I've taken a break, and decided to start a new story. I think AKQ II might be the longest thing I'll write... at least for a long while. The emotions that drove me to write AKQ and AKQ II have become basically dormant... though, I will always love the characters. These stories from now on are basically now just a hobby... I don't know if the skill seen from my writing under those emotions carried over or not, but I might as well find out.
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It seemed all a dark fog around... Kazo felt his body's presence fading from his senses... Kazo found himself seeming to stand upon an invisible surface amidst the fog... all around him, the dim, dark purplish haze slowly churned.
He looked up. There seemed to be a rift, much like what he had seen from his friends portal, though there was no ring around it or any machine in sight at all. Kazo hesitated a moment... He and Blitukus had such great times together... he remembered the very first time he met his kobold friend... when he, Blitukus, and Arkus were all together. Kazo would miss them... he would miss them for a long time... but, he couldn't allow himself to dwell on it. As he looked into the rift... nothing but plain white on the other side... he realized, this would all be ancient history.
Kazo looked up at the rift. What lay beyond? Whatever it was, it might help to get his mind off the past. Kazo leapt up, and crossed through into the light. HE found the plain white light surrounding him, filling him. As he looked back at the rift, he found the rift had inexplicably ceased to exist. Soon though, he found the whiteness around penetrating through and flooding his very existence. Eventually, after a few moments, the whiteness began to fade away to blackness. Kazo felt himself awakening. He slowly came to his senses, his blurry vision adjusting to a sharp image. Kazo slowly rolled over onto his front, and got up. He felt as if surprisingly little time had passed, in fact...
That was a very short dream! I guess I haven't slept for very long?
Kazo looked around. He was inside of the same cave, the wind gusting across the tundra outside. It was daylight outside, the sun revealing several hills of snow. The clouds above, though there were some, were quite sparse. Kazo found that, for some reason, energy and force were irrelevant. He left the cave, and stepped out into the tundra. He noticed the wind seemed to not effect him in the least. He looked to his left. There was a 20 foot tall version of the statue he had seen in Blitukus' caves... a kobold cupping his hands... the statue was made of obsidian. So much for this taking his mind off of the past... He turned away, and inexplicably, two more statues of similar scale seemed to exist adjacent this. One of a female kobold, her grin... seemingly immortal... projecting itself across space and time. The third statue was of a dragon, holding a sphere of crystal, within which a small vortex of mana churned. All three of the statues then seemed to smile at Kazo, their glowing eyes looking at him. Kazo smiled back. A moment passed, then he waved to the past, and moved on. That there were 3 statues popping into existence hundreds of miles away from civilization never struck Kazo as odd, for it seemed logic itself played by different rules. Kazo looked down, noticing his feet making footprints in the snow. Somehow, the notion of having feet struck him as odd. The very act of finding something odd seemed to change the scene around slightly. Kazo looked up, and saw a mountain range had come into existence immediately ahead. He entered an oddly familiar tunnel. Yet, it did not lead to a kobolds home... only to an exit that was just like the entrance. Beyond the exit was jungle, rather than tundra. A path led through the jungle. The sun indicated about 10 o' clock AM, though no birds sang, and the wind hardly moved the leaves on the trees.
Kazo looked around again. He saw the ruins of a dragons tower, the spires laying next to the ruin, having broken off long before. Kazo turned around to see immediately adjacent the skeletal ruin of a titanium skyscraper. Both ruins seemed to have been forever before and forever since still and undisturbed. Kazo investigated both ruins... and found there was absolutely nothing inside but ruined walls and wrecked ceiling and floor tiles. It was as if they had actually been visited before, and all furniture, devices, all of it, had been taken out. Kazo walked back to the front of the rusted, leaning, skeletal frame of what perhaps was once a titanium skyscraper. There was one item left in front of it that he had never noticed before, laying next to a beam he had never noticed before. He walked over and looked at this item. It was a rusted, old rivet, sitting next to a hole which it likely once occupied. Kazo reached out to grab the rivet, and noticed he seemed to be holding a hammer in his hand. The spontaneously apparent hammer was an obvious hint. Kazo took the rivet, put it over the rusted hole, and hammered it back in. When that was done, he moved the hammer to reveal the rivet was shining again... and so was the beam. In fact, there was now fully intact and straight glass panes on each side of the beam. Kazo looked up to witness the skyscraper standing tall, shining as if it had just been completed the day before. Kazo laughed... that had to be the easiest repair job in history. Kazo looked back down. His hands were now empty, the hammer gone. The hammer itself seemed but only a vague memory anyhow... Kazo felt inexplicably compelled to continue down the path. He did so. Around a bend, and around another bend, into very dense trees until finally he reached a stone with a pool of water in it, water seeming to come out of the top of the stone and fall into the pool, which never rose despite no drain. He heard the sound of a waterfall running... suddenly, he heard the sound of birds singing. Odd that he had never noticed it before... in fact, something seemed odd in general. This somehow seemed to make a part of him deep down inside nervous of... losing some kind of challenge? That's what it felt like. He looked down, and found his adamantine exterior was pink. He tilted his head, and spoke, "HEY! Why am I pink? I'm blue!" He then looked up, and saw, just above a rock which was just high enough to sit on, a pair of floating eyes, looking at him. He made eye contact with this pair of eyes, and in that instant, the eyes expressed the kind of surprise one expresses when unexpectedly losing a game. Upon making eye contact, it dawned upon him. Things appearing? 20 foot statues in the middle of nowhere? The one hit repair job? Since when was he pink? It was all rather silly... it was all a dream.
