Hidden from the world beneath a summer blizzard sat a cabin nestled in the northern mountains. From its warm interior, a young girl stared out through the window as she watched the snowfall as it blanketed the world before her.
The snow made her vision of the outside world, but that did nothing to stop her from seeing a person outside. A boy hardly older than her, gaunt and dressed in rags. He stumbled, his path stained red with blood. No, the girl’s eyes played tricks on her. The boy left a trail of red but wasn’t bleeding.
“So Joulo, last I heard you had people moving into your mountains. How has that been?” The young girl at the window turned away at hearing her mother’s voice. She wasn’t talking to the girl at the window, but to her older sister at the table.
“Oh, it’s not bad, not as much mana as I was expecting from their worship. Little weird to feel them build their houses and plant their fields, though,” Joulo, her big sister, stretched out to relax as she chatted. No sign of worry was present in her voice, “guess my domain of mountain peaks doesn’t care for civilization all that much, but they are kinda cute so I don’t mind.”
Having forgotten about the boy outside the window, the young girl approach the adults as they chatted. She tried nestling up to her mother’s side, but found it difficult as a non-existent breeze constantly fluffed her mother’s apron.
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten about you Jul,” the old goddess of the wind said as she kneeled down to meet her daughter’s gaze. “I know pretty soon you are going to be old enough for your own domain. I heard there isn’t a god of winter festivities, so does the goddess of Yule sound pleasant to you?”
“She is more likely to take the name Joule,” her sister spoke up from across the table. “Which is a fine domain, forever fed by those warm moments of happiness shared around the fire. Might even own some food to enjoy every time a mortal eats those winter treats.”
That didn’t sound like a terrible domain to have for Jul. A god who encouraged those happy moments around a fire as the cold set in. She glanced at her own hearth, watching as the fire flickered against the marble tile. The stone almost seemed to glow with an internal light, as if it was a holy relic.
The realization was slow, but like a building storm, the sight of hollowed marble could not be stopped. She didn’t want it to be true; she didn’t want to accept it.
Here in the warm cabin, she felt safe. She had the family she hadn’t seen in a hundred- No, she couldn’t think about that. She tried to ignore the nagging feeling, the sense of dread at knowing how this day ended. Here in this cabin, she was happy.
It was the thought of the boy outside that made her move those legs that belonged to a child. She was safe, but he wasn’t. She threw herself at the window and peered out, searching. Beyond the veil, a boy clung to life by digesting his own organs as he tried to leave the Joulo mountain range.
Jol was at the door in an instant, ready to take those irrevocable steps that would have brought her out, into the cold. Yet she hesitated. The blizzard had let up, and another god, ancient and withered, had found the boy and helped him complete his journey. His attempts had earned him a celestial patron, he was safe.
The boy was safe, and the girl in the cabin was happy, but that was not the case for everyone. The boy was not happy, nor was the girl safe. If Jol wanted to help, she needed to accept that these mountains were poisonous to the gods. Demonic energy lingered in these lands like smoke.
With a sigh, the girl, once named Jol, accepted that she could not hide in her memories any longer. She stood up straight, growing to her full height, even if it was not much taller than when she was a child. Now grown, the goddess Joulo turned to her oldest sister, the first Joulo, and recited the same vow she made the day she received her domain.
“I am Joulo, the inheritor. My domain is a collection of things not my own; my first possession is a world beyond repair, but under my watch, no one will ever be forgotten.” She met her sister’s glassy gaze, as the world fade around them. “You won’t be forgotten,” she whispered to herself.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
As meek as she was most days, Joulo had never been the type to abandon others. Not the dead, not the living.
She would need more help than she could ever receive, but the same held true for others. She would always stumble and fall, but she now had friends. Their influence filled her domain, as the grass grew unchecked and birds soared through the sky.
These memories reminded her why she walked this path. Confidence was a long way off, but determination had planted the seed. It was time for her to wake up.
----------------------------------------
Gods, corrupters, death, and winter all swirled around to become one as they affected the mortals below. The ideas found their way into people’s subconscious- into their dreams- to be forgotten by the next morning by all but one.
Samu Silverbolt groaned heavily as he woke up, his head aching from a dream he couldn’t remember. The feeling of forgetting something important nagged at him. Mana had pooled along his spine and was strained by his efforts to remember, yet he could only find that his detection wards had activated. A malicious force was stealing mana from the mountains.
Covered in sweat, Samu sat up in his bed, his movements slow and deliberate. He took a full minute to study his reflection in the full-body mirror next to his bed. Wrinkled skin, hair a pale silver, it was the face of an old man he recognized. The only issue was that his eyes were different. A shade darker than the orange they were the night before, almost brown to all but the most studious of onlookers.
Relieved he still recognized himself, the old man that had only reached the age of twenty the year prior reached for his cane. There was a comfort in the slender form of the narrow rod that doubled as a staff, a constant with its geometric shapes carved into its surface. It was a constant in his life, the hum as magic flowed through it was a comfort in his life.
Too much comfort…
His hand fit perfectly around the handle, more so than it had the night prior. A glance down at his hands told him everything he needed to know. They had changed. Stretched to the point of resembling needles in the weeks prior, his hands had gained a new feature. Each finger sported a fourth joint, allowing for a better grip with his elongated hands.
‘The incanter of intent,’ the mage thought to himself, ‘the most powerful of mages. Fueled by the subconscious to warp reality. Now, if only my powers could be controlled.’ It was a thought he had every day, yet despite the repetition he thought the words slowly, to not let his emotions rain unchecked.
Cane in hand, the once-human stood, testing his balance. His magic had a way of altering his body, changing everything except for the clubbed foot he had been born with. A grin crept across his face as he realized today the pain was manageable. The lack of pain made it all the easier to fix a smile on his face as he left his room, ready to face the day.
His friends had already gathered in the common room by the time he entered. He gave a nod to Thalman and Gozric as they discussed something regarding money. Not too concerned with the topic, Samu took a seat at the table where Ink’el had prepared breakfast.
“Another late night?” she asked as she set a plate of potatoes down in front of him. He nodded to the half-elf, too focused on her aura of synesthesia to give her a proper response. The air was filled with the smell of citrus and smell of flowers, with the food being unspiced potatoes with music baked in. Identifying the extra senses helped his mind from wandering and taking his magic with it.
“Oh Sam,” Thaliman turned to him between bites of his food. “I was just telling the others, but I figured with the mountains probably being a cauldron, I sold the information we collected to a guild in the next city over.”
Suddenly, the conversation about how to spend money made a lot more sense.
“The rapid changes to the environment and flow of mana almost guarantees it,” Gozric agreed with Thaliman. “Between the slime and the sizes of the ants, I’m certain the gods blessed the mountains.”
Cauldrons, the inexplicable situation where life blooms, pure enough to heighten reality. An oasis of purity that would draw enough people to create cities on the fringe of the ecosystem. The place would have everything one needs - pure metal, great food, and a perfect spot to practice spellcasting. A location so valuable any knowledge of it would always be sold.
“There is a momentary issue with that…” Samu felt bad ruining the atmosphere, but they had to know. “The mountains are under attack. Someone is draining the mana.”
The eyes of his friends told him everything he needed to know. They were excited, which meant there was a lot of walking in his near future. He may not be as excited by the idea, but their enthusiasm was infectious.
“Let me guess,” the elf said without looking over. “You two are already packed?”
They were.