The glittering red lantern swung back and forth slowly in the passing moonlight streaming through the high gold crystal windows. The towering golden light deep inside slowly died. Moonlight glowed through the red crystal lantern momentarily until the night swiftly went dark over the playhouse. The audience waited in nervous anticipation for Austin’s response to the challenge. The soldiers on stage watched anxiously as Austin just threw back an icy stare, but with a gleam in his eyes.
In a sudden flash, he drew his sword throwing it high in the air, disappearing into the high darkness over the stage near the dark swaying lantern. He jumped up on the three slopes placed on the stage for hills, leaping up each one in a flash. As the sword dropped in front of him he caught it just before it slipped past. Austin stared down at them with a brightly intense gaze, then said, “We will never surrender, but fight to the end, down to the last standing soldier.”
The aliens in the balconies’ crescent moon eyes burned brighter watching him closely. With that he jumped, somehow landing in between all the soldiers. Then they broke into a wild fight on stage, which was not in the script, but Austin changed that, and they had to go with it. Austin yelled, “Oooaawwwhhhh,” with every dramatic swing of his sword. He dove, rolled over, then jumped up with a big smile in front of one kid who didn’t seem thrilled with the change in the play. Austin held his hands out in a peace-making gesture, and flashed him a half-smile. “What’s your problem?” Austin whispered.
“I only had one line and I was out of here,” he said, agitated. “Now what am I supposed to do?”
“Say your line and I’ll kill you,” Austin whispered while they pretended to fight.
“Why don’t you want me to say my line?”
“I do.”
“But you just said you didn’t.”
“I did?”
“You threatened me.”
“No, I meant, say your line…..theeennnnnn, I will kill you and you’re done. Horray!”
“It won’t make sense.”
“Just say it, I’ll make it work, come on, up here.” The two kids took their fight to a higher platform under bright golden light. The audience watched closely as the two kids fought with their swords clanging.
Turning to a fellow soldier, the kid said, “See? I told you they would accept our terms.” Austin held back a smile while the audience watched, confused.
“That’s right, we accepted your secret terms told to me before you pretended to talk about surrendering.” Then with a dramatic spinning motion Austin knocked him back. The kid fell back and rolled over. Then he quietly snuck away while the fighting raged on around him.
This is what the citizens of the Kingdom of Dascade Iris have come to expect. This is what they come to the playhouse for, to see what Austin Candor is going to do and how he’s going to change the play and make everyone react to it. But the aliens have been watching Austin for a long time, and not just when he’s on stage.
Austin is from the Kingdom of Dascade Iris with the City of Camdaysiah. It is the northernmost kingdom in DarkCornerLand. The people there are known for being colourful, entertaining, and kind of odd sometimes. Austin certainly fits in well. Most citizens in this kingdom are miners and explorers who find and dig out great resources and minerals from the ice bluffs. The ice bluffs are high-shelf like cliffs that rise up really high in some areas and are covered by ice all year round. Austin has found places where you can actually slide down incredibly slick slopes down from high bluffs. You can go incredibly fast. Austin tries to find things he can slide on down the ice to go even faster. Often times he and his friends have slide races out there, despite the warnings of parents and aliens.
The City of Camdaysiah is set where two rivers meet to make one massive river flowing north with mostly ice chunks crashing from wild waves. The city is made of massive towers that look like stacked squares, each one smaller than the other. There are numerous bridges that connect to various levels of the towers up high. The towers are made of bright red sleek stones with grand oval shaped windows made with bright gold crystal glass. They also string massive red curtains along every bridge. They can’t grow any plants there so they string tons and tons of stringed gold lights everywhere inside and out, all over the streets and the towers. Austin is really nervous on bridges. He constantly checks to see if he can make sure the bridge is in good shape and will hold. He only walks directly in the center and stops every time he hears any sound that could be the bridge breaking. God help you if you’re a worker doing some kind of repair on the bridge. Austin will look over your shoulder and ask a ton of questions.
The aliens at Austin’s school held a presentation about a major music concert that’s being held next week. They invited many of the students from Camdaysiah and all the other kingdoms to attend this concert, including Austin. One of the featured players will be a piano player named Cade Mayson. Austin has decided to go. He can’t wait to see the concert, but he’s especially interested to see what’s going to happen at midnight. That’s when the aliens’ crystal crown will be finished, the one that sets on top of the massive statue floating high in mid-air, the one the Cashes Dade Ghost Strikers are trying to reach and destroy, the one that is creating a deadly dark illness, the one that when finished will send that deadly dark illness out to every kingdom, threatening every BlackStar Ranked student in DarkCornerLand…
