Chapter 2: The Canstaff

Chapter 2: The Canstaff

The coalition through hard work, sacrifice and an ultimately last ditch plan, was able to finally destroy the leaders of Planet Venom and effectively eradicate the sludge from the universe at large. The coalition members all return to their respective planets and all interplanetary communication devices self-destruct making sure that all planets aren’t able to interfere in the affairs of any other planet. Eventually, Sir Cantos, Sir Santos and Vawdane’s minds finally found their correct bodies.
After the war, Douglas returned to Sir Cantos’ desk at New Thalia to catch up on paperwork that had accumulated throughout the campaigns. However, when he started to prepare to do is work, Sir Santos burst through the doors and demanded to talk to Douglas immediately; he was saying something about Sir Cantos’ earliest origin that no one but him knew about, something so shocking that it would turn his world upside-down: the fact that Sir Santos was Sir Cantos’s son!

Douglas again came down with complete shock and fell into his chair at what Sir Santos had just told him, the fact that Sir Cantos again had extremely powerful secrets that no one knew about, Sir Cantos returned from one of his trips and decided to also burst into the New Thalian governmental building where Douglas and Sir Santos were talking. Sir Cantos started asking what was going on in this meeting, that’s when Sir Santos started working on him, and asking him weird questions about a guy named Dustin. Cantos knew nothing about what he’s asking him or why it’s important. He is barraged by these questions; these questions of the man that he doesn’t even know exist, but Santos keeps trying… And failing.

After the repeated failures, Santos walks over to Douglas and says that he should talk to him because Cantos knows nothing about what the hell he’s talking about, so Douglas and Santos walked into a different room so they can logically figure out why. Douglas asks Santos what the meaning of this senseless barrage on Cantos is coming from, Santos tells Douglas that during the War, he had been assigned as a leader of a bomber squadron on planet Ba’tir, during the first mission of the final battle, he had been ordered on a multi-phase bombing raid on weapon caches around Balyoomai, their capitol. However, he had been shot down from a flying Sol brigade that took down his plane, through the fiery dive, I was able to fire the ejector chair, but the parachute didn’t deploy, so I jumped halfway to ground, but after that I saw a Sol ship had careened off course, it’s jets smoking and broken. It ran headfirst into my falling body and we accelerated. We both were crashing out of the sky and I was rammed into a tree and the Sol ship had exploded on impact, I was never found by friend or foe. So, I had a lot of time to think when I regained consciousness and couldn’t move. About two days later, a farmer cut me out of that hollow tree and at that time, I had regained the memory of my past life and I rushed here to confront Cantos about it. After I tell you my tale, I need you to help me find proof or convince him of what I say to him.
Santos starts his back story by telling him about what happened before Sir Cantos fell into Codswald, Santos, whose actual name was Alexander Wolcott, found himself in Uruguay with three rounds of ammunition and barely any food. This was after he was recruited by his country to fight an alien force coming to claim the planet for its own, also this was immediately after the alien leaders had detonated a device more powerful than their nuclear weapons on his country that impacted everyone on the planet. Alex picked up his stuff that he did have and made all the way to what used to be Kentucky, and there he built a little shack and lived off of whatever food sources he can find in the nearby areas of where he settled down.
Later, while he was preparing some boiled rats for later, he was suddenly teleported away from his shack and after flying through the dimensional walls, he ended up smack dab in Anti-Cotsweld, five hundred feet above the ground and I hit a tree with my head, I’m pretty sure that I had lost my memory at that point when I was falling out of that tree. I spent about two months there in another shack that I built doing the same things I did in Kentucky; that’s when the explosion from the Dark Wizard’s castle occurred. A dimensional explosion erupted in the middle of a clearing in the forest and this giant one hundred foot portal appeared through the explosion’s ripples; I decided to check it out and as it turned out three people and a giant wolf walked into our dimension. I followed them because they were the only ones to walk through this giant portal and into our town of Anti-Cotsweld.

The rest of the group, minus the one called Sir Cantos, walked into our fair city where everything was opposite to their world. After they looked at everything they wanted to, they left and decided to head back through the portal. On the other hand, Sir Cantos walked into the nearby Huckleberry Forest, a peaceful place where many dwarven villages were located. He used his pyromaniac magic to start one of the villages on fire and killed every resident; that fire grew and became more violent and started more of the villages on fire, causing thousands of deaths and he maniacally laughed as I watched the carnage. Through the firestorm, I picked up one child and placed it where I was sure Sir Cantos would find it, and lo and behold, he did. He took the child and left the burning portion of the forest to find an Elf Archdruid named Hydran and leave the child in the care of her.

