The blacksmith had snuck away while everyone else was busy, he had to go back to the town to get a few things. As he approached the town he could see the whole place was a disaster. Buildings ruined, even the ground was torn.
He followed what he remembered of the roads to his shop. He had taken all the important stuff, now he was getting some materials, iron and a few specialty tools he had made that he really didn’t want to have to remake. After an hour or so he had a nice heavy bag of stuff. There was plenary more he wished he could take but had to leave it, it just wasn’t realistic to take it all.
As he made his way back out of town he hear some rocks moving a street over and a faint voice. Without hesitation he dropped his bag and headed over to see what it was. If there was a survivor he had to help.
As he approached he first heard then saw the mayor, she was in the middle of a handful of dead soldiers with a spear in her hand, “I should’ve stopped them” she said with a dead look in her eyes.
Before the man could even process what he was seeing, the mayor had turned the spear towards herself. “Wait!” He yelled as he stood to run to her.
But he was too late. She pulled the spear into her own stomach and doubled over, falling onto her side. Jacob’s father ran to her side. “Stupid woman, why would you-“
He cut himself off as he looked at her wound, a blackness spreading from it. He refuses to touch it in fear of it spreading to him. He just watched her as it took her over and turned her completely to dust. The spear lay on the ground with a menacing aura.
He carefully picked up said spear and inspected it, he didn’t know much of the language of mages but he knew a little, some of his weapons had been enchanted once or twice after all. The only thing he recognized on the spear was the word ‘curse’.
He wrapped the spear in some cloth he found nearby and took it with him. The elf needed to know about this, but not today. I knew if his son had been killed he wouldn’t want to see the weapon that did it for a long time. He picked back up the items he took from his shop and headed back to the world tree.
• • •
A year had passed since the tragedy at the town. The townsfolk that survived moved into the woods that surrounded Gaia. They learned about the world tree being sentient and able to communicate with those who are magically gifted.
A few people tried to cut down the trees to find they could move away from them, which was a shock to say the least. Taylor, Melody, and Becca busied themselves with weaving vines into homes for the new residents.
When he wasn’t making homes, Taylor had other priorities. He learned to fly, using a mixture of wind magic and a newly discovered gravity magic. It allowed him to control gravity on his target by manipulating gravitons to strengthen or weaken their pull. We hasn’t sure if it’s exactly how gravity worked but it seemed to work it you add in some magic.
Flying around Taylor would search for any soldiers that wore the same emblems or colors as the ones that attacked the town. And find them he did. Only a month after Atreus died a large contingent of soldiers over ten thousand strong came to attack, or that’s what he assumed.
Without warning he began to cast spells on them from on high. He started with simple things, fireballs, calling up oil from the ground to ignite it and set the whole field aflame and such. But when they tried to shoot him down he decided to slam them with gravity.
A whole ten thousand strong army fell to its knees, and inevitably their stomachs as they were bombarded by four times their normal gravity. Humans are so weak, Taylor thought. He remembered watching anime and wanting to train in higher gravity himself only to realize that humans have to go through special training just to be able to not pass out from enduring more than a few times their own gravity.
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He held them in place as the fire took care of the rest. After ten minutes he was sure that most of them were dead. The only ones that remained were a few mages that managed to keep the fire at bay while they were being held down. He flew closer to them and they stared at him in horror.
“Blame your king” he said as he used gravity magic to crush their skulls.
He wasn’t about to go just attack the kingdom. But he could just let their armies invade either. He would gladly become a demon if it meant the humans couldn’t hurt his family anymore.
And this was his life for the next five years. He half heartedly helped the townsfolk when they needed it, he hunted down the kingdoms troops, and he watched Becca grow.
Becca, the poor sweet girl. She lost he whole family and only had Melody and Taylor left. Honestly she only really had Melody. Atreus’ death broke something inside the elf and his only real purpose seemed to be to protect, and maybe someday get revenge.
