Chapter 12

The Fyre Chronicles

Chapter 12

A bit later in the day, Santuric and I prepared to leave. I didn’t really have any possessions here, so it didn’t take long for us to be ready. We went out of the hut and turned towards each other. “Here we go” Santuric said, and laid his hand on my shoulder. Soon Fyre enveloped us both and again all I could see was flames. When I could, I was on rough and bumpy ground and the heat hit me square in the face. I looked around and was surprised to see a huge volcano to the left of us with crevasses filled with magma showing up all over the ground. In front of us was a big black-smoked wooden door. Santuric started to walk towards the door, and I hurried to follow.

The handle on the door was black metal, and from the looks of it, it was very hot. Nevertheless Santuric nudged me to open it, and I carefully grabbed the handle. I didn’t get burned surprisingly. I heard Santuric behind me “I does not burn people aligned with Fyre, thus keeping trespassers out. In fact, the whole location of this place is to help defend against Yce.” We now walked down a snaking hallway with doors on either side every few meters. “The hallway is shaped like a giant S for the symbolism of a flame, and to make ambushing intruders easier. We only saw few people in the hall, all looking like they had a purpose even though none of the doors were marked. We then reached the end of the hall and stood in front of a carved wooden door. Santuric opened it and a red light streamed out from the crack.

We entered a medium sized room, and the first thing I saw was the source of the red light. It emitted from a fist sized red orb sitting on a thin column. I could feel heat coming from it, but also a rejuvenating energy. On the ground in front of it sat two old men and an old woman, the woman with thin white hair and a wrinkly face on the left, a man completely bald and with a scar under his right eye on the right and a man with long grey hair and beard in the middle. They all wore red robes and had kind faces but undoubtedly with much wisdom behind. I saw Santuric bow his head in a nod and say “Greetings council.”



We sat on two pillows on front of them, and I had a second to look around. Two windows on either side of the room showed the barren landscape outside. Except for the column with the orb and the piles of pillows on the floor, the room was empty. Although on the wall, signs I didn’t know the meaning or purpose of was painted on with red paint. “So, you must be the chosen” said the bald man, and looked at me. “I am Shaw, and this is Zentharim” he pointed at the woman. “And this is Firr” he nodded to the man in the middle. “How is he coming along Santuric?” Zentharim asked. “He is doing very well. He passed the test on his first try.” He said. “Well, obviously! He’s the chosen!” Shaw blurted out. “Well, he may be chosen but he still needs training! And I suspect Santuric to have done a good job!” Zentharim replied. They continued to bicker for a minute, but Firr didn’t say anything and just looked quietly at me. His eyes was grey but with a deep fire burning behind. This was both fascinating and terrifying.

When I finally tore myself from his gaze, I interrupted Zentharims and Shaws argument. “Excuse me?” I said. They quieted and looked at me. “What does it mean to be chosen? And why am I it?” Zentharim leaned forward and caught my gaze. “You see. Every few thousand years, the best of the Fyre aligned offers some of their power to have an individual chosen. This individual has no boundaries when it comes to power. Normal humans can only channel so much, but the chosen has unlimited potential. This has happened twice before, once on every side of the contrast.”

I didn’t really understand this, maybe because it was so unnerving I couldn’t quite believe it. “But even a chosen must still have training” Shaw said “So we are taking over from now on!” I hadn’t expected this, what about Santuric? As hard as it had been with him, I had still formed a bond with him. “We have a special request for you Santuric” Zentharim said. “Which we need to do alone” she said and looked at me. “If you continue down the hall, take the 7th door on your left. There you will find a dorm for you to stay in.” I rose and but hesitated a split-second. “You should prepare” Shaw said. “You training begin tomorrow, and that won’t be something you can prepare for.” I looked back to try and catch Santurics gaze, but he didn’t look at me, only Firr did. I walked out of the room and closed the large carved door behind me.