He came back about two months later to check up on his son, that’s when the elf informed him that the child, instead of a dwarven son, is an elven daughter. He was taken aback and told the elf to keep the baby and left never to return. Returning to the story, I knew of the rules of the anti-portals crossover because I aided two anti-citizens in attempting to crossover through the portal, however both exploded when they tried. Apparently, for an anti-person to crossover in the portal, they have to follow their normal world counterpart within a certain period of time to be able to survive the crossover, so I saw the counterpart to Sir Cantos, who I recognized beforehand, but he didn’t know from where. I beat up Anti-Cantos and became Sir Santos by taking his clothes and inventory. I crossed over with the other anti-people when you came back and then fled into the background, always watching Sir Cantos and never knowing why I thought I knew him.

I had this strange feeling that I knew Sir Cantos somehow and he was important in my past that I couldn’t remember, thus I’ve been following him to make sure that he never killed himself and slightly helped him along his way, so that I could learn later what I already learned inside that tree I crashed into. I know of one object from Sir Cantos’ past that could help his memory rejoin: his business ledger, of course Douglas asked what kind of legitimate business Sir Cantos could have any business in doing. As it turned out, Sir Cantos, in a previous life was a successful tailor to the slightly better-off. That’s why we need to find this ledger, his tailor’s ledger, which contained all of his business ventures and accounts on it. I’m sure that this document will remind him of who he really is, but it could be anywhere after the Fifth Cataclysmic War that struck the world with its final blasts and after that world-changing event; the ledger could literally be anywhere on that planet.

Douglas brought me back to my dimension through his portal magic. We started back where his shop used to be: in central Oxford. The entire continent had been obliterated, rubble was everywhere along with short ruins of old buildings, bleached white by the blast zones, various papers and metals are scattered in the remnants of old cobblestone streets. I walked back to my father’s shop and started looking around for anything of use, but it appeared that everything in his back office had been stolen. Especially his expensive, ornate, rosewood desk had been taken. Douglas remembered a rosewood desk and asked if there was a picture of it around here and he indeed found it still on the wall remarkably. Douglas immediately remembers that desk, in Sir Cantos’ office…back in Snowyland…now ruled by Phyrexian Cantos. When Alexander had been informed, they both knew that they had to steal that desk and find out if that ledger was inside.

They arrived in the dark of night to Snowyland Mountain to see lights flashing off the middle of the town. They ascended the mountain slowly as to not attract attention, trying to avoid the city’s patrols that he has stationed after dark in the village. They snuck past with certain ease and made it to the castle where he could see upright soldiers; each armed with a killing laser and also covered in that Phyrexian metal. Eventually, through a ton of fights with the Goombards, they make it to the main office where they found Phyrexian Cantos sleeping on top of some paperwork and with everyone defeated, they move him slowly to the nearby office couch while they through the desk out the window, surprisingly landing it unharmed once it hit the ground, they then sneak out, never to be seen from again that night. They hurriedly take it back to New Thalia where they put it in a back room of the Knights’ Academy where no one is and start to search the entirety of the desk. Finding almost nothing conclusive; they found a scrap of paper still stuck in the middle desk drawer that says “four green dr-.” That scrap was from his ledger, I’d know that anywhere. So, who took the ledger from the desk? They walk back, disappointedly, to the New Thalian Capitol where they find Snake sneaking out the back window and disappearing into the night.

Snake had left the ledger of Dustin Wolcott in the desk drawer of the New Thalian government desk before he left. They immediately ran it to Sir Cantos who was sleeping in his governmental apartment. After flipping through the pages cautiously, Sir Cantos threw the book aside and told those two to leave him alone. Feeling defeated once again, they pick up the ledger and walk back to the office. Douglas tosses the ledger onto the desk with a thump and a picture comes out of one of the pages. They run to the ledger and flip it over; on the other side of this book was another inscription: “Journal.”

They start reading: Dear Journal, this is day 49 of the Fifth Cataclysmic War against the Toxin, a goop of purple sentient slimes, which will stop at nothing from killing the entire human race and making this world theirs. Meanwhile, our military might is squaring off against the Toxin right now and I feel I may not be long for this world if they are defeated and I feel that even in a shorter while, I will be drafted into the army and have to leave my tailoring shop behind to pick up a gun and fight for my English brethren…I have just received the mail and the awaited letter has been sent from Birmingham Palace to my place of business: “Dear Mr. Wolcott, you and your son, Alexander, have been officially drafted into the Queen’s Army, take the enclosed cards and head to this address where you will both receive basic training.” I broke the news to my son in his small room above the store; he had surprisingly steeled himself for this moment since the war started and knew that an eligible man such as himself would quickly be required to fight for his mother country. They left the store after that conversation for the army training center, where they were told to go into different regiments with the other draftees. We had been separated by this war and I thought that I would never see him again.

