Chapter 3
A winged shape flitted through the night, dodging through the snow-burdened branches of huge black trees, seemingly on the verge of collapsing. In this great bird of prey's claws, it gripped a fine vellum scroll with the insignia of a dark spired structure outlined in red. A scroll from the Dire. It flapped and flew doggedly through the chilling winter night, as it made its way to the Radiant fountain in the darkness of the night. Along the way, it made a few discoveries for its master. An out-of-place furious scorpion scuttling after a veritable army of greevils. Two winged figures silhouetted in the night. And a particular sodden Admiral lugging a sack of his trophies.
Karroch snorted. Shendel and Draconus just could not stay apart ever since their reunion. Very good for them that he was not one for gossip. He looked about at the fountain area of the Radiant. For this once, the Ancient conceded in not using the fountain to horrifically murder the Dire attendees, and so they gathered within the fountain area itself. Torches and lanterns were scattered throughout the area to illuminate the area for those not fortunate enough to have night vision. Nearby, the shopkeeper was discussing artifacts and gold with a bunch of hardy looking merchants, recently arrived. Some of the mages from both factions were discussing their favored spells, while Lucifer and the Alchemist was discussing the formula of turning creeps, into gold. There was mingling within the Dire and Radiant ranks, but quite little, as paranoia still ran throughout both factions. Only a few, like Rubick and Clinkz had manged to completely ignore the barriers of fraternizing. The former letting his curiosity and sociable nature overcome his admittedly none-existent xenophobia, while the other was, pun not intended, simply chill with the group gathering.
The meeting should be delayed for a bit, he thought. Some of the heroes have not yet assembled, while only a small portion of the Dire actually arrived has arrived; Crixalis seems to be making good time though, he thought as he remembered the scorpion that has been a nuisance to the Radiant ever since it had arrived from its desert. To Father Wild with giant insects, he thought. All of them are such a annoyance and seemed to favor the Dire. A tap from behind shook him out of his reverie and he turned around to find a small hooded overgrown rodent with a shovel. Meepo.
"What do you want, geomancer?" Karroch sighed in with irritation.
"Er...I was just wondering...how come you're called the Beastmaster, but you can only master two animals?" stuttered Meepo, obviously put out by having the first Radiant hero he talked to in peaceful circumstances reacting to him with a less than favorable glare. "I mean." He said hurriedly "How come you can't summon some of them Ellyphents? Or tigers? Boars and hawks seem to be a very limited menangerie for a Beastmas-"
"Sorry, sorry for Meepo's rudeness here! Please don't kill him!" shouted a recently arrived hero, very much similar to Meepo. Karroch blinked, his annoyance quickly replaced with confusion.
"Yeah yeah! If ya kill this fella here, we also die too!" grimly said another...Meepo?
"I know my boundaries guys! You don't need to babysit me like this!"
"Of course we do! You''re the most recent Meepo."
"No! I am!" argued another Meepo.
"Nuh uh. I'm pretty sure you were the second most recent one." Observed one of the Meepos. Meepoes? Meepi? Does it even matter anymore? Karroch shook his head, clearly thinking this was a hallucination. Maybe a nightmare? Hopefully, I'll soon wake up to see the Bane Elemental laughing in front of me. Although it would explain how the rodents managed to be in multiple places at once in the battlefield. Very soon now, a purple grotesque centaur will wake him up and laugh at his gullible min-"
"Unfortunately Beastmaster, you, are not in a nightmare." muttered Atropos, converging upon the spooked wild man. "Although a lot of hi-I mean their opponents seem to find me responsible every time they are of a witness to this-" Bane gestured towards the rambunctious bunch. "-event". So saying, the bane elemental floated off towards a group of keen folk.
Karroch shook himself. He had actually achieved the most pitiable of all achievements, sympathy, from the Bane Elemental. How could this day get only worse?
"I'm telling ye, because i was split later on, I get more of the knowledge you guys got!"
"I'm pretty sure it is the opposi-"
"RAMMING SPEED!" shouted a voice, piercing Karroch's veil of self-pity. He looked up to see a huge translucent ship fly through the forest outside of the fountain and crash several hundred meters away. Cries of pain and terror emanated from that position while voices raised in confusion and anger within the informal gathering of Radiant and Dire personages.
