-22-

A splitting headache hit him when things began to focus before him. A street sign reading "Geffen Square ahead" had fallen off; buildings that had once been of importance to the wizards association now lay among the powdery rubble. The concentrated scent of sorcery that lingered seemed to dissipate, overwhelmed by the smell of smoke and cement.

'I've already said something is wrong.'

"What –"Sagi muttered.

'Dark Lord!?'

The four had left him, sparing his life. But why? Why did they keep mentioning about Dark Lord? What's with his necklace? So many questions… but the answers eluded him.

'The scent of Dark Lord indeed. It's impossible.'

'What we sensed, is just a minute amount of essence.'

He rubbed the dirt off his face, his mind still haunted by the four and their conversation. The wizard clutched at his necklace, touching it. It was smooth to the touch, the material made from it unknown. It looked like marble, but on the other hand it did not. The fierce glow that saved his life dimmed out, making the two rings look like any other common rings often seen at shops of merchants.

Sagi closed his eyes, trying to recall something about his parents. Even if it was a morsel of it, he would not give up. No matter how hard he concentrated, no memories, not that it was familiar to him, were recollected. Off to the street near the east entrance, a slight disturbance drew attention. It sounded something like a thud, then a loud groan of pain.

His first thoughts were the zombie masters. The wizard fumbled for his special potion mix, forgetting that he had consumed all of it to hold the zombie masters back. Whoever it was, likely a Geffen resident, sounded like he or she was captured by a zombie master. He conjured a simple thunder spell, directing it towards his target, which looked like a knocked out resident carried on a zombie master's shoulder.

The lightning spell seared the zombie master's back, sending him sprawling to the floor. Its victim too fell off him, lying face-first unmoving. Sagi saw an arrow imbedded into the back of the man, the shaft sticking out of his body. Not that he knew of zombie masters using bow and arrow, neither did the four, and the hunters in this city had all fell to death from the walls. His suspicions left him with one possibility; that there were intruders.

Before he went to examine the two though, he shrouded himself in a spell of energy coat to enhance his defences, his body clouded in a bluish aura. Readying a more advanced spell on his lips, Sagi crossed over to the east entrance, sighting a dead body on his way. The dead body was thoroughly disfigured, but he could distinguish him from the other corpse of wizards. This man was not wearing robes of any sort, instead he wore a breastplate with a Prontera logo on it. The cause of his death was obvious; a dagger was buried deep into the neck.

"Prontera high officials, huh," he observed.

The fact that these Prontera high officials often hunt by groups of two all the more made Sagi think that the armoured man whom he struck was not a zombie master after all. That man shouted out at intervals as the electricity conducted by the metal breastplate electrocuted him every now and then. Finding the black robed wizard the culprit, he raised his bow with the venom-tipped arrow nocked, and a quick Soul Strike by Sagi had him flinging his bow into the air, the remaining strikes blasting him backwards a few feet.

Sagi raised his hands in pretence, luring the beaten official into thinking that another spell, which might be stronger than the last judging from previous experiences, would have him dead. He yelled in defeat, making his departure through the east gate.

"Strong poison that is," Sagi murmured, detecting a whiff of foul odour from the arrow. He knelt beside the silver-haired man, a pair of Infiltrators giving him the impression that he was an assassin. Skull, to be exact. The black robed wizard produced a handful of green herbs and a flask green potion, measuring the suitable amount of green herbs needed to be mixed together with the potion. He once learned from herbology books that concocting a certain amount of herb with a potion of similar medical purposes could double the effect.

He uncorked the green potion flask, dumping half of the green herbs he took out into the potion. He inserted the cork and shook it gently, the new mixture bubbling up to the brim. Uncorking the flask again, he was satisfied that it did not overflow, an indication that he mixed in the right amount.

He worked his potion on the extremely pale assassin, the blood tainted from the fatal poison. Sagi knew this potion would only keep Skull alive temporarily; a priestess and a period of time for convalescing were necessary to completely heal his ailment. To think that you even became a wanted man, he thought.

As if on cue, two ladies, one of them a priestess, crossed the rickety east entrance and into the destroyed Geffen, their reactions similar to any other who found out about this carnage. The other was a female rogue, holding up a knife with a blade shaped like a money sign. He immediately found them to be…

No, he thought suddenly. As tempted as he was to call out for aid, the renegade wizard found himself thinking about the Overlords. And why was he actually helping Skull…

He dismissed the fleeting idea of leaving the poisoned assassin to die. Outside Prontera just this dawn, he had made his decision, made him chose his path. What did he stand to gain from killing each other? What would he get in return from listening to Tien's commands? Only one answer answered these questions, the destruction of his home. What's more, he would not be seeing Tien for a very long time. They needed to seek out the four and exploit their sinister plots, or whatever they were planning.

"Hey look! Isn't that man the baddie?"

Manald did not listen to what her rogue companion said. The silvered hair assassin dressed in pale purple attire had her leaping off the broken stairway of the entrance, running to where Sagi knelt with her gathering up the priestess dress to prevent her from tripping over. No questions had to be asked; the silver hair alone already told her that it was the person she sought.

Her joy quickly became despair when Sagi explained his condition to her, holding up the poison arrow he extracted to illustrate the seriousness of it. The wizard also instructed that she might need to expend almost all her healings abilities possible to purge the strong venom immediately, otherwise the chance to survive would be much tinier than a picky.

