The Awakening

The Awakening

         I had failed. That is the reason I do what I do today. It had been nearly twelve years since I had tried to become a pilot in the Nestelian Kingdom Air Force. Through no fault of my own the teachers all seemed to hate me, perhaps because of my strikingly good looks. More likely the Commodore didn't approve of me dating his daughter, but how can I help it if two people are drawn together? To make a long story short on my final test at the Academy my co-pilot, no doubt under orders from the Commodore, released our steam supply in mid-flight "by accident." Our steamship started to plummet and it was only through my amazing piloting skills that we didn't crash. My teachers and the Commodore both said it was my fault, "you should have been watching your co-pilot." And so after some yelling and back-talking from me I was no longer a student. There are really only two upsides to the whole affair. I learned how to fly and the Commodore's daughter went with me.

         Marcie is a lovely girl with long flowing golden hair, a face that shines like the sun and a delightfully curvy body to finish the whole package. We were married the day after I was kicked out of the Academy, much to the Commodore's annoyance. He swore up and down claiming I would never get behind the controls of a steamship again. He was wrong of course; I did get behind the controls of a steamship that I bought with some money I had inherited from a great uncle or something. It wasn't much to look at when I first got it, but that was fine with me, after-all, it flew.

         My airship was originally a medium speed barge that I converted over time in to a fast cargo ship. The Commodore made it very difficult for me to get legitimate business, so I had to find other ways to make money and that usually meant smuggling. Soon 'Commodore's Bane' was recognized far and wide in the smuggling community as a fast, reliable vessel. It has nearly three hundred square feet of living-in deck and a five hundred square foot cargo hold. Its steam engines are nearly the fastest one's on the black market, the fastest being experimental and very expensive. Nearly the whole under carriage is lined with the gravity defying Errecite Metal that when heated with the steam from the engine core makes the vessel fly.

         Marcie is almost always with me aboard 'Commodore's Bane' since it is basically our home. When she is not she's out on treasure hunting excursions. After getting married Marcie decided that she would like to see a lot of the ancient artifacts she had liked to read about. After a few months of traveling around doing that, and finding out how much money could be acquired through the sale of new artifacts, she decided she would like to be a freelance Treasure-Hunter. In fact she has become one of the leading authorities on ancient civilization artifacts. True that it makes my jobs a little harder, who am I to stand in the way of my wife's dream. Often times our chosen professions intertwine, she'll need something smuggled and I can do the smuggling.

         Today however was different, today I was with her on one of her excursions. We are standing in a large cavern beneath the capital city of the Nestelian Kingdom, Tersar City. The cavern was actually found when a mining tunnel broke through into it. The walls of the cavern were lined with Errecite Ore and oddly enough some of it was floating freely in the air on one side of the cavern. What they discovered there appeared to be a massive door fifty feet wide and fifty feet tall. It was etched all over with strange runes that later were identified as similar ones found on ancient artifacts. They tried everything they could think of to force the door open, even going as far as blasting, with no effect. They finally settled on trying to translate the runes. That was when Marcie was contacted since she had become somewhat of a prodigy in rune translation.

         Almost one month later here we now stand, along with several dozen scientists and military personnel, the latter of which I made sure to avoid. Marcie stands next to the door beside the head of the Nestelian Kingdom's science division. I can not hear what they are saying to one another over the din of other conversations echoing off the cavern walls. I stand alone and off to the side so as to avoid the military personnel. I am not really paying attention to the talk around me, I am more interested in when the door will be opened and I can get out of this dangerous place. I am so caught up in that thought that I don't hear the man approach me from behind.

         "Hello, son," he says, not so gently placing a hand on my shoulder. His voice sends a chill down my spine, it belonged to the one man I had most hoped to avoid, the Commodore. I turn to face him and gently brush his hand of my shoulder, resisting the urge to salute him, an act that had been hammered into my head at the Academy.

         "Hello Commodore Presley."

         "Please Robert, address me as father, or dad if you prefer. After all you are married to my daughter whom you stole away from me."

         I shot a quick glance back to Marcie, she wasn't looking at me and probably had no idea her father was even here. "As I've told you before Dad...The only stealing that occurred was when my career was stolen from me." I made sure to emphasize the word dad, he didn't seem to notice or care though.

         "You know Robert, I am glad I found you here. It makes it all the easier to impound, what's that you call it, Commodore's Bane. It also gives me the added pleasure of being able to arrest you in front of my wayward daughter." As he was saying this he was dramatically removing a pair of shackles from his belt and raising them to hand level. "If you wouldn't mind placing your hands in these without a fuss Robert, we wouldn't want to ruin my daughter's big day now would we?"

