A horribly bright flash of light had awoken Emrys from the peaceful slumber he was in the middle of, his eyes shooting open as he noticed the ground below him was some distance away. Reaching for his staff, his hope, he realized that it had to of gone missing at some point of time. No! The mage flailed his arms and legs around like a madman as the ground quickly approached him, opening his mouth in an incredibly loud scream that would be heard all across the land.
As he came into contact with the ground, he was blessed to land in a rather bushy bush which broke some of his fall, but also dug through his dark robes and into his skin as he slowly sunk into it like quicksand. 'Ugh...Thank the gods!' He smiled happily upon seeing his aged staff laying across from him, climbing out of the bush to re-equip it.
There was another bush nearby that suddenly caught the mage's eye, 'Did that bush...move'? He took notice that he was in some type of forest, somewhere, while remaining in a staring contest with the bush that recently caught his attention. 'Nah..' Reality loved to prove the young wizard wrong, as a living bundle of wood jumped out of the seemingly innocent bush with a snarl. This is a threat. Battle mode commenced.
Emrys took a step back as the timberwolf starting closing the distance between them, quickly swinging his staff over his head to gain momentum until it come into contact with the beast's muzzle, a sickening crack echoing throughout the dark forest. The animated wolf skidded a couple inches on the ground, its eyes closed as it lay on its side.
The young magician let out a small sigh of relief as he looked down upon the fallen timberwolf and around his surroundings, 'There must be a pact of these bastards somewhere around here...I should leave before they find their dead comrade..' He turned around to search for an exit of some sort around all of the nearly-identical trees, noticing a rather large gap between two bigger trees that seemed to be a dirt path, Emrys made his way over to the spot and started his journey out of the Everfree Forest.
Having forgotten all about the timberwolf he had thought to struck down victoriously, its eyes sparked open with re-animated life glowing brightly. One thought had been embedded permanently into its mind...'Kill the prey..'
'Spooky looking trees? Living, blood-thirsty pieces of wood? ...' His train of thought kept him busy, his eyes roaming over every detail of the forest he could pick up. 'There is definitely something strange going on.. I can feel it in the air.' A small disturbance of leaves behind him caught his undivided attention completely, turning around a moment too late before he was pounced on by a revenge-fueled timberwolf and slammed to the ground.
"Oomph!" The air was forced out of Emrys's lungs from the double impact, sharp claws digging into his chest and drawing a steady amount of blood. Instinctively, before the bloodthirsty wolf could bite his face off, each of his hands gripped the ends of the staff as he crammed it up to the creatures neck.
Grunting, the young magician fought the combination of the timberwolf's brute strength and the combined pain of having claws digging into a raw wound. 'Use your power.. Your true power.' Focusing hard while maintaining a steady strength, magic surged through the veins of the mage to be re-directed into his staff.
It glowed an almost eerie red, a hot flame burning through the creature's neck until its head rolled off onto the ground with a wave of embers. "Get off." Rolling his staff aside, he pushed off the hopefully dead wolf. Standing up, laying before him was the wooden head of a once-animated timberwolf, the hint of a grin spreading across the mage's features. 'Good riddance..' Giving the head a kick, it went off somewhere deep and dark into the forest.
'And to make sure.' He grabbed his staff and brushed off his robes of the ashes, pointing the tip of the staff at the wolf's unmoving body while fueling it with power, a tiny red beam making contact with the corpse and doing absolutely nothing. 'W-what..?' Blood stained his black robes that he has had since the beginning of his training, slowly infecting the entire width of the soft fabric from his multiple puncture wounds. That was a sure bad sign. 'I am loosing my blood too quickly.' He thought.
Emrys was weak, and he knew it. He probably had very little spare time before he completely lost his fight with consciousness, hence, he turned around from the scene and started a full-out sprint to get out of the hell-ridden forest.
His eyes remained glued to the ground as to avoid every obstacle that happened to be blocking his path, swiftly jumping over a root every now and then while changing his position to dodge yet another tree. Pure adrenaline pumped throughout every inch of the magician's body as he ran, surely it was the only thing that was currently keeping him from fainting straight up.
