The Heroes I-The Black Fire Lighthouse

Chapter VI-The Journey Begins

Garen had gotten off his horse about an hour or two ago, it was hard to keep track of the time now; the sun was to be different here. He hadn't traveled far from Kio yet and the scenery was already changing dramatically. He had to get off Kalish because the path was getting hard to walk through on horse. The woods from Kio had now gone and all that was left were rocks and steep cliffs. Garen was walking for a while, leading Kalish by his reigns, before seeing a body in a wider area of the path.


Garen ran over to where the body was, turned it over, and jumped back to see a bruised, gashed, and almost unrecognizable Neotasha lying at his feet. His face was badly beaten and there was already drying blood under his eye and around his mouth. A large rock was protruding through his thigh, blood caked against it. Neotasha was breathing slowly, his chest not rising equally as it should and Garen felt his ribs. He could feel the cracking and grinding of bones under his fingers and could hear Neotasha gasp slightly in pain.


“Neotasha!” Garen said in a somewhat shocked voice. Neotasha's eyes were wide open and staring into space. His right arm was spurting up blood, which Garen was now applying pressure to with his over shirt. “What did this to you, Soul Drainers?”


“No,” hissed a voice behind Garen, causing him to jump. “A Soul Drainer would not have left those injuries.”


When Garen turned to look at his speaker, he saw that the man wore a mask and had dark brown hair that was blowing in the wind. The mask made the man's eyes look a blood red and his teeth a nasty, moldy black. Designs were covered one side of the mask in a dark rainbow color. The man's muscle build was a slim cut, he was tall, and he wore rainbow robes, which made him look like royalty.


“Who are you?” Garen demanded.


“My name is of no importance to you,” said the man smoothly.


“What happened to Neotasha, are you sure the Soul Drainers didn’t do this?”


“Oh, I am quite sure of that. The reason why I am so sure is that the state he is in now was caused by me. You see, he tried to get in my way and I made sure that didn’t happen.”


“You did this?”


“That is what I said. Or do you need things repeated to you so you can understand?”


“I’m going to kill you!”


“You have fun with that little Garen,” the masked man said this with a smile forming on his lips, and then he vanished in a wisp of smoke.


Garen spun around; looking everywhere, he could, to see where he went. When Garen turned back to where Neotasha was, he saw his ugly mask in front of him, smiling, then everything went black.


When he awoke, he could hear a fire crackling next to him and could smell the smoldering smoke of the burning wood. What had happened to him? And what happened to Neotasha and that masked man? He sat up quickly, causing him to feel extremely lightheaded, then he felt a hand push him back down by his chest. Garen looked over at where the hand came from and saw someone sitting next to the fire. At first, he thought it was Neotasha, but when the man leaned forward into the fire, Garen could see it was not him. He got to his feet quickly, pushing the man's hand away and looking at him seeing pale black eyes, black hair, and a stern, almost sad face.


“Well, I’m glad you’re awake,” said the man gently, "but it would be best if you took it a little easy. I may have healed your wounds, but you're still weakened." Garen could tell by the sound of his voice that he was not a bad person, but Garen won’t trust anyone he meets on the road quite yet.


“Who are you?” demanded Garen quickly.


“Well now, no need to be rash,” the man said, again sounding calm and gentle. “My name is Max, and I saved you from some pretty harsh injuries. Now, what would your name be?”


“My name is Garen, son of Gar. I came here from Kio to make sure people who stole very precious items don’t light the Lighthouses.”


“I asked for your name not your story. But that does seem pretty...wait you don't mean the Tablets of Mt. Killimore, do you? I know someone attacked and killed most of the people in my village; I…was one of the few who survived. It was just a random stranger, we thought, just someone wandering the area. We turned out to be wrong, and it was devastating to us, you don't think they were connected do you?”


“Now who's the one telling their story? Maybe they are connected, but hey, I hope you don’t take any offense to this, but I can’t trust you right away, not on this journey. So I'm not going to tell you anymore,” Garen said cautiously. “I’ll give it some time, then I will decide if you are worth trusting or not.”


“I think the same way right now. I hope you know the reason, with my village being attacked. Right now, we need our rest, and I think it would be best if we take shifts until the Near Star rises, then we can head out.”


“You’re right. Seeing that I slept all day, I’ll take the first watch and wake you up in about an hour.”


“I suppose that is a good idea for now, just don’t make me lose my trust in you so early.”


