Arc 2 - The Forest of Dreams

  As Night wrapped up his long storytelling session, the three party members were all staring at him with intense focus as the campfire crackled in front of them.

  After the final word left Night’s mouth, there was a pause, then Gale said in a slightly disappointed way, “That's how you're gonna end it off for us? On a cliffhanger? It was just getting to the good part!”

  Night replied with a sigh, “Some things are better seen with your own eyes than told to you through another's story. We’ll be heading there soon anyways, you won’t be starved of what comes next for too long.”

  Just then, the wind around them began to pick up, it howled as it passed across the broken walls of the dark tower. Small drops of rain began to fall occasionally, hissing when they hit the flames of the open fire.

  Gale raised his finger into the air to feel the wind, “Oh this storm is going to be bad. We better get out of here soon.”

  As Gale kept his hand in the air something strange happened. From the tip of his finger there was a small spark of electricity. The spark got larger and larger as he continued to hold up his finger, until it became large enough to engulf his entire finger with a faint electric charge.

  Gale jolted as he felt the electricity course through his body, then he said with urgency, “Shoot, this could be a hurricane! Night, can we get going right now?”

  Night said with a nonchalant tone, almost as if he wasn’t impressed with what Gale just did, “Yeah sure. We can leave right now if you guys are all ready.”

  Falco just looked at Gale with his mouth ajar, “What did you just do Gale? How did you do that?”

  Gale responded casually, “Oh I’ve been able to do this to predict the weather since I was a child. I’ve never really questioned it, I figured it's just a cool skill that I can use.”

  Demon backed him up, “Yeah, Gale has always been able to do that. I don’t know how, but it's kind of useful.”

  With slight condescension, Night chimed in, “I know how… It’s because Gale is a tempestarius, or a storm caller for short. And of course, Demon is a reaper, and Falco is an elf. Remember the symbols on your backs? That's how I can tell.”

  Demon looked sort of proud, “A reaper? Just like yourself? Wow. That's cool as hell!”

  Falco just looked down, sort of somberly, “A mere elf, that's all I am? What good is an elf compared to something like a reaper or a storm caller. Those both sound so cool and then there's just, elf.”

  Night walked over and patted the disappointed Falco on his shoulder, “Elves are cool! C’mon don’t you remember how I told you about Camellia, she's an elf and she’s cool! Elves have a lot of powers which are really useful, maybe not for straight up fighting, but for support.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Still kind of disappointed, Falco just nodded at Night and put his head up, “Yeah I understand. Anyways, it's not the time for me to be moping right now, we should probably get going.”

  All while this was happening, Gale had been just looking at his electrified finger with intrigue, “So Night, I remember from your story that these seals are there to confine our powers. So why am I able to use some of my powers even while the seal is active? This is clearly not from my enchantment crystal because my crystal is of the wind element.”

  Night scratched the back of his head and said unconfidently, “Well… We haven’t really figured that out yet. That used to be a topic which the revolutionaries were constantly researching, but over time it’s become one of the less urgent issues. I think the most agreed upon approach so far is that the seals are just not strong enough to confine all of our innate powers for eternity.”

  Gale nodded, “That seems like a pretty sound assumption for now. I’ll just have to ask one of the researchers for more information when we get to the stronghold I guess.”

  ~~~

  The storm got stronger and stronger as the party continued to stand on top of the dark tower. The blinding light of the lightning followed by the loud crashes of the thunder intensified as the rain began to fall in droves.

  Night put his helmet back on and simultaneously pulled out a small black bell seemingly from nowhere. As he rang the bell, it made no noise, similar to Camellia’s horn.

  In front of Night, a set of glowing red eyes appeared in the air. They looked at him for a bit and then they looked around at the other party members, scanning them up and down thoroughly. The eyes nodded, seemingly in approval, and then disappeared momentarily.

  A second later, a cloak of pure darkness appeared from the ground. It acted like a liquid as it morphed and convulsed rapidly, until it eventually took the shape of a ginormous black bird with glowing red eyes.

  The bird towered over the group as it looked down at them from above. Its appearance almost perfectly matched Eurus, Camellia’s bird, to a tee, the only stark difference being that its feathers were pitch black instead of purple.

  Night walked over to the side of the bird and patted it on the neck, “This is my partner Zephyrus. She is actually Eurus’s sibling from the same nest, so that's why they look extremely similar. She might look intimidating at first, but I can assure you that she is just the sweetest once you get to know her.”

  The party members just marveled at the beauty of this bird for a little bit before remembering that they actually needed to get out of here before the storm got worse. Upon Night’s command, Zephyrus lowered her wing to the floor, allowing for everyone to walk up it and get on her back.

  Once everyone got settled, sitting on the surprisingly soft feathers on Zephyrus’s back, Night patted her twice on the neck which commanded her to take off.

  Zephyrus spread her elegant, yet intimidating wings, and flapped them gracefully, parting the rain behind her from the force of the winds she created. She then ran over to the edge of the tower overlooking the vast plains below them, and jumped off. She quickly extended her wingspan and started gliding, quickly leaving the daunting dark tower in her wake.

  As Zephyrus began to balance out to a casual cruising speed, the party members sighed a big sigh of relief as they watched the dark tower which had caused them so much trouble, get smaller and smaller over the horizon.

  Everyone seemed calm and collected, until Demon suddenly perked up and urgently said, “Wait! We need to turn around! The tier two crystal should still be there in the rubble that fell from the top of the tower! That was the reason why me and Gale even went to that tower in the first place, to finally get me my first crystal!”