. Being sixteen isn't the reason you should be allowed to go, it's the reason you shouldn't." Karana's mom added.
"I can't beleive this!" Karana cried in a rage. Running upstairs, she grabbed her small bag and went back downstairs and out of the house, leaving her parents speechless. The door slammed hard.
Karana was walking in a daze. Why wouldn't her stupid parents ever let her do anything? It pissed her off so much. She wasn't payin attention to where she was going, and crossed the street. The horn of a car blared loudly, making her jump and leapt off the street just before a small truck slammed into her.
"Whoa, Karana! You OK?" A voice said from a someone standing next to her.
"Uhhhh.... Yeah... I guess." She answered, picking herself up from the sidewalk and rubbing her sore shoulder.
"What were you doing, walking in the middle of the street like that? Jeez..."
"I kinda dozed off... what are you doing, walking this way?"
"I was heading to your house, where were you going?"
"To your house, Minaki. I wanted to see if you wanted to go traveling with me. So how bout it?"
"Well, first let me guess where you're going," Minaki said.
"I'm going to-"
"Wait!" Minaki said, "Let me guess. To the new portal they discorvered underneath the church."
"Wow! How the heck did you know that, Minaki?"
"Cause I just heard about it and figured that you wuld want to go there, since you're the adventurous type. I was actually coming over to ask you if you wanted to go there. Can you beleive it?" Minaki said.
"Do you have your stuff packed?" Karana asked.
"No, but it'll only take me five minutes when we get back to my house."
"OK then, let's go!" Karana said happily.
They continued down the sidewalk, Karana making sure not to get to close to the road. Raikened, the name of the town they were in, was one of the few towns in Sangahara that had cars. The Orc Castle across Cuntin River was 99% orcs, and they hated any type of human technology. Raikened itself was composed of alot of orcs, but they were the types that were into modern inventions and such, thus making them easier to live in the same town with.
The only othe close town were the Elven Forest to the east, which was all elves, and being a forest, there weren't even any roads. Besides, elves usually used magic to travel. Just a bit more east of that was Chingville, and like Raikened, it had orcs and all sorts of other species within it, including humans. But it never considered using cars, since most of the building were tall and packed together instead of small and spread out, like in Raikened. Chingville's inhabitants just walked everywhere and climbed stairs.
People drove quite crazy in Raikened since cars had only entered the city a few years ago. There weren't even any stopsigns, traffic lights, or speeding laws. It was like a free-for-all where people could go as fast as they wanted. The cars themselves weren't even that fast, because most cars builders knew that if a car was being ordered from Raikened, it needed to be slow so that some jerk with a need for speed wouldn't go on a killing spree.
Minaki and Karana reached Minaki's front lawn and Minaki said to her, "Wait here Karana. I'll be out in a minute." And she rushed into the house.
She returned shortly with about five sword scabbards attatched to her belt, and a small bag. Seeing Karana staring at the five scabbards dangling from her belts she explained, "Hey we might find some rare weapons. I love to collect swords, and now I get to have some from other worlds! That's awesome. I've been thinking of opening a weapon shop here in Raikened. When I'm old enough of course."
"You could probably do it. you just need to learn how to forge weapons," said Karana as they started walking towards the church, "So have you heard anything else about The Outworld?" Karana asked, interested.
"Not much. Something about it being the center of worlds or something. It's supposed to have alot of portals leading to even more worlds. I'm not quite sure. I do know that it has a bunch more portals leading to different parts of our world, Entow. The Outworld is supposed to be a place of much evil, where portals are created with black magic, instead of portals opening themselves due to nature. I read it in the brochure I got from the guards there. They said if I was going that I'd have to beat both of them at the same time, i told them I'd just take the brochure and maybe come back some time."
"Where's the brochure?"
"I left it at home. Why? You don't even like to read,"
"It sounds pretty cool. It might just be one of those rare things I actually read."
"It wasn't as interesting as it sounds. Hey, there's the church." Minaki said.
The church stood there proudly, and the thick Cuntin River flowed gently next to it. The church really wasn't for any certain religion, but for most of the major ones including Skaven Trust, The Old Code and Preistige. It had the infamous large cross in the fron of the roof, it's golden material shining in the bright sun. The pushed open the huge door, with a painting of a sword over the opening where the two sides of the door swung open. The sword split right open when the door opened. It was the legendary Excalibur, used by the great King Arthur, from a different world.
