"I am the will of my blood,
Bound in faith and name,
To the emperor of Nasherad!"
The ancient promise echoed in her recollection as their horses halted on the hills that overlooked a small town. The sun roused from its slumber and began its climb over the Somber Mountains. A few columns of dawn light pierced through the drudged nimbus. Stray sunlight pierced a blue bubble hovered over a hexagonal inscription of black ink. It glowed white within, then an eyeball formed inside. With the last of their wards in place, the horses and their iron clad riders, rode towards the dirt roads.
"Honored among the seven stars,
Heralds of the third pillar,
Nobles from an age of scarce,"
Led to this town by the paid words of a drunken tavern-tattle, they entered through unmanned gates. There they tied and left the horses behind. Whiffed mist swirled the narrow alleyways that veined the wattles and daubs of startled cruck houses. Startled not by the usual cacophony of crowing coops but by the unannounced bootsteps of metal against cobblestone.
"By witness of the first father's eye,
I the storm's light of scrolls keep,
Shall serve in truth or die."
Glances skulked out of furrowed windows and as the ranks of soldiers passed by homes, hushed voices followed. They were faint and indistinguishable whispers save for one word, the oldking's tongue for 'storm's light' which was also the name of a certain mage captain, "Mayven".
The soldiers marched clad in red iron. They paced to trot as they closed in on their target. Led by their captain, with her armor under a heavy mantled cape and her silver staff held high in hand. Her staff was crowned with a monoclinic crystal which glowed a blizzard blue, and as if this blue light had pushed the very air, a soft breeze gently caressed her scarlet hair. She halted and shifted her silver staff to a slight tilt forward. "Lightning," she whispered, and twirled her staff once sun-wise, then twice counter sun-wise. The keryptian crystal atop her staff traced, fading, azure, circles.
She hammered the base of her staff into the pavement. The stone path cracked, like the sky above. "Split!" she commanded, both to her army and to reality itself. At once, as though lightning, her soldiers bolted and forked. They surrounded a manor, at the center of the town, the only building in that town made of stone and architecture. At the same time, a bolt of lightning split the skies alight and struck down the entrance, door and wall to ash and rubble.
Mage soldiers warily enclosed the spiked, iron-wrought gates. They formed three rings, taking one synchronous step after the other. With the periphery secured, the remaining group of soldiers led by their captain stormed through, bent iron, dust and smoke. They barged into a room, wands up and crystals in hand, expecting the resistance of cornered rats but only to find it empty. Mayven gestures an arched wave forward. Her soldiers nods and fans out. Their eyes twitched after every shifting shadows.
Old wooden furnitures, repaired past repairs. A long hallway with rooms on each side. Large, life like portraits of wealthy, charitable personalities. Names and indentations carved on the corners of doorways. Mayven knew right then what this manor once was, after all, a similar home saved her once in the past. Then the sight and stench of broken bottles, and ashes of burnt madliffs reminded her that this is no longer the place for children without.
The cedar floor creaked of aching age with each step, and the boarded windows reflected eerie echoes to the soldiers sifting through the grayness. Flecks of debris filtered through the cobwebs; falling to their boots, the floor and the ghastly green lights at the center of the room.
There were only two sources of light permeating the room. One was behind them, the morning light and the second was in front of them. Slinking through the gaps between the floorboards and a trapdoor was the glow of a dreaded nature. They drew closer, each magesoldier, shared an anxious look, then tightened their hold on their wands. Everyone has heard of the stories, even their captain. The difference was that more than just hearing the stories, she had lived through them.
Mirrored in her mineral eyes were the glow of horrors she had thought long buried, banished, an evil defeated. Yet here it was, a forbidding illume bringing her nightmares alight.
It was thirteen years ago, but her memory of that day had remained so vivid. She relives it once again all in a moment, yet felt longer than a torturous lifetime. That rippling green sky, in grim contrast to the crimson of the fires consuming the earth, the puddle of blood drowning around her and amidst that, the scarlet hair of a child.
She shook a breath in. She buried her eyes closed under her hand and its cold stung her cheeks. She lost a moment in her thoughts, a fatal mistake for any soldier but more so for a Captain. She steels her focus. This resolve had pushed her through. All that's left is to face that remnant of a calamity long past. She's sacrificed enough, it ends here.
