1. The Red Amulet
By:
Inuki **Ookami**
Inuki, in his human form was rather tall for
a human. He was about six foot eight, and wore green and brown
leather clothing that appeared to be made partially out of scraps of different
clothing. He had two blades laying across
his back, diagonally across from each other were the Flame Blade and the Ice
Blade. Inuki began to walk through a
strange forest. What was particularily odd about it was that he was lost. He
seemed to be going in circles. He stopped at
a strange looking tree. He then realized what was so strange about it. He'd
already passed it, six times! He was going in
circles! Then he looked closer at the tree. That's not all that was odd about
it. Upon further investigation he noted that it
had a door. He opened the door and poked his head in. It led to a down-ward
spiralling staircase. The door wasn't big
enough, so Scorpion pulled out a small bomb, put it down, and pushed Inuki away
from the bomb, while jumping away
at the same time. A small explosion erupted, and then there was a much larger
door. They entered, and walked down
the stair-way. The room was rather large. It contained many paintings and scrolls.
There was one odd thing about it.
Blood spattered the walls, tables, and floor. As Inuki looked over a wall he
could see a small engraving in it. The letters
read "S.W." Inuki motioned Scorpion towards the wall, and went over
to a look at a rather large book-case that lined
one wall. he opened the books, one by one. But they were all blank. It was as
if someone had erased the writing in the
book. Scorpion walked towards the books, pulling them all out until there were
only two left. He began to cast a
regeneration spell on them. It didn't work. The books sparkled black, but stayed
the same.
"Maybe there's a spell cast on these books
that blocks your spell?" Inuki frowned, giving a puzzled look. Scorpion
shrugged, and pulled out the last two books, which were both badly burned. As
he pulled the last one out, in the far
right, top corner the book case gave a slight groan, and then swivelled around,
revealing a secret passage.
'Why do people always put secret passages behind book-cases?" Inuki said,
wondering to himself. It was a long, dark
hall-way. It was made of blackish bricks, and had a green moss growing on it.
At the end of the hall-way was a room. It
was a room with a large concrete diamond in the center, and all around it was
hay. To enter the room you had to walk
up three stairs at the end of the hall-way. On the diamond was shining the most
beautiful picture. It was a rainbow
made entirely out of coloured light. The rainbow was shooting out of one cloud,
and ended on another. And when they
looked up they could see the exact same image, made from stained glass. The
light shone through, putting a burst of
beautiful colour onto the hard, cold slab of cement. They began looking around
for something more, but that was all
they could find. Scorpion went back through the hall and began banging on walls,
to see if they were hollow, Inuki
began to walk to one of the walls in the room to do the same, but once stepping
off of the diamond, into the hay he
tripped on something.
"Gahk!" he jumped backwards, looking
down was an arm. A human arm. He began digging through the hay, there
he found a body. It also looked very human. The body was an old man. He called
Scorpion over, and they stared at the
man. He had a strange robe on, of bright, rainbow colours. The man was definitely
dead. He had blood spread all over
his clothing. He had been stabbed more than seven times in the chest alone.
Inuki began searching him. He found a
strange book in the man's cloak. It read: The Magic Marbles. Well, that was
what they were looking for, right? So he
kept it, and put it away. Inuki then walked towards the wall, and pounded on
it. It was hollow. In fact it was more than
hollow. It wasn't a wall at all. Inuki was able to punch a hole in it immediately.
It was as thin as paper, but looked real.
They entered a small room, and in that small room was a message on the wall.
It said "Look out below!" and suddenly
they were falling. They had stepped right into a huge hole. They both ended
up falling into a pit. At the bottom was a
pile of hay. They both fell unconcious from the drop, but neither were injured.
When the two awoke they found themselves sitting
in the hay. Immediately both jumped up, Inuki turned around,
he had landed on something hard. As he looked underneath himself he noticed
a rather odd looking necklace. It was a
silver necklace, and at the bottom was a red ruby, encrusted into a gold plate.
He picked it up and began admiring it. As
they saw a small door, and exited the hay into a strange tangle of thorns Inuki
tripped over a thorn. The Ruby Necklace
dropped, and fell to the ground, cracking open.
"Oh no! I broke it! Oh great." Inuki muttered, jumping up. Looking
more carefully at the Ruby Necklace he found it
was not broken at all, but rather it had opened up. Inside was a compass, but
it was a weird compass. It only had
"North" lit up on one side, and the dial pointed to it. Inuki stared
at it carefully.
"Why, it's not broken at all. It was a compass!" and the two began
to walk through the forest of thorns. Eventually they
came to a part of the vines where they lay so thick they lay like a wall and
the two could not get past them. Scorpion
pulled out his blade and Inuki his two, the Ice Blade and the Flame Blade and
the two cut their way through.