Chapter Seventeen

Zamorak isn't Evil

"It's just a bug. Jagex will fix it up soon." I pulled my gaze from the chicken to Kryarn, unbelieving his statement and his offhand manner.

"What the hell is Jagex? And it's a dead chicken, not a bug." Parrea said.

"Yes I know it's a chicken, but Jagex is the company who makes Runescape, when stuff like this goes wrong it's just a glitch... I dunno exactly, ask the barman at the Blue Moon Inn in Varrock; he knows all about it." Replied Kryarn. Nothing he had just said made any sense to me.

"Dude, there is no Jagex. The barman you talked too was probably drunk out of his mind when he invented that up. You were probably too drunk to not accept it. When something like this happens, you can't just... just sit back and wait for some imaginary company to make it all better. This is real. And that company isn't." I told him. "Anyway, Guthix made Runescape."

"I dunno, he seemed pretty sure of himself..." Kryarn said, crestfallen. "But... wait... the chicken's dead and it isn't respawning... How long's it gonna be before all the chickens run out and we don't have feathers no more? And what if it's not only chickens; what... what if it's us as well? What if we never respawn again and just... just die and...?" Kryarn's voice was steadily getting higher and higher and more hysterical as he spoke.

"It is a good thing to see that you understand fully the situation we are in." Said Adrilor.

I was speechless. This was bad... death had always been bad... always I had lost some item of value... but never this bad...

"We should rejoin the others." Suggested Adrilor.

Silently, we trudged back to the Flying Horse. Everywhere, there was people... for all of them... it was just a matter of time. Passing by the marketplace, I heard the familiar shout of "Hey! Get your hands off there!"

I couldn't help it. I looked and watched the Ardougne guard attack a persistent female thief. The thief was stronger than the guard, and in five hits the guard fell... I wanted to look away, if it was true then I wanted not to look...

The guard fell...

His body lay rigid on the hard ground.

"Hey..." I heard the surprised thief say. Going up to the guard's corpse, she removed his chainmail and his mace. I saw the surprised look of elation on her face as it dawned on her that the guards would now drop steel mace and chainmail, 100 of the time. The thief lost no time in charging another guard, bringing him down to near death in three greedy, feverish blows.

A hard, sudden breeze whipped past my face. The thief girl screamed as a rune-tipped arrow thunked into her back. She fell forward against the guard... then sideways... and lay unmoving on the cobblestones.

I turned around and looked at Parrea, who was holding her bow ready in one hand. I was both shocked and incredulous at what she had just done. She had broken the long standing, unwritten law between adventurers of peace outside the wilderness... And now, that thief girl would never move again.

"They can't just kill off the guards. We need the guards to stay alive." Said Parrea, trying to justify her actions.

"Who we need more alive?" I yelled at her. "Level 44 thief or level 20 guard?"

"Here Leeana, have some cake." The thief's friend was innocently trying to revive her. Beside me, I heard a choking sob, looking, I saw that Kryarn was crying.

"Just keep going guys..." My voice sounded tight as I spoke. I turned my back on the marketplace, and walked towards the inn.

"Leeana, wake up..." I heard clearly the plaintive voice of the thief's friend, isolated in the general noise of the city.

I walked faster.

"Hang on guys, I'll meet you at the inn... later." Kryarn's voice was shuddering as he turned and walked back towards the marketplace.

We recognized that he needed to be alone, and continued without him.

We arrived at the inn, and found it deserted, except for DarknessDie sitting in the corner and Hawkfeather pacing the floor nearby. DarknessDie looked different without his imposing robes on. He was actually pretty small; just sitting in the corner like that he looked more like a scrawny, lethargic tramp than a powerful wizard. Hawkfeather looked up as we entered, and stopped pacing.

"Do you know what happened?" Hawkfeather asked.

I replied yes, and quickly explained. At the end of my explanation about the chicken, the marketplace, Parrea, Kryarn... Hawkfeather nodded.

"We're obviously in the middle of something vast, something dangerous. We must find who or what that released this cloud, and then we must destroy them." Hawkfeather said.

"Hey..." Destroy... no wait... how could we destroy something that created a cloud like that? I wasn't being negative, only realistic. "Hawkfeather, we're six fighters, and we aren't that good either, we can't..." I trailed off, hoping that he would understand. But it was Parrea that answered.

"Zanathir look at us! The weakest one here is Kryarn, and he's almost a level 80! Just cause we're not the best doesn't meant that we're not that good." She said. "Any one of us is stronger than most of Runescape's population anyway." She finished.

"Yeah, and so was whoever created that cloud." I retaliated.

"So's a fire giant!"

Hawkfeather nodded, and I saw that it would be useless to contradict, so I kept quiet. I think I actually wanted to go, and find whoever created the cloud, if only for the sake of doing something. Just sitting back, with the fear of true death everywhere... not doing anything about it... would've been torture.

"So... has anyone figured out yet who made that cloud?" Parrea asked.

