The Rising Tide (p)

Up until this point in time, Solmar had always taken pride in the fact that he could manage on his own, that he did not need to be a part of society in order to thrive. What had started as an urge to keep himself and the demon he carried inside of him far away from any people that it might hurt had eventually given rise to someone who was very skilled at a certain amount of things. Judging character, how to swing a sword, how to build an effective trap, how to hunt, how to forage and know which plants were edible and which were poisonous to people, and finally, how to make tough choices and be able to live with the outcome. For the longest time, he had only ever had to deal with animals encroaching upon his territory within Sakuramori, as well as the occasional monster getting too close for comfort, meaning it had to be scared away or killed if it refused the former. But all of that had changed rather abruptly.

Though he didn't know exactly how it happened or what had triggered these changes, but his life these days could not be compared to what it was just a mere few months ago. What had started out with simple request for help with some creature prowling underneath the docks of Cedar and making life tough on the local fisherman had turned into him finding out about a race of water dwelling humanoids called Kappa. From there, he had been going all over the place to help them out in making a new place where they could live away from other people, which had more or less awakened a fire within Solmar, something that urged him to want to help both people, animals and anything else that might need him. In the past month, this had resulted in him dealing with various undead threats to normal village life, as well as a few elementals and a self-proclaimed god.

As such saying things had gone a long way down the wrong path since he was nothing but a mere hunter wasn't much of an understatement. Speaking of elementals, the fire lord and wind lord, Interress and Hurricanian, had already been banished back to their respective dimensions due to the intervention of Solmar and the aid of a few self-serving elementals that had since escaped his grasp. Unfortunately for him, the lord of earth and the mistress of water were incredibly hard to track down because one could freely move through water while the other could freely move through the earth. As one might imagine, this made things incredibly hard for someone who was used to stalking wild animals that left footprints, feces and other messes. In short, they left something he could track, which was something these beings did not, or at least not on the surface. But that was where a few useful tools came in.

When he had banished the fire elemental lord, Interress, he had dropped a specific stone made of his material body and compressed into a single shard which seemed like a ruby. This ruby seemingly possessed a fraction of the elemental powers of Interress, and had been of great use to him when he fought and eventually banished Hurricanian the wind lord as well. When his body dropped another elemental shard, the two stones had started clinging to one another as if welded together. Once this happened, this new stone started ringing at a low frequency whenever one of the elemental lords was close, a theory he had proven when he had gotten close to Terramok, the lord of earth. When he chose to live to fight another day, the humming had slowly faded away to nothing but a slight humming. From that moment on, Solmar had been using it to hunt down the remaining two by using it as a sort of compass.

While Undine, the mistress of water, had disappeared in the ocean after slipping from his grasp, Solmar had not managed to find any trace of her along the shoreline. Having made his way up to Cedar from the phoenix mountains, he was quite sure that she had not gone into the ocean, but had actually gone all the way up north. From there, she had seemingly gone down the river back south. Knowing exactly what she was planning to do, which was to just drown as many people as she could before Solmar could finish the job he had started a few days ago, it seemed to make sense that she was headed towards the River village. With her forces decimated by the fire lord and the wind lord, she was nowhere near her full strength, though Solmar had seen firsthand what these elemental lords were capable of. Truth be told, he had only been able to defeat Hurricanian because Interress had torn off one of his arms, while Interress had mostly been killed by Undine before his sword vanquished the fire lord.

Luckily for him, his wounds had since closed up while his rib injury, which he had sustained in a fight against Cernunnos, was already feeling a lot better. Though it was still far from healed, it wasn't as much of a weakness anymore by now as it did not limit his movements as much as it used to. Following the humming of the stone, the closer Solmar got to the River village, the more it felt like he was returning somewhere where he had been before. Though this wasn't all that strange to some, it was weird to him because he had no recollection of ever having been here in the first place. Regardless of how odd it felt to him, he kept moving forward, hoping to get to the water elemental mistress before she could reach her destination. Picking up the pace, he started going from a steady walk to what could be considered a full sprint, though he held himself back ever so slightly so as to not intentionally trigger his ribs back into aching again.


(1016 // Solmar Total: 1016 // Thread Total: 1016)

Shane stood at the top of the village entrance, on the arch above the gates as he looked outwards of the village. The terrain was completely unrecognizable compared to a few days ago, before the invasion of bandits had occurred. He could see the men of the village hard at work, making efforts to revert the plot of land in front of River Village as close as possible to its original appearance. For starters, they had to remove the corpses of the bandits, littering the entire battlefield. The men were using horse-pulled wheeled carts, piling up the dead men upon the carts and then unceremoniously dumping them into a large pit at the base of hill that Shane had helped to dig.

It had been two days after the battle, and the number of corpses to clean up still remained more than half. Joltrin, the village chief, was doing his best to extradite the process, not wanting to allow the corpses to fester and become a breeding ground of bacteria, or attract dangerous carrion-feeding predators that has been gratefully absent from the village’s surrounding areas. Some of the villagers had also been assigned to fill up the trenches that had been dug up as traps for the enemies, which had been completely relatively quickly with the last of them to be filled up today. The wooden barricades that had once served to create a chokepoint against the larger invading force, had been repaired and instead of being torn down, they were now being used as a fence, leaving only a gap in between that would serve as an entrance to the entrance.

The Rune Knight would have wanted to help as well, but the injuries he had sustained from the battle, crushing blows dropped on him by stone golems, were still healing. His body possessed a regenerative trait, allowing him to heal quicker than most people, but it still needed time. Maybe two more days. Shane turned around as he heard footsteps approaching from behind, smiling when he saw that it was Joltrin. But the smile immediately melted when he noticed the look of worry on the village chief’s face.

“Uh oh,” Shane remarked as the man came nearer. “Bad news?”

Joltrin looked up from the ground with a grim smile, forced. The man sighed and walked to the low wall running around the top of the arch, slapping his hands down on the white stone.

“I foresee that we might have a new problem,” the village chief said in a depressed tone, his right hand reached up to the bridge of his nose and rubbing it.

“What’s wrong?” Shane asked as he moved to his side, looking out at the villagers working.

“I just received word from the other villages further up the river. Three out of five villages have been completely destroyed. The river seemed to have grown chaotic out of nowhere and swallowed the villages. Two villages managed to survive the flood but is currently inhabitable. As of now, the survivors from all five villagers are marching over to River Village to find a temporary haven.”

“Is it the monsoon season now?” Shane queried.

“That’s the thing. There was no rain or storm that contributed to the river’s sudden surge. It just… happened,” Joltrin replied as he turned to look at Shane. “I suspect that this is not a natural occurrence.”

“What would they get out of causing this chaos? The villages submerged in the river aren’t going to serve any purpose,” Shane said with a shrug.

“Who knows. One thing for sure, is that we are the next in line, if the sequence is correct. River Village won’t be able to withstand this flood if it as described.”

“Why don’t you pull back the men and prepare to fortify the village defenses? And you are a water mage as well, you should be able to do something,” the Rune Knight spoke as he pointed to the direction where the villagers were.

“I already have,” Joltrin replied as a lone horseman, one of the village guards, rode out towards the villagers. Shane watched as the horseman launched into a series of anxious gestures, his voice too far to be heard. The other villagers were nodding and pretty soon, everyone was dropping whatever they were doing and hurried back into the village with their equipment. “I hope that you would be able to assist us again, Shane.”

“I’m not sure what I can do, but I will try my best,” Shane replied with a lopsided smile.

[758 words]

Walking out into the open, Solmar could already see the place from a distance. Having not traveled too close to the river so as to not warn Undine to his presence, as that might have just forced her hand and made her move that much more quickly, he could already see the farmlands surrounding the actual village. Judging by the activity of the people, he at first believed that they were all hard at work on the fields, though closer inspection showed that it had been the site of a fairly large scale battle. With carts trekking across the fields, it seemed that no vegetables were placed on top of it, but dead bodies. Triggering some kind of memory of him running through these very same fields at some point, he could not tell whether it was just some sort of daydream or if it was actually a memory. Since the latter seemed rather odd considering how he had never actually been here before, being stuck inside of his own head almost made him trip over one of the corpses that had not yet been picked up. Wondering as to what had happened here, one of the farmhands called out to him.

"Are you okay sir? We're sorry for the dreadful state of our fields, but we should be done with the cleanup soon."

"I'm fine, though you shouldn't be here, none of you should. There is a flood coming, and with it a force that wants to see you all dead at the bottom of the river. Tell anyone you can to get away from the village and make their way to higher ground."

"I see… and what did you say your name was?"

"I didn't, but it's Solmar. Now get a move on, you don't have the time to waste with idle chatter."

Once he told the boy what his name was, it seemed that the farmhand knew something he wasn't willing to share with the black haired swordsman. Instead, he just shrugged his throat, nodded at him and started driving his cart towards the nearest cleanup team. Turning his gaze back towards the village, he wandered over to it at a steady pace. Feeling that the stone in his pocket had started humming louder than it did before, he could tell that Undine was getting closer. Though he would not be able to properly estimate a time until impact, he figured that they had at least ten more minutes before she would show up. Once he reached the front gate, he saw a somewhat familiar figure standing on top of it. Wondering what the reason was as to why he was there, Solmar started linking it to the farmland turned battlefield. Remembering the guy only as Shane, he recalled how they had both done battle with Cernunnos a little while ago, and had managed to kill it too. At the time, what remained of Cernunnos after it had been killed had told Solmar of the coming of the elemental lords, he just hadn't understood the meaning of it until it was too late.

