Suta POV

Encapsulated within a narrow, dark tunnel,

Their footfalls echoed hollowly as they descended flight after flight of ancient steps hewn from the living rock.

"There is an old adage,"

Baba's reedy voice rang out, shattering the oppressive silence.

"In a sense, we are all like the life cycles of the farm. There is an appointed time for every endeavor under the stars.

A time to harvest, to plant, to irrigate, to till the unyielding soil. Just as there is a time for silence...and a time to impart wisdom."

Suta listened raptly, feeling his heartbeat steadily beat with caution and a thin sense of lingering fear as he tried to observe the stony walls along their descent.

"You have been under my guidance since you were newly come into this world, Little Su. And I must admit, nurturing your growth from helpless babe to the remarkable young man before me...it stands as one of my greatest achievements."

'Oh right, I did wonder about that. What her relationship was to my...I mean Suta's Mother, and also Demoria and me. Since we did call her Granny all the time. Did she have any children?'

Suta listened carefully.

He could hear the serenity within Old Baba's voice. The stoned steps continued to fall towards the darkness. And he couldn't see her face too well beneath the surrounding shadows. Only the profile of her silhouette and her voice guided him.

"I don't think I've mentioned it much in the past, in truth in the last 50 or so years I haven't seen any of my daughters. Sigh …another one of my many regrets."

"How many daughters do you have?" Suta asked curiously

"I have 4…and they're all Rank 3 Arcanists if that's what you were wondering. I would've hoped at least one of them would eventually reach the heights I did. But then again I have had to make sacrifices that others might see as inhumane.

My disconnect with my children is proof of that."

"If you don't mind me asking… what happened between you and your daughters?" Suta asked,

As the fiery lamps bathed the descending stairwell in a lurid crimson glow, Suta listened intently to the wistful melancholy suffusing Baba's gravelly tones. There was true remorse there, regrets accumulated over a long life of harsh choices and severed bonds.

"My own choices happened. Once you've chosen to commit yourself to a lonely road. Your only option is to see it to the end, so listen to me well Little Su, if ever comes a time where you must decide on choosing the path towards your ambitions, or the path towards the good of love.

Try to think about it more than once before choosing a way.

Some choices we make can never be rewritten."

'She speaks of the sacrifices her path demanded, putting ambition before family, before love itself. Is that the inevitable price for ascending the uppermost arcane heights? A loneliness and isolation so total that even your own kin become untethered?'

A shudder traced his spine at the thought.

Was this to be his destiny as well if he fully committed to unraveling the Arcane mysteries?

The face of Ringo appeared in his thoughts. He shook his head from side to side, reinforcing his fears that all of this was to bring his family back.

"Oh, we've arrived…I tend to forget this stairwell isn't so far away from the crypt." Granny spoke in the darkness.

Suta heard the word crypt and needed to rethink if the name matched what he pictured in his head. But just like Granny Baba had said, they finally placed their soles against leveled ground. The stoned walls expanded welcoming a large oval-shaped room filled with exactly what Suta imagined a magic crypt would look like.

A mysterious blue fire surrounded the room, with pylons etched with eldritch sigils, dusty sarcophagi ringing the walls, and in the center...some form of strange altar or plinth, its dark surface shimmering with an ominous glint.

Swallowing thickly, Suta turned to his wizened mentor. Granny Baba gave him a placid nod in response.

The crypt's oppressive atmosphere seemed to intensify with every step Suta took further into the unhallowed chamber. Then, without warning, an indescribable heaviness slammed into him - a smothering, glacial force akin to a mountain's full weight crushing down mercilessly.

He crumpled instantly, bones creaking in protest as his body folded and slumped bonelessly to the ground. Agony lanced through him, stealing his breath as Death's icy talons gripped his very soul.

This was a darkness blacker than any night, a cold so infinite it threatened to extinguish his very essence.

Through a grey haze, Suta watched as Granny Baba withdrew a peculiar wand from her robes.

A14-inch length of wood, black as oblivion itself and slightly curved. With a solemn wave and spoken incantation, the wizened woman commanded,

"Quell your wrath, Queen of Tyranny. We come in peace."

Like a sudden rush of warm wind, the pressure lifted.

