An electric buzz reverberated above Suri’s head. She stood in a shallow lake of sorts with no land in sight, just listening. The water lapped at her bare calves, a deadly force leaping and dancing in the encircling clouds. Flash! Suri felt the lightning touch her skin with a note almost too high to hear. Spinning Suri dipped her fingers into the warm water pushing the lightning into it, causing to a pure tone to sound fourth. This sound no mortal instrument could produce, this sound was of the stars, moon, and the sun itself. Suri grinned as she danced with the sky fire, it felt right. One wrong move would result in her death, but performed right and she could transform the lightning into something delicate, bold, unpredictable. The water rippled with every caress of her gentle touch.

Another strike, new timbres forming stately with order, not loud but insistent and inspiring.

Another flash, the music began to become one, melding into one another as Suri danced. The water shifted color with her words and touch. Suri began to lose herself in the music, forgetting any and all cares. She attempted to sing, to capture the feeling of ecstasy and peace, but her voice failed her, words held no meaning any longer.

The rythym shifted. A new tone, chaotic and powerful, made manifest. She looked up from her art, and saw a man shadowed by the fog, outlined by twin thunderbolts to either side of him. The sound of the lightning and water meeting directly with no control ground at Suri’s nerves. She growled with a sudden anger at the intrusion of her moment, her quiet place of sound and art. The man raised his hands lightning arced to his outstretched fingers. He began to dance his tone of chaos becoming stronger as he moved. Suri realized her own tone had began to fade, she reluctantly resumed the stately medley. As he moved closer their music clashed violently. Suri would not be beaten, she flung bolts of lightning at the water with a ferocity she had previously never known.

Electricity danced in the air. A perfect melody forming from nothing. Half calm and sturdy, half chaos and turmoil. Suri saw the story form before her eyes.

This was life and death intertwined, one part dependable as inevitable death another as chaotic as life. The contest morphed changing into a combined effort to make something beautiful.

A new tone.

A beautiful tone of life.

Kaelith crested the final hill and froze, Lyra, and Feylin hurrying behind. Mist, a field of mist lie in front of Kaelith. ‘So this is it,’Kaelith thought, this is how I die. A hoard of wordlings behind and mist ahead.

Feylin charged onward anyway heedless of the mist only seeing the protection of the neverglade beyond. The mist came alive, a figure forming from the thick fog. Mist, then a wolf, a mistwolf. Feylin fell to teeth and claws, savaged by a monster that wasn’t really there.

Kaelith watched in horror as his friend died, Lyra screaming as her brother fell. She stepped forward as if to rescue the dead man. “No,” Kaelith cried grasping her wrist, “there is nothing you can do.” The tendrils of mist reseeded from Feylin’s corpse the wolf evaporating back into churning mist. Lyra wept bitterly.

Kaelith could hear the wordings approaching from behind, thousands of little nightmares trapped in the form of demon men.
Kaelith closed his eyes. First Alaric, then Xanthe, Dustin, Bryn and Bri, now Feylin all dead. So many of his friends, so close to their goal. Kaelith took comfort in knowing he was about to die, better men died on this quest, he supposed it was his turn.

Sniffling. Kaelith turned at the sound. Lyra, sat staring at the mist, waiting for death even as he waited. ‘No,’ Kaelith thought growing angry. ‘No.’ Death claimed to many of his friends it would not have Lyra too. “No!” he shouted at the sky. Then with a confidence he didn’t feel Kaelith strode into the mist.

The damp cold enveloped him immediately. He watched as the churning mist resolved into a shadow in front of him, a mistbear. Soundlessly it charged Kaelith, maw opening wide to wrend him apart. Kaelith stood oddly calm. His hands moving as if by instinct reached out in front of him grasping the mist, pulling it to him, stretching it, pressing it, shaping it. As the mistbear was nigh upon him Kaelith swung fully decapitating the mistfigure with the shimmering semitransparent sword he manifested. The bear evaporated. Kaelith swung the mistsword again cutting away at the mist that impeded his path. A mist shark formed and flew toward him Kaelith spun in the mist causing tendrils of mist to ensnarl the creature dragging it away. A mist eagle lost its wings to Kaelith spinning back into nothingness. The mist pulled back from Kaelith seeming to grow angry that it could be defied.

The mist collected rising becoming more solid, it towered above Kaelith forming into a reptilian beast much larger than anything natural. Kaelith took a pace back. He turned to Lyra still sitting looking stunned, he needed to move her before the wordlings found her. Kaelith flung his sword sidearm straight at the neverglade. It cut a damp narrow path through the mist, flying true till it hit the invisible barrier puffing back into nothingness.

“Run!” Kaelith screamed at Lyra. She did just that fleeing before the might of the now fully formed mistdragon. Kaelith lunged to the side as the beast crashed its forepaw into the place where he just stood. Kaelith reached out grabbing at the mist shaping another blade. The dragon backhanded him knocking him aside. The mistsword puffed away as it left his hand. Kaelith cursed as he reached for more mist. A heavy weight slammed into him knocking him onto his back then pinning him to the ground. The dragon head reared back as if to strike him grasping for anything to fight back. The dragon’s head jerked as something struck it. Kaelith cast is gaze around to find Lyra packing together another snowball from the mist, a mistball. She flung it at the dragon striking it on the snout. It spun toward her, freeing Kaelith. The beast moved with tremendous speed. ‘She should have retreated to the glade’ Kaelith thought scrambling for mist. She wasn’t going to make it, Kaelith quickly fashioned to sticks one long the other short yet heavy. The string came next, and in only a few seconds Kaelith stood mistbow nocked and drawn. Kaelith sighted and released the arrow morphing as it flew first into a harpoon, then a spear, then a beam, then a full tree sized projectile. It took the dragon at the base of the skull. As the beast evaporated the field of mist seemed to dissipate somewhat.

Kaelith heard war cry’s from behind him. ‘Right, the wordlings,’ he thought turning. Sure enough thousands of waist high flesh eating gremlins flooded toward him. Kaelith raised his arms commanding the mist to rise with them, it condensed into a massive wave then slammed into the little demons washing them away.
Kaelith blinked, the wordlings gone, the mist gone, he stood in an open meadow.

“I did,” Kaelith whispered in disbelief, but what had he done. His skill as a blacksmith served him well today. “Kaelith,” Lyra said, “we made it, oh we made it.” Kaelith grinned though it faded quickly, yes, perhaps they did, but so many didn’t.
“Kael?” Lyra asked. “Nothing,” he replied quickly not wishing to confront his feeling right then, “the mist, have you ever seen that happen before?” “No,” she said, “it appears you have created a new form of art. Mistsmithing perhaps.” ‘Yes,’ Kaelith thought, ‘a mistsmith.’

I died today. I could still feel the cold touch of the steel under my chin. Hot blood dripping onto my open eye from the body hanging above. Odd, I felt alive though I new I was dead. That thing had killed me, me and my friend. The shrouded figure was cloaked in a wispy material as if it was incorporeal, tall, long, and bony. It hunched over my dead body sucking at the blood that still oozed from my neck. Oh I could feel its lips, its teeth against my skin, my life seeming to flow directly into the creature. It turned away from my corpse looking at me, blood dribbling from its lower lip. “Hello again,” it rasped, eyes veiled, “I can’t wait to spend all of damnation with you.”