"Ah, hello. My name is Washu. You two look like you're headed to the portal. Am I right?" said a short, thin bald man, both of them had known for a long time. He was the head overseer of the church. He had no hair on his body whatsoever, and he wore a shiny pale green robes with red lining. His face was old, worn and leathery. He had vibrant green eyes and a clean tooth smile.
"Gosh. Is it really that obvious to see that that's where I'm going? Why does everyone seem to know?" Karana wondered to herself.
Washu shrugged and stood silently for a moment, So am I right?"
"Yeah, let's go," Minaki said.
"Follow me, then," he said and slowly walked towards the back of the church. They walked all the way past the aisles, and up onto the stage area. A large, dark, wooden organ with perfectly white ivory keys loomed in the center.
Cracking his knuckles, Washu made his way to the huge instrument and sat down on the small, black stool. He powerfully blasted music that sounded quite familiar to Minaki, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"Hey, that's Megzart! She was a famous composer a long time ago," Karana said, excited.
Ever since she was a little girl, she had listened to all sorts of old music. Her parents thought it to be a bit odd, so now she had grown out of it mostly. Megzart was a indeed a famous composer a long time ago. She had written many different songs, most of which are famous even toay in Entow.
Washu continued the song for a few more minutes and striking the last key, also the lowest, he threw his head back and yelled, "OPEN!"
A loud boom erupted from within the wall, and one of the walls, the one to left split cleanly right in two. Inside revealed a dark hallway. Actually, it was more like a cave. The walls, ceiling and floor were all dirt. Washu stepped in front of them. Waving his hand swiftly, a small ball of pure yellow fire formed in the palm of his right hand.
He walked into the hallway/cave, and suprisingly, the ball of fire in his hand lit most of the area where he was standing. The duo followed immedeatley and closely, the cave was a bit creepy. After many turns and twists and stairs and even some ladders, they made it to the end. The end of the cave at least. There stood a shining steel wall with a steel door to match. Washu opened the door, and without looking motioned them inside. "Have a safe journey," he said, closing the door.
They enetered a room with a dark purple light coming from the center of the room. Both of the girls looked and saw a oval shaped portal, wirling with dark purple and black clouds. Two fully armed guards with chain mail, helemts and spear stood on either side of the portal. When they noticed the girls, one smiles and said, "So going to the Outworld?"
"Yes we are." Karana said, as-a-matter-of-factly.
"It's the center of the universe in a sense. Has a portal to every existing world, and many times more portals than one going to a single world. It has one for every counrty in Entow," the guard informed her.
"It even has portals to hell and heaven," the other guard added, "And even Wezmala."
"Wow, I never knew." Karana answered.
"Can we pass now?" Minaki said softly, trying not to sound rude.
"Sure, but we'll have to give you a test. The monsters out there are tough, ya know. And plus it's illegal, so you hafta sign in blood that you won't tell Khan which portal you came from. Unless they see you, but that's unlikely, since most of the portals are in the middle of nowhere."
"Whose Khan?" Karana asked curiously, with Minaki added a yeah to confirm her confusion also.
"Shao Khan, ancient ruler of the Outworld. He is the current and forever ruler, unless defeated in Mortal Kombat."
"What's Mortal Kombat?"
"Mortal Kombat is an ancient tournament of warriors from many different realms. It only occurs once every 500 years or so. We don't know to be exact."
"But no one lives for 500 years!" Minaki exclaimed.
"You get to enter a smaller tournament for wannabes, which happens every 2 or 3 years. If you win that, or come in second place, you get temporary immortality till the next Mortal Kombat tournament. If you lose, you die, don't feel like fighting in it, you die. Mortal Kombat doesn't play around. It defends your world. Khan is evil. He wants to take over the other worlds. Lately he's been trying to takeover some realm that we've never heard of. The warriors from that realm are fierce. No warriors from Entow have ever made it."
"Wow."
"Fight!" one of the guards said, twirling his spear around.
He swept at Minaki's legs, she jumped quickly over and crescent kicked him twice in the face. She drew her sword, the thin, Shokina Blade as she called it. It was named after her grandmother. She backed away menacingly. Karana grabbed her opal rod, but the other guard shook his head at her and said, "One at a time."
The guard charged towards Minaki, meaning to impale her. She darted out the way, and jumping off the wall landed behind the guard. He slammed her in the stomach just as she pulled her sword near his neck. She clutched her stomach and he ducked away. "Good, you can go. Let's see how the blonde does," he said, nodding towards the other guards and Karana.
