As the sun sets, timidly hiding behind the gray clouds, the cheers and hoorays that were present barely an hour ago could be heard no more. The wind swiftly ran through the tall grass up to the branches of the few trees in the plains, the sound of branches and leaves striking at each other echoed all around the plains along with the crickets cries, the wind - as much of a natural artist it could be-, however, could do nothing besides brush past the clothes of the three men standing in the middle of this scenery.
Two of them, Neutral and the unnamed merchant, were facing the third, a little of annoyance present on their faces. The man on the receiving end of this annoyed stare was simply smiling, almost smirking. After a few seconds, Neutral sighed and asked.
"You know, friend. You could at least give us the pleasure of a warning before doing something like that."
"I thought it was obvious something like this would happen? Also, call me Cagliostro while we are here. Oh, let's not forget that I'm in France, sorry you guys had to come all the way here for nothing." The man's face was finally painted with a full-fledged smirk now.
"The fact that we had no idea of what would happen is still here." Neutral simply ignored the second part of what 'Cagliostro' said.
"I won't say I'm sorry, just so you know." The cicadas finally decided to join the crickets in their nightly orchestra, a pity that they are much louder than the crickets and ended simply drowning the other's cries.
The merchant lightly shook his head at that, then saying.
"This will change nothing, Neutral. Even if he hadn't done anything we would still come to the conclusion that it's impossible to save the target here without erasing the strength he would otherwise have in the future."
"You are probably right." Neutral sighed. "Since it is indeed so, we need to proceed to the next place he appears, we need to enter hell."
The merchant frowned. "We won't be able to enter that place without the Legendaries' knowledge. If the harbinger itself comes to stop us, it'll be our end."
In order to prove he was thinking as hard as he could, 'Cagliostro' started to scratch his chin, the smirk was still there, though. After a few seconds, he had another genius idea.
"I know!" He said, pointing upwards while emphasizing his words. "Why don't we... simply send some souls that could engage with our 'target' and be done with it? It's not like we can do anything else."
The nameless merchant had to agree with the latter part, there was really nothing that they could directly do in hell. Still...
"Which poor souls will we be sending then?" The merchant once again shook his head.
"We can always see something out on the Labirynth. Can't we, Clarks." 'Cagliostro' turned to look at Neutral, who seemed to be seriously considering the idea.
"We may be able to work with that. Also, call me Neutral, by my other friends' request, this name must be spread throughout the world."
"Yeah! It surely must." Laughed 'Cagliostro', who then turned away from the other two and started to mumble to himself. "Now, who do I work as? Another ingenious scammer? Nah, this will get bored. Perhaps some old 'memes' are in order? That sure would be nice, not in the contemporary age, though. I always hated the past." His smirk went as far as it could go as 'Cagliostro' found his first 'victim'.
After Neutral spoke a bit with the merchant he took, out of nowhere, a sphere the size of a hand that shone with all the colors of the rainbow and threw it just a meter in front of him. The sphere seemed to explode with a colorful flash before turning into a portal, the other side full of walls that had the same brilliance and color as the sphere, these walls stretched forwards and upwards beyond of what the human eyes could see.
Neutral turned and said to the other two, who were just waiting for permission.
"Then, my friends, let us proceed to the next act of our plan. If it is possible to call it that."
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There was much that could happen in a year, like the king and queen being jailed after their failed attempt at containing the uprising, like countless supporters of the absolute monarchy restlessly trying to gain power once more and ultimately failing.
Like the peaceful time that Andrew was able to have with his wife and daughter, like the fact that he kept seeing illusions for seemingly no reason and was slowly getting tired out even when his insecurity with guilt was already fading away. Random visions of the walls on his home burning to ashes appearing to him when he was alone in one of the rooms, sometimes a voice saying something like: "It is far too late for you to be saved."
The latter being the most horrifying thing of every single change that happened. A shadow cursing him for bearing a burden he was not capable of taking by himself was one thing, the state of his mind was truly far too damaged to take the immense worry of both his family's life and innocent farmers that he sent out to possibly die, but Andrew couldn't - for a single second - accept that the voice, with that tone that was surely both mocking and foreseeing his future, was another one of his mind's creation. There was nothing he could do to prove so to himself, but for whatever reason, he just couldn't accept it.