Kazo observed again, finding the pair of eyes now belonged to an entity that seemed to be several parts of several creatures sewn together into the same shape as Kazo. This entity laughed, then spoke in the same voice as Kazo, "You got me!" Kazo smiled, waving his tail, "Why hello!" Kazo found himself able to levitate up, and did so. He looked back down, and saw the entity had vanished. Kazo landed, and looked around. Suddenly, a small, square crystal set in a mithril frame fell from the sky, Kazo catching it as it fell right in front of him. He looked at it. A voice from behind him spoke, "WHATS ON THE CLOCK?" Kazo smiled, "Let's find out!" Kazo turned it over, and saw that it read, "(AM*PM) 18:88:88". Either it was broken or the numbers ticked by so fast they simply blurred together. Kazo looked to his side. The entity stood right behind him, its head over Kazos shoulder. Kazo looked at the entity, the entity promptly grinning at Kazo. Kazo turned to face the entity to find he had vanished. Kazo turned around again... there was his counterpart entity, walking in a motion that suggested forwards but with a velocity that was backwards, crossing straight in front of Kazo. What time was it? He was fairly certain he had fallen asleep in the mid 1080s... when he woke up, it could merely be 1090. It could just as easily be the year 1090000. Perhaps he would wake up to be the only sapient alive on the planet... perhaps he would wake up and nothing would be different... perhaps- His counterpart interrupted, appearing before him with flames coming from his eyes, "Sun go BOOM!" All of a sudden, the jungle around was reduced to a flaming heap, which was promptly blown away with the rest of the atmosphere, and the entire world was reduced to a charred cinder as the sun above erupted furiously, scorching all worlds around. Kazo shielded himself, looked down to shield his eyes, and curiously looked up, to find himself standing among the trees again, the sun above as it was.
I don't think I'll sleep in THAT much!
His counterpart grinned, the flames still present in his eyes, "So you say!"
Say?
His counterpart continued, "Say! Say!" Kazo laughed... then as he observed again, noticed his counterpart had vanished and reappeared to his side. Kazo watched his counterpart run by him, but as he turned to view his counterpart, he noticed his counterpart had vanished again. Kazo looked around... suddenly, his counterpart dropped from the sky and landed before him. This behavior of seemingly sneaking about and appearing out of nowhere reminded Kazo of himself. Kazo snickered, "So I see you l-" His counterpart interrupted, pointing at Kazo as to touch Kazos nose with the tip of his claw, "Where do you think YOU got it from?" His counterpart continued to hold a claws tip against Kazos nose, moving it up and down, causing Kazo to move up and down following it. They both snickered. His counterpart laughed, grinned, turned around, then looked upward at such a ridiculous angle, he once again looked at Kazo, his head relatively upside down. It did explain the previously inexplicable urge to do that. Kazo approached his counterpart, who then turned again and poked Kazo. His counterpart spoke, "Poke!" Kazo snickered. His counterpart then seemed to pull a wooden spoon and a spatula out of nowhere, and stood with them in a fighting pose. His counterpart then spoke, "Let's spar!" Kazo snickered, "So then we'll have a cooking match?" His counterpart replied, "I'm the legendary spoon master elite!" Kazo laughed, thought about it, looked inwardly, then looked outwardly, to find he now stood in a dark arena. His counterpart spoke, "I brought my spoon army!" Kazo turned around. Before him stood a legion of 10,000 dwarves, each wielding a giant, masterwork, masterfully engraved steel spoon. The dwarves grunted in unison, and stood in formation. They seemed to be wearing spaghetti armor. Kazo turned around again, and smiled, "You're completely crazy!" His counterpart grinned, tongue hanging out, now wearing a pan as a helmet, handle off to the side, "That's half my job!" Suddenly, the room dimmed. The legion disappeared, and Kazos counterpart seemed surprised, quite surprised. Kazos counterpart ducked so low to the ground he seemed to partially sink into it. The spatula, spoon, and pan had ceased