Prince of The Abyss

Funny how much faster it was falling from grace than getting to the place. And this was true to any meaning you gave it. If you were talking about success, it was a lot harder building something from the ground up than losing to whatever reason, either from a mistake, or just people losing interest in your business.

And it was also true for his situation, which was just going down a hill. But this time it was logical; it was harder to go up than down because of gravity or whatever. Of course, this didn’t mean you would go down twice as fast as you came up; the difference wasn’t extraordinary, but most times it was visible.

Though he couldn’t say that he wouldn’t have liked the way down to last a little longer, since reaching the ground, of course, meant that he had reached the Lowlands.

He sighed, looking around, blinded by the same mist as before, as it had never left him. He was back...’ Yay...’

It was quite... maybe quieter than he had ever seen the Lowlands to be. Which was pretty weird, but he wasn’t going to go out of his way and say that something had happened, or that this part of the Lowlands was somehow different, after all, you did have to find, climb up, and cross the Highlands to get to the last part of the journey to the other part of the Lowlands, that being the climb down.

Of course, more people would be on the other side of the Lowlands. It didn’t take a genius to realize something as simple as that.

Aether picked up his compass, starting to follow its direction. He had really gotten bored with this, of the Lowlands, and just following this small compass over and over again. He really just wanted to find this thing and go back to Kael so that he could give him the damn blade already and go to the Tides. He already had everything planned, and so now he just had to find this damn thing; it was annoying just how long it was taking.

Though he had to say, he had no idea what he was going to find next. After all, with everything that he had been in with these shards, and what he had to do to get them, he really was hoping it wouldn’t be anything complicated. After all, the first needed a Will-less ready to awaken to get to it, or at least it was one of the ways, since by all he knew, there could be other ways, since there were other paths to the room the shard was in.

Then the second was when he had to go through that desert and get Lucien to give it to him by saving him from a war between their powerless army, and the army was an overstatement, since they didn’t have an army, and those damn poisonous scorpions.

The third had him having to wait for a city to fall from the sky, if he had gotten there earlier, he wouldn’t have never found it, only if he waited for it to fall, since yet again it was under the ground somewhere, well thats what he thinks, he didn’t really have an idea on where the shard had been, but most likely under the ground.

There was only one shard left, pretty convenient how it was the last part of the blade, the tip, to make so he couldn’t use the blade, since he could have used it as a dagger if he had wanted with the hilt.

Wherever this shard was, he was going to find it, no matter what. And as fast as he could... really, it felt as if he was on the last stretch of his journey in Demon of Dread, that is, if the battle of the City of the Drowned meant the end of the book, if it didn’t, he really didn’t know what to do next. But he was going to figure out something, probably.

...

...

The Lowlands had not changed; he had been an idiot for even thinking that it had changed, bandits infested this place just like they had done before, like serisously, did they like this part of Stormfell that much, so it was easy to kill people around here, but he hadn’t see that many people around, he had meet some, but most very young teens thinking they can change the world.

...Well, if he thought about it, he was also one of them, but he could actually change the world, and he will. In the near future... or at least he hopes.

He had gotten quite annoyed, but at least with so many bandits, he had the string to make two more arrows; of course, it had taken him a while to get both; after all, just the arrowhead was at least one hour.

So it had turned night quickly.

...

Suddenly, after nothing had happened for a while.

Aether noticed an older man walking through the mist. He looked like any other bandit, but at the same time, why was he in the open? Aether raised one of his brows, following the man in the shadow. Being careful not to be spotted... even though he could probably just walk and not be seen, but he wanted to make sure.

It was like a shadow following his owner... and what he was being led to, he didn’t expect: a campfire with five other men. Four of them didn’t interest him, but the last one...

It was a male, probably in his early to middle twenties. He had this ginger hair, that looked close to brown, yet that when getting close to the camp fire light up alongside his eyes. His hands also looked heavily burned, making me wonder just what the boy had done to get them. He was also wearing clothes that were not made for such a journey.

a black compression shirt and what looked to be some black jeans, definitely too big for him, with a weird design. Around behind him was also an orange jacket with a white fire design, but he had taken it off, which again made no sense. It was night, it was meant to be cold... meant, he really couldn’t know with his mantle just making every temperature the same to him.

The man he had been following walked back up to them.

”I’ve scouted the optimal and fastest path to the hideout, sir.”

The male laughed; he seemed pretty pleased, for whatever reason. Also, the fact that a bandit had called him sir couldn’t mean anything good. Something was heavily wrong here. And what was the hideout they were talking about?

”Good, with the pace we have been going, we will get to it faster than I expected. I will be sure you will get a big reward after, and recommend you to my friends for business.”

The man’s cheeks turned red before he bowed.

”T-thank you so much, sir, we just tried out best nothing special, after all, we didn’t want to disappoint the Master of the fire, Will.”

...

...

’Master... of the fire Will? What is this guy doing here... could he be after? Damn it, but why? If he wanted to get the rapier shard, why did he leave one in the open to get it didn’t make sense... or did he know that the first had been taken? Did this guy have some sort of plan in mind, relating to giving birth to a powerful Will user?”

It was a good thing he had left Kade behind; if this guy really wanted something from him, then he wanted the boy as far away from him.

The man chuckled again, gesturing for the man to lift his head. ”And you definitely didn’t. It’s been almost two weeks since I sent you into the Lowlands to find this shard, and you have already found it, something hidden for years that is older than families or civilizations. I guess it was the right idea to give a message to all bandits that if they find it, there will be a reward.

I hope you have been keeping good care of it at the hideout.”

...

That was all Aether had needed to hear before he quickly started running.

He needed to get to the shard now, before they did. Whatever reason this guy had to want it, if his theory was correct or not, he couldn’t let him get it before he did. How he was going to take it from the hideout of bandits, he didn’t know. After all, he will either have to force his way inside or get there through stealth.

The bandits were the strongest, but at the same time, who knew how many were there?

He was not going to fail Kael, not now after everything he had done.

And more importantly, he will not lose to him, after all, Kael had his hands burned to the point he couldn’t hold the blade.

By fire.

The same fire that guy and other fire Will users used.