Chapter 2: More Than They Bargain For
Dear Journal,
We're making a break for it tonight! Even though it is forbidden to leave without permission, I think we could still leave the city without problems. We have been planning this for weeks and I think we got it all figure out. Tonight, Roran and I will sit on some of the high building like we usually do. On normal days, we just sit and enjoy the night sky. Tonight, the sky wouldn't be so clear for I will cast the spell "fog". Roran told me that this time of year, fog occurred often, so for me to cast fog will not cause anyone to suspect anything. When the fog rolls in, we will gather our supplies and Roran will carry us far outside the city. Just to make sure our trip is a successful one, I also prepare a levitation spell to aid Roran. He said he can handle the weight but we have to fly for at least a league away from the city or else the sentries will spot us. I hope tonight is a success! I don't want to remain in this city and wait for the invasion to come!
Josh MitchellAbout 4 miles outside the city, Josh and Roran could see the fog around their home began to lift just a little. Luckily, natural fog that normally occurred rolled in that night so Josh didn't have to spend too much effort on his fog spell. It took more effort than he thought to levitate their supplies outside the city. Once they were sure they couldn't be spotted, the 2 friends hugged, danced, and laughed like children. Fueled by adrenaline, the 2 of them walked and flew for the rest of the night. When the sun began to peak out of the horizon, the pair was a short distant from the sea. They were exhausted by that time and went right to sleep.
Josh was rudely awakened by someone poking his chest. He slowly opened his eyes to find Karra kneeling over him with a stern look on her face. Startled, Josh turned to Roran and shook his friend until the sleeping angel woke up. When Roran open his eyes and saw his sister, he freaked out.
"What are you doing here? Is father with you? Did you follow us?" He took a second to try to calm down and continue with, "Go home!"
"Hey, I have every right to be here! Who are you to tell me what to do? You're not father! So what if I follow you here? You can't make me go home!" replied Karra.
"I'm your brother and I can tell you what to do. So go home! It's too dangerous out here!" Roran grab Karra and pushed her in the direction of the city.
Karra turned around and push her brother back. They continued to argue like Josh wasn't even there. Seeing that he was not needed, he excused himself from the pair and made his way to the beach.
The sandy shore of the Kukemssa Sea was so peaceful. Josh spent about half an hour to drink in the scenery as well as all the mana associated with it. By then, his stomach was growling but he hated to have to go back to squabbling siblings just to get some food. From his side pocket, Josh pull out his deck of magic cards and select the Aven Fisher card. Calling upon the power of the sea, he channeled the blue mana into the card. Energy surged from the card to create a bird in humanoid form holding a wooden spear. He ordered the Aven to go get for him some fishes and it readily obeyed. Josh relaxed as its feathery body surged out to sea with its massive wings flapping.
Looking at his deck, he remembered the morning he left his house to walk in the woods. His mind was so disorganized that he grabbed a deck of random cards instead of a real deck of cards. It turn out his absent-mindedness was very useful for he was able to use the random cards to base some good spells on. Not only that, all spells he learned thus far he transformed them into mental cards. He organized them the same way he organized his cards in real life. He placed all mental cards into 9 slots plastic sleeves and placed them in the giant folder within his mind. Whenever he needed a spell, he simply flipped through his mental folder and recovered a spell the same way he would get a card he needed in life.
Josh was so focus on his cards that he didn't noticed the birdman had already returned with 3 plump fishes. He took the wooden spear with the fishes from the Aven and recalled the creature back into his card. He spent the next 10 minutes gathering some dry wood. With a simple gesture, he cast Flare on the kindling and began to roast the fishes. Minutes later, he looked up and smiled when he saw the sibling had made their way to his fishes and both were drooling. Josh handed each angel a fish and they devoured it like a pair of wild mongrel. He guess arguing took a lot of people, even angels.
After finishing their late lunch, the pair of angels was quiet. Josh broke the silence and offered Karra some water and asked her if she wanted to join them on their journey. Roran quickly objected saying that it was too dangerous for someone as inexperienced as she was. That started another argument. Josh couldn't afford to let this go on, so he interjected.
"Enough already! You both are driving me crazy!" that finally brought silence back to the beach. "Look! If Karra wanted to join us, you can't stop her Roran! However, if she wanted to go back, we'll both escort her back then continue on our way." Josh said calming down. "In the end, it is still her choice-not yours, Roran."
