Kodac’s Quest

“Kodac,” his mom called, “It’s your turn to clean the chamber pot.”

“Ooh,” he groaned. He hated cleaning the chamber pot, mostly because of its foul smell. Kodac stirred and silently rose out of bed. He took a quick glance out the window. The sun was just above the horizon making the morning dew shine on the grass. A lone rider was leaving the west gate. That’s interesting, he thought. Most people leave at night when the market closes. He hurried over to his drawers and took out his deer skin pants and wool tunic. He quickly put them on. Then he put on his mage robes and grabbed his six–foot ash wood staff with a ruby ball at the top of it.

Kodac hurried downstairs. The smell of his mother’s fresh baked blueberry muffins quickly filled his nose. He started to grab for one, but his mother yelled, “Clean the chamber pot before breakfast!” He quickly looked up and saw his mother in her blue dress, with a white apron tied around her waist. Her brown, curly hair fell down to her shoulders. She was holding a big pot in one hand and a scrub brush in the other. Kodac cursed, and then leaned his staff against the kitchen table. He grabbed for the pot and scrub brush and headed out the kitchen door.

The moment Kodac stepped outside the sun warmed his skin and the aroma of his mother’s herb and flower patches filled his nose. He walked over to the bench a little way from the kitchen door and started scrubbing. When he finished scrubbing, he walked over to the well, pulled up a bucket of water, and poured it into the chamber pot. He swished it around a few times before dumping the water in the woods. Then he ran back inside and placed the pot down. He hurried to the table and started to eat. Before he started to eat his fourth muffin his mother told him to hurry up if he wanted to get to mage lessons on time. “Ooh no,” he groaned. He had totally forgotten about mage lessons. Kodac placed the muffin back on the table.

Kodac grabbed his staff and rushed out the door to go to mage school. Today he would be awarded the red–spotted, real dragon’s egg because he had won the mage tournament between the mage schools, Cilleran, Noraie, Barsteia, and his school, Quartaso. The winner of the egg will soon have a live, flying dragon, which will grant them power among the mages.

Kodac wondered to himself what Calsor, the meanest assistant mage teacher, would think once he got the egg. Also, he thought how proud of him Alzar, the high master, would be. Kodac quickened his pace so he wouldn’t be late. After six minutes of hard walking, he arrived at the school. The school, with its stone tower, was the tallest building in the town. Moss was growing at a rapid pace in the cracks between the stone. It was surrounded by tangled willows and was an overall dreary place with a rusty metal fence in front of it.

Kodac rushed up to the fence and opened it. He heard an eerie sound like fingernails scratching on a blackboard, which gave him goose bumps every time. Kodac ran up three steps and opened the large oak door with the skull door knocker on it. There was a large gust of wind that blew his brown hair back off his pointed elf ears. Kodac walked inside, but he didn’t hear the familiar, homey bubbling of blue, green, red and yellow potions or the crackling of the fire.

“Something’s wrong,” he mumbled to himself, and he began to look around. Where was Calsor? Why wasn’t he lecturing him for being late? He didn’t go far before he found Calsor on the floor in a pool of blood. The smell of his charred white beard filled the room and his latest potion was still clutched in his stiffened hand. Kodac noticed a circle–shaped burn mark on Calsor’s stomach. “This was magic!” he said.

Crying out with anger and frustration at the loss of his teacher, Kodac looked up at the desk of Alazar, the high master of the mage school. The dragon egg was supposed to be on the desk, but it was missing.

Who could have done this? he wondered. Could it have been Sanorex, the boy who placed second in the tournament? Or his teacher, Kranox? Kodac tightened is grip on his staff and rushed out the door and didn’t stop running until he got home. He must find the egg.

When he arrived home, he went up to his room and took his potion ingredients – ground bat bones and unicorn horn, snake’s eye, dragon blood, and ground dragon egg shell. He grabbed his spell books, Fighting People and Creatures: What Spells to Use and Curing Wounds. He put everything into a brown leather bag and rushed downstairs.

Kodac grabbed a piece of charcoal out of the fire and started to write Dear Mother. Then he thought to himself, Should I tell her everything or will she worry too much? After a little more thinking, he decided to write; I am going on an adventure and won’t be home for a while. Finishing his letter, Kodac rushed out the door and went to the stable next to his house. He jumped onto his pure white horse, Snowrider, but where should he go? Then it hit him. The rider he saw was leaving the west gate.

“I’ll follow him,” Kodac mumbled and spurred his horse out of town. After a half hour of hard riding, Kodac arrived at Falendor, the market town. Kodac left Snowrider tied in the town stables and started to walk down the main road. Taverns and inns lined the streets and many sailing ships, with masts forty feet high and decks almost as big as two houses put together, were docked in the bay.

All at once, he saw goblins with warts and big eyes yelling, “Lucky charms here!” at the top of their lungs. There were seven–foot, burly mountain trolls with small, squinting eyes, ears too large for their head, and enormous pig snout noses. Most were yelling “Burly bear and unicorn pelts here!” Others were selling various types of trees that had been cut down. Walking a little further, Kodac was blasted with the smell of pungent burly bear meat cooking on the fires of mountain trolls. Then the smell of the foul gloop fish stew that the swap goblins loved so much floated up two his nose.

“What the heck?” Kodac said, turning his head a little to the left. He saw a hand zip out of his pocket. Kodac cried out and spun around to see a boy sprinting away from him. Taking out his staff and aiming it at the boy, he muttered, “Entangle!” A vine shot out of the ground and snared the boy’s legs.

