2. The Electric Marble
By: Inuki **Ookami**

When the two finally found themselves out of the forest of vines and thorns they were on a large hill. They stood,
over-looking the valley below them. It spread to the right and the left with a golden-yellow glow upon the green grass.
Up in the distance was what appeared to be a farm, and infront of that was a massive mountain looming over the farm.
There was probably alot more inbetween the farm and the mountain, but from there they couldn't see it. They weren't
elevated high enough. The walk to the farm looked like it was about a two hour walk or so. They walked down the hill,
Inuki slipped once, and almost fell down the hill, but ended up regaining his balance. When they reached the bottom
about ten minutes later they found themselves on a dirt path. It took them three hours before they got to the farm, and
when they did it was night. The stars were out and lit up the black sky, the moon was gone, at least, if there was even a
moon in this strange world.

They finally arrived at the barn, and Inuki checked his compass to make sure the compass hadn't changed
directions, but now nothing was lit. He figured that must mean that they were near a marble. Scorpion decided to
shape-shift into a dog form so he could do some snooping later, and told Inuki to say that he was his dog. A woman
answered the door, Inuki explained that he needed a place to stay for the night, and so the woman let him in. She and
her husband invited Inuki to have dinner, and Scorpion was given dog food, which he didn't eat. Inuki and Scorpion
went upstairs, and Inuki began to read the Magic Marbles book. Meanwhile Scorpion went into the other bedroom.
Scorpion began checking their room, but apparently there was nothing of interest in there. Then, while the old woman
cleaned up in the kitchen, and her husband had left something in the field, and gone to get it on his tractor, Scorpion
trotted downstairs, and searched the living room. There, on the fireplace was a strange looking glass marble. Scorpion
figured that it must be one of the magic marbles, so he grabbed it. Unfortunately it wasn't. He pulled it off of a small
glass stand it rested upon. Twice it nearly rolled out of his mouth but he managed to carry it back to Inuki in the
bedroom.

Meanwhile Inuki had layed down on the bed, pulled out the book, and begun to read. The book told him that
marbles were originally created by guilds. There were the Ancient Guilds, who created the original marbles. These
were the Fire, Water, Dark, Light, Ice, Ground, Grass, and Rock guilds. They all had marbles except for the latter two.
Unfortunately a demon named Terrace took the marbles and destroyed the guilds, except for the Grass and Rock guilds,
which he was angered at for not even having a marble, and destroyed those too, but also killed all of their members.
The book didn't say that Terrace had been defeated by the marbles though. Probably because that was more recent
information. It told how there were the more modern guilds now, the Electric, the Demon, the Rainbow, the Satan. It
also told how marbles were made. It talked about how each guild had a leader, Inuki soon realized that the old man that
they had found dead was probably the Rainbow Guild's leader. Then it told him how the leader would collect the
energy, then use the sacred statue of that guild to channel the energy into a crystalite sphere. He continued reading, and
found out about the crystalite spheres. They had been mined from only one cave in the entire world, and it turned out
that they could not be broken.

When Scorpion came back Inuki told him this information, and then looked over the marble Scorpion had brought
back. He flipped to the second page, to find a picture of a marble called the Arrow Marble, and it's description,
continuing on there were more and more. Apparently some marbles didn't even have guilds. Some were just created by
powerful and rich people. Finally he got to one of the last pages in the book, it showed a picture of a clear marble. It
explained how this was a crysalite sphere, which were very expensive, and that energy could be put into it. They both
agreed that this marble was a crystalite sphere. Inuki said that they should leave, Scorpion said that they should rest,
but Inuki didn't trust the farmers. So they ended up leaving the farm, Scorpion shape-shifted into his normal half
vampire half demon form, and they continued walking on through the night, Inuki flipped open the Magic Marble
Compass, as that was what it was, apparently it tracked marbles. It was even shown in his own book. It was very rare.
There was only one of them in the whole land. It told them to keep moving forward, so they did so. Finally they came
to a town, and entered it

The town was called Electro City, and it was still night, so they decided to stock up on ammunition, and weapons.
They broke into a small grocery store built entirely out of wooden planks, so it was easy to break in. They stole cheese,
bread, meat, and water. Then they went to the weapons area of the store and there was a large amount of arrows. Inuki
took the arrows with him. They were called the Falcon Arrow, and he decided that he would probably be able to use it
in the future with his Ice Bow. Then he began searching the weaponary area some more. There was nothing else there
of interest, so he turned and left. Just as he began to leave a strange black egg with large red spots on it rolled across
the floor as Scorpion tipped open a box of cheese by mistake. The egg began to grow, and hatch. Suddenly a small
black ball rolled out. It opened two small red eyes, and looked around slowly. Two small black ears popped out of it's
head, and it bounced up, showing it's legs and arms. It smiled and jumped at the box of cheese, stuffing it's into the
cheese, and began gobbling the cheese.