"You seem to be doing quite well compared to the guys I walked past in the field, that's good, it means you're still breathing. But that might change soon, for you, me, and all of the people here. Everyone has to abandon the village now and make it to higher ground if they want to survive, because the coming flood is far from natural."

Making it clear right off the bat that this was by no means a social call, he felt that the humming of the stone was gradually growing stronger by every passing minute. Figuring that this meant that Undine had not yet noticed him getting to the village, it meant that he should keep his presence hidden for as long as possible. Walking in through the front door as if he had lived in the place all his life, the interior of the village did indeed seem very familiar to him. But all of that would need to wait. For now, he remained behind one of the buildings that had no view of the water, meaning the water elemental mistress would not be able to see him once she finally made her way over there. Figuring that Shane would most likely follow him there if he wanted to know more, it would not be changing anything in the end. Because at the end of the day, Solmar was going to be fighting this thing and killing it, because she wouldn't escape him a second time.


(765 // Solmar Total: 1781 // Thread Total: 2539)

As they spoke, Shane began to feel an ominous feeling, the hairs on the back his neck standing up. He could feel tension building, but it was so vague that the Rune Knight was wondering if it had really been his instincts or the light breeze that had just blown past. He looked past Joltrin at the river that surrounded the entire village but couldn’t find anything abnormal with the mirror. There was no rising surge in the river’s flow, appearing as calm as any other day. The folk who made a living from the rivers were still busy with reeling in their catches, standing or squatting on their long, thin boats that were floating a few feet from the banks.

He didn’t have a bit of doubt in Joltrin’s story, and after all that he had seen and gone through, Shane couldn’t help but wonder if this was the doing of some aquatic leviathan that had somehow run amok inland. However, before he could delve deeper into that train of thought, he was pulled back to the present by Joltrin. The village chief was pointing towards the lands in front of the village, and Shane joined him to look towards where he pointed.

The village chief had a questioning look on his face in regard to the newcomer, but for Shane, he was slightly surprised. He had never expected to meet this man here but judging from how he had met him during a visit to Peace Village, it began to make sense. The black-haired swordsman known as only Solmar had partnered up with him to deal with a particularly troublesome beast god just a week ago, a very brief tag team that had ended up with their victory. Shane also marvelled at how he had got from situation to situation, from fighting a humanoid beast claiming himself as the Lord of Light to fending off an army of bandits hell bent on conquering this village as their base of operations.

There were no pleasantries exchanged between the two of them, the first words from Solmar already a warning. Shane listened on with a puzzled expression, and then it suddenly connected. He had forgotten about his instincts earlier but now with Solmar’s words, it hit him in force. He quickly turned to Joltrin.

“He knows something, I’m sure of it. Send out a warning to the village. Ask everyone to get whatever supplies they need and get out of here. That cliff should be high enough temporarily,” Shane spoke as his right hand caught Joltrin by the shoulder while his left hand pointed to his left, at the hill which base they were using the bury the dead. Joltrin was caught off guard and seemed to be in a daze by Shane’s sudden outburst but he quickly straightened himself out and met the stern gaze of the Rune Knight with a determined one.

“Got it,” was the chief’s curt reply as he leaped off the top of the gate on the other side, a platform of water appearing in the air for him to step upon and bring him towards the middle of the village. Shane nodded in approval. The village chief had appeared to be more confident in his magic after the invasion where he had used more magic in that one battle than his entire life before. Shane turned back to look at the swordsman but found him walking into the village, passing underneath the gate’s arch and appearing again in the village. He navigated the streets with an unexplainable ease, much like how the villagers moved around.

“You need to let me know what’s happening if you want my help,” Shane said with his arms crossed as he approached the swordsman at the side of the building. “Joltrin, the village chief, just mentioned to me that he had just received news of a flood that had hit five villages up the river and then you show up with your supernatural flood warning. He’s on his way to get the evacuation process started, so while things are still getting sorted out, you need to give me more details, Solmar.”

Shane might have sounded annoyed but it was far from that. He could feel a weird tension in the air, as though the pressure before a storm, but the weirdest thing was, there no indication at all of a coming storm in the sky above. It was all blue skies and fluffy white clouds, a perfect day.

[749 words]
[Total WC: 3288]

From the sound of it, precautions were already in place for something such as this, what with the villagers already preparing to deal with a flood. This however, was not a flash flood that just appeared as a result of heavy rain or something happening out at sea and moving inland, not naturally at least. For something like this, he did not think the villagers had anything that they could prepared for, simply because the thing they faced was something Solmar hadn't even known about until a few days ago. A water elemental, and not just that, but the one that governed over all of the water elementals. Aside from that, this one was having a fit because her forces had been thinned out by the other elemental lords while her physical body had been injured by Solmar. As such, he believed that this tantrum she was throwing was entirely his fault, thus explaining why he had been tracking her instead of the elemental lord of earth.

"Fine, but keep your voice down and don't use my name, there's no telling what kind of beings she sent ahead to scout this place out."

Sounding rather paranoid, Solmar knew that he wasn't, considering the fact that he was quite aware of what was out there and what kind of power it was wielding. The power to make it rain, cause a flood, even to create a tidal wave when at full power and given enough time to create it out at sea. Having both seen and experienced this same power as it nearly killed him and a bear cub he only barely managed to save from drowning, it was not something he wished to experience again. While she had been angered greatly, he could tell that the attack had weakened Undine quite a lot, or this village and everything connected to the river would already have been washed away in a matter of minutes. Instead, she was being cautious, going from one place to the next and taking them out in a controlled sequence, meaning she was being a lot more clever about it than he had initially thought she would. But that was to be expected from an entity that was arguably as old as the world they stood on.

"We don't face a flood, but the being that controls floods and water to a greater extent than most mages here can ever hope to achieve. This being calls itself Undine, and she appears to be the elemental lord that governs over all water. More than that, she has a small strike force of lesser elemental underlings still at her disposal. I met her before, a few days ago, which is likely why she is here."

Remaining behind the buildings to make sure no clear sight could be provided from or to the water, he was still not entirely certain that there wasn't already something sent out ahead to scout the place out. To him, it seemed very much like something the calculated water elemental mistress would do before putting herself and her weakened army at further risk. At the end of the day, her goal was to submerge the entire world and rule over what remains as a newer, larger kingdom. An aquatic paradise for her and her followers, meaning most of all life on earthland would die out and only those creatures that are accustomed to life in the ocean would be able to survive. For a being who wanted to rule over the world so badly, it seemed incredibly short sighted to kill off all sentient life, seeing as that would give her so much less to actually lord over once all was said and done. Figuring that this was something that might have slipped her mind in her rage or was something beyond his own understanding, he felt that it wasn't that important right now.

"Regardless of what she is or why she's here, the villagers won't have the time to pack their stuff. This stone was made from the elemental cores of the fire and wind lord, and it starts humming more and more violently when another strong elemental presence nears. I can tell that she is rapidly approaching, and I doubt they'll make it to the cliffs within the next five minutes if they still need to pack and bring their stuff. They need to go, now."

Showing the stone and the fact that it was already reaching the point of visibly vibrating, one half of it was ruby while the other half seemed to be diamond, though they were fused together perfectly at the center. It was a strange sight to behold, especially since the stone seemed to possess a weightlessness property of air and hot properties belonging to fire. Strange as it was, he had tested it enough to know that this stone did exactly as he had just explained, so there was no point in second guessing it, especially since the elemental lord of earth had stated this to be the truth before he disappeared. What happened to the villagers from this point on was up to Shane, not feeling like the villagers would take an outsider seriously. Instead, he would just wait until the flood reached them before he'd pop up in an attempt to keep it from breaking the village apart.


(893 // Solmar Total: 2576 // Thread Total: 4083)

The first impression Shane had of Solmar when he had met the guy on the Midsummer’s Solstice had been cool, calm and collected. It seemed that nothing could cause the swordsman to panic, and he could take everything in stride. The Solmar he was seeing now was uncharacteristic of him, further pressing the urgency of the situation. The Rune Knight looked at the stone that Solmar had held out, a magically melded combination of ruby and diamond, that seemed to vibrate within the swordsman’s grip. And if his eyes weren’t deceiving him, the vibration was getting stronger gradually.

He pulled his eyes away from the peculiar jewel and looked back at Solmar.

“So we have an elemental being who controls water that wants to drown the entire world, has a legion of minions to fight her war, and we only have five minutes to evacuate?” the Rune Knight summarized. He had said in a very dead tone, not because he was being sarcastic or trying to belittle Solmar, but the reality of the situation was heavy. Much too heavy for the village to bear after the battle they had just endured. Shane craned his neck to the left and right, eliciting a cracking sound from the movements.

Without waiting for a response from the swordsman before him, Shane pulled out his iLac and instantly dialled the number for Joltrin. The call connected within two rings, and he could hear the gruff voice of the village chief on the other end.

“Joltrin, situation’s worse than we thought. Get them all out of here within three minutes or there won’t be anything or anyone left to save,” Shane instructed in a single breath. The man on the other end of the line gave a terse okay as a response. Within seconds after he had hung up and Shane storing the iLac into his pocket dimension, a loud siren blared into existence with the intensity of a volcano eruption. Shane winced from the sudden eruption of noise.