Kodac ran over to him and the boy started yelling, “Get it off! Get it off! I didn’t mean any harm! Honest!”

“Fine, but you must tell me your name and accompany me on my quest.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I tell the town guard.”

“Fine, but I’m only tellin’ so I don’t have to go to jail! My name is Anger.”

Just then, the town bell sounded and someone yelled, “Raiders!”

The town launched into an uproar, with people closing taverns and shops, putting on their battle armor that gleamed in the afternoon sun and brandishing their spiked clubs, scythes, battle axes, hell burgs, flails, bows, hammers and swords.

“Follow me!” Kodac yelled to Anger above the noise and in an instant, Anger was next to him.

“Anger, what’s in your pocket?” asked Kodac, as he saw a glimpse of something shiny.

“A ring, but I swear I found it on the path leadin’ up to that mountain.”

“Fine,” said Kodac. Reaching into his bag, he grabbed the snake eyes and the dragon blood and poured them together and handed them to Anger.

“Here,” said Kodac. “They’ll explode on impact.”

Kodac looked up and saw mountain goblins riding on huge burly wolves. Then, above the commotion, the master guard shouted, “Charge!” The battle had begun. Weapons were everywhere, shattering skulls, ribs, and cutting off limbs. Blood was spraying everywhere. Then Kodac heard a cry behind him and saw a goblin with a mace jump into the air. Kodac spun around and shot a spike from the end of his staff into the goblin’s neck.

*

After an hour of fierce fighting, the residents and stall owners of Falendur had won.

*

After many hours of celebration which ended in many goblins and trolls making merry, Kodac set his mind back to the task at hand. He quickly found Anger singing a song with a band of goblins. Kodac rushed over and grabbed him by the shoulder. “What the heck?” he exclaimed.

“We have got to go,” said Kodac.

“Why? It’s too dark to follow a trail and I don’t want to miss da party. Look, I even got you a present,” said Anger, holding up an emerald necklace.

“Where did you get that?” asked Kodac.

“Stole it off a troll, but he wasn’t usin’ it or nothing.”

“Fine, but we’ll only stay for a night so I can clear my head. And as for the necklace, you’re an idiot. You could have put the whole quest in jeopardy!” said Kodac.

“A simple thank you would be nice, I didn’t have to get that hard earned presant for you, ya know,” said Anger.

“HARD EARNED, you block head! All you had to do was stick your hand into his pocket!” shouted Kodac.

“Keep your voice down I don’t want da’ whole town guard to know I’m a thief. Besides, by da’ way you act I think you could use a few presants along da’ way. Now go have fun. We’ll leave first thing in da’ morning.”

*

“Anger wake up, wake up! My God you sleep like a rock! It’s time to go,” said Kodac shaking him roughly by the shoulder.

“But it’s only 5 A.M.,” complained Anger

“Shut up and get dressed and be quick about it,” said Kodac.

Anger quickly got out of bed; he picked up his clothes and got dressed.

“Give me the ring you found. I think it might be one of the twelve rings of high power given to the mage counsel which consist of the high masters of every school on Krandor.”

“I have no clue what you just mumbled, but here ya go,” said Anger dropping the ring onto Kodac’s palm. Kodac inspected it keenly then took out one of his books and started to look through the book. He finally found what he was looking for, the high counsel ring approving the book. The rings were exactly the same, Kodac thought to himself. The entangling vines give it away. He was right. It is a ring of high counsel. That means the villain must be Kranox Sanorex’s teacher. Then Kodac looked up and said, “Where did you find this ring?”

“I found it leading up to Death Mountain,” said Anger, pointing to a bulking mountain in back of them with smoke coming out of its top. The path Anger was talking about had holes and some places were nearly impossible to cross because of jagged rocks. The mountain was also the home to mountain wolves that attack strangers without a second thought.

“Listen Anger, I don’t expect you to follow me, but I would like you to deliver a message to my mother in case I don’t come back, got it? My horse is in the town stables, ok?”

“Yup”

“Good, now I’ll be on my way.” And with that, Kodac started up the path. At first the path was fairly easy to climb, but then the hill started to get steeper and there were fewer rocks to hold on to for support. Finally Kodac made it to the top. After he got on his legs, he looked up and nearly fell back down the mountain in shock. There in front of him was Alazar. His white beard and pointed hat were swaying in the breeze and at his feet was the dragon egg.

“No, it can’t be” said Kodac.

“Yes, foolish boy. It is me, loving old Alazar.”

“But why?”

“You just don’t get it do you? You see the only reason I became a mage was for power. Tell me, about how many goblins did you kill? At least half a dozen more than anyone else, right?” Kodac nodded his head but was careful not to let his eyes stray from Alazar’s.

“You see mages are the strongest force on Krandor and this egg would just make me stronger,” said Alazar laughing to himself. “And if I’m to truly be the strongest person on Krandor, I’ll have to get rid of the other mages, starting with you!” And with that he raised his staff and started to mutter a chant, but before he could finish something hit him in the back which instantly exploded, sending him flying down the mountain. Kodac looked up and there sitting on Snowrider was Anger.

“Dang these really work good,” he said, eyeing the snake eyes Kodac had given him. “I never was any good at delivering messages, so now I don’t got to,” he said, nearly falling off Snowrider with laughter. Kodac joined in the laughter and walked over to picked up the egg. Then he walked over to where Alazar fell off the mountain…, but there was no one there.