Kunkka grumbled as he dragged his sack forward to the fountain. It should have been a very easy and straightforward trip towards the fountain. It would have it, that is, if not for a mysterious river of water, cutting through the base. A mysterious river, that rose into the air and seemed to drag Kunkka to deposited him in the muck deep inside the Radiant forest. Now, he had to cross almost half an hour's worth of forest. Good thing he had set out early. Why, he thought, when I get my hands on that Morphling! He stopped. What could he do to Morphling anyways. Turn him into a torrent of water? No use. He sighed. About ten minutes later, he was startled to see Sand King crash through the underbush in front of him and rapidly scuttle towards him. He fought his instinct to turn the scorpion into mush and called out.
"Ahoy there Crixalis. What brings you out at this time, to this forest?" He asked, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
"Greevils. I had confidence in my ability to defeat them, but they had overwhelmed me instead!" grumbled the scorpion. "One of them actually breathed fire at me!"
"That...seems barely believable." Kunkka said, while frowning. "Give me am reason why I should believe you."
Sand King was about to reply but froze, looking at something behind the Admiral's back. He quickly summoned a whirlwind of sand and hid inside of it, camouflaged by the swirling sand particles. "I suggest you look behind you, Admiral. My proof is gnawing at your sack." shouted a disembodied voice from the midst of the storm.
Kunkka looked behind him, and groaned. This, was not his day at all.
Lightning and electricity cracked in the air after the Wraith King's statement towards the two Radiant travelers. Nessaj looked at the Wraith King, confused. This might spell the end of any treaty or ceasefire if one of them were to attack right now.
"Helplessness? Mortal, you do an injustice towards us! I demand that you retract your earlier statement, or else." said Zeus, livid at the Wraith King's impertinence. As if to punctuate his statement, a brilliant while bolt flew from the heavens and turned a nearby tree into smouldering ash.
"But I am also, far from mortal, thunder god." replied Ostarion calmly. "In fact, how many times have you stood above my remains, convinced of your triumph, and then I, utilizing my determination and charisma, resurrects myself right behind you?" Zeus gestured and bright tendrils of electricity extended from his palm, setting the Wraith King's ragged cape on fire. Ostarion calmly put out the fire with a quick sweep of his hand. "Enough sulking Zeus, all I asked was what you two were doing out here."
"About seven times." muttered the fallen god. "Only seven times did you resurrect like that and surprised me."
"It does not seem like my companion is in the mood for talking. In that case, i shall inform you that our mission is Radiant business and is strictly classified."
"I wonder if your mission intersects with ours." mused the Chaos Knight.
"I had thought you were omnipotent, Nessaj." asked a confused Wraith King.
"There is no such thing as omnipotence for me." replied Nessaj. "In any case, I am just at multiple places at the same time. Far from the "everywhere-at-once" that Io seems to cherish."
"Why should we tell you?" asked Zeus as he ignored the exchange between the two Dire heroes. "I don't even know why we are even talking to you!"
"We could trade information." offered Tinker. Zeus turned to glare at his companion. Tinker shrugged. "Sooner or later, they'll find out anyways."
"That..seems fair." considered Ostarion "Alright, as a gesture of our good faith, we'll share with you our quest first. We are here to silence an old scholar that the Ancient seemed to regard a threat. Why it sent us, I do not know, but I do know that it believes the brute strength we provide would be necessary."
Tinker fell down, shocked. The Thunder God gave an "I-told-you-so" look at the engineer and sheathed his fists in crackling lightning.
"Well, what a coincidence. We were just here to retrieve a certain old scholar that the Radiant Ancient believe to be important and in great danger." said Zeus, as he grinned maliciously.
The two Dire heroes straightened with shock, and glanced at each other and steeled their resolve for the approaching battle. Above them, lightning crashed and shot from the sky, combating against a thick aura of Wraith energy. Nessaj unsheathed his cudgel and gathered a large amount of chaotic energy into a ball on his right gauntlet, preparing to hurl it at one of the enemy. This, would be an interesting fight.
A/N: Please please be satisfied with this short insertion and call off the assassins. Please guys. I want to rest at night without fear of my life. I swear I'll stop begging and update regularly like a good writer. That's right...lower that flamethrower, Dotalova. Thank you for reading!
EDIT: It seems i had labelled this chapter 2. FML.