The Collab...

Chapter 39

By Young Sage

"There would be only some basic rations perseved by another spell that would get him to the closest village, but that was about it.

Rangarion sighed and cursed his inability to see that by the time he would awaken again the world would be nothing like it had been when he was put into stasis, and so the rations might not get him any where near a town or village before they gave out... Giveing his long silver and gray hair a shake to move it out of his eyes, he turned to retrieve the few rations that he did have.

Walking over to the chest of drawers across from the bed, he slid it about a foot and a half feet away from the wall, and slipped his arm behind it and pulled a small bag out, he pushed the chest back where it had been, and opened the bag and taking a inventory of what it contained...

He was slightly surprised it held more than he had remembered, it held a small wheel of cheese, some travel bread, and dried fruit...in a small, but not to small quantity.

He knew that he would have to ration himself heavily until he found somewhere that he could replenish his food supply...

Well he now had food, now to gather a few miscellanious things, and he would be ready to head off. Trying to pack sparingly, he finally decided to take only a few of his chemistrys, a bed roll, a sheet of large canvas, and of course his old traveling pack.

With nothing else that he thought he needed, it was time to leave,swallowing he looked around trying to find the right wall, Ran was afraid that he had fergotten how to get out, but finally found a knot in the wall that sparked the recognition that he needed to confrim where the transport hole was.

Ran rubbed his hands together vigorously before touching the inside of the knot with his middle finger and bowing his head and concentrating a small flow of ether into it.

Ran smiled as the familiar rush of wind brushed past him and the slight twitching and vertigo that he had felt so many times before.

He was rudely brought out of his reminiceing by the sharp bitter wind, and cold that crashed into his older frail body. Clenching his teeth Rangarion again pulled a small amount of ether through him and put a small element shield around him, to protect him from at least a portion of the bitter chill. Ran took a deep breath and wiped his forhead, feeling slightly exausted, puzzling for a moment over why such small exertions of ether were tiring him?

"Either my powers have diminished greatly since i've been in stasis...or i'm still recovering my strength..." He figured that time would give him his answer, and there was nothing that he could do for it at the moment.

Looking skyward Ran searched until he found the constellation he was looking for, and started north, he had decided that that was as good a direction to go as any,and it had been the direction of one of the smaller towns.

He trudged through thick snows, and bitter winds for all the night, and on through the day, not stopping until midnight on the second day, tired, exausted, and hurting from heel to head, he made camp, with no flint and tinder he was forced to use another small wisp of ether to start his fire, he had decided that he would try and limit his usage of ether until he had found out more of this new world that he had been re-awakened into.

After warming his old bones, and eating a very small dinner, he laid down next to the fire, and fell asleep.

Fire was all around him the greenish tinge of ether was all around, the world was being set a afire with ether, he tried to conjure a snuffing spell that would put out the fire, but he couldn't it seemed as if all the ether he tried to use was just pulled into the fire making it grow brighter and burn stronger and wilder than ever, screaming he ran trying to find somwhere where he could hide from the fire, but it followed him...it followed him and mocked him.

A pair of soft gentle eyes stared at him, the face was covered in a think mist...he could see that who ever it was, was young, very young. the features were not sharp or defined like someone's older might have been, the eyes suddenly flashed with a power that Rangarion had never seen, he had been born in the age of power, he had been trained and trained with, some of the most powerful mages of all time, and never had any reached the kind of power that Ran now saw flashing in this youths eyes, suddenly they were gone...and a bright light started to materialize infront of him and pull at Rangarion pulling him becoming brighter, so bright that it was almost blinding to look into...

Rangarion woke suddenly and sat up, taking deep breaths. Dreams he told himself...only dreams, but he knew other wise, he knew that these were no mere dreams, but like most visions and revelations, he had no idea what they meant... Shaking his head he got up and started clearing camp, getting ready to move out, and start another long day of searching...only now, he knew that he would be searching for more than just a village from now on...