Discovery- I

Here's the first sixth of my book. Sorry for the spacing that makes it hard to read. 

Part 1- Earth

One

A Vase, a Book, and Four Weapons of Power.

The will-reading was trudging along and I was thinking, “When is this ever going to end?” It was two days after my grandfather’s funeral, and I was at the will-reading. It was Tuesday, and the funeral had been on Sunday. I don’t like Tuesdays because Tuesday is the day of the week when my parents died in a car crash. I had been living with Grandpa in the time between his funeral and crash. Grandma had died ten years ago, when I was four. The old man was what others politely referred to as “eccentric” and non politely as “crazy.” He was a collector of rare things. I loved him. He had endless weird and cool objects. In my time at the mansion (three years), I had discovered an ancient Aztec spear, a collection of bronze candelabras, a Peruvian whip (which I admit to playing with. I had actually gotten okay with it.) and a few golden, mysterious coins. Grandpa had collected them all, in his many trips around the world. There was never a dull day living in his mansion near Erie, Pennsylvania. I had taken his death pretty hard. He was the only family member who wasn’t dead that I really loved.

Suspiciously, the police had found my grandfather lying in a sewer with his throat slit and three knives in his back. No suspects were found yet, but I was pretty sure that whoever killed him was someone that he had met on his travels. He had never told me where he went on these adventures, but I had always assumed that they were crazily exciting and not in the least part safe. 

The will-reading was on the front lawn. There was a makeshift stage set up with at least twenty rows of chairs in front of it. Gathered in the seating were people I had never seen, people I vaguely recognized that had visited the mansion before, and other family members who I wished weren’t there. We just didn’t get along. We were going over my grandfather’s will when I heard my family start to be called. I started to wonder if I had been included, because I was a pretty important family member. 

“To my loving brother, I give a ceramic vase with sentimental meaning to me, and the entire family.”  Strange that it had sentimental meaning to the ENTIRE family. I had never heard of it.   

“To my cousin Jimmy, I leave a priceless book written entirely in Chinese characters.”

My fat, hillbilly relative Jimmy, who sported a short gray beard and a head devoid of any of those dead skin cells that we call “hair” rolled his eyes at this. He couldn’t read Chinese. Why did my grandfather leave him such a worthless asset? I could sense the end of  the will was nearing. The lawyer flipped to the last page. He looked at it, squinted, and took his glasses off. It didn’t change his dumbfounded expression. I wondered what was happening. He looked up at the crowd and started to speak.

“Last but not least, I leave to my grandson Nathaniel, four mythical weapons of power.” A gasp sounded from the crowd. My face turned red as a tomato. What were the four mythical weapons of power? Was it a joke? I stammered aloud, “Excuse me, what did you say?” The person reading the will looked as surprised as I was. “F-four mythical weapons of power, sir.” The crowd was murmuring with what sounded like anger and discontent, and I was thinking, “Why would he leave me this? I’ve never heard of these things! And, exactly what ARE mythical weapons of power?” Questions were piling up in my brain, too fast to make logical answers quickly for. The crowd was shooting me dirty looks, and some were outright growling at me. By now, I definitely figured that it was a joke. With the crowd riled up, the end of the funeral seemed more like a miracle. Fortunately for me, it ended right then.

The man reading the will was my grandfather’s lawyer, James. If James had a color, it would be brown. The scrawny lawyer had brown hair, brown eyes, and brown shoes. The guy was utterly boring! Dressed in a black suit, black tie, and wearing unfashionable horn-rimmed reading glasses, the man had no sense of taste. I disliked him and had no idea of why my outrageously exciting grandfather had chosen him as a lawyer. 

While I was walking up the front lawn of the mansion toward the podium, where James was standing, I managed to receive no less than one attempt to trip me, 56 muttered comments, and, well, let’s just say a lot of dirty glares. I (finally) managed to get up to where James was standing. The makeshift stage that was set up just in front of the woods (which I had ventured into many times) looked about ready to fall apart. I kind of hoped that it did. Then there couldn’t be a lawyer to play weird jokes on me and request that I receive “mythical weapons of power”. James was standing at the edge, talking to my third cousin Jimmy, who was protesting that he couldn’t read Chinese. James managed to shrug him off and turn to me. “Ah, Master Nathaniel! May I be of assistance?” I don’t know why he called me “Master” but it irritated me. Nevertheless, I chose the high road and decided to be polite.“Yes, what are the ‘mythical weapons of power’ that you described in my grandfather’s will?” 

He glanced quickly to the right, where a mob of impatient people were waiting to receive their items, bent down, and whispered, “Look, I don’t have the time to do this, kid, just be grateful your grandfather gave you anything at all, even if it is a bad present.” He stood up like he was finished talking and led to mob to where they were getting their items from the will. 

The people that received things in my grandfather’s will walked to his gigantic storage shed in the backyard, through a gate my grandfather and I had built ourselves. I had helped, a little bit, and I was kind of ticked off that James had just thrown it open and wasn’t careful with it. He either didn’t know about it or was just being rude. I suspected the second option. I took one last look at the front lawn. It was surrounded on both sides by the woods,  and at the front there was a break in the front lawn where the driveway was. Grandfather also collected cars, so I had a lot of fun sitting in the front lawn watching him show off the cars. 

The storage shed that we had traveled to was surprisingly big and clean, save a few items that my grandfather had kept in there for later times, and the items to be handed out. James started giving the correct things to people. Just as Jimmy received his worthless book, I spotted what was soon to be mine. It wasn’t impressive.

The thing leaning up against the wall was not what I expected. It was a pointed wooden stick, around four feet tall, with a large metal block attached to the non-pointed end. The four mythical weapons of power were supposedly lying in front of me. A rusty chain was attached to this stick, close to the end with the point. Just above the metal block were four metal points, and it kind of looked like a crude ninja star had been attached.

I was greatly disappointed by this, because when James had said “mythical weapons of power,”  I expected something a little more like what I had seen on T.V. This was just a funny-looking stick with a rusty chain on the end. My relatives obviously weren’t pleased with it either. They were snickering, pointing, and laughing. I suppose that they were feeling less ripped-off now. They slowly filed out of the room, until it was just me and the James left. I picked up the weapon of power (ha!), and suddenly, a hammer fell on my foot. It was a huge war hammer, with a block of metal and a handle, and on the handle was a strange, white symbol that was glowing. It was nothing like I had ever seen. The hammer seemed to have detached from the end of the stick. As soon as it landed on my foot, I was blown backwards by a huge gust of wind that seemed to emanate from the hammer. I wasn't quite expecting this at all. Why had I been blown backwards?  I slammed against the wall and slumped to the floor. 

I was holding a huge sword. The four points near the hammer had spun off of the stick and melded into the sword. On the hilt, another strange, blue glowing symbol had appeared. On the ground where I had been standing were a whip, which the rusty chain had somehow morphed into, the hammer, and a pike (basically a pointed stick used for jabbing at your enemies), which the body of the stick had become.

James surprisingly looked amused. Was he in on this? Did he know what was going on? He walked over to where I had been slowly and picked up the pike lying on the ground. “Here you are.” he said. “I thought I would actually have to face someone experienced, or even a bit older than you. Why were you chosen? You’re obviously not experienced, and you have no idea going on. This will be easy. I wasn’t expecting you,” he remarked, “but here you are.”  He raised the pike high, high above his head and started to swing downwards. I gasped. If he landed this... I was dead. 

I quickly rolled the side and the pike hit the ground with an ominous tremor. A brown symbol near the blade/point glowed brighter. People say in life/death situations you have faster reflexes and greater strength. I don’t know about the strength part, but I didn’t know I could move that fast. The earth around me suddenly started to rise because of the impact. Wait a minute. The floor rising? WHAT THE HECK? This was really, really strange. The concrete floor exploded where a giant spike of stone erupted from the earth, making concrete fly everywhere. I was hit in the chest with a stray piece of floor and was flung into a mirror, which I crashed against, but thankfully, it didn’t break. I glanced in the mirror and surveyed my cuts and bruises. 