This feeling of being in a stranger's hands your whole life rekindled the paranoia that started the studies of many magicians, Andrew fell into the studies of magic that he once dropped, not many results to defend himself since the beginning stages of the offensive runes are mostly 'siege weapons', and other than group runic spell, a suicide bomber was all he could be with his low achievements in magic.
However, this was the first time that Andrew realized just how much could change in two whole years. The supporters of the past monarchy were, one by one, arrested and promptly executed along with their families - no mercy, even the children -, the king and queen trying to run to the queen's birthplace and also being caught and thereafter executed, the fact that his father tried to side with a supporter of the monarchy to safely move Andrew and family out of the borders and that such supporter was caught.
You see, people invading properties of nobles and big merchants that sided with the king was a fact even before the Fall of Lugubre, but since the king was arrested, things went one step further. When a person is suspected of crimes against the State, said person is immediately interrogated to find anyone that could be working with the suspect, after the interrogation, the suspect is immediately executed and they go after those close to him and those who took part in whatever activities that led to the first imprisonment.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
This really means that not even the children of the perpetrator were spared, one thing that Andrew admonished but didn't have the courage to oppose by himself. However, the fact that those tasked with investigating went away and beyond with their efforts of 'cleansing' meant one thing.
After catching wind of what happened to Trevor when he failed to covertly take the family away from this country, where there was no hope of rising in power and the very real threat of death because someone they were related to could do something they shouldn't do. Andrew firstly thought to recruit the highest number of guards possible in order to fight off the 'invaders' just to immediately refute such thought, the guards would just turn their heels and point their rifles at him.
That is why he did everything he could to run with Julie and Anna. He was too late.
Andrew stood in the front door of his three stories high mansion with his bag, the home that was now empty of butlers and maids and which he would never see again was not the reason he stopped there.
The gray look that the entire city had even on the sunniest of days was still present today and the grass which took so much of the gardener's attention seemed to rattle by force of a nonexistent wind, while the climate was still the same, the gun of the reaper, this day, pointed at Andrew's head.
"...Why?"
The merchant looked with guilt and horror filling his eyes at the scene of his coachman getting shot after trying to futilely push back the twenty or so members of the Revolutionary Tribunal that came to take them to 'jail' with muskets and swords. Surrender was the first thought that crossed the merchant's mind, the end of 'traitors' made him decide otherwise.
His mind was racing in the dark but had no solution to illuminate it at this time. Julie and Anna appeared behind him right this instant, Julie, like Andrew, was also carrying a bag.
"Julie, take Anna and run to the city, speak to Gilberto, he will help." Andrew said without looking back, his eyes were locked at the people coming to his encounter, not even a hundred meters away. To this, Julie didn't even question, with Anna there, she just couldn't.
When the twenty or so people saw the woman drop her bag and run with her child to the back of the house they hastened their steps, their every step seemed to have enough weight to shake the ground but Andrew knew this was just the pressure of time and the lives of his wife and child on his back.
Those with rifles stopped some twenty meters away while the ones carrying swords made a detour to catch the escapees. Andrew dropped his bag at this instant, eyes solemnly ignoring the shouts ordering him to lay on the ground and muskets pointed at him.
At this time, while wondering how painful death was, Andrew focused on the 'soldiers' running after his wife and daughter. Their clothes were truly painted with the colors of the country's flag, mainly blue and white with a bit of red, but that was not important.
He momentarily lost himself in thoughts that he had in the past, which slowly changed in the last few years.
There was once a time he believed that the nobles and the royalty were the reason that his country was now suffering a crisis in almost every sense of the word. When a noble that supported the revolution spoke with him, in his young stupidity, he completely forgot that the person was a noble.
There was once a time he thought that although people had different ideals, they could work together and help each other until they achieved the best ending. His father giving up his home for riches cracked such misconception, suggesting him that perhaps the nobles and company were just part of the whole.