I finally got this book back after basic training where they temporarily confiscated all personal effects, including my journal. My first mission had been a success by defeating a small blob of Toxin in Southern France where local militias actually had the situation already covered, but with our reinforcements, we eradicated that Toxin cell. My next two major successes in that campaign sent me to a smaller group of guerrilla fighters that were sent to sabotage the Sols, the higher class of Toxin-controlled robot fighters. They were preparing to drill into the inner core to aid in their extermination efforts. We had stopped the Sols and their leader, Toxic, from destroying the Earth, and started to rebuild. I had started to rebuild my tailor shop in Oxford when I heard what the entire Earth heard then: the shots were fired, the Earth had been attacked, the screams were heard, and the Earth…was silenced.

Wow, the Toxin was the Sludge from our campaigns and the same exact thing happened, but I wonder why we found Hex and not him. Why wasn’t this book incinerated in the blasts as well. I don’t know, but let’s show it to Sir Cantos and see what he can remember as well. So, Douglas and Alexander went to find Sir Cantos and show him the ledger journal. When he was confronted with this information that confounded him so, he started to have a mental breakdown, which ended in him stealing the book and starting to read, however, he threw it right back at the man claiming to be Alexander and started shouting harsh words. Douglas told Sir Cantos to read the journal inside the ledger because obviously he read the wrong thing and got confused. He started to read what had happened during the Fifth Cataclysmic War and throughout the book he started to relapse mentally and realize that his strange mental discrepancies were there in his psyche and when he started to read toward the end of the journal, he had integrated another memory into what had already existed; his sadistic nature had vanished from his memory.

Sir Cantos put down the journal and gestured for Alexander to come to him, then he hugged his boy and they both started happy crying. Thanks Alexander, I am now ready to return to my tailor shop in Oxford. Douglas told him to wait and asked what he should do about New Thalia, and more importantly, what the hell happened between this journal and Sir Cantos L. Well, let me fill in the blanks: It all started after the final blasts of the Cataclysmic War I was in, it was apparently the fifth, I was never sure since I had worked quietly in the surrounding area of Oxford, sometimes I’d go on house calls and some days I’d stay in the store. After the blasts, I found myself in some rubble with no memory of what just happened. I had started to dust myself off realizing I had lost my gun and my memory. I started to wander through where I now found myself and totally forgetting about geography I called the place Delshim, Florentine. Crazy I know, but at the time it made sense so I didn’t freak out; I started to go on a journey through the ruins of this world where I met strangers and joined into various groups, but I was more adventurous than the guys who were only moving for survival; I left them behind to forge ahead.
That’s when I met my good friend Don, a crystalline man who had crashed into the earth head first; I plucked him from the mud and asked him to join me. He said only for a while because he had to find a way to return to his family on another planet, which is understandable since he was a six and a half foot man made entirely out of pink crystal. So we traveled through Eastern Europe, at least that’s what I thought it was and in a gray land near the Mediterranean, we found a creepy cave dug up by a crashed fighter jet in the earth. Don egged me to go inside with him to find out if there’s any cool crap inside, so we did. Inside we encountered a man in blackened armor who was sitting on a cut stalagmite next to a stone door. Don walked up to the door and picked up a rusted iron bar and tried to jimmy the door with it, that’s when I heard the harshest and most terrible squeaking that will ever be known by man as the armored guard had awakened from its slumber, announcing itself as Klaxon.
Whatever it was started to weave a tail of what lay behind the stone door: an evil, evil magic that has cursed past lives from afar: conquerors, emperors and tyrants have all felt its allure of power and wealth, but have been destroyed by their own greed. Many have paid the price, but you can still save yourselves before succumbing to the power as I have. Now I wait here in my rusted battle-hardened suit and warn others of what has already happened to me. Don told Klaxon that we’d be fine, but he was still going to jimmy the door and get inside. Klaxon had heard enough and started to tell a story of long ago about the man who had first possessed the accursed weapon.