“Don’t worry; the same goes for you, though.”


Max walked over to where he was camping out for the night, forcing Garen to look down to see that he was in sleeping covers. Garen got up and walked toward the road where he was attacked to keep watch, then looked back at where Neotasha had been before with a curious look.


"Wait," he said slowly.


"What is it, Garen?" asked Max.


"Where's Neotasha at? The man that was here with me?"


"Well," Max started, "there was no one else here when I found you. You were the only one around."


"Are you sure?"


"I'm quite positive."


"That bastard!" Garen let out, punching the ground. "How could he just leave me like that? We've had our quarrels, but that's low even for him."


"Maybe he was taking?" Max suggested.


"Doubtful. I'm just going to start my watch, get some rest," Garen said, walking to the edge of the road with his elven sword in hand, ready for any type of attack.


"Well, alright then," Max replied looking at Garen with worry. "Wake me in an hour."


Garen only nodded in return and continued watching the road. He didn't want to speak right now. It would show Max that he was crying, show Max that he was weak. Not crying over the fact of Neotasha, but thinking of Shelby and Mr. Killimore and more importantly, Kyle. Watching him fall to his death again, screaming until he was out of earshot played through his head all the rest of that night, including his dreams.














“Garen, it’s time to leave,” said Max, shaking Garen a little roughly.


“Wha?" Garen said, jumping awake and facing Max quickly. "Oh, right, yeah let's go." He got up, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and began to change out of his night clothes.


“The nearest city from here is Langholm, which is only a few miles. If we get there by the time the Near Star reaches its highest point, we can eat lunch and get supplies to help, then head off for Naron for the night.”


“That sounds like a plan to go with for now,” said Garen looking down the road. “Let’s just hope nothing ruins it.”


Max nodded and walked down the road, with Garen at his heels, both of them watching the other carefully. As they walked further down the road, they started seeing some bodies that seemed to be fresh, but still had that rotting smell. There were pools of blood around some of the bodies and splatters of blood elsewhere, some bodies had arrows sticking through them and others were just distorted beyond recognition, there were no children to be seen, but there were men, women, and elderly about. The sight was a bit unnerving for Max and Garen, who also noticed that this certain area had some weird feeling to it; it was colder and darker than it had been before. A feeling that crawled through their bodies, raising the hairs on the backs of their necks and sending goose flesh down their arms.


“I don’t much like the feeling of this,” Max whispered shakily. “Who do you think did this, it couldn’t have been that masked man, he would’ve used Fire of Color.”


“I don’t know who did it, but I do know this isn’t a place I want to stay in for long.”


Max agreed, but before they could get moving anywhere, there was a loud crash behind them, causing Garen to spin and draw his sword and Max to jump violently, nearly losing his balance. The sound came behind a slightly collapsed building that was on the road and was not there before. Garen looked around, as he saw something move out of the corner of his eyes, to see that the area they were standing in was now an old, collapsed village instead of a blood stained field. Ruined buildings were on both sides of the road, leading down beyond eyesight. A slight fog was drifting across them at their feet. Shadows were coming in and out of the corner of the eyes, disappearing every time they turned to look at what it was. The feeling of cold and darkness was stronger and sent chills down their spines, causing them both to slightly slouch in fear.


“What is happening here?” asked Garen.


“I-I don’t know, but it can’t be good. I've never seen, or heard of, something like this happening before.”


Garen turned around, once again, because he felt something brush his neck, which caused him to get goose flesh up and down his spine. When he turned around, he saw a white distorted face with pale, white eyes. The sight caused Garen to scream in horror, but when he looked up again, there was nothing there. Every time he blinked, he could see that white face in front of him; the white face with one eye hanging down and the other staring at him with its ghostly pupils.


Max yelped beside Garen, causing him to spin on his heels. Max looked as though he was dead, all the color drained out of his face and his eyes were somewhat pink. Garen put his hand in front of Max’s face and waved it. Max screamed again, making Garen to pull his hand back quickly, and looked at Garen.


“There is something wrong with this place,” Max said weakly. “I don’t like it and I want to leave now.”


“Yeah, so do I, but how do you suppose we do that?”


“I don’t know, but this place is not very welcoming at the moment.”


Garen, again, saw something move out of the corner of his eye, but this time he was too frightened to look at the source. He was about to grab Max and find a way out of this place, when there was a loud crash somewhere in the distance. Garen froze where he was, trying to listen, and saw that Max was doing the same, both had their hands on their swords. They surveyed the area to see where they were, but could come up with no conclusions as to what this dark place was.