         I was backing away from him, my hands in my pockets. I had no intention of complying with his demand and my main concern was 'Commodore's Band.' Some may think it wrong of me not to be concerned about Marcie, I was though. I knew however that she could take care of herself if it came down to a pinch. My main problem was that the Commodore was blocking my escape back up the tunnel along with four of his personal guard I was now just seeing. I had come up with the plan of fighting my way out; after all it looked like the guards he had brought were greenhorns. I had learned a few fighting techniques, it came with the job description, and I was confident that I could get past them. I looked back at Marcie, who was still looking at the ancient door. I had just made up my mind to make a break for it when I heard Marcie's voice loud and clear, so I turned once again to look at her.

         "Ladies and gentlemen," I saw her eyes scanning the crowed and settle on our little group. "And father," she said with a trace of scorn in her voice before continuing, "I welcome you here today to a momentous event. Today we will finally see what lies beyond this," here she swept her arm upwards in a dramatic fashion, "this ancient and mysterious doorway. What secrets will we find beyond it only time will tell? But today shall be remembered as the day we dared to find out." She certainly had a flare for the dramatic, I'll give her that. With her final word she turned back to the door and started pressing on select runes. As she did this they would briefly glow an eerie white and then fade leaving only a blank space where they once were. When she had pressed what I assumed was the last rune she stepped back and stared up at the door. We all stood in silence for a moment, a feeling of disappointment slowly began to well up inside of me. I looked up at Marcie who was now looking at me, the same look of disappointment showed on her face that I'm sure she saw on mine. Then the doors began to open.

         The ground shook and several of the electric light stands that had been set up fell over smashing on the ground. The noise of the doors sliding apart was deafening, I instinctively put my hands over my ears and I saw everyone else doing the same. When it was over and the doors stood open revealing a pitch black hallway I noticed Marcie was now standing beside me with her arms wrapped around my right arm. I freed it and instead wrapped it around her shoulders and pulled her in closer, she smiled up at me. The room was silent for a while, but slowly the scientists of the bunch began to chatter amongst themselves and from what I could overhear they were excited that they could see runes all over the walls of the newly revealed hallway. The head scientist was even so bold as to step up to the newly opened passage, but as he stepped over the threshold a sound like a trumpet started to blare out so loud that our hands shot up to our ears once again. It did little to help. This went on for a good minute and when it had finally stopped all of us stood groaning while the head scientist lay on the ground clutching his head.

         Then from the darkness a menacing voice broke through, the air itself vibrated with its words, "who dares to enter my sanctum and disturb my hibernation?" Of course none of use knew what to answer and this seemed to infuriate the owner of the voice.

         "I asked...who dares!" With those words the tunnel suddenly glowed red and a wave of heat erupted from it. I pulled Marcie down behind a large outcropping of the cavern wall just in time for a wave of flame to rush past where we once stood. Screams echoed off the walls of the cavern as scientist and military alike were consumed by the fire. I noticed though that the Commodore managed to duck behind an outcropping as well. When the flames had passed and all that was left was the smell and dim light of smoldering bodies I pulled Marcie to her feet and made a dash for the cavern's exit in to the mining tunnels. As we passed in to them I glanced behind me and saw the Commodore following, as well as the new tunnel collapsing as a monstrous head of an immense creature pushed its way through. It had a long, scaly snout covered in rows of spines. Its open mouth was lined with countless rows of razor sharp teeth and its eyes were the shape of large almonds, and shone an evil yellow.

         I did not stop to observe the rest of the creature and instead pushed Marcie forward to the steam-cart that would take us to the surface. Some might think it wrong of me to hesitate letting the Commodore in, after all he was stealing my airship and trying to arrest me, but in the end we all climbed aboard and made our way to the surface. It took a few minutes to get there on high speed and during that time we could hear great rumblings from deep down below us. When we finally made it and emerged in to the open air I wondered if we would have been better off dying quickly down below.

         The sight that met our eyes was that of utter chaos and destruction. The sky was a tumultuous sea of swirling crimson clouds that erupted continually with lighting. Instead of rain falling, fireballs did instead, raining down on the once mighty capital city of the Nestelian Kingdom. My first thought was to reach my airship and escape until I noticed other airships just falling from the sky as if the Erracite Metal in them had suddenly ceased working. Just when we thought things couldn't get worse the creature suddenly burst to the surface several hundred feet away from us. As it forced its way out of the ground I saw that it was like a giant lizard, green and scaly all over. Fireballs landed on it but did not seem to phase it; rather they just swirled around it. Then with a great roar that shot fire in to the sky from its mouth it spread two immense wings that it had before kept close to its body and took to the skies. It flew directly over top of us and the air that rushed past us sent us sprawling to the ground. After it had passed I looked over at Marcie's tear stained dirty face. She looked back at me, tears still welling up in her eyes, and said to me.

         "Is this it? Did I open the door to the end of the world?"

         "No dear," I forced a smile, "just the door to a whole new world."