"Oh god! What have you done to him!?"

Sagi faced an angry Maraulea, but he kept silent. It was not wrong or unnatural that she would feel this way. He was responsible for all these troubled times after all…

"Please, Lea, I require full concentration to work my panacea. Like Sagi said he was attacked by the high officials, and the dead one there serves as evidence!" Manald declared.

"Sorry, then," the rogue said with a bitter look. "But he –"

The priestess's eyelids lowered in a glare, cutting out whatever her rogue friend intended to say. She began concentrating on the incantations of every healing spell available in her repertoire. White, curative energy formed upon each successive completion of a chant, the healing wave transferring into the assassin. Her left palm rested gently on his forehead, her right directing the flow of energy.

Skull moaned occasionally, that giving the priestess hope as he stirred slightly. His complexion was not ghostly white anymore, but still rather pale as the toxin was not entirely purged. Manald began weakening gradually, both physically and spiritually. She was not used to expending such tremendous amount of energy for healing purposes before; this was her first attempt. Determined nonetheless, Manald fought to keep the assassin alive.

-

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'When in trouble, use it.'

Sagi looked for his house desperately, the wizard leaving the three alone when Manald started her spell casting. As curious as ever, the rogue tagged behind stealthily, hoping to catch him red-handed. She wanted to find out what this cynical wizard was up to this time, so she deemed.

'You pass it by, yet it passes your eye.'

This was what his mentor told him. The same man who took him in, Blek, once told him to possess the pride of his family, a grand item kept somewhere in the house. To unlock it, he needed to understand that little riddle. But no matter how obvious it might turn out to be, his hopes of finding it were dashed when he realized that almost every residential in Geffen were destroyed.

Nevertheless, he had to try. Blek said that when he faced inexplicable dangers, it might come in useful. This period of time might just be it, since the four started overrunning cities and ruining the once peaceful world of Rune-Midgard. Sagi crossed his fingers when he came out of a back alley, an archway leading to his house. Most of the houses here were not entirely damaged, much to his surprise. It was either charred, or it had broken doors and broken windows.

It seemed like his prayers aided him, when a familiar small house at the end of a row of houses looked rather intact. It was only charred slightly with smashed windows, the furniture and everything within damaged. He broke into a brisk walk, the black robed wizard standing before a brown door. The unforgiving sun baked his skin, augmenting the heat due to the colour of his robes.

But the excitement kept everything out of his mind. He let out a long breath, the sentence ringing out in repetition in his head. 'You pass it by, yet it passes your eyes…'

He thought of things that he passed by often. If it was within his house, it should not prove too difficult to sort it out. But, what if it wasn't? Assuming the mystery to be within the house, he knew there was a thin, rectangular box hidden beneath the fireplace, magically locked. He tried various ways to unlock it, with magic or not. In the end, it proved useless. Blek assured him that the mystery is the only way to unlock it. So he had to give it up till he solved the mystery.

If its in the house, what I pass by most… wouldn't it be the entrance? he thought. He dropped to his knees, looking into loops and cracks, touching the threshold, basically everything he could see at the entrance. But, nothing happened. Maybe I should go in. The clue might be in there, he thought.

He wrapped his hands around the knob and turned it, unfortunately it won't turn. The door was probably stuck, since he did not remember it being locked in any way. He cast a few simple spells on it, thinking that he imposed a magical lock on it without knowing. Still, nothing happened. The wizard then smashed down on the golden knob in frustration with his fists, knocking the knob off. Then something gleaming was revealed in a small hole the knob covered.

He took the object in his hands, realizing it to be a key. A glowing key. So what if he had the key now? He needed to enter the house to get the case! He banged and kicked on the door, but it just would not open. It must have been wedged tightly with stones and debris.

He looked around for ways to go in as he walked around the perimeter of the house.

"Damn! Why am I so stupid," he muttered when he spotted the smashed windows. He heaved himself through the window, dropping himself clumsily onto the uneven floor awashed with debris. He kicked at a loose brick of the fireplace, and the contraption still worked despite the damage. The fireplace moved inwards deeper into the wall, revealing a black, rectangular case underneath. Sagi reached his quivering hands out, grabbing the case and laying it on his lap. The key he held shined so brightly that the outline of the key could not be seen when it neared the lock. Thrusting the key into the lock, the case opened without a noise.

The case sprang open, and what lied in was a grand looking long staff. Sagi ran his index finger along the grey shaft of the staff, silently admiring the mesmerizing shape and beauty of it. How proud was he to possess such a unbelievable item!

"The staff of soul…" he spoke out in awe. From his knowledge, only chosen and respected wizards of certain level of sorcery could wield this unpredictable staff. Unless the wielder masters the usage of it, it would be no different from a piece of useless wood.

The wizard stood up, the staff of soul in his hands still showing no portrayal of powerful magic within. He took a test swing backwards, knocking into something hard. Someone screamed behind him as he struck. The wizard readied a spell, preparing to attack the intruder who had crept up to him noiselessly. Who he saw, however, was Maraulea lying on the floor, her hands pressed against her bleeding nose. Sagi immediately swallowed back whatever spell he readied earlier.