I wasn’t too bad, but there were a few rocks in my jet-black, medium length hair. My plain black suit with crimson tie was dirty, but to heck with that. I admired myself, all five and a half feet of me, in the mirror, but then I decided this was not the time to stare at my dangerously handsome personage. Despite the perfect (well, almost perfect) teeth I possessed, and the stunning blue eyes that drew attention to my face, I kind of had to avoid being stabbed here.

I rolled to my feet and held the sword in front of me. “Who the heck are you?” “I’ll tell you just before you die.” He swung the pike at me and it hit my sword, which I had miraculously raised to block in time. The brown and blue symbols glowed brighter and brighter until a force drove us apart. Water splashed from the collision, and rocks were shot up in the air. I had to dodge a few to avoid getting hit. Unaccustomed to fighting, I was a bit hesitant to swing the sword, but hey, he was trying to kill me! I mustered a shaky wobble of the sword at him, and he jumped to the side. Then, a huge wave of water crashed into his chest and slammed him against the wall. The water had seemed to come from behind me, following the path my sword had taken. I looked back from where it had come from, but the source seemed to not exist. I knew I was on some sort of hidden camera show. This could never happen in real life. 

Just then and there I had a chance to take a look at who was trying to kill me.  His normally pleasant face was distorted with demonic rage, his once pale skin now a sickly shade of green. The pike which he was holding was normal (for a pike, which you don’t exactly see too often nowadays) except for the weirdly glowing symbol. The symbol on my sword was a curvy and blue. I started to piece together that the pike’s symbol represented earth, and mine water. James, or someone impersonating James, was crumpled on the floor, but was now getting up. I felt queasy.  This guy was trying to kill me. For realsies. I could tell that this wasn’t a stunt. No way. Something this elaborate couldn’t be fake. 

I advanced on him. He held the pike so the tip was pointing toward me.  Breathing heavily, I could tell that he was getting frustrated. “So, really, who are you?”

“Just a hired thug trying to get these weapons.” Ah. Well that explained a ton. More like brought up five more questions. I swung my sword again. A wave of water splashed and rolled toward him, but he thrust his pike straight into the ground. I didn’t know what would happen, so I leaped backwards. But instead of the attack I was expecting, a huge wall of dirt, which seemed to have grown straight out of the concrete, blocked the water. Both the water and earth dissolved into nothing. I realized that they canceled each other out- they were of equal power. “Water’s useless against earth,” I said aloud, “So why not try something else?” The whip was lying just in front of me, so I dove for it. As soon as I touched it, a red symbol illuminated on the handle. I picked up the whip with my other hand and swung with both weapons at the same time. My grandfather would have been proud with my whip skills. Apparently I was better than I thought. 

James’s eyes widened to almost comical width as large wall of water slammed into him. He blocked it, and by the time both dissolved, he was baked nice and crispy by the inferno of fire that seemed to have come from my whip. He fell forwards, slapstick comedy like, but I didn’t see anything wrong with him. Only when he was face down did I see the burn marks strewn across his back. These weapons were powerful. I didn’t know what they were, or how my grandfather got them. All I knew was that I had to be careful with these. One wrong move and I would be dead. Just like James. 

I began to realize that I had killed someone. KILLED SOMEONE. NO FRIGGIN WAY! I was going to juvie or going to be in huuuge trouble. As I stared at him, he seemed to compact. His arms shrank into his body and his torso smashed together until he was only the size of a large medal. As I watched it turned golden. Carved into it were the words were Warlock Power Association: WPA Level 2 Golem. A diamond was embedded at the center. I had no idea what just happened, but if I tuned into my fantasy side, I could figure out that I had NOT just killed a human. So I probably wouldn’t get in that much trouble. But who was he? What was the WPA? Were they trying to kill me? It was all so confusing! I sighed. “Oh, god. I can never get the hang of Tuesdays.”

I walked outside holding all four mythical weapons of power. When I touched them together, they melded to form pieces of the weird stick. Holding it in my hand, I made my way over to the library.  It seemed like a logical decision, like I could find something there that I could get help from. “The librarian likes me. I guess. Maybe. Kind of. She won’t mind if I have the “mythical weapons of power” in her library,” I thought. As I walked past, a few lingering relatives snickered at me, but I didn’t care. I was thinking about other things.

I walked into the mansion and headed to the library. I walked through the doors, and the librarian looked up and smiled. Then she noticed what I was holding. Her face turned pale. I felt faint as well, recalling the events of this afternoon. I was lying down with my head on a table when I heard a clunk in front of me. A very thick book was lying on the table next to me. The librarian, Ethel, scowled at me and said, “Your grandfather’s instructions to you. God only knows why.” She walked away slowly. I thought she had liked me. I guess not. I snickered as she opened a soap opera. She glared at me. Okay, I guess that I can see a reason that we aren’t best friends. 

Ethel had been the librarian since the beginning of time. I say that literally. She was there when I was born (which, as far I’m concerned, is the beginning of time) and hasn’t kicked the bucket yet. Her gray hair was tied up on top of her head librarian style and I couldn’t think of a librarian more stereotypical. 

I opened the book to see my grandfather’s thick, clean writing. That was kind of reassuring, but at the same time, sad. The first page read:  My dearest  Nathaniel. I know my parting has been devastating. I snickered at this then scolded myself for doing so. I trust by now you have recovered the weapons from my dearest friend James. At this I laughed out loud, and this time the librarian scolded me. Whoever James was, it wasn’t who attacked me.  It was some crazy golem working for the W.P.A.  The weapons are very powerful and should be used for good only. You may now have discovered my longtime nemesis, the WPA. They will stop at nothing to murder you and steal the weapons. Frightening, but probably true. Powerful as the weapons may be, I need you to complete a series of tasks to make them stronger. There is a castle in Africa that  you’ll have to go to to do this. It’s in Senegal, a country in Africa. You’ll have to find your own way there, but you are responsible enough, I trust. Once in  Dakar, you  must open this book for directions. Good luck.  My eyes widened and then snapped to attention on Ethel. I smiled and rubbed my hands together. 

“Ethel,” I shouted. “Get the car. I need a ride.” “Young people,” she grumbled. “Always demanding too much these days.”

Two

 Ever Been in a Plane With Crazed Zombies After You?

Ethel unhappily drove me to the Pittsburgh airport. She didn’t seem to like to go away from the mansion, but I had to get to Africa. So here she was. I flipped through the book on the way there, but all of the pages but the first one was absolutely blank. Why would he leave such a heavy volume blank? Was it magic? Why was I thinking about magic? I think I had started to assume that things were magic. Nothing like this could ever be faked. It was way too huge. Ethel didn’t bother even asking me where I was going to when I told her that I was going to the airport. She seemed to be relieved that she wouldn’t have to watch me for the next few days. “Nice job, grandad, on hiring a total slug for a librarian,” I muttered under my breath. She waved a hand dismissively at me, gesturing that it was a pretty good time to leave. I realized that we had pulled up to terminal four. After grabbing my backpack with the weapons inside, and my suitcase, I slowly went into the airport. She sped away as soon as both of my feet were out of the car. 

I had packed enough clothes for a week, and I had enough money. Grandpa had a stash of money that he had told me to use if I was ever in a financial emergency at the mansion or something weird happened. I think this qualified. There was about a thousand in cash and a credit card with two thousand on it. Whether that was enough to get me to Africa, I don’t know, but three thousand dollars is a lot of money. I was actually pretty excited to be at the airport, because there was a fighter plane show that Grandpa and I had planned to go to. There were also a few scheduled takeoffs, a flight to Morocco being one of them. I figured I could get a flight to Senegal from there. I was pretty excited about my life in general. Maybe it was because I would get to see some cool fighter planes. That, and I had four mythical weapons of power in my backpack.