Doors to houses slammed open consecutively as parents ushered their young ones out of their houses, carrying whatever food they could afford to without slowing down while some adults helped with their older parents to move quicker. It was total chaos in River Village, but it was organized. The very same guards that had fought beside Shane in the bandits invasion, five shy from their original number of twenty were assuming their duties to bring order to the evacuation despite recuperating from their injuries.

Some of them were carrying the older villagers on their backs, aiding them in getting out of the village without being trampled underfoot. The ones that had served as the archers previously, originally hunters who had put their archery skills to good use, were also aiding in the evacuation efforts, relieving some of the guards’ burden. Joltrin, with renewed confidence in his water magic, was creating as many platforms of water as he could manage, using it to carry those too young and too old, hovering above the crowd while directing the villagers to move towards the hill.

He looked around for a bit, and stopped when he finally saw Shane. The two of them shared a nod and then Joltrin turned his attention back to his villagers.

“Good, so what’s your plan now?” Shane shouted, trying to himself heard over the blaring sirens. “You are staying to fight, aren’t you?”

Although it expedited the evacuation efforts, Shane was sure that the water elemental that Solmar spoke of would definitely know where they were now. It had been a double-edged sword, but a risk that Shane was willing to take if it meant saving the villagers from their watery fate. He was still hurting from the previous invasion, but as long as he was still standing, he wasn’t going to watch Solmar fight this battle alone.

[644 words]
[Total WC: 4727]

After speaking into some kind of trinket, it did not take long before a loud noise could be heard from the village itself. Due to the fact that his hearing was quite beyond that of the average human being, the sheer nuisance of the sound was enough to give him a headache, which really wasn't something he was looking towards adding to his day. There were already plenty of body parts of his that were sore or aching, and he did not need something that would actively distract him from fighting once it came down to it. Using his fingers and stuffing one into each ear, he started walking away from their current position as the noise had already given away the fact that actions were being taken towards saving the villagers from Undine. Though he could still faintly hear Shane as he spoke to him, Solmar figured the guy would follow him if he wanted to protect the village from what was coming. Making sure to put some distance between them and the bloody annoying sirens crying in the village, he decided that this would make for a good spot to wait for the water elemental.

"That thing made it personal when it tried to attack me during my break in the mountains. She actually tried to drown me and a little bear cub in her attempt to crumble the cliffs near the western borders of Fiore. For some reason, after Cernunnos died, these creatures considered it their cue to pop on in from their own dimensions and start fighting over ours."

While he talked, he made sure that this place was where the river was the narrowest, considering this was what they needed if they were to have a shot at stopping her once she came by. Not knowing exactly how many followers she still had, there was no point in constantly dwelling on it as there were bound to be at least some of them that would help out their queen. It was for that reason that they should find the most narrow part of the river, as it would be easier for them to stop the advancing elementals from there. If they were smart about their business, they might even be able to hold back the tide here and save the whole village in the process, even if it sounded highly unlikely at this point. That said, he did still have the elemental node that contained the powers of the fire and wind lords. If by some miracle, he could make that stuff work for him again as he had done only once before, he was certain that the two of them would be able to protect the place and make it so the people could just return to their homes and stuff after all of this was over.

What with the battle that had seemingly been fought near the village not that long ago, the black haired mage figured that the people had been through enough already. If they ended up being saved from one enemy, only to have their homes swept away by some supernatural force, that would have just made the previous battle an altogether pointless one. That, and there was something familiar about this place, something he could not really bring himself to remember. Still, there was no point denying what he felt, though he could not go about investigating the place if it were all to be claimed by the river. With all of those things in mind, he sat himself down by the riverbank and just waited for the humming of the stone to become more powerful, acting as a solid indicator for when the elemental mistress would reach them.

"So no, I don't just plan on fighting it, I plan on killing it and sending it back to wherever it is that it came from. These things have a world of their own to rule over, meaning they have no right to be in ours."


(666 // 3242)

Solmar didn’t immediately respond to his question, merely walking away from their original position with his fingers in his ears. Puzzled, Shane followed the swordsman without question until they walked to the narrowest point of the river. The Rune Knight made a note of this location in particular, unable to guess why the swordsman had led them here. However, it was evidently away from the village center compared to their original spot, the ear-deafening call of the sirens slightly reduced in volume.

Shane listened to Solmar explain about the current situation and the types of enemies they would be facing. He sighed when he heard the full explanation. He had just survived an invasion of seven hundred bandits with the help of a powerful mage from Dies Irae and some help from the villagers. And now here he was at the cusp of another invasion, this time by an elemental lord from another world, who just wants to rule over theirs.

Shane joined Solmar as he sat down by the riverbank, going over the facts that Solmar had provided again. A water elemental was no joking matter. Shane found himself wondering if his superior strength, buffed by generations of magic, would actually be useful against an elemental lord comprised of an intangible element. He went over a mental list of his arsenal, finally stopping at the one weapon that would probably be useful against the water elemental. Mjolnir.

The water in the river began to ripple, and then start to slap on the riverbank, each incoming slap getting fiercer and fiercer. Shane’s eyes narrowed as he watched the water continue to jostle against the riverbank with more force, gradually turning into a sizeable wave that definitely warranted their attention. He looked down the length of the river and then pointed at the things that were starting to appear above the waterline.

“Is that your water elemental?” Shane asked with a half-joking tone, as he pointed towards the incoming group of hostiles, travelling down the river in a row, leaving white trails of bubbles in their wake as they approached with haste.

[351 words]
[Personal WC: 2502]

Though the stone was indeed humming and pulsing, he could tell through experience that this was not the same as an elemental lord. Having been around two of them around the time of their deaths, another when she fled into the ocean and another when he merely returned to the earth to continue plotting, he had learned to tell the difference between elemental-kind simply by being close to them with the stone. Clearly enough, there was something coming towards them, though he imagined that this was merely the first wave sent in to do most of the heavy lifting while Undine herself would merely remain somewhere further out. For as long as he had known her, which wasn't all that long, she had managed to prove time and time again that she was an opportunist who would jump at the chance to kill someone once they showed weakness. This meant that she was not exactly a frontline fighter, but rather the kind that would stab you in the back while fighting for survival against someone or something else.

He had already seen this happen once before already, which was when he had personally been fighting against the lord of fire, a hard enough battle already without the others being around. All it had taken from Solmar had been one solid hit that had loosened the footing of the fire lord, which was when the mistress of water had struck it from behind, burying tendrils of water into his body and penetrating him from side to side. At that point, she had just started thrashing him about like a ragdoll, thus ending the fight prematurely. Though there was no honor in fighting like that, at least it had given Solmar the chance to catch his breath and not really sustain any injuries at that time. But all of that had taught him a few things. Among others, the fact that Undine was not to be trusted and that she would do everything within her power to trick people, stay hidden and just use one pawn after the other if it meant getting in the last word.

"No, it's not. However these are some of them, minions from her elemental world that were likely dispatched to just wreak as much havoc as possible before she comes through. That is, unless this is just her trying to test the defenses here, which sounds about right now that I think about it.."

Rising back on his feet, he watched as the incoming wave was starting to take shape. Interestingly enough, the elementals she had sent here had been among the very same that had accompanied her during their first encounter in the Phoenix mountains. Two large bulky ones, a smaller and more slender one with long limbs and five small elementals that barely had a form, seemingly being but a sphere of water with spikes of water sticking out of them. Last time he had seen creatures such as these fight, they had been getting a thrashing from all sides by the other elementals, though that was because they did not have any water nearby. This time, they had the river right by their side to draw from, and Solmar knew what that would mean. With an eye on the village further up stream, he sent a rogue fireball towards the elementals that had not yet seen them among the reeds. Wondering if he'd actually hit anything, the main goal had been to draw their attention towards them.

"They know we're here now, so with a bit of luck, they'll be coming to us. As long as they're connected to water, they'll probably just reform as soon as they're damaged, which is not something that'll work to our benefit. So try to draw them from the river, and keep an eye out for their mistress. The moment she spots weakness, she will strike."


(649 // 3891)
(Claiming 3500)
(391 Remaining)

Shane watched with a smouldering gaze as the wave of water that was rushing towards their position began to take form. The body of water split into seven distinct shapes. Two larger ones that seemed like they would pack a punch taking up the leftmost and rightmost position, while an equally tall but smaller one with long limbs was positioned in the centre. Five smaller blobs of water, pulsating spheres of water with spikes sticking out of them like sentient maces, held the front most position.

“You seem to be still injured from our fight with Cernunnos. Let me take these guys. And if you are correct, that their mistress will be trying to sneak in a hit while I’m occupied, I trust that you’ve got my back,” Shane said without turning back to look at the swordsman. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the incoming hostiles. His weapons appeared in his hands in a sudden flash of white light that disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared, a circular shield strapped to his left arm and a hammer in his right.

The shield was dull, completely grey with plenty of fine scratches on it and a few specks of red and blue paint that pointed to what it looked like in the past. The hammer was slightly fancier, with dark brown and red leather wrappings around the hilt and a red strap that extended the beyond hilt. As Shane gripped it in his hand, electricity began to crackle around the hammer. Solmar had shot a fireball at them, the Rune Knight not knowing what he had in mind, but it did manage to draw their attention towards them. The fireball smashed into a wall of water that suddenly gushed out of the river surface, sizzling out while causing the water to evaporate as well.

