Kraszad's Haunt

29th of Kraal, year 991

For several days Magra had observed Kraszad run up and down the hill and then to the forest. He would remain in the forest for a good hour and a half. He would be back by sunrise for morning coffee with her and Jogr.

To Magra's eyes his uphill running technique was a thing of beauty. He would pump his arms and push his legs and defy all odds just to reach the summit. He would do this over ten times every day.

At every ascent, he would stand at the top, take a few deep breaths, and run back down. He would sprint down with all his might. Magra thought it was pure recklessness. She figured that the slightest mistake would send him tumbling hard down the hill. The hill was only about forty meters high, but the slope was at least forty-five degrees.

Magra had seen her brother sprint downhill for about a hundred times already. Yet, every time she could only feel freaked out of her wits.

She asked Jogr to tell him to stop doing it. Kraszad merely laughed and told them he was never in any sort of danger at all as long as he won't allow doubt or fear to trouble him. It was a statement that didn't make sense to Magra, but it was also true that Kraszad never stumbled.

Lately, Kraszad had been running towards the forest at noon time and in the evening as well.

Magra also noticed that lately her younger brother had become less chatty and seemingly out of sorts. Even Jogr noted that Kraszad seemed to be distracted often over the past few days. There were moments he would stare at his coffee over a stretch of time and not realize that two pairs of eyes were keenly observing him.

"Were you just saying something, Namgun?" he would ask unaware that both Magra and Jogr were actually just quietly staring at him.

During breakfast time, Hegla had to prompt him several times to feed her.

Then, Hubr dropped a statement that somehow gave Magra an idea.

Hubr said, "He looks like he is trying to solve a really big problem."

Magra had a sudden instinctive guess. She remembered that the villagers had noted an unusual decline in the number of game they could find in the forest. This was during the previous month. Lately, some villagers started to complain about their pigs and dogs just disappearing without a trace. The matter had given Jogr and the village elders a headache they were helpless against.

'Could it be related to that?' Magra thought.

That evening, as soon as she saw her brother run to the forest, Magra looked around the common room. Kraszad had very little belongings. Among those belongings, she saw a leather-bound notebook and two books. Of course, she knew what a book was. In her childhood, her father had rescued a scholar from a pit trap and, in gratitude, the scholar agreed to stay around for a few days to teach Magra how to read.

Magra glanced over the cover of the books and read the titles, "Theoretical Foundations of Magic" and "Basic Enchantment". She furrowed her brows in astonishment.

"Kraszad is studying magic?" she uttered.

As a frequent visitor of the Calandra library, she had read a number of stories that portrayed evil men and women who used magic to do wicked things. These stories gave her a very bad impression of people who used magic.

She also saw the journal of Master Tszarek but decided not to probe further upon realizing what it was.

Not finding any clues among Kraszad's things, she steeled her resolve to follow her brother into the forest in the dark. She was sure Jogr would freak out if he were to learn about what she was about to do.

Carrying a cleaver, Magra walked cautiously along the trail into the forest. She had decided that it would be safer for her to stick to the trail as she could easily find her way back in case anything bad happened. However, she had been walking around for almost an hour but she could find no traces of Kraszad.

Then, just as she was about to quit and head back, she heard the sound of rustling leaves. The sound led her into a clearing in the forest. There she saw her younger brother training in some form of martial arts that caused the dried leaves to gather around him. Magra had to cover her mouth with her hands to stop herself from gasping in amazement and getting discovered.

She cautiously hid behind a tree and kept on observing, enthralled as she was by the grace and beauty of martial arts that she was witnessing for the first time.

After a few minutes, Kraszad stopped moving. He took a deep breath then proceeded to sit cross-legged on the ground. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Finally, he just sat calmly, unmoving like a statue.

It took only about five minutes. Kraszad stood up once more, looked towards the north then broke into a run.

Magra tried to run after him, but she knew it would be impossible to even keep him in her sight. When it came to covering distances, nobody from Kasgar was her brother's match.

