"That handwriting, I recognize it... That's Redacted's writing!" (I'LL MAKE A BIO EXPLAINING THAT LINE LATER BUT THIS ONE IS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CHARACTERS LONG SO DON'T JUDGE ME IF I DON'T DO IT soon SOON) His grandfather's wing dripped a little bit of blood on the ground. His brother winced. "Does that hurt?" he (the bigger brother) asked. "No," his grandfather responded. "Who's Redacted?" Dust asked. "A very strange Arcane Wizard who originally abused his power too much, and his identity and essence of being became broken and flawed. He used to have a name, but through extreme and extensive use of magic, that individual, or that name no longer exists, so to say." "That's possible!?" Dust said, his voice still broken and deep. He wondered if it'd ever get any better. "I didn't think so 'till I met him," his grandfather said. "So what about our aunt?" Dust asked, turning to his brother, who shrugged, then back to his grandfather, who sighed. "She's been... ezxecut-ed." (I'm not sure if that word is in the filter...) "Yeah, so... anyway, here's what that thing does." Suddenly it turned into a torch and a tiny piece of it broke off and then grew into an entire campfire, and then the torch part of it lit the flame. "That's cool," his brother said. "Yeah, I th-" suddenly the entire mountainside blew up and his grandfather and older brother became unconscious. He was their only hope. They had been blasted sky high, and he was their only chance of survival. He flew his brother closer to his grandfather, and he tried to slow their fall, but he wasn't strong enough- his wings weren't strong enough. They all hit the ground and the fall nearly knocked Dust out. Dust looked at his brother, who's eyes were open in terror and fear. "NO!" he screamed. His grandfather had a similar expression, but with slightly less shock. "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!" In an outburst, he raised his hands and very bright crimson-red beams of energy came from both of their bodies. That must've been their mana or something, he wasn't sure. (It was their mana, he was redirecting it somehow. Please tell me if that's not allowed, and if it isn't most of this will still be applicable, so don't hesitate to disallow it :).) Finally, all of the dark red energy flew back down, and it flew toward the incoming crowd of guards. Two of them dropped instantly, and in his grief, he stopped another one and light blue energy came out of that one, went into another guard, and that guard slowly started glowing, and was then struck by lightning, after Unforgettable had changed the trinket into a normal stick, or at least what seemed to be a normal stick and pointed it directly at that guard. A third guard started being unable to move and destroyed one of the guards, and then collapsed himself, and then more dark red energy came from the d3a1d guards and it spread to the rest of the crowd, making most of them unconscious and a few seemed to have no longer been living. Dust, still crying, flew away. The decay of his halo seemed to have accelerated, a long with his wings, which were now slowly starting to show bones. They were bleed!!1ng, a lot. He just kept flying, though, until he couldn't stay awake anymore. 'Keep flying,' he told himself, constantly. 'Keep flying, keep flying, keep flying, keep flying, keep flying...' He collapsed somewhere on the outskirts of the beach of Ryujin. There was no one there for him anymore... No one at all. He woke up a few days later on a bed in a shack on that beach. There was someone who seemed to be an arcane wizard there. He was mixing a bunch of things together and he seemed to be struggling, or trying to solve a complex equation, and somewhat failing. Dust immediately got up and started running.
The Arcane Wizard seemed to not care for a moment, as he brushed off his robe a little, took out a red ball, and started rubbing it- red sparkles, originating from the red ball, enveloped his whole body and he appeared straight in front of Dust, who stopped, and then started running around him. The same thing happened again, and then Dust stopped. "What?" he said simply. "LET ME GO!" he rephrased. He grasped his head. He had some kind of migraine or something. "Let me help you," the Arcane Wizard said, rubbing the red ball again and teleporting them both back to the shack. "Who are you?" Dust asked simply. "I don't exist, simply said," he said. "Wait, are you Redacted?" "Yeah, how'd you guess?" he asked. "Oh, well my grandfather told me about you... But I don't want TO BE HERE." he seemed a little delusional. He started crying a little again, but then quickly strengthened his resolve and looked the Arcane Wizard straight in the eye. "I have something of yours," Dust said. 'I'm dust now,' he told his mind. 'Unforgettable is gone. He exists no longer.' His entire personality shifted slightly. "Oh?" the Arcane Wizard said. Dust held up the stick. "Keep that, I never needed it. That was for a friend of mine who since then has... well... they're not around anymore. Regardless, I think you could help me." "Help you?" Dust asked. "How? And why would I?" "Well, after all those hours in that cave, pretending to make spells, remember?" "Yeah, but how do you know that!?" Dust said. "I know everything," Redacted responded dishonestly. "Not really, but-" "Okay, okay, but what do you want?" "I think you could help me make more spells and enchantments. Why? I just want to help people like you." "Help me!? YOU MADE MY LIFE SO TERRIBLE BECAUSE OF THAT THING!" "Heh, really? Because the way I see all of that, that all would've happened one way or the other since you'd have to have spoken to your aunt eventually one way or the other anyway." Dust stopped for a moment. "Fine," he said. "You don't have anything else to do anyway," Redacted responded. "And you need an ally." "Fine, I said fine," Dust repeated. "Good, then we can move on. Do you know how sigils work?" __ - _ - * - _ - _ - * - _ - _ - * - _ - _ - * - _ - __ ALRIGHT, and that concludes my... er, backstory. Just a few other things- that stick he has can turn into a knife that can k(l1 anyone no matter who they are or how good they are at healing or magic or anything as long as it's from behind. OKAY THANKS FOR READING IF YOU DID! If you found the codeword, respond with it. (THIS TOOK HOURS)
