"I am ready, master." A loan voice sounding as if many were speaking at once resonated in the darkness. It was the quietest of whispers, one that could only be heard by beasts with the most accute hearing, and even they would strain to. In the darkness tiny speckles of pure evil spun themselves into existence around the small nightmare that had spoken. These formed into tiny spheres and eventually into crackling orbs of maliciousness. Evil, pure evil at least, cannot enter the mortal realms unless it is invited, it is the only barrier against the forces of darkness that has been shown to hold true over the years.

"Q'lam, open yourself to me!" The mysterious voice of the master pleaded, this being the only time it ever would. Once it had a foot hold it could open the gateway all the way, and no one would care what creature the master had had to use to gain entry. On the astral plane the balance of power shifted slightly to it's most primal form, that of evil and darkness, as the being crossed over, and then everything was as it had been before. Crossing over had drained the evil being immensely, and for the time being the feeble body it now inhabbited need to recouperate.

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Dune woke with a start. He hadn't expected what he had just born witness to in his dreams. Every fibre of his being seemed to have been put on high allert. The kind sun was beaming down upon his pillow, where his head had lain only moments before. "Dallam allas ashar." He muttered, pointing a hand at the bedroom door, and through it to where the bathroom was. There was a faint creaking sound and then water began to fill the bath from the old tap, that quite possibly had been there when the house had been built. "Immok shem shallala kestros." he muttered. The was an almost in audible sliding sound as the plug was magically pushed down from where it was kept and put into the hole. Strictly speaking magic wasn't supposed to be used like that, but he didn't care anymore, he hadn't cared for a few months now.

Slowly Dune got up. He stretched, grabbed his towel from where it lay and then headed into the bathroom. The stained and cracked wall mirror seemed to glare at him when he entered, though most likely, it was a trick of the bright, flickering neon light that hung there. His mother had an obsession with the lights, and the only room that didn't have one in was his own, but then she never entered it, for fear of what she might catch. If there was ever a cleaning spell invented it wouldn't have the power to do a corner of his room, even vamped up by several, if not all of The words of power. He smiled to himself at that thought. In the state it was in was how he liked it, it was the only way he could find what he wanted to, when he wanted to. He had its draw backs though, like it prevented his having friends over, and made it really hard to summon minor demons and the like to do his bidding, which was usually to get him something to eat from the fridge downstairs.

The mirror still seemed to be glaring, only it had gottewn more venomous now. "Asenti meensdigar gellespianos paracakacuss." Dune muttered, aiming the spell at it. A dark mist welled up in the mirror and blotted out his reflection, which he had never liked anyway. It always seemed more toned and well built than he ever felt, or even saw when he looked straight down aty himself. Perhaps that was just paranoia, afterall, he had once been nicknamed 'porkston' which had derived from 'porky dun'. It could have also been some inate magic gene that storve all of its users to go as far as they can, to push their very limits, and the limits of reality itself. He carefully put a hand in the water in the bath. It was stone cold. He racked his brains for a second and then muttered what he thought was a spell to warm up the water. But when it turned an ominous shade of orange he realised he had made a mistake.

He tried again, changing one of the words in the middle, hoping that would warm it up. He looked at the mirror and jumped back in surprise. Out of the mist he had placed in it were two bright lights. He blinked and they were gone. "I'm not crazy!" he told himself through gritted teeth.

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Lenith Camelot opened his eyes. He was old and growing older. It had been a long time since he had used a mirror to spy on anyone though. Indeed the boy had a fair amount of natural magic behind him, but could it really be enough. The sage walked over to the cage where his enchanted owl was perched. "Are you sure that that is the right one Athena?" He asked her, taking a seat in his big red comfy chair. The bird opened one eye to look at him.

