Zared - Hydrokinesis

"I had a ground breaking realization about Zared's story not long ago and it got this scene out of me. I've been treating this character as too soft and innocent, when he really has the potential to be quite dangerous and perhaps even villainous.

Anyway, this is a scene where he's been abducted by goblins and has to make his escape or be eaten. I think the scene needs to be extended, but we shall see." -Casey

Zared awoke finding it difficult to breath. His face was being smothered against something tough that smelt of rot and when he tried to pull it off, he found that he was entirely incased in the material. He had been tied up in a sack while he slept.

The horrible throbbing on the back of his head brought back his memory of being attacked by the goblins. He touched his hand to his hair and found that it was caked mud or perhaps blood, he couldn’t tell in the darkness.

Zared decided to slow his breathing again as if he was still unconscious. That helped him to relax his mind and gather up his magic. He reached out with his mind and felt the cool moist air flowing around him for miles in several directions, like the air after days of autumn rain. His head was beginning to cloud so he focused all his magic on his current surroundings. He was on the hard and cold wet floor of a massive structure, taller than the great hall of the palace. Small passages snaked in three different directions, but he couldn’t sense where they would lead. Lastly, there was the warm feeling of something else in the chamber with him, the warmth of living creatures lurking about the room. Zared didn’t dare to reach for their minds, less they discover that he was alive and capable of putting up a fight against them.

He placed his hand against the sack and soaked the water out from it so that is swirled around his fingers. He took his time with the process, allowing the water to flow silently.

A low growl echoed through the chamber and it came from just a few feet before Zared. The young man held his hands to his chest, ready to move at a moment’s notice. The low growl grew into a sort of chortle as it drew closer. The sack he was lying in was yanked forward, scraping his elbow across the jagged surface of the floor. He heard the scrape of something metal and then kicked at it with all his might. In response, there was a loud yelp and Zared shot the water from his hand in a single high pressure stream that cut through the fabric of the sack.

As he ripped the hole open further he was alarmed to find that there was no lighter out in the open than there had been in his snare. He pulled himself to his feet and relied on the dampness of the area to sense his surroundings.

Another growl bellowed to his left before a goblin whacked him on the side of the head with either a rock or its bare fist, Zared couldn’t tell. His ears began ringing and his senses became confused. He lashed out with his magic, making the moist air around him buzz and sting like needles. Hissing and growling echoed around the room as he did this and he ran unsteadily across the floor towards the last passages he could remember before he’d become discombobulated.

He ran headlong into a stone wall, but he merely felt along it until he found the passage he had been seeking. The smooth rock here sloped gently upwards and water was slowly trickling down under his feet. This made it difficult to keep his footing, but he ran on, thankful that the water at least made the path perceptible to him. He heard the snarling of the goblins behind him as he ran. He did his best to widen the stream of water behind him in order to trip the creature on the slick rocks, but he knew goblins could see in the dark and they were probably right on his tail.

His mind raced through every spell that he knew, but none of them seemed viable. If only he could conjure water from thin air the way his brother conjured fire. He reached out for the goblins minds, but that only flooded his mind with violent empathic flashes of anger and hunger. He couldn’t reach far enough through the haze to control them, not with his own mind so jumbled.

A goblin seized him by his hair, sending a fresh wave of pain through his skull. He sent the water on the ground shooting up the monster’s face in a harsh spray and it released him, but the pain at the back of his head remained.

The passage before him was spinning, the water and the rocks blurring into one another before his eyes. That’s when Zared realized that he could see the rocks. There was a faint light coming from up the tunnel around a blind corner. Could the goblins have really been so foolish as to leave him so near the surface?

Zared clung to that belief and it cleared his mind enough for him to cast one final spell. He took command of the water at his feet and the moister in the air, doing his best to arrest every drop of water within his reach. With a loud bust, he sent in all down the tunnel like the white spray of a fierce tidal wave. The force of it knocked him onto the ground, but it also washed the goblins back down to the chamber from which they had come.

He staggered back onto his feet, soaked from head to toe, and continued running up the tunnel. He made it up to the corner and there was indeed a light shining from around it as well as a faint breeze. He staggered up the tunnel and towards the light at a steady pace, no longer able to run. He relinquished his hold on his magic, allowing his body the extra energy it needed to heal. The flow of water beneath his feet was becoming a steady stream now and he had to take care not to slip as he went against the current. He could smell the fresh sent of pine on the breeze now, a comfort after the musty and rotting smell of the cave. The light of the half moon streamed in from the mouth of the tunnel, seeming radiant after being in such complete darkness.

Zared’s boots splashed through more mud than water as he stepped out into the open. A light rain drizzled down through the tree tops to land on his forehead. He’d never been this far up the mountains before. The fresh surroundings almost made him forget the terror of a few moments ago. For a moment he just stood at the mouth of the cave, taking in the rocky hillside and tall pine trees.

Zared and Story (C) SuperheroGeek13