His name was Jack Drixt, he made barrels and boats for a living out of various woods with a slight interest in archaeology and he was invited, based on an essay he wrote, to a new dig site never touched until now of an ancient warlock that ruled a small village with his parlor tricks and intimidation, the only record names the warlock as Maqil. While on that archaeological dig, he uncovered something twenty feet down, an artifact with incredible power he felt. He even started wondering if it was whispering to him of things that were greater than him and his potential with this tool in his hand. Jack had succumbed to the artifact’s whispers and stole it from the dig site, thanked the leader for his time and commented on how he wished he could come back for more and that’s when the leader told him he could it he was still interested, so Jack stayed with the dig until they found what they were ultimately looking for the entire time: the tomb. When they descended, Jack started to hear the whispers from before more clearly. While the dig began to dust off and catalog what they found in the very first room, Jack continued onward through the tomb in a daze to the source of the whispers until he found a skeleton sitting in a chair stabbed with a long halberd covered with paper with strange symbols, the skeleton was wearing dark purple robes and a hood with the same color.
Jack obeyed the whispers from his mind and ripped the halberd from the body. The skeleton lurched forward and fell on the floor, rattling slightly as it lay there…the left arm flung outward, pointing at a pile of bones laying against the wall, something from that pile launched into the skeleton as it did the same to the other side. The skeleton stood with a zombie-like person, its bones now covered in decrepit flesh and its eyes glowed, about a third of its bones are still visible making it even creepier. The skeleton started to speak: Jack, this is my final message, if you are hearing my request, the spear of silence has been removed by yourself, now go claim what you have been seeking: ultimate power in the next room. The skeleton fell to the floor and the eastern wall opened slowly and when the dust cleared the door, a black hallway was seen, then the torches lining the walls lit by themselves, showing Jack the way.
When Jack crossed the secret door’s threshold, it closed with a loud slam, leaving the outside world completely unaware that he was trapped, but that didn’t matter to him since his destiny was at the end of the hall. There he found what he thought he had located yesterday: that artifact. It was lying sideways on two hooked pedestals with a note stabbed into it: You have taken the final step. You will now feel the ultimate power to achieve your every desire when you wield the real artifact, the one that had been found was just an imitation I used as an extension of my will to find someone to free me from the Spear, now take the artifact and have what you will!
The note decayed and fell into dust when Jack finished reading, when Jack picked up the staff, he started to hear the whispers turn to crystal clear voices that are trying to influence Jack’s thinking and soon he became corrupted with terrible power. He broke from the tomb in fashion that was just in essence of Maqil’s rule. He ravaged the landscape and took the world by storm, no one could stop him, but his world soon came crashing down on him when thousands rallied to stop him with the Spear of Silence that they found in that accursed tomb. He had become weakened from age and the corruption; he was destroyed by his own avarice and has left the world terribly scarred. The artifact was taken by this faction and has been hidden somewhere in this world and I was tasked long ago to look after its resting place, so I appeal to you again: Don’t find whatever’s in there, it’s down there for its own good.

Don didn’t care at all, but the story was interesting. He jimmied the door open with his iron rod and we both walked inside through an unlit, underground hallway until he came upon what he came here for: the artifact, and the whispers that came with it. These voices giving me ideas and began to influence my thinking, so as Don began inching toward the artifact with his greedy hands, I ran up behind him and stabbed him in his cold heart. I stabbed him in the gut a couple times, three in the heart and snapped his neck before throwing his corpse in the corner of the room. I grabbed the artifact and that’s when the voices invaded my heart and mind, but I left the cave, leaving behind Klaxon shaking his head at me before sitting down. I realized that I started to feel slightly weaker, but I forged ahead through this gray land. Believe it or not, I ended up in what used to be St. Petersburg, Russia. They had just started the rebuilding process and by the time I made it to that part of the world, my mind had started to go and I forgot what profession or skills I could apply in society. I took up the one thing that I felt I could do in my weakened state, I took the job as the grave keeper for this new town and just as they handed me my honorary new shovel for the position of laying the dead, I had lost my identity and had no idea what to sign down on the paperwork they were handing me in the old cathedral ruin to make it official.
I couldn’t see, think or sign straight; I began to get incredibly anxious and sweaty as my hands started to spasm uncontrollably and make strange squiggles on the line and that’s when the voices gave me direction. I relaxed, regained my composure and control and signed to the page forevermore: Simon Cantos. They showed me my work site and the shack that I’d be living in for free at the graveyard: it was a colossal dump and about two hundred square feet of space, and for some reason: incredibly short, about five foot tall. I cleaned the place up and chopped apart a small desk and big bed, even saved a couple days’ pay to buy me some blankets from the nice seamstress down the lane. My life was great when the voices told me how I could use my position for personal gain to do some grave robbing and some freelancing in other people’s spots for some extra scratch. I was living a new life for about half a year, that’s when it happened. I was taken in my sleep my Sir Cantos the 50th where he began the Cantosization process and turned me into what I am today, a cold-blooded killer and powerful politician. Unfortunately, my interest in tyrannical politics soon melted my blood and gave me new intelligence and insight I had never seen before. So, that’s my story, Dustin Wolcott turned to Simon Cantos turned to Sir Cantos the first. Dang! What a ride.

