Chapter One: Quiet life
That same little window through which the sun once shone; was old and dusty, well in need of a caring hand but finding it lacking. He was sitting in the middle of the room, atop a padded carpet every wall, each inch of free space taken over by masses on masses of books. Arth sat there happily, without a care the sunlight from the window on his bare feet, while his eyes skimmed over one of the more recent editions to his library. That is not to say he hadn’t read the story before merely that he hadn’t read it as much as the others.
“Perhaps I should visit Naulo.” He whispered thinking of the little lord of Gunmar. “Nah, I’ve read all the books in his library, maybe I can finally convince Cillia to lend me some of magical tomes.” He sighed knowing how unlikely that was; he never could understand why she refused to let him read them.
He sighed standing up and moving towards the door. He pushed it aside and entered the living room, his mother had already for her daily rounds, probably a couple of house calls. he smiled noticing the mass of food she had placed on the table before hand. “What did I do to deserve such a loving mother.” He sighed sitting “Though Chaos if you hear me up there, It’s not like I forgive what you did to me, I’ll become strong, I’ll reach level thirty and only when you beg and grovel will I accept your apology.” he laughed to himself before digging into the meal.
A good eight minutes later he was back to his former conundrum; how to kill the time, how to stave of the sense of boredom encroaching on the lovely day he was trying to experience… The only answer which came to mind was to go bug Naulo. He sighed taking the medical kit his mother always insisted he carry and attaching it to his waste. He moved towards the door. There was a heavy knock, resounding through the air. With a grin he opened the door to see a towering figure before him. Blonde hair, broad shoulders, standing over six-foot and with deep blue eyes. Naulo smiled down at him. “Well speak of the devil, and he shows up here.” Arth laughed inviting Naulo in.
“I don’t know what this has to do with demons but sure.” Naulo laughed his voice reverberating around the room. He knew well enough not to question or antagonise Arth, otherwise he’d be plagued by the smart arsed attitude that he always used to talk circles around him.
“So why, have you visited by humble abode?” Arth questioned with a grin. Naulo sighed.
“Cillia sent me, Something about her latest project.”
“You know ever since she contacted that high and mighty god of flames she’s been constantly working, we never just enjoy ourselves.”
“That’s mainly because your idea of enjoying yourself is just sitting there reading something, I want to train and Cillia wants to torment the pair of us into proper men.” Naulo replied with a chuckle.
“True… But it was fun, we used to spend whole days out on the hillside just doing what we enjoyed.”
“Yeah it was fun. Well we’d better get going or we’ll face her wroth.” Naulo laughed standing, before walking to the door and pushing it open for him. Arth followed pausing before the entrance and reaching to the side to grasp his cane in hand.
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Anna Felcite
“Now dear open wide!” She called, the mother forcing the child’s mouth open. Anna pushed the spoon inside, a simple medicine true but with a little spell to increase potency it would become remarkably effective.
“Thank you Anna, We’ll bring over the payment this evening.” Mrs Hayder proclaimed with a grin as she released the young girl who was still recovering from a bout of oldans fever.
“No need to harry yourself dear.” Anna replied with a gentle smile. “Your family has always been good to us.” Mrs Hayder nodded
“Nammia bringing your son around has been a big help for us, taught my daughters to mind their manners.” Anna chuckled at that. She adored her son and while he was physically weak, no one could deny his ability to win an argument, as far as she knew he had never lost a battle of wits, her little scholar. She smiled to herself nodding.
“I’m just glad he has some friends, he really needs a normal childhood.”
That was her fondest wish for her son that he would socialise more, even for an introvert he was sealed off, he rarely did anything concerning other people and preferred to be left alone. Ever since he was young she had noticed that,
In his first year or so of life she had prevented him from ever leaving the house, he was too weak, the tiniest bite from a spider could have killed him. So she spent most of her day playing with and caring for him. She immediately noticed his heightened intelligence playing a significant role in his life. Intelligence usually only increased a persons mana, memory capacity and efficiency but with Arth it seemed he held an impressive mind able to understand anything he saw. By his first year on Alfiel he’d managed to get a solid grasp of language, not just speaking but writing as well. It was honestly quite terrifying. The power he would have welt were his physical abilities even average or he held his magical power would have made him a jewel that kingdoms would have fought for in a couple of years. But now all he was; was a cripple. He’d lost his magic that day they held the ceremony, and he was unable to connect to any God. He’d tried many times after learning some people were born with magic but the results were pitiful. Still his understanding of the theories and ideas were phenomenal, like he could see the secrets behind the world. She felt sad just considering what her son could have had. But she knew well enough that even without magic his intelligence would one day get him recognised. She smiled as she saw him approach.
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In his right hand he held his cane trudging forwards with a weary smile. It often took him a long time to get anywhere with or without the tool, his endurance was just to low. She reached forward and embraced him as he approached.
“Get off of me!” he screamed trying to resist. She chuckled lightly looking over him again.
“Now don’t be rude, I love you.”
“This is embarrassing,” He muttered stepping away. She laughed watching him duck past her and into the house. Without even greeting the occupants’ mother, he was certainly turning into a little troglodyte.
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Arth Felcite
He pushed through the doorway avoiding his Mother. The woman was truly obsessive he’d known her for fourteen years and now he knew to avoid her. Naulo laughed patting his shoulder
“Bare with it.”
