The Elemental Knights - Chapter 2 Knight's Hall

Creak!

The gate let out a loud sound causing him to freeze in place listening for footsteps. It was only after a moment of hearing nothing but silence that Casey was able to ease up again. Being assured that no one had heard the gate he peered past the gate. What awaited him was a dark stairway leading downwards. Without attempting to close the gate Casey began making his way down the stone stairs.

The stairway would periodically hit landings that turn the stairs in the opposite direction so that he went relatively straight down beneath the palace.

It eventually came to an end at another corridor. This one was slowly turning towards the right. Casey continued along the corridor passing several doorways with rotting doors. The sensation didn’t direct him to any of the doors so he just kept moving forward. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dirt and dust that didn’t seem to have been disturbed for many years.

After walking for what seemed like hours, though was probably only half an hour, the passageway opened up into a large hall. The hall was about the size of a basketball court and had a vaulted ceiling, but it was neither the size of the room nor the height of the ceiling that attracted Casey’s eye. It was the murals covering the walls that captivated him.

Despite the years of neglect, the colors of the murals still shone brightly depicting what seemed to be a series of events.

The first mural to his right was of what appeared to be a coronation. A man and a woman were kneeling in front of two priests who were placing crowns on their heads.

The next mural was of a knighting ceremony of five individuals, three men and two women. This struck Casey as interesting as in traditional medieval times, cases of women being knighted were pretty rare occurrences.

The third mural depicted these five knights leading an army in a charge against a rival army. Strangely the knights were not dressed in plate armor but were all in leather armor with various metal attachments protecting mostly their vital areas. Another oddity was that each knight was carrying a different weapon. These weapons were dual-wielded scimitars, a basket-hilted broadsword, a longspear, a large warhammer, and a bo-staff.

The fourth mural was of a grand banquet. The King and Queen were sitting in the center of the mural in their thrones. The five knights from before were all situated in the seats closest to the rulers. They appeared to be the guests of honor. They all wore happy expressions and seemed to be celebrating something. Perhaps the victory of the battle shown in the previous mural. Upon closer inspection, Casey noticed something strange resting on the head of the knight who wielded the broadsword. Something that nearly caused him to drop the torch.

“A fairy!?”

There was indeed a creature that had the same appearance of fairies from fiction sitting on the knights head. She only seemed to be five or six inches in height and had four light blue wings protruding from her back. She had deep blue hair and was wearing a dress that matched her wings. She was just sitting there on his head with her feet dangling over his forehead and no one seemed to be paying her any mind.

Deciding not to dwell too much on the implications that come with fairies actually existing here, Casey moved on to the next mural. In contrast to the joyful atmosphere in the last mural, everyone had dark expressions as they stood around a circular table with a map spread across it. Only the knight with the broadsword and the female knight with the dual swords were there along with the King and Queen and several men who seemed to be military advisors. The fairy was the only one who didn’t seem to notice the atmosphere as she sat in the same place playing with the knight’s hair.

The map seemed to be a tactical map of their country with pieces that probably represented military forces. The pieces were only concentrated on one city with the pieces within the city painted white while the pieces surrounding the city were black. Based on their expressions it wasn’t difficult to figure out which pieces were theirs. Having come to this conclusion, Casey moved on to the next mural.

As soon as he saw the next mural he jumped back with a yelp. The realism of the mural brought to life it’s terrifying content. It was focused on a creature that could only be described as a monster from nightmares. Far more hideous than anything he had seen in even the scariest horror movie. It was nearly pitch black and had long horns protruding from it’s head. It had a snout with a full set of sharp canines. Long claws extended from both his hands and his feet. It was standing upright but that was the only similarity it had to humans.Of all it’s features the creatures eyes were by far its worst. They were blood red, the absence of pupils made them even more disturbing.

The most terrifying thing about this mural was what the monster was doing. It was in the middle of ransacking a village. In its claws was what had once been human. The body was so disfigured that he could barely even recognize it as human. The creature had ripped him to shreds. All around it was a scene of carnage more gruesome than Casey could have ever imagined. Blood painted the cobblestone road red and body parts were strewn all about mixing with the rubble of ruined homes and buildings. There wasn’t a single living human left in the scene.

Casey had to fight the urge to throw up and quickly turned away from the horrible scene. He took a few minutes to regain his composure before he could bring himself to look at the last mural.

What awaited him was a scene of a final battle. All five of the knights were surrounded by hordes of creatures exactly like the one in the previous mural. The knights had very weary expressions and their armor was practically in pieces. It looked like they had been fighting for a long time. Four of the knights seemed to be defending the final knight who had thrust his broadsword into the ground. Emanating from the sword was a bright light that painted the rest of the mural in shades of blue. The ground around the sword was covered in ice. Looking a little closer, Casey realized that aside from the monsters that were actively engaging the knights, the rest had their backs to them as if they were running away.

As he was staring at the mural wondering why the monsters were fleeing, the sensation from earlier returned far stronger than ever before.

