The king was scared stiff, and even with the protective magic around him he was unable to move, as he looked into Gordan's eyes all of the confidence that he had been boasting with suddenly evaporated, leaving behind a small and defenceless child in the presence of a monster. The whole room was dead quite, so when Gordan spoke his voice echoed through the hall with a bit of an eerie tone which chilled everyone to the bone.
"I gave you a fair chance to perform your job, but it would seem that for you to act the way that a king should you need a bit of insensitive."
His smile began to widen, the king wished that he could lose consciousness, but for some reason he could not, it was as though his conscience was being held in place by some outside force. He stared in horror as Gordan quickly struck out his hand and pulled somthing away from the king. It took him a minute to realise what it was that Gordan was holding in his hand, becouse all that he could make out was a red blob. He then realised as his vision was darkening that the object was his still beating heart. The king wondered when that had happened, but then he realised that it wouldn't matter since he would be dead soon anyway. His conscience started to fade away when he heard a small chuckle in front of him.
"Did you really think I would let you off that easily? Listen up kid, death is no punishment, death is a gift."
Gordan flicked the kings forehead which brought him back from the brink of unconsciousness.
The king looked frantically around to see what was going on. The entire room was watching from their position in shock at seeing what had just happened. Gordan straitened up and turned away from the throne.
"Don't worry, you wont die just yet, and all you have to do to get back this little thing is to follow some simple instructions."
He tossed the heart in his had into the air catching it nonchalantly.
"This time tomorrow meet me at the forest entrance with your army, if you can take your heart from me I will forget about this matter and you can go about your business. But if you fail, I will burn down your kingdom and then crush your heart. Simple right? See you tomorrow."
As he walked past he picked Drake up and put him over on of his shoulders
The General stood and sheathed his weapon and followed Gordan out the doors. As soon as the doors closed everyone in the room fell unconscious.
Gordan had the foresight to cast slow heal on himself before dealing with the confrontation, so when the skin on his face began to peal off due to the use of magic, it was emidiatly replaced with new skin underneath. And while it was most annoying that he no longer had a mask for his face, at least he had a face. He was still quite angered by the kings actions, but he felt that the way that he had delt with the situation was best for the situation that lay before him. Gordan was still dealing with a bit of a relapse problem from not having total control over his actions, but he felt like he had delt with that situation rather well, all except the spear part. The fact that the hero had attacked in such a way really got under his skin, especially with how self-righteous heros were in general, so when ever one pulled a stunt like that it made Gordan twice as mad as it usually would. Once they left the throne room the General removed the spear and Gordan cast another healing spell which caused a slight sting in his own shoulder. He was rather glad that the downsides had balanced out once again. He also noticed that his mouth no longer tasted like ash which would mean that the downside had stopped sooner than usual which was a nice change of pace.
When the General finished bandaging the wound Gordan took a small cloth and rapped the kings heart up before carefully placing it into his bag.
"I hate to tell you this but that spear has a paralysis spell on it, so he won't be waking up for a while."
The General should have been surprised by the way things had turned out, but since Gordan was here it only made sense that things would go in such a crazy direction. The General was never able to tell if he had really good luck, or really bad luck. He noticed that Gordan placed that strange fir over Drake's shoulders again before picking him up and heading for the exit.
When they reached the inn Gordan checked out and got the horse out of the stable after explaining the situation to it. They were easily able to exit the capital since no one wanted to question the General who was known as a powerful royal. As soon as they were back on the road Gordan looked around confused by a sound that he heard to the side of the path. After a few minutes a small group of horses came into veiw before them. He recognized them immediately as the ones from the forest, the horse next to Gordan made a low grunt and trotted over to the other horses who had stopped several feet away.
The General looked on as the white horse went up to the other horses and emediatly began to communicate with them in a rather urgent manner, while Gordan looked on with a nonchalant expression like horses acting like this was totally normal. After they had seemingly finished conversing one of the horses walked up to Gordan and bowed its head.
"Don't worry about it, I was just happy to help."
The General watched as Gordan smiled at the horse and patted its head gently, he wasn't exactly sure what was going on but it seemed to be slightly off. Then Gordan turned to him suddenly losing his smile which made the General bend over in pain. The General had only seen the side of his face so the effect of seeing Gordans smiled only made him want to throw up a bit. It was an odd sensation, the desire to turn to dust so that you didn't have to be in the presence of that smile. The General had noticed that the effect seemed to be canceled out by something blocking his face, which had been fine before since Gordan had been wearing the paint on his face, but now it was just terrifying.
"I would have thought that you could at least handle that much."
Gordan sounded slightly disappointed, but for whatever reason the General had the feeling that he was more disappointed in the cause of the problem rather than the reaction. In the past the General had been able to deal with one of Gordans smiles, with the only side effect being that he would feel a bit light headed. But it would seem that over the years his face had become even more intimidating. The General reached into a pouch on his belt and quickly pulled out a bottle of black ink that he used to write with on the road. Gordan caught the bottle and applied some to his face shading it with expert talent.
"You know... If you ever quite being a fighter you could make a lot of money in the fashion world."
Gordan handed him back the bottle without a word and looked over at the horses who were waiting for a response.
"If you can give us a ride to the forest entrance, that would be more than enough thank you."
The Genreal was getting the vibe that Gordan knew exactly what they were saying, which was kind of creeping him out. Gordan caught his expression and sighed, pointing toward the brown horse which seemed to be the leader of the group.
"It's a fairy hybrid in the shape of a horse."
The General just stared at him, Gordan was acting like this was the most natural thing in the world. Fairy hybrids did not reveal themselves to anyone, ever, so they were a group that was shrouded in mystery. The General had never encountered one in all of his travels, so he was more then alittle curious as to why a hybrid would go out of it's way to find Gordan, and reveal it's true nature. The General shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the group.
"Okay, whatever you say. So what's the plan?"
Two horses from the group stepped forward and the others turned around and galloped away after saying their goodbyes. The General didn't even feel all that surprised, and when Gordan set Drake onto one of the horses, the Genreal quickly mounted the horse next to him and waited for Gordan to do the same.
The horse that had been traveling with them the whole time walked up to Gordan and laid its head on his shoulder. Gordan smiled and patted its face, and snapped his fingers in front of Drake which instantly woke him up in a shock.
"Where am I?"
Drake looked around to quickly asset the situation.
"So I'll take it things went fairly smoothly? So what's next?"
Gordan chuckled a bit and mounted his horse.
"Well, we are headed to the forest of course. After all we wouldn't want to disappoint the king by being late to our own challenge, now would we."
Both Drake and the General looked at each other and let out sighs.
"So I guess a peaceful resolution isn't an option anymore?"
Gordan turned and smiled at the two of them. Somthing seemed a bit off, for whatever reasoning Gordan seemed to be in pain. He had an expression that even with the ink on his face made both of their blood run cold.
"I would say that we have one of the most peaceful situations that we could have been given, with how the situation was that is. Anyway for now you need to just be careful, after all you are still injured and I'm not even happy about you riding but right now there isn't much we can do about that."
Drake looked over at the General for an explanation.
"I'll tell you on the way."