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Chapter Four: Showdown at Aurum Town

The two chatted about a few random topics while they walked along, laughing and joking with each other. Before long, they came upon another town gate. This town’s sign was a dark gold color, with big shiny letters that read:

“Aurum Town”

They stopped to read the name, looked at each other, and then headed on in. Going through the gate, they found a long, gold colored brick pathway that led deep into the heart of town. As they followed the path, they looked around at the various sized buildings, which were all made out of the same dark gold colored stone. It was easy to see where the town got its name from, that was for sure.

The golden pathway led to a large, open marketplace with a giant fountain in the middle that was the same color as the brick on the pathway.

“Wow… this must be the heart of the city!” Tera said in amazement. “Everything is so… well, gold!”

“Calm down Tera. You and I both know its not real gold.”

“Yeah, you’re right… but still!” She continued to marvel at the town. Koza suggested that they see what sort of shops and stands the town had. Tera agreed and pulled out what little money she had. Koza did the same. Between them, they barely had $100, and they knew that they might really need that later on. Both sighed and put their money away.

“Ah well. Doesn’t hurt to just look around a little right?” Koza suggested.

Tera looked over and nodded. They agreed to split up to see what the town had to offer, and to meet up later at the fountain. The two then went away on their own.

Koza found a weapon shop. Not that he needed another weapon, but he thought it deserved a look, so in he went. The man at the counter greeted him. Koza simply and waved, then proceeded to wander around the shop, checking out all of the different types of weapons it had to offer. There were many different varieties of swords, but there were also such things as bow and arrow sets, throwing needles, some things that appeared to be either flash bang grenades or smoke bombs, and a whole mess of others. Koza neither wanted nor needed any of them. He thanked the man at the counter, who told him to stop by any time before Koza exited the shop. He wondered what Tera might’ve have found by now.

“Ooo…” Tera said to herself as she stopped in front of a shop filled with different rocks, minerals, and gemstones, both polished and unpolished. The sign above the shop said “The Rock Shop” for obvious reasons. She just had to get a better look, so she wandered in.
Tera was almost in a trance as she stared at all of the merchandise. She shook her head and went further in, laughing to herself the whole way. Crystals, quartz, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamonds… So many gems… Tera always had a weak spot when it came to jewels, whether they were polished or not. As much as she wanted some, she knew Koza would kill her if she blew her money on a rock. Sighing, she decided to leave to avoid further temptation. Outside, a loud explosion was heard. Tera tilted her head in confusion and raced towards the source of the noise. It sounded like it came from the heart of town?

Exiting the weapon shop, Koza’s attention turned to the center of town. After a large explosion, he was hot on the trail of whatever it was that caused the uproar. All around him, people were running in fear, screaming. Koza stopped one of them and asked what everybody was running from. Too frightened to give an actual response, the man simply mumbled something about a… monster? He then took off again, preventing Koza from finding out any details. He wasn’t about to stand around and let anyone, or anything, wreck up the place. With a hand on his rapier, he made his way to the heart of town.

Tera, seeing so many people running scared, wondered what could possibly be responsible for causing such a commotion. The closer she got to the center of town, the less people she saw around.

“Hm… must be getting close to whatever made that noise,” she thought to herself. “I sure hope Koza wasn’t near there…” The thought that he might be hurt made her run even faster to reach her destination. She couldn’t stand the thought of it.

Koza and Tera were so busy focusing on getting there, that they ran into each other and fell to the ground.

“Ouch!” both of the exclaimed as the collided. Upon realizing whom she had run into, she said “Koza! You’re alright!” and gave him a great big hug. He gladly returned it.

“Of course I’m alright. Why wouldn’t I be?” he said as they both stood up.

“I was afraid something might have happened to you when I heard that explosion. Didn’t you hear it too?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes. I was just on my way to investigate when we crashed into each other. By the way, sorry about that,” said Koza. Tera dismissed it as nothing. They turned around to see what might have caused the noise, and were greeted with a destroyed fountain staring down at them.

“Whoa! What happened?” they both said.

As they stared, something could be heard from beneath the rubble that was once the fountain. A faint growling sound that got louder and louder until finally, some sort of creature broke its way out of the fountain remains and landed right in front of Koza and Tera. Both of them just stared up at it, not knowing whether to fight it or run like hell.
The beast was well over twice the size of either Tera or Koza. It had glowing red eyes with dark brown fur, and it walked on all fours. Looking back and forth between the two of them, it swung a claw down at Koza. Barely having time to react, he jumped backwards, only to get swatted out of the air like a fly. He was flung into a nearby building, where he bounced off and landed on the ground with a loud thud, motionless.

“Koza!!” shouted Tera. No response was heard. He didn’t even raise his head up. She turned back to the beast slowly. Her eyes were filled with anger and hatred. The beast roared loudly and swung at claw down at Tera. She quickly grabbed both of her swords and blocked it, catching the creature off guard. In a matter of seconds, Tera was on its back. She jumped into the air as high as she could go, and dive-bombed at the creature with her swords pointed down. The last thing it saw was when it looked up to see Tera barreling down on it with her swords aimed at its head. Before it even had time to think, it was over. Tera had struck with such force, that it was over before the creature had an idea of what was going on. As she landed a little bit away, the creature fell to the ground.
She put her swords away slowly.

A few townspeople here and there started to come out, and then a few more. Pretty soon the entire town was out cheering for Tera. They tried to go up to her in person to thank her, but she ignored them all and ran over to Koza, who was still motionless on the ground. She ran over and kneeled down. Gently, she rolled him over onto his back. She placed her ear on his chest.

…Thump… …Thump… …Thump…

Tera gave a big sigh of relief. Even though that was a powerful impact when he hit the wall, it wasn’t fatal. Still, Koza wasn’t in the best shape of his life. Tera gently picked up her unmoving friend and quietly headed for the nearest hospital. As the townspeople watched her make her way towards the hospital, they surrounded the body of the slain creature. They began to talk amongst themselves about what it was, and where it came from. Nobody had ever seen a creature such as this… Why had it attacked their town? What could have provoked it?

As they were busy arguing about it, somebody got brave enough to go up close to it and look it over. The man climbed up on top of the body to get a better look at the whole thing. As he made his way towards the head, he looked at the fatal wound that Tera had inflicted to its skull, and a deep wound it was. A closer inspection revealed something more. The man looked into the sword wound and saw something shiny. He kneeled down to get a better look. Inside the wound was a fairly large device that appeared to be attached to the creature’s skull. It was pretty beaten up after what Tera had done to it, but he could barely make out some writing on the side of it. Turning his head to read it better, he could just make out what it read…

“ARK”




Next chapter: Dark Days of Aurum