The Crown of Humatora

This Beginning (part 1)

“She’s around here! Find her!”

A voice of a man, echoing throughout the dark forest, almost a dozen of people with a dark hoodie, scattered around the forest, searching for something, or someone. One woman, stands out from the rest of them, a woman wearing a crimson hoodie, looking around desperately, a man approaching her, a man with a ghastly wound on his face, he speaks frankly at the woman.

“Ballad, I don’t think she’s around here, anymore?”

“No, Alto! I can sense her. She’s here without her flesh companions, I am sure of it.”

Alto, the man with the ghastly wound, grabs her arms and whispers at her. “You should stop, Ballad, enough, you’re obsessed!”

“Shut up! Yes, I am obsessed! They trick us! Her and that three flesh companions of her!”

Before an argument ensued between them, another man approached, this time full of enthusiasm.

“Lady Ballad, I found something!”

“What? Something?! I want Sabine, that werewolf b*tch, you fool!” Ballad, conjure a flame from her hand, almost fried the man with the fire, but Alto prevent her.

“Ballad! Calm down!” Says Alto, he turns around and then asks the man, who’s now cowering in fear. “Not to worry, soldier, now speak, what kind of thing that you found?”

“Uhm… yes, sir, I found it around there.” He pointed to an enormous tree with a hollow trunk.

Together they reach the tree and the soldier reaches out inside the hollow trunk and retrieves a pendulum earring, a bloody pendulum earring.

“Sh*t! Ballad, that’s…”

“Yes, the seeker item that I have put on her ear, she figures it out.”

“For hell! She could be anywhere by now.”

Ballad gave out a long sigh and destroy the pendulum earring with her magic. “Call everyone, let us go back to the palace!”

Alto shouts an order to his subordinate, they all return to the palace, but not before Ballad conjures a spell into the surrounding area, Alto asks her.

“What did you do?”

“Just a parting gift for our cunning werewolf.” She smiles and rides her salamander, while Alto spread his wing.

“I still got goosebumps when I see you with those wings.”

Alto smile naughtily at her. “See you in the palace.”

He then flies away into the red night, while Ballad steers her salamander with the company of the soldiers. Balck miasma appear not long after, a shadow rabbit got caught on it and begin to spasm, and puking blood, black miasma is full of poisonous smoke and every living thing in the area die down immediately. Meanwhile, a white wolf, staring at them from the upper hill, even though her color is strikingly visible, a large force field surrounding the white wolf, protecting it from black miasma.

Nearby City

Two men are sitting inside a small drinking shop, their expression is gloomy.

“This is not going to work, I am so worried right now.”

“Relax, Rafe, she’s tough, Sabine is going to be alright.”

Rafe, the man with blonde hair, biting his nails nervously, makes the other man, look so annoyed by it. “Would you stop that?! I hate it when you do that!”

“Sorry Rylan, you know me, I just worry about her well-being right now.”

“I told you, you shouldn’t be, Riftan and Neeta were accompanying her, and you know that Neeta is an excellent Hamiyancer, right?”

“Right, the sorcerer with an ability to make a shield, super ecstatic.”

Rylan looks at him with squinting eyes. “You know, for an elven Necromancer that being born in a human realm, you’re one of the most pessimistic and less enthusiastic elven.”

“Shut up, human realm is not some paradise or a vibrant realm that you know of.”

“Really? Then my friends are wrong, underworld people always claiming about how human realm is the best realm out there, even beating the skyworld.”

“Pft... Yeah, I doubt that humanity is one of the cunning and manipulative people out there, you will see it, once we get the access to go there.”

The two of them are busy arguing about the other realm, they are not even realizing the crowded drinking shop, people are running away, panicking and shouting, Rylan and Rafe stand up from their table, they're looking into each other.

“They’re here! Better separated, I’ll see you tonight at the hideout.” Says Rylan to Rafe.

They go their separate way by blending into the crowd, Rafe running while putting on his cloak, while Rylan is running in the opposite direction, wearing a black mantle. Rylan goes through a trench when he hears a faint sound of a child screaming for help.

“Oh, For hell!”

Rylan take a turn towards the sound, trying to rescue the kid, the sound getting clearer with every step that he make, and then he saw it, the poor young boy, trap between the hedges, hiding from two hideous monsters, monsters with a body of a hound and head of a bird, they call it Qadar.

He shouts at the Qadar, to distract them away from the young boy, and when the Qadar sees him, he smirks, a red obsidian sword already at his right arm. “You guys are lucky this is not an open field, or I’ll be mangling you all in an instant!”

Rylan runs through the Qadars ready to stab one of them with his sword, while the other manages to scratch his arm, just in time, he stabs the guts of one of the monsters. Now, it’s a one on one situation, the Qadar, stop on its track, like waiting for another movement from Rylan.

“For hell, you're getting smarter and smarter, aren’t you?”

The Qadar makes a strange sound, sounds of a chuffing and purring at the same time, this is the first time Rylan has seen this kind of behavior on Qadar.

“Hey ugly, I never heard you making that kind of sound before?”

Rylan stares at the Qadar, and then checking the boy, he signals carefully to the boy to go into him. When the boy finally dares to go to him, hordes of Qadar and Assaqadar are coming into their way, Rylan picks up the young boy and runs away from the horde. He curses, and never looks at his back, he knows what’s actually happened, because the boy never stops screaming.

“Rylan!”

Rylan hear someone calling his name from the second story of a small house, it was Rafe, he waves his hand constantly and then pointing at the door, instruct him to go inside with the boy, Rylan took the chance and smashed the door open, a bunch of people than immediately close the door. Rafe conjuring a shield and summoning some dark forces, a skeleton driver, green ghouls appear from his command, obeying their Necromancer, they fought the Assaqadar and the Qadars. Rafe hurries himself to go downstairs to check on Rylan, he’s already being treated by a healer.

“Hey, are you alright?”

Ryan Smile at him. “I’m fine, just a scratch, I’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, for sure, and maybe a few bruises from almost make wreckage from a very good door? Seriously dude, you could just push the door gently, no need to smash it open?”

“You saw it?”

“I heard it, the smashing sound is so loud, the kids upstairs screaming and crying because of you, they think the ‘bad monster’ already come in and took their parents.”

“My apologies, in my defense, I brought one other kid, and he was panicking a lot.”

Rafe smirk at his partner, Sabine always knew that the three of them were totally different, sometimes they even bickered for small things, but, Sabine always know how to handle every one of them. He misses her, he wants to see her soon, wants to kiss her, to see her exquisite eyes lit and sparkle when he makes her laugh.

“Rafe!”

Rafe awakens from his imagination. “Uh… what?”

“Are you imagining about Sabine again?”

“Of course! Who else would I imagine besides her?”

Rylan is snorted and then stands up, after muttering his thanks to the healer.

“We have to go back out there. I don’t think your minions of the undead, will be able…”

Before Rylan could finish his sentence, the front door was smashed by a powerful force and came along a large red blob monster which inside of its body full of spirits, restless and hungry spirits.

“By the hell! It’s Allmaut, Everyone goes upstairs!” Rafe instructs everyone to go upstairs, while Rylan and himself are preparing to attack the hideous monster. He glances at Rylan. “Rylan, you know what I have to do, right? Please send my love to her, if I am not going to make it!”

Rylan’s eyes got larger, he wasn’t prepared for such a request from Rafe, he shouted at his partner, but before he could grab him, Rafe had already entered the body of Allmaut, preparing to vanquish it, even with the risk of losing his life.

Rylan screams in desperation, he drops to the floor, staring at the monster in front of him, praying for the safety of Rafe.