A Little Bit of Mischief

I want you all to meet Rodin. He is a member of the Class of Commons (formally known as the Class of Peasants) within the League of Humans from the Order of Terrans living within the Plane of Terra-Earth. He has been chosen to receive the gift of Archon by the Circle of Light through the prophesy of the Rings. I didn’t know how to introduce you all to him except by showing his character. He is a bit of a mischief-maker, especially when he’s with his blood-oath brothers, Byron and Slender. I decided to introduce a chapter from Archon: Gift of Light as a way to see the kind of trouble you can expect from him. Here is that exert:

 

Rodin is the first to awaken. Being Archon allows him to recover
from his late-night binge quickly and without the hangover. For
that, he is grateful. He tries to stir them awake. Even Logan is passed
out from too much unnecessary drink. He decides it is best to leave
them, as he wants to explore the castle and perhaps find something
to eat along the way.

He reaches back for his hood then remembers that it is now a
part of him as Archon. He smiles as he decides that being Archon has
its advantages while snooping. He becomes Archon and throws on
his hood. Once invisible, he walks out of the room, leaving the others
to sleep off their late-night partying.

Once out the door, Archon jumps to the ceiling to avoid accidental
contact with anyone. He spots a boy pushing an empty food
cart. He’s going back to the kitchen! He decides to follow the boy. As
they go down the hall, Archon grows impatient with hunger. Where
the hell is the kitchen? On the other end of the castle? He is following
the boy around another corner when he walks into a sea of people.
What the…

People scurry about below, carrying the decorations and gifts for
today’s events. Flowers, ribbons, and carts whiz by him from below.
A giant floral arrangement that is too tall for the room scrapes the
ceiling. Archon leaps out of the way in time to avoid it. He searches
the people below for the cart boy. He spots him at the far end as the
boy enters a door. Archon smiles to himself as he sees someone exit
from the door, pushing a full tray of food.

Breakfast!

He jumps down and ducks behind the door as another servant
exits. As the door closes, he becomes Rodin, wearing the fur coat. He
pulls the door open and enters. People are running everywhere, hard
at work to fill trays and carts for the morning breakfast. He smells
cakes and the cooking of meats roasting in the kitchen as they prepare
for the grand feasts of the celebrations. He ducks behind a counter
as a baker carrying a six-tiered cake with a man and woman on top
that bear the uncanny resemblance of Helana and Byron passes by.
He stares at it for a moment as it goes by.

He ventures farther into the kitchen until he sees a lonely tray of
cheeses and breads sitting next to a window. He walks up and begins
to scarf it down.

He realizes he has just cleared an entire tray of the cheeses and
breads when the cook appears out of nowhere. He looks at Rodin
then at the empty tray and becomes red with anger. Rodin becomes
fearful when the cook finds a meat cleaver hanging nearby and poises
to throw it. Rodin apologizes, becomes invisible, and jumps out the
window as the meat clever flies by him.

He becomes Archon and climbs the wall of the palace, searching
for a window to climb back through. He hears what sounds like
a familiar voice. Millette! He finds the window and climbs inside,
closing the shutters behind him. He looks down from his high perch
and sees a group of girls below him. They are all wearing their bath
gowns. The steam rising around him reminds him where he is. The
bathing room. More importantly, the women’s bathing room!

Archon becomes overly joyed to be in his current situation. The
girls begin to unlace their gowns as Archon watches with anticipation.
Just as they begin to remove their gowns, the room is suddenly
filled with too much steam. Archon is blinded.

The girls begin to scream. “Who closed the shutters?”

“I don’t know!”

“Where’s the window?”

“I can’t see!”

“Find the shutters!”

“I am!”

Archon begins scurrying about the ceiling, looking for a way
out of the steam. He finds a small vent tunnel and crawls his way
through it. Finally, the steam clears, and he can see the end of the
tunnel.

He emerges from the tunnel and into the hall. Below him is the
door. He figures the door leads back into the room from which he
came. He climbs down and enters the room. He immediately jumps
back up to the ceiling to regain his view below. The steam has cleared.