“See you in a bit,” Shane called out as he ran further down the riverbank away, from Solmar and further away from the village. As soon as he moved, the water elementals seemed to lock their sights on him and started their chase. It was to his advantage, however, as the elementals moved at different speeds. The slender one with the long limbs was the first to reach Shane, having put on a burst of speed to push past the five water spheres. It waved its limbs forward, allowing it to spread out in multiple branches as they zoomed through the air, a multitude of spears aimed for Shane.

Unperturbed by the attack, the Rune Knight Captain merely lifted his shield, feeling the impact as the multiple spears slammed into the shield surface. He reacted at the same time, the hammer in his grasp suddenly brimming with electricity and swinging upwards towards the branches of water pushing against his shield. Bolts of electricity was sent back to the water elemental, but before it could do any damage, the water elemental was intelligent enough to cut off the water flow from its body.

His attack failed but at least he had stopped the simple assault. With some distance left for the remaining water elementals to cover, Shane decided to quickly end this. With a leap, he closed the distance between them. The slender elemental tried the same thing again, the shorter distance allowing it to create an even wider net of water intersecting spears. Ignoring it, Shane powered through, leading with his shield, dispersing some of the spears while keeping himself suspended. The arrested momentum was turned into a flip, placing him behind the water elemental.

As he swung his hammer the moment he landed, aiming for the thing’s head, the water elemental’s featureless head swung around to face Shane. The hammer, crackling with lightning, smashed into the elemental’s head with abandon, completely pulverizing the head and sending a jolt of electricity down its body and into the river. The two bulky elementals that had just about to reach Shane stopped midway, their shapes spasming as the lightning sought to break their forms.

The Rune Knight captain ignored them and put his attention on the five taken on the shape of spheres. With his hammer pointed down, Shane released his grip and then clenched his fist again as he grabbed the hammer’s strap in the momentary fall, swinging it around a few times before releasing the hammer at the water elementals. Like a meteor, the hammer shot out of Shane’s grip and flew towards the five blobs of floating water. They barely had a chance, bursting as though balloons as the hammer punched through them, turning them into splashes of water. It was a pity that they were now above ground, dropping to the grassy floor and turning into nothing but puddles.

Shane would have preferred if they have dissolved into the river and send another crippling jolt of residual electricity at the two bulky ones that he needed to deal with now. Their size had been their downfall, their speed hampered but the as they neared Shane, the two of them dropped into the water below the surface, and then re-emerged as one, coming up as a large wave intent on bowling Shane over. Caught off guard, the wave smashed into Shane, sweeping him off his feet and up over the riverbank.

The mass of water split apart, half of it forming back into its humanoid shape while the other was keeping Shane’s movements hindered. The one that had gotten clear of Shane raised both its large arms above its head, merging the two fists into one large hammer and slammed downwards into the Rune Knight’s gut, knocking the wind out of him as he dropped. The one holding him released him a split second before they hit the ground, letting Shane take the full brunt of it.

As he got back on his feet with a flip, the elemental that had punched him earlier threw his entire mass at Shane, to knock the Rune Knight down again but the latter was prepared this time. Waving his arm and his shield up, Shane pressed his right hand down upon the back of the shield as well to defend against the incoming impact. The water punched at his shield, but Shane didn’t relent. It ended a second later as the water elemental leapt away to come back together, but its partner followed it up with another water rush.

Pissed and wet from the fight, Shane held out his right hand, calling the abandoned hammer to him again and threw it forward into the incoming mass of water. A loud crack ensued, as hammer and water collided, throwing out a huge amount of lightning bolts all around but ultimately destroying the elemental. Mjolnir continued travelling forward in a straight line as the water around it fell to the ground, and once more it punched into the last water elemental, vaporizing it this time with the sheer amount of lightning generated.

The hammer made a turn in the air, and flew straight for Shane who caught it promptly in his hand. But retrieving his weapon was the least of his worries. A pool of water had gathered around his feet, seizing the chance when he was distracted. The pool constricted around his ankles and without notice, Shane was suddenly lifted into the air by his feet and swung around before being thrown back into the ground. The Rune Knight landed painfully on his back on the muddy riverbank, barely able to let out a gasp of pain, while his eyes fixated on the imminent threat.

[1257 words]
[Personal WC: 3759]

Not being a huge fan of what came next, it was true that he had been injured by the nearly constant fighting, but that was what he did. Ever since he had been a mere child, he had been forced to fend for himself by killing rabbits and other small critters, at least until he was old and big enough to try the same on something as large as a deer. As the years went by, he eventually learned how to tackle and kill larger, stronger and smarter creatures, all for the sake of survival. During these times, he had gotten injured, knocked down, knocked out, had bones broken and more. At the end of the day however, it was due to these things that he learned that giving up was not the kind of thing a self-respecting warrior was supposed to do. So when the elementals started coming in, it was hard for him to do as Shane asked and just stand back like some wounded little fawn, or a frightened child.

As he had never been in this position before in his life, he could feel his own self-respect draining away as he was about to let somebody else fight his battles for him, just like how the civilians putting up jobs for people such as him sat around at home, waiting for news of success with a pouch of jewels. Clenching his fingers into fists as he just stood there, he knew that Shane had meant well when he asked him to wait while he himself charged into battle. Watching closely as things went down, Solmar watched as Shane handled the small hammer, at least in comparison to his own weapon of choice, using it to clash with the elementals that came ashore to fight them. Keeping the focus on him as they did so, none of them really paid Solmar any mind considering how they had their hands full already.

Since the elemental node he held in his pocket masked his presence to the other elemental lords to some degree, he had to keep his magical power in check, at least until the real target showed up. That, combined with his wounds, meant that he had to sit this one out for the moment, and it pissed him off to the point where he was nearly fuming. He was angry, but not at Shane for something as trivial as him stealing his glory or attempting to bench him, but because he knew that he was right in trying to do so. When hunting bigger prey, one needed bait while hiding the weapon that would slay the beast, and that was exactly the case right here and now. So while Shane fought the elementals, slamming into them with his hammer and calling down lightning from the skies to electrocute them, he waited ever so patiently, fighting back the urge to rush into battle like the warrior that he was. And that was when it happened, the sign he had been looking for.

Calling his massive sword from across the magical realm and into his hand, he started moving forward as soon as the humming of the stone proved that Undine had made her way over here. Before he could bridge the distance though, it seemed that she had already started doing exactly what she did best, attacking from behind when someone was too focused on anything but her. Starting to thrash the man that had been so valiant in fighting the other elemental minions, it angered Solmar that he couldn't get there any faster. But as soon as he did, he brought down his blade, cutting through the tendrils of water with a loud hiss as the moisture evaporated upon making contact. Before his blade got to touch the ground, he shifted his weight and redirected the trajectory of his strike, sending the swords towards the mistress of water.

Before he could strike her down, she sent herself back towards the river, guessing Solmar would not follow her there. And she was right, he wasn't going to just step into her terrain carelessly. Were he to do that, he might as well just stab himself through the gut with his own sword since he would find only his own demise there. While he would not follow, he was not going to just let her get away so easily. Continuing his swipe, he let a crescent of flame burst forth from his sword, following up on Undine as she leaped back towards the safety of the river. Catching up with her before she had the chance to properly get there though, a loud hiss of water meeting intense heat and a high-pitched shriek could be heard as the two made contact, causing a hot mist to form over the river. No longer seeing Undine from where he was standing, the stone told him that she was still close by.

"You good?"


(823 // 1213)

Even as he crashed bodily into the ground, lifted a full ten feet into the ground before thrown down, Shane had manoeuvred his body so that he minimized the brunt of the impact. It still hurt like hell though. A large blade, searing hot, slashed through the tendrils of water that had latched themselves strongly around his legs, much like an octopus’ tentacles, instantly cutting through them and turning the water into steam as the temperature of the blade caused the liquid to evaporate instantly. With a skilful twist of his arms, Shane saw Solmar change the direction of his blade and aim it at the elemental queen Undine, her mass still indistinguishable to Shane.

She was escaping for the safety of the river, her domain, but the black swordsman was formidable. While a physical strike would miss, the swordsman had released a crescent blade of flame that chased after the elemental queen, slashing into her back, or what Shane assumed was her back judging by the direction she was moving. Similar to the earlier encounter with the water tentacles, the flame crescent elicited a hiss out of water that made up Undine’s mass the moment it made contact, prompting the queen to shriek out in pain. Shane got up from his prone position, the hammer that had failed to reach him earlier now making the final part of the journey with a zoom as he caught it snugly in his open hand.

“Yeah, caught me off guard, but it’s gonna take more than that to put me out of the fight,” Shane remarked. Shane gave the sword in Solmar’s hands another look, the heat around the massive sword causing the surrounding air around it to distort. “It seems like your sword is equally good against the intangible.”

“So, what’s your game plan? Lightning seems to be effective against her pawns, so I suppose it will do the same to her as well,” Shane continued speaking, his body appearing relaxed but definitely ready to face any incoming attack.

