Chapter 3:

Dark clouds be gathered into the ebony sky
And lightning rip many a tree asunder
Ride the morrow wind and you will fly
Your wake shall be followed with thunder

I made this rap, from my mind
And I am very very very kind

Spawn forth Nagdrassil,
Hell's tree incarnate.

The man with plowed shoulder-length black hair in ebony dervish robes opened his eyes - twin spheres filled with flames of hatred and spite, voracious and ready to consume the world before it.

Planted firmly on the cliff grounds was an grotesque obsidian sword of an abysmal knight that would normally take two men to lift. The dark-haired figure gnashed his teeth as he stared at the storm-struck Prontera.

"You shall fall by the wrath of Ragnarok," he says to himself as he grasps his coin pendant, "Ragnarok of Naggdrasil, meet your master, The Black Boyar!"

And he laughed a laugh that made many a beast give out a blood-curdling scream out of fear.

He was malevolent, and this scene told everybody told about it. Even if he hasn't really done anything bad since the start of this story, you can tell, he's pure evil. Somehow, it doesn't even matter if his plan is as vague as your school's mission/vision; evil, they say, needs no specifics.

He lifted the impractically large sword with a tinge of difficulty and pointed it at the sky.

"Heaven be the witness to my rise to power. I shall rule this land until nothing is left of it but shadows and ashes!"

And then, lightning.

At about the same time, the three heroes finally reached the Pronteran Gates after two chapters of utter nonsense. Surprisingly, the place was still sunny. But that's just how things are.

"Say Jan, do you smell something burnt?" asked Gynn Erik.

The priest nodded, "but it's not from my clichéd chain-smoking though."

"Maybe this fic is being burned already somewhere in real life as an effigy of sorts. Either that or you're smelling whatever is left of the opening scene of this chapter," added Jappa.

The two guys shrugged at each other. She really was weird to them, saying things that didn't even exist in their superb make-believe world. But that she was naked was enough for them to believe whatever she's saying. Hey, if it's coming from a near-naked lady, it should be either true or extremely cruel or both.

When they came a hundred feet away from the gate, they noticed that it has been sealed shut. Just in front of a gate stood a familiar figure. Well, you know who he is. I mean, how many characters have I introduced to you since the start of the story?

"I see that you're still alive, a good thing since we don't have dragonballs in this story. Good replacements are hard to get nowadays, even with the massive layoffs from them fly-by-night fics."

"Why did you try to kill us!" shouted Gynn in an angry fit, "we almost got killed!"

Ima Jappa turned her barenaked back at the conversation and plopped herself under a rather comfortable shade of a tree, "One extra-mundane verbal dueling of the obvious, coming up."

Valla laughed at the question, "I was just testing you."

"I'll make you pay!" shouted the swordie as he posed to attack, "take this! Kyaah!"

"I'll make you may too!" followed up the priest, "take this too! Kyaah!"

(This is getting really stupid, I know. I'm starting to blush.)

With one hand the GM setup an invisible field around him and threw both fighters to the ground.

"I'm not your enemy. I'm just here to give you your mission. That lucky coin you are holding is the key to defeating Nagdrassil. That coin is the perfect contra for the evil coin of the Black Boyar."

Dum dum dum dumbbb

Suddenly, the swordies frustration turned into enthusiasm, as though he had been talking to an old friend and completely disregarding the fact that he really did nearly get killed last chapter because of the GM. (Yeah, right.)

"THE BLACK BOYAR?" replied the three adventurers in perfect unison.

Dum dum dum dumbbb

"Yes, if you don't stop him, he will destroy this world for some cheapass reason he got from his troubled childhood," followed up the GM, "the fate of this fic, erm, the world is now up to you."

Jappa, in the same no-fun manner that she always delivers, replied:

"Wait a minute. Why us? Why not you? Isn't it the job of GMs to like, fight bad guys and stuff?"

Valla smiled. "Well, two things actually. First, this is your story. There are no other characters around here other than you, the bad guy, and me. There is a rule that commissioners like me aren't supposed to do the fighting and bad guys aren't supposed to side with good guys unless they're supposed to die an expected death. And secondly, my shift is almost up."

The huntress then brushed off the conversation. "Makes perfects sense...cough asswad"

Feeling a sense of indignation - as would any protagonist, Gynn Eric Doubleword finally took on the challenge.

