Welcome to my journal!
My friends call me Wick, but my full name’s Azrael Bal Gorath the Wicked, Keeper of the Fountains of Flame, Breaker of Worlds, Heir to the Throne of Black and Broken Glass, and Son of the Dark Lord Who Vanished.
Who’s the Dark Lord?
Well, he’s the guy with the all--black wardrobe, the villainous ruler with the vile henchmen. The bad guy the good folks just love to hate. That was my dad. He and my mom vanished in a cloud of smoke ten years ago. It was during the war when the faire folk—you know, the elves, dwarves, and humans—attacked the grim folk, which is pretty much everybody else like me: the ogres, orcs, dragons, goblins, witches, and warlocks. During the surprise, totally UNFAIR attack, the “good” wizard Galorian struck down my parents with his Sword of Seemingly Unquestionable Truth. But right afterward, Galorian tripped and fell on our throne of black and broken glass. Ouch! What a colossal blunder. That was the end of Galorian, and ever since then, we’ve had peace.
But recently, the elves broke the truce. They laid siege to Hadrian’s Hedge, the seemingly impenetrable tangle of thorny vines that separates our two lands. One day soon, they’ll break through it. Everyone is worried about the future. Since Mom and Dad vanished, we haven’t had a Dark Lord or a Dark Lady to unite us. And with the elves attacking our borders, we need someone to help gather our armies.
Unfortunately, I’m that guy. That’s right, it’s my job to take up the Dark Lord’s throne and unite my people. And to do that, I need to raise a horde of followers to march on the Chamber of Mystery, and that’s no simple task. Once there, I’ll face three terrible guardians. After that, I’ll need to walk through a searing wall of flame just to claim my crown. And that’s not as easy as it sounds.
Actually, that doesn’t sound easy at all. I don’t even like thinking about it. There’s nothing dark or terrible about me. I’m twelve, and at four foot ten, I’m a little short for my age. Also, it’s hard to be into the whole “fire and brimstone” thing when you’ve got allergies.
Hoping to turn things around, I came up with a plan. I call it Operation Dark Lord. Unfortunately, the plan is short on details. I have the name, but that’s it. And my army isn’t exactly a howling horde. Heck, it’s not even an OUTBREAK of orcs or a CRASH of ogres. In truth, it could fit in a broom closet.
So far, I have four followers, and that just isn’t going to cut it. I need thousands. And to gather that many foot soldiers, I’ll need to show the world that I am the real deal. I’ll need to cast a high-level, totally-beyond-my-ability spell, which might be a bit of a challenge. See, I’m not much of a warlock. I’ve only cast one spell, but I’m hoping to learn a second. That’s where my journal begins, and it’s also how I found myself in some pretty big trouble.
Sadderday
The Dark Ages
Today, I was standing in the courtyard of the Grimhold, waiting around for my friend Storey, when I overheard an older spell caster talking about an enchantment. He called it the Tower Raiser, and I was intrigued.
We have thirteen towers in our castle, and the throne of the Dark Lord sits in the tallest one. That spire soars above the others, and it’s magnificent to behold.
But what if I could make it float?
Good idea?
No, GREAT idea . . . or so I thought.
“Can you teach me the Tower Raiser?” I asked the wizard, Nut Loathing.
“That enchantment is complicated,” said Nut, his eyes blazing with malice. “It’s for . . . mature spell casters.”
I knew it was meant for older spell casters. All of the powerful spells are reserved for them, but I didn’t want him to refuse me because of my age, size, or almost complete lack of ability.
“It’s not for me,” I said. Nut was an exchange student from Joyous Hall, the school for wizards. He was only here for a month, so I hoped he’d be willing to bend our rules. “I have a MUCH older friend who MIGHT have a use for it. So tell me, what else can it do? Does it have any limits? Because I know a witch who needs to ELEVATE her desk. And we could use it to LIFT the Grimhold flag each morning or to RAISE money for that new barracks the orcs want to build. Now that I think about it, I’m guessing a lot of folks might find it useful.”
“The incantation is useful, but only under CERTAIN circumstances,” said Nut. “Are you sure you want to learn it?” He lifted one eyebrow.
That little gesture should have told me that I was in trouble. I ought to have asked more questions, but I REALLY wanted to learn the spell.
“Teach it to me,” I said. “I can already picture the possibilities.”
Indeed, I imagined what life would be like in the Grimhold if I bumped up the ogres’ IQs. I pictured a castle with higher health standards and taller turrets. My heart pounded. It was time for me to cast a SECOND spell. If I levitated the tower and everyone in the castle saw me do it, they would know that I had the potential to be a great spell caster. Operation Dark Lord would finally get the boost it needed. I’d find my army of followers, and I could at last march on the Chamber of Mystery.
I was ready to embrace my destiny.