Jacob lived with his father for the first few months but soon enough he and Becca officially began dating. They were only fifteen which seemed far too young to Taylor, but the blacksmith said that humans get married as early as 14 and even younger if they’re nobility.
Taylor relented and built them a very nice home underground as a sort of gift. He knew marriage would be right around the corner. They might even be doing inappropriate things already. So he had to be ready for that.
Plans and plans, plans for everything except how to get his family back or how to get back at the damned kingdom. He buried his head in his hands in frustration as Melody held him close. She had become a rock to him. Something that had been here for a long time and would always be there for him. Her lifetime was incredibly long just like his now was.
He leaned into her embrace and just slowed himself to not think for a while. Just blank out and not focus on anything. He didn’t want to think for a very long time.
Taylor went about his days, helping, providing, and hunting down the soldiers. More and more were sent to fight him, and every time he would crush them in a one sided show of power. He started leaving a small handful alive to send a message back. But that only emboldened the king. He thought he was getting somewhere if people were able to survive.
Coming back from his latest slaughter he landed on the ground and began his lifeless walk around the pond to see if anything needed to be taken care of. he noticed Melody walking up to him but he didn’t expect her to slap him.
He simply stared at her blankly waiting for her to say something. “You can’t keep doing this,” she said, tears forming in her eyes, “you’re not you, you’re not living! This,” she gestured to him, “this is just existing. You need to live! Do you think Atreus wanted you to sulk for a thousand years?”
That one stung, he knew Atreus wouldn’t want that, but it was his fault the boy died in the first place. He opened his mouth to respond when melody stepped in and stopped him with a kiss. He froze, everything seemed to freeze. He didn’t expect this, Melody was beautiful and all but he hadn’t even had romance on his mind at all.
Well maybe it made sense, he was the only adult male she had been with for who knows how long before the townsfolk moved in. And she was of age, even older than he was now actually. Sure I’m dragon years she was technically younger, but with a comparable life span he was nothing more than a toddler.
Screw it, they’re both adult, he wouldn’t think about it anymore. It was too complicated. She pulled back away from him.
“Uh, that was-“ he tried.
“Follow me,” Melody said seriously.
Taylor just nodded and followed her to the blacksmiths house. Upon entering melody told him it was time. Time for what? Taylor didn’t know, but the blacksmith seemed to understand.
“Bruce has something you need to see,” she said.
So his name was Bruce? Taylor felt a little stupid for never asking before. The large man came back into the room holding a long item wrapped in cloth.
“Open it carefully” Bruce said, “I think this is the spear that killed Atreus. The damned thing says something about a curse being on it.”
Taylor felt a mix of disgust and curiosity. Was it really not him that killed Atreus? He unwrapped the spear to see some words written in gibberish on the side.
“I can’t read mage script well but I know this,” he tapped the first word, “means curse. The mayor stabbed herself with it, for what reason I’ll never know, but she turned to dust after she did.”
So he didn’t kill him. He stared at the spear, he wanted to destroy it. But he needed to keep it. If he ever felt the level of despair he felt after Atreus, he needed this to remind him that he can’t just take the fault.
“Thank you Bruce,” Taylor said bowing his head, “can I take this with me?”
“Do what you want,” he grunted, “I don’t want it near me anyway.”
Taylor thanked him again for his help and took the spear, leaving with melody who bid him a good day. As they walked among the ever changing trees Taylor was still deep in thought. What kind of curse sis the spear hold? And who gave this to that soldier? Was it similar to his spell that fused all of the element? Were there more weapons like this? How strong were humans actually?
He had far more than that running through his head all at once, giving him a bit of a migraine. He hated not knowing what was going on. So he focused on the only thing he knew for sure, the royal family had to pay.
First things first though, let’s get rid of slavery. It seems to be a huge source of income for the nobility and royal family. The taxes and everything that’s being levied on the sales of slaves are no doubt a good chunk of the royal families income. And Taylor had a few ideas on how to deal with it.