Arth huffed looking around and leaning against the wall. “Hey Cillia we’re here!” Naulo yelled. Arth coughed lightly, the Hayder’s house was the second largest in town with two stories and an extension into the family’s smithy. Micho Hayder head of the family and the father of both Cillia and Nimmia as well as the youngest daughter Tallia (The man had a rather blunt naming sense) was a giant of a man standing just shy of seven feet and nearly half as broad, people said he had the blood of giants but I doubted that, Giants and Cyclops’s tended to know how to shave or were naturally bald I’d have said Micho had more in common with the dwarves considering the beard that hung to his waist, which was rather impractical for a smith. He was currently sitting at the family dinning table sipping from a mug that was miniscule in comparison to his immense form. Though he seemed to be fairly relaxed today.
“She’s upstairs tinkering with some enchantments.” He rumbled his voice weary, he’d probably pulled an all nighter on a rush job or something similar, Arth had spent years in this house watching him work. He respected the man for his craft if nothing else.
“Let’s go.” Arth sighed climbing up the stairs with his cane. Micho nodded looking Arth in the eyes “Make sure to knock, you know what she’s like.” He smiled at the heavyset man and nodded. Arth had always liked Micho, he was one of the few people who didn’t look at him with pity.
The duo walked up the stairs making their way to a side room. They knocked twice before a heavy grunt was heard from inside. Arth entered first looking about the mess of the room. Books and scrolls along with many reference notes were scattered around the room. Cillia was hunched over at her desk an ink brush in her hand. Cillia was short more resembling her mother more than her father, though she was slender and had a shock of red hair held back by white cloth wrapped around her forehead. Arth spoke up.
“So what’s this latest project, you must be pretty stuck, if you’re willing to ask me for help. Where’s that stubborn pride.” Cillia was just a beginner at magic and hadn’t graftuated to the point where she could cast silently. so she was limited to using incantations, magical circles and runes among other techniques.
“I want your opinion before I use it.” She huffed. She had always hated asking Arth for help, she was a couple of months older than him and always hated it when anyone did better than her. She was incapable of accepting his knowledge of magic was better than hers even though she had more intelligence points in her stat (seeing as she had reached level three recently and invested all her stats into intelligence meaning she was just smarter than me) it didn’t help her studies though.
“Everything seems up to scratch at first glance.” Arth muttered grabbing her work and sitting on the floor. It was a runic tree a series of many lines connecting runes the lines denoting the flow of magic, similar to circuitry. He pulled out a quill and an inkpot he always carried with him. “The efficiency is low though, you need to have darker runes with clearer drawings. He removed a piece of paper a tenth the size of her drawing. Naulo leaned over to watch as Cillia huffed looking at him with discontent. His hands scrawled across the page flowing, he’d taken her designs and using his own knowledge compounded the many singular branches of the spell into a single array (which happened to be his specialty) taking minor information from sigil magic to improve the flow of mana through the spell. He handed it over after making a second copy for himself in case she ruined the current one (which seeing as how her specialty was fire and the rune was drawn on paper was pretty likely) he grinned at her.
“Don’t show off, my sister is a better spell caster than you will ever be.”
“Hmm, we’ll see about that!” Arth laughed.
“Don’t get too big for your boots.” Naulo warned.
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Anna Felcite
She was making her way home, the wind low shaking the grass. The air was warm even for summer though it lacked the humidity that usually came with it. She was thankful Arth tended to get muscle pains when the weather was too damp. In the distance she could see something coming.
Less than a mile away, men on horse and they were riding fast. She knew what she was seeing immediately the weapons the blades, they may have lacked any identifying crest but it was clear who these men were. She dropped her shopping, the wicker basket warping and breaking apart as it hit the ground. She began to move, back towards the village as fast as she could. They had roughly ten minutes to prepare for what awaited them.
She was scared, scared for her son, scared for her village, scared for her life.
“Attack!” She screamed looking left and right. “From the North-East: riders coming in, over a hundred. Everyone run, we have to escape!” From the stunned crowd they appeared like shadows, several men in heavy black cloaks carrying small blades.
Confirming the foe that they were to face. Anna grit her teeth, the first one approached her dagger slashing out pale green flames leaving the steel blade. Anna stepped back and grabbed the mans hand sending a pulse of inverted healing magic through his body. He collapsed right there and then. Her ability to reverse healing magic was something most healers possessed, of course it was limited but against foes like these, lacking any form of projectile weapon, she was unstoppable. Another two leapt forwards slashing towards her. She avoided their attacks as the crowd immediately turned to run. She ended up delivering a strike to the bodies of one of the men, his mouth beginning to foam as he fell backwards. Any weakness in the body she could manipulate to destroy a person, to her a common cold was a blade in its sheath just waiting for her to let it free and run havoc through a living body. The final one approached stabbing at her neck. She avoided the riposte and placed her hand on his chest, his rib cage cracking as her mana invaded his body. Then she felt it, a small pinprick on her neck, she fell forwards her body striking the stones. But not before seeing the burly form of Micho appearing behind the man that had attacked her from the crowd the darts in his hand scattered through the air the bright plumage making them spin as they fell as a rain of blood flew from the assailant.
Anna blacked out.