Nightmare Challenge: Ice Mage's Greatest Work

P#18

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He traveled for hours when he began slow down. He had reached the fifty mile mark, and was now in place to see the colossal magnitude of the complexity that the magic device was. He altered his vision to see the flow of magic in the surrounding area. He lost his breath flowing through the ground were large channels of energy running through and around the ten pillars. "An artificial ley line, it's a man made ley line, and on such a scale too." However something was off, the veins that traveled along the course of  flowing magic could support a much greater quantity of magical energy. "It's not a full capacity." Ezeakieal began to track the flow of vibrant white blue magic tracing it back to it's source. The area was getting colder by the second, The tip of the vapor from Ezeakieal's breath froze in to tiny ice particles and fell back onto his face as he flew through the ice cold temperatures. Long pass the pillars location Ezeakieal came to an abrupt stop, Night was beginning to fall and he was loosing light fast. He centered his vision on the source of magic's flow. He had reached the center. A large pillar similar to the one around him loomed dead center between the other control nods, but it was around half the size compared to the others. Ezeakieal hovered close to the ground and searched around the column of stone. He switched his vision to x rays and scanned the structure, doing so revealed a series of rooms and corridors tunneling through the pillar's interior. With a little study Ezeakieal found a cavern on the east cliff side of the pillar leading into a deep descent. He flew up and entered the chilly cavern. He passed through the stone tunnel with ease, as he moved deeper into the cavers maw he found the terrain suddenly changing. He found himself at a large metal vault like door.

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P#19

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Ezeakieal had found the entrance to an ancient facility like the one told in the journal. The smooth corridors hadn't a sign of snow or ice the the temperature was room level, He landed on the tile surface and examined the door. He noticed a pair of distinctly different shoe prints next to a metallic panel. "Two people were here before me. One I'm guessing was the owner of the journal. The other probably belongs to the young man he wrote about." He looked for some kind of device on the metallic stand, there was no switch or lever just a flat gun metal plaque on a thin pole. He pulled out the journal and ran through the writing looking for clues on how to open the main chamber. After a good half an hour he started to get frustrated. "You told me where to find it, but not how to get in." He placed the book onto the plaque ready to read through it again, when the blood stains began to glow. Magical writing appeared in a row at a time. "The language looks dead, I've got no clue what it's saying." A loud voice echoed through Ezeakieal's head when he placed his hand across the runes. "Descendant of Dr.Norman Tobias identity confirmed access granted."The sound of air escaping and pistons moving alerted Ezeakieal to the opening of the vault door. The inside of the facility was clean and had power, the lights illuminated the inside of the cave's corridors in a inviting manner. Ezeakieal stepped through the main chamber when the door began to close behind him. "So the place is hermetically sealed, that explains the cleanliness of the building but not the power. The only thing I can think of is that the facility is siphoning off a portion of the magical energy from the ley lines."

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P#20

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Ezeakieal switched back to magic sight from x ray as he walked down the corridors.The insides of the walls had massive levels of magic flowing in a steady direction toward the lowest chamber of the facility. "Maybe I should give this place a name.Hmm." Ezeakieal pondered for a bit while making a intellectual pose. "The Frost Tower... Nah how about The Crystal Nexus. Ya that's the one." The halls of the recently named facility the Crystal Nexus. The structure was full of twist and turns, if not for Ezeakieal's magical sight he would have been lost long ago. All of the magic converged on a single shaft the fell three miles into the earth's crust. "An Elevator huh?" Ezeakieal noticed the small tin plaque but didn't see any switches. He ran the journal across the plaque, nothing happened. "Access denied. Okay plan B." Ezeakieal pried open the doors with his bare hands. "Ohh not access denied, protection protocols." A large torn cable swung back and forth in the center of shaft. Ezeakieal leapt down the elevator shaft falling rapidly until he exited into a gargantuan bio dome. He bounced off the broken compressed elevator and landed  on a cool thin surface of snow. The entire dome had soft pieces of snow in the shape of petals falling gently to the ground Ezeakieal peered up and saw a man frozen in Ice holding on to a young beautiful woman, the mans face seemed to be in great agony. Their bodies were just inches away from what looked to be a large obelisk. "It's a grave and an activation device." He said aloud. "LEAVE!" The voice of a young man echoed through the chambers walls. A large golem sprouted out from the snow.  This one was different from the others. It was male, and not just any male the same male that was frozen in a block of ice just a few feet away from him.

