Book 1 - Behind the Undeads/Chapter 2

Next day, King Lathas saw the origami plane on his throne.

"Doorkeepers, whose plane is it?"

"We don't know. There is a royal seal on the plane; we dare not open it."

The king, filled with questions, cautiously unfolded the plane. Then, he saw some words on it. As he was reading what was written, the king frowned at first, then he seemed confused, and finally dropped his jaw in an unkinglike manner.

"Doorkeepers, I will have a meeting with the military. You are dismissed now."

The king arrived at a seemingly uninteresting warehouse. After ensuring that there is nobody in the vicinity, the king shouted, "stupid camel, open the cursed door!" and cast a fire bolt on the door. The fire bolt sparked a series of magical enchantments and finally caused the floor under the king to glow dimly. The king then took out a law rune, gripping it firmly in his hands. Suddenly, with an immense flux of magic, the law rune vanished and the king was teleported away.

"Hmmm... I must have seen something glowing here, but where is it?" a guard rushed to the warehouse, but he won't realize that a teleportation had just occurred there moments ago...

The king was teleported to a remote island in the Northern Sea. In front of him levitated six huge dragonstones. The dragonstones formed the six vertices of a hexagon, and at the centre of the hexagon stood an object, which is made of fine marble. The king walked to the object.

It was a scrying pool, but it was no ordinary scrying pools readily found in people's houses; it was a scrying pool that showed the map of Gielinor. Besides the map itself, there were ten glowing dots on the map. Three dots were at the great city of Varrock. Another three dots were in Fremennik Province, or maybe Keldagrim. One dot was in Morytania. One dot was in Seers' Village. One dot was in the Wilderness. One dot was in...

"Wait, why is this dot in this island north of the Mage Arena? The island north of the Mage Arena is the one I am standing on... that means..." the king pondered.

"Schatten, isn't it fun to trick me? Come out now!" the king ordered.

In front of the crystal hexagon, the air stirred. Then, a human head came out of nowhere, and then the body, arms, legs, and finally the feet. This man was nowhere muscular, but his posture showed that he was a very agile person. He wielded a dragon defender in the left hand, and a dragon dagger on the other. The dagger had a slight greenish tint on it, and only God knew what fatal poisons were put on the dagger. He wore all of the weight-reducing clothing available in Gielinor, in conjunction with the full slayer helmet, cramulet, and the ring of Charos.

Trying not to notice his weird equipment, the king spoke, "you know, I feel unsafe in your presence."

"That is a good thing," Schatten laughed.

"Let's be more serious. Do you know why I am here?"

"Somebody besieged Varrock with myriads of undead beings. I assume you want us to investigate?"

"Nothing escapes your mind, Schatten," the king praised, "let's start to summon the people."

The king grasped the edge of the scrying pool and transferred an immense amount of magic into the pool. The pool and the dragonstones glowed more intensely. Then, the gems rose from the height of the king's waist to that of the king's head. The whole formation now started to produce a pleasant hum. Suddenly, a light pillar rose from the scrying pool to the sky, which broke through the clouds and went towards the unknown void above.

Meanwhile, in other parts of Gielinor, adventurers were being teleported by their dragonstone shards in their backpacks. However, the teleportation met some difficulties.

"All the skeleton mages, go to the west side of Varrock. Our army is nearly driven out by the Bank Guards. Reinforce them now!" an undead archmage ordered.

While he was leading his mages to the west, he sensed something unusual. He tried to focus, "the magical barrier of Varrock is still as annoying as usual. Maybe I am just too tired... Wait, what is that? Teleport spell?"

Within the walls of Varrock, two mages and one ordinary-looking man were glowing furiously. "What is that light? A teleport spell? Haha, can they break the teleblock barrier of the undead? I tried that but still blocked by the undead!" A nearby wizard bitterly remarked.

Back to outside, the undead archmage was confronted by another undead archmage, "why did you stopped your team of mages? We need to reinforce the west frontline."

"Didn't you sense that three people has activated a teleport spell simultaneously?"

"What's the matter? Our teleblock barrier can block them easily."

"So confident, huh? I think they can break our barrier."

"You are mad," the other undead archmage concluded, and then he led his mages to the west.

The three people was finally teleported by their dragonstones in their packs. However, once they disappeared from the ground, a big dark purple dome which covered the whole Varrock appeared out of nowhere. An instance later, three shiny white balls appeared under the apex of the dome.

Each person was in one shiny ball. The shiny balls were actually powerful magics, rotating rapidly in order to grind the barrier hard and ultimately break it. However, the process was very slow.

"Huh? They are not bad! I must stop them," the other archmage thought, and flew to apex of the teleblock dome.

In the flight, he met the archmage, who said, "I told you they are good, but you don't believe it."

"Okay, I lose. Now shall we go to crush the puny humans?" the other archmage replied.

In the shiny balls, the mages panicked as they saw two undead archmages approached them. Suddenly, to the mages' delight, the dragonstone shards flew out of their packs. The shards began to rotate rapidly and hit the barrier hard. A mage thought, "the shards are drilling into the barrier. Lovely."

However, the shards were not strong enough. Also, the undead archmages approached too quickly; they would arrive in no time.

"Maybe we should try to attack the dome with magic," the ordinary-looking man said, and then he fired an air surge from his hands.

The mages fired a fire surge instead. However, they found the magic dissipated when it touched the shiny rotating shells. The air surge also did nothing, of course.

The undead archmage finally arrived, and they fired a volley of fire waves towards the shiny spheres. The trio relieved when the saw the fire waves were blocked by their shiny spherical shells.

Suddenly, the two archmages thought of an excellent idea, so they flew back to the ground and went to a ritual site, where six undead archmages were chanting in front of a heap of runes. "Stop the teleport block! Stop it!" the two yelled.

However, the six ritual mages would not listen. They were still chanting. Luckily, the dragonstone shards finally broke the dome, and the six mages were stopped when the heap of runes fell apart.

Then, the two spoke, "if you stop the teleblock for a while, all wizards will flee from Varrock immediately. And don't worry that they will attack us on the outside, because they won't stand a chance against our army."

The six ritual archmages agreed. Thus, many wizards took this chance to flee Varrock. Although some wizards thought to attack the undead on the outside, they also fled in terror when they saw how many undeads were there-- a million to the south, and another million to the west.

Chapter 3