There was once a time - the stupid merchant believed - that the oppressed, with the power of the country in hands, could show that they knew the right way to amend the scars left by the 'deposed'. Their actions right now showed that such childish thoughts were wrong.
But now, the mage Andrew, led by the unreasonable delirium of trusting nothing beyond his wife and daughter, who he firmly believed truly cared for and trusted him, was slowly but surely - although far too late for such 'improvement' - coming to terms with the fact that, perhaps, if given the chance, everyone could be the first to rape and slaughter innocents in a war.
As the new soldiers of the country got the closest they would be to the house, Andrew's eyes flared with a yellow light, as if a deep, hellish fire burned inside of his body, the grasp of death was not cold at first, it was warm.
Small runes produced a light that sparkled all around the ground of his mansion, it came from the earth that could be easily mistaken with ash to the grass that barely had any green in them. It formed a symbol akin to a flame and a lotus, with the center body slightly creeping upwards along with the several petals beside it, but that was just a few centimeters square in the center of it all.
The petals that started by going upwards suddenly spread in seemingly random directions, getting so far from each other that by the edges it barely resembled the flame in the beginning.
For anyone versed in the language of the runic laws, these bright symbols shining all around the place, reaching even the farthest of soldiers, signified a single thing. It was the word for fire in the most blatant of ways, anyone with mild knowledge in runes, a lot of time and riches could do something of this size, but rarely there would be any reason to do so since it was easy to spot while in the making, took far too long to prepare and whoever would cast the runes needed to be close in order to start it and so on.
The first spark flew from the giant rune, crafted with patience and huge quantities of materials to allow the traveling of power through the rune and its stability during the creating process.
But to need to use this weapon was out of the expectations of the creator, Andrew didn't believe that this day would ever come, when those, who he encouraged to fight came to take his and his family's life because one of their members was friends with an enemy of the State, the merchant didn't want to believe that the people he once saw dying at the street could become such monsters, but they did, so the mage would dictate things from now on.
As the first spark came and faded in less than a second, Andrew looked at the new soldiers of the country, engraving in his mind what became of those he lent a hand, and swearing never to do so again, no more would he pity those dying in the mud, for they can stab you in the back just like the trickiest of nobles.
In the next second, he snorted, you reap what you sow, he thought. It would have been better if he had just left the country the day he realized that the king would fall.
There was something wrong with the world, that something was the people, the innocents during the winter who turned into murderers during the spring, the people who killed their benefactor so that they could get a little more for themselves.
The fire blew the surroundings, gasps of surprise were instantly exchanged for shrieks of unbearable pain, Andrew was the first to scream in the fire. As he opened his mouth to let out the first cry of agony, the fire entered his lungs and started to burn him from the inside out.
The blooming flower of carnage lighted the surrounding gray of the land with a bright yellow and red. More than twenty people running to and fro with torrents of flame glued to their bodies, soon they started to trip on the gentle grass and fall head first to the ground. All the while Andrew was little more than a charred corpse kneeling on the ground with arms turning to ashes, thoughts of revenge and regret being the last to ever pass through the damaged mind of the mage.
With luck, Julie and Anna would be able to pass by as peasants and live out their own lives, but this was something too complicated for the melting brain of an unlucky mage to think about.
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Andrew opened his eyes, this struck him as something strange since he was sure he shouldn't have them after clearly losing all his skin and perhaps even his bones, the itch was still tingling at his skin, which he also shouldn't be in possession of. What his eyes saw made even less sense, the land was black, gray snow fell from skies that had no clouds, a strong wind ran all across the place, almost strong enough to push people back.
Thirst and weariness suddenly filled his senses, but there was nowhere to drink and rest. Humanoid figures could be seen in the distance, but Andrew was far too afraid to move there, those figures - random in their forms - seemed to sometimes have warped, long arms that reached the ground, at others, thin sickles that were clearly sharp and if he focused just a little more, he could see that they were floating. He turned to head the other way, but those figures were everywhere. If he walked just a couple hundred meters he would be facing the closest of them.
Would he, after burning himself to ashes to protect the ones he cared for and strike those who betrayed him, be forced to travel through clearly hostile lands for an end that may not come? Where the hell was he?!