And I think Nut saw the excitement in my eye, because he taught me the spell.
I listened carefully, and I asked him to repeat everything he’d said—not once, not twice, but three times.
Then I took a moment to review, and when I was certain I knew the spell backward and forward, I went about casting it. I thrust my wiggly fingers into the sky. Then I raised them a bit higher. And after that, I flung them up and above my head.
I may have overdone it, but I was DESPERATE to see that tower fly.
The air felt electric.
My hands tingled, and sparks shot from my finger-nails.
I couldn’t wait for the spell to hit.
In hindsight, I SHOULD have waited. I gotta say, if I had just stopped and thought about what I was doing, I could have saved myself a whole lot of trouble. But that didn’t happen.
I spoke the words of magic. Actually, I yelled them. I hollered to the heavens, I was so excited. “RAZENTUM TOWERUS MAXIMUS!”
What happened next is slightly confusing.
As I’ve said, there are thirteen towers in the castle, and the Dark Lord’s throne of black and broken glass is in the tallest one. We call it the Spire of Foreboding, and it’s stood solemnly upon the castle grounds for a thousand years.
Or, at least, it DID stand solemnly.
Because when I completed my casting, the thirteenth tower exploded into a hundred-foot-tall column of dust and shattered stone. Then it collapsed into a pile of rubble as tall as . . . well, a tower.
I’d destroyed the throne room of the Dark Lord.
It was gone, and I wanted to run and hide.
I turned to get out of there and stumbled straight into the brooding spell caster who’d taught me the incantation. Except he wasn’t brooding anymore. He was giggling with DELIGHT.
Naturally, I had questions.
Nut had stayed to watch me cast the spell, which was suspicious. But I didn’t want to blame him. Not yet. So I asked if I’d made a mistake.
“Did I raise my hands too high?”
He shook his head, cackling.
“Did I skip a word, or maybe a whole bunch of them?”
Once again, he said no.
“So what happened? I thought that spell was supposed to raise a tower or whatever else.”
“You are correct,” said Nut. “It can RAZE—R-A-Z-E—just about anything.” He’d said RAZE instead of RAISE. And apparently, that’s what he’d been saying all along. The two words sound alike, but they mean DIFFERENT things. And, in case you’re wondering, raze means “to destroy completely.”
That’s what happened to the tower.
And now that I think about it, it’s also what became of my latest attempt to impress the grim folk.
Welcome to my journal!
My friends call me Wick, but my full name’s Azrael Bal Gorath the Wicked, Keeper of the Fountains of Flame, Breaker of Worlds, Heir to the Throne of Black and Broken Glass, and Son of the Dark Lord Who Vanished.
Who’s the Dark Lord?
Well, he’s the guy with the all--black wardrobe, the villainous ruler with the vile henchmen. The bad guy the good folks just love to hate. That was my dad. He and my mom vanished in a cloud of smoke ten years ago. It was during the war when the faire folk—you know, the elves, dwarves, and humans—attacked the grim folk, which is pretty much everybody else like me: the ogres, orcs, dragons, goblins, witches, and warlocks. During the surprise, totally UNFAIR attack, the “good” wizard Galorian struck down my parents with his Sword of Seemingly Unquestionable Truth. But right afterward, Galorian tripped and fell on our throne of black and broken glass. Ouch! What a colossal blunder. That was the end of Galorian, and ever since then, we’ve had peace.
But recently, the elves broke the truce. They laid siege to Hadrian’s Hedge, the seemingly impenetrable tangle of thorny vines that separates our two lands. One day soon, they’ll break through it. Everyone is worried about the future. Since Mom and Dad vanished, we haven’t had a Dark Lord or a Dark Lady to unite us. And with the elves attacking our borders, we need someone to help gather our armies.
Unfortunately, I’m that guy. That’s right, it’s my job to take up the Dark Lord’s throne and unite my people. And to do that, I need to raise a horde of followers to march on the Chamber of Mystery, and that’s no simple task. Once there, I’ll face three terrible guardians. After that, I’ll need to walk through a searing wall of flame just to claim my crown. And that’s not as easy as it sounds.
Actually, that doesn’t sound easy at all. I don’t even like thinking about it. There’s nothing dark or terrible about me. I’m twelve, and at four foot ten, I’m a little short for my age. Also, it’s hard to be into the whole “fire and brimstone” thing when you’ve got allergies.
Hoping to turn things around, I came up with a plan. I call it Operation Dark Lord. Unfortunately, the plan is short on details. I have the name, but that’s it. And my army isn’t exactly a howling horde. Heck, it’s not even an OUTBREAK of orcs or a CRASH of ogres. In truth, it could fit in a broom closet.