Garen and Max walked along the torn road with their hands still wrapped tightly around their swords. Garen's knuckles were starting to turn white. Every once in a while, there would be something moving along the broken down houses and faces in the windows, watching as their prey walked on. It was an unsettling thing for them, being in this place. As Max looked around the area more, he started recognizing the buildings and it came to him that this place was very familiar.


“Garen, I know this place.”


“What do you mean?”


“I mean, I have seen this place before. This is one of the lost villages that have been told about in our stories. Our books had paintings in them that resemble this place almost exactly. This is one of the only places that actually has a map, but I thought the stories were just…stories.”


“It would seem not.”


Garen turned back to the road, only to see that there were no buildings in front of him any longer. He looked back around and saw that the buildings behind him were also gone. All that was around them now were the bodies that they had seen before.


“This is very strange,” Max said quietly.


“Yeah, and I think I liked it better when you weren’t with me,” said Garen, turning toward a confused looking Max. “Well, none of this happened to me until you came along, next thing you know we’ll be face to face with a Hell Raider or five.”


“That would not be surprising, you know,” said a cool voice behind them.


Garen and Max both jump and turned, drawing their swords on the man behind them. Before they could attack, though, the swords were out of their hands and on the ground. Garen looked up to see a man with jet black hair that was barely two inches long, pale grey eyes that weren’t cold, but not gentle either, and a hard ware like face that only added to the mysterious features that this man’s face had. He had a fine muscle build, a sword hanging on his hip, and three horses with him, two of which belonged to Max and Garen, whom hadn’t realized that their horses had gone missing.


“That is no way to welcome a guest,” said the man in his cool, but gentle voice. “I am only here to help you, not harm you in any way.”


“How can we trust you?” asked Garen a little coldly. “And what might your name be?”


“My name would be, if you really need to know, Cody Son of None. And a way you can trust me is that I brought your horses back to you, I could've found some place to sell them or eaten them if need be. You seemed to disappear, but the horses stayed behind, so I figured it would be wise to save them for you.”


“Son of None? Disappeared? Well, now I know that place was a little spooky,” Max said. “What did you mean when you said it wouldn’t be a surprise to come face to face with a Hell Raider now anyway?"


"And eating the horses seems a little disturbing as well," voiced in Garen.


Cody turned and looked down at Max, for he was several inches taller than them both, with a twisted smile that battled his gentle eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? Hell Raiders are no longer a creature of myths and scary bed time stories, but the real thing.” He chose to ignore Garen's input.


“I thought they were extinct,” Garen said, not taking his eyes off of this mysterious man’s face.


“Oh, they were, but they can be resurrected,” said Cody, his voice going from its cool tone to a more obsessive way. “Don’t you see? Hell Raiders can always be brought back, whether they go extinct or not, it is impossible to kill them. And let me tell you this, your mission, it has happened before, everything that is happening has happened before.”


“How do you know about our mission?” Garen demanded.


“Because history is repeating itself and it is only a matter of time before the Hell Raiders join together and start another war, the Hell Raider War. Soon after that war there will be another, this one, however, will be much more violent and deadly. The War of the Lighthouses. This war will happen again, I can see the signs of it now. There will be many battles and much blood spill, let us hope that you get out of this alive.”


Garen turned on the man, Cody, and grabbed onto his shirt collar. “Now listen here, Cody, we are not going to tolerate your threats! I don’t really want to hurt you now, but if you continue to fill our heads with this nonsense, then I won’t have any other choice.”


“You? Hurt me?” Cody was chuckling as he looked down at Garen, grabbing his hand and throwing it away from his shirt. “I have much more experience than you could ever dream of at this moment and I could kill you with a wave of my hand. Luckily for you, though, I am not here to cause you any harm.”


“How are we supposed to trust you?” Max repeated.


“As I said before, here are your horses. No harm has come to them, so I give them back to you.” Cody led the two horses to Max and Garen, and then he turned and began to walk in the other direction.


“Where are you going?” asked Garen a little gently this time.


“I am going to the village of Kio to be sure that the tablets will not be stolen. If they are and the Lighthouses are lit, then we will be in a great deal of danger.”


