Journey of the Dead King - Landon G. (phonics reading books .txt) 📗

a cave in those mountains on the horizon, through there we can get to a tunnel that leads to the castle, then we can kill Delacroix,” he answered
“Okay, then let’s get through this as quickly as possible, I want to unleash my demon’s wrath upon him,” I said.
“That’s the spirit!” Razor said encouragingly.
We continued down the path, not a thing in sight but a forest and the mountain lining. We soon came across the beginning of the mountains; it was a large valley which, according to Dart, had the cave somewhere in it.
I expected some kind of ambush by some orcs or something, but no, no ambushes, a small rock slide, but no ambushes, which relieved me because I didn’t want to see how the kiss may effect mine and or Razor’s fighting potential.
We finally made it to the cave; inside I could hear random buzzing, scratching, and skittering. My mind was set on small animals, rats, hornets, other various insects. I was ready for taking care of some random critters.
There were a lot of rodents and insects in the cave, some much larger than they should have been, but we took care of them easily. We came across several chambers with the monster’s nests in them. We had a hell of a time with all of the queens and protectors, but we got through it, amazingly unpoisoned and without a life threatening injury.
We soon came into a large chamber that had an enormous fire in the middle, as we approached it, is started to slowly turn, then we realized that there was a demon inside the flames. Its skin was red and covered in blisters, its eyes were green and it had long fangs. It wore a turban and floated in the flames cross-legged.
“I am Ifrit,” it said, slowly as if to ensure we understood it, “why have you disturbed my sleep?”
Before Dart or I could react, Razor jumped forward and yelled, “We’re here to kick some ass and take some names!”
“You know that’s how you got your ass kicked last time, right?” I said, surprised that she would be that foolish again.
“Hey! They caught me off guard! Besides, my scythe was dull, remember? I’ll do better this time!” she retorted.
We all rushed Ifrit, I used my Shadow bolt, Razor used a move called Pyro Dragon, which bound and burned the target and Dart hacked away at it. My Shadow Bolt knocked it back, Dart’s sword dazed it, and Razor’s Pyro Dragon bound him, but the fire did nothing.
“Uh... I think you’d better just use your scythe,” I told her.
“Yeah, I think your right,” she said. She winked at me then slashed at Ifrit.
For a few minutes it went on in a continuous loop, Dart and Razor slashed at him, I smacked him around and used my spells. It all went well until Ifrit had had enough.
“I will not be defeated by such pathetic humans!” it yelled, “I would rather kill us all than be killed by you!”
It slammed its fist on the ground and the chamber started to shake, large chunks of rock fell from the ceiling, the chamber was caving in.
“We have to get out of here!” I yelled over the loud rumbling, “I think I see an exit over there!”
And sure enough, there was a tunnel with a small light shining in it. We started to run towards it, but Ifrit blocked the way.
“Oh no you-“it yelled, but it was interrupted by a large boulder that fell on top of it. We ran through the tunnel, which was also collapsing. We just barely got out before the entire thing collapsed.