[338 words]

OOC: Hey man, sorry for the delay in this. I'm really still very interested in this plot but I have to admit that my work schedule is screwing around with my posting schedule. So, let me know what you think if you feel that I'm not cutting it. You don't have to worry about being honest, definitely no hard feelings.

Not getting too complacent with simply hitting the watery being, Solmar had already started planning on how to fight her and draw her from the place where she felt most at home, in the water. Figuring that there was next to nothing that they could do to permanently put her out of the fight as long as she managed to stay somewhat in connection with the river as it'd allow her to gradually heal many of the wounds they'd inflict upon her, they would either need to keep her from returning to the water at all or strike her with a blow so powerful that it'd keep her from regenerating at all. When he had been forced to deal with the other elemental lords, none of them had been this annoying to deal with, which made Undine surprisingly difficult to pin down and put down. With Interress, the fire elemental lord, he had to deal with the extreme heat radiating off of his body and the great levels of strength it possessed in combat, not to mention the proficiency he had when wielding a sword.

Hurricanian, the wind elemental lord had not been all that different in that it was really powerful and skilled when wielding his scythe, though the more dangerous factors it possessed were based on how it was nearly weightless and could maneuver in the air and on the ground at speeds his eyes could barely follow. As such, it made sense that the lord of water possessed a different set of skills that made her equally hard to deal with as the others, but were still unique to her and her elemental affinity. Had it been up to him, he would have killed her in the mountains, though the fighting around him had made it hard to land a killing blow. By now, the damage he had managed to do onto her had seemingly all but disappeared, which was very bad news for both him and Shane. Forcing himself through the pain of his ribs and leg, he planned on using his fire magic in order to boil the water, though he figured such a thing would be next to impossible with a river of constantly running water.

"Water is her source of power, as long as she can get back to it, it doesn't matter what we do as she'll just regenerate over time. She'll probably stay submerged for the time being, waiting for an opportune time to strike, but will otherwise wait until she's healed up before coming back at us. That way, she'll be able to wear us down and eventually take us. So we either get her away from the water, or hit her with a blow powerful enough to destroy her to the point where regeneration is no longer possible, perhaps a combination of the two."

Since there was no longer a means to keeping their strategies a secret, Solmar spoke out loud, knowing that Undine was quite well aware that these were the only options they had, being as cunning as she was. Her cleverness had gotten two of the elemental lords that stood between her and domination killed already, increasing the chances she had at taking the throne and ruling over the material plane. To that end, the black haired mage did not imagine there was anything about this that would come as a surprise to her or as something she hadn't thought of herself. The more he pondered on this matter and on what they had to do next, the more the stone he held in his pocket started humming as it drew small portions of Solmar's magic into it. Responding to the will of the wielder, it was starting to come up with something that would benefit both Solmar and Shane quite a bit, even though Solmar himself had no idea that the stone was up to something. But that was the power of the stone, and that was what it had been doing ever since he first obtained it.

Keeping the heat on his blade as there was no telling when Undine might strike herself or send out more of her followers, he could see that the water was churning and rising up to take form, which could only mean one thing. She was going to try again, sending out more of her followers while she recuperated from the blow that had been struck upon her. This time however, it seemed that she hadn't the time to wait while some of her lesser minions worked the two mages over. Instead, she had called forth a gargantuan monstrosity that stood at a height of at least ten meters, making it the tallest elemental Solmar had seen to date as it even dwarfed the large earth elementals he had seen by at least two meters. While he knew that water was perhaps his greatest weakness, he hoped that Shane would come up with something, or that the stone could be used to somehow stem or even turn the tide. For now though, all they could do was focus on the massive creature and do their very best.


(860 // 2073)

Shane nodded in understanding as he kept his eyes on the retreating elemental queen, her liquid form gliding across the river. Solmar’s strategy was sound enough, allowing the Rune Knight’s mind to churn around for a solution. But it hit him almost instantaneously.

“Lightning should do it,” Shane replied, and to prove his point, the Rune Knight had requipped Demon, his grenade launcher. He had restored Mjolnir back into the requip storage dimension and he now held Demon in his right hand. Hefting the bulky firearm so that the muzzle landed on his left palm, Shane turned to look at Solmar. “It’s going to be a risk, but with Demon, I can shoot a Shock Grenade into the river and create a powerful discharge of lightning. If she reacts the same way the water elementals reacted to lightning earlier, then that would probably be the only way to drive her out of her home ground. And to keep her out of it, I still have Mjolnir to amplify my combat abilities with lightning.”

While he waited for the black-haired swordsman to reply, Shane’s eyes were boggled by the sight unfolding before them. Rising from the water, between Undine and the two mages was a ten-feet tall titan of water with an oppressive bulk to match. Despite the lack of any visible expression on its face, Shane could feel a sort of anger or hatred being directed at them, which was most probably the elemental queen’s own feelings.

“Let’s give the theory a test then,” Shane said as he raised his right arm and pointed the grenade launcher right in the face of the gargantuan water elemental. The Rune Knight smirked as he pressed down on the trigger. A hollow plonk followed, and immediately a cylindrical projectile flew towards the water elemental. The monster waved one of its arms, causing a surge of water to rise up from the river, acting as a shield. The grenade exploded but instead of the Shock Grenade that Shane had promised, this was the normal explosive grenade.

The explosion blasted the water apart, dispersing the makeshift shield, barely hitting the water elemental. But that wasn’t Shane’s intention. He had pressed on the trigger again shortly after the first one had left the barrel, trailing behind in the same trajectory. With the water shield out of the way, the Shock Grenade flew unhindered and collided with the water elemental’s chest. A similar explosion ensued, but instead of explosive force, lightning was released instead, thoroughly shocking the water elemental with bolts of lightning that coursed throughout its entire body.

The pain drew a long roar from the monstrosity, apparently capable of pain and mixed in with it, was a high-pitched shriek that Shane could only assume belong to the elemental queen. The river churned ferociously as the water elemental and queen thrashed within it, sending up huge waves of water that crashed on the river bank.

“I can keep doing that and force them out. What say you?”

[501 words]
[Personal WC: 4598]

Nodding in agreement with Shane that lightning would most likely do the trick, he figured that using lightning on the river itself would only do so much since the vastness of it all would most likely cause it to spread out to the point of dampening it to the point of near-uselessness. The only way to actually make lightning do the job was to apply it directly to the target and keep it coming for an extended period instead of just a quick and powerful burst. And in that, Solmar figured the problem would be. They'd need to draw out Undine, hit her with a lightning attack and keep pouring it on so as to make sure she wouldn't be able to escape back into the water again. With that, keeping her in place long enough for him to strike hard enough to evaporate her would be the next best thing, or so he figured. But all of that was something he couldn't allow to take up the remainder of his focus with, not with the large water elemental encroaching upon their position as it was.

Hoping that the idea they were formulating would work the way they planned, it seemed that Shane was planning on using his bomb tosser this time around. Taking a few steps away because the sound it made wasn't very pleasant on his ears, he kept his sword ready while waiting for the fighting to start. Once the Rune Knight engaged in battle, the first explosive that was sent towards the creature was blocked by a large torrent of water that came rushing up from the river, likely at the creature's command. Upon making contact however, the explosive did not release a current of lightning, but actually exploded, sending water all over the place as a secondary shot passed through the now broken defenses. Though it wasn't the first time he had seen this weapon in use, it still surprised him how inventive some people were in regards to their weaponry. When the second projectile exploded, it sent a current of electricity through the creature that seemed to cause it great pain, even though one would only be able to guess due to the lack of expressions, save for the roar.

Using ranged weaponry was likely not something Undine enjoyed as it would make it a lot harder for her to do what she did best. When fighting her servants in close quarters, she would skulk around and wait for the right time to strike someone who wasn't exactly paying attention to her as they were busy trying not to get hit by their actual target, as both he and Shane had undoubtedly come to figure out by now. But by utilizing such ranged means of combat, getting close unseen wasn't something she could do, something of which she had become all too aware. With the electricity that ran through the elemental, it became clear that Undine could very much feel it, though all it did right now was enrage her instead of actually harm her. But that did not really matter, for as the stone was still charging in his pocket as it leeched ethernano, Solmar had come up with a plan of his own. If she was capable of feeling what the elemental felt to some degree, he could use that to their benefit as he ran towards the incapacitated elemental.

Knowing that it would soon make attempts at attacking again once Shane stopped hitting it, the black swordsman used the momentary confusion in order to drive his sword into the foot of the elemental before running a mass of his fire slayer magic through the blade and into the creature. Instead of producing a torrent of flame, he sent a great amount of heat into the beast from below, causing steam to start rising up from it as it spread throughout it. Spreading the intense heat in little to no time at all, he could see the giant as it was coming undone, still suffering from the two explosions and from being cooked from the inside out. Dashing back at least three meters, he then sent another crescent of flame into the incapacitated beast, causing it to tip over and fall backwards towards the water. As it came crashing in, it temporarily heated a small portions covering the spot where the gargantuan beast had fallen to unbelievable levels. Followed by a shriek, Undine launched herself out of the water and unto the shore at a spot not far from the two of them.