Suta gasped, sweat-matted hair plastered to his brow as the debilitating force dissipated.

On shaking limbs, he regained his feet, chest heaving with relieved pants.

"Fufufu, I should have warned you of the Wrath of Tyranny," Baba cackled, though her eye noticeably shone with concern.

"The...what?" Suta wheezed, still reeling.

"A lesson for the days ahead," she replied, her aged features hardening.

"Most secret sanctums like this contain potent wardings, entities that sense the ward caster's presence. If they detect an intruder, they unleash terrible, baleful energies upon the defiler."

Suta shuddered the moment he heard that.

"Most Arcanists employ mastered countermeasures to disarm such malefic surprises," Baba continued. "But their effectiveness depends wholly upon the nature of the lair itself..."

It took Suta a little while to overcome the aftereffects of that sudden downpour of heavy force. Once his body was able to move again, he was finally able to take in his bizarre surroundings properly.

"Wh-what is this place?" he asked softly, just about recovered from that earlier attack

"This…you can call this place my secret lair…fufufu not what you'd expect to find beneath a farm ey? In truth, this place far proceeds even myself. I imagine its over 200 years old give or take."

'200 years old? So how old are you then!'

Suta thought to himself harrowingly.

Taking a few moments to steady his nerves he glanced around the dimly lit, cavernous room.

The ominous blue flames encircling the walls cast an eerie, flickering glow, making the shadows dance like twisted beings. His eyes were instantly drawn to the life-sized stone busts with their grimacing draconian visages.

If Suta didn't know better, he would have certainly considered this place to be some kind of crypt dedicated to dragons. The very notion of dragons was enough to stir a troubling feeling in his gut.

"I discovered it only a few years after securing the deed to this farmland. At that time I was trying in vain to distance myself from the Arcane world. Discovering this lair only reminded me of a famous saying…"

Suta observed the old woman's side profile and asked curiously.

"What's that then?"

A deep sigh exhaled through Granny Baba's lips "You cannot run away from fate Little Su"

Baba flicked her crudely shaped wand and the blue fire stirred and grew a little fiercer.

"Now then, shall we see what fate has in store for you?"

***

Five obsidian slabs shimmered with an unnatural, polished sheen, each adorned with a myriad of tiny engravings and runes inscribed along their surfaces. Atop each slab was an arch-shaped groove, giving them an unsettling resemblance to ancient gravestones or dark altars.

"Wh-What in the realms are those things?" The words slipped from Suta's lips in an awed hush, his gaze refusing to peel itself away from the towering monoliths.

"Hm? Oh-yes, I completely forgot to warn you about that. These are an old replica of what we Arcanists call the Five Rites of Power .

In short when an Arcanist starts off learning about Arcane and the studies of incantations. The first step is deciphering which of the five languages you're fluent in."

Suta's racing heart began to calm slightly when Granny mentioned that, and he could start to draw connections from the information stored in his mind about the five languages to the imposing scene before him.

He took a few breaths to calm himself down.

'So coincidentally, this farm contained a place where one could discover which language they were fluent in?' A mocking smile appeared as he thought of that

"Ok, wh-what do you want me to do now?" He had already guessed their impromptu journey down here was for his sake.

So he understood accepting things might get him out of this eerie place quicker.

He saw Granny nodding her head whilst a sly smirk creased against her aged features

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Focus your breathing. Breathe in through your nostrils and out through your mouth. Make sure you're counting to 8 during each phase. I'm guessing you already know how to channel Mana through your body? despite your bodily problems, you only need a small amount directed towards your eyes. And once you open your eyes, Tell me exactly what you see."

Suta followed Granny Baba's instructions, focusing his awareness inward as he regulated his breathing. In through the nostrils, held for eight steady counts. Out through pursed lips, another eight-count exhalation. He repeated this cyclical pattern several times, feeling his heart rate gradually slow and synch with this rhythmic flow.

As he did so, Suta sensed something, a formless sensation reaching down into the wellspring of his dormant core, slumbering in a pool of blood like a stillborn fetus.

Sensing the faint thrumming of latent mana, that crystallized spiritual essence residing within every living being. He envisioned it as a warm, viscous fluid pooling thick and languid in his lower abdomen. Cautiously, carefully, he guided a mere trickle of that power upward along his scarcely even thick enough meridian pathways until it gathered behind his eyes in a gentle, tingling concentration.

