100 Words a Day 1050

The enormous stone door seemed to ignore Rekor as he set his pack on the floor and began withdrawing his magical instruments. By contrast, Rekor inspected the door numerous times while assembling his tools. Once he had selected the appropriate apparatuses, he inscribed a series of arcane symbols on the door.

Nothing happened.

Puzzled, Rekor replaced some of the enchanted rods in his pack and withdrew a set of multihued crystal spheres. These he placed in a row at the base of the door, measuring the distance between them precisely. Satisfied, he stepped back and began a strange, guttural chant.

100 Words a Day 1049

Morg’s great, purple arm shot out from beneath his cloak and seized the blade. The highwayman’s eyes widened before he tried to pull his sword away. Morg tightened his grip around the unmoved blade, bulbous veins rising on his arm, and yanked the weapon from the dirty man’s hand, casting it into the forest.

The man took a step back. Morg took a step forward, demon arm outstretched. The robber turned and fled. Unperturbed, Morg pulled his cloak back about himself and resumed his journey. The robber’s two companions remained hidden, unwilling to find out what else the cloak hid.

100 Words a Day 1048

“What the fuck place is this?” Greta whispered to Heidi after opening the surprisingly well-oiled door.

Past the grimy portal was a large, well-lit room, the largest they had seen in the compound. A blast of cold air preceded the hum of a refrigeration unit turning on. Rows of meat hooks hung from the reinforced ceiling. Pale bodies hung from the hooks, motionless in cold room. Some of the corpses were whole, but others were missing chunks of flesh that had clearly been deliberately removed.

“We need to get out of here,” Heidi said, pulling Greta away from the door.

100 Words a Day 1047

The first thing travelers saw then they crested the hills was the sparkling city of Opal, that people called The Oyster of the Kanari Empire, sitting in bowl-shaped depression bored into the hillside adjacent to the ocean shore. It was at the center of a pearl-trading network that spanned the whole empire. Every building in the city was covered in mother-of-pearl, making it shine painfully in the sun and attract awestruck visitors from faraway lands. At the center of the city was a palace of pure white that forced anyone who gazed upon it to squint in the noon sun.