Let it end here.
She directed her staff towards the trapdoor. Holding her staff at its neck, placing her thumb at the crystal which instantly lit to a burning red. A sun haired sub-commander immediately recognized the spell she intended to cast and the danger it posed, "Everyone, behind the captain!". They gathered behind her cape rippled by a whirring wind, like the standard of legions. It waved two stars shooting across a scroll, the fifth division insignia. The same symbol carved on the soldiers chest plate.
Sparks of red lightning arched along the length of her staff. The red flashes of light revealed glimpses hidden in the dark. A presence previously imperceptible.
"Who are you? Step in sight!" Mayven squints at the murk. Rings of writhing lightning surrounds the blazing crystal of her staff which was now redirected towards the cloaked silhouette.
The figure veiled in the shadows did step forward, the floor however remained silent. Apart from a long heaving breath under the shade of a purple hood.
"A rather unwieldy spell for a captain, don't you think?." An abyssal voice exhaled, and as he did, cyan mist escaped along with his words. He took another step, this time a heavy thud shattered the silence, it was his staff. Fashioned from twisted darkwood, the staff was as tall as its user, and rooted at its height was a tetragonal crystal. "Still, very impressive."
Mayven took one step forward, and tilted her forehead the same. She steadies her staff-arm with her left hand. And with an orotund voice she declared, "By the authority of the Mage General Zavel. I, Mayven Lumbrend Captain of the Magical Investigation Division, compels you to relinquish all magecraft instruments in your possession -- " A hoarse laughter boomed, but Mayven dismisses it. "Conform, and no harm shall come to you." at once, ten lucent wands aimed at the suspicious mage.
Sprawling from a visage unseen were puffs of that same unnatural mist. "If I were you captain, I'd point those words to someone else." His hood turned towards the cellar door.
As he did, Mayven did so. The rusted hinges ringed as a blackened gauntlet swung the trapdoor open. A green glow emanated from the soldier, as he carried himself up with one arm, his other arm raised over his shoulder. He had the same cuirass as Mayven's men, only, a different insignia, a different captain, a different time. The armor fit the man but it was clear it wasn't his. Behind locks of ashen hair was a green gaze that surveyed its surroundings.
He was no mage.
Crouched on the air, he counted his strikes and strides, as he grasped for the hilt over his shoulder.
"Twelve moments or less."
Before Mayven could even make sense of his words, he was a step in front of her, the bulk of a broadsword swung upon her. It crashed in splinter and dust.
But no blood.
Pulled to safety by a golden tether, materialized by the wand of her sun haired sub-commander. She landed on her boots and slid a step before a hand on her epaulet steadied her.
"Clayne," Mayven's voice softened. She reached for his hand on her shoulder.
A thud.
Her eyes widened. A warm red, smudged her cheeks. An arc of blood trailed the swing of a stained sword. One of her soldier fell in two. She clenched her teeth, took aim, but her staff was cold, its crystal pale.
Vanished again. Flares of sparking embers flew in a blitz. A streak of red chased after a black blur.
A cacophony of commotion, grunts and curses of soldiers; creaks, steps, and smash of wood. The shing of steel shearing steel. The splatter of blood and the thud of dismembered flesh.
But for Mayven it was silence, save for the spell she murmured and the chirr of the air surrounding her staff. She aims, left then right, her target zagging across the room slipping her mark but not her sight.
Then he reached a corner, and Mayven knew and she fired. A corner meant he could not go any further ahead, it would be a blink, but in that time the swordsman would be vulnerable. As an orb of blue lightning shot across the room. The flickering light reflects off the scarlet and the green glance as it met. She saw a smirk behind a bleeding blade.
The swordsman lossened his grip on the leather, and the weight of the broadsword made its point sunk through the wooden floor. With his bite, he unraveled the strap of his iron gauntlets. His left hand freed, was covered with a leather armguard, he pressed this hand to the metal fuller. Steadied, the black blade stood in between him and the path of a spherical storm. The orb of lightning bolt exploded into a flurry of sparkling silk. The force of a charging cavalry crashed against the width of his blade. Stray sparks stung his exposed skin. But the blue lightning funneled down the blade, it boiled away the crimson that stained its edge, but left the swordsman unscathed.
