FANTASY STORY

“Adventures of a Lifetime” Chapter 8-Rude Wake-up Call-

Elewin gets a very rude wake-up call in the middle of the night.

Chapter 8

Rude Wakeup Call

Elewin opens her eyes to the heavy beating of the pouring rain hitting the top of the tent like a pounding drumming of a band marching down the road. The light outside was flashing off and on with the pulse of each and every bolt of crackling lightning in the clouds. The wind was blowing harder than it was when she was asleep, and it was enough to make the tent shake from side to side, not drastically but enough to know that the weather was moderate to heavy gusts here and there. Unsure of the exact time, she cracked open the front of the tied curtain-style entrance immediately getting hit with a splash of water from the gust of wind thrusting the rain around. Shaking her head while she used her left hand to wipe the water from her face. “Lovely, just lovely.” She took a quick look at the sky which was still darkened other than the light flickering every second or two amongst the clouds; realizing that it was still sometime late in the middle of the night.

Elewin knew at this time in the night that she had already obtained her four hours of sleep, maybe even slept a little longer than that, likely due to her lack of traveling waning in on her natural elven internal clock. She was hoping that the hour of her prayers and study for the new light might be enough to pass the time and perhaps this storm would pass too.

Elewin Opened up her prayer book of knowledge that she always carried with her, not listed of spells but of different prayers that would say to start her study to gain the blessing of Raylor and Demor divine daily spells. Flipping to a page that she once used some ninety years ago that she has yet to read until this moment.

“Through the light and power of the mighty God, Raylor, the grace, and shine of your love, Goddess Demor. The prayer goes out to you to ask of your divine, your light, to shine forth and bring to me your guidance, your power, your path of the enlightening source of energy. Grant with me the power to be your humble Priestess of Light and carry on your service amongst the living.” Elewin said with a low voice, her eyes closed, sitting up in the tent, holding the page of the book open, looking up at the sky as though the tent was not there. These words, while written before her were something she had recited many times before in her past, and not one word did she need to actually read, even though the book remained open.

Upon the finishing of the prayer, a slight white glow emanated from Elewin, lighting up her tent for only a second or two as though Raylor and Demor had answered her prayers and gifted her the divine power needed to carry on her services to them.

Surprisingly the heavy rain was voided of thunder until that last moment at the end of her prayer, the moment her light went out within the tent from the blessing, at that time a very extraordinarily large explosion-sounding thundering boom exploded across the sky forcing Elewin to cover her ears with both hands, actually causing enough damage to even cause her finely tuned elven ears to bleed just a little.

About six seconds later, Elewin still holding her ears from the loud noise, jumps back as the tent door as it was ripped open by what looks like a huge giant, but not what you would think. This Giant was of another nature, lightning striking off his short red stubbed hair, while his dark tan skin was crumbling down around his face like decaying skin; his hands filling the tent like boulders reaching inside almost like massive claws due to the long slinky fingers empty of blood, leaving nothing but skin and bone.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh” Elewin gave off a loud high pitched scream, not necessarily because of fear, but out of immediate surprise. This was not something she was expecting to arrive inside her tent but seconds after her prayers had wrapped up. The heavy wind now slammed her body with water from the pouring rain drenching her within a few seconds.

About this time, the loud thundering sound awoke David and Randell just a moment before hearing Elewin scream, although Gabul was still sound asleep in his tent like a baby sleeping the night away unburden by the noise.

David jumped up, running out of his tent like he was hasted by pure adrenalin after hearing the loud scream, but at the moment he exit the tent there stood before him a hunched-over Storm Giant who looked somewhere around the height of nineteen feet tall with flesh that was falling from the giant’s body as it turned and moved, thrashing around Elewin tent with his boney flesh like fingers. Even though he had moved but a short distance, he had time to attack the Storm Giant but choose not to; his first priority was to identify where Elewin was, realizing that Elewin was inside the tent still as he planned his first attack. “Elewin, are you okay?” Calling out to her hoping that she was still alive and that he wasn’t too late.