Karana knew she wasn't as skilled as Minaki, but she had talent. She yanked her rod from her belt. The other guard dropped his spear and grabbed a club from the far wall that she hadn't notcied. The guard pulled off his armor also, leaving him wearing a plain brown tunic and trousers. She ran at him, her rod high above her head. He blocked the blow easily and countered with a jab to the stomach, but she countered that with a block and swung at his head. He ducked and slammed his club into her knee.
She yelped in pain and backed off for a moment before unexpectedly charges towards him again. He dodges and tries to slap her on the the ass, but she steps away and tries to bash him in the head, he blocks with the club and goes for her other leg, but she counters it and slams him in the shoulder. He jumps backwards.
"That's good enough," he said with a smile. "Thank you," Karana nodded.
"OK, then, since you're both going to the Outworld, I suggest you take a map. This map gives you the main continent of the Outworld along with five islands, which is all we've discovered so far. Don't lose this. Without it, you won't be able to find you're way back."
"Thank you, let's go Karana." Minaki said.
The both jumped into the portal as instructed. With a quick and violent lurch they were suddenly in a different climate, place, and it seemed like time. They were in a dead grassland, which was mostly desert now, but there were just barely some traces of grass. The only thing wrong with all this, was that a mean looking creature was staring them right in the eyes. He wielded two long knives, on both of his top hands. His two bottom hands were balled into fists.
Karana had read the back of the map, which listed some of the most common species in the Outworld. This creature matched the description of a shokan perfectly. Four arms, semi-scaly skin, two toed feet, eight feet tall and so on.
Their First Adventure
Chapter One
Karana packed her things as fast as she could and rushed down to the stairs for lunch with her mom and dad. Her parents already sat there, munching on the grilled ham and cheese that had finished cooking a few minutes ago. She wondered if her parents would actually let her go somewhere for once. She figured they would, since she was sixteen and all.
"Hey Mom, Dad, it's ok if I go to that Underground portal for awhile right?" Karana asked innocently.
"Sure. How long will you be gone?" Karana's father asked, "And remember not to actually go through it. It's very dangerous."
"I don't know how long I'll be gone. Probably for a little while. But the thing is... I'm going through the portal. I want to see a different world. I've read all about the world the portal leads to. It's called The Outworld and -" But Karana was interrupted.
"Absolutely NOT! You could be killed by the demons there!"
"Father, I'm taking my rod, I think I can handle them. After all, Minaki's mother trained me herself. I mean, come on Dad, I'm sixteen remember?" she asked.
"Karana, you're just sixteen. Being sixteen isn't the reason you should be allowed to go, it's the reason you shouldn't." Karana's mom added.
"I can't beleive this!" Karana cried in a rage. Running upstairs, she grabbed her small bag and went back downstairs and out of the house, leaving her parents speechless. The door slammed hard.
Karana was walking in a daze. Why wouldn't her stupid parents ever let her do anything? It pissed her off so much. She wasn't payin attention to where she was going, and crossed the street. The horn of a car blared loudly, making her jump and leapt off the street just before a small truck slammed into her.
"Whoa, Karana! You OK?" A voice said from a someone standing next to her.
"Uhhhh.... Yeah... I guess." She answered, picking herself up from the sidewalk and rubbing her sore shoulder.
"What were you doing, walking in the middle of the street like that? Jeez..."
"I kinda dozed off... what are you doing, walking this way?"
"I was heading to your house, where were you going?"
"To your house, Minaki. I wanted to see if you wanted to go traveling with me. So how bout it?"
"Well, first let me guess where you're going," Minaki said.
"I'm going to-"
"Wait!" Minaki said, "Let me guess. To the new portal they discorvered underneath the church."
"Wow! How the heck did you know that, Minaki?"
"Cause I just heard about it and figured that you wuld want to go there, since you're the adventurous type. I was actually coming over to ask you if you wanted to go there. Can you beleive it?" Minaki said.
"Do you have your stuff packed?" Karana asked.
"No, but it'll only take me five minutes when we get back to my house."
"OK then, let's go!" Karana said happily.