"Now there is a man of reason!" Leaning over, Karra gave Josh a kiss. "Now I'm going with you two whether you like it or not."
Outvoted 2 to 1, knowing this is a battle he could not win, Roran began picking up their supplies and the trio headed east. By their seventh day of travel, they finally reach the swamps at the edge of the Daraja Plains. It felt great to all of them to be able to bath in the river water and refreshed themselves as well as restocked their supplies before entering the Mwonvuli Jungle. During their travel, Josh noticed that despite their constant arguing, the Lawbringer siblings care for each other greatly. Karra had also warmed up to Josh and she began to talk to him on a regular basis. They spent the next day flying over the swamplands and entered the Jungle. Josh was able to draw invaluable amount of black mana from the swamps as well as red manna from the overlooking mountain range.
By nightfall, the trio was more than a league into the jungle. They set up camps and get ready to turn in for the night. Karra was sitting next to Josh discussing some methods of how to organized spells. Roran would sometime interject telling the pair that a sword is better than a spell any day. Josh would laugh then threw a ball of light in the angel's face blinding him and made his eyelids flutter rapidly. That got a big laugh from Karra as well.
"You know, we're missing a really big event by leaving," Karra said still smiling. "The planeswalker, Teferi, is visiting our city right now. I heard many legends about him from the Zhalfirin and I wish I could see him in person."
"What's the big deal?" said Roran while still munching on a rabbit. "He's just an immortal wizard."
"That's where you're wrong Roran," said Josh while getting some stews. "A planeswalker is as close to a god as one can get. Do all of you remember the story of Dominarian Ice Age?" Waiting until his companions nodded, Josh continued. "The ice age was caused by the planeswalker, Urza. It was finally brought to an end by another planeswalker name Freyalise. So as you can see, their powers are unimaginably vast."
Josh got a response from his comment, but not one he expected. From the direction of the swamps, he heard what sounded like a very low moan. More and more similar moans follow. Quickly his companions rose and drew their weapon. Karra was quick to cast a blinding light spell to reveal a horrible sight. From the swamps rose hundreds upon hundreds of undead corpses. They had successfully surrounded the trio and poised to attack. Fearing the worst, Karra cast a black ward spell upon herself and she readied more spells for use. Josh was the only one weaponless but he needed no weapon. Drawing on the power of the forest, he let loose his first spell. From his chest, a wild mongrel sprang out ready for battle.
In unison, the undead eyes all glow red and every one of them rush in to attack the Serrans. Roran's warrior skills allowed him to expertly dispatch any zombies that attacked him. Karra magic enhanced fighting skill make quick work of the first set of onrushing ghouls. Josh was the only one without any fighting skills and his mongrel was quickly being overwhelmed. Determined to save his summoned creature, Josh sacrificed 4 spells to enhance his mongrel to 4 times its normal strength. Letting go of his own sanity for a minute, Josh was able to recovered his sacrificed spells and cast them all.
Unleashing his Fury Temper spell, 2 pulses of heat surged out of Josh's eyes and roasted 2 oncoming skeletons. From his hands, 2 large lizards hopped out completing his Basking Rootwalla spells. His last recovered spell spewed from his mouth. A stream of green mist flew out and formed into a giant worm with a very large mouth and a gruesome set of serrated teeth. Though they were vastly outnumbers, Roran felt very confident in their chance of victory now that he finally saw the true strength of both his sister and his best friend.
Unknown to trio, they were being watch by a being who's power could challenge the gods. This mighty planeswalker was simply tormenting the trio hoping to see the terror on their faces. Despite of terror, they fought back and it amused her. She stopped being amused when she saw the young human wizard not only cast spells he sacrificed, but also cast those spells using less mana than required for such spells. In fact, his Basking Rootwalla spell cost him almost no mana at all to cast. Never in her many thousand of years of life had she seen such efficient use of magic. Determined to find the secret of such wonderful spellcasting, she redoubled her efforts to attack the small band of Serrans.
