Do You Believe in Magic?
Suddenly all the music in the forest stopped as he heard the sound of an ocarina being played.
F A B, F A B, F A B E D, B C B G E…
The music continued as abruptly as it stopped.
[Tambourine: *Chit-ch-ch-chit-ch-ch-chit-chit*]
This time, the English horns’ rhythm was accompanied by what seemed like all the Skull Kids in the entire forest playing melody on their flutes… playing the melody he had just heard on an ocarina.
<That’s it! How could I have not seen it? The song had no melody!>
As if by magic, he could now determine the direction from where the music was coming. He ran.
He reached the tunnel that the boy had been blocking, but this time, he was sitting off to the side, deep in thought, as if he had just seen a ghost from his past. With the boy distracted, he bolted past, utterly ignored by the adolescent guardian. He hurriedly followed the sounds of the forest orchestra.
He entered a new area, a stone grotto. There were less trees here, and the sky was visible. He stood in a small courtyard with an iron gate set in a stone wall in front of him. He stepped forward and a wolf melted up from the ground, howling at the sky. It set its beastly eyes on him and began circling.
He gripped his war hammer and swung downward with a mighty blow. As it came down, the wolf-beast covered its face with its forepaws.
TINK!
It was certainly not what Srellen was expecting. He had anticipated an evasion, not a block. And he was definitely surprised at the stone-on-metal clank that resounded as his weapon ricocheted back off the creature’s paws. It leapt at him with canine agility and raked a claw across his face, leaving three gashes. He stumbled back.
“{Flame Saber}!” His hammer began to glow a fiery orange color. With the next claw swipe, Srellen swayed back out of the way. The centrifugal force of the whiffed attack caused the wolf to spin around as it landed. He seized the opportunity and slammed the hammer into the canine’s aft. Upon collision, the dog burst into flames and flipped forward onto its back, where it uttered its death cry while burning to cinders. The iron gate sunk into the ground, opening the path to advance.
He held his left hand up to the scratches on his face.
“{Minor Heal}” He wasn’t a full-fledged healer, but he knew a few of the less advanced healing spells. Nothing that could save him in a real fight, though. The wounds on his cheek shrank and sealed up.
He continued on into the hallway beyond the gate when he was ambushed by a huge brown giant charging at him with a spear. It was even larger than he was, almost eight feet tall. He barely had enough time to twist his body away from the spear head, but the charging creature’s body plowed into him, lifting him clear off his feet and carrying him across the corridor. It stopped suddenly and Srellen flew off, splashing into a pool of water. His feet found the bottom and he stood up, head and shoulders above the surface. The Moblin stood at the water’s edge, wondering if he could poke Srellen with his spear from his current position. After concluding that Srellen was out of its reach, it turned and walked away, watching him out of the corner of its eye.
It was a large, hideous creature with brown skin and a wrinkled, dog-like face with two large teeth poking out of its mouth from its lower jaw. It had beady red eyes and wore spiked shoulder pads on its huge bulbous shoulders. Dark brown cloth gloves and boots adorned its hands and feet. It looked almost like it had round limbs because its muscles seemed to be too large for its body.
There was one thing Srellen could determine from the encounter, though:
<These creatures must hate water if it gave up so easily…>
He climbed out of the water and stood up. The giant spun back around towards him and prepared to charge. Srellen held out his left hand, palm facing the monster.
“{Mana Blast}!” A bolt of mana-powered electricity arced from his hand to the creature’s heart, throwing it on to its back, as it ignited with green fire and disintegrated. Continuing through the stony maze, in the distance he heard a melody being plucked on a harp…
D4 D5 B5, A5 B5 A5…
It was echoed, this time on a familiar ocarina:
D4 D5 B5, A5 B5 A5…
<There must be people beyond this maze!> He began jogging through the twisty hallways, leaping over puddles of water. He came to another bush creature, this one with autumn-red leaves. It turned at him and scowled. He stopped and assumed a defensive stance.
<This one’s eyes are different…>
Without warning, the Mad Scrub rocketed the largest nut Srellen had ever seen from its snout. It was larger than a coconut and shaped like a hickory nut. It bashed into his face and he reeled back in pain, holding his forehead where a bruise was forming.
“Clever, shrub, but that trick will only fool me once!”
He ran to overtake the creature, deflecting the next two nuts with the head of his hammer, but when he came near, it burrowed into a flower and under the dirt. It waited subterranean until it felt the vibration of the intruder walking away from his flower. It resurfaced to find that Srellen was only a few steps away—much closer than it had thought. He had tricked it, and it was too late.
“Peek-a-boo.”
He swung his fire-powered hammer like a golf club into the Mad Scrub, launching it through the air and incinerating it.
Reaching the end of the maze, he walked up a staircase to a long hall lined with a wall of trees. The ground here was all ripped up like someone had been digging trenches. As he walked down the hall, the glow of his hammer faded, and the effects of {Flame Saber} wore off.
At the end of the hall, he found the body of a massive giant, fully ten feet tall, that resembled a larger version of the guardians in the maze. It was covered in sword wounds. He walked up the next few steps into a large grove with stone walls rising high around it. There was a huge, hexagonal stone riser on the ground with an emblem etched on it, beyond which was an old temple. He barely caught a glimpse of a man in green clothing flying up to the second-story window of the temple, pulled through the air by a chain. He disappeared into the window.
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Luigiman was all but lost in the strange forest, ready to transform into a Stalfos in a moment’s notice, when he suddenly heard the melody of Saria’s Song being played on flutes in the distance…
F A B, F A B,
F A B E D,
B C B G E…
D E G E…
He could suddenly tell the direction of the music. He followed it, and the path became known to him. He could tell where to turn…
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Srellen had traveled through many lands, taking on the teachings of the world’s greatest wizards, sorcerers and magicians, learning every spell he could, but he wasn’t finished.
<Surely there is something that this “Sage of the Forest Temple” could teach me…> he thought.
But he was disappointed to find the Forest Temple in ruins. It looked as if it had been abandoned for decades. There was a large tree and many vines growing at the front door of the temple, and looked as though no one could have or did darken its doors for years. He cared nothing of some vandal in green sneaking into the upper window. All he could think of was that the sage had finally died and the temple with him.
“
NO!” he cried.
He ran to the barricaded wooden door and rapped on it with his large knuckles, which inevitably went unanswered. He began vehemently striking the tree and the front door with his massive hammer. To an onlooker, it may seem like a simple act of rage, but he was actually channeling his anger into completing a task he thought necessary: Clearing the doorway. But it was no use. The tree didn’t budge and the front of the temple merely crumbled, blockading rather than clearing the path.
When it became obvious his attempts were futile, he stopped and backed off. His countenance fell. He felt derelict... alone...
But he was not alone, as two more men in green were about to appear to him shortly…
OoC: Alright guys, sorry for putting it off for so long--hopefully it was worth the wait.
Soooo, that's the scene and character development for you guys. Hopefully you have a good idea about how this Srellen guy looks, thinks, and acts.
Looking back, it seems amateurish compared to the works of Jedi Knight, Firestorm, Wyborn, and Metal Man, but oh well, I took long enough anyway...
I know you guys are wondering, so yes.
I promise I will do better on getting the battle posts to you sooner.
Let us begin