“It’s too late for that now,” Garen said somberly. “My friends and I tried to stop that from happening, but to no avail. Mr. Killimore and Shelby were kidnapped. My friend, Kyle, was killed, and they got away with all but one Tablet.” Garen looked down and to the right as he said Kyle’s name, trying to hold back the warm tears forming at his eyes.


“Kyle?” Cody asked, almost as if it was a familiar name to him. “The tablets have already been stolen, all but one. Then do you have the one they do not have?”


“Yes,” Garen choked “the Rainbow Fire Tablet.”


Cody looked firmly at Garen, as if trying to see if he was telling the truth. The height difference between them frightened Garen; how is it that someone could grow so tall and how powerful was this man? The answers seemed to grow like a wild fire in Garen’s head; where did he come from, how does he know so much about history, and, most importantly to Garen, was he really going to Mt. Killimore to save the Tablets, or was he going to steal them? Cody had something about him that told Garen to not trust him, but his eyes spoke differently.


Cody turned around to face Garen and his eyes were no longer the gentle grey, but instead a cold, almost hateful black. He looked at Garen with worry and beyond him with hate; it was a look that rose Garen’s suspicions even further. The eyes weren’t causing Garen to over think his suspicion now, but instead a tear running down his cheek.


“I knew Kyle,” Cody said simply. “He was a good friend and very intelligent, how someone could kill him is beyond me.”


“If you saw those people you would understand,” Garen said, “but he wasn’t killed by them, he fell after a cliff side collapsed.”


“Well,” Cody choked a bit, “at least he wasn’t murdered. I will tell you the story of Kyle and me later, but for now we must stop these people.”


“Right,” Garen said. His view on Cody had changed dramatically there; he knew Kyle and was sad for his death.


They walked down the stone path, talking of history, getting to know each other a little better. It turned out that Max had once been the only one in his village to use Fire of Color, but the people feared and despised him for it. After the attack on the village, the few survivors banished him, thinking that he was the cause of the raid. Cody, on the other hand, had a much different life. He said that most of the people in his village were Fire Raiders (“That is what we are called, we are not humans,” Cody had told them) and his father was one of the more powerful ones and had once been hand to a King during the time of the Seven Kingdoms, but also one of the most feared ones. Cody’s father, Kadiash, had been very abusive towards Cody and his mother; he was fierce when he was sober and much worse when drunk. Kadiash had been relieved of his duties as the Hand for his ferocious behavior and banished from the city. Cody told them that he would talk about his runaway later on, if they wanted to hear it. He ran away to Kio, where he met Kyle, well before Garen was born, and experimented with Fire of Color most of the days. Until a dark force had come to the village and had taken him away from Kyle and his new family. This was another story that Cody decided to save for later. Garen was growing suspicious of him again. He held so many secrets that seemed to be fairly crucial to knowing who this man really was. Every time Garen or Max tried to bring up one of his secrets, he brushed them off and told them to worry about what was happening now.


“We learned how to control our age,” he said, lost in his memories of Kyle. “It was wonderful, Fire Raiders are immortal, unless killed in battle, poisoned, or is infected with a terminal illness. After a certain age we will seem not to age at all, unless we want to.” After that, Cody’s life seemed to just disappear for a little more than a decade, the time that he had been taken away by the darkness and he ended his story there. “I will tell you more at a more suitable time,” he said as he always did when he wanted to keep his secrets locked away.


“Why didn’t Kyle ever tell me about that?” Garen asked.


“We promised each other, if we make it long enough, that we will not tell anyone about us not aging.”


“Wouldn’t people notice it?” asked Max


“The elders were in on the plan, too, so there were no worries. What about your childhood, Garen? I wasn’t around to see you running around in Kio.”


“Well,” started Garen, “my life wasn’t the wildest one. I didn’t have an abusive father and nobody raided the village, accept for an army from the capitol a few years back. It’s hard to remember all the detail, seeing that I was very young when it happened, but the part that everyone remembers was the death of Kyle’s father. He stood up against some of the king’s men who could use a powerful bit of Fire of Color, and he died. A few years after that, a few of those men, or so we think, attacked the village and tried to steal the Tablets, which was three years back, and then the night the Tablets were actually stolen.”


Garen went on talking about what had happened about three in a half years ago now and about what happened up in Mt. Killimore. This was the first time he’s told the story since it happened a month ago and it was hard for him to do so. Talking about how his best friend had fallen to his death, screaming until he was out of sight and hearing range. He then told about his leaving and finding Neotasha, also meeting Max sitting next to him by that fire. He told them both, Max didn’t know about this yet, that he had seen that face in the ghost town and how it had frightened him more than anything because he knew, though he tried to brush it away in his memory, that face had been Kyle’s.