I walked down the now empty hallway. I found the 7th door on my left and opened. It led into a long room with beds stacked all the way down. Some people were already asleep; we’d probably had a time zone change when we went here. Others were still up though, sitting on their beds meditating or reading a book. No one really noticed me, except for one guy who rose and walked smiling towards me. “Hey, I’m Sates” he said. He had brown hair and a slim face, and he was about 1.85 tall, around the same as me. “So I guess you’re the new guy we’ve been hearing about. Come, you can bunk next to me, there’s an empty bed.” We walked over to the beds, and sat down. “So you’re….. The chosen?” he started. “Yeah, apparently” I answered “But I still don’t understand much very well.” He looked at me for a second and said “It’ll all come in time, but if you think time with old Santuric was tough, you’re in for something much, much worse. But I guess even chosen must train too.” I hear a bell sound from somewhere outside. “Oh, it’s lights-out now. You should try to get some sleep. Keep to me in the morning and you’ll get off your feet well enough.”

I lay back on the rugged pillow and pulled the thin blanket over me, but soon had to throw it off because of the heat. This was probably part of the training, living on top of a volcano.

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Original post: http://www.fyreball.com/d/As0SgI

So here's the chapter of the week.

Enjoy

- Ting

Chapter 11

The Fyre Chronicles

Chapter 11

For the following 4 months we trained like this, only each day was getting more and more tough. But it began helping, and after just half a month of running to the woods each morning, I could already feel my stamina getting better. Santuric said it was not as much my strength that needed boosting as it was my stamina, channeling the Fyre did more than just take your breath away. And after two months I could do the run in double-time without any problems.


The mental training was the hardest part though. For quite a while I had trouble finding this feeling that was actually driven by impulses. Then one rainy day, about 2 months in, sitting in the semi-cover of the tree, this strange emotion appeared within me. It wasn’t unfamiliar and I was able to keep it for a while. Santuric had apparently sensed this and turned towards me. He’d said: “Good. Now you are finally making progress on this point too.” After this it had accelerated. Where I had had to make myself a bow-and-stick to light a fire in the previous months, I could now conjure a fyreball within my hand to light it, and Santuric told me I was emitting a heat without akin.

This was where it all started to pick up. Soon I was able to stand even in the heaviest downfall and meditate, and the rain would just vaporize before it hit me. My fyreballs were getting larger and faster too. I soon learned to throw them and hit a target very precisely. And in the beginning of August, Santuric said I’d have my final test before I’d have to move on. “There is not much more I’ll be able to teach you, so we shall go to see the council when you have passed the test” He had said. So on August 7th, I woke early out of being nervous.

I woke and got out of bed with the dawn of the sun, but Santuric was already gone. I went outside to look for him, but saw only a wooden pole in the open terrain, about a meter above the ground. Walking closer, I saw Santuric sitting behind it, waiting. “It’s time to begin your test” he said. “The objective for you is to stand here” he pointed at the pole “and not fall down while I send various things to knock you off it. You may try to stop them any way you can except for attacking me. Did you get that?” I nodded and mounted the pole.

It was only wide enough for me to stand with my feet together, and then only just barely. Santuric walked about 20 meters away and closed his eyes. For a whole minute, nothing happened. I looked around, somewhat anxious, until a large rock appeared out of nowhere in front of me, flying towards me at a high speed. In the short time I had to react, I raised my hand and launched a fyreball that hit it and threw it off course. For the next minute, about 50 rocks kept appearing launching towards me. I either dodged them or sent them away. After the last one had been sent and dismissed, there was a break. This part hadn’t been hard for me, hadn’t even lost wind.



Then the ground started to tremble, seriously testing my balance. Right when it began, I almost fell off, but thought fast and used a small burst of Fyre to send me straight again. Then, while still quaking, pebbles began bombarding me from all sides. They were not very big, but they were fast so I shielded my face and focused on raising my heat till it was hot enough to melt them before they hit. Then the pebbles and the quaking stopped and almost before I could react, a huge wall of water appeared above me. Before I could come up with a rational way out of it, I raised my arms and let go of a stream of Fyre, vaporizing a column of water that I could just barely fit within. I had to keep this up for around half a minute whilst the water kept roaring besides me, and the constant stream of Fyre started to tear on my energy. Just as I started to loose balance, and scrape the stream of water, it stopped, and my arms fell down, exhausted. I began to topple in the pause, but made a last minute thrust of Fyre to correct myself. I had a little time to look around; the ground wasn’t wet at all. But I didn’t have time to ponder it much.