I walked up to the information desk of the airport. “Hi, is there any way I can get a flight to Morocco?” She looked at me snottily. “Sir, may I please have a form of identification?” If I wanted to be insulted by obese fifty year olds working for TSA, well, let’s just say I don’t want to be insulted by anyone working for TSA. I pulled out my Student ID card from last year (it was summer now), and the lady inspected it. “It says here that you are fourteen.” 

“Yessum.” 

“We don’t necessarily PERMIT fourteen-year-olds to take flights out-of-country.”

“Ma’am, you can talk to my mother about this.” I planned to call Ethel and get her to pose as my mother.

“Fine. What her number?”

I quickly listed off Ethel's cell phone and the woman dialed. I snatched the phone from her just as Ethel picked up. “Hello?” squawked Ethel. “Hey, mom,” I said, putting extra emphasis on the mom part. She may be an old librarian, but she caught on to things pretty quick. “Some lady at the airport wants to talk to you about my flight, okay?” I quickly handed the phone to the snotty lady at the front desk and she frowned. She listened to Ethel. “And where would your child be taking a flight to, exactly?” She listened to the answer. “You don’t KNOW??? Your child will not be permitted to fly in this airport. Good-bye!” She slammed the phone down. “Look, kid, you’re not allowed to do this. Why don’t you use your money to go see the fighter pilot show? Go away and I won’t press charges!” Whoa, this lady was a little bit extreme. I slunk over to a highlighted security route that would lead me to the gates where we could see the fighter planes out the window. At least I could see the show. Oh well. 

As I walked into security (which had been specially set up for the show), I plunked my backpack of dangerous and potentially life-threatening weapons onto the scanner and took off my shoes. As I walked through the metal detector, I realized that I hadn’t thought about getting in serious trouble for trying to get weapons into the airport. After yelling “Oh, crud!” out loud and attracting strange looks, I tried to think of an idea.  The lady monitoring the scanner looked  not a day over 48 and pulling it off averagely. As soon as her sensor sensed that stick in my backpack, I pressed the medallion with the diamond into her hand. She looked as if a butterfly had regurgitated a million-dollar bill onto her forehead and rotated her hand under the table in disbelief. She gave me a sly smile and shouted to her fellow workers:  “Let’s all quit our jobs and move to Costa Rica, it’s all on me!” Her co-workers all threw their ID cards into the air and bolted for the door. Okay, I seriously doubt that that one little thing would let them ALL move to Costa Rica, but let them dream.

The people who had been going through security all stood a minute in awkward silence, and I noticed a note in her chair. “Thanks, kid.” She hadn’t been playing with her hands in disbelief, she had been writing a note! She probably figured out that I needed less security to do whatever I was going to do, so she distracted her co-workers. I scooped the note up. Meanwhile someone radioed for more personnel on the metal detectors. My backpack slid through before anyone got there. Nobody thought anything of it. The security check resumed without extra details, but the new person standing next to the metal detector looked kind of odd. The people behind them at identification check looked a little... odd. I figured it was just the way he had been born. I started to put my shoes on and slapped at the hand on my shoulder. Wait a minute. Hand on my shoulder?

The person who had attempted to grab me was a dark-skinned man with droopy eyes and a security guard's uniform on, who had been standing nearby. He moaned at me and started trying to rummage through my backpack. He knew! I snatched the bag away from him and grabbed the stick. I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed the metal block and pulled. Something lit up the inside of the bag and I pulled out the hammer! The stick fell back into the bag, sans metal block. Then I realized: the security guard must be a golem! I hefted the hammer. Even though it was a huge war hammer, it was surprisingly light. That was weird. Just a small note before inflicting massive amounts of pain to an unknown enemy. He almost had his hands around my neck. I swung the hammer into the person’s (or golem’s) skull. Direct hit. 

He was whirled backwards into metal detector. After getting up, he stalked toward me, along with two of his buddies who also appeared to be golems. The man I hit had half of his skull crushed, but appeared to be alive and kickin’. I swung again with the hammer, and the men were flung by a tempestuous wind. Suddenly, security golems were closing in from three sides. Was everybody here a golem? No, the replacement security guards were sent to kill me! My pursuers had planned in advance! I was getting a little freaked out and scared. I ran in the only direction that wasn’t blocked. Conveniently enough, it there was a bathroom there. Just kidding! It wasn’t convenient at all. I was trapped. I burst into the bathroom and locked myself into a stall. I shivered. What the heck was happening? Tears were starting to leak out of my eyes by now. Suddenly, a slam echoed through the room. The door to my stall bulged a little bit. I wiped my tears away and stood on the toilet. As I suspected, there was a huge mob of golems outside the door trying to bash it in. However, they hadn’t suspected that I would be able to jump over the top of the stall. The golems were battering the door. It was collapsing. I had to pull myself together and get with it. Now or never. I’m glad I have a survival instinct. Otherwise, I would be dead. As the door crashed inward and the golems flooded in, I leaped over the side of the stall and burst through the door. Hitting them with the hammer I pounded through the airport, with the crazed thug creatures sprinting after me. There were around twenty-five of them chasing me. I couldn’t destroy them all.  

I was running through the food court in the airport. The number of golems had obviously lessened since I ran from the bathroom. I suspected the golems were gross-looking by now, (they didn’t seem to stay human for very long). Some of them ran away to fight off police officers and get everyone else away. They must have been operating under orders. But they wouldn’t be gone for long. Citizens who didn’t run. stood around me and stared. My journey stopped when I came up to a makeshift stage, which a pilot was standing on. I was all alone. Dead end.

The pilot on the stage was jabbering on about something no one really cared about. “It’s also one of our pilot’s birthdays today! Let’s sing happy birthday! One, two three. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday...” he looked out across the audience and saw most of them were not singing. Then he realized I was trying to get away from some weird monsters and backed away.

After I frantically climbed the stage, I realized that the crowd in front of me was mostly golems and that all of the normal people were running for the hills. I was standing with my back to the window watching golems lurch toward me. I took out the sword and slammed them with a giant wave of water. No use. There were too many of them. My heart leapt into my throat and I did the only thing I could do. Golems had mounted the stage. One getting too close. I had to think fast. I used my sword to shatter the window glass and jumped through the window and onto the runway, a seven-foot drop, dragging the slightly confused but mostly terrified pilot behind me.

The golems were obviously surprised by my behavior, because some of them were still swinging fists in mid-air. I landed on the side of the runway and cried out in pain. I had a large wound on my left arm from the landing. I was all bloodied up and bruised from the window. The upcoming plane obviously didn’t see me- it was getting dark out. I was laying there like a total bozo in the path of a plane coming to smash my brains. I thought the day was bad before this!

Suddenly, I realized that the plane was one of those fighter planes. I desperately snatched out the hammer out of the bag. It seems to appear in my hand. It sent a gust of wind toward the bomber, making the plane shudder. The pilot slowed down a little bit and I dived out of the way. The pilot I had taken with me through the window had already crawled to safety. The plane landed and taxied over to me. “Get up kid!”  The speaker shouted angrily at me. I yelled back, “You gotta help me, sir!” The other pilot, who had opened the door, said, “Kid, what the heck do you think you’re doing?” The one leaning out of the doorway said, “Danny, look!” I held out a hand to him gesturing that he should take me in his plane. He saw my gesture and spit at me. I sighed and pointed behind me.  

He saw the golems crawling on all fours out of the window and lowered the staircase into his plane. The pilot and I (I guess his name was Daniel), scrambled up the steps, and right after we pulled up the stairs, slammed the door shut, and locked it so that nothing could get in. I scrambled to the cockpit and looked out the window. The golems were approaching our plane. 

“Shoot em’, Shoot em’!” I cried out from behind him. “But I don’t shoot people! And besides, this plane is a bomber!” he said. “Then open the door! For god’s sake, listen!”  He quickly realized I was right. The only way to kill them all would be to let the mythical weapons at them.