The group of Serrans was holding their own in this battle until the forest started to uproot itself and joined in the fight. Five trees converged upon their position and their massive limps began to swing in all direction. Karra was caught by surprise during the treefolks first attack. Her brother grabbed her and flew out of reach of the tree branches. Josh was left on the ground by himself to fight against impossible odds. Putting both hands on his chest, Josh created a circle of protection against green magic just in time for the first tree branch to strike. His circle warded off all attacks but it is quickly draining all his mana supply. Desperate, Josh sacrificed 2 more spells to strengthen his mongrel and order it to take down 2 of the attack treefolks. Letting go of his santity once more, he recovered and cast a violent eruption. The sudden burst of fire from the ground caught the other 3 treefolks by surprise and turned them into charcoal.
Roran was having a major problem of his own in the air. A swarm of bats had converged in on his position biting wherever they could. The angel had no choice but to land back down and continued the battle there. Standing back to back with his best friend, Josh summoned a wall of shadow to slow the tide of undead advancing on their position.
Josh's creations were not doing too well against the undead onslaught. Both his Rootwalla lizards were torn to pieces long ago. Despite his giant worm's size and its giant mouth, it too suffered a lot of damage to its body. The worm devoured nearly a hundred undead, but now it was slowly dying. His mongrel suffered a lot of damage as well, but because he sacrificed so many spells to strengthen it, the mongrel is still hanging in the fight.
"I'm running out of mana real fast here Roran." with those words, he summoned a gang of elk to join the battle. "I still got a few more madness spell but I don't want to risk my own sanity. Madness magic is great but it is not worth the risk. How is Karra doing?"
"She's out cold!" Roran punctuated that statement with a backhand slash. "We got to get out of here before something even worst come along."
As though to respond to Roran's statement, a herd of elephants appeared out of nowhere and charged them. Warning Roran that these are his last spells, Josh drew all the mana he can from the land around him. Looking up at the swarm of bats that blanketed the sky, Josh imagined a pine tree in the middle of that swarm. He channeled all the green mana he had, turning pine tree into a Christmas tree. Slowly he enlarged the tree to the size of the Christmas tree he saw in New York. With a flick of his hand, the imaginary tree spun and shot ornaments and magical pine needle in all directions killing the majority of the swarm. Using his last drop of Dominarian mana, Josh launched him and his angel friends into the air and to safety.
Safety doesn't seem to last long in this part of the Jungle. About 5 minutes into the air, chains of black mana leapt out of every direction and tighten around the Serran. Just then Karra awaken to find them all in chain. She opened her mouth to speak when a surged of electricity coursed through those chains and knocked them all unconscious.
**********
Woken up by the smell of sewages was not a way Josh would have chosen to wake up. Slowly he got up and tried to open his eyes. He collapsed once more but this time, he was determined to keep his eyes open. The first thing he saw was a bowl filled with cooked wild rice and a drumstick from some bird. Using what strength he had, he crawled over to the food and scarfed it down. Once the food was gone, he finally noticed the sound of laughter. Discarding his bowl, he looked up to see that he was in a cell. There were 3 men outside the cell. Two of them were dressed like prison guards while the third worn an expensive wizard's robe. From the insignia on the robe, Josh can tell that this mage is an Embermage. All 3 were laughing at him but he ignored it and continued to survey the room. That was when he noticed Roran sitting in a dark corner of the prison.
The food had done wonder for Josh for he felt most of his strength was back. Slowly, the young mage approach his best friend. In all their time together, never had he seen Roran so depressed and defeated. Sitting with his face between his legs, he had his arms and angel wings wrapped around his legs turning him into a ball. That was when he noticed something important was missing; Karra was not there.
Bringing himself face to face with Roran, Josh asked, "Where is Karra?"
The question seemed only to throw Roran into a deeper depression as he used his wings to cover his own face. That was when the mage in the expensive robe stood up and laughed even more.
"I'll tell you where Karra is. She is in a compost heap outside of this building." The fat Embermage continue to laugh.
Still in somewhat of a dazed, Joshed was puzzled and asked, "Why would you put her there?"
All 3 men outside the cell seemed surprised by the question and all of them roared into a fit of laughter. That was when Roran grabbed Josh's hand and pull Josh down next to him.
For the first time, Roran spoke, "Karra is dead, Josh. That's why they threw her in with the compost."