"Not yet, but we should be able to discover who it is soon." Hawkfeather answered. "Any ideas?" He asked.

Ok, who would be evil enough to...

Parrea cut across my thoughts. "Zamorak." She said firmly.

"It was not the work of Zamorak." A quiet, harsh voice said. DarknessDie spoke from the dark corner of the inn, almost unnoticed.

"How... are you sure?" Said Parrea.

DarknessDie got up, and came over to the table where we were sitting. As he moved out of the shadows, his head looked oddly detached from the rest of his body. He came closer, and we saw a black collar, branded on his skin cleanly around his neck. The ring was black, black like the shade robes, standing cleanly out from his white skin.

"This is the neck that wore the cape of Zamorak, and His symbol." DarknessDie said, in a slow, harsh voice that was not unlike Kysin's. "And this..." he continued, pulling up his right sleeve as he spoke, "...is the hand that held Zamorak's staff."

The hand was black, jet black like the ring around his neck. The arm was streaked black, cleanly marking it.

"Zamorak wouldn't do this to his servant." DarknessDie said softly.

"Here, eat this..." I offered DarknessDie a shark. He shook his head.

"We already tried food." He said.

Hawkfeather nodded. "And Zamorak doesn't have the power to replace a gift from Guthix anyway."

"And what about my amulet? It... I think it stopped the cloud from affecting me." I said. "The amulet came from the elf Lord Iowerth... could he...?" I asked.

Hawkfeather nodded. "Adrilor?"

"No. Lord Iowerth is a general, he fights with crystal, not with words." The elf said.

"Hang on..." Hawkfeather said. "There's a story held by a few scattered ghosts, it tells of an Empty Lord who was more powerful than Guthix. You've probably heard of Zaros... well, it... maybe he's back."

"Do not speak his name!" Cried Adrilor. "He is the empty lord, accursed. Long have the elves paved the way for his return... But I knew not of how soon it was to be."

"So it is Zaros?" Questioned Parrea.

"When Zamorak killed Zaros..." began Hawkfeather.

"DO NOT SPEAK HIS NAME!" Said the elf, urgently.

"...Ok, when mortal Zamorak killed the Empty Lord, most of his evil power was channeled into Zamorak. Except that Zaros was a god, and probably couldn't be killed. But to come back, he'd probably need a new form, he'd have to live inside someone, or something else living." Said Hawkfeather.

"Hey, It probably was Zaros, because... oh leave it Adrilor, because that's why Kysin isn't here anymore, Kysin worshipped Zaros and now Zaros has taken him somewhere..." I said.

A few minutes later, we had arrived at much the same conclusion that Rorthan had at the noob's council. Except we knew that it was the Staff of Armadyl that had killed Zaros first, and it was likely the only weapon that could kill him again.

Our discussions were interrupted by Kryarn's arrival. He was accompanied by dead Leeana's friend, the girl in the marketplace.

"Hey, guys. What'd I miss?" Kryarn said.

"The god Zaros has returned, he created the cloud and we're going to destroy him." Summarized Hawkfeather. "Who's this?" Hawkfeather asked Kryarn, but it was the girl that answered.

"My name's Nakama and he," she gestured to Kryarn, "said I could join you." She said.

Inwardly, I groaned. Kryarn's open friendly nature had stretched too far this time. We were about to embark on a dangerous journey to destroy the greatest power since Guthix... And now we had an inexperienced girl... with fluro green hair. Knowing Kryarn, he wouldn't accept the fact that he couldn't help her easily. I looked around me. Hawkfeather was staring at Kryarn with wide open eyes, like he was trying to say something important without using words. Parrea wasn't looking at anyone; she was staring at the floor... probably remembering that it was her fault Nakama's friend was dead. Only DarknessDie remained impassive.

But then... I had a friend once... only level 14 combat, but could cast blast spells better than I could. And Parrea... best archer I'd ever seen, and four combat levels me... Still they were rare, but maybe this could be lucky...

"Hey Nakama, what's you're best skill?" I asked her.

"Mining." She answered. "I've been able to mine adamant since last Friday."

"No, I mean combat-wise. Are you a good mage or ranger or something?" I said.

She shook her head. "I don't kill, when I can help it. I killed enough to get me to a safe level, and now I don't need to kill anymore."

Great. Just... just... shit. This girl was a very inexperienced fighter (compared to the rest of us), and on top of that, she didn't want to fight. Seriously Kryarn had taken his compassion to far this time...

"Guys, it's been a long day. Let's just relax out the rest of the day, and try and conquer Zaros tomorrow." Offered Hawkfeather. His words reminded me of how tired I was.

"I should have some sleeping bags in my account." Said DarknessDie.

"You shouldn't; sleeping bags died out almost a year ago." Said Kryarn.

"I'll go check." Said DarknessDie, walking out the door. As he passed me, I noticed a red shard, a fragment of his shattered staff, clutched in his good left hand.