Except that never happened, Dustin, there’s one part in your story that doesn’t quite fit with the rest. I know this sounds crazy because I had no idea you existed in that time and I was also in the middle of America, but I also know what happened to you from some guy that I thought was delirious who was running through my neck of the woods was talking about this skeleton man that was created from a ghost, I asked the woodsman if he had seen this occur and he answered with a no. Oddly enough, he asked to see a crystal ball, which I found one day so I let him fiddle with it and that’s when I saw you through his oracle vision; that entire night you thought you were being Cantosized. You were actually just fidgeting in your sleep and then started sleep-walking through your shack and knocking everything over.
That’s when I saw the craziest thing that happened to you, the artifact you found was casting a spell on your mind and body. After a white glow had descended upon you from that artifact, you were transformed into Sir Cantos the First and led outside where you awoke and thought that Sir Cantos the 50th grabbed you. He never existed and what you think never happened. I even have that video on my crystal ball to show you right here. After Sir Cantos saw the video, he was again distraught at what he saw, that artifact he had found in the cave had ruined his life, yet made it interesting for him to lead as a crazy-ass skeleton man. I would love to do something about that, but I’m afraid I lost the Canstaff a long time ago when I was still a CAG member. Wait, the Canstaff is the object of all your misery; it’s what turned you into Simon Cantos, made you lose your mind and transformed you into a skeletal crazy person with the willingness to take what you want without anyone stopping you and your conquest of new countries.
Apparently so, an object of incredible dark power that I have lost contact with some time ago, probably after my battle with Link Skywalker; it’s probably the reason that I have been able to gain political ambitions and new intelligence that is required to run a country in a tyrannical rule with an iron fist. I wonder whatever happened to the Canstaff now that it has gained real importance. We can’t just wonder at this point where that powerful artifact has just been lost through time; we have to take responsibility and go out and destroy it so no one can be altered the way you have. Okay then, let’s just take a moment to relax and start thinking about where it could be lost.

Meanwhile, in the Dry, Dry Desert, we find a man who has gone insane due to the inane expansiveness of the sandy void that he has dug himself into. The Black Bandit has been wandering aimlessly through the desert and feeding off whatever he could find, acting much like a scavenger would in a time of peril. After facing his mind against many mirages that have all but produced a large sense of disappointment and false hope, he saw something that started with disappointment since he has seen it many a-time before. Bandit thought he was seeing something miraculous, the Glass Pyramid. He decided to slowly approach it to try and minimize the eventual sense of crushing disappointment that has accompanied all previous mirages, so with no determination and his person cloaked with sand from the desert winds that have plagued him ever since he got lost on a journey of revenge.

