Short Fiction Story Under 750 Words
The Ruins of Hizkivk
Two Ominous travelers stumbled upon a caravan one day. The caravan rider asked them to hop on. They were headed towards scourge ruins, one that held secrets, no one knew. One was named Tin and the other was named Mace. One was a mage, and the other was a swordsman. Both trained under the same master who had sent them to test their mettle by surviving the ruins of Hizkivk. The caravan rider named, Inviz told them that the ruins were a desolate place home to unimaginable horrors that await them. The band was of both noble birth but were prodigies known to become great adversaries one day. They told Inviz that they have faced tough situations before, and their only chance to claim their namesake is to come back unscathed with the answers promised.
The next day, they reach the ruins of Hizkivk — they move towards with careful precision at a rapid pace, anticipating traps and threats. They reach a two-way corridor. So both divert to each one, by betting who will reach the treasure room first. Both were confident about their prowess. Tin reached a hallway full of elemental knights standing guard, near a teleportation circle.
Tin jumped towards the first knight, casting a transmute spell converting it to mana, replenishing his cooldown. And using the massive mana to cast a fire strike spell that destroyed the other elemental guards. He screamed, “yeah, is that all” and move forwards. He steps onto the teleportation circle but gets caught, as it was a trap set if anyone would defeat the guards, meanwhile he was trying to struggle, with the gravitation spell pushing him towards the ground. Crushing him, he struggles to break free whilst he screams.
Meanwhile, Mace walks up to a room full of treasures and gold. He walks up to a room where a woman is engulfed in a glass tomb. He reaches out to touch the glass coffin. The woman is submerged, inside it. He uses a lightning slash strike, to break the glass coffin freeing the woman. He takes off his lion cape and puts it around the woman, and uses a healing potion on her. She wakes up soon after but is unable to speak. Mace asks her who she is, “Hizkivk is listening” — she murmurs shivering.
He picks her up and asks her who is Hizkivk, or what!? In a second flash, he listens to a long scream for help. It’s Tin — he rushed using his pussyfoot technique to reach the hallway, to see tin getting crushed — he sees a teleportation crystal and destroys it. The spell stops, and Tin barely alive. He picks him up and gives him a healing potion. And then picks him up, along with the woman they rush outside of the ruins barely making it alive, with a half-alive tin — they barely escape.
Reaching outside, he takes the woman back to his master. But first takes Tin to the mage’s infirmary to get him help. The healing mages pick him up and tell him that it’s a good thing he used the healing potion otherwise he would have died in an instant. Saved by the bell, the doctor tells him that the master awaits. He walks the corridor, with a straight face scorned by what had happened — he barely lost his childhood friend. But takes the woman to the master, the woman looks at the master, and screams “Hizkivk…”
(the rooms is left with silence, as the master laughs at such a preposterous scene) — meanwhile, mace is alerted and takes his hand on his sword asking what she meant. The master replied in earnest “it’s not what you think, dear mace, let me explain.”
Mace withdraws his blade and gives him a minute to explain, in an instant — the master recites a master spell that breaks every bone in mace’s body. He falls to the ground and contains the woman and mace in a crystalized sedation. Mace, watches over his master — with bloodlust in his eyes to why his master betrayed his pupils, to which the master replies with a loud burst of sound — “You have been tainted by the ruins of Hizkivk” and thus need to be cleansed. He freezes both in an endless cycle of crystallization. And walks away, as mace screams until he is frozen in time alongside the woman.
The master slowly walks away,… it is done.