to exist. Kazo felt a sensation of freezing cold within his chest. Suddenly, the entire arena seemed to grow icicles. Kazos counterpart sprang to his feet, and ran over to Kazo. His counterpart yelled, an expression of sheer will on his face, "!!SECOND HALF OF JOB!!" A short moment passed. Kazos counterpart seemed to reach into Kazos chest, phasing through his exterior, and grabbing at what was now very definitely the freezing cold power source within. Kazos counterpart spoke, "WARNING! !!WARNING!! !!!" Kazos counterpart grabbed Kazo by the arms, and shook Kazo back and forth, speaking, "Heart go cold! Control! Control! WAKE UP!" Kazo felt something was going very wrong, but couldn't tell what. His counterpart took off the crown that he suddenly seemed to be wearing, and placed it on Kazos head in a symbolic gesture. Kazos counterpart pressed his face against Kazos, yelling, "!!DO SOMETHING!!" Kazo felt the cold... he knew what to do, but the part of his mind that knew it wasn't active... what was it?! Suddenly, the room began to dim to pitch black, dream reality, his thoughts, it all winding down as if it were a device running out of power... power... heat... RODS! At the very thought his mind was unified in the control signal.
Kazos crystal, mithril, and adamantine innards, having been at rest for eons, silence all around... suddenly clicked. It was a click that seemed to echo into the distance despite it being nearly inaudibly soft. A moment later, there was a snapping sound as the rods freed themselves from the various particles that had settled in the joint. The rods then extended out from the spherical device.
Kazo felt as though he were about to freeze through... and then he would be frozen for all eternity. But, the ice halted. Suddenly, flame burst forth from the walls of the arena, filling the area with light, and immediately melting the ice. Kazos counterpart danced among the flame, laughing, a few moments later running up to Kazo and hugging him. Kazos counterpart winked at him and grinned, "Have fun!" The light grew, and grew, until it drowned out all... Kazo felt reality shifting. The light faded to dark, and once again, he felt solidity.
Kazo felt very tired, a hunger within... but this hunger was filled, his exhaustion fading as the coldness within his chest turned to warmth. He felt the channels of his runes, the crystals within, all of his body, covered inside and out by settled dust particles... he had enough power to feel. He felt his power supply growing. This power flowed through the long previously dormant channels within him, weakly, but growing stronger. He felt more senses feeding in... he could taste, though there was nothing but dust. He could smell, and dust filled his nostrils. He could hear, but there was nothing to be heard but the dull sound of distant wind in a tunnel. He saw a dim, fuzzy image. The image grew brighter, and sharper... as his sense of balance restored itself, his eyes pointed in a proper direction, giving him a proper image. He had awakened.
He found himself unable to move. Not only were his joints full of settled particles to the point of being jammed, but he seemed to be held up by some sort of wire, hardly noticeable to view, but he felt it attached to him. He thought to himself... this was what it's like to be a museum exhibit? He could only look forward. He was in some sort of room, a large foyer of some sort looking upon a large, sealed exit. He stood upon a circular platform above the floor of a circular room that occupied the T-section between two corridors and the path to the exit immediately ahead. There seemed to be an old, ruined trade depot right in front of him as well. He found the wire posed him in such a manner as to strike a ferocious pose at both the depot and the exit... likely an entrance as well. He tried to move his head... he found he was weak, but his strength was increasing. It was taking surprisingly long for the device to warm up. Eventually, he found his strength was sufficient. He forced his head to move, the dust in his neck joint snapping away, resulting in a small puff of dust particles. He spat out and undid the wires holding his mouth and head in place. He bit through the wires holding hi arms in place, severing them. One by one, he freed his joints, unjamming them.