Josh's eyes grew wide with shock, "bbbbut…" That was all he could say until he calmed himself down. "Roran, please tell me what happen." Josh then closed his eyes and braced himself for the tale. It didn't come.
Roran was back in his balled up position feeling sorry for himself. There was silence until the fat mage spoke up.
"I'll tell you what happen," said the Embermage. "Our goddess captured you from the edge of the Mwonvuli Jungle. She saw your strange brand of magic which you call 'madness magic'. Seeing that the female angel and you were the only magic user, our goddess decided to 'interrogate' the female first. She was not very cooperative even under our goddess many methods of persuasion." Josh knew full well he meant torture. "She even went so far as to talk back to our goddess and spat in her face." Still laughing slightly, the fat mage continue. "Our goddess in her infinite wisdom simply reached into the angel's chest and ripped her little heart out."
With a flash, Roran was on his feet and rushing at the bars trying to get to the Embermage's throat. Chuckling, the mage sent a bolt of lightning at the bars electrocuting the angel and sending him back a few feet. Josh called on his memory of the Kukemssa Sea to draw power for his spell, but the mana never came. Confused, Josh watched Roran roaring like a mad man and rushed against the bars only to be electrocuted again. This time, Josh had just about enough. Reaching into his pant's pocket, he pulled his gun out and shot the Embermage right through the heart. The guards, fearing Josh's strange magical weapon, rushed through the prison door to find reinforcement.
Roran was still screaming until Josh grabbed hold of the angel and pull him back from the bars. Looking directly into the angel's eyes, Josh spoke, "save your anger for avenging Karra's death. It's useless to rage until we are out of here."
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Roran laugh out loud. "You must still be dreaming if you think we have a chance of getting out. I think you noticed by now you can't cast spell. This cell stops anyone from drawing mana from Dominaria. For all your magical knowledge, you can't do a thing. Plus, our enemy is a planeswalker! How in the nine hells will we be able to get revenge?"
Looking around the room, Josh noticed a sheet of paper on one of the far corner. The paper seems to call to him and he picked it up. "Let me worry about a way out," said Josh with confident. "What is this planeswalker's name? Where is she now?"
"She left to attack our city; to force the secret of 'madness magic' out of our people." Calming down, Roran said, "She called herself Geyadrone Dihada." Shaking his head, Roran continued, "Don't fool yourself into thinking of revenge. I see the fear in your eyes when I said the name."
"I wouldn't lie. I'm very much afraid of her because I know what she's capable of." Pausing to read the second line on the paper he's holding, Josh recognized the words to be the prophecy left by the Oracle en-Vec. "Regardless, we got to get back to our city and save it. That's the right thing to do. That's what Karra would want us to do."
Shaking his head still, Roran said, "Don't you think I know that? Right now, we have to save ourselves first. I have no weapon and you are powerless!"
Just then, another wizard walked in with the 2 guards who ran off earlier. Ignoring them, Josh continued to look over the prophecy for clue of how they could escape. He doubted the Oracle left this little parchment here for no reason. Then it dawned on him! The line "With earthly might, freedom is found" mean he had been drawing power from the wrong place. If he couldn't draw mana from Dominaria, theoretically, he could still draw power from his home planet of Earth.
After examining the dead mage, this new mage turned to Josh and ask, "How did you kill him when your magic is confined?"
"Very simple," Josh smiled. "I did it like this!" Calling on the mana from the Grand Canyon, Josh unleashed his spell with a simple word: "Decimate".
The torrent of green and red mana from Josh's spell shattered the cell bars. It continued on to break the new mage's protective wards, then destroyed his mana source, and finally took his life. Once the dust caused by his spell was clear, Josh noticed that Roran was holding his magna sword and the 2 guards laid dead by Roran's feet.
Roran walk over to Josh and ask, "How will we get back to the city in time? That planeswalking witch said she was attacking at nightfall and the sun is already down."
Holding his friend's shoulder, Josh said, "I might have a way but the spell is experimental. The spell is design to send its target home. But be warned, it is not a safe spell at all."
"Do you think I care? Cast your spell now!" Roran yell.
Calling on powers from the Pacific Ocean, Josh cast Withdraw on both of them. The spell rocketed them back to their beloved city in mere seconds. When they open their eyes again, deaths were all they saw.