You're in no position to fight a bunch of flying Shadows, you're not armed with anything, and nowhere near being a warrior. You take you horse in the direction that Lakri headed, leaving Salzat behind to fight the Shadows, though you aren't safe yet as a few of them are still in pursuit of you.

"That's the one the Master wants! The little one! Get him! Get him!" you hear raspy voices shout behind you.

Soon your horse has almost caught up to Lakri's. Lakri seems to have forgotten that he's supposed to be DEFENDING you!

"Hey! Aren't you supposed to be protecting me?" you shout at him, while briefly looking behind you to see how close the Shadows are.
"I…I'm sorry…I just…ARGH! Shadows! Gotta get away! Don't follow me, they're after you!"

Lakri must be so frightened for his own life that he's gone half mad! Seeing that he's not going to lose you, he ends up jumping off of his horse and running off into the wilderness in an effort to ditch the Shadows. It works for him since they were never after him and they continue to follow you and are starting to close in…

Soon one is close enough to grab at you, in an attempt to rip you from the back of the horse.

You hold on tight to the reins

You pulls away from the Shadow and hold on as tight as you can, hoping that somehow the horse can outrun these creatures, or at least hoping that someone can help you.

No sooner have you thought this, when suddenly you hear a sizzling sound followed by an ear piecing screech from above. The Shadow trying to rip you from the horse has been struck down by some sort of bolt of lightning. Soon another Shadow is destroyed in the same way

"Cursed Shadows! Just hold on to the reins boy and keep moving! There's a town up ahead where you'll be safe!" you hear someone yell at you. You notice some trees and rocks along side of the road, but no people. Whoever it is helping you must be well hidden.

Eventually all the Shadows following you have been destroyed by bolts and you make it into the town, though you aren't sure of what to do or go next, but for now you're just glad to be alive. (Your horse has even clamed down a bit)

While you just temporarily rest on top of your horse, you hear the voice of the person who helped you again.

"Ah there you are, glad to see you're alright. What's a boy like you traveling by himself in these dangerous times anyway? The wretched Nightmare Tyrant's minions seem to be everywhere nowadays."

The one who's helped you looks like a little different from what you expected, this man looks more like a warrior, but not like the knights you encountered earlier. More like a barbarian type. He's bristling with muscles and has a large axe carried on his back.

"You don't look like a Wizard." You say.
"Of course I don't, because I'm not."
"I thought only Wizards could cast spells."
"Oh that lightning bolts back there? That's thanks to this magic ring I found a long time ago. Though I think it's out of charges, it's useless except maybe to trade with now. Here, why don't you take it." He says giving you the ring.

"Thanks. I'm supposed to be heading to the Parran Empire to get back home."
"You live in the Parran Empire?"
"No, but they're supposed to have Wizards there who can help me get back home."

You go into detail about your adventures to the barbarian; he seems a lot more surprised by your tale than the rest you've told have.

"That's some tale boy, though I have no reason to disbelieve you, given the things I've seen since my own travels as well as the things I have heard about the Nightmare Tyrant. His darkness has even reached my old homeland far north, though my people tend to be nomadic and the land doesn't really contain anything of major importance. We had more problems with the usual menaces of giants and trolls more than anything else."
"How come you're so far from home?"
"Well as I said, my people are nomadic in nature, and I guess I'm even more so. I wanted to see other places outside of my homeland, so I traveled south to where civilization tends to thrive. I'll most likely return one day."

Before you continue this conversation, you have just realized you don't really know the route to get to the Empire. The Paladins were supposed to lead you there and now both of them are gone. You don't know who else to ask, you're all by yourself again and this barbarian did help you, so you give it a shot…

"Hey, um…could you help me get to Empire? I don't exactly know the way."
"Me? Well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask, seeing as I've never been there either, though I'm sure that wouldn't be too much of a problem, all I need is a few directions from someone and I could probably get there quickly…sure why not? As I said, I've never been to the Parran Empire lands so it wouldn't really be a wasted trip for me, but we probably should find a room somewhere first. Also I'll need to ask for directions. My name's Qualan by the way."

Qualan rents a room for the pair of you, but he doesn't stay, instead he says he's going to go ask for directions and explore the town a bit, and for you to just stay in the room and not to open it for anybody. He has the key, so he can let himself in. Soon you're alone again in a relatively barren room. It's pretty boring in here, but you try to keep yourself occupied, namely by thinking of all the people and places you've encountered since you've been here. In fact this is the first time you've actually got the chance to reflect on this little adventure. You also wonder about your Mom, she's going to be worried about you and probably have the police looking all over for you! And when you finally do return, what will you tell her?

You don't know, but what you do know for certain is that you DO want to get home as soon as possible. You find this place very fascinating, but the Shadows and the Nightmare Tyrant who's taken an interest in you is something you can do without. You just wish you had something that you could fight them off with…

No sooner does that pass through your mind when you notice something glowing under one of the beds. You cautiously check underneath it, and find a short sword. It faintly glows with a white light for a moment longer and then fades back to its normal color.

After "playing" with the sword for a bit, you suddenly realize that you created the sword, or you at least made it appear. In fact you've caused quite a few things to occur just by "thinking". It seems like every time you "wished" for help, it suddenly arrived.

Maybe you have magical powers here or something similar, this all can't be a coincidence.

You wish to be back home

If you knew that it was a simple wish that could get you home, you would've done it a long time ago! You begin to think really hard about going back home. You close your eyes and try to visualize it.

For a moment you think you're succeeding, but suddenly all you begin to see is a black void and Shadow creatures. Something terribly wrong is happening. You really know it when you open your eyes and see nothing but darkness and you are being held down on some sort of smooth cold surface by Shadows and you no longer have your sword. A sinister voice emanates from the darkness and you're completely paralyzed with fear.

"Ah, yes I knew it would only be a matter of time before you tried that to get home. Fortunately I made plans ahead of time to prevent that from occurring. Of course, in a way you ARE home. Your new one anyway. Soon you'll be one of us… after a few alterations of course."