#spellboundverse

Violent winds whip ash storms away from a village's scattered bricks. Singed limbs and melted faces litter the barren black soil brittle with blood and whimpering embers. The air was still thick with fog and had a smoky scent that can burn noses with just a trace. A skeleton of what was once a flourishing community. 

Suddenly, a green light flashes. It cracks through the murky atmosphere, revealing a man phasing through the fog. He wipes his round-framed glasses with his emerald coat sleeve and squints through the smoke. As he ventures further into the gray abyss, the ground crunches under his black boots. 

“It appears I came too late,” he shakes his head and frowns, “A true shame.” An itchy tingle ripples through his hands that causes him to widen his eyes at attention, “There’s someone remaining. Just barely.” 

The man holds a hand out and a green flame blooms from it. Its tingling warmth pulses in his grasp like a beating heart. He lifts his hand, letting the flame thin into a wisp of magic. It slithers through the smoke, searching for its target. The wizard follows suit to further investigate the ruins. He finds a woman propped onto a wooden beam, her face painted with ash. Her green floral-print dress was pricked with blackened fabric. Her pale neck and arms are branded with deep holes. He scrunches his nose at the acrid sour odor the weak scarlet embers emit as he gazes at the woman below. 

“Just..let..it..end,” the woman chokes.  

“Oh?” the man says, arching an eyebrow. 

“Please..I lost everything..Just let me die.” 

He nods, “All I ask is one favor and I will avenge you.” 

“Favor?” 

“All I require is that you’re conscious.”  The man presses two fingers onto her ashen forehead sticky with blood.  

He closes his eyes and whispers, “Resouvion” Flash after flash, overwhelming chaos rages in his mind. Oceans of flames swallowing desperate wails. Enormous talons impaling crawling civilians. The huge beast flying away, leaving bloodshed and death scattered around a once flourishing village. The picture blinks and blurs out of focus, and the man’s eyes snap open. 

He removes his fingers from the woman’s forehead and stands up. He turns to the mountains in the distance, its peaks carpeted with clouds. The woman’s eyes flutter shut and her final breath dies on her perforated throat. The spell had consumed the last morsel of her lifeforce. 

“So that’s where you went.” He waves his hand and disappears with a flash of green light. 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The wizard is transported onto the mountain range. The cold wind combs through the tight black coils of his hair. The sharp summits of the mountains poke through the hazy sky. An uncomfortable feeling tingles in the wizard’s head: the thin air is starting to have an effect on him. 

He waves a hand and mumbles, “Aspir.” The wizard heaves a heavy sigh, the knot in his lungs unraveling. Floating above the ragged rock, he fixes his round frame glasses and squints at the smokescreen of clouds. Suddenly, a sour yet familiar scent bites the wizard’s nose. Tingling heat nips at the back of his neck and he shifts to the side. A blazing scarlet speeds past him like an arrow released from its bow.  As soon as it crashes into the rocks, it spews embers into the atmosphere like a meteor shower.  The wizard weaves through each flying ember with ease and rises higher into the thinning air.  He can feel his breath fall short again.

The wizard squints at the looming reptilian figure emerging from the smoke. Its scales blend with the mountain rock, and its enormous wings stir the smoke around them. Despite the bleak environment, its beady eyes gleam as white smoke hisses from its nostrils. A thin piece of floral-print is wedged between its blood-glossed fangs. 

The wizard’s glare narrows, “Yes, it’s definitely you.” 

A deafening roar rings out, rippling the clouds before the wizard. The forceful air spears through the clouds. It slices the wizard’s coat sleeve, leaving a scarlet gash along his forearm. He sucks his teeth and squeezes the injury. He is being too careless. It is time to end this quickly. 

The dragon’s chest bulges, and it belches a barrage of fireballs in the wizard’s direction.  He traces a wide circle in the air. The encircling lines blaze with green, opening a black hole where the enraged attacks spill into. With a snap of his fingers, another portal appears behind the dragon, sending its attack straight towards them. The dragon beats its wings and dodges the fireballs left and right. 

There. It’s distracted. The wizard clenches a fist. The thick fog shatters into large spears. With a flick of his wrist,  they soar toward the dragon. Before the dragon can avoid it, the cloud spears plunge into its chest, leaving the creature as a bloodied urchin. The wings decrescendo from their usual rhythm and the dragon plummets to the ground. The rock craters a cloud of dust huffs from the impact.  

“Not much fight with this one,” the wizard sighs, “I’m surprised, especially with all the damage caused.”  With a muttered incantation, jade magic tightens around the dragon’s neck and rips it off of the body. He holds out another spell-enveloped hand and recites another spell. Both the head and body shrink into a much more manageable size, just a bit smaller than the wizard’s body. He waves a hand, summoning a brown sack that swallows the body. He beckons a finger, commanding his prizes to float toward him 

His other finger lights into a small green fire, the items still in his magic’s grasp, and he traces a large oval in the air. An image inside the traced lines ripples into a green image, blurry and murky like cloudy water. He floats through the portal, and the jade beams transport him into an expansive gallery-like room. His coat slips off his arms and floats beside him. The thick scent of hardwood wafts into his nose as he walks down the hall, his coat and the disassembled floating right behind. Arrays of the decapitated creatures filled the mahogany walls with their snarls, gaping mouths, and dilated eyes. He continues to the end of the passage until he reaches the part of the wall not covered in the severed heads. 

He marvels at his gallery, “A stone-scaled dragon,” he hums as the beast’s  head mounts itself on the wall, “I got lucky today.”  

“Ow, Dimitri!” a yawning voice groans, “That was my tail!” He looks down at the black clump of fur curled in the passageway's middle. 

“What are you doing here, Marina?” 

“I was waiting for you to get back.”

“Well, I’m back.” 

“You said you’d be here by afternoon,” she recalls with a frown, “It’s the morning. Three days from then.”  

He pauses, “The dragon took a while to track down.” 

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” she says, nudging his boots.