Now a soaring wall of stone appeared, only with a narrow slit for the pole to pass trough. In my exhaustion I hesitated for a moment, and the wall started moving slowly towards me. If I didn’t do something, I was probably going to be knocked off, and would have to stay and train more. As much as I had learned, it was very hard work for someone who had been in a cubicle for 7 years. I forced myself to raise my arms and throw a fyreball, but it only dissipated with no effect. I tried a couple more, but to no avail. The wall was picking up speed; at this rate it was going to hit me in a couple of seconds. I tried conjuring a stream of Fyre again, but my energy was too low to call much more than a tiny stream. The wall came closer, and just as I reached out towards it to push in panic, flames appeared around my head, and I couldn’t see anything.

When they dissipated again, I was still standing on the pole. I turned around and the wall was now moving away from me, I had somehow teleported on my own. Santuric walked towards me. “Good. I didn’t expect you to pass the wall first time. You may dismount now.” I half jumped, half fell off the pole, and sat down besides it. “Get rested for we are going to the council soon.”

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Original post: http://www.fyreball.com/d/AMACUX

Weeks chapter, enjoy.

It might have been slow going for now, but in 1 or 2 chapters, the plot is going to pick up a lot. Remember, if you have a friend that could be interested in joining in on the story, then please tell them. They might even join Fyreball.com


Enjoy

- Ting

Chapter 10

The Fyre Chronicles

Chapter 10

I woke to the morning songs of the birds outside and the clatter of Santuric searching for something inside the stove. “We’ve got to find some fire wood” he said. “Get up and get ready!” He stood up while I hurried to wrap myself out of the blanket and get ready. “We’ve got 7 kilometers to go so we can gather wood, both ways.” I stopped for a second. “You can’t seriously mean that? What good is that?” He turned and looked strictly at me. “First of all, we need wood to survive. And if you really are in that bad shape, it’s even more important you get fit! But this will have to wait for the study later, we need to find wood!”

And so we began trotting down the gravel road. Nothing seemed to appear in the distance for about an hour. I wasn’t walking very fast, because I had been sitting in a cubicle for several years. But the trek wasn’t that bad since the sun was just rising, and the frisk morning dew woke me up a bit. Then we finally arrived at the brim of a large forest. Nothing else seemed to be near this area, and the gravel road continued into the dark of the trees. “We must find some wood now” Santuric said “follow me”

We began walking between the trees, looking for dry branches. After a while we each got a heavy load of wood. Nothing I couldn’t handle to lift, but I had a feeling the trek back would be tough, and true enough it was. When I finally dropped the bundle next to the stove, I was panting and the sun now higher on the sky didn’t make it any better. “This is what we’ve got to do every day from now on” He said “And tomorrow we’re going to jog down there” At this point I was too weary to protest, so I just dumped into the chair. Right as I sat, it collapsed beneath me.

“Right, that is our next task. Get this place habitable. Follow me.” I dragged myself with him out behind the hut. Here was a small well. Looking down into it, it seemed to have enough water to sustain us. “Get some water down, and get ready for the next.” I took the bucket and rope lying next to the well, and lowered it into the well. I got the bucket up and took a sip of water. It tasted earthy and unclean but I still drained half the bucket. “Follow me.” Santuric said, and we began walking out to a field of high grass.

“We need to pick and dry enough for us to sleep on.” Then he grabbed a group of straws and yanked it out of the ground like it was nothing, but when I tried I had to struggle for a minute before it let go of the ground. “We need as much as you can carry” he said. This continued for about an hour, quickly draining my energy, but I finally got a bunch of grass, which we lay to dry outside the hut.

Then we sat under the shadow of the largest of the three trees. “Not only must you be in great physical shape” Santuric said “But you must also have a balanced mind. I will teach you to understand and control the Fyre. I’ve seen you’ve been able to summon it before, during the fight.” “Yes” I said “but that was only when I was in danger. Then it just popped up inside me.” “Exactly! You must learn to control that so you can use it independently.” He held his hand forward and a ball of Fyre appeared floating above it. “You must learn to find those emotions when you need them”



We spend the next few hours sitting in the shade of the tree, Santuric trying to guide me into meditating. But as the day wore on I only got more frustrated and hungry. At last, unable to achieve the goal of meditating, we got inside. I’ll take care of the food, you get the wood lit. I stacked the wood inside the stove, but I had no way of lighting it. Looking confused at Santuric, I expected him to guide me somehow, but he was now in some deep concentration. A bright ball of Fyre appeared in his hands. It burned bright for a moment and then shrunk into two raw steaks. He now looked at me, but I was now just even more perplexed.