"So where do I find this man?"

The GM smirked. "You don't find him, he finds you."

"Damn," said the agitated priest, "my priestly sense is saying that he's already here!"

From atop a tower, a dark figure emitting black smoke stood and stared down upon our heroes.

"I'll teach you all a lesson that you'll never forget!"

A blast of red energy came out of the Boyar's hands. Red, because I believe it's the System Internationale (IS) spectral wavelength standard for evil. (Also probably because the author of this fic bears the same word in his name and he knows damn right that what he's doing is evil. Symbolism 101.)

Then, a splatter of blood beyond the capacity of any human anatomy showered all over the heroes.

"Now that one of you is dead, dare you still fight me? " asked the black-haired evil dude.

"Dead? Who? " asked the blood-soaked Valla.

"Not me." confirmed Gynn Erik as he searched his body for holes. Heroes never get targeted by instakill death rays.

"Not me." seconded Valla. Deep inside, it was a good thing. He could probably hit the author for another appearance in the next chapter. (or so he thinks. Quite frankly, nobody likes overpowered GMs. At least, I don't.)

"As much as the author really hates me, he can't just remove the only sexually stimuling character here so, " replied the huntress, "Not me."

"Not..." said Jan. He didn't get to finish the word though because he needed to cough out the requisite black blood from his mouth. He didn't fall at once though, it wasn't enough that his reaction is so badly delayed, he just had to straddle a few steps before actually collapsing.

"How... how could this have happened? This story has barely started. And I look better than Gynn! Ugh!"

Gynn cleared his throat. "Since the start of this fic I haven't really acted like a hero so at least allow me to explain. The fic is doing badly right now so we need to kill of somebody. Also, as main protagonist, I really need the motivation of revenge to get really fired up. My bad. It happens to all sorts of stories. Superman, Harry Potter, Mistah - it works so damn well so I don't see why we should differ from it.

Melodramatic piano starts playing

Boyer snapped his fingers. "Hello? I'm supposed to be inciting anger by now. Focus, people."

Piano stops, bits of "oh, yeah" echo in the background, scary choir tune resumes

Meanwhile, the huntress and the GM were just standing behind the swordie and the dying priest. "So why are you doing nothing GM? Aren't you supposed to be stronger than the three of us combined?"

"My shift's over. I'm just here for the show and the pay. And besides, we all know nobody ever dies in stories like this. Either they get resurrected sometime in the future as a good/bad guy or some alternate time or obscure artifact allows them to live again," replied the GM in a monotone.

As for the priest, his time was almost up. But not quite yet. For every dying hero, there's a mandatory l' ultimar oracion n'grande.

"Gynn, I know where I'm going and I can already see the white light. I want to return to where I came from; where it all started. When I was a kid I used to play in the..."

And he went on to deliver one of the longest death speeches in known history. The narrator fell asleep during that time so the entire speech won't be included here. Fortunately, the narrator wasn't the only person bored.

"Just die already!" shouted the boyar as he fired another shot at the dying priest.

"NOOOOO!" shouted Gynn as he saw the body of his friend burn from the blast. "DAMN YOU!"

The Black Boyar just laughed. "If you want to get your revenge, come to Glast Heim castle in less than three days."

"Why three days?" asked Jappa.

The black-haired evil man then took out a calendar. "Oh that's because some big-shot author is supposed to use GH as a set after three days. It's a busy time of the year for good spots in GH. SO YOU HAVE TO MEET ME THERE OR YOU'LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN! MWAHAHAHA!"

And with that, the evil priest disappeared.

That moment, there was fire in Gynn's eyes. Revenge was at hand.

(Narrator throws up from all the clichés. Don't you just hate writing doldrums, dangling, middle-of-nowhere chapters? I do.)

End of Chapter.

Author's notes:

obviously faked European phrase, but hey, nobody ever really knows your messing around unless you see a real lichtensteinian rb'er. Call it autolinguistics - a language only you can identify as complete bullcrap. Noteworthy for writers running out of ideas - hellot better than trying to mess with a real language using babelfish and ending up saying "my mother's cow is rancid". For more examples, see the literary warmachine that is Harry Potter

this chapter reflects the level of stress I am currently experiencing at work. So Im not making any further efforts to make it better. Effigys werent meant to be beautiful anyway.