"Hey! Get out of my cheese!" Inuki said frantically. The little demon creature shook it's head. Now Inuki knew why
pure demons that weren't Ookami's were so stupid. At least Scorpion, who was half demon, didn't look or act like one.
Inuki picked the demon up by the scruff of it's neck and threw it out the window, then he and Scorpion turned and
walked out of the door. They headed out of the town, and began to walk towards the direction the compass pointed.
Still North. They soon came to field of tall grass. The grass was higher than a full grown persons chest. But the demon
ran out infront of them screeching and howling madly. It ended up telling them that it's name was Tyranoki, and that
these grasslands were called the Sterdum Grass Lands. Inuki and Scorpion finally looked interested at the creature.
"What's so bad about that?" grumbled an angry Scorpion. Inuki was about to mutter something angrily.

"There are strange creatures in here, their heads and arms are short, but their legs are extremely long, and they can
jump very high and if they catch you they will pull you down, there are hundreds of them, and they'll all jump up and
drag you down and eat you alive." and Inuki and Scorpion did not want to be eaten alive. So they decided to fly over.
But Inuki couldn't shape-shift, because he wanted to save his shape-shifting energy for fighting. He didn't want to waste
that much magic energy. So Scorpion casted a flying spell, and the two flew over the grasslands. The creatures saw
them coming, and jumped, and jumped, and jumped. But they could not catch Tyranoki or Inuki or Scorpion.

Soon Inuki, Scorpion and Tyranoki landed in a large empty desert-like area. Inuki checked the compass. Once more
nothing was lit up. He decided that there must also be a marble or crystalite sphere here. Inuki began digging in the
sand with his foot wondering if the marble was below him. Finally he found a trap door. He opened the wooden trap
door and found a small tunnel. He walked down the tunnel and found two different directions. Scorpion said that they
should head right. They headed through the right fork in the tunnel and were in another tunnel. All they could see was
what was around them. They were unable to see anything infront of them, every so often they would fall upon another
lit torch which would line the tunnel. How they all stayed lit for so long was a mystery, even to Inuki and Scorpion.
They were suddenly in a strange room. There was what appeared to be a window, but it was a circle, and had no glass
on it, or anything. You could have put your hand right through it. It was just a hole.

And there, down, far below them lay a strange scene. Over sixty people sat below them, dressed in dark yellow
robes. They all wore hoods, and at the front stood one of them, on a strange platformed stage. The figure held up a
marble, and the figures in robes were all praying, golden electric energy draining from them, into the marble.
"It's the electric marble! Teleport me down there Scorpion!" Inuki said, gritting his teeth together. And Scorpion did as
asked. Suddenly there was chaos. Inuki grabbed the marble. He could see where the window was. It was really the eye
carved out of a massive wolf-like sculpture with a tail shaped like a lightning bolt.
"Who are you to take our marble?" yelled the now angered figure, trying to intimidate Inuki.
"I am a powerful wizard! I can erase you all from existance as quick as I appeared here!" and with that they all gasped.
"Now Scorpion!" Inuki hissed. Scorpion couldn't hear him.

"NOW SCORPION!" Inuki shouted. Suddenly Inuki vanished and reappeared infront of Scorpion. The two of
them, along with Tyranoki ran through the tunnel, when all of a sudden everything began to crumble.
"Zenaden!" shouted the people in robes from below. They scattered and screamed as the roof collapsed, and huge
chunks of the ceiling flew down and smashed into the ground. Cries from below were heard, and the guild was caved
in. Inuki and Scorpion weren't sure how many people were dead. They didn't want to know. Whatever had made the
guild cave in was not something they wanted to mess with, and they didn't want to try to help the members of the guild
as he knew that they would probably be extremely angry with them for taking their marble. They left the guild, and
continued to head north, and soon enough they came to a small wild orchard and lay under the trees and slept.

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