Her staff returned to paleness.
The killer seized the moment her guard lowered, and poised to strike. It was in rare moments like these that reminded her of her inexperience, especially so in combat. Possessing a strategical mind may have helped her climb the ranks but it came with one unassuming drawback. Viewing the world through a lens scaled far back and wide, she'd lose sight of the reality that she was no longer a mere specter to a battle as she once had been.
A corner meant that the swordsman could not go any further ahead, but there was nothing ever stopping the swordsman from attacking her. Quite obvious perhaps, however, having fought and won every battle before this, over leather maps and ivory pieces. Mayven forgets that she too is a target.
Mayven who realized her misstep a blink late, knew the next strike would be her death. She grasped a medallion chained to her belt.
To both of their surprise the killer and his sword has not moved. "Captain!" Clayne shouted from behind, his arm stretched over her pauldrons, a shining wand in hand. Two luminous binds erupted from the walls and restrained the swordsman's murderous nightsteel gauntlet.
"Binding light" A spell prepared behind the cover of his captain. Following her aim but seeing what she could not. Binding light, however is a spell that comes with a high cost for impatient mages. Five heartbeats, or less, that was all it could give her.
He broke free, and the brave light of Clayne faded as he collapsed to all fours from exhaustion. But the sub-commander was content, knowing he fulfilled his duty, he had faith on his captain. The yellow glow was replaced by a buzzing blue bolt.
A blink of time. A trained mercenary, should've sidestepped that coruscating comet. 'Damn all of you sun-haired brats!' the swordsman's thought cursed.
Inexperienced maybe, but that's all she was. Mayven was not about to repeat a mistake and taking inspiration from her sub-commander, she instead casts a targeted area spell rather than a projectile.
It was not a comet that gradually grows as it got closer, it was an expanding cloud of cerulean lightning. No amount of time would've allowed an escape. His sword flew from his numbed grip as he discerned this cunning trick.
But he was content. He had done his part. Though there was no drop of trust, he was fully aware that the monster had succeeded.
A pale blue smoke vents from Mayven's crystal. She could still feel the whirr of her staff, or perhaps it was her hand shaking. She closed her eyes for her fallen magesoldiers, before resuming her mission. "Restrain this man," she surveyed her team, those standing were wounded and half had limbs missing. Others were on the floor, some were breathing but none were in one piece. "Take the injured-" she searches again.
Gone.
The purple cloaked mage was gone. Then clarity struck.
She turned. That green glow was still there. It dimly illuminated the steps descending under. She held her staff ready. It wasn't over.
Bootsteps charging close. The first ring of soldiers guarding the periphery outside went in. She knew then, ten moments had passed. She was now out of time.
A thud. Clayne has passed out. Mayven laid a knee beside Clayne, running a finger down his cheek. An ethereal yellow thread flowed to her touch.
Relieved she stood, "Sub-commander Pentux has suffered a catacloral strain, bring him along with the others and retreat to base. Seek immediate aid from the healers and report to my first officer."
"Captain? We still have fifteen moments before enemy reinforcement. None of our wards have triggered the outer periphery yet. The mission objective has not been met." A silver haired mage knight steps forward and stands firm. "I advise against retreat."
Mayven peered over her shoulder, "That was an order, knight. Look around, our original mission has been intruded upon. By the looks of it, for days now. The possibility that this is a setup of some grander scheme has risen. But we, for now, lack certainty on the parties involved and thus must act with equal consideration to every plausible assumption." Mayven faced forward to hide the severity brimming from her expression. "I do not wish to start yet another war. If you understood knight, then go at once. I have a new mission to finish."
"Yes Captain, understood." The mageknight dejectedly raised her right arm and as her fingertips touch her epaulet she gave a small bow. It was a show of loyalty, still, she could not hide that her silvery eyes looked to differ.
She turned back, relaying her Captain's orders.
Mayven ignited her staff once more and warily descended the dusted steps. As the green rays veiled her, she felt the cold pierce in. Her steps echoed vastly against the stone, soon she landed into a marble cellar.
Retching decay festers her breath. She glanced down, a silhouette casts a shadow over the withered rot of a massacre. An atrocity that curses the air.