When next he opened his eyelids, the dim crypt chamber's reality seemed to shift before his mana-infused sight. Strange, faintly pulsating motes now dusted every surface, fading in and out of his perception like dust mites winking at the edge of his vision. The vaulted space around him had also fallen utterly silent, a sublime hush of held breath.

The room had also fallen deftly quiet. He looked behind him and saw Granny Baba standing beside the stoned altar. Her cane held beneath her wrinkled palms. Her lips creased into a warm smile. She nodded approvingly towards him.

Suta wet his dry lips before he spoke.

"I...I see the surroundings differently now," he murmured in a hushed tone,

'Particles of light everywhere, pulsing in and out almost like...like a living organism's breath.

Suta understood what he needed to do. His gaze roved over the towering obsidian monoliths, studying them with intense focus. After devouring the contents of Granny Baba's arcane notes these last few nights, he understood the basics of this initial rite.

The initial first sequence of understanding which ancient language he might be attuned to. There should be a change of the particles surrounding the monoliths into readable verses.

His eyes moved from stone to stone.

He was expectant. But nothing seemed to change.

Suta started to grow anxious, perhaps he truly wasn't destined to learn Arcane and its mystic powers? The thought sent a sinking feeling as heavy as lead weighing through his gut.

And then he remembered that fish bowl head's advice about finding his family. And if he desired to stand any chance to accomplish what he had willed to do within this world, he needed to learn Arcane.

'Focus!' he admonished himself sternly, forcing his mind away from such distracting existential plagues. 'This isn't the time for doubts or ponderings.'

Instead, Suta's thoughts turned inward, to the cherished faces of his mother, his father, and his beloved sister Ringo. He poured every ounce of his fierce determination into his gaze, eyes practically searing into the enigmatic monoliths as if she could unveil their mysteries through searing willpower alone.

'I can't fail here. I WON'T fail here! What would become of them if I falter at this first hurdle?'

The minutes ticked by in dreadful silence. Finally, Baba's reedy voice crept up from behind - a sad, resigned tone that dropped an icy slick of dread down Suta's spine.

"Little Su...perhaps we should re-evaluate your path. Not all are-"

"No!"

The vehement refusal bounded from his lips, stunning even himself with its passionate intensity. Suta's eyes remained locked on the monoliths, his body taut as a bowstring and fists clenched even tighter until his knuckles shone pale.

"I'm fine, I...I can do this, I just..." He trailed off, frustration and doubt swirling in his soft breaths.

'Think, damn it! What am I missing here? I can't be useless, there has to be some reason I was chosen for this path! But what...?'

Those familiar cogs within his mind began to spin their wheels furiously. Suta's gaze widened into a frozen mask, and suddenly he could see those countless pages covered in lines of scribbles and symbols appearing throughout his gaze.

"Wait!" Suta's hoarse shout shattered the oppressive silence as a flicker of epiphany blossomed.

Inhaling deeply, he seized upon the sudden feeling and held that precious breath. In the cloak of darkness behind his eyelids, something ephemeral began to stir...

He took a deep inhale in and held his breath again.

Within the stillness of his ceased breath and the cloak of soothing darkness surrounding him. Something started to change.

'Think about what I can already see.

Within my mind, if I focus...I-i-knew it...to see with your mind's eye, rather than what your naked eye can see.

Faith...belief...I have all the numbers and formulas but I'm missing the last piece. I've always missed it. My father said it, my mother, ...Ringo also said it.

Have faith in the unseen.'

Suta reflected on the first principles he obtained from that fellow within the carriage.

Mana

‎ Intent

‎ Connection

‎ Knowledge

‎ Willpower

‎ Exchange

‎ Belief

‎ Balance

‎ Adaptation

The world had already given him the keys, he just needed to believe in himself...and open the door.

'it all makes sense...this test, it's not just simply trying to understand the Ancient languages. it's...it's actually casting my first incantation!

Suta's eyes snapped open.

His gaze immediately fell towards the further pillar on the left, he focused and carried out the same thing his mind could do each time he lay down against that uncomfortable bed every night.