I stepped outside. Most of them were grouped near where the staircase was. I pulled out the sword and swung it. A gigantic wave of water destroyed nearly all of them. They squished together, leaving golden medallions behind. The pilots looked slightly relieved to be past the whole “crazy people trying to attack our plane” thing. After killing them all, I lowered the staircase ran outside the plane to collect the valuable metals. As I picked up the last piece of gold, I noticed that these were level 1 golems. And they were sent by the WPA. They seemed to have it out for me. I didn’t like them at ALL. I heard a roar echo from the building I exited through the window. That didn’t sound pretty. Time to run.

The plane started to taxi down the runway off, after I hurriedly climbed into it, and I stared out the window at what we had just left. A huge cross between a dragon and a rhino smashed through the remnants of the window that I had partway demolished. It spotted our plane and roared again. I told the pilot to stop. He sighed and the plane slowed, and then halted. I opened the door into empty space, then climbed down the staircase that was getting its workout for the day. A huge blast of fire stormed toward the plane, which seemed to have come from the strange creature’s mouth. I slashed with the sword (which I had magically produced by reaching into my bag and tapping the four points) producing rain that doused the fire. I drew the hammer quickly, after setting down the sword, jumped from the staircase, crouched into a ball in midair, and swirled it beneath my feet. I landed softly, on my feet, thanks to the hammer. The drino (dragon-rhino) was stalking toward me furiously. I shivered. Uh oh. It lunged at me, and I steadied the hammer for impact. I heard a machine gun (which was really weird) and the beast dropped to the ground in mid-air. The plane’s guns were smoking and I saluted the pilots. Then I took the pike and stabbed directly into the creature’s brain. (Which seemed pretty awesome, considering that I had been just a normal teenage guy about five hours earlier). I couldn’t help but feel a sense of manly joy for killing such a creature. 

I envisioned a tour guide passing a huge statue of me and saying, “Oh, Nathaniel Stone killed his first dragon rhino at the age of fourteen. We respect him for this and many other feats of courage and strength.” This was when I knew that it wasn’t an elaborate trick or a mistake- this was for real. Surprisingly, my awesome newfound combat skills didn’t scare me that much. It was like Grandfather had prepared me for this my entire life- like he had known.

The pilot walked onto the staircase and yelled, “Run. Now!” The creature behind us was spurting blood. At least I THOUGHT it was dead. Time to run. We might have a whole lot of ugly chasing after us quickly. The pilot shouted again and I hopped into his plane, slid the door closed with a slam, and slumped against the wall. “Get me to Indonesia, please.” The other pilot (Billy) glanced at me in disbelief. “Okay, that’s the last time I eat an onion-anchovy pizza before bed. See ya, punks!” He scrambled out of the door, and after it closed, we heard a scream and spotted Bill running for the hills. “Time to take off, I grimaced. “The farthest I can take you is Africa. It’s because of fuel, even though I have a full tank, and besides, why would I do that?” He was obviously as shocked as me from the experience. I ignored him and nodded. “Fly there.” He sighed, flipped a couple switches, pressed a pedal, and the plane rose into the night.

Three

Unicorns are Real and Deadly (They Fly, Too!)

We were coasting over the hills of New Jersey in about half an hour. (Which reminds me: I hadn’t taped Jersey Shore for Ethel like she told me to. Uh oh. I was dead.) My grandpappy’s mansion resided in Erie, Pennsylvania, so it wasn’t too long of a flight out onto the ocean. I took out my grandfather’s book and flipped through it again. I found that three more pages were filled in. Now my book was self-writing. How odd. Geez, what a weird Tuesday I was having One was the drino I had just faced, which was called a dracokeras (horn serpent) and two pages were filled in on golems.  I skimmed through. Apparently, you had to summon a dracokeras with a rhino’s horn and twenty dragon scales. (So there were dragons out there.)

 To summon a dracokeras, if needed: Acquire a rhino’s horn and twenty scales of a dragon. Plate the horn with the scales, preferably with magic. Drill a hole in the point of the horn and blow through it once scales are attached. The dracokeras will arrive in ten seconds. And then... would it eat me? Once it has come, then place the dragon-scale plated horn on its horn and it will become servile to you only. Phew. Glad he covered that in his notes. It will understand any language.Glad about that too. My Spanish wasn’t quite up to par. Nathaniel, these notes show up after you kill one of each creature. I am surprised that you have killed one of these. You have probably acquired the weapons as well. Page five shows details on these weapons.

Man, I really needed one of those dracokeras things. I flipped to the page about golems, and found out that they are powered by one diamond (or gold nugget or platinum nugget) and an enchanted paper. Killing one makes the paper lose the enchantment, but returns the diamond and unenchanted paper. A level 2 (standard) golem returns diamonds, a level 1 (below average) returns gold, a level 3 (expertly made) returns platinum, and level four (exceptional, rarely encountered) drops adamantite, the strongest metal on Earth. I had no idea that there was a secret metal too, and this struck me as a little bit weird and crazy. What was next: a secret dimension?

Suddenly, the plane lurched. A huge dent appeared in the floor. Thankfully, I resisted the urge not to scream and instead started to pull my longish black hair our of my skull I heard the pilot screaming. What was happening??? I ran into the cockpit and gasped when I looked out of the window. Imagine a horse. Now add a horn, make the horse huge and evil, and then add wings that flapped rapidly, like a hummingbird. That pretty accurately describes what I was seeing right now.

The devil unicorn’s face was crazed and evil, but it was not as scary as what was riding it. If that’s even possible. A man with a really big robe was chanting and holding a staff. Wearing a large pointy hat and glaring at me with a huge amount of evil, he looked ready to kill me. He pointed at us, and the plane was sent into a downward spiral.We were moving at almost 400 mph, but hey, those devil unicorns were fast. 

The pilot got a parachute and jumped. I grabbed the hammer and jumped.

The backpack holding the mystical weapons was surprisingly light, thank goodness. I held the hammer between my feet and thought, blow upwards. I hovered in midair and drew the whip.  It was kind of awkward to float in midair and grope for a long whip in your backpack, which you know in case you’ve ever tried it. The man swung his staff and hail rained from the sky. I cracked the whip  everywhere around me, and I was encircled in a rapidly expanding fire globe. As it hit where the wizard was, a huge gap was created and he and his flying horse flew through. Soon, the globe fizzled out and I was floating alone in mid-air again.. I put the whip away and drew the pike. I swung upwards and stones flew very high until... they rained down on the wizard. “OUCH!” He yelled. I swung again. “Like that?” He flew out of the way this time. I managed to land myself safely, against impossible odds. 

Suddenly, I felt a hand inside of my backpack. I twisted but not before they grabbed the sword and whip and whacked me hard in the head. Another wizard on a huge horse thing had landed behind me. The other wizard swooped down, and the wizard that had stolen my weapons tossed the sword to him. Great. Now they were both armed. One was carrying the sword, the other the whip. They were both wearing  gleaming silver masks that covered their whole faces. I swung with the pike upwards. Stones flew into the air, and rained down on us. I swung the hammer above me to prevent debris falling.The stones rained down on the two magicians. The sound of the stones hitting their silver masks as they looked up in terror seemed never-ending, which proved my attack’s effect.However, it didn’t seemed to make them that hurt/mad.

The large devil unicorns were also pelted with stones. The stones surprisingly bounced off of them with a few slight chinks and fell to the ground. One of them bellowed, pawed the ground and rushed at me. I swung at it with the pike and buried it in the unicorn’s skull. It fell onto the ground, jerking me to my knees with it, but it wasn’t dead yet. A dirt crust started forming over its eyes and it writhed around on the ground blindly. I withdrew the pike with a grunt and hit it in the face again. The dirt expanded to its mouth, and the horse leaped up and galloped around blindly. The wizards were shocked. The unicorn fell again, but this time, it was extremely dead. 

For the first time, I looked at our surroundings. We were on a grassy hill with lots of tiny craters from the rocks. The plane was relatively undamaged, the wizards having landed it safely after we jumped. I guess that they didn’t want the falling plane landing on them. To the right was an ocean, and to our left was more grass and Brick, New Jersey. 

