Chapter Two:

Diel walked into a pub located in the Tyria, one of the harbor towns located along the coast of the Altair Sea. He wore a cloak to cover up his now bandaged wounds. He took in his surroundings then sat down in a corner sinking down. Diel was a fine example of a Vikar towering at seven feet six inches and weighting about 370 pounds. As with all Vikar he had razor sharp teeth and claws along with scales growing along his body as a natural armor.

“May I help you milord,” asked a serving wench having spotted the new customer.

“I guess you can, get my some thing to drink and a lot of meat,” Diel replied in his deep gruff voice showing off a smile sharpened teeth. The wench nodded and walked off to fill his order. Diel looked off through the crowd and sighed. He had let a kill slip through his hands. It burned itself into his mind, how had Sirik actually managed to get away from him? It just didn’t seem possible. Sirik was just so weak compared to him. He nodded as the wench came back with his food and drink and handed her a few coins to pay for it.

He stared and with a look of disgust. The wench had given him grog, grog was a pirate’s drink, but that couldn’t change the fact that he was thirsty. He took a sip from it and his face screwed up at the bitterness of the drink. He sighed and pushed it aside while he began tearing at the meat and chewing through it.

“Cap’n,” a weak voice spoke from behind Choril’s door, “We’re at the Tyria harbor.”

“Very well then, be gone with ya,” spoke Choril. He sat up and stretched after another fight with his nightmare. Choril was a weird example of a Vhe`Lorosian. A Vhe`Lorosian usually did appear as a human which Choril did. It was just the fact that the animal spirits the other Vhe`Lorosians was missing in Choril. It had made him stick out sorely as a kid; he wasn’t able to keep up with the others until he was finally fed up with it all. He left the tribe never to return to them. He had taken up weapons as a corsair and worked his way to where he was.

He grabbed his weapons off the wall and attached them to his belt as he left his cabin and made his way ashore and into the Broken Ship pub. A smile lit up on his face, this was familiar ground for him he made his way to his usual place in a corner. In fact it was the very same corner that Diel sitting in.

Diel glanced up at the approaching Choril. Oh great, trouble was coming his way. He continued eating silently as he looked at Choril from the corner of his eye till he was right at the table.

“Well, well, what do we have here,” Choril asked in a mischievous voice.

Diel looked up and stared Choril in the eye, “Nothing, just eating.” He turned back to his food.

Choril’s anger rose as the thought of someone turning away from him while he was talking to them. “Well, you’re going to have to get up, this is my spot.

Diel chuckled, “I won’t be getting up till I’m done.” Choril snorted and brandished his cutlass at Diel. Diel started at Choril blankly for a few seconds, “And you actually call that piece of scrap a weapon.” He shook his disapprovingly and then stood up towering well over the five foot nine inch Choril. Choril took a step back but quickly erased any bit of fear from his face. Choril never backed down.

Akura was a pitiful demon. He was just made captain today simply to find someone to head an army to capture the port town of Tyria. Akura was less then capable to lead the small force but Tyria had little to no kind of defenses to protect itself. It would be easy. He sent forward the command to charge, letting the pitiful demons loose on the city. He took to the air to give commands from above the town.

The skirmish between Diel and Choril was delayed as several minor demons ran into the pub. He drew his massive broadsword and fell into the crowd of demons with the one edged serrated blade. It cleaved and cut through the flesh of the demon that in its way. Amazingly Choril had joined into the battle. It seemed that the two shared a common interest, battle! Both Choril and Diel had suffered minor scratches by the time the small skirmish was over. The ground was littered with the bodies of demons and some of the patrons of the tavern. Diel shook his head and walked outside peering out at the streets that were overrun with the demons. He sheathed his sword then pulled out his war bow and knocked an arrow to it. He drew back and aimed upwards at the one flying in the sky. He let it go and watched it fly true.

Akura had no chance to even react, as his head turned to the left the arrow pierced his skull between his eyes and proceeded on through it dropping him like a stone to the ground.

On the other hand Choril was having fun whirling about and slashing at the demons that dared approach. He was making his way towards the ship until he noticed the fire blazing on the Iron Claw. He stopped dead in his tracks and froze, how could his beloved ship be burning so? He was finally snapped back to reality when Diel’s blade flashed before his eyes, cutting down a demon.

“Don’t just stand there you fool,” barked Diel.

Choril shook his head as if to clear it and started back to fighting. The two cleared a path to the outskirts of town against the overwhelming forces of the demon. They turned back to see the burning of the town then ran began running back into the desert.

The two walked through the desert without a drop of water to spare between the two. The between the two lasted for about an hour till Choril decided to speak up, “Whose wise idea was it ta walk into the desert to get away.”

Diel sighed, “It was the only way to go, Tyria is only surrounded by desert.” Choril mumbled silently under his breath as they continued their march. Their discontent between each other was growing till they were ready to turn on each other yet fate intervened. Several twisting sandstorms twirled up out of nowhere sucking up Diel and Choril.

Chapter Three:

Diel woke up to pitch-blackness. He tried to recall the details of what happened. He recalled Choril and himself were ready to draw their weapons and go at it when several sand twisters started up out of nowhere. The next thing he could recall was being sucked up and seeing several huge buildings followed by his head colliding with a solid stone wall. A sharp pain went through his head and he started to move his hands to touch it only to find them shackled behind him. He tried to break free only to no avail. What was this? No race as far as he could remember could make something strong enough to hold a Vikar. At that moment the door burst open and a shape stepped into the light.