The black figure at the center of the cellar had both hands raised overhead. He spun his staff in creeping circles leaving trails of mist. It glowed blue but its light drowned in the green light. Above him was a sphere of cold aura and at its center was a grimoire.
The Arcelus.
The first book written by the first king of Nasherad. The treasure she was sent to repossess. One of the few heirlooms from the old kingdom. Stolen from the citadelic library of Magencairre three pale moons ago, by the nameless thieves whose corpses bared ungraved on the stone floor.
She directs her staff towards the expanding sphere. Rings of writhing lightning weaves around her blazing crystal, while sparks flew in arcs. A storm at hand eager to burst, held back by a tightening grip. Her gaze trembles. But she was prepared.
The misted mage turned towards her, finally illuminated under the light of festering green and blazing red. His hood still kept his identity a secret but his gaze and smile that bared teeth etched out from under the shadow. "The gates will reopen, my young captain Mayven. It cannot be stopped." he casts a look above and broke into a crashing laugh. "Witness the future of magekind."
A cut opens in her cheeks. Her noble blood rebels her intentions and warns her. Her vows of loyalty extends to the treasures of a dead king. But her staff did not wade. She closes her eyes, she knew what she had to do. The green light must not walk on the world again. She would put it to stop right here, even at the cost of honor or her life, it would end here. She's made enough sacrifice, this would be the last.
She's made her resolve. "Heaven's,"
A deeper cut is made within her armor, she coughs boiling blood. Her blood now deems her unworthy. Lightning rivens through the air of green and red. It tangles around the artifact like blood roots. It writhes, convulses and ruptures just like the ones raging underneath her skin. Tears and blood trickles down her cheeks. She screamed her breath. "Bane!"
Even through the deafening crackle of storm light, a maniacal laugh pierces through. "You would choose to die?" he shouts to a Captain brought to her knees. "Eternity in front of you, and you'd choose to die?". He stared with disgust, weaklings dying for a cause utterly pointless, irked him. He arms his staff in blue, a quick death, what he calls mercy.
Red alone in its purity.
It was a blink, and his eyes widen then it narrowed in thought. A trick in sight, he concluded. But the green light flickered again.
He turned.
To his horror he sees pages and pages torn from the tome of the king. The blue fades from his staff. It was a first to witness overflowing magic tamper in spell stability, it was certainly interesting, but it would be ruinous to his plans. One of the page vanished. He casts a spell to reverse it, and he did but as one page reappears two disappears after it.
He casts spells, one after the other grasping for the pages, only for more to slip his grip. Soon, It was over, the Arcelus had lost an entire chapter. His gate imperfect, his evolution deferred. He slams his staff twice to the stone. A black ink traces three intersecting circles on the stone floor and at each circles center, a black flame ignites.
The storm ends. A silver staff clatters on the ground, its crystal pale. Mayven collapsed to her side, her right eye unable to open, her right hand twitches toward her staff out of reach. She coughed a splash of blood, the rest she swallows. She couldn't breathe, drowned in rebelling blood, she waned in and out of consciousness. Her body had gone numb, all but pain and cold remained. With what little enduring strength her left fingers had, she held unto a cold golden medallion chained to her belt. Her bloodied lips moved to whisper but without air in her throat, it made no sound.
A cyan crystal glows brighter, a swirl of mist envelops his withered hand. Then the nimbus fades away, leaving the Arcelus in his grasp. The green sphere without the relic at its core caves in itself, in its void a hole appeared, pitch black and ominous.
It grows.
Whatever cataclysm would unfold from a corrupted gate he would not stay to behold. The black flames had finished inscribing crypts of forgotten letters in the circles. He glances over at the mage that denied his vision, she laid among the dead close to death herself. He raised his staff, it glowed in blue, but this time not with mercy but cruelty.
A green glow burned her left hand, branding a forgotten rune deep in her skin. She winced in pain, and lets out a voiceless scream but she keeps her hold into warm metal.
Iridescent sparks rained beside her. A door of white light took form. It slowly opened. The mage grinded his teeth. He knew who stood behind those doors.
"The fool's late once again." A pillar of dark flames consumed the magic circles and everything within, leaving behind charred stone and fainting whispers. "We can't meet yet brother."