"Now is the time, unload some of those things at her so she can't get back to the water, I'll-"

Just as he started barking orders in an attempt at keeping her from getting back from where she was and to the water, which had cooled off but a few moments after it had heated up so much, the stone activated on its own accord. Releasing what magic it had siphoned and enhancing it with the remnants of Interress and Hurricanian's dormant powers, it created a dome of magic around the three of them, keeping anything from getting out. Though it would not keep anything from getting in as that would probably end up eventually suffocating the two mortals inside of it, it meant that Undine was now at the very least cut off from her source of power. No longer capable of regenerating from any and all damage she'd sustain, she was now reduced to just being an incredibly powerful elemental entity that could probably still kill them with ease if either of the two mages let their guard down for even a second. If the other elemental lords were any indication, keeping her from getting back to the water had made things difficult for her, but had put both Shane and Solmar into a worse position. After all, there was no telling what a cornered rat might do to survive.

"Actually never mind, just be on your guard, there's no telling what she's capable of when she actually has to fight by herself."


(1017 // 3090)

Leaving Shane without a verbal answer, but having his actions prove otherwise, the Rune Knight watch the swordsman leap into action, heading for the stunned elemental. The shock grenade had apparently been much more useful than anticipated. The moment the large water elemental was within sight, Solmar drove his weapon into the foot of the elemental. The intense surge of magic, an ancient one at that, and the accompanying heat wave that travelled from the hilt down along the entire sword was hot enough to boil the water elemental where it stood. Steam began to rise from the water elemental’s foot the moment contact was made and spread out.

It wasn’t the only move that Solmar would pull off as the mage pulled back his sword with a leap backwards and swung his large sword, releasing a crescent-shaped wave of fire towards the hulking elemental, the sheer force from the move upon collision causing the enemy to topple backwards into the river, and on to Undine herself. The heat wave and the wave of fire had done a magnificent job of boiling the elemental, the heat transmitted into the surrounding waters when it fell back. An inhuman shriek almost made Shane deaf as the elemental queen hastily launched herself out of the water and onto the shore, her domain of water, her most advantageous field of combat, ruined by Shane and Solmar.

Solmar had barely completed his sentence when a sudden outburst of magic energy originated from his very body. Shane could feel the sudden weigh of the atmosphere pressing down on him from all directions, slowly dissipating as a dome of magic energy came into existence around them. The Rune Knight Captain had no idea if this was a spell from Solmar, but from his initial assessment of the situation, it was rather advantageous for them. The dome had effectively cut off from Undine from the river, or any source of water for the matter.

“Don’t worry about it. Fighting close and personal is more my speed,” the blonde Rune Knight mentioned as he put away his most effective weapon displayed so far. Allowing the weapon to disappear into his storage dimension with a flash of dark blue light, replacing it with his trusty hammer. Gripping the leather-bound hilt of Mjolnir in his right hand, he swung upwards, releasing Mjolnir. The magical hammer flew straight up, speed upwards towards the uppermost point of the dome, but it stopped just shy of crashing into the magical barrier. Instead, the hammer changed its trajectory and began to hover around Shane, floating in an orbit around the Rune Knight.

At the same time that was happening, Shane’s body began to crackle with lightning, starting from his palms and quickly it covered his entire body, as though he had donned a cloak of the element itself. And as a final touch, Shane’s eyes were completely covered by lightning as well, glowing otherworldly in the same shade as the lightning he had generated around himself, with the occasional trickle of lightning flickering from the sides of his eyes. Despite that, it wouldn’t impede in his sight in any way.

“Era Smash!” the Rune Knight shouted, pulling his right fist back before punching it forward. What was once a punch powerful to create a shockwave that could be directed at his opponent as a ranged attack, was now imbued with the lightning from the Lighting Storm spell that Shane had activated. A blast of energy crackling with lightning, in the shape of a fist, roared through the air before colliding explosively with Undine who had been distracted by the sudden barrier trapping her within with the two mages.

Her screams filled the air when she received the attack, once more proving that lightning was one of her weaknesses. Unrelenting in his assault, Shane soldiered on, pushing his left leg and his entire body back before rebounding forward in a spring-like motion, his right knee extended before him. Mjolnir flew with him as he soared through the air, both soldier and weapon smashing into pain-wreaked elemental queen with another explosive impact caused by the lightning, the twin impact slamming her into the wall of the barrier behind her, which despite shaking vehemently still stood up to the force.

[712 words]
[Personal WC: 5,310]

Still entirely uncertain as to why this barrier had come up now, he took out the rock from his pocket and showed it to Shane for a moment. Showing the transparent half and the red half that made it seem like a rough diamond and ruby fused together perfectly at the center, it was actively glowing and humming now that it was so close to the elemental mistress of water. With the material essences of the lord of fire and the lord of wind making up the stone he held, it was clear that it now hungered for the essence of water in order for it to grow and get that much closer to being completed. As mortals had never really been responsible for banishing elemental lords and collecting their material remains while their souls were sent back to their respective elemental plains, few ever really even noticed that they shed their material bodies, or that they were compressed down to mere rocks. Initially, Solmar himself had only done so because one of the other lords brought it up by accident, or maybe because he had planned for the mortal to pick it up all along.

Clenching the stone in his fist, he tightened his grip on his sword as Shane spoke up in response, making it clear that fighting up close was more his thing. That was a good thing too, because they only had a limited amount of space when fighting within the dome itself, so they could not go around tossing explosives in here anymore. No, they needed to be somewhat more careful when fighting now, also because they were dealing with a cornered animal at this point. When Shane called his hammer to him in magical fashion, he took to the fight by using lightning infused strikes in order to deal with the water elemental at the top of his abilities. Finding it to be quite inspiring how another mortal such as himself was dealing with a being from beyond their own dimension, which was not something that happened often and rarely ended well, the both of them were doing a good enough job at keeping her at bay. More than that, they were slowly wearing down her defenses and getting through to striking at the point where it really started to hurt her. Building up more of the magical lightning, it seemed that it had started to build up within his body now too as the hammer hovered around him.

Though it all seemed quite fancy, Solmar was waiting for the real offensive to begin as the rune knight was undoubtedly building up towards something bigger than just a smash of the hammer. When it came, it did so in the form of a punch enhanced with lightning that passed through the air like a shockwave, colliding with the water elemental lord in a violently explosive manner, which was exactly what Solmar had been waiting for. When next both the rune knight and the hammer clashed into the water elemental, she was flung back against the back of the dome, which was where she came to a stop. Interestingly enough, she was still not planning on going down as she rose back to her feet. Raising her arms, he watched as the water in the river started becoming more and more unruly, likely heeding her call. The more she raised up her arms, the more violent it became as it came over the riverbanks and started heading towards them. Likely intending to either empower her with more water or aiming to drown them inside of the dome as a means of freeing herself from it, Solmar moved in to try and put a stop to it before it had a chance to grow into an even bigger problem for the two mortal men.

Aiming his sword at her, he launched a continuous torrent of white flames at her, moving against her and against the barrier behind her. For a moment, he wondered if maybe doing so might cause the barrier itself to be harmed or destroyed, though it showed no sign of weakening at all. Most likely due to the fact that part of the power of this barrier came from the elemental plain of fire, a resounding high pitched shriek came from Undine as she was being cooked alive where she stood. Continuing to push it with the fire, he not only kept her in place but gradually beat away at every last bit of stamina she had going for her. There was no regenerating from a continuous attack like this, even if it was a matter of fire against water, a fight fire usually lost. Still, she continued fighting against it as she was far from willing to just keel over and die. She had her eyes set on grander things, meaning she would need to get out of here and get back to where she was at her strongest, within the waters that she still continued drawing towards her. Even with the barrage of fire forced into her from a distance, the water still drew closer and closer to the barrier. What was also important to bring up was the rapidly rising temperature inside of the dome that would soon force him to cease his attack.

"Do that thing you did one more time and she'll be done for. I'll keep up the flames while you go for the killing blow."


(910 // 4000)

Shane had long noticed the peculiarity in Solmar’s actions, or rather his inaction when the dome-like barrier had been erected around them. However, he had chalked it off as nothing but the swordsman waiting for a perfect opportunity to end the battle as soon as possible, seeing as he was the one experienced in dealing with beings of such origin. The Rune Knight knew his job well, which was to secure the tempo of the fight, to keep the elemental queen Undine on the back foot, overwhelming her to render her opportunistic way of fighting useless. And Shane was enjoying every moment of it.

It wasn’t every day he got the chance to fully unleash the tempest contained within Mjolnir, doubling as another chance to test out the limits of Mjolnir’s powers. After Shane and Mjolnir had collided into the elemental queen with a lunging knee strike amplified with lightning, effectively driving the elemental back into the walls of the barrier with a crash, Undine was quick to rise to her feet. Despite the roars she had emitted when she had taken the blow full-on, the elemental didn’t seem like she was going to go down any time soon.

But Solmar was more than ready to pick up the pace. With a flourish of his greatsword, the swordsman kept up the flow of attacks against the elemental queen. A continuous stream of white flames were aimed at Undine, the overwhelming flames burning her and the section of barrier behind her. Wherever hit by flames, the barrier would glow brightly as though threatening to burst at a moment’s notice, but it held strong. Demonic shrieks resounded horribly within enclosed barrier as the elemental of water was besieged by the holy flames, a curtain of steam created as fire fought against water.

However, even as the elemental queen looked like she was struggling with Solmar’s torrent of flames, she was still using all of her willpower to summon the water from the river. With just a simple turn of his head, Shane could see the encroaching waves, crawling up the river bank as though the water was alive still. The call from Solmar brought Shane’s attention back to the fight and the Rune Knight nodded once as affirmation.