“How did you do that?” I asked. “The Fyre is practically the essence of everything." He answered "If you focus on it, then you may mold the essence into whatever you’d like.” I thought about this for a while. “If we using Fyre can create stuff, can’t Yce do it too?” For a short second I saw a glint in Santuric’s eye. “You think in the right direction, but remember that Fyre is the representative of life and creation and Yce is the representative of death and undoing. The two opposites remember. But you’ve got to get a fire going if you want to eat.”

I turned to the stove again. How was I going to light this? I had no matches or other. Maybe I needed to use the Fyre to light it somehow. I’d need to find that spot I’d been trying to achieve all day. I could feel Santuric’s eyes burn on my neck. He was expecting me to do this, I couldn’t fail now! I tried to clear my mind and focus. But the feeling of being watched continuously disrupted me.

How was I supposed to do anything under this stress?! I was staring hard at the branches now, silently cursing Santuric, and then something odd happened. The wood spontaneously ignited, but this didn’t startle me. The anger had already taken over and I had turned and launched a Fyreball towards him. He was wither faster than me or expecting this and dodged the ball. It burned a hole through the wall and continued into the night for a while. Santuric stared silently at me, a tiny smirk on his face. I was panting heavily whilst the now raging fire heated my back. “This is good. At least we’ve made a little progress today” He rose and began to cook the meat, but I had a feeling it had all gone faster than he had expected.

Later we ate, collected our dried straws and went to sleep. Santuric didn’t say anything other than “Get some sleep” that evening.
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Original post: http://www.fyreball.com/d/AkT4X5

Here you go, the 10th chapter. Made a new and more awesome title pic, and this chapter is a whopping 1'106 words.

Thanks to DualFinger for making a cool parody, thanks to Xthakila for giving support and to everyone reading this and following the story.

Enjoy

Ting

Chapter 9

The Fyre Chronicles

Chapter 9

When I opened my eyes I was cold and stiff all over. It was still night apparently. Santuric was sitting at the other chair with the blanket around him, fast asleep. I was still worn and tired, but I couldn’t fall asleep again now that I was awake. The sound of crickets outside mixed with the still sound of Santuric’s breathing. I sat and listened for a while, thinking over the things that had happened. Even with this explanation it still took some getting used to. And still there was something that was not quite clear to me. He explained why someone was chosen, but not why it was me. Why was I cho…?

My line of thought was broken when I heard a twig snap outside. Santuric was still asleep. On any other day he would probably have been awake now, but he was probably very weary. I slowly untangled myself from the blanket and walked silently to the old door to peek out. It was dark outside only lit by a full moon. I could see the shadowy outlines of the three lonely trees in front of the hut and the narrow gravel road snaking off in the distance. I looked around but saw nothing unusual. Then I heard a noise out of my field of vision. It sounded like a flame blazing for a swift second, and when I looked in the direction the noise had come from. For a short moment I saw a glint of light followed by darkness.



This got my adrenaline running. I looked back inside, Santuric was still asleep. Should I go wake him? No, he’d need that sleep probably. I turned towards where the light had come from again. Staying low and quiet, I sneaked towards the place. The crickets were the only sound now. I got close enough to see the place it had come from in the moonlight. No one was there. Only a blackened spot remained on the ground.

I looked around. If anyone had been there, I would have seen them move away. I approached the spot. The grass had been singed and an odd smell of smoke was in the air. Confused, I looked around. Still, there was no one there. Who could have been here? Not someone hostile, hopefully. I rose and walked back to the hut. Wrapping myself in the blanket, I got ready to sleep again. It was a mystery for another time; I had to rest for training tomorrow.

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Original post: http://www.fyreball.com/d/Avc-K6

Here's the weeks chapter.

A bit short I know, I didn't have a terrible lot of time. And for the reference, canceling this was an APRIL FOOLS! Can't believe so many fell for it. I'd only stop writing if no one wanted to read it anymore.

Enjoy

- Ting