Pyroneus Dawnlight: The Gatekeeper of Worlds

Chapter One

The Adventure of the Age

Another day. Another boring day in my life. Nothing ever happens in this damn place. The days go by like snails on flypaper.

“Something needs to change, or I may just have to go and find some trouble myself.”

Dangerous thinking, but that’s what I had told myself on that day, the day when my whole world shifted. After that day, I was never the same again. I’m not entirely sure if it was a good or a bad thing…

It was like any other day; just me, alone in my ‘castle’. Being the ruler of an entire dimension is wonderful because you don’t have rules or obligations, but it gets so incredibly boring. At least I had the power to do as I pleased, as long as I was IN my dimension. But being alone always has its downs, and eventually you’ll find yourself wanting adventure, especially if you’re like me. I had started my day doing what else, working on a project. I was forging a suit of armor, because frankly it just tickled me making armor for myself when I know damn well it’s less protective than my own skin. I spend a lot of free time coming up with new designs, whether outright ridiculous or meticulously functional. Sometimes, when I was really bored, I would find a primitive society to appear in, armored and glorious, to either wreak havoc or save the day. It always depended on what was more needed.

Unfortunately, no matter what I came up with, no matter how much I hated the thought, simply smithing all day every day would just get old, and that was a moment I never wanted to face. I decided then that I would go out and search for some trouble to solve, anything to escape that thought. Little did I realise I was about to enter the most dangerous, and certainly the longest adventure I would ever know. It was also the single greatest experience of my existence.

After a brief cleaning of my workshop (tidiness, while not always necessary, is a good habit to keep for your workplace), I set out, pausing only to open a passage to a spot near my destination, a place I had sensed an imbalance. I dropped myself not far from a small blue and green planet, a fairly backwater world, unlike some other galaxies in this universe. I use the term backwater because there are worlds that are so advanced, they exist entirely on thought. This one at least had enough advances that they were very civilized (or at least, as civilized as any world where wars still existed could get), but they had not yet delved into space travel, therefore they had yet to be explored, or do any exploring themselves.

“This is utterly pointless,” I grumbled to myself as I flew near the planet, deemed ‘Earth’ by its inhabitants. “I’ll solve this in a less than an hour and be on my way back before I’ve had any real fun.”

I was heading to the planet’s satellite (their ‘Moon’) to deal with an infestation of ‘Forna Gafün’, my name (I have a language of my own, we’ll delve into it later) for a species of creatures that like to eat asteroids by digging to the center and devouring it from the inside out. Thankfully, they aren’t very fast; otherwise a group this large could have destroyed the satellite in mere seconds.

As I flew within about 300 metres of the surface, I saw the opening where the Gafün had gone in. I adjusted my flight pattern and fired a few bolts of magical fire into the pit. It seems in my boredom I had forgotten Forna Gafün were carnivorous, because a mere ten seconds after the first bolt hit, one of the damn things lunged out at me.

“WHOA!”

I narrowly avoided being hit. These were not your average Gafün, these were fast, and had sharp, talon-covered arms, something I didn’t think they were capable of having.

“Yes! This may be more interesting than I thought!”

I was actually excited for once. A quick dive roll threw me away from the creature’s next swing, but the follow-up punch nicked my tail. I guess he didn’t realise that striking something that spews white-hot flame is not something one should target. It bellowed in pain, reeling back towards the opening it had dug in an attempt to surprise me.

“OH NO. I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET!” I dove after it, encasing myself in fire should one decide to try and grab me. It also helps as a light source, since we were close to the darker part of the ‘moon’. The whole satellite was in its beginning phases, I could tell because even though it was dark where I was, I could see Earth from the surface of the Moon. Within a minute I had traversed the mile or so to the bottom, where they were still digging.

At my approach, several looked (up?) at me, evil green eyes glaring at me in the dark. One howled, alerting the rest to my presence and sending ALL of them at me. A fair amount, fifteen or so, and considering they were each six times my size, that’s a lot of mass heading towards you. Naturally, I ducked away, prepping a large wall of fire to hurl at the oncoming horde. When I had finally charged it, I threw the giant fireball and dove into the blast (may as well enjoy the heat).

What an enormous miscalculation.

While most had died right away, the sheer number of them had saved the back few from incineration. Many of these had lost their wings and were bleeding to death. I let the fires have them. The last three had only minor injuries, lucky them. I flew up, out of the pit and stopped the fire I had cast around myself, so they were unable to see me. I listened closely, waiting till I could hear them near me, then pass me, and lit the fire again. Both of them charged right at me, the ‘Earth’ behind them.

“Hmph, too easy.”

In a flash of bright red, they were nothing more than ash. I smirked; nothing could be more stupi- wait, both of them? Weren’t there three-

CRACK! With the force of a high speed meteor, the last one struck me in my spine, hurling me forward towards the planet ahead and knocking me unconscious in the process. In the last few moments I was awake, I took a bit of detail on my attacker: The very first Gafün I had fought. It turned, thinking I was dead, and flew away, probably back to its home. I could swear it was laughing. Meanwhile, I crept closer to Earth……. and drifted to sleep.