Elewin didn’t seem to be responding from inside the tent. Little did David know that Elewin ears were not hearing anything at the moment due to the damage to her ears from the thundering sound.

It wasn’t but a moment later that Randell exited the tent, looking over to the Storm Giant and David, noticing immediately that Gabul was still sound asleep, mumbling under his breath, “Dumb Bafoon!” Directing his comment towards Gabul being useless yet again.

Randell grabbed his enchanted staff that was inside the tent at the edge of the entrance, and pulled together a dark whispering bolt of dark seemingly eerie energy with some arcane enchanting words, unleashing the ray straight forward impacting the Storm Giant with great force, although appearing to do nothing. “Seriously, lightning-based creature again!!!” Rolling his eyes, with concern that his attack did nothing.

David and Randell actually heard the sound of Gabul’s loud snoring over the pouring rain, likely rolling over in his own grave of sleep.

Thankfully, Elewin had a chance to react before the giant could continue attacking, calling out the divine words, “Divine light guide my bolt true with enhanced power.” With a twirl of her finger, a few words, and a snapping of her arm pointing forward launched a bolt of light that seemed to hit the giant directly in his face, as if it could miss at this distance. It hit so hard that the giant stumbled back a step or two now glowing with a slightly blueish-white aura, giving aid to the next one to target the Storm Giant. Although the Storm giant took a few steps back, he still stood between her and an exit, preventing Elewin from making an escape.

The creepy nasty looking torn flesh of the Storm giant was seeming to crawl with insects and bugs only caught with the light of each flash of lightning; looking back with what looked like yellowish eyes and brought up its fist into the sky and slammed it down into the tent in the attempt to smash Elewin into a pancake. Making full contact with the first strike, driving Elewin into the ground who could barely withstand the impact, though still breathing. At this time the tent was by far gone and an opening was presenting itself, however, the second swing from the Storm Giant offhand came crashing from the side into Elewin who didn’t have time to react to the first impact that had her on all fours let alone the second strike. Elewin was already knocked prone from the first hit, and the second swing of the Storm Giant's hard-boned fist sent Elewin flying off into the night, impacting a tree about forty feet from where she once slept. The impact was so fierce that she hit the ground after sliding down the tree, now coughing up blood, laying on the ground. The undead-looking Storm Giant turns and took a step forward between Randell and David.

David yelled across the pouring rain, “Elewinnnnn,” as he watched her fly across the air against her own will. He looked up at the Storm Giant from the bottom now seeing that this Storm Giant was every bit of the nineteen-foot tall he thought he was. He realized that at this point in time he needed to bring this undead giant abomination to the ground before he did any more damage, especially to Elewin.

Randell watched as Elewin went flying towards the tree, providing her with a semi-shield of protection out of instant reaction only a moment before she impacted the tree, although it really didn’t prevent enough damage breaking the shield almost as fast as it went up; the feint appearance of the milky purplish shield disappearing in the blink of an eye, going un-noticed by everyone else.

David drew what look like a small dagger from the side of his black-covered studded armor appearing to grab through an illusionary image of studded armor, revealing that either he was wearing better armor, or no armor at all. Swinging at the giant large leg, driving the dagger across the caff of the leg delivering a nice gapping flesh wound ripping the dead flesh away while following up with a solid roundhouse kick, that was brought to a halt from the unwavering stance of the Storm Giant. Swinging again with the tiny dagger once again, missing as the Storm Giant moved its leg just enough to avoid the strike, trying to recover the miss by making another swing with his offhand, a tightly clenched fist, sadly only catching the bottom of the remaining torn pants but failing to make contact.