"You know I hate you calling me by that stupid name. And ofcourse I'm sure, just because you are losing your touch, and your mind doesn't mean I am, now do you mind, I'm nocturnal, and it is clearly day time, I need my sleep!" She retorted. He chuckled to himself. Well, at least the lad had some magical skill, unlike the last hopeful. The alchemist come sage tried to relax, but this was difficult. The dark entity that had crossed over was weak now, but it's strength would soon grow, as would the size of it's hosts as it needed bigger and bigger bodies to house the power it would soon be generating. It was unfortunate that what the owl said was true. But then insanity happened to all alchemists once they had descovered the elixor of life, and stretched out their lives for the past four hundred years. But even that had limits. It couldn't stop death inevitably, and the mind wasn't designed to be used for such a long stretch continuously.

Lenith Camelot closed his eyes and looked for the second hopeful of the four he needed, of which one would prove themselves to be the most capable of handling the power of the sage, the second most powerful human magic level that existed. The others would have to learn the skills the hard way, but that was how it had always been. Sleep swiftly swept over the sleeping sage. Onto the second...he thought as his mind drifted away.

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Bell sat on a bench in the central park of her home city. He hair was pearl white, though she died it heavily so no one looking at her could tell. She was awaiting Sandy, her good for nothing non magically gifted boyfriend. He was always late. Then he tried to lie to her when he arrived. She easily saw through them though, that was part of the magic that wove itself into her very being, and gave her the distinct and horrid hair colour. It was the power of the Druid, inherited from both of her parents, though they weren't very druidic magic wise and had mostly normal hair. It was just her luck that an odd combination of their genes had given her the full blown power. But at least they would never even dream of telling her when her bed time was. Bell closed her eyes and sent her mind out in an ever expanding circle to pin point the mind set of the lazy sod she had been lumbered with, and was now rapidly going off. He was no-where in her 100 metre limit. She returned to her body, and scowled.

She took out her phone and dialed his number. "Answer you ass..." She heard the click at the other end, signifying he had picked up and cut off her insult.

"What?" A groggy, drugged up deep voice asked melanchonically down the line.

"Sandy! It's Bell, where are you?"

"Dunno." Not helful. She thought to herself.

"When are you going to get here?" She asked, pushing on.

"Dunno. Where are you?"

"Central Park."

"Where's that?" A slight annoyed twitch formed in her left eye.

"Sandy, it's where we met." She told him through loosly gritted teeth.

"What, Dave's?"

"No, that's where you took me on our last date. That's why I'm leaving you."

"Who is this?"

"Bell." The twitch was becoming more pronounced, and she was gritting her teeth extremely hard now.

"Who?" She should have expected that. With it she hung up, checked around to make sure that there was no one about, and then muttered a vile little curse that her aging grandmother had taught her whiulst severely under the influence. She was sure that where ever Sandy was, he was screaming in agony in about 3....2....1.

A puddle by her feet seemed to chuckle at her, but when she looked there was no supernature entity iin it, and she thought she had gone temporarily insane.

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Lineth Camelot awoke with a bout of laughter. A druid would be an ample second, choice, though he doubted she had felt the rippling effect of the dark entity coming through across the dimensions. But she was further away, unlike the boy who had been but half a mile away from it. "Will you keep it down, otherwise I'll peck your eyes out old man." Athena instructed from where she was focusing a beady eye upon him.

"Oh, Athena, stop being so gr...gr...?...."

"Grouchy." She finished for him, noticing once again his mind deteriorating.

"I don't need you to finish my...se...se...?..."

"Sentences." It was almost automatic by this point, but being with another being for nearly three hundred and fifty years can to that to a creature. She ruffled her feathers. "The next hopeful has to be from the north of us, send yuour mind that way old man." She told him, already seing the drain this was taking upon him, but knowing he must push on. Once, over half a century ago or so this wouldn't have even been a strain on him, but over that time the insanity had slowly crept in, which was the price of the elixor, and now as his mind dwindled his power weakened, it would only be recharged when it was put into a new host. Lineth Camelot closed his eyes for the third time that day, knwoing that he only had a coupe of days left before the full force of the insanity hit him and his mind was torn to shreds. After half an hour he drew his mind back.