Black Bandit remembers what happened as if it happened yesterday. He was going in alone on a charge from the tip that he had received from his contacts at the Dry, Dry Outpost. They told him that his target and his crew would be coming into the desert to look for the fabled ruin, but instead find themselves lost in the desert at a useless location: the perfect trap for them to be slaughtered by his forces. However, when Bandit had arrived at the rendezvous point for the ambush, no one had shown up for hours, so the general enthusiasm of the group and begun to dwindle drastically and with a low morale, some of his core started to go back to the HQ and wait for their leader when he decided that this futile effort had proved enough. Eventually, every bit of reinforcements that came with him had decided to leave after five hours of hiding behind desert plants and cacti. Black Bandit never quit and decided to take a nap, hopefully revitalizing himself for later, but he dozed off too long and before he knew it, the sky had turned to bitter night and he was freezing under his cloak from the temperature dropping to freezing levels.
About an hour later after freezing behind a felled cactus, he finally saw the CAG come into range of the ambush; his joy had overshadowed his freezing body and began to warm him just in the excitement of this moment even though he had to go one with the plan to defeat four battle-hardened adventurers all by himself. He saw the group approach a large stone in the middle of the desert with a strange light purple stone that had started to glow violently, almost blinding the people who looked at it directly in its white brightness. They had pressed the stone into the boulder and that made the boulder descend into the earth and the earthquake begin. All were stopped in their tracks by the tremendous shaking that rattled the entire desert, some knew that this was a sign of the fables too be true and Black Bandit could not believe it as he was shaken asunder by whatever was happening underground.
Underground, massive machinery made in the old times, yet still functioning perfectly after being left for thousands of years by their creators had begun to open the desert and rise up a large building on a rusted metal platform, this required giant machinations to be moving with giant movements that had the unfortunate side effect of shaking the entire desert with its movements, all modern desert dwellers felt the effect of ancient oversight.
The rising building had begun to close in on the moonlight and close to the surface and the most violent earthquakes was beginning to be felt, these earthquakes had launched Black Bandit far into the middle of the desert where he had been lost for months until this mirage had changed everything. His decision to head toward this place had paid off as he found out that the Glass Pyramid was real and now he had somewhere to set up camp and defend against nature, maybe find something to eat inside and a decent place to lay his head for the night in this ancient construct that had somehow been blasted to glass by an unknown force.
Inside the Glass Pyramid, Black Bandit decided to start walking around to see if he could anything of value, that’s when the voices started getting to him. The voices, those terrible ideas that he was telling him about: who to kill, what to steal, which city to burn. His dark heart was a perfect target for the ghost of Maqil to enslave. Black Bandit was captivated with what he had heard and started to be attracted to where the voice became stronger, where the incantations were taking place. He stood up and started to walk down the yellow brick stairs, apparently; only the outside of this pyramid had been glassed. He ventured to the lower levels, down the already opened doors and into the darkness. Black Bandit walked into that pure darkness where no light could possibly exist because it was such an evil place, an aura that would never allow a pure thing like light penetrate through; the dark hallways that he had been prodded through by these voices that told him these dark and disastrous things, these things that the voice told him would bring him the kind of ultimate power and wealth that he had been striving for all his thieving life.
He could hear the voice get louder and more eloquent in its want of destruction, in the cold and dank alley that existed below the temple, he felt like he had traveled to hell and could never find his way out, so he had to believe in the voice that he was being coaxed to, this thing that had snuck its way into his brain and now had influence over what he did and what he was going to do. He turned the final corner and saw the thing that he had been led to, something that he could see in his mind but could not actually be seen. The thing before him was something out of an ancient story that could not be seen today. A robed figure in a dark blue with gold accents, his head was interesting, it was a head surrounded by flames of darkness and his red glowing eyes, he stood there with that damn smug look on his face and he simply gave me the staff and told me to enjoy its power. I was immediately vacated from the building and the voices started to meld with my own thoughts. I started to become more like the staff wanted me to, so I destroyed Rogueport when I returned…in anger! The staff gave me the power to return and to exact vengeance on the city that would not hand out its money easily. Black Bandit had become powerful and deadly beyond much reason. His reign had made him supreme and his power had made him unquestionable. The power surged through him and was to be wielded by his cold and menacing heart influenced by the dead Maqil in the ways of the absolute evil; his transformation complete, he has become…Black Warlock. However, this newfound power would attract the attention of a certain man who has proven to be the better of all evils with his experience; an experience that made him powerful and yet weary.
Sir Cantos had been made aware of this upsurge with a report presented to him one week after the initial destruction of Rogueport and three other regions by this man who had seemingly laid waste to every place he stepped foot. Sir Cantos had the determinative glare outside of his New Thalian Capitol as the smoke billowed from the horizon. He ordered Douglas to stay here and protect the city while Dustin Wolcott would stay this madman. He grabbed his magic tomes and headed out the back door and with great wraith speed; he set out for the Black Warlock. Douglas, not one to take orders seriously and with a great art of delegation, assigned Sir Cathal to protect the city as temporary ruler and ran to catch up to Dustin with his rocket glider. The two reached the volcanic region of the Worselands, a place that is constantly erupting with dangerous energy and that makes the air quality choked with volcanic particles and the sky is a ruddy color from the volcanoes, the ground is cracked with bright magma and the rest is hardened magma with a dark red color. The Black Warlock is leveling volcanoes and releasing large magma bursts from the volcano demolition. Sir Cantos and Douglas engage Black Warlock by ordering him to cease and desist. Obviously, he refuses and points the Canstaff at the two, releasing a large, dark purple burst of magic at the place where they stood, creating a large hole at that point. Sir Cantos attacks him with a lightning bolt that only seemed to agitate him while Douglas threw small knives at the Warlock slashing him slightly. He releases a burst of energy that knocks the two against nearby rocks, knocking the wind out of them. The Black Warlock then lunges at Douglas, grabbing him by the neck as he struggles to free himself of the grip, but his fingers had an iron hold on him as he was thrown at Dustin at high speed, causing terrible damage. The Black Warlock starts taunting the two about their weakness and cackles loudly, while he floats five feet off the ground.
Dustin jumps at Black Warlock and slashes him deep with his twin rusty shovels, knocking him off guard where Douglas seizes the opportunity to slash him even greater with his sword. Black Warlock declares “Enough!” and raises a barrier between Douglas and the fight. “This fight ends NOW!” yells Black Warlock as he lands and rushes Sir Cantos trying to bash him with the Canstaff, however Dustin blocks the assault and they begin to spin in circles trying to knock the other one down so that they can gain the advantage with no one giving in. Black Warlock ascends upwards with Dustin still holding onto the Canstaff and then he flies into the ground, hurting Sir Cantos but still he resolves to keep his hold. Dustin starts swinging his body and then leaps onto Black Warlock’s back, knocking the pair onto the ground.
The Canstaff is rolled to the fringe of the battlefield. When the pair gets up to find the Canstaff, they both set their gazes on it simultaneously, they then look at each other tensely…they run for the Canstaff, both grabbing it and still holding onto the precious artifact. Black Warlock suddenly starts cackling madly and sends immense magical power into the Canstaff causing it to charge with purple electricity, Dustin starts to add his power to the Staff hoping that whatever’s going on will have the outcome of him having the Canstaff and then being able to defeat Black Warlock. Black Warlock suddenly starts to look worried and states that the Staff is overloading on dark power, the Staff releases a burst of black magic knocking the two to the barrier while the Canstaff starts to spin and release large bolts of lightning randomly into the battlefield.
Sir Cantos starts to remember something he had forgotten, something important: the battle with Link Skywalker: The day had finally come, the end of this trivial battle had come to a close, he had already killed off Foofy, Egnatious and Zelos at their castles and hiding places, but there was Link, the leader of his former team. Link was forming an army to take Sir Cantos at Snowyland, but he was going to preempt his plan by striking first, so he gathered his strike team, the seven citizens of his city. Trained them and weaponized them for the coming battle. He had led the charge of the castle and successfully made it to the wall, however he was now alone. He grabbed his twin shovels and started to ascend the wall straight to the top where he was sure Link had been waiting for him. When he reached the roof of the castle, he was ambushed by the archers who had their crossbows loaded and aimed at the corrupt skeleton. Sir Cantos deftly jumped onto the roof and low swept his assailants off the top with his leg. The remaining four archers ran after the opponent and he swiftly dealt with them all by tossing them over the side. He saw his target through a nearby window on the top floor as he grabbed his sword and burst through the door to the training field. Sir Cantos followed him to that spot.
When Sir Cantos had entered the training field, from somewhere in the crowded courtroom, a flaming arrow was shot and lit a circle of gunpowder that created a wall of fire around the battlefield. Link started monologuing about how this was the final battle and how he’d always known that it’d someday end with my demise, even from the first time we started to form the CAG after the incident in the Codswald Graveyard. He unsheathed his great sword and I busted out my shovels. We both took fighting stances and circled around, then Link lunged at me accompanied with his battle cry, I absorbed the attack with both my shovels and he began to rapidly attempt to slash at my body; I wasn’t going to make it easy for him though as I kept blocking. I kicked him in the chest…hard, knocking him back several feet and I ran at him with my shovels, him blocking my first strike, but the second shovel conked him in the helmet causing reverberation in his ears that knocked him off balance. I sheathed my shovels and pulled out the Canstaff, but between that he had recovered and stabbed me through my stomach, making me drip liquid arcane energy on the floor, this being equivalent to dripping blood onto the battlefield.
I stood up slightly weakened to see Link jumping over me and just as a reaction, I slammed the Canstaff on the floor, straight up and waited for his attack hunched over, but he landed on the Staff hurting him internally, Sir Cantos picked up the staff and launched a Blood Lightning at his weakened enemy, causing him to fall to the ground. He picked himself up with great resolve and pure determination in his eyes and took all the blood lightning attacks that were fired at him and still walked menacingly toward his target. Through his adrenaline and rage, he could not feel the damage that was being dealt to him through his conductive armor. He got in Sir Cantos’s face, picked up his sword and just slashed at him several times with slashing brutality. Sir Cantos, in his timidity, started to just defend himself by holding the Staff above his head while flinching. Link started to wear himself down by angrily slashing down on the Staff trying to get to Cantos. When Link got fed up with this type of defense, he grabbed the Canstaff, but since his armor was still slightly conducting blood lightning, when he grabbed it: energy exploded from the artifact and launched the pair to the floor…hard. The Canstaff raised itself seven feet above the ground and started to spin, erupting with energy randomly into the battlefield with large bolts of Rainbow Lightning. Link decided to put the battle away for now to deal with this crisis, yelling to Cantos over the sounds of battle and destruction that was coming from the Staff to meet him at the energy Staff. Cantos listened and they met near the Canstaff that was starting to accelerate. Link asked Cantos what they should do and Cantos, not knowing anything else to do, told Link that he would have to grab the Staff from whatever its doing.
Cantos attempted to grab the Staff throughout its spin, but seeing a moment of his failure, Link tried to do the same thing but the Staff was emitting a lot of resistance to them both. The two heard a screeching crescendo note coming from the staff and then the Canstaff exploded. Sending Sir Cantos backwards into the stone floor and Link through two walls, the explosion’s range was expanding and the incredible energy eventually obliterated Link’s entire kingdom with the castle and all of his soldiers and the two combatants all killed under the tremendous power of the unbridled Canstaff.
Once we return to the battle between Dustin and Black Warlock, Dustin knew that he could not stop the explosion without the current wielder of the Canstaff and unfortunately, that was the Black Warlock whom he grabbed and tried to shove into the spinning Canstaff which was still giving off massive outbursts of energy. While being shoved against the terrible resistance of the Canstaff, somehow Black Warlock managed to grab ahold of it and stop the spin. The Canstaff then started to glow white that flooded the area with impenetrable light. When the light rescinded, the pair and the artifact was gone along with the barrier. Meanwhile, in the sky above the battlefield, Dustin and the Black Warlock were flying at terrible speeds but they managed to hold onto the flying object as Dustin yelled to Black Warlock that the Staff had to be destroyed once and for all. The Black Bandit inside of Black Warlock agreed with his uninfluenced mind that was still in his brain.
Dustin and Black Warlock joined hands and started to channel all their black magic into the Canstaff that caused it to start wobbling and fly off course. The Staff took a nosedive, then turned right around and flew up until it reached 30,000 feet. Douglas saw the explosion from six miles away and two figures fell out of it down into the Plainlands below. Douglas immediately ran to where they fell as he saw the Canstaff shoot itself into space.
Douglas reached Sir Cantos’s body first, he found that his cloak, hat, boots and monocle were all shattered and destroyed, his bones were all fractured and his crystal eye was starting to dim. Douglas questioned Dustin if he was going to be okay, Dustin questioned his life at that moment to determine if he was going to survive what had just happened, but he said that he had given every bit of magic he had into causing that explosion hoping that it would destroy the terrible Canstaff and even though it didn’t, the artifact was seen flaming across the atmosphere toward the east, they’ll never have to worry about that horrid object ever again, he hoped, but he also told Douglas that he wasn’t going to make it. His final wish was to team up with Alexander and teach him my ways. I want you to teach him how to accomplish his political ambitions and rule New Thalia and any other city that he wants, and if you could, please find my family and include them in your life. This is my last wish, Douglas and…you’ve been a good friend.
Sir Cantos’s crystal’s light, but Douglas wasn’t about to give up on him yet; he took his skeletal friend and boss to Dr. Donson, one of the best medical professionals on their continent: Carron. After 8 hours of sweat-inducing, insanely difficult magical surgery and everything the good doctor could throw at the near-dead skeleton man. Dustin was able to sit up, weakly thank the doctor for reviving him and telling Douglas that he has returned.
The doctor informed Douglas that Dustin was going to be laid up for a LONG time, and that he should probably take care of his political duties while he recuperates and Dustin added afterwards to still teach his son the family political business. Douglas left to return to New Thalia with Alexander in order to keep things in order evilly.