Taking a deep breath, Shane let his magic power travelled through his entire body, and with it, came power. Shane could feel a sudden wave of strength coursing through his every veins and fiber. White steam began to rise from his body, creating a spectacular sight of a man emanating lightning and steam at the same time. With a shout, Shane stepped forward in a lunge, his speed causing him to appear as a nothing more but a blur, one moment he was taking the first step forward, and the next, he was already right in front of Undine. Braving the white flames,

Shane first unleashed an enhanced and electrified roundhouse kick to the elemental queen’s head, then chaining it into Clover Smash, where he dropped down with an axe kick on the elemental’s shoulder. As he did so, not only were the water that made up her body smashed apart, but the lightning around her limbs mixed with the flames as well, causing her even more anguish.

The moment he hit the ground, Shane dropped into a crouch and leapt backwards, his right arm pulled back. The Rune Knight Captain accumulated lightning and magical power into his entire right arm, and without further ado, thrust his entire arm forward in a punch, letting loose once more magical power infused with lightning in the shape of a gigantic fist. A huge explosion of lightning followed as the fist collided with the elemental queen. The chaos caused by the fire and lightning, blocked off some of Shane’s view but he distinctly saw water breaking apart from the elemental queen.

He just didn’t know if that was enough to end the battle.

[656 words]
[Personal WC: 5966]

Entering into the flames as he did, it was a good thing that Solmar had developed his flames to the point where they would only burn the things he wanted to, something he had learned to do to some degree to keep his spells from burning down a whole section of forest when forced to rely on them. While the white flames obscured his sight a bit, he could still sense Shane to some degree as he ventured in for the final hit which he hoped would be enough to do the trick and finish this fight. With the rumble of lightning and the roar of the flames, Solmar now completely lost sight of the water elemental lord as the violent eruption pushed him back a bit, causing his burst of fire to be shut down. No longer hearing the shrieks of pain, he merely watched as the dust slowly started to settle. As he could not tell by looking at her, he instead turned his gaze towards the river, seeing that the encroaching waves had stopped moving in a forceful manner and instead started running back towards the river that they were being drawn from earlier.

Considering this to be a good omen, he turned his attention back as Shane had become visible by now, after which it did not take a very long time before what remained of Undine popped up too. Hovering in the air above the ground as she no longer possessed any legs or much of a lower body, it seemed that she also lost an arm and a large portion of her upper body and shoulder. No longer seeing a whole lot of activity when he looked at her eyes, he felt the stone he held in his hand shake a bit as the barrier surrounding them was released. For some reason, it had been the barrier around them that had likely kept her together for as long as it did. Once the barrier disappeared fully, whatever force kept Undine together went with it, causing the body to burst apart. At that point, Solmar knew exactly what was going to be coming next as a watery gateway opened up where Undine had been before. As the lord of earth had told him, whenever an elemental lord got killed by human hands, it was not killed like a human being would be killed. Instead, their physically manifested body would be destroyed and their elemental body would be banished back to their elemental plain.

"Well… seems that did the trick."

Having witnessed this two times before, Solmar knew that this gateway would be starting to suck in all forces left by Undine in the area as it drew in large volumes of what seemed like water from their surroundings. However, closer inspection would show that this portal was merely drawing in any and all water elementals that had been brought to this place by the lord of water. Though the force of suction was enough to knock a grown man on his ass, no mortal could pass through it, meaning it was no threat to anyone that was not in fact an elemental of the watery variety. While the gateway did the cleaning up that Solmar and Shane would otherwise have been forced to do by themselves, he found himself wishing this would happen every time he beat the leader or the alpha of a group of enemies. To have a portal popping up that would take care of all remnants of the enemy seemed like a dream to someone like him who always needed to take care of things with his own two hands in any given normal situations. Because no matter how one twisted or turned it about, there was nothing normal or natural about having to fight against an elemental lord and their lackeys.

As he walked closer to it, it took a bit longer than expected before the portal had finished sucking up the remaining water elementals, which just went to prove that it was a good thing that this barrier had been erected as Undine had undoubtedly been planning something. It was within her nature to do so after all, being one of those beings that just kept on scheming until the very end. But along with the last elemental minion, the portal closed itself and disappeared a few moments after, leaving but a small sapphire where it had been to fall to the ground beneath it. The closer Solmar got to it, the more the stone he held and the one on the floor started humming and glowing, doing so to the point of synchronized humming as he got within two meters of it. Bending over to pick it up, it gave him a little shock when he first touched it, but allowed itself to be picked up off of the floor when he tried again. Holding it in one hand while holding the other in the other hand, he walked over to Shane so as to show what had happened to come out of their victory. Though a glowing stone probably meant little to nothing to him, the black haired youth figured some explanation was in order.

"This stone is proof that Undine is truly defeated, as well as proof that she and her followers have been banished back to their own elemental plain. Another elemental lord told me these stones are what remains of their material bodies after their essence is banished back to their own world. Though they had never been gathered, there is no telling what might happen when one collects them."

Looking at the one stone which was already a mixture of the stone of fire and the stone of wind, he could tell that the stone of water wanted to be with the others. Almost like two powerful magnets pulling towards one another, Solmar was still not exactly certain as to what might happen as the stone seemingly had a will and power of its own that he himself did not understand at all. Up until now, all the stone had really done was act as a compass that brought him to where an elemental lord was, allowing him to track even the hardest to follow such as the mistress of water, Undine. That said, had she not made the decision to venture inland and stay out in the ocean, Solmar would never have been able to find her, and that much was a fact. Today however, it had shown that it was also capable of creating a barrier capable of caging and holding an elemental lord and two mages of a rather high caliber without showing any real signs of breaking. This had come as as much of a surprise to him as it had likely been for Shane, which only went on to further prove just how little Solmar really knew about the stone dubbed an "Elemental Node", especially once it started growing in power.

If the two stones were to truly be connected a second time, which would put together the powers of the lords of wind, fire and water, it seemed likely that something would happen to it. Whatever that something would be was however, as much a mystery to him as it was to anyone else. But if he was to hunt down and beat the lord of earth and truly put an end to the elemental tide for the coming twenty five years or so, he would need to take the risk of putting them together. Letting go of his grip on the water stone, it flew into the node instantly, colliding with it as a flash of light burst forth from it that was strong enough to temporarily blind and disorient Solmar completely. Still reeling a bit from all of the magic power he had burned through when he tried to keep Undine in her place, it even gave him a bit of a mild headache. Finding it easy to power through it however, he opened his eyes again to see that a third of it had become blue. Fused together perfectly with the other two stones, it did not seem to be doing anything now that the stone had acquired three parts and was that much closer to reaching its full potential. As the lord of earth put it, it would have the potential of granting that which one truly wanted when completed, for that was how much power one would possess if the power of all four lords was ever to be put together in one place.

"When all four pieces are combined into a single elemental node, it means the elemental tide comes to an end. But since such a thing has never been attempted, at least not in a documented manner, there is no telling exactly how much power this thing will hold if they are ever collected. Still, it should aid me in finding the last, and arguably the most powerful of the four, the lord of earth himself."

With that, he put the stone back into his pocket so as to properly secure it. Though it wasn't that he didn't trust Shane with it, there was no telling what might happen if the thing remained out in the open for too long. After all, the lord of earth was still at large, and like Undine, he too might have spies around to keep an eye on the stone and the one who held it. Because even though he and Solmar had parted on relatively good terms, they both knew that Solmar would eventually have to come after him to make sure all life on Earthland would not be as dictated by the lord of earth and his followers. Knowing that very few things could live in a world devoid of water and weather, it was easy to see that even this elemental lord needed to be stopped sooner or later.


(1660 // 5660)

It had indeed been the final blow that ended the arduous battle, white steam rising and lightning crackling from his body as he waited for the dust settled. Shane was still in combat mode, his guard still up, in preparation for a retaliatory strike from the elemental queen Undine. His breathing was ragged, the simultaneous activation of the reinforcement spells from All Might and Mjolnir taking its toll on his body. He hadn’t trained for it before, to use them concurrently, and he made a mental note to do so when he finally returned to the Rune Knights headquarters. His sharp gaze tried to peer into the smoke and dust, and when it settled, Shane finally let go of his guard. The threat of Undine had been neutralized, judging from the pitiful she was in. What was left of the water elemental queen hovered in mid-air, with what was once her lower body having been blasted off by the combination of sheer force, lightning and fire. Her upper body wasn’t too well off as well, missing an arm and shoulder.

Shane watched as whatever remained of the elemental queen tried to restructure herself, to regain her former humanoid shape but with the lack of water, it kept on failing. Shane had no doubt that if given the proper conditions, the battle would just go on forever. And the most incredible part, it was all instinctual. The eyes of the elemental queen were lifeless, and yet the body kept trying to regenerate. For a moment, Bishop, one of Shane’s most reliable soldier, came to mind. Was his comrade, also one of his best friends, going to go through the same thing should he one day die? To have a body that could regenerate back from major damage despite being brain dead?

A gateway suddenly opened where Undine was hovering, and like a shower drain draining the all of the water in a shower room, all the water within the barrier as well as the ‘contaminated’ water that formed the other lesser elementals were sucked into the portal. The force of the suction was strong, but Shane stood his ground, and as the portal closed, the barrier having long dispersed, the Rune Knight began to release the pent up magical force within himself. The steam and lightning dispersed from his body, as though carried away by a breeze and Shane was his usual self again. If the exhausted breathing could be ignored.