“You saw Kyle’s face in that place?” Cody asked.


“Yeah, it was pretty disturbing.”


They were, again, walking into what was a battle field of fallen warriors, women, and the elderly, but no children. It was hard to look at the field of the dead, rotting bodies, and by the looks and smell of them, they had been laying here for two or three days. The smell was horrible, indescribable; it was hard to smell the bodies and not want to vomit. They looked as though they were liquid, the flesh running off their bones, the eyes already picked out by the hungry ravens, and the rotten yellow teeth showing through the liquid flesh.


Garen was wishing that that ghost town would come back out of nowhere; he couldn’t handle the sight or smell of these bodies any longer. The children is what bugged him, though, where were the children? It was a disturbing thought that came to his mind next; what if the children did this? For some reason they rebelled against the adults and elders and decided to brutally slaughter them all, but that was unreasonable, no one could do that to the people they knew and loved all their lives.


“Hell Raiders are beginning to strike,” Cody said.


“How do you know this?” Garen shot back.


“The way the bodies have been slaughtered. Look here,” Cody pointed at the missing femurs of the warriors, “the Hell Raiders tore the femurs out of the warrior’s legs, most likely when they were still alive, and will use them for weapons or tools. They slaughtered the women and the elderly because there is no use for them, the elderly are weak and Hell Raiders are too large to rape the women. They took the kids for slaves. All the signs of Hell Raiders are appearing and, also, all the signs of the Hell Raider War are beginning. And that, I am afraid, will eventually lead into the most terrifying and gruesome war in history, the War of the Lighthouses.”


“If you think this will actually happen, then why don’t you tell us the evidence,” demanded Garen, who still didn’t trust Cody completely. “Tell us about the original War of the Lighthouses like you said you would.”


“If I must,” Cody said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “But please, don’t interrupt me; this is a story that needs to be told without annoying interruptions. It started about two thousand years ago when two people started a journey, much like you, to stop the Lighthouses from being lit. I'll tell you about the final battle that took place all those years ago..."

















There was every type of Fire of Color going through the air as people were attacking one another. The ground was littered with dead bodies of Humans, Fire Raiders, and Hell Raiders. There was no green grass around the field as there once was, but instead, dirt, patches of yellow, dying grass, and blood, the air was covered in smoke and skyrights and dragons, the Fire of Color Dragons and skyrights attacking each other. The smell of burning flesh and grass reached the noses of the warriors, as the sounds of screaming, wounded men pierced their ears.


Kyle was flying into the sky, fighting his own father with his rainbow colored sword, rainbow sparks flying as the swords met, Elyk had just slit Neotasha’s throat and let him fall to the ground with blood shooting out of his neck, and below, there were Hell Raiders fighting Humans, slashing at each other for the Lighthouses. Kyle was too busy fighting his father to see the death of his friend, but as Garen turned around, pulling a blood stained sword out of a man’s stomach, he saw Neotasha falling and started running to him, hoping to save him.


Neotasha hit the ground before Garen could reach him and, without hesitation, he started to fly up at Elyk, throwing his sword away, and started glowing green. Garen, then, created a Green Fire Dragon out of his Fire of Color and let it go to attack an oncoming skyright, and, finally, he looked up at Elyk and made a cutting motion at Elyk’s stomach. What happened next was almost too fast to keep track of. Elyk moved out of the way of the attack and, instead of getting a slash in his stomach, he lost his arm. In that same instant, he landed a punch in Garen’s stomach and grew his arm back.


Back on the ground, Cody was pulling his sword out of a Hell Raider's stomach. Hell Raiders are usually known as big bulky creatures that are likely to carry around larger weapons such as axes or large swords. They are no bigger than a giant, but several times larger than an average full-grown man. Almost all Hell Raiders have full red or white eyes, but in some rare and bizarre cases, they can have black, blue, green, or yellow. All male warriors have some sort of scar carved into their right cheek to represent what accomplishments they have done, and carved inside of that scar is their rank of command.


“Garen!” yelled Cody pulling his sword out of another Hell Raider. “Hang on, I’m coming,” but he was blocked off by a barricade of Hell Raiders and some shadowy creatures created by the Dark Lord.