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P#21

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The ice golem tilted its head in a confused manner, "I am no one." The golem answered with a calm complexion, Ezeakieal began to walk around the golem inspecting it "Okay what are you?" The golem followed Ezeakieal's movements vary carefully. It looked him and answered. "I am an artificial intelligence, an avatar of their power." Ezeakieal walked over to the the two sealed in ice, "What are their names?" Ezeakieal muttered "The male's name Haku, the girl..." The golems face softened at the thought of the young lady's name. "Eliza." Ezeakieal walked up to the creature and asked it "Why are all the golems out side ice clones of Eliza and why are you the only copy of Haku?" The creature looked at Ezeakieal intently. "The majority of Haku's energy flows through me while Eliza's makes up the hundreds of smaller avatars." Ezeakieal looked at the frozen stone like obelisk near the top glowed the great and powerful relic a rose made of the clearest water eight petals each symbolizing the number of mages that gave their life to create it. "What your doing here is hurting innocent people you've already destroyed an entire islands ecosystem stop before you hurt any one else." The golem began to move closer to Ezeakieal. "I can't do that my objective is to make sure the plan succeeds." "Shut the system down, now. This won't bring her back, that artifact isn't some holy grail that can revive the dead or save some one from it. It's a weapon Haku and weapons can only do one thing. I'm honestly surprised that some managed to make something that was meant to kill, and come with a peaceful purpose for it. They turned a W.M.D. Into a planet temperature regulator. To save it from global warming."

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P#22

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The frost golem began to talk once more, "Revival is not the objective of the mission nether is using this device as weapon, now that your suspicions are confirmed please leave." Ezeakieal looked the creature dead in the eye. "I can't do that if I don't stop the system from activating this island may never recover from the environmental damage." The golem stared at Ezeakieal, the beginnings of hostility appeared before them. "What your're doing here is wrong, your disrupting the natural flow of order that has consequences people have already died." The golem stared at him blankly "That was unintended, if the villagers had simply left the island no would have had to die." Ezeakieal was livid "This place is their home of course people would choose to stay, most people would rather die then be forced out of their homes." The creature moved closer to Ezeakieal "That's what the young maiden system was made for, to scare off the remaining civilians so they can continue to survive." Ezeakieal stepped up to the ice golem his chest against it's cold exterior. "Do you think the owner of your essence would approve your course of actions. Let me speak to Haku, the real Haku." "Impossible." The ice avatar responded, "Why?" Ezeakieal asked holding back his rage "The transmutation in nearly complete interrupting the process now would kill them."Ezeakieal stopped short "That may be so, and I feel bad about it. However I was hired to stop this." He turned around to take the rose from it's port. When the Ice golem attacked. Two massive ice rockets shot out of a cannon dashed towards Ezeakieal, Ezeakieal noticed the two magic missiles gunning towards him. He darted to his side and stopped only to see the missiles were tracking his movement. "You gotta be kidding me it has homing missiles."

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P#23

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Ezeakieal ran at top speed with the ice rockets hot on his trail, he ran close to the edge of the room when he came close to the end he turned around and jumped over the rockets. During the time he jumped the golem shot of a set of ice sickles, Ezeakieal leaned back and fell straight on his back to avoid the flying ice spears about to rip though him. The explosion from the rockets covered Ezeakieal in a puff of white powder. "Hiding will do you no good." The golem shot three rockets into the cloud of snow. Ezeakieal jumped out of the haze and off of the incoming rockets as he leaped over the golem while up side down and directly above the golems head Ezeakieal let loose with eight lighting fast jabs. The upper torso of the ice clone was shattered, but it didn't stay that way for long. As it's body quickly reformed it made it's right hand into a blade and tried to cut Ezeakieal in mid air. Ezeakieal grabbed the blade and the golem's arm. He then wrapped his leg around the base of the arm and threw the creature head first into the obelisk. The golem reformed and stood back up, then suddenly began to mirror Ezeakieal's fighting stance, they both dove in trading blow for blow. Their power evenly matched, Ezeakieal performed his strongest combination technique, capoeira back flip kick, drunken boxing's neck flip, muay thai flying knee kick to the back, followed by a pencak silat blade drop, finishing with a sambo knee drop. The golem didn't have much of a body left when the snow from around the fragments pulled together, completely restoring it's body. It dashed towards Ezeakieal enacting the same attacks at equal strength. Ezeakieal properly blocked and dodged the creatures attacks. "Those are my moves."

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P#24

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The golem continued his onslaught of mirror movements, every move Ezeakieal had used on the island the creature was mimicking him perfectly. Ezeakieal dodged a sharp muay thai kick aimed at his head when a bo staff made of ice shattered on his ribs sent him flying across the room. Ezeakieal rolled on the ground, he instantly slammed his hand on the snowy floor throwing himself back into a readied fighting stance. Ezeakieal charge at the creature, but this time the creature was ready. The ice golem swung the newly formed staff at Ezeakieal's face, he avoided the attack by an inch, invading the monster's defenses in the process. Ezeakieal puled his hands in as he let out thirty punches in half a second. There wasn't even a spec of water left this time. The golem missing it's upper half, slowly fell back onto the grave marker and stopped moving. "Okay know what will I do?" Ezeakieal looked at the rose to see a trail of water working it's way up the obelisk. "Stop!" Ezeakieal shouted, but it was too late. the golem had taken a hold of the crystal rose, the relic reacted as it began to pulsate. A strong gust of cool air blew out from the crystal rose washing over the room, then a large flash of blue and white light filled the dome. The roomed returned to normal all except the golem, it's was now comprised of a half manifested body of ice of immense girth and size. The ice golem, with the power from the crystal rose had become a colossal frost giant that almost reached the massive room's ceiling. Among the ice giants body was the two mages the golems were based on, they were frozen inside it's chest right where a heart would be, and the crystal rose square in the center of it's fore head.