The wizards swung their weapons at me before I had a chance to get ready. I raised the hammer and pike to block the fire. The fire was hitting a gigantic earthen wall when a wave crashed into me and I slammed to the ground, sputtering. Both the fire and the earth had mysteriously vanished. The wizard with the whip was smirking at me,  and I took the opportunity to swing at him with the hammer. He flew back in the general direction of Windy Cove. He dropped the whip midway through his flight (hope he got some frequent flier miles there) and Daniel rushed to pick it up. He was starting to rise from the water but I used the hammer to whip up the water around him and he got sucked into the water. I swirled up the wind so that it started to get cold and turned toward the other wizard. 

“You next.” He cringed in fear. When I raised the pike he let go of the sword and dropped to his knees. He raised his hands in defeat. I smiled, picked up his weapon, and patted the top of his very tall hat. “Okay, you can leave now.” I stuck the sword under his throat. “Don’t come after me again, okay?” He nodded once. I let my sword drop from his neck and walked back to the plane. “All right, let’s go.” I heard something whistling in the air behind me and I ducked. A rock banged off the the plane and I used the pike to catapult the man into the water. Daniel looked amazed, and sure enough, once we were flying again, asked me if that was magic. “No. It was a combination of technology and ele-OF COURSE IT WAS MAGIC, YOU IDIOT!” I hated being so mean, but it was pretty obvious. He nodded. “Just making sure, boss.”

Four

I am Abducted by the Locals

I was impressed. I never really had got to be called “Boss”, unless it was just playing around. But after seeing me strangle a unicorn with dirt, I don’t really think my personal chauffer was in such a humorous mood. Nevertheless, he tried to pull a couple of nervous jokes up just to lighten the mood. I, however was in a bad mood. All of his mood-lightening efforts went to waste. I was sick of all this trying to be killed stuff. I might have been thinking like an irresponsible kid, but I guess that when you’ve inherited a set of mythical weapons, it kind of ticks you off if you’ve never known about them. Though there was a corner in the back of me that was filled with pride, I was the feared one now. Feared and hunted. I didn’t like being feared too much either.

As we started to make our way to Kendari, Danny boy got more and more irritated. “By the way,” the pilot said,“My name is Daniel.” “I knew that! Your buddy Billy told me!” I snapped back. “And why the heck didn’t you introduce yourself!” “I tried, but you weren’t listening.” I felt my ears grow hot with embarrassment and I simply nodded. Then I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep.

I dozed off, and when I awoke I found myself in a soft bed with candle lighting all around me. Where the heck was I??? I panicked, and then saw the little chocolate on the pillow of the bed next to me. The wrapper read: “Dowes Inn and Suites.” When I awoke, I assumed that I was in Africa.

I barged out of the door and into a noisy lobby. Daniel and five other men were sitting on the ground making toasts and singing drinking songs. Daniel was the only one singing in English, but no one really seemed to care. As I approached, Daniel toasted me and drank to my health. I slapped him across the face. “Snap out of it, Daniel!” I wanted to continue our journey ASAP. He seemed to wake up. Then he offered me a beer, but I slapped him across the face and reminded him that I was only fifteen. He offered me a carton of milk and an extra key to our room, which I gladly accepted. “Did the plane run out of fuel?” I hoped that he wasn’t too drunk to answer. 

“Indeed it did, Natty boy. Stopped here in this nice little town to refuel. Welcome to Senegal, ya little whippersnapper!” I decided that I would rather be outside reading than be in a noisy room with these lunatics. I ran up to my room, opened it with the key, and grabbed Grandfather’s book, and then trotted away, until I located a small and grassy hill. I opened to a page that I hadn’t read yet.

Nathaniel, I must confess that I have not been entirely truthful to you. I think that I already knew that. There are actually six locations you must visit in order to save the weapons. The one you are headed to, in Kendari, Indonesia, is the Temple of Fire. Wait a minute. Six??? A location in Maine serves as the Stronghold of Air, a location in Senegal as the Castle of Earth, and a location in Argentina as the Cathedral of Water. You must enhance, shall we say, these weapons so that they have greater powers and can do different things. For example, like shooting bursts of fire out of the tip of the whip and raising a solid wall of compact air. Which sounds AWESOME. It is incredibly vital you visit these places before heading to the Armory, in Russia, where you will create the greatest armor in the world before visiting the place where your final goal resides, on the Island of Crete, Greece. If you do not obtain the armor by using the advanced weapons, you will be slaughtered. Sounds quite nice.

Geez, what else did this guy not tell me about? An organization of evil warlocks has come after me, I’ve fought a dracokeras, and I now have to go to SIX locations? I wondered what would happen next.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to think very long, because I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck as I wondered. The last thing I saw was a lot of African men in tribal clothing shaking spears at me.

I jerked awake rather violently, and immediately FREAKED. I was tied to a very tall pole. I had been kidnapped. I looked beneath me. No fire. Good. Nobody suspected me as a witch. I looked at my surroundings. I was in a cave. It was not a damp, wet, and gloomy cave, but I lively cave, with many shouts and hurrahs and torch light flickering over the walls. There was a dartboard set up on one side of the room, and a boxing arena on the other. In front of me was a drinks counter, and behind me, I assumed was more cool stuff. When they saw I was awake, the activities ground to a halt. Only then did I notice who I was surrounded with. 

At least ten African men were standing directly in front of me, but that was the most normal thing in the group. There was an enormous creature made of rock standing in the boxing ring. It had been dueling a tiny figure with waves of fire rippling over it. Near the dartboard was a human, only it had eight legs and four arms. At the drinks counter were a bunch of hooded men in long, dark robes. From behind me emerged at least five creatures in gis, like from karate. They were made of slime. One was tall and then, another short and squat. One had morphed his features to look humanlike, except for the gelatinous green skin. But, perhaps strangest of all, was the twelve-legged sphere that could fold up its legs and roll around. It got on its feet just as the room fell quiet.  It cleared its voice. “Ahem. Nathaniel, as I believe your name is. You have been found in the possession of highly dangerous artifacts that we have wanted for centuries. We’ve been watching you for around a day, and we find that you should be punished. Hand over the weapons!” I frowned. “Can I get them back now?” The sphere laughed. 

“No. We don’t have them. But if you show them to us, there is a possibility. You must overcome a challenge we have set for you.This will determine your fate.” I nodded. “Seems easy.” Of course, here I was just bluffing. I had no idea what the heck they had done, but I knew that I probably wasn’t going to be ready to face it. Spherical Creature laughed again. “Anything but, for we are the slayers of demons, the best in the land. We are the Stupefying Squad, the Breathtaking Band, the  Awesome Assembly!” I shrugged. It was kind of disappointing, considering the buildup.

“Dude. Just give me my weapons!” The sphere held up an arm. Or leg. Or whatever those were! “Ah ah ah. No, that’s not the way it works around here, Natty boy. Walk over to that boxing ring over there.” I furrowed my brow. “What did you just call me?” The sphere turned a light tint of red and shuffled slowly away. One of the African men threw a spear at me and I cringed. This could be the end. I was dead! Then the spear split through the ropes on the side of the pole and I fell. I landed on my feet, but stumbled, and some of the crowd chuckled. After I stood up and brushed myself off, I walked up into the boxing match and gasped. The people, wait, things who I was facing were terrifying. One was a tiny figure who was doing amazing warm-up stretches and running laps around the ring. Oh yeah, and he was on fire. The other one was a giant figure made completely out of rocks and boulders.

I wasn’t gonna leave a dent in these guys.

As soon as the whistle blew I was thrown across the ring by the rock guy. I tried to stand but was washed in a tornado of sparks from the flaming guy. It was pretty devastating. I’m pretty sure that after that I couldn’t bend my leg too well. I don’t remember much more of it so I’ll improvise on how it probably should of went.

I got up and threw myself on the rock guy and latched onto his arm. He kept trying to smash me, but I dodged his attacks and managed to rip off his arm.

