1 Death and a Wish

Forewarning!

"Yo!" Is a character speaking aloud

*Yo!* Is a character thinking

Enjoy!

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Stella knew this was the end, she knew that that expedition into the taint was a bad idea, but stories about the ancient thaumaturges and the fantastical relics they made blinded her, if even 10% of those stories were true then she would be rich.

Unfortunately, those stories were true, it turned out that the taint and its infection came from them, the once glimmering city of thaumaturges was now just a home for the taint.

Stella had found the city and sneakily made her way through the city avoiding the tainted monsters that roamed the city. She had made her way to the largest tower and had managed to avoid alerting any of the monsters.

Until she opened the door, in retrospect she should have found another way in but her excitement blinded her, and as she tried opening the door it fell off its hinges clattering to the ground in a loud crash alerting the monsters in this dead silent city of her presence.

Stella scrambled into the building up the taint-covered stairs, and as she climbed higher and higher the taint got thicker and thicker, but she could hear the monsters gaining on her.

As Stella made it to the top, she stopped in awe of the unnatural beauty of the room, a huge glass dome encapsulated the room, the taint had crept up the sides of the dome most of the natural sunlight that would normally seep through, in the center of the room was four large carved pillars with 8 smaller pedestals surrounding it, in the center of the 4 pillars was a pedestal with a skeleton leaned up against it. Floating above the pedestal was a small glass orb etched with numerous runes with the insides glowing a deep purple.

Stella made her way into the altar area and noticed that the taint didn't approach the outer 8 pedestals, as she made her way to the skeleton, multiple taint infected monsters had made it to the room she was in, and as they tried to rush her down Stella closed her eyes and waited for the impending death.

Noticing that it never came she opened her eyes and saw that the monsters wouldn't pass the outer 8 pedestals.

" What the?!"Stella exclaimed

Stella sat down in the circle and caught her breath, she had no idea why the taint couldn't enter the circle but she was relieved that it couldn't, as Stella looked around for anything else inside the altar, all she saw was some old burnt out candles the skeleton with its possessions and the glass orb in the middle.

"Ok, then nothing too useful, time to loot some dead guy then, I doubt he would mind anyway!"Stella spoke to herself.

Stella proceeded to rummage through the corpse and found some interesting things, to say the least.

She had found:

4x pouches of multicolored dust

1x small jar filled with colored crystals

1x Black leatherbound book with a skull on the front

1x bolt of durable fabric

1x storage bag

1x ring with a yellow gem

1x small tattered green journal

And a few different potted plants

A storage bag like this was extremely expensive, and only the richest could even think about buying one, and Stella knew this, if she was able to make her way back out of the taint she would never have to work again!

She threw the things she repossessed into the bag and looked up at the artifact floating in the middle, if the storage bag was worth a lot she wondered how much that artifact would be!

As she grabbed it she heard a shattering noise and saw that the monsters moved past the outer pedestals. Stella panicked not knowing what to do.

She turned to face the monsters and backed up slowly, for some reason the monsters didn't sprint after her as they did on her way up. As she looked for a way out, she noticed a hole in the glass dome and she bolted for it.

"Come on, Come ON, COME ON!"Stella screamed

Stella had reached the hole but just as she did she saw one of the monsters swipe at her, she was able to block it with her left hand, but she fell backward out of the hole and into a free fall.

Stella's eyes widened as she fell, she didn't know what she was thinking when she went to that hole in the glass she should have gone for the stairs.

*DAMNIT just as I found my ticket up I end up making a stupid mistake!*

"I just wanted to be a thaumaturge, not a suicidal explorer!"Stella lamented

As Stella made her wish, the orb in her hand shimmered with iridescent light, and the space below her warped and she disappeared.

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Word count: 804

Hello, the author here! I've never properly written before so when I got inspired to write this I said to myself "Hey if I stick with this idea then Ill post it!" So when I did stick with it I said "Hey when I reach 10000 Words Ill post!" I think you can see where this is going. Now I'm at 16000 words and I finally decided to post it. So gimme some feedback or your stones either work!