Randell watched as David created a furry of blows, preparing for his next attack, unsure of what he might do next. It was something that was going to take some time, but he wanted to end this fight like Elewin did with the last creature in the Red Tail Inn but wasn’t sure if his power was on the same scale as Elewin, although he was going to try. Thankfully he thought he had this covered, tapping into one of his higher-level reserved spells, holding a piece of sunstone in his hand, and chanting arcana words. “From the depths of space shines the brightness star, burn this one to the core.” A bright massive burst of sun exploded out of nowhere filling a massive sixty-foot radius, thankfully placed just barely in the correct spot to avoid hitting Elewin, and David, however, had little care for the Big Bafoon, including Gabul inside the blast of solar sunlight. The force was so powerful that the Undead Storm Giant’s flesh burned sizzling to a point of becoming ash under the radiance of the Sun beaming down upon him. Literally revealing nothing but a skeleton body form moments before crumbling to the ground. “Pathetic Undead Storm Giant, useless up till the end.” It wasn’t even a few seconds later that the rain stopped and the sky started to clear.

Gabul tent turned to ash around him as he woke up looking like he just came out of a sun tanning bed, flushed red and sounding pissed. “Argggg, Who Burn Me?” Sitting up from the ground, although not nearly as damaged as the Storm Giant, he did seem to be injured a fairly large amount from that blast of Randell Spell.

David and Randell just looked at Gabul with a speechless reply. Randell point towards Elewin. “Look dummy you let Elewin get hurt!” Almost trying to make Gabul think he was at fault for her getting hurt.

Gabul at this time got up and bolt towards Elewin, as did David, while Randell remained behind at the tent to brush the dirt off him.

“Are you alright Elewin, are you going to be okay?” David said as he approached her quickly and slowly helped her up with Gabul lending a hand.

“You, Not Hurt. I Not do” Gabul said while helping David lift Elewin to her feet.

“I’m Fine, or I should be at least with a little healing, give me one moment to mend my wounds. Thank you for the assistance.” Elewin stated as she gained her balance, beginning to cast a spell of sorts to heal her grievous wounds. “Light of Raylor, heal my wounds of deep, and heal my allies too.” Shortly after she muttered those words allowed her wounds to begin to vanish giving her the ability to stand up once more without the aid of the others. Gabul wounds also managed to heal, though leaving behind a sun tan that he couldn’t shake. “That was a very big bright light, who cast that?” Elewin asked David and Gabul.

David responded with a bit of a blank stare, with a semi-glancing view toward Gabul. “Randell did, but it destroyed that creature. If it wasn’t for Randell's powerful spell, that could have gone completely different.”

“Perhaps, as for now that is good, but maybe it might be a good idea to keep an eye on that Randell. I am not sure I trust him yet, especially with the damage Gabul took.” Elewin responded but with a more hushed tone.

“You might be right! I will keep my eyes open. In the meantime, it looks like it is getting close to early morning. I think we should get back to the remaining tents and start packing up for the morning and head out.” Keeping an open mind, David didn’t want to rule anything out.

“I do believe you are right,” Elewin responded quickly.

David, Gabul, and Elewin proceeded back towards the tents that were now a large mess of mostly nothingness. Only David and Randell's tents were still intact.

Elewin speaking up. “Randell, help pack up my dear, we are getting an early start.”

“Of course Elewin, I will immediately get things together as per your request Priestess.” Randell was already in the process of starting to pack up his stuff but made more effort after Elewin requested it.

David, Elewin, and Gabul finished packing up what was left of their stuff and gathered the horses together to load the gear on and proceed down the old dirty clay road, now leading closer to the mountain ranges, which they were very close to at the beginning of the travel in Syvais.

“Elewin, we should be at the mountain edge by mid-day if we are leaving now,” David said putting the last of his things on the horse.

“I suppose that would be right. So let’s not waste any more time, I don’t know how long I have left.” Elewin said hopping onto the horse, with a little bit of luck to avoid accidentally falling this time.

Everyone else managed to get on their horses with no effort at all and proceeded down the road just before the crack of dawn heading their way toward the dangerous mountains ahead.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9