I like that version better than what really happened. All I remember after that was slime in a gi suit picking me up and dumping me into a damp, smelly room.

I woke up again in the dead of the night. Through my tiny cell window, I heard the hooting of an owl. The room was almost pitch-black. Suddenly, the door was thrown open. “Get up, boy, we don’t have all night!” A mysterious figure in a cloak and a hood grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me out of my cell. I was thrown to the ground. “ Up, up, you useless boy!”

The figure grabbed me by the arm and sort of dragged me across the network of caves until I was lying on a wooden plank surrounded by a lot of strange looking people. I didn’t realize what was going on until I was bound by my legs and arms and strapped down to the plank. The man in the cloak asked me a question in his deep and melodious voice. “Where are the weapons?” I stuck my tongue out at him, which seemed like the best thing to do at the time, then, too late. The bonds around my wrists tightened and I found myself in a world of pain. My hands and feet were losing circulation.

They kept doing this until I finally blurted out: “Go do something productive with your life, you fat, old, tortuous man!” The cloaked man unsheathed a knife from his belt and walked slowly toward me. I suddenly I heard an alarm go off. The man turned around to see what was going on. Daniel, the pilot suddenly burst through the door carrying a large shotgun.

“If the government won’t give you the death penalty, I’ll do it for them,” he said and fired at the figure. It screamed and fell backwards in a puddle of slime. It must have been one of those slime dudes. The rest of the figures advanced on him, but Daniel loaded the shotgun and blasted them away. It must have been one of those slime dudes.

He walked over and unchained my bonds.

“I’m glad the area was slightly muddy, because I found footprints and tracked them to here.”

I nodded my head in appreciation and turned to face the puddle of slime.

“The weapons,” I said softly.

“I tracked down three but the fourth was, umm, misplaced.” I flew into a rage. “Misplaced? Misplaced?! How can you misplace them?! Do you realize the power that each of them holds?!”

He nodded his head somberly like an obedient child.

“A man at the bar punched me clean in the face and took the hammer, which I had planned to rescue you with. I got to talk to him and he said he worked at the asylum. The only asylum here is ….” He got a faraway look in his eyes for a second. “Arrinethro Asylum. The only asylum in this area where electroshock therapy is legal.” I winced. I had heard of that; it sounded painful.

“What are we waiting for?” I said softly, “We have to retrieve that weapon. Whatever it takes.”

Daniel nodded. “Arrinethro, here we come.”

Five 

A Shocking Discovery in an Asylum

We stood in front of Arrinethro. It was around noon, and after having rested at the hotel, I felt more prepared than I had been before. Daniel had a backpack full of stuff that he called “useful,” but I had no idea what was in it. I had been in the cavern about three hours. The sign at the top of the building looked ready to capsize on us. The building could be in the dictionary labeled under “destitute”. The paint was peeling off of the walls and everywhere we looked outside the building, there was either a rat or a cockroach.

We walked inside slowly, heard a slight ringing above us, and I jumped. The man at the desk examined us carefully. Then he recognized Daniel and gasped. He cursed in Arabic and shouted something that I really couldn’t make out. Two dark skinned men stepped in behind us, the bell rang, and they closed the door shut. I froze.

The man behind the desk stood there pointing the hammer at both of us. “You move, you die.” He said in an accented voice. 

“You were trained in the military, do something.” I whispered to Daniel. Daniel pulled up his shirt slightly so that I could see the knives strapped in his belt.

He nodded. Suddenly, the man to the left of us fell to the floor with a knife wound in his leg. I admired Daniel’s reflexes. The man at the desk swung the hammer. We ducked and he ended up hitting the person the right of us, who flew through another door and into a cement wall.

Daniel threw a knife from his belt, which burrowed itself in the remaining man’s arm. He screamed in pain and I slapped him across the face. 

I took the hammer when I started hearing screaming coming from a room at the back of the asylum. Running through the hallways, with Daniel in tow, I barged in and found two men standing on either side of a table. Strapped to the table was a girl no older than eleven with pale white skin and long black hair.  She was wearing a white nightgown with a teddy bear clenched in her hand, the bear had a pin through one eye and was rather worse for the wear.  She was going through an electroshock procedure and was screaming in pain. Her knuckles turned white and her eyes rolled back into her head.

I swung the hammer and the two men were blown back into the electroshock machine, which hummed to a stop. The girl lay there. Her face slowly regained colour and she regained consciousness. This was really kind of freaking me out. Why was a location like this here, why was this girl here, and WHY THE HECK WERE WE HERE?

Then, something strange happened. She started to babble out words in what seemed like German. What would these people in Africa have to do with a little German girl?

Daniel was obviously as startled by this as I was. All this foreign language and knife throwing was getting him a little nauseous.

That’s not all. She didn’t stop. We were just sitting  in the room listening to a little German girl babble on and on. We didn’t even really know what to do with her. A couple of times I even grabbed at the hammer when she got too loud. Yeah right, like that would shut her up.

All the while Daniel had been feeling the wall for switches and levers that may lead him to figure out where next. I personally thought that we didn’t need a next. Crazy bad guys would find us, no help needed.

“Wo bin ich? Wer bist du jungs? Holt mich raus!” (Where am I? Who are you? Get me out of here! I later looked this up on google translate, so I’ll be providing helpful translations from now on.) The little girl spewed out.

“Shut up!!!” I yelled at her. She crossed her arms and gave me kind of a murderous look. She took the pin out of the eye of the teddy bear beside her and threw it with deadly accuracy. The tip of my finger was pinned to the arm of the chair. My eyes widened.  I let out a pitiful scream and Daniel turned around.

He gasped and pretended not to hear me. “Poor Nathaniel, did someone get his finger hurt?” Then he realized that the girl had thrown the pin at me and his eyes widened too.

The little girl just stood there with her arms crossed, looking rather accomplished. Daniel pulled out some rope that he had found on the floor. The girl started laughing menacingly for what seemed like no reason at all. I didn’t realize what was happening until the first knives had replaced her index fingers.

Her hands were rapidly disappearing and were being replaced by tiny knives that were connected by joints. She ripped off her shoes. Her toes were that way as well. Slowly, I watched as the metal crept  her legs and arms, until she was a human shaped mass of knives. She laughed again, thunderously, and this time it didn’t stop until she yelled,  “Verneige mich vor mir!” (Bow before me!) I drew the hammer and swung it near her face. The air moved her back, but she wasn’t harmed. She lunged toward me and extended her hand to my heart. She drew a single finger to pierce through my skin... when Daniel fired his shotgun and she was blown sideways. She laughed. Pellets were all over the floor, and she seemed uninjured. “Ihre Schrotflinte tut mir nicht weh!” (Your shotgun does not hurt me!) Daniel grinned. “We have a backup plan, you stupid little girl.” 

He zipped open his backpack, and inside were the mythical weapons. I frowned, and my first thought was that if we were kidnapped, they would be in enemy hands, but then I figured, what the heck? We need them now! I frowned and the sword from the backpack by touching one of the four spikes. She swiped at me with a metallic claw. I raised my sword to block it. As she jerked her hand away, as one would do if someone was swinging a knife at you, a huge wave of water washed upwards, like a gigantic uppercut. She was raised to the top of the very tall building... and then gravity pulled her down. She positioned her hand so that it was facing downwards. She probably wanted to skewer me. I jumped aside just as she landed. She jumped up and stalked forward. Panicked, I tried the hammer again. She was knocked backwards, but she kept coming. Finally, I tried the pike. She was so close I could have stabbed at her... and I did. The pike went straight through her metallic body. I was compelled to do I victory dance. She fell backwards, but also took the opportunity to slice me with her hand. She cut my lower left pant leg to ribbons. Laying on the ground, she saw the opportunity and  buried all five of her fingers in my left shoe. I screamed in agony. I drew the chain whip and whipped at her in rage. It cut her head clean off. The metal faded from both her head and body... and she was just a human again. I breathed heavily the pain and shock were almost too much for me. Daniel raced over and lifted me up.