“Don’t worry Cody, I can handle him,” Garen yelled down at him, then turned back and whispered to himself, “I hope.”


“As soon as Kyle’s Army falls, we will light the Lighthouses and rule everything that’s affected by them,” Elyk said calmly, but also in a firm tone so everyone can hear.


“I will not let that happen,” Garen said. His body started to glow a brighter green and he started to scream in pain as if he was being burned. The attack unleashed in all directions for meters, Cody was flying up at him yelling something and Elyk was trying to shield himself from the attack.


Cody tried telling him to stop but his screams were drowned out by the power of Garen’s explosion. It was so loud that everything went mute, and just as the attack began, it was done. Garen was falling to the ground, disappearing into dust, everything around him was doing the same, and Elyk was saying, “You fool! Revenge will come to you,” as he also turned into dust. The only life left were some of Elyk’s Army and all the Heroes that were not killed in battle. The Heroes were finally gaining control of the battle and killing the rest of Elyk’s Army, finally clenching victory of the War of the Lighthouses…




















“Isn’t it just a little ironic?” started Max, “that the names in that story have almost the same names as the people in this war now?”


“That’s because history is repeating itself,” said Cody,” and the war hasn't started yet.”


“The story that Kye told us was about some kind of Masked Hero abandoning everyone and everything he had because no one was on his side for lighting the Lighthouses, and I don’t remember Fire of Color Dragons being in the story,” Garen said, a little confused.


“Well, first of all," said Cody harshly, “they probably meant Kye, himself, when they said Masked Hero, seeing that he sees himself as an unheard of hero. And they didn’t mention anything about the Fire of Color Dragons because they fear that you may discover the power within the Gems that your Great Healer gave to you.”


“How do you know about that? Have you been watching me?"


“No, Garen,” Cody almost yelled out of annoyance. “Haven’t you learned anything of Rainbow Fire? One of the abilities, if you’ve trained enough, is to read minds.”


“Well that makes sense, and would you stay out of my head?” Garen said impatiently.


“Whatever,” Cody said simply, then turned around and disappeared.


“What a strange guy,” Max said. “Oh, hey, can you see if I’m ready for the Black Fire Gem? Wish you would've told me about them before. ”


“Huh? Well, it's not my fault I've been distracted by ghost towns and stories of Hell Raiders. But, um, sure, if you really want to give it a try,” Garen said turning back from where Cody had just been. He pulled out the Black Fire Gem and held it out to Max, but before Max could touch it, the Gem dissolved into some kind of substance that was neither solid nor liquid, but somewhere in between, and traveled into his hand and followed his veins up to his heart and settle there.


“That was a weird feeling,” said Max holding his heart.


“Oh, I know,” said Garen smiling at Max’s reaction. “It's quite amazing isn't it? I suppose it’s time to start heading toward Langholm.”


“Yeah, let’s go.”


They started walking south again in the direction of where Langholm would be. There were no longer any corpses covering their path. They walked along a field of lush, green grass that filled their noses with a fresh and relieving smell. Ravens flew over their heads, carrying messages off to distant lands and wild creatures scurried away from their path. This world could actually be quite beautiful when not polluted with blood and bodies. The sun was shining brightly down at them, hiding every once in a while as a small cloud passed over its view. Garen looked down at the path that Kalish was walking, trying to see if anything would jump out at them and ruin this perfect moment, then he realized something. He and Max had been traveling together now for about a month. When they first met, Max had told him that Langholm was not even a half days ride from their spot, and if he remembered the maps of the world correctly, that should have been a spot on estimate. He turned to face Max, who was staring ahead, his eyes shifting back and forth. Who was this guy exactly and where was he leading Garen?


"Are you sure we're heading to Langholm?" he asked.


"I've actually been wondering the same thing," Max replied. "I can see that forest ahead and it hasn't gotten any closer even though we've been traveling a month. I feel like we've ran ourselves into another one of those strange towns."


"No, that's not it. We would know if we were in a lost city like that. It seems more to me that time isn't moving how it should."


"What do you mean by that?"


"Back in Kio, our teacher would explain to us how the planet would alter time when it feels a sense of danger. Doing this would make it more difficult for the beings causing the danger to travel too far. With the Tablets being stolen, I would bet that's exactly what is happening right now."


Max looked ahead at the distant forest. "Well, I hope we can get there soon. It's been taking too long so far."