It was merely a hunch on her part, but Magra was pretty confident that Kraszad would follow a direct line towards wherever it was he went to. If there was one thing she could be assured regarding her brother, it was that he hated making things needlessly complicated.

"He would follow a straight line," Magra told herself but without her initial confidence. She had been jogging for close to over thirty minutes but still found no sight of Kraszad or of anything else in the forest. Finally, her persistence wore off.

"I should at least give that blasted boy some tongue-lashing during coffee time later for making me walk around the forest at night like an idiot!" Magra said in vexation.

But just then she saw a flicker of flame at a distance not far from her location. It was followed by a succession of flickers. She could even hear a faint sound of explosion coming from there.

Magra wanted to run back but then decided to follow her instinct and headed towards the flickering flames.

When she finally reached the place, Magra's heart stopped for a few breaths.

Right before her was her brother fighting a huge winged fire-breathing creature. The monster's body was about five meters long, its wingspan about twice as long. It also had a two-meter long tail which it would whip around whenever Kraszad was near enough. With its massive jaws that looked like it could snap a crocodile in half, it would actually have been foolish to get near it.

But what shocked Magra even more was that Kraszad was blasting the monster with thumb-sized flaming projectiles. The projectiles seemed to come out from the finger he was pointing towards the creature. From the explosive sound the small projectiles made as they hit the monster, Magra could sense that they packed a lot of power. She could also see it from the way the monster roared in agony as it was forced to take a step back every time it got hit.

From the time Magra witnessed the scene, Kraszad and the monster fought for over ten minutes. Every two or three breaths, Kraszad would launch two quick shots then move sideways. Once in a while he would roll sideways to dodge the fire coming out of the monster's mouth. Surprisingly, the monster was only able to shoot fire from its mouth a total of three times.

Things had been going well until the monster decided to rush Kraszad who was forced to retreat. While retreating, he still made sure to shoot flames to stop the monster momentarily and keep a safe distance between them.

Suddenly, at such a precarious moment, Kraszad got distracted which allowed the creature to get close enough to attack with mouth wide open.

The terror that Magra felt at the sight of her brother about to be decapitated by the powerful jaws of the monster numbed her senses such that she could neither scream nor move her body at all. Her hands and knees shook uncontrollably while tears gushed out of her eyes. She thought Kraszad was dead for sure.

However, at the last moment, Kraszad was able to fire a shot right into the mouth of the monster. The monster instinctively closed its mouth. However, its snout hit Kraszad on the head, sending him rolling on the ground. Fortunately, the monster was also sent toppling to the ground.

Amazingly, Kraszad was able to get up quickly. He turned his gaze towards where Magra was hiding. She had never seen such fury in her brother's eyes. She realized she had made a terrible mistake by coming over.

Kraszad's stare lasted no longer than a second.

Immediately, he shifted his attention to the monster, which was already trying to get up. Kraszad blasted away at it while retreating. However, the monster got enraged and charged right at him. The charge was too fast and too unexpected that Kraszad had no chance of escape.

With only about a breath before the monster finally closed in on him, Kraszad raised his palm towards the creature in what seemed to Magra an act of desperation. A ball of flame as big as a head shot out of his palm and slammed right under the monster's mouth.

With a terrifying scream, the monster was staggered backwards until it was lifted off its feet. It rolled a few times on the ground still screaming. It tried to get up only to stumble back down.

Kraszad opened his palm toward it, retrieved his hand and tried it again two more times. He exhaled loudly in frustration before pointing his finger at the struggling monster. He fired successive shots at the monster's head at an interval of less than a second per shot. The monster wailed and trashed about wildly but couldn't seem to get up.

After a minute that seemed to last forever in Magra's view, Kraszad stopped shooting at the creature. He looked and headed towards her location. He had not taken twenty quick steps yet when he turned around only to see the monster slowly getting up on its feet.

Kraszad broke into a run. Seeing that Magra was shaking and unable to move in her fright, he picked her up and carried her in his arms.

"Namgan, hold onto me!" Kraszad yelled as he dashed madly through the forest.