The Rain Wizard

Theo looked around him. Nothing but white. Was he in purgatory? Was it a hallucination in his last moments? As he looked down in thought, when he raised his head, his brown eyes saw his deceased mother holding a young boy’s hand. His hand. They were in front of a fortune teller sitting on a chair in front of a desk on the sidewalk. The woman was covered in a purple robe and hood with raven black hair and hidden eyes, and pointed at the child. “You will rule over a land of misery and pain, child. But remember. Look towards the sun.” The mother pulled Theo’s hand away from the woman in a hurry. Everything soon turned black.

When he opened his eyes, he was on his back on wet grass, looking up at gray clouds with more rain falling on his face. “Of course. Even in the afterlife, I can’t escape the rain.” he sat up and looked around. He was in a forest clearing with fog surrounding the area. As he was about to get up, a blue pop-up window with white text appeared in front of him. He frowned. “Oh, great. So we’re doing this now? Fine.” The blue screen read: “Congratulations! You were summoned as the Rain Wizard! Your goal is to get rid of the Eyeless and bring sunshine back to the land! Good luck!” and with that, it disappeared. Theo sighed, “Okay. I know how this works. Status Screen.” Upon his words, another pop-up appeared.

Stats:

Mana Points: 10

Strength: 10

Defense: 10

Constitution: 10

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 17

Agility: 15

Luck: -1

Current Skills:

Part The Clouds: As the Rain Wizard, you can bring the sunshine back for a short amount of time! You can bring the sun out for 24 hours. There’s a week's cool-down to this skill. Enjoy the sun!

Theo rubbed his chin as he looked at his stats. Everything seemed pretty low, but a couple of things caught his interest. His agility and wisdom were surprisingly good. Wisdom usually involves magic regeneration, right? But he felt like that wasn’t it. Something felt off, but he couldn’t tell what. His luck was...absolutely awful. That makes sense, but he didn’t play many games where numbers went into the negative. Insulting. Oh well. As for Part the Clouds, that seemed to be particularly odd. The description makes it seem like a good thing, but in his experience with games, it’ll probably be used for a key moment. He'd best save it for now. He raised his hand towards the screen and swiped to the right, and it disappeared. He fully stood up and stretched before walking forward. He has no idea where to go, but in games, there’s usually some sort of event that happens at times like this.

As he continued wandering aimlessly through the forest, he began to hear the scraping of wood. Ah. There it is. But just in case, he should be careful in case it's an enemy. Theo switched between the large trees and lay his back against one of them. This reminds me of when he was hiding from the loan sharks. He smiled to himself before slowly peering over his shoulder. A monster ended up staring him straight in the face. It was seven feet tall with slick and ghostly white skin. It had black claws, black horns, and spikes protruded from its body. It had no eyes, as two soulless voids stared at Theo. The creature flashed a twisted smile, black ooze dropped from its mouth as it soon raised its claw to swing at Theo.

“Whoa!” Theo yelled before ducking as the tree fell from the creatures swipe. The creature let out an inhuman screech as the sound of a stampede came towards Theo’s direction. Theo’s eyes widened as he began to run through the forest as fast as he could. “You’ve got to be kidding me! This is too much for a tutorial!” he yelled to himself as another monster appeared in front Theo, this one swinging a claw at him as well as Theo fell to his knees to slide between its legs before resuming his dash. Should he use his skill now? Would it get him out of this situation? There wasn’t much time to think. “PART THE CLOUDS!” Theo yelled. But nothing happened. A pop-up appeared.

“Sorry! To activate this skill, you need to stand still and raise your hands to the sky before using it!”

Theo gritted his teeth. “Why are you telling me this now?!” he screamed in frustration as the creatures followed closely behind. He continued to run between trees, changing his pattern to a zig-zag to try to make his movements a little more unpredictable. As he felt himself being closed in on, he felt something suddenly choke him and pull him off the ground. He held his neck. A rope?! He choked as he struggled against it as he was pulled towards the top of the tree above him. He looked up as he saw a man in metal armor with short blonde hair and blue eyes pull him up. Theo desperately reached his hand out towards the knight. When he was within arm's reach, the knight grabbed Theo’s arm and let go of the rope. Theo coughed and tried to absorb the air he lost before the knight covered his mouth and put his other finger to his mouth, encouraging Theo to be quiet. Theo swallowed and nodded as he rested on the branch with the knight, as the creatures below looked around before letting out another high-pitched scream. The creatures soon ran off into the distance and disappeared within the fog.

After several more moments of silence, all that remained was the heavy rainfall. “Who are you?” the knight asked. “The Rain Wizard, apparently. Does that mean something to you?” The knight narrowed his eyes and looked at Theo, scanning him up and down. “Yeah. It does.” Theo laughed to himself. “So am I the ‘chosen one’? Under arrest? What’s going to happen to me now that I’ve told you that?” The knight frowned. “Both.” he replied. “I knew it.” Theo scoffed. “You aren’t going to execute me are you?” The knight shook his head. “No. Some might want that. But I don’t. Come on. We’ll go somewhere safe. My name is Leo.” Theo smiled. “Theo.” Leo smiled back. “Hey. We have similar-sounding names. You’re the second person I’ve met with that coincidence. Come on Theo. Let’s go.”

Leo wrapped the rope around the branch, getting ready to use it to get down. Theo raised an eyebrow “Wait. Isn’t it dangerous to wander down there? Wouldn’t it be safer to stay up in the trees?” Leo stayed focused on tightening the knot of the rope. “No. If you’re really the Rain Wizard, your luck is probably abysmal right? I’d rather not die if one of the branches broke while we traveled and ended up snapping my neck. Theo scratched his head with a frown. “I... can’t argue with that. But what will we do?” Leo finished tying the knot and pulled out a small glass orb from a small leather pouch at his side. “Sound Mana Orbs. They let out a loud whistling noise when thrown and make a popping noise when they lands on the ground. The creatures called Eyeless track prey by sound and smell. All that yelling you were doing wasn’t helping. But with these, they’ll chase after it. I should have enough for us to make it back to the Sun Dome.” “The Sun Dome?” Theo repeated in curiosity. “Yeah. A kingdom protected by a giant dome with artificial sunlight inside. We’ll be safe there.”

Leo gave the knot one last tug before sliding down the rope to the ground below. He looked around before motioning for Theo to come down. Theo nodded and began to slowly climb down, but about halfway through, the rope snapped and Theo fell on his back, looking up at the all too familiar sight of trees and clouds. Leo smiled and held out his hand. Theo gave a small smile and took his hand, and followed the knight through the forest. Leo occasionally held up his hand for Theo to stop before throwing the Sound Mana Orb as it whistled through the air before ending with a loud ‘pop’, and the creatures ran by them. As they made their way through the forest, they came across another clearing. Ahead was a gigantic silver dome made in a hexagonal pattern that covered the clearing. When they made it up close to it, Leo raised the back of his fist to the dome’s surface. A yellow magic circle appeared on his hand with a small hum. “Let’s go.”