“Well, looks like you’re awake,” Spoke the weird creature. It was only about five feet tall with pale almost sickly looking skin. It would’ve seemed that it was human if it were not for a thin whip like tail swishing out behind it. “All skip all the questions I know you’re dieing to ask. First off, what am I? I am a Subdo, part of a shape-shifting race of people. Two, who am I? I am Ayther Dasku. Three, where is this place? Well, you’re behind held in the prison of Dreis, the Subdo capitol.”

Diel pushed himself up the wall he was propped up against, “Humph, what happened to the other I was with?”

A smile passed over Ayther’s face, “Did he look something like this?” Ayther began a metamorphosis, in just a few seconds the once pale being known as Ayther was now Choril the Iron Claw. Diel blinked in disbelief. “He happens to be in another cell pretty close by. Put up quite a fight while we dragged him down here.”

Diel mumbled slightly, he was already developing a hatred for this Ayther person. This hatred grew even more when he morphed to resembled Diel himself and mocked his attempts to break his bonds.

Ayther cackled with delight, “It’s no use. You won’t be breaking them anytime soon.” He laughed a bit for rubbing his hands together. “Now what were you doing venturing out this far into the desert anyway?” It appeared Ayther was some sort of interrogator.

Diel sighed and closed his eyes while stopping his struggle against his bonds. Ayther looked on with glee at the submission of Diel. After a few minutes his eyes open, burning with hatred at Ayther, which only received mock fear from the strange Subdo. Diel’s muscles tensed, then without warning the shackles that bound his arms burst as he lunged out latching his hands around Ayther’s throat and hoisting him into the air. “Never, ever mock a Vikar such as I!” With every word his grip tightened around Ayther’s throat. The poor Subdo kicked and flailed to no avail. Diel had him in a death grip till two guards stepped up and jabbed him hard in his gut repeatedly doubling him over.

Ayther spat at Diel while massaging his bruised throat. “You will pay dearly for that.” Ayther shut the door.

The guards that were trying to interrogate Choril were having a bad time. Little did they know he was flexible enough to get his hands to his front and the guards had been dumb enough to get up close on him. Choril leapt upon the guards swinging his arms, throwing kicks, and biting.

Ayther walked I upon the commotion and sighed. “You fools. Guards, help these bumbling idiots!” After several minutes Choril was finally beaten unconscious.

Around three hours later Choril and Diel were roughly dragged from their cells with their bonds being double reinforced. They were led up a set of stairs and through majestic hallways made out of gold and silver. Diel took stock of his surroundings. They must have been in the castle of Dreis. To tell the truth he was in awe of the beauty. Throughout his wanderings he had seen many things but nothing as beautiful as this.

After finishing their puzzling trip through the many corridors of the castle Choril and Diel found themselves in some sort of throne room. Seated in front of him were twelve people whom Diel assumed was a council of elders. The elder all the way to the far right cleared his throat and spoke, “Tell us who you are?”

Diel stood up and spoke first, “I am Diel Fatelin, a wandering Vikar warrior.” Choril sighed, popped his neck and then spoke up, “You can call meh Choril Lycean the Iron Claw.” He withheld the information of him being a Corsair.

The next question asked was why they had come to Dreis. Choril and Diel took turns telling of what had brought them their from Tyria. The attack of the demons seemed to worry the elders. Maybe they thought the demons were moving in on them. Choril sugarcoated his story to keep the elders believing he was just a wandering sailor. The story culminated in the telling about how they were picked up by the sandstorm and tossed like rag-dolls towards the kingdom. The elders later explained that this was a safety precaution to keep outsiders away. The elders stood and walked out of a door at the back of the room.

Diel gazed about the throne room during the absence of the elders gathering things in. He thought the hallways were magnificent, yet they paled in comparison to the throne room. Everything was intricately carved. The tiling along the ground had been individually carved with different pictures. When one looked at the whole floor they could see a drawing of the castle itself.

After a half hour the elders returned to the throne room and too their seats. The same elder that had spoke before stood up once more. “We have decided that you are of no threat but you will be followed around by guards to make sure you bring no harm to this beautiful land. You may go.” Diel thanked them graciously while Choril only nodded and mumbled under his breath. The guards took of the two former prisoners bonds and released them into the city.

Diel’s curiosity got the best of him and he began a tour of the area surrounding the castle. The ground below his feet was paved with gold. He wondered how a city could be made like this. He wound up in the library. He made his way towards the back to where the history of Dreis was stored. He chose one of the massive volumes filled with hand written script and covered with dust. He assumed that the youth didn’t care about reading of the history. He thumbed through the pages picking up information as it went. To his amazement he found that the whole kingdom had been built with magic, which was still active. To keep it going the magic had been set into a few runes buried around Dreis and were recharged every once in a while. It seemed that the Subdo were an evolved form of humans and do to humans natural fear of the unkown had driven them into the desert where they had begun a civilization. Contact between Dreis and the “outer world” as they refer to the rest of Faladose had never been established to try and make peace. The Subdo had been able to slowly expand their empire as more migrated from the outer world. In time they had been able to change their patch of desert into a beautiful place to live. Diel yawned suddenly and fell asleep atop the book he was reading in without warning.

Choril, unlike Diel had opted to stay in the castle as a welcomed guest and rest. He took a sip from some sort of fruit juice they had brought him then plopped down upon the bed in his room falling into a deep slumber. For once those dreaded eyes did not torment his dreams.