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P#25

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With a mighty swing of it's hands the creature tried to swat Ezeakieal like a fly, however he jumped over the attack with ease, but the force was so intense that even though he had managed to avoid the attack the gust kicked up from the sheer strength of the blow sent his body flying through the air. Flipping through the air Ezeakieal pushed his body downward forcing a fall to the ground, he than quickly hoped back onto his feet regaining his balance near the edge of the dome when the creature slammed it's palm against Ezeakieal and the wall. He placed his guard up trying to block the attack but the force was to great, as the crushing might of the golem wounded Ezeakieal. He took the attack well when the golem removed his hand the wounded Ezeakieal had already recovered. The moment his body touched solid ground Ezeakieal began dashing like mad towards his target. The golem tried to drop it's arms on him, however Ezeakieal kicked the golems arm clean off and tried to jump spin kick the creature's face. At the moment of impact the monster's face transmuted from ice to water, absorbing all the damage in the process. Before Ezeakieal could pull his leg free the water froze over and the golems head dived towards the flow with great speed. The creature's head slammed Ezeakieal back first into the ground, the metallic floor under the snow dented in leaving a small impression of his body and the giant's face. As it pulled Ezeakieal back up for another slam he pulled himself in using only the strength in his leg, Ezeakieal began to hit at the area that's captured his leg. "Hundred Storm!" Ezeakieal shouted as he let out a furious 100 hit combo on the creatures face. The flurry of strikes continued to pressure the giant's whole body was forcefully pushed against the wall of the room. As storm of punches increased in strength Ezeakieal flooded his body with adrenalin and Ki he was finally ripping through the creature tough exterior he kicked free his leg from the monster's cheek.

Before he could finished his attack he reached out with his telekinetic hands and pulled both the Crystal Rose and the frozen young couple. The golem shriek as it's body fragment like a freshly dropped panel of glass. Ezeakieal landed softly on the ground and watched as the giants body slowly eroded into dust. "Now that, that's over what the hell am I supposed to do now?" What was left of the golem crawled over towards the couple. "It doesn't matter now, it's finished." "Whats finished?" Ezeakieal questioned as placed the two down on the floor. The creature's voice began to crack and distort "They can live on, we were already on the verge of death from a fatal disease, Haku and Eliza were born with a strange disease that gave them an immense amount of magical energy however in return it was sapping years of their life span. The sicker the two lovers became  the greater their magic force increased. One day Eliza fell into a comma to keep her alive Haku froze her body on a genetic level, he was always the healthier one and hadn't succumbed to the effects of the disease yet, but he was doomed all the same. This was the only course of action he could take, to join their power with the rose. Becoming part of it together." The rest of the golems body started to glow, when their Haku and Eliza's bodies turned crystal clear and cracked like ice. The golem had already become part of the flow of the snow like magic around the young couples body. Then their entire bodies became a mass of energy resembling tiny ice crystals as it flew towards the Crystal Rose in his hands. The ice particles circled the rose until they formed two new petals. Ezeakieal was at a loss for words, he put the rose back and shook his head. "Damn! I couldn't do a thing."

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P#Epilogue

The newly reformed crystal rose was placed back on the obelisk and the building now void of life Ezeakieal flew out of the Crystal Nexus and headed towards the docks. As he flew over the terrain he observed it's rapid changing landscape. Tons of snow had already begun to melt into glorious springs of water. He landed at the docks and waited for his ride. "The old man promised to come back every day at noon"  It was around that time when he saw the puff of smoke coming from that all to familiar ferry. He flew over to it and landed on the front deck. The old man waved at Ezeakieal. "Well I'll be you dun it." Ezeakieal had indeed stopped the problem but to him it didn't feel like a win. On the way back to Magnolia Ezeakieal had told the man every thing that had transpired. "So they became part of the artifact huh? The captain said while puffing on his pipe." "I guess that was the only they could live on together. Now I have to report this to the wizards council that place is to dangerous to leave unguarded." Ezeakieal sighed "Oh you don't have to do that the council already knows. I'll take care of the rest." Ezeakieal tilted his head "Who are you old man?" The captain smiled "I could be that there saint wizards descendant or I could be just a regular old boat captain witch one do you like better?" Ezeakieal laughed "Not that I don't believe you, but I still need to report this place." The old man chuckled "Your a real straight arrow. I like that."

Word Count: Doesn't matter I already finished this is an extra.