So far, I have four followers, and that just isn’t going to cut it. I need thousands. And to gather that many foot soldiers, I’ll need to show the world that I am the real deal. I’ll need to cast a high-level, totally-beyond-my-ability spell, which might be a bit of a challenge. See, I’m not much of a warlock. I’ve only cast one spell, but I’m hoping to learn a second. That’s where my journal begins, and it’s also how I found myself in some pretty big trouble.
Sadderday
The Dark Ages
Today, I was standing in the courtyard of the Grimhold, waiting around for my friend Storey, when I overheard an older spell caster talking about an enchantment. He called it the Tower Raiser, and I was intrigued.
We have thirteen towers in our castle, and the throne of the Dark Lord sits in the tallest one. That spire soars above the others, and it’s magnificent to behold.
But what if I could make it float?
Good idea?
No, GREAT idea . . . or so I thought.
“Can you teach me the Tower Raiser?” I asked the wizard, Nut Loathing.
“That enchantment is complicated,” said Nut, his eyes blazing with malice. “It’s for . . . mature spell casters.”
I knew it was meant for older spell casters. All of the powerful spells are reserved for them, but I didn’t want him to refuse me because of my age, size, or almost complete lack of ability.
“It’s not for me,” I said. Nut was an exchange student from Joyous Hall, the school for wizards. He was only here for a month, so I hoped he’d be willing to bend our rules. “I have a MUCH older friend who MIGHT have a use for it. So tell me, what else can it do? Does it have any limits? Because I know a witch who needs to ELEVATE her desk. And we could use it to LIFT the Grimhold flag each morning or to RAISE money for that new barracks the orcs want to build. Now that I think about it, I’m guessing a lot of folks might find it useful.”
“The incantation is useful, but only under CERTAIN circumstances,” said Nut. “Are you sure you want to learn it?” He lifted one eyebrow.
That little gesture should have told me that I was in trouble. I ought to have asked more questions, but I REALLY wanted to learn the spell.
“Teach it to me,” I said. “I can already picture the possibilities.”
Indeed, I imagined what life would be like in the Grimhold if I bumped up the ogres’ IQs. I pictured a castle with higher health standards and taller turrets. My heart pounded. It was time for me to cast a SECOND spell. If I levitated the tower and everyone in the castle saw me do it, they would know that I had the potential to be a great spell caster. Operation Dark Lord would finally get the boost it needed. I’d find my army of followers, and I could at last march on the Chamber of Mystery.
I was ready to embrace my destiny.
And I think Nut saw the excitement in my eye, because he taught me the spell.
I listened carefully, and I asked him to repeat everything he’d said—not once, not twice, but three times.
Then I took a moment to review, and when I was certain I knew the spell backward and forward, I went about casting it. I thrust my wiggly fingers into the sky. Then I raised them a bit higher. And after that, I flung them up and above my head.
I may have overdone it, but I was DESPERATE to see that tower fly.
The air felt electric.
My hands tingled, and sparks shot from my finger-nails.
I couldn’t wait for the spell to hit.
In hindsight, I SHOULD have waited. I gotta say, if I had just stopped and thought about what I was doing, I could have saved myself a whole lot of trouble. But that didn’t happen.
I spoke the words of magic. Actually, I yelled them. I hollered to the heavens, I was so excited. “RAZENTUM TOWERUS MAXIMUS!”
What happened next is slightly confusing.
As I’ve said, there are thirteen towers in the castle, and the Dark Lord’s throne of black and broken glass is in the tallest one. We call it the Spire of Foreboding, and it’s stood solemnly upon the castle grounds for a thousand years.
Or, at least, it DID stand solemnly.
Because when I completed my casting, the thirteenth tower exploded into a hundred-foot-tall column of dust and shattered stone. Then it collapsed into a pile of rubble as tall as . . . well, a tower.
I’d destroyed the throne room of the Dark Lord.
It was gone, and I wanted to run and hide.
I turned to get out of there and stumbled straight into the brooding spell caster who’d taught me the incantation. Except he wasn’t brooding anymore. He was giggling with DELIGHT.
Naturally, I had questions.
Nut had stayed to watch me cast the spell, which was suspicious. But I didn’t want to blame him. Not yet. So I asked if I’d made a mistake.
“Did I raise my hands too high?”
He shook his head, cackling.
“Did I skip a word, or maybe a whole bunch of them?”
Once again, he said no.
“So what happened? I thought that spell was supposed to raise a tower or whatever else.”
“You are correct,” said Nut. “It can RAZE—R-A-Z-E—just about anything.” He’d said RAZE instead of RAISE. And apparently, that’s what he’d been saying all along. The two words sound alike, but they mean DIFFERENT things. And, in case you’re wondering, raze means “to destroy completely.”
That’s what happened to the tower.
And now that I think about it, it’s also what became of my latest attempt to impress the grim folk.