Twenty minutes later, a bandage was on my foot and it didn’t hurt so much. Daniel had packed a first aid kit in the pack as well. I breathed slowly and deeply. I snapped at Daniel to bring me the book. I flipped to the page about the places where the weapons could be... enhanced. That’s what I’ll call it. It seemed like a mystical and cool word. There was a map. I located The Stronghold of Earth, which the book had said was in Senegal (Which was where we were located). It was about three miles from here. I was shocked. “Danny, get over here.” He ran over. “We need to get here, and fast.”

We pulled a taxi up to a location that was around a quarter mile away. The driver was a little bit confused as to our choice of scenery, but we paid him extra not to ask questions. When we were about a twentieth of a mile away, we saw it.

Imagine a huge fortress made out of dirt. Now imagine guys up on the walls shouting and noticing us. Imagine me getting very, very, scared. Those guys didn’t look that friendly. I walked up to the castle, with Daniel trailing beside me. A man peeked over the battlements. I raised the pike for him to see. “You’re not welcome,” he called. I frowned and sent a couple rocks at him. Then he drew up after he ducked, with a crossbow, and sent an arrow straight through Daniel’s heart.

Six

It’s Siege Time, Baby!

       The arrow passed harmlessly through his body, but he fell over from shock. It must have been an illusion. The man called out, “Leave, or next it shall be a real arrow!” 

I sent more rocks at him. Suddenly, an arrow was flying toward me. I drew the hammer and sent it spiraling back toward them. The man smiled. “So be it.” 

Arrows suddenly were flying everywhere. Archers were sending them up to rain down on us, straight at us, and some were magical. They never missed unless they were broken first. Daniel and I each placed one hand on the hammer. Then we swung in a complete circle, and jabbed the hammer straight up into the heavens. A shock wave rippled through the air and sent arrows away from us. We were laughing. Then we looked up. A huge rock was right above our heads. Daniel and I rolled to either side to dodge the catapult-rock. It thudded down right where we used to be, leaving a colossal crater in the earth next to it.

I wiped my brow. That was close.  Daniel rolled past a whirring arrow and sent a round right into the man’s chest. He buckled over and fell face first right off the battlements.

I instinctively took out the whip and swung it at the nearest guys who either dove off the battlements or turned to crisps. Suddenly, a man in a robe appeared in a shower of purple sparks and erected a shield of water around the battlements. Then he sent a fire bomb toward us. 

        Me and Daniel flew backwards and into a large ditch surrounding the outside. Daniel got up and cocked his gun. He fired, but to no effect. The water deflected it. I was starting to hate this magician. Then, a brilliant idea popped into my mind. 

I sent rocks flying into the air, and smashed them toward the castle with the hammer. They hit chains holding the gate and the drawbridge busted and fell. One nailed the wizard in the chest and he fell backward, only to disappear in a cloud of aqua sparks. A phalanx of knights in armor burst through a door on the other side of the castle.

I swung the hammer at them, but they had armor and shields, so it was almost useless.  There were too many of them even against our mystical weapons of power. Suddenly, a shield was pulled away by a long, thin piece of slime. The man was suddenly exposed and simultaneously got a round in his face by Daniel’s shotgun.

Then, as if out of nowhere, about twenty men in karate gi’s stepped into the fray and started trying to kind of show off their moves and what not. One jumped on top of the guys and was dancing on top of their shields (wish I could do that), while another was breaking spears that were jabbed at him. One slid underneath the shields and suddenly, the military formation broke apart. Slime guys grabbed shields off of the warriors, while the huge rock guy I fought was demolishing armor. It was the Twinkly Team! (As I have fondly nicknamed them, seeing that they like alliterations)

Inside all of the chaos, we somehow managed to sneak inside. The knights were too busy dealing with the rampaging force of my enemies. There were barracks on the left, which knights streamed out of, and in the center of the building, there was a giant tower surrounded by a circular bunker. We burst into the bunker and stopped cold. I’ll remember what I saw for the rest of my life. Slaves were strapped to the wall, bleeding. Guards were laughing. Three of them were standing near a slave. I rushed at them with the sword. One raised his to block it, and our swords clanged. Water surged from the connection. The other two guards rushed me, and I spun and dived. My sword cut clean through a chain holding a slave. He fell to the floor. I cut the rest of his chains, and he attacked the guard. I freed the slaves, and they stampeded straight over the guards. I guess they went to help with the fight, but one teenage girl stayed behind. 

She looked about fourteen (my age). She said, “You guys need help much more than the battle does.” I looked outside the door. A slave was piggybacking a soldier, bonking him on the head with a shield. “Yeah.” She pointed to an elevator. “This takes you to the top of the tower. I’ll come with.” 

She walked to the elevator, flung open the door, and pushed the button. Daniel and I jumped inside. Once at the top, We were inside a big circular room. There was a pike-shaped indentation. We laid down the pike in it and, suddenly, it turned so it was straight up, the way you would hold a sword. Then, it plunged into the floor. Squares of earth started falling away from the floor. We ran for the edges. Stairs formed where we were standing. Then, there was a gigantic pit extending into darkness filling the room, except for the tiny staircase we were making sure to hold on to.

Seven

I Find Paradise In a Death Trap

All three of us started hiking down the stairs, but when we reached a certain point. I couldn’t pass it. The squares of earth that fell were floating up to form the floor again. One hole was left in the floor. It was pretty big. Then, a lion clawed its way through. It was actually a lion with the back half of a dragon. I lunged at it with the hammer. It raised its long and scaly tail to parry. Nothing happened to the tail, hammer, or lion thing. Weird. The creature raised its head.

“I have a riddle for one of you worthy people. Here it is. What is the next letter in this sequence? O, T, T, F, F, S, S?” The girl stepped forward. “Let me try.”

      She tried to solve for about thirty seconds, but she had no idea. “One minute!” She called. Then she smiled and muttered, “One, O. Two, T. Three, T. Four, F. Five, F. Six, S. Seven, S. Eight...” She turned to the creature. “The answer is E. The creature nodded. “Correct. Your reward is one word: hammer.”

He crawled through the hole. The hole shut. I drew the hammer. We were in the exact center of the room. Then, the floor dropped away and we were falling. I suspended myself in midair, but the others kept falling. I used the hammer to fling myself downwards, and I blew Daniel and the girl upwards and towards the stairs. 

They both landed fine. I tried to blow myself over to the stairs, but I slammed myself against the wall. Hard. I crumpled to the stairs, and then I started falling down the stairs, only I hit another invisible wall. Another test was coming up.

Half of the room fell away into nothingness. “Nathaniel!” Daniel called. “You’ve taken a beating!” He was right. I was going to have several bruises that wouldn’t heal for a long time. “I’m *coughcough* fine,” I called. A table appeared, and there were different vials of chemicals on it. An inscription in the table read: Drink the right potion. Here are your instructions:

 

One potion will make you climb down the wall,

But the other nine potions if you try- you will fall.

Three are very harmless,

But the other six are pitiless.

Two will make you dizzy

Your judgement will be affected

But Four are deadly poison

The Choice is up to you,

But First, here are some clues.

 

Two brothers on opposite sides are not the potions you want

Harm resides third from the sides

Light on the right, but not the afore mentioned

It’s safe in the Middle to Left

The other poisons are scattered in the deck- good luck, and drink the Climber

     

Daniel stepped forward. “I’m okay with logic,” He said. I hated logic problems and prefered grammar or math problems. I hated riddles too. He read it. “So I guess four will be okay, and one of those is what we want. The other six won’t help us, and four of those will kill us."

“Two will affect our judgement.” I nodded. “So two brothers on opposite sides are not the potions you want. I guess that’s the end potions. We shouldn’t drink those.” The girl and I agreed. 

      “And third from the sides are poisons or dizzies, right? So we shouldn’t drink those. And there are two potions in the middle, because 10 is even. Middle to left means the next one, close to the middle.” He handed us the two middle potions, and he chose the left one. “Drink up!” 