"It's still no good. All I could find was that other one, who hasn't any power. I'm not choosing him as my north hopeful." He told the owl.

"You might not have a choice. If his soul is compatable with yours and you can't find another, then you will have to have him." She reminded him, rephrasing the ancient sage law to fit in with her arguement. He grumbled a bit about that and then settled down to go to the south to find a compatable hopeful there. One of them would have to take on the dark entity. That much about the future was certain.

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Q'lam sat licking himself. It was definitly unusual to have another being in his body, using it when he wanted to. But atleast Q'lam had dark powers over the rest of his kind now and wasn't likely to be bullied or picked on by the bigger and older ones. In his head was the sound of faint laughing. "What is master finding funny?" Q'lam asked out loud, though the master could easily hear his thoughts.

"I can see the efforts of a dying sage to try and find a replacement, and I laugh at him. When he becomes the most delirious, I will force a curse upon him to make him name me as his successor, gaining his power, then I shall take a worthy form,perhaps one of the humans that he would have given it to, had he the chance. Then I shall use that one to take over the world."

"What about poor Q'lam?" The servant asked hopefully.

"You shall be my right hand. You shall leads my armies and make all bow down to me, and ofcourse you to a lessor extend. Including those that would have hunted you if you had not invited me in." The master informed him. It was exactly what Q'lam wanted to hear. With that he returned to relaxing as his master had requested, to help him recouperate.

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Dune had finished his bath by now. He was drying himself off. With it being the weeked he didn't have to go to school. Instead, he wanted to go to an old book store that he often frequented, looking for any accidental magical ones that had someone migrated there. So far he had found three, and carefully copied several good spells into a notebook that he carried around with him. The book store keeper wouldn't let him borrow a book, i.e. take it out of the store, but he would let Dune read it, provided that it was done near the back of the store, and if a customer wanted it, he had to hand it over right away. It was a small recompence for not having enough to buy the books themselves. One day he would create a spel that allowed him to make as much money has he wanted. Dune quickly got into some of his street cred worthy clothes, that had the deep stench of not being washed in a month, and being kept in a sock draw, which as a matter of fact they were. It hadn't been hard to get the baggy trousers, it had been one of the benefits of being an ex large person.

The same was true of the overly large shirt he wore, though some of the letters had faded, and the image on the front was hardly recognisable. The irony behind him being a book worm was never lot on him. "Life is just a facade, and is the gap between pre-existence and life eternal." He muttered to himself. If any of his friends saw him, he would have to go with them to the arcade, they would insist, and he couldn't tell them where he had been heading, so would have to agree. He grabbe dhis board and rampaged down the stairs.

"Where are yougoing Duneston?" He cringed as his mother used his full name.

"Out." He grumbled in reply.

"When will you be back?"

"Later."

"What will you be doing?" The reply to this took a little thinking, in one word? he thought to himself.

"Dunno." He shrugged, moving towards the door.

"Are you meeting anone?"

"Dunno."

"Well, have fun then pumpkin."

"Whatever." With that he stormed out. What business of hers was it what he did? None, that's what. She was acting like he was still five, and pudgy...though she always said she had worried about him being under weight and not eating enough. He had seen the photo's in several of them he could have been mistaken for a beach ball. As soon as he was old enough he was leaving home, and would possibly bring some horrific curse down upon her, and by then he would have found a few juicy ones. No one's mother could be as bad as that, not without demonic intervention anyway. All of Dune's magical power had been inherited from his father, who had left when the boy was only about five, having had enough of her. The court battle had taken several months, and to his dissmay, Dune had found himself in his mothers custody.

Dune got on his board and sailed down the street carefully avoiding all the old people that lived around there. He skated across a few main roads, being a little daring as he always was and going when the traffic from either direction could easily have sent him fying. He got a few angry yells and horn hinks from those escapades, but that was what made life interesting to him.

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