Project 3 – Continuations – Part Two
The proud Healer glided through the streets barely noticing the people who shied away from him in reverence. He didn’t care for these lowly creatures who lived in this city, they weren’t even humans in his eyes. The Midtown City was mostly filled with Citizens of the Empire and nobody worth paying attention to. They however would pay great attention to him which was the purpose of his visit.
His comrades in Hospita would soon hear of his visit here and wonder what business we had this far away from Hospita and the Imperial Cities. That would throw most of them off his trail long enough for him to be able to achieve his goals. He turned around the corner of a street and instantly he inverted his Aruhun and let out an explosive burst of his Ki from his body and stopped. He stood extremely still for a moment calmly gazing down the street waiting.
After a while he decided that people couldn’t see him and that his Strike had worked. He smiled to himself and turned about and walked the same way back towards one of the bridges out of the city. People were no longer looking at him but still they walked around him and gave him a pocket of space. It was a neat trick even though it required quite a lot of him. When he was out of the city he walked some distance between the farmsteads and finally turned up to one of the farms where he went into a shed. There he released his Ki and felt how his Aruhun twisted back into place. He let out a long breath and swayed before he fell limp to the floor.
He could have used his Bluestone to help him, but that could have drawn unexpected notice from people so he had chosen not to. He rested for an hour or two in the shed before he changed his garments and drank from a silver bottle filled with a strong smelling substance. He took two big gulps before he put the bottle away and let out a groan from the strong substance. He took dirt from the floor and rubbed it in his face and then he opened the door and went outside.
One of the farms workers saw him and looked at him confused and then started walking towards him with an apprehending frown. Before the farmhand reached him however the Healer had gathered all the Ki he could muster and activated the Bluestone. Before he released his Ki he looked the farmhand straight in the eye and shot him the most powerful Stare he could which knocked him off his feet. Before the body had fallen to the ground he released his Ki and shot up into the air as an arrow followed by a blue streak of light which was only visible for a heartbeat.
When he had reached a good altitude he turned and started to fly towards the Keep of the Demon Hunters. He could feel the Bluestone’s cold fire against his chest under his warm attire as he flew with an incredible speed eastwards towards the Keep in Azillroth, on the opposite side of the country. By boat the journey would have at least taken two or three months but with the means of Light Flying he would most likely be able to reach the Keep by nightfall, at least with the Bluestone. He could have done it without the Bluestone, but then it would have taken him at least three days, maybe more.
When he thought of it, it was strange how he had been able to get a Bluestone like that. Ha had been travelling around, a few weeks back trying to confuse those who wanted to get an eye on him when he had come upon a strange group of elves. One of them had been wounded and lying against a tree while the other two were crouching before him singing for him in their language with soft low comforting voices when he had happen to come into the glade. The two healthy elves had first been trying to force him to leave the glade, but when he had healed their brother they had thanked him instead given him directions so he would find his way through the confusing jungle.
One morning though he came to a river where a strange man with golden hair and golden eyes had been standing in the middle of the river practicing his strength walking up-river. He had called to him and he had slipped and so the Healer had been forced to save him. When he had done so he had discovered that the man in fact weren’t an immortal or even celestial which he originally had assumed when he had seen the mans peculiar appearance.
The man however had thanked him for saving him and gave him and had brought forth the Bluestone from his bags and told a long tale about his struggles to become an immortal and how his grandfather had given him the stone to save his life and he had promised him that the stone would save his life one day. The man had been certain that his grandfather had spoken of this event and therefore given the Healer the stone.
The Healer smiled to himself, it seemed as if Gorendez Luck was with him in this if not one of the Great Gods had been behind that event. Or maybe he was Starcrossed? He quickly discarded the thought with a smile. If he had been a Starcrossed he wouldn’t be here. No, it must simply be the Blessing of Gorendez at work. Even though he’d never seen it this powerful and extensive before.
He glanced down at the white clouds as he passed over them. The landscape was beautiful from here even though he couldn’t see much due to his speed. Nobody that wasn’t flying should be able to see him and if they would, they wouldn’t be able to recognize him with mud in his face, his heavy winter attire and glasses. It was cold at this height and unlike the blasphemous mages flying abilities Light Flying didn’t warm the air around him. He had to be dressed in many layers of thick clothes and even that wasn’t enough. That was why he had taken some Fire Water before to minimize the freezing damage to his body. He couldn’t feel much of his limbs thanks to that and his body wouldn’t take as much damage either.
Then suddenly up from the clouds from in the northeast came a big flying beast, an Aerophant. It ascended swiftly in the air as he passed it. His mind raced, hopefully it was just one of the Imperials transporting soldiers or goods somewhere but he didn’t think so. He couldn’t turn his head so instead he waited for something to happen. As expected, just a few moments after he had passed it he felt a strong gust of wind blow over him as the Aerophant flew over him almost hitting him with one of its eight wings. The massive beast turned in front of him and started to circle him. Even with Light Flying he wouldn’t be able to outrun the beast. Not unless he killed it or its riders. It would be much easier to kill its riders than trying to take down the massive beast.
He didn’t know who had sent the Aerophant or why, it could just be something as easy as a coincidence and curiosity from one of the Imperial Family but he couldn’t stop and answer questions now. He only had one alternative; to ground the beast in any way possible. So he turned in the air in a wide arc in the opposite direction of the Aerophant’s direction and quickly used his advantage over the Aerophant, agility. He shoot with speed towards the back of the Aerophant where the riders would be preparing Lightning Edges of Ki in both his hands.