'I have been here over 100 days. What felt like a gentle dream, days passed by.

'But each night I refocused my thoughts, I created those clouds, my mind palace where all my memories and parts of my inner self remained.

Every night I saw the clouds,

I saw the Arcane.'

Suta's gaze suddenly fell into a serene look, his eyelids remained half-opened as he took in the pillars once more.

Against the polished black stone, he saw the particles changing, forming coherent strings of letters and words.

Bizarrely enough, Suta could vaguely understand what these symbols meant. A delight burst free from his heart as tears welled against his brightened eyes once more.

Suta began translating the unfolding words in glittering emerald runes.

"What defines a man, and how does an elf compare?

Are we strangers to one another, or do we share a deeper kinship?

Despite our undeniable differences, we are united by the grace of the omnipresent forces of nature and spirit that envelop us all.

In this unity, we find ourselves intertwined with the mysteries that are woven into the very fabric of our existence, immortalized in the memories and essence of both the spirits long forgotten and those that walk among us today… - This is the way of Roda

"A-amazing!" Suta could barely utter any words,

His voice drifted through the cold silence, feeling his entire body shivering out of untold disbelief as he could now understand one of the cryptic languages written across one of the five slabs of black stone.

"Hm? So you can see something Little Su?" Granny's voice brightened as her footsteps approached him.

"How marvelous fufufu it seems my intuition was right about you. Despite you not possessing the physical talents. You have the gift of sight. Now tell me… which of the five languages revealed themselves to you then."

Suta felt a great satisfaction brewing within his entire body,

'Finally...I can read incantations now...heh-ehe-heh-Finally!'

Just as he was poised to speak, his voice was silenced by the sudden realization of a noticeable change in the different particles arranged along the remaining four pillars.

The second pillar was enveloped in silvery texts, the third in a set of crimson particles, and the fourth and fifth in dazzling blue and yellow, respectively.

And just like the first pillar, he could vividly read the words appearing against each one.

"Long gone are the days when we ruled the world, brought low by the Children of the Gods, our once formidable adversaries.

Our lives, fragile as they may be, find us standing tall, our spirits soaring high as the clouds. Let our righteous anger surge, a tempest over the accursed lands, for we are destined to rise again, to recline against the mountaintops, in eternal repose."

‎ - This is the way of Jotunn

"Our seas, ablaze, flow with rivers of flames.

Our rolling hills bristle with spikes of bleached bones. Where darkness masquerades as dawn, unshakeable we stand, in defiance of the light's curses.

Their hatred is fueled by hypocrisy, yet we remain mighty, enduring as a thorn in their side, forevermore."

‎ - This is the way of Aexyr

‎

‎"From the ashes, we rise reborn. Majestically, our lives are arrayed like rubies, with a kindled fire of resolve nestled in our bosoms. With words of power, we speak as our tears mend what has been shattered. Born from ashes to ashes we shall one day return."

‎ -- This is the way of Valgeara

‎

‎"Our breaths blaze like the sun, our scales, rugged and verdant, mirror the earth. Our blood, life-giving, courses through the land as rivers, and our hearts harbor ancient mysteries, unfathomable and deep.

Let no being claim to comprehend our mighty ways. Majestic and profound, we stand unparalleled. Bound by the earth or the sky, flightless or soaring, we are united. We are one. We are Draco-kin."

‎ -- This is the way of Dhavonkim

"Little su…what do you see?" Granny's voice broke the ravine of silence through his mind.

The milky-warm voice laced with slight concern snapped him free from his daze.

Suta almost awoke to the realization he was standing in a gloomy dark crypt again. He touched his forehead and looked visibly shaken once he saw the amount of sweat wetting his fingertips.

Only Suta truly understood that for the last five minutes, he had no control of himself. As though he was trapped in an ethereal trance. Unable to think nor speak but merely rehash the words written across each slab of black stone within his mind.

On one hand, he knew that his ability to communicate with the ancient words of power meant he could interpret and speak incantations. But on the other hand, he was almost certain that he was supposed to be able to see the contents written on just a single slab of stone, not multiple.

"Gr-granny…" Suta's voice brokenly ached free.

"Go on Little Su- what is it?"

"I can see…ah... well...I can see...all the five ancient languages."