In the Land of the Blind
Arc 1 - Explosion
Chapter 1: Summoning
His back laid on the cold stone floor, for a moment he felt that he would never move a muscle ever again, he could barely make head or tails out of the situation, his mind felt as foggy as his vision.
His body twitched as he started to move his arm up to reach his eyes, resting above them were a pair of glasses, useless at the moment, no crystal was resting in the frames. The young man was extremely confused at this.
‘...did they pop out when I fell back? And how did I fall back into here?...’
As he moved the hand away from his face the pain suddenly jolted through his body, making him feel like every nerve ending had been stabbed by a red hot needle, accompanied with the smell of charred hair, cloth and flesh made him think the worst.
The excruciating sensation and strange situation made him look down at his body, and what was left of his clothes. Over half of them had been easily burnt down to smoking rags, the front half, the movements he just had done made most of the ashes move away to expose the untouched skin.
‘...what happened to me?...’
He tried to look around, each movement visibly bringing him enough pain to stop him from moving faster, but he either got used to it or it simply disappeared, because he was soon making quicker and faster movements.
He looked around, his neck moving as little as possible as his eyes managed to get some focus on the room he was in, the walls were marble white, almost without any blemish, so pure looking that one would be afraid of sullying them with a simple touch, the ceiling was sculpted simply but with great craftsmanship, a simple geometric design on the same white marble.
After looking around the room some more, the man managed a few conclusions; The room was around 25 or 30 square meters, the floor wasn’t white, but instead a deep black, so opposite to the white marble of the walls that one would fear getting sucked into the void.
As for second conclusion there was no actual way of falling into this room, the only set of doors were not only closed, but they also were a set of big and heavy stone doors, meaning he had either laid back on the floor or had been carried inside.
Third he noticed the black marble floor wasn’t completely dark, there was a strange smoking, white material drawing some kind of design on the floor, somehow similar to the one imprinted on the ceiling.
The last thing he noticed was a young girl laying on the floor not far outside the circle on the ground, in front of her was a small golden bowl, a few wisps of colored smoke rose from it.
‘...Did she suffer the same as me? It doesn’t look like her clothes are as burnt as mine…’
His slow movements brought him to his knees, the position revealed that his clothes were mostly okay on the back, sadly the lack of their front side made them start to fall off his body, one of his few lucky moments was that his belt had survived whatever had destroyed the rest of his garment, and the thick leather piece held some grace to cover his lower area as he tried to walk over to the female laying on the floor.
Of course he would get one unlucky and another lucky moment in short succession, as something hard and blunt hit him hard and quick on the back of his head, making him fall down again. This had been an unlucky moment. As for the lucky moment, he had passed out before his face hit down first on the cold stone floor hard enough to break his nose, maybe this was another unlucky moment.
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A few moments prior, in the same room…
The young women sighed once more, she had been against the ritual from the start, not only forced to lead it against her wishes, but also forced to use her own money to pay for the materials.
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Well, not her money, but her city's Treasury. This young women, who now stood alone in this white and black stone chamber, in front of a large pattern drawn on the ground with expensive ground gems, wearing a light white dress, her name was Crystalline, first daughter of the late Duke Bera.
It's not more than six months ago when her father passed away in mysterious circumstances and the months ago when the King had decided to push forward with the Hero summoning project, forcing all cities of the kingdom to use their own money to each one summon a hero.
Her father had been one of the strongest opponents to this project, stating that a good number of cities didn't had enough to produce a good summoning for lack of resources.
The disappearance of her father from the political scene lead the opposition to quickly do too, retiring, naming successors or changing opinions.
Didn't help that the royal alchemist and Arch mage to offer multiple tiers of summoning ritual. Forcing a good number of the opposition to accept.
Even then, her city was the poorest, standing just next to the Death Peaks. The bad water, poor soil, ghastly woods and dangerous mines gave this city small revenue. Making this forced expenditure to put the city deep down in the red.
‘...And for what!? The amount expended was just enough to get the most basic level of ritual. Enough magic energy to bestow the summoned hero with a healthy and slightly above average body, not even a Divine Blessing and this city has long lost it's artifact on the ancient war.’
She could only sigh deeply, she hoped that the poor victim of this scheme was kind enough to not blame her for the situation, she was promising she would extend a helping hand to him to try and help him survive
A deep breath could be heard on the almost empty room, doors had been locked for the procedure as she started to channel her will through the summoning circle on the ground, the many precious gems on the golden bowl in front of her released a strong luminescence.
She could feel her grasp on the spell escape her, the circle using her to channel the mana on the ambient and mixing it with the inherent magic on the many colored stones she had sacrificed the treasure of her city to acquire.
Then, the unexpected, as the whole design on the ground lighted up, overpowering the dimming magic bulbs on the room the suddenly explosive noise drowned everything in the room, a ring of air pressure exploded from the center of the array, hitting her and sending her tumbling back a few meters as something heavy hit the ground, a smoking body now laid on the ground.
The gems had extinguished their light, crumbling down into smoking dust, similar to the ceiling of the closed room, the summoning circle’s design had carved itself on it, the magic and the explosion had made a white powder fall down and redrawing the design on the ground around the body.
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After a few moments the door opened, a slightly hunched over figure walked into the room carrying a heavy-looking staff on her hand, the old woman looked at the situation, her eyes stopping first on the unmoving women, noticing her still breathing her eyes moved back to the man, watching him start to react.
The old woman had heard the explosion, knowing instantly that it wasn’t the expected reaction for the event, she still had to unlock the door before coming inside, the resulting scene put her at a bad mood, she held a similar point of view to the Duke’s Daughter about how things were going.
‘...Oh no, you aren’t moving till I hear what she has to say…’
The woman moved forward and skillfully hit the back of the man’s head as he started to stand up, also hearing quite well the crunch sound of a nose breaking with the weight of the falling body.
‘...well, better ask for forgiveness if he does remember this, after all, this man should be our hero…’