He landed on the back of the beast and dragged his Aruhun over the beasts Aruhun to move forward in quick flashes to reach the Riders before they had time to react. The beast had five riders, tightly strapped into their saddles behind the Aerophant’s neck and they didn’t have time to loosen their straps before the Healer had passed them and decapitated the wingmen and pierced the Captain’s heart. Before any of the heads had even fallen of their shoulders he threw himself into the air and flew away with even greater speed than before. As he flew away he prayed for the souls of the fallen and asked for the Emperor’s Forgiveness. But his orders had been clear, he were to get the artefact from the Demon Hunters as quickly as humanly possible, no matter the costs.
He continued flying through the sky as an human arrow towards its goal.
So, back to Aguin, and this time we get to know that the character we are following here is a healer and we get to see some more of his personality. He also seems to be a very skilled Ki-striker being able to do invisibilty(?) and fly, guess he is really something.
About the man he meets at the river though, dunno he just felt familiar, golden hair and golden eyes is pretty unusual I guess? or maybe its a common feat in Aguin. Somehow it felt like someone we have seen, but then again maybe not.
The Aerophant sounds like an interesting creature, didnt know Aguin possessed such things, sounds like a pretty monstrous creature.
The story in itself is pretty straight forward and gives some small hints here and there, but I think the next part with this healer will be more interesting. Atleast now we have some insight of where and what he is after, and that nothing is allowed to slow him down.
– Guessing its a small typo here “Ha” should be “He” I suppose.
– Dont know but this sentence sounds very weird at the part where he thanks him for rescuing him. Too many and, maybe you should try to re-formulate this sentence. “The man however had thanked him by handing over a bluestone from his bags while telling him about his long struggles…etc.” just an example, not my area of expertise, just trying to give some insight though.
Well well, nice story and keep it up.
Try either “and waiting”, or “He stood extremely still for a moment, calmly gazing down the street, waiting.”
So, what is a bluestone? Some form of Ki amplifier i suppose?
You are not looking for the word “apprehensive”, which means something completely different?
I guess the first word should be “He.” The comma is also misplaced, shouldn’t it read “He had been travelling around a few weeks back, trying to confuse those who wanted to get an eye on him […]”. Since “a few weeks back” refers to the travelling part, not the trying to confuse part.
Should be “happened”. Also, the sentence feel a bit long here. Try splitting it in two so it becomes something like “One of them had been wounded and lying against a tree while the other two were crouching before him singing for him in their language. He had heard the soft low comforting voices when he had happened to come into the glade.”
Try inserting an “and” so it reads “[…] they had thanked him and instead given […]”.
Need some correction since you forgot to remove some words.
Try to rephrase this so that you don’t have “save his life” twice. Also, try splitting this sentence it is quite long and contains a bit too many layers of information.
Also, the reasoning seem a bit strange here. Why go all the way back to the elves? I can understand that he might think that the elves led him to the golden man, but if so why not mention it in the text somehow?
Good way of bringing us back to present time.
And the distance involved… Or does that only apply to mere mortals?
Wrong tense, should be “shot”. You also need a comma after “where the riders would be”. Otherwise it is a bit ambiguous, without a bit of reasoning it sounds like the soldiers are preparing the Lightning Edges, but they are preparing them in the Healers hands. And also, I just came to think of it, good that you started calling him the Healer since that is like a name.
“off”
I think you should consider a bit more where you use capital letters. They are used for names and, in english, optionally in titles. I think you use them a bit too much, for example, an aerophant is a beast. Therefore it should not have a capital letter. And why should Lightning Edges have capital letters? And also “Riders”? When it comes to the “Demon Hunters” it is okay, if you really want to point out that it is like a name for an organization. But when it comes to the “Riders”, yeah, it could be a short for “Aerophant Riders”. But it feels a bit unnecessary in this context, since they are also riders, just like horse riders. Therefore when you write about how they are decapitated, I think they should be ordinary riders. As in the noun. This comes up pretty much everywhere in the text.
Also, I like the ending. Your references to his flying ability while bringing the story forward gives it a nice twist.
Oh, and by the way. This was written while I read the story, before I read PB’s comment, so it does repeat some things he already stated.
Othrewise, nice continuation. Though it feels like this story will end very suddenly if it is only supposed to be one last part for each of the characters (except the one that hasn’t had it’s second one yet). It still feels like we are in the beginning. Both of these guys we have heard about now are about to look for some object, in different mountain ranges. I guess the third guy, our mage, is going looking for something in the mountains between Meno and Katia. Can’t remember the name right now though.
So, are these guys not going to meet at all in this series, are we going to skip the collection part, or are they going to be mystically transported to the same place? Yeah right…
Something like that, yes. It’s a rare artefact to enhance your Ki in many ways. In this way it magnifies his endurance and speed of his flying.
The story ended quickly yes. But each story is more meant to catch ‘key-parts’ of their stories in a whole. In the beginning I had the idea that it would only be one encounter in each story even though it hasn’t really gone as planned. The mountain range you speak of is Kathir. But then again there aren’t the only three demonic mountain ranges on Yurin. We have Dumas and Farun too, remember?
RAFO – I just love it when I can give that answer!
Heh, I forgot to answer on more things in your comment. First; yes I do use capitals too much I know this. But I’m trying to find a good balance in when and where to use it. Keep mentioning it so I can get a better feel of it. I’m still not completely sure when to use it in stories or not.
The other inputs are well noted as well. Thank you for your feedback. I will get to the next and last part of Continuations soon, maybe tonight or tomorrow.
Yup, I remember. But in the other cases it was a mountain range that was around the country, Kathir was the closest I could come up with for him.
Just wanted to tell you that the third part is almost done. The reason it hasn’t been posted is because I’ve been occupied with other business lately and have had too much to do. Hopefully I will finish the last things tomorrow and post in on the 7th of March.
7th? That was like a week ago. 17th?
No the 7th. That day is currently vacant and I’m going to put the next part on that day. I’ve been saving that day for this but I wanted your reply before I started writing the third part.