Eventually, he slowly fell over... this was before he had unjammed his leg joints... and fell from the platform. He landed on his tail and legs, resulting in no injury, rather, the force of the impact unjammed those joints all at once. Kazo really despised falling over... but at least it wasn't all bad. He got up, and flexed his joints until no more dust came out. He then brushed himself off. He felt his power level, once a deficit, was now a surplus. His soul, vacant of mana, slowly began to pick up a charge. He looked around. There were some clothes laying on the trade depot, the corridor to the right blocked off entirely by a cave in, the corridor to the left blocked off 3 doors down. What lay behind those 3 doors? Kazo was intent on finding out. He walked back to the first door, dust drifting off from his exterior the whole way. He opened the door, sending a plume of dust settling... the rooms, the entire area was vacant. Within was a smooth room, masterful furniture within, having withered with the passage of time. A masterwork bed, a masterwork chair and table, a masterwork coffer, and a masterwork cabinet... a 4 by 4 space room, with all of this in it, and no other indication it was meant for a noble at all. Perhaps it wasn't. The other 2 rooms were of the same size. Kazo checked the coffer and cabinet... empty and empty. He moved on to the second room. It proved it be identical to the first. He moved on to the third room... it seemed to be identical to the other two, but the coffer was locked shut with a heavy iron lock. Kazo crouched down, and picked the lock with his claw. This wasn't sufficient... Sparks shot out as he flash-heated the metal, after which it was much easier to manipulate. Kazo opened the lock, pulled it off, then opened the coffer. Within was an unadorned backpack that seemed to be remarkably preserved even though it was covered with dust. Kazo took up the heavy backpack and looked within it. It contained two bags full of gold coins... whether there was still any merchants to offer them to was still up for debate. Kazo brought the backpack with as he left the room. He walked to the trade depot, and looked back. There was a masterful engraving of a giant cave spider striking down a dwarf. Kazo really wanted to investigate the entire place. This could be the remains of a once legendary dwarven fortress after all. Unfortunately, Kazo lacked a pickaxe, and the halls were caved in. He looked down... all that was left in the trade depot was a coat, pants, and boots, all dark brown in color, matching the backpack. Kazo tried them on... they were quite well preserved, and hid Kazos form surprisingly well. The coats tails even hid Kazos tail. It would come in handy should he prove not to be the last sapient in the world. Kazo wore it and the backpack over it, using the hood to hide his head. He had seen all there was to see it seemed.
Now it was time to move on. Kazo walked toward the exit. He had no idea when or where he was... it produced a feeling that would give the impression he was on another world entirely, or that perhaps the ruined fortress was its own world. As he walked, he remembered one last time... all he had done with Arkus... he loved Arkus, and Arkus loved him... and now, he had to put it behind. He remembered his adventures with Blitukus... from mills to time machines, the armored vehicle, the wave generator, he, Blitukus, and Dracha working to improve the vehicle... his adventure through the future, and his role in his kobold friends adventure into the depths of hell itself. He had enjoyed their company... those were good times he had with them, but now they were quite evidently ancient history. What lie ahead? There was only one way to find out. Kazo walked up to one of the doors of the otherwise sealed exit, and opened it, stepping into the bright light on the other side. The light surrounded him. He stood still... wind blew gently across him. As his eyes adjusted, the light faded down until he could finally make out the scene.
He stood in pristine jungle, the sun hanging low in the sky, having just risen. The sound of birds singing and a nearby waterfall could be heard. The sky above was a beautiful blue, the suns rays piercing into sparse but thick clouds. He looked behind him... the rusted iron door with rivets in it leading back to a now pitch black tunnel. It seemed there was once a road running to this fortress, but now the road had been left to disrepair. In several places, stone was missing, and plants grew up through the cracks and holes. There was even a tree in the middle of the road. That iron door... this road... time travel, the machine, the demonic future, the bare necessities of a dire quest... was now something for his memory alone it seemed. He turned back around, and walked into the jungle, surrounded by plants and singing birds, humidity dense in the air. Kazo snickered at the thought of an iron door in a place like this... eventually it would rust to nothing, and all that would be left would be the jungle. He walked swiftly, grinning. The past was the past... and as the birds sang around him, he admired all that lay ahead. He loved the jungle... he enjoyed all of natures beauty, but had always been fond of the sheer density of the jungle... plenty of everything. Now, he was faced with an entirely new situation. He had nobody and nothing to be loyal to but himself. He lacked a goal at all, there was no big quest on his mind. Before him was a world of unknown date and unknown location to explore at his whim... at the very thought of this he waved his tail excitedly. He decided to start with the waterfall. He turned and walked over to it. As he walked, he noticed the device powering him seemed to need the rods extended more to produce the same power. Over the eons, perhaps, his basic functions keeping him alive drew too much energy? Perhaps the fuel just decayed naturally? It all made sense... had his dream continued much longer, he might have run out of power to wake up with. For the time being, there was likely a long, long time left before fuel became an issue. There were still no pressures on his actions and he was free to act as he wished. Should he come across a means of refueling in his travels, he would accept, but there was still plenty of time.