It hadn’t missed his attention that Solmar was picking up something off the ground, whatever remnant of Undine. However, the swordsman wasn’t planning to keep him in the dark anyway. Solmar approached Shane, showing him the glowing stone that he had picked up in the palm of his hand.

“So from the looks of the other stone, it seems you have defeated two elemental lords?” Shane watched Solmar release his grip on the blue stone, and with a whizz, it flew towards its elemental counterparts and merged into one. A flash of light burst from the union, Shane reacting too slow to block it out and was partially dazed by it. When he finally blinked out of it, the stone in Solmar’s hand were made up of three components. One for each elemental lord that had been slain. The power of the barrier that allowed the battle to end conclusively was once again brought up in his mind, and Shane watched the stone with a frown, wondering what it was capable of now that the power of another elemental lord was added to it. He gave a glance at Solmar, and his doubts were quelled, knowing the swordsman to be a reliable and trustworthy person. That the power within the elemental node would be safe with him.

“Are you planning to wander Fiore to track down this Earth Lord? I think it was by luck that Undine had made her way inland, a very fatal mistake. I believe her chances of victory would have been more assured if she had launched her war against humanity from the sea instead. He could well be hiding within any of the mountain ranges in Fiore and just create gigantic golems to smash our cities,” Shane spoke his concerns aloud. Having just faced off against the water elemental queen out of her environment, Shane had no doubts that the Lord of Earth would be near unstoppable if he decided to go on a rampage.

“Well, if you ever need me, you know how to get me,” Shane remarked as he gave Solmar a pat on his back. “I’ve got to get back to bringing the villagers back to River Village.”

Shane made his way towards the hill that he had asked the villagers to seek refuge on, and when he finally arrived at the top in fifteen minutes, Joltrin moved from the back of the crowd to the front to meet him. Instead of a look of concern, it was one of relieve to see Shane.

“We could see the battle from the hill. How are you holding up?” Joltrin asked as he took a look at Shane from top to bottom.

“I have seen better days,” Shane replied with a grimace. “Let’s get everyone back to the village. You really should think about building some defensive measures, Joltrin. This is the second time within a week that River Village’s almost been destroyed.”

“You don’t say. Why don’t you build a Rune Knights outpost here and station some Rune Knights here instead? Nothing beats some outdoor training and wilderness survival skills,” Joltrin replied with a smirk. But what was a playful suggestion was actually deeply considered by Shane.

“That kind of makes sense. I just might suggest this to the Field Marshall and see what she says. But until then, you’ve got my contact number,” Shane replied with a wistful look.

-----

Shane sat down behind his desk, dropping heavily into his chair and letting out a breath of relief. Sitting opposite him was Link, one of his most trusted subordinate, the key person in managing all of the logistics of his missions.

“So what do you want me to do about this River Village incident?”

“I’ll need your help to compile whatever information you can get regarding the elemental lords. Solmar said they have been here before, twenty five years ago. I want to know what happened back then. Because if this Lord of the Earth is the strongest out of the four, then we will probably be in for a world of hurt. Solmar might be able to take care of this threat, but I want to know when and where it will strike, so that no lives will be unnecessarily lost,” Shane instructed, leaning deep into his armchair.

“I’ll do my best, Cap,” Link said as he clapped his hands once and then pushed himself out of his seat. “Get some rest, man. You look like shit.”

[WC: 1155 words]
[Personal WC: 7121 words]

"Aye, I have, though much of that was because of how they wanted to spite one another. When they first arrived, they all met in the same place at the top of the Phoenix mountain. For a moment, they conversed with one another, but were clearly incapable of finding common ground, so they started fighting. The lord of fire was the first to go on the offensive, so when I fought him, the other lords pitched in left and right so that one of them would bite the dust early. Needless to say, having four opponents was too much for him to handle, and he was the first to be extinguished."

Knowing quite well that the choice of his words was rather on point, what with a lord of flame being put out and sent back, it was also thanks to the fact that he had been the one to kill him that Interress the fire lord had been banished back to his own realm. Not knowing a thing about them at that time, it was through experiencing things firsthand that he became somewhat more knowledgeable of them, something he really needed to become as the goal was to fend off all four of them and take down as many as he could. Obviously, such a goal was far too big for a single mage to pull off, and that was something he had been quite aware of the whole time. Still, it did not mean that he was willing to let up as doing so might mean his own death at the hands of one of the cunning lords. Throughout that initial encounter, Undine had perhaps been the most cunning of all as she only struck when someone had their back turned or when someone had been lulled into a false sense of security. The fact that she was dead now was therefore something he himself was incredibly pleased with, and for good reason.

"Once the firelord died, the wind lord attacked me for being the one to kill him. As it turned out, killing an elemental lord as a human banishes them, but if one elemental kills another elemental, they die forever. This is why it usually takes them twenty-five years to elect a new leader or reconstitute themselves after losing in our world. These stones however are undocumented from what I could find out, though my sources are contained to that of a basic library. I only know about them because the lord of earth told me about it."

Since Shane was a rune knight, he figured that he could find out more than Solmar could, as Guilds often had a lot of connections and ties with people that they could call upon when needed. These were all things Solmar himself lacked, meaning he had to find things out firsthand by diving into them head first. Sometimes things worked out, sometimes they didn't and he got hurt, though the results were there none the less. Truth be told, the main reason why he let Shane know about all of these things was because he wanted the last elemental lord gone and to see what would happen if the elemental node was to get all four portions of itself and become whole. While the latter was just something that would come as a result of the former, it was his main priority to make sure none of the elemental lords remained in this world. Left unchecked by the others, it meant the last remaining one had every chance to settle down and slowly prepare for his moment to show up and set things in motion the way he wanted to. Given his age, the lord of earth knew a lot more about Earthland than Solmar did, so he most likely knew exactly where to go to sit things out for a while.

Judging by what Shane said, it made sense that he would go to a more mountainous region, which had likely been why he had initially shown up in the Phoenix mountains to begin with. In a world such as this where earth was a rather all-encompassing thing, the only one who arguably had the strength to stop him was Undine, given that the other half of the planet was all water. Though powerful in their own right, the lords of fire and air never had the same kind of grasp on this planet as the other two did, which explained why they were the first to be banished back to their own worlds. Though it was unfortunate that the water mistress had not been more focused on fighting the lord of earth, or the other way around, Solmar imagined that there was really nothing that could be done about that. After all, she had focused on trying to drown and kill as many humans as she possibly could, meaning he could not afford to have let her walk in hopes of her coming to the point of exchanging blows with the lord of earth. No, this was a fight that needed to happen, and the fight against the lord of earth would eventually come his way as well, but not before gathering up more information on where it is that he might have been hiding and gathering his powers and followers.

“But that is about all that I can share at this point, as it is more or less the stuff I know for certain. But you’re correct about there being a serious problem with the lord of earth. There is no telling where he might be, though the mountain regions might be a good place to start. The only place I’ve ruled out so far are the Phoenix mountains, which still leaves an awful lot to search through.”

While he could have shared more, a lot of it was just guesswork at best, meaning it would not be that helpful in a factual search on such a scale. Figuring that Shane would likely use his own resources to some extent in the search for the final elemental lord as it posed a serious threat to Fiore and even Earthland itself if left to his devices long enough, Solmar would go his own way and do what he did best. Having several places left to check out, there were still plenty of places he needed to go to and jobs he needed to see through along the way, so getting bored was not something he would need to worry about. So when the Rune Knight went to tell the villagers that it was safe to return to their homes, the black haired swordsman nodded at him as he too returned to the village. Something about it was so familiar, yet he could swear that he hadn’t been here up until now. Taking him a few minutes to reach the place, he took it upon himself to look around and see if there was something that might jog his memories towards either remembering something or towards ruling it out as a fault in his internal wiring.

Going by the town hall, the local store and the docks that were built alongside the actual river, something about it seemed familiar for sure. Deciding to follow the path, he found a brand-new building standing at the edge of the docks, or at least brand new when compared to some of the surrounding buildings that looked a lot older. As most of his being wanted to go towards it, there was something that held him back, as well as a person appearing from the street beside him. Though he did not really remember him based on looks, he felt as if he should have, for the man certainly seemed to remember him.

“So.. I see you’ve managed to find your way back here after all these years. I thank you for stopping those things from destroying our town, though it does not change the fact that you shouldn’t be here. You being here means that… Thing is here too.”

Looking at the man’s face as his face brought up memories that had been suppressed, he remembered him as the mage that had stopped him from killing and destroying more of this place when the demon Vetis had taken over his body. It made a lot of sense, given how this man had knowledge on the being inside of him moving everywhere Solmar went. Not saying a word, he merely nodded at the man, who nodded at him in response as he just remained there, watching him. Knowing now why this place seemed so familiar, the young mage decided that it was best if he just left things for what they were as there were still people here that remembered who he was and what he had done, even after eleven years had passed. Heading towards the entrance, his mind lingered on the thought of having destroyed another elemental lord and gathering another piece of the puzzle that was the elemental node. That, and at least now he knew where he was born.


[Exit]
(1514 // 7174)