Chapter 5
Carthasis

After another hour of walking it started to get dark, we hadn’t brought any tents so we would either have to find a town fast or sleep on the clod, hard, ground all night. We quickened our pace to a jog to try and get further before dark, that jog turned into a run, and that run into a sprint across the seemingly endless cold. The sun had almost completely hidden behind the horizon, before Dart asked, “Is it just me or is that a town over there?”
I stared over to where to was pointing and I saw a shadow of what looked like a large group of buildings a while away, I thought I saw smoke coming from it.
“I think you’re right!” said Razor, sounding relieved, her ears perked up and her tail twitched as she said this.
“Race you!” shouted Dart as he started sprinting toward the shadow.
Razor sprinted after him on all fours, and I followed. I could feel some uncontrollable urge to mimic Razor and sprint on all fours too; I decided not to fight this urge. As I got down on all fours, u could feel ears sprouting from the top of my head and a tail, claws grew on my hand and feet and I started running faster and faster. I soon passed Razor and was catching up to Dart, the more I ran the faster I could feel myself going, the strangest thing happened though, I wasn’t in the blind rage I was in my previous transformation, I could stop myself anytime I wanted, maybe I was finally gaining control of this power...
I heard a sharp whistle as I sped past Dart, I looked back, he was quickly fading into the distance, I could barely see Razor but I know she was catching up to Dart. After a few minutes I reached the town; it was Karskin, a small farming and mining village near my old castle. I waited a little; Razor was the next to show up, and after her Dart.
“I didn’t know you could control your demon! You should have told me!” said Razor.
“I honestly didn’t know either,” I told her, “I didn’t even realize I could control what I was doing until I passed you.”
“When you ran past me I thought it was an arrow!” yelled Dart
“Oh, sorry if I scared you,” I apologized. I could feel my skin turning a little red and any trace of my demon disappearing.
“Ah, it’s okay, you being able to control that demon is good news! We can kick more asses harder now!” he said.
“Heh, I guess, but as for right now let’s look for the inn,” I said.
So we spent the next five or ten minutes trying to find the inn, once we did find it we had to scrounge up enough gold to pay for the expenses.
“’Night,” said Dart as we retired to our rooms. To cut the price down we only paid for two rooms, Razor was going to sleep in my room tonight, I was worried Dart would get suspicious but he asked no questions.
Before I went to bed I fooled around with my alchemy kit a little. I still needed to test the healing potion.
“Can I use your scythe for a moment?” I asked Razor.
“Sure,” she replied. She brought it over to me and kissed me on the cheek before getting ready for bed.
I cut my arm; I flinched slightly from the pain. As blood ran down my arm I reached inside my bag and pulled out the potion. I pulled the cork out with my teeth and poured some on the wound. It burned a little and bubbled; when it cleared away the cut was gone. I felt a sense of accomplishment as I wiped the blood off of my arm. There aren’t many alchemists in the world, most died when a potion backfired and either poisoned them or blew up in their face.
I mixed up a few more healing potions and a few revival potions. I planned to test those on monsters tomorrow.
Once that was done I put the kit away, took off my cloak and bag on the table near the door, and climbed into bed next to Razor.

* * *

Delacroix stared into the swirling potion showing Darian and Razor in the inn bed, soundly sleeping.
“Damn,” Delacroix muttered, “I can’t stand to see him sleep so soundly as I stand by idly, unable to do anything. Though maybe...”
He held his hand in front of him and held up his middle and index fingers, and made a circular motion in the air. As he did this black energy started surrounding his hand and tracing the circle he drew in front of him. He stopped, thrust his palm at the circle and it widened, then he drew a star pattern in the air and thrust his palm at it, so to create a pentagram. He then drew a skull and thrust his palm at that, when he did it grew, and the pentagram glowed.
The skull and star outlines widened and filled out the circle making a portal, and through this portal cam half a dozen hooded figures, each wearing tattered robes and floating weightlessly above the ground.
“Now,” said Delacroix, “I want you to go to Karskin, and kill Darian.”
“Yes master...” said one of the wraiths in a raspy voice, and without a sound they floated through the portal.

* * *

I awoke in the middle of the night next to Razor, she was fast asleep. I could feel her tail on my leg, it was like having a kitten sleeping next to me. For a moment I thought about how lucky I was to have met her. I ran my hand through her hair and her ear twitched.
I was about to go back to sleep when I saw a light outside the window, I got up and looked outside; there was an enormous fire raging throughout the town. In the midst of the flame I saw a tall hooded figure floating above the ground. It turned around to face me. Its face was hidden behind its hood.
It looked up at the window I was staring out at let out a spine shilling shriek. It held its gnarled ash colored hands in front of it and a dark swirling orb appeared in front of it, it thrust its palm into the orb and it flew at me.
I jumped to the bed, grabbed Razor, immediately waking her, and dragged her to the floor.
She began to scream “What the,” but was interrupted when the orb blew up the wall. Rubble flew past us and the bed burst into purple flames. I got up, ran over to my bag, and got my staff, and got ready to fight the ghostly figure.
It floated into what was left of the room just as dart burst in with his sword in hand.
I finally recognized this as one of Delacroix’s wraiths. We often used them when defending the castle and in wars when they were needed. They were stealers of souls; they were often also used as assassins. There wasn’t much that could hurt them, they were unaffected by all physical damage and they could resist most magic. There were rumors that they were easily killed by demons but we never got the chance to test this.
“What the hell is that!?” cried Razor and Dart in unison.
“They’re Wraiths,” I told them.
It looked at me and held out its gnarled ash colored hand out and pointed its finger at me.
“You’re Darian?” it asked.
I nodded, still ready to fight it, even though I couldn’t do anything in my current form.
“Master Delacroix ordered us to come here and kill you,” it informed me.
“Is that so?” I asked, “And is he watching us right now?”
“Yes,” it replied.
“Okay, Delacroix!” I yelled, “Get ready! Because once I kick these wraith’s asses, I’m going to kick yours!”
I felt my ears and tail grow, I threw my