They continued down the sidewalk, Karana making sure not to get to close to the road. Raikened, the name of the town they were in, was one of the few towns in Sangahara that had cars. The Orc Castle across Cuntin River was 99% orcs, and they hated any type of human technology. Raikened itself was composed of alot of orcs, but they were the types that were into modern inventions and such, thus making them easier to live in the same town with.
The only othe close town were the Elven Forest to the east, which was all elves, and being a forest, there weren't even any roads. Besides, elves usually used magic to travel. Just a bit more east of that was Chingville, and like Raikened, it had orcs and all sorts of other species within it, including humans. But it never considered using cars, since most of the building were tall and packed together instead of small and spread out, like in Raikened. Chingville's inhabitants just walked everywhere and climbed stairs.
People drove quite crazy in Raikened since cars had only entered the city a few years ago. There weren't even any stopsigns, traffic lights, or speeding laws. It was like a free-for-all where people could go as fast as they wanted. The cars themselves weren't even that fast, because most cars builders knew that if a car was being ordered from Raikened, it needed to be slow so that some jerk with a need for speed wouldn't go on a killing spree.
Minaki and Karana reached Minaki's front lawn and Minaki said to her, "Wait here Karana. I'll be out in a minute." And she rushed into the house.
She returned shortly with about five sword scabbards attatched to her belt, and a small bag. Seeing Karana staring at the five scabbards dangling from her belts she explained, "Hey we might find some rare weapons. I love to collect swords, and now I get to have some from other worlds! That's awesome. I've been thinking of opening a weapon shop here in Raikened. When I'm old enough of course."
"You could probably do it. you just need to learn how to forge weapons," said Karana as they started walking towards the church, "So have you heard anything else about The Outworld?" Karana asked, interested.
"Not much. Something about it being the center of worlds or something. It's supposed to have alot of portals leading to even more worlds. I'm not quite sure. I do know that it has a bunch more portals leading to different parts of our world, Entow. The Outworld is supposed to be a place of much evil, where portals are created with black magic, instead of portals opening themselves due to nature. I read it in the brochure I got from the guards there. They said if I was going that I'd have to beat both of them at the same time, i told them I'd just take the brochure and maybe come back some time."
"Where's the brochure?"
"I left it at home. Why? You don't even like to read,"
"It sounds pretty cool. It might just be one of those rare things I actually read."
"It wasn't as interesting as it sounds. Hey, there's the church." Minaki said.
The church stood there proudly, and the thick Cuntin River flowed gently next to it. The church really wasn't for any certain religion, but for most of the major ones including Skaven Trust, The Old Code and Preistige. It had the infamous large cross in the fron of the roof, it's golden material shining in the bright sun. The pushed open the huge door, with a painting of a sword over the opening where the two sides of the door swung open. The sword split right open when the door opened. It was the legendary Excalibur, used by the great King Arthur, from a different world.
"Ah, hello. My name is Washu. You two look like you're headed to the portal. Am I right?" said a short, thin bald man, both of them had known for a long time. He was the head overseer of the church. He had no hair on his body whatsoever, and he wore a shiny pale green robes with red lining. His face was old, worn and leathery. He had vibrant green eyes and a clean tooth smile.
"Gosh. Is it really that obvious to see that that's where I'm going? Why does everyone seem to know?" Karana wondered to herself.
Washu shrugged and stood silently for a moment, So am I right?"
"Yeah, let's go," Minaki said.
"Follow me, then," he said and slowly walked towards the back of the church. They walked all the way past the aisles, and up onto the stage area. A large, dark, wooden organ with perfectly white ivory keys loomed in the center.
Cracking his knuckles, Washu made his way to the huge instrument and sat down on the small, black stool. He powerfully blasted music that sounded quite familiar to Minaki, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"Hey, that's Megzart! She was a famous composer a long time ago," Karana said, excited.
Ever since she was a little girl, she had listened to all sorts of old music. Her parents thought it to be a bit odd, so now she had grown out of it mostly. Megzart was a indeed a famous composer a long time ago. She had written many different songs, most of which are famous even toay in Entow.
Washu continued the song for a few more minutes and striking the last key, also the lowest, he threw his head back and yelled, "OPEN!"
A loud boom erupted from within the wall, and one of the walls, the one to left split cleanly right in two. Inside revealed a dark hallway. Actually, it was more like a cave. The walls, ceiling and floor were all dirt. Washu stepped in front of them. Waving his hand swiftly, a small ball of pure yellow fire formed in the palm of his right hand.