His legs began moving forward on a will of their own carrying him right to the sword in the center of the mural. He had completely lost control of his body by this point as his hand reached towards the gemstone embedded into the sword’s hilt. His hand touched the stone and applied pressure. With some resistance the small section he had pressed gave way.

A great rumble tore through the hall breaking the silence. Dust fell from the ceiling stinging his eyes. The wall in front of him began to shift adding to the dust in the air. It slowly rose up revealing another room behind it. The room was some sort of armory but whatever was driving him forward did not allow him to look closely.

His feet brought him to a metal box in the center of the room. On the lid was an imprint of a standing fox with eyes that seemed to follow him. It was the same as the one carved into the doorway he had gone through to enter the palace.

There was no lock on the box so he reached forward and lifted it open. Within the box were five metal clasps. He recognized them as clasps used to hold a cloak or cape from a museum of medieval history he had gone to before. Each clasp had a fox head design on them. The only difference between them was a slight discoloration that was almost imperceptible. One had a red tint, one purple, one green, one a pure silver, and the final one had blue.

As soon as he opened the box the sensation grew even stronger focusing solely on the clasp with the blue tint. He picked up the clasp which was cool to the touch. For a moment nothing happened. Then a gust of freezing wind burst from the clasp completely enveloping him. It was as if he had been thrust into an ice bath. Frost began accumulating on the stone around him turning the surrounding room into winter.

The wind stopped as quickly as it began taking the sensation controlling him with it. The strength in his legs left him and he fell to the floor with a thunk.

The frost still covered the floor but somehow didn’t seem to affect him. He slowly collected himself and was able to stand up from the floor. He stared at the clasp held in his hand in confusion trying to figure out what just happened. It was then that he noticed that something inside him was different.

There was some sort of substance moving inside him that wasn’t there before. It didn’t really seem tangible, it was more like some unknown force had taken residence in him. Somehow it didn’t feel foreign, it was almost like it had been there all of his life and he was only just now realizing it. But this didn’t make any sense, he was sure that he didn’t have anything like this inside of him before.

His attention returned to the clasp in his hand which was the source of this new change. Wanting nothing more than to return to normal he threw the clasp across the room.”What did this thing do to me?!”

It made a loud clatter as it collided with a piece of armor. He felt himself shivering as he struggled to calm down. The feeling of the unknown force had greatly shaken him. Gradually he felt his body return to normal.

Slowing his breathing he took in the rest of his surroundings. The room itself was not very large. There were five sets of armor and six weapons in the room. The armor and weapons matched those used by the knights depicted in the murals outside the room.

Despite layers of dust and cobwebs covering the room, the armor and weapons never lost their splendor and sparkled in the light of the torch.

As he was surveying the various pieces his eyes stopped on the sword depicted in the final mural, the one that hid the mechanism to open the door.

It rested in a sheath made primarily of what looked like blue leather. A lining of silver wrapped around the edges coming to a point at the end of the sheath. The basket-hilt had a guard also made of a silvery metal. Intertwining strands of white metal connected the guard to the pommel. A gemstone that seemed to flicker from blue to white in the torchlight was embedded into the pommel.

Having always been fascinated by medieval swords, Casey couldn’t resist holding an actual sword. He walked over to the sword and grasped the hilt.

The hilt perfectly formed to his hand as if it was made for him. The sword felt warm to the touch and almost seemed like it was vibrating. Lifting it felt incredibly natural, to the point that he began to wonder why he who had no prior experience with swords didn’t feel awkward holding one.

He slowly pulled the sword from its sheath revealing shimmering blade that let off a blue light as it was drawn. Despite knowing almost nothing about forging swords, when he fully unsheathed it it became clear that this sword was forged by a master.

As he was admiring the blade, he caught a glimpse of his reflection. Something about it just seemed wrong.

He resheathed the sword and turned to a piece of plate armor that gave him a clear view of his face. Staring at his reflection he went through a mental checklist of his features. Same slightly upturned nose, same mouth, same ears that stick out slightly more than he would like, same eyes… wait!

“EYES! What’s wrong with my eyes?!” Panicking, Casey rubbed his eyes until they started to hurt, which did absolutely nothing. His eyes that had been a deep brown his whole life were suddenly bright blue. Not just bright, it was an unnatural blue. Something that reminded him of the colored contacts he’d sometimes see people wear.

Trying very hard to keep his cool, Casey continued examining himself for any more deviations to his appearances. It didn’t take him long to find two more.

He now had a blue streak in his otherwise black hair and his skin had gotten noticibly paler. He was always slightly paler than most but he had managed to get a pretty nice tan in the past couple months which was now all for nothing.

Thankfully those were the only other deviations he was able to find.

“Just what the hell is going on?”

Before he could find an answer to his question, he heard a voice behind him causing him to freeze.

“See Ronin, I told you we’d find him down here.” It was the voice of a woman.