Oh, good. They opened the shutters.

As the steam clears, he is horrified at the sight. Vaniir, Saul,
Troy, naked! No!

Archon quickly searches for the door. Luckily, Vaniir and the
others are leaving the bathing room. As soon as the door is opened,
he flies out and back up. He runs along the ceiling only to meet a
dead end that leads to their rooms. He turns to get away only to be
met with the image of the men talking and walking as they begin to
wrap their towels around their waist from behind. Unfortunately,
Archon is in front of them. Frantically, he tries to remove himself
from the horrible scene. He turns left. Wall! He turns right. Wall! He
bolts left. Smack! Wall. The men separate and go into their respected
rooms as Archon tries to shake off the pain and the images from his
head. Unfortunately, for the rest of his long life, those images are
permanently burned into his memories.

Archon sees two servants pushing breakfast carts into another
room. He follows them to the room as one opens the door and the
other pushes and pulls the carts inside. Archon’s hunger drives him to
follow them inside. He looks below and sees Dahlmür in a classroom
surrounded by a bunch of wizard students.

Dahlmür says to the class, “It is really a very simple technique
to get attention. You simply take your staff and tap the floor.” Snap
snap snap!

Is this really a required lesson for all wizards? He watches as
Dahlmür points to the student below him and asks him to give it a
try. The young wizard raises his staff and drops it to the floor. Whoosh!
Archon swings out of the way just as a ball of flame leaps to where
he’s just been perched.

Dahlmür is disgusted. “No! Not so hard! Try it again. This time,
everyone join him!”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Archon leaps about the ceiling frantically,
trying hard not to become the Eternally Crispy Archon! He
sees the servant boys reopen the door to leave and flies out just as the
heat from another fireball shoots by him. Whoosh!
He stops to catch his breath. He begins to make his way to the
end of the hall until he reaches a fork. He forgets that he is following
the servant boys and doesn’t see which way they’ve gone. In his confusion,
he decides to turn right. He sees a set of double doors at the
end of the hall and hopes these doors lead to a kitchen.

He enters and discovers a room with wooden crates stacked
high. He hears men working at the other end. As he approaches, he
realizes this storage room leads outside. They are loading most of the
crates onto a carriage. As the last crate is loaded, the men walk out
and begin to close the doors. Before the room goes dark, he reads the
writing on one of the crates: Fireworks. Archon huffs, “Why me?”

From out of the darkness, he hears a voice cry out, “Oy! Oym
een heeah!” It is the man he met the first night he came to the city.
The one that butchered the human language.

Archon says to him, “Relax. I’ll come to you.”

“Eets dahk, Mastah! Oy caint see!”

“Don’t worry. I can find you!”

“Oy! Air we go! Oy fownd a towch!”

“A torch? No! Don’t!”

“No werries, Mastah! Oy wiw woyt eet, aind we cain geet ote!”

“No! Please! Tha—”

Fssh! He lights what he thinks is a torch. He sees that he is holding
a stick that has “Dahlmür’s Staff! Snap! Snap! Snap!” inscribed on it.

“Oh, bloody hell!”

“T’s no torch.”

Archon quickly scrambles for the door, grabbing the man with
him. He kicks the door open just as he hears Dahlmür’s staff. Snap
snap snap!

He tosses the man out and shoots nets over the double doors
to hold them in place. He becomes invisible again as he leaps to the
ceiling. The man recovers just in time to see the double doors swell
from the explosion as smoke and fire burst from their seams. The
doors hold well enough to hold back the explosion, but they barely
hang on by their hinges.

Archon comments, “Idiot.”

He gives up. As Rodin, he decides to return to the others and
wait on them to rejoin the Realm of the Living. Suddenly, he hears a
knock on the door, and a voice cries, “Breakfast!”

Rodin smiles and thinks, I can at least wait while breakfast is
served.

As always, I ask that everyone please share and comment. I enjoy feedback. I enjoy discussions. Don’t be ascared. Thank you.