However, this was not the time to let the guard of the kingdom down. Douglas had to convince Alexander to become the new leader of New Thalia. However, the lack of effort required was quite impressive as he was already good to go on taking over the capital of his father’s absence. Douglas, before letting him enter the capital building, needed to assess his skill in battle, already knowing that he is extremely adaptive in stressful situations and his proficiency in military and soldier tactics and weaponry already had him on the right track, but right now, what I needed to know was if there was something in his arsenal that made him special. They went to the fighting arena and Douglas ordered Alexander to show him what combative power and specialties he possessed.
Right after Alexander had been told, Douglas found himself in a headlock by him. Alexander let him fall to his knees in the arena before running toward the wall, ten feet away before throwing a grenade at his direction. The short fuse attached made it easy to align the explosion with the rolling distance, making it explode perfectly as it slowed under Douglas, causing massive damage before firing a rocket at his newfound friend. As a last move, Alexander threw several similar objects quickly flying through the air and pinging Douglas into the wall; as it turned out, Alexander had tossed seven daggers at Douglas that attached him to the wall perfectly, without killing him.
Alexander walked toward his foe and offered his hand. Douglas, filling with pride at his friend’s son, took it and was freed from the daggers. Alexander’s specialty in the aftermath of the war when he had to fend for himself from various intruders and small guerrilla squads was counter-assassinations. But during the actual war, he had been selected as a heavy arms expert and loves to get behind a tank any day.
Douglas was impressed at his skill set and simply led him back to his father’s desk and said that he’d return to this office if anything of importance were to come to his attention.