The moment Emrys could feel the light emanating from Princess Luna's beautiful moon, it felt as if the very last of power he had was drained from him along with his andrenaline, stars quickly swarmed his vision. Not the stars you would look up and see in the night sky, but the stars that tell you that you're officially about to be knocked out. One thought had remained in the wizard's mind as he neared the exit of the forest, finally falling to his knees before he could make it to victory. 'Where am I?' He lost the grip on his beloved staff as it fell beside him with a thud, soon joining it afterwards..
“Ugh..” The magician slowly opened his eyes, rubbing his head in pain as the world around him took hold.
He felt the soft grass underneath his dark robe, the new light provided by the early sunset was enough to see his environment clearly. Emrys made it just to the edge of the forest, which explains why he had remained undisturbed for the remainder of the night.
Emrys stood up and placed both hands upon his chest, sure enough, the wounds from the wolf fight last night had healed up while he slept. The magic energy within the body remarkably hastens the process of cellular restoration, and the more honed one’s control of this energy is, the better this and other skills will work.
Bending down, the mage picked up his precious staff and studied it. His master had passed it down to him moments before he died. The staff has a long, pole-like structure with designs going up through it, the tip of it looking sort of like a mace head wrapping around a blue spherical gem. It’s extremely light for its size.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a207/AkashaSuki/Other%20Stuff/Staff_of_the_ArchMage.jpg)
He gripped the staff tightly in his hand, “Alright... time to find out what the hell is actually going on.” The mage spoke out loud to himself before making his way towards what appeared to be some type of human settlement.
-2 Hours Before-
*WoOoOoOo*
In the latest hours of the night, a sharp humming noise was heard throughout every corner of Equestria.
Twilight Sparkle tossed and turned violently in her bed, her eyes clenched shut tightly as cold sweat encompassed her entire body. She woke in a startle, her eyes opening quickly as she attempted to quell her erratic breathing. “W-what *breathe* was..*breathe* that…?” She quivered, feeling an intense feeling of dread encompass her body as she wondered the possibilities. ‘Could it be something in my room?’
The purple unicorn quickly surveyed all around her room, and nothing in sight would be causing such a dreadful noise. ‘Okay.. I know I’m not crazy.’ Twilight quickly hopped out of the comfort of her bed and down the stairs, her horn glowing brightly as she used her magic to unlock and open the front door before trotting into the dark and chilly night. ‘Doing this is probably a bad idea… but I have to know what caused that sound!’ She spoke in her head before beginning her search, heading toward the Everfree Forest knowing well that sunrise would be soon.
Emrys began to approach a cabin mostly hidden by berry shrubs and tall trees, only visible through small cracks of light shining on the logs which made up the makeshift house. ‘This is quite interesting.. It’s almost as if they made the house to be intentionally disguised by the foliage.’ Curiously, he approached closer to the cabin which now appeared to have vines running up and down the sides of it, making it even harder to spot.
The mage slided his body through the two trees, his robes brushing against them as he could now make out the entire house, crouching as he noticed a visible blue light through one of the windows. ‘It looks like it’s still inhabited. I’ll just knock, what’s the worst that could happen?’
Emrys stood from his crouching position and went to knock on the door three times, waiting for a response. After about 10 seconds, he went to knock on the door again, this time harder and with 5 knocks instead. “Hello? Anyone home?” He called out loud.
‘Hmm.. I know I see a light in there, they probably just don’t want to be bothered this early.’ In fact, now that he thought about it, it was quite rude to slam on someone’s door this early in the morning. But, there was light in the cabin. Curiosity had won, and the magician slowly creeped his way to one of the windows, peering in.
The blue light appeared to be some type of energy that was floating mid-air above the floor inside one of the corner rooms of the cabin, but being a large cabin it was still hard to make much of anything out. Emrys didn’t see anyone in the house, and most of it was completely pitch dark. Assuming it was empty, he went back up to the front door.
‘Now this is getting strange… I’m think I’m going to have to check this out. I just don’t know if I should even be meddling in such matters here in the first place, I don’t even know where the hell I’m at for fuck sakes.’ Going against his better judgement, Emrys turned the old doorknob of the wooden cabin, the door opening with a horrible and chilling creaking sound. 'What the hell am I getting into..’
To be continued...
Author's Note
Sorry for the long hiatus, but I'm back! Thanks for still reading my story.