He walked into the hallway/cave, and suprisingly, the ball of fire in his hand lit most of the area where he was standing. The duo followed immedeatley and closely, the cave was a bit creepy. After many turns and twists and stairs and even some ladders, they made it to the end. The end of the cave at least. There stood a shining steel wall with a steel door to match. Washu opened the door, and without looking motioned them inside. "Have a safe journey," he said, closing the door.
They enetered a room with a dark purple light coming from the center of the room. Both of the girls looked and saw a oval shaped portal, wirling with dark purple and black clouds. Two fully armed guards with chain mail, helemts and spear stood on either side of the portal. When they noticed the girls, one smiles and said, "So going to the Outworld?"
"Yes we are." Karana said, as-a-matter-of-factly.
"It's the center of the universe in a sense. Has a portal to every existing world, and many times more portals than one going to a single world. It has one for every counrty in Entow," the guard informed her.
"It even has portals to hell and heaven," the other guard added, "And even Wezmala."
"Wow, I never knew." Karana answered.
"Can we pass now?" Minaki said softly, trying not to sound rude.
"Sure, but we'll have to give you a test. The monsters out there are tough, ya know. And plus it's illegal, so you hafta sign in blood that you won't tell Khan which portal you came from. Unless they see you, but that's unlikely, since most of the portals are in the middle of nowhere."
"Whose Khan?" Karana asked curiously, with Minaki added a yeah to confirm her confusion also.
"Shao Khan, ancient ruler of the Outworld. He is the current and forever ruler, unless defeated in Mortal Kombat."
"What's Mortal Kombat?"
"Mortal Kombat is an ancient tournament of warriors from many different realms. It only occurs once every 500 years or so. We don't know to be exact."
"But no one lives for 500 years!" Minaki exclaimed.
"You get to enter a smaller tournament for wannabes, which happens every 2 or 3 years. If you win that, or come in second place, you get temporary immortality till the next Mortal Kombat tournament. If you lose, you die, don't feel like fighting in it, you die. Mortal Kombat doesn't play around. It defends your world. Khan is evil. He wants to take over the other worlds. Lately he's been trying to takeover some realm that we've never heard of. The warriors from that realm are fierce. No warriors from Entow have ever made it."
"Wow."
"Fight!" one of the guards said, twirling his spear around.
He swept at Minaki's legs, she jumped quickly over and crescent kicked him twice in the face. She drew her sword, the thin, Shokina Blade as she called it. It was named after her grandmother. She backed away menacingly. Karana grabbed her opal rod, but the other guard shook his head at her and said, "One at a time."
The guard charged towards Minaki, meaning to impale her. She darted out the way, and jumping off the wall landed behind the guard. He slammed her in the stomach just as she pulled her sword near his neck. She clutched her stomach and he ducked away. "Good, you can go. Let's see how the blonde does," he said, nodding towards the other guards and Karana.
Karana knew she wasn't as skilled as Minaki, but she had talent. She yanked her rod from her belt. The other guard dropped his spear and grabbed a club from the far wall that she hadn't notcied. The guard pulled off his armor also, leaving him wearing a plain brown tunic and trousers. She ran at him, her rod high above her head. He blocked the blow easily and countered with a jab to the stomach, but she countered that with a block and swung at his head. He ducked and slammed his club into her knee.
She yelped in pain and backed off for a moment before unexpectedly charges towards him again. He dodges and tries to slap her on the the ass, but she steps away and tries to bash him in the head, he blocks with the club and goes for her other leg, but she counters it and slams him in the shoulder. He jumps backwards.
"That's good enough," he said with a smile. "Thank you," Karana nodded.
"OK, then, since you're both going to the Outworld, I suggest you take a map. This map gives you the main continent of the Outworld along with five islands, which is all we've discovered so far. Don't lose this. Without it, you won't be able to find you're way back."
"Thank you, let's go Karana." Minaki said.
The both jumped into the portal as instructed. With a quick and violent lurch they were suddenly in a different climate, place, and it seemed like time. They were in a dead grassland, which was mostly desert now, but there were just barely some traces of grass. The only thing wrong with all this, was that a mean looking creature was staring them right in the eyes. He wielded two long knives, on both of his top hands. His two bottom hands were balled into fists.
Karana had read the back of the map, which listed some of the most common species in the Outworld. This creature matched the description of a shokan perfectly. Four arms, semi-scaly skin, two toed feet, eight feet tall and so on.