So, the Canstaff has disappeared, one of the most powerful artifacts of pure evil to ever grace existence. What a shame, said the figure in his earthly hovel of purple rock, lit by many red candles placed about the location. The figure sits in a stone chair watching his crystal ball and the people from inside his field of vision, despite being almost omnipotent.
This new leader of the people, this Earthling, thinks he has the snuff to lead in the place of that misguided skeleton necromancer. Bah! There’s no chance of him stopping the plan I had set in motion; everything has been foretold as the prophecy has stated and this new lion shall be crushed in the way of the scriptures.
As Father Fabian sat admiring the plan he had set in motion many years ago culminating in the perfect circumstances, he could only add a wicked smile to his concoction as he saw his pawns moving in rhythm to his plans, his plan to…wouldn’t you like to know!
Fabian, clearly knowing that he is indulging in his plan’s success up to this point, manipulating the world of these Codswaldian Adventurers, started to arrange his flashbacks so that he could relive the wondrous situation. He remembers sundering the Colored Furnace from the very core of his home planet of Xelshear, him finding the prophecy that told him personally of his rise to power, him causing the Cataclysmic Wars; handing over the papers to King Boris; influencing Valspar; appearing before Zelos’s alpha wolf and finally, creating the ball of light for Sir Egnatious; altering Don’s trajectory and that fighter jet; altering the Canstaff hallucination; placing the Dark Wizard with an oversized font of manna, etc. etc. It’s all just a matter of time now.