I smiled and slugged mine down. I felt fine after it. The other two showed no signs of sickness either. “Alright, let’s continue,” said Daniel. “Okay, so it says Light on the right, but not the aforementioned. That means its not the first or third from the right. So I’m guessing that it’s going with the extreme and doing the second from the right, not the fourth.” He grabbed it, yelled “BOTTOMS UP!” and drank it all.

Then, he jumped off the ledge and clung to the wall. He climbed down the perfectly smooth wall, and we applauded and cheered once he reached the bottom. We walked down the stairs that had magically appeared, and there weren’t any barriers to stop us disappeared. The floor where we had been standing disappeared, like all of the others, and the one Daniel was standing on was already formed. “I guess this is the bottom,” I said. 

       We heard a huge roar. I said to the girl, “I’d like to know your name before we die.” She smiled. “It’s Misty.” Then, a Hydra stomped out into the open and roared.

I drew the whip and sword. According to legend, you were supposed to cut its heads off and burn the stumps. I tossed the whip to Daniel. “Burn its necks once I cut off its heads.” I tossed the hammer to Misty. “Help defend us if needed.” 

One of the necks lunged toward me, and I sliced it off. Daniel swung the whip, but two heads had formed already. I went berserk, slicing off almost all of them. But their heads were doubled. They were slicing and snapping away at everyone, and we could barely keep track of every head. I went berserk again, and this time Danny washed a huge wave of fire over the necks. The hydra was consumed in flames and was burned completely, completely turned into ash. But something began to arise out of its ashes. I said, “DOG MY CATS, I’M A-GONNA KILL THIS THINGY!” A huge beast with a really long neck, tiny wings, and a face that looked kind of like a dragon’s was there. It was, if you’ve read Alice in Wonderland, a Jabberwocky.

It roared furiously, and Misty hit it with the hammer, yelling, “SHUT UP, YOU STUPID, STUPID BEAST!”. Then she ran as it roared louder and didn’t seem to be hurt. It lunged toward me and I swung the sword. It drew back, was hit by some water, and wasn’t affected at all. Daniel swung the whip, missed, and as the wave of fire washed over it, it did something a normal Jabberwocky could not. It sucked in the fire, and shot a tiny bolt at Daniel. It hit him in the chest, and he was blown backwards by a huge explosion. Daniel had burn marks all over his chest. He was too hurt to stand. I lunged forward with the whip and sword. The whip curled around its neck. It was jerked forward. I slashed with the sword and... off with its head.

I heard rumbling, and the pike appeared in the floor. I ran forward and grabbed it. I touched it to Daniel’s chest, and whispered, “Heal!” Dirt filled his wounds, and solidified. He stood up and walked around. “This might work for a while,” he said. 

I raised it and jabbed repeatedly. Rocks whacked against the exact spot I jabbed at. I pounded the pike against the floor. Rocks rose into the air, and I practiced hitting them against the girl while she deflected them. The pike was much more powerful, and I hate to say that my thought after discovering this was that I could rule the world. Scary thought. While I was discovering it, something rose out of the ash behind me. I didn’t see it. All I know is that when a huge fireball raced toward me, I raised the pike. A thin wall of dirt formed in front of me. I concentrated, and it expanded and fortified. The fireball bounced. The wall remained standing. I touched it with the pike, and it was sucked back into the pike. Then, I saw who I was facing. A man with wings was hovering above me. His wings were burning, crackling, and scorching. But that wasn’t the weirdest thing. His hair was rippling of its own accord. It was entirely flames. His skin had a thin coating of flame on it, kind of like the thing I had faced back in the Twinkly Team’s lair.

He laughed. “You have the pike, but only a true master of it will escape alive!” Then he was hit by a long thin tentacle of slime. The slime landed, bounced off of the floor, and slapped the monster across the face three or four times before it landed. Then, the huge rock being landed on the flame monsters head. This was a real clash of giants. 

Flameo-dude was smashed face-first into the ground and was sat on by the rock man. However, Flameo (as I’ve chosen to call him) laughed, and fire exploded from the cracks between the rocks of the man. The rock man burst apart, and then complete chaos exploded. The Twinkly Team had arrived. An African man threw his spear straight through the guy’s wing. The guy collapsed, and by then all of them had arrived. He laughed, and sucked some flame out of his body. It hardly reduced the flames all over him. A man made completely out of fire was standing next to him. Suddenly, men made of flame were jumping all over the place. About ten African men were barely a match for one of them, but the wizards were putting up a fierce fight. Meanwhile, the sphere was demolishing another. I was kind of surprised- how could we face an enemy with the power to create more enemies?

One of the guys created by Flameo leaped toward me, and I hacked him open with the pike. He was a fierce fighter, a lot tougher than a normal soldier, but in the end, I won. Bye-Bye. By the time I was finished, there was flame people standing around me, the original guy only having a bit of fire left. They all lunged at me at the same time, and I spun around with the pike, squeezing my eyes shut. Nothing happened. I opened my eyes, and was hit with a tiny bullet. It burned like I was being thrown into the sun. Agony spread throughout my body, and I passed out.

Misty and Daniel were lying beside me, but I could tell they were faking unconsciousness. It was really obvious, but apparently the flame man didn’t notice. He was striding past me, gloating. The pike was lying beside me. I stealthily inched my hand over to it. “You’re supposedly chosen by Balthazar, but you’re weak.” I cringed. 

  My grandpa always asked me to call him Bart. I had no idea his name was Balthazar. He probably named himself that to disguise himself. “You seem like you didn’t even try.” That’s when I lunged. He saw me and a flaming greatsword appeared in his hand. Our sword and and pike connected. CLANG. Earth rained upon him, but an aura of fire burned around him and disintegrated the rocks. I jabbed at him, and he dodged the huge boulder. I raised rocks from the ground and used a series of short, quick, jabs to send them at him. He disintegrated them with fire and lunged at me. 

 Leaping toward me and using a few quick maneuvers, he disarmed me. I fell to the ground. He raised his sword above his head, and it fell toward me. I was about to be turned into ash when... BOOM. Daniel held the water-sword in its way. I grabbed the pike and swiped, moving forward. It clanged against his sword again and again, and he laughed demonically. I was definitely intimidated, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I clanged the pike against the ground and jabbed while scraping it. An underground wave of earth rose the floor into a spike traveling toward Flameo. 

He was knocked into the air when I hit him with a boulder. He flew up from the impact, and I hit him again and again, the rocks falling after they hit him. He fell to the floor. He formed a tiny bolt, and poured all of the flame he had into it. I made a tiny bolt as well, but made it so dense with earth that it could hardly move and would explode on impact with anything. Then, we both sent it at the same time. They collided, and rocks and fireballs flew everywhere. Suddenly, rocks were flying everywhere. I stumbled around blindly, but I managed to find the villain in the chaos of elements exploding, and stabbed my pike straight through him. He screamed, sucked all of the fire in, and melted into a tiny, dancing spark. I touched it, and it formed into a flaming sword, not unlike the one he had been handling. I dropped it, and it turned back into a spark. It was over. We had the pike.

A door slid open to a courtyard. I walked outside with my companions. Only part of our crazy adventure was over, but I was glad we had completed one part. A waterfall poured off of a cliff into a river that extended out of the building. Exotic animals roamed around. This was amazing. I guess it was a reward for our work at getting the pike. The scene was breathtaking. I would recommend it for a vacation spot. I petted a giraffe and relaxed with my feet in the lake. Misty leaned against a tree and fell asleep. But where the heck was Daniel? I saw him on top of the waterfall. He jumped into the lake, soaking me thoroughly. Daniel. Never a dull moment with him. I was happy to be here, but I knew we had to leave. We had a world to save. A door opened behind the waterfall and we decided to leave. Maybe I would come back once I was done with this crazy adventure. I know that someday, I’ll think back and say that maybe these times weren’t all that bad.