Angra’s palms sweated profusely as he looked upon the crowd before him. The black hammer in his hand was the only implement he brought with him, gripped tightly in his right hand. He was not allowed to bring anything else with him, which made it evident that this was not just an exile. This was a thinly veiled death sentence, and the executioner stood towering over him in pure white robes.
In his right hand, he held a curious ingot of a metal that he had created in combining the many ores he had retrieved a couple of days prior. It was the strongest combination he could contrive from the many colors of metal he had found, the pale cyan doing nothing to portray the intimidating nature of the metal. However, it was inconsequential in the face of the crowd in front of him. His somewhat short stature stood with his back to the edge of a cliff with no end.
Every pair of eyes that attended this event looked upon him in disdain and malice. Not a single glance was kinder than a glare. Asha’s trademark mildly concerned look was not among the crowd today.
‘Good. It’s better this way.’ He smiled to himself in defeat.
“...And for the crime of spurning the- Hey! Why do you smile?” The priest’s face contorted before him if not in spite, in confusion. He grabbed Angra by the neck, shaking him. “How can you show such a face? Do you despise your deity to such a degree?” His cries became more infuriated, more intense as the boy stared straight through him, ignoring him completely. “Kh… The Holy Order of Zauth hereby banishes you from the Milaelarion for your misdeeds, blasphemer!”
Suddenly, ignobly, and most certainly not willingly, the ground Angra had trodden upon many times before disappeared from under his feet.
As the land shrank before his eyes, his right hand reached toward the home that had left him behind. ‘It’s… better this way.’ He thought to himself, the extreme speed he built up not allowing him to speak. ‘Forget me soon… Asha…’ his eyes closed as a single drop separated from them, falling more slowly than him.
His iron grip tightened upon the hammer, his only real memorabilia from the little place in the Milaelarion that he could earnestly call home. Its weight pulled him down just a little bit faster, hastening his body’s race toward the autumnal surface that gave the forest’s leaves the semblance of flames.
His eyes closed, Angra did not notice the hammer below him as the rapid fall heated it to glow intensely, his rapid movement downward causing a bright trail.
With a thunderous crash that shook the ground below, a grand, ruthless impact beat into the dirt, fracturing it and leaving a wide crater with a small, unconscious boy in the center, his ashen gray hair slightly singed.
A twisted smile was plastered on his face, one that he weakly tried to convince himself was genuine in the moments he expected were his last.
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“That’s all, Darren?” A hearty, gravelly voice queried, a cordial smile on the speaker’s face. “You can hole yourself up with your collections for days, are you sure that’s enough?” The smile gave way to a look of genuine concern as he leaned forward, albeit a nosy act.
“I’ll be fine, Ross. This isn’t one of those weeks, and my polishing for this month is done.” The man, presumptively Darren, responded. His unkempt face was covered in uneven fuzz, the thin hair on his head giving the impression of being at least twenty years older than his actual age. A collector of all sorts of curiosities, he was viewed as the lovable oddball of town.
Their conversation curtailed as the sun seemed to shine twice as brightly. However, the second source of light was no sun, but rather a star that fell from the sky as if urgently, its path not curved much. Darren’s jaw went slack as he witnessed the event.
“What, just going to stand here instead of chasing it? If you lose it now, you won’t know where to go to find it.” Ross gave a compelling rational suggestion, and Darren dropped his rough woolen sack and dashed off fervently.
‘A star would be an excellent addition to my collection,’ he thought as wisps of a hungry grin swept their way onto his face. His right hand went to his hip and he grabbed the hilt of a short curved blade, the dagger his weapon of choice for backup self-defense. He didn’t have time to go back for Raath, he’d lose the hot trail he chased feverishly, his bare feet scraping against the rough ground. Despite the callouses he had worked up going out on these whims unprepared, cuts still opened as his feet slammed down too hard on rocks, though he did not slow. Despite going out on these whims unprepared, he never quite learned to be prepared.
On the subject of preparation, no amount would assist him in what he next encountered.
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A man, tall yet heavily built, sat upon a gallant throne, his face leaning on his hand. His thick brown eyebrows were low over his shiny black eyes, his rough fingers brushing his scraggly, unkempt beard. Rictiovarus Haber was quite extremely bored.
However, a bright orange spark lit in his eyes as a wire-thin man barged into the room, gasping desperately for air. “A… report… sir!” He exclaimed, his voice cracking as air beat against his throat. He leaned down, his hands on his bent knees as he caught his breath.
“Take your time, Nuntius. We both have plenty of it.” Haber’s voice was deep and gravelly as he commanded and eased the man before him.
“I’m afraid… that may be uncertain, sir,” Nuntius croaked as he stepped forward, kneeling in deference as he continued, “as something has just fallen from the sky in the far north. Nobody knows what it is, but it may be what we have been looking for.”
Immediately, Rictiovarus’s eyebrows rose in curiosity and interest. “To speak about that so openly, is it so important?” His voice dropped in pitch and he rose from his seated position.
The man before him gasped, likely fearing the repercussions of his mistake, and his head lowered a short distance, though he said nothing.
“Summon those adventurer bastards, the Emerald Sword or whatever the hell they’re called, and send them to investigate. I’ll be in my quarters, there’s work to be done.” Just seconds after he had finished grumbling commands, a loud slam reverberated through the hall.
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Ma'arzeos sat in a throne room much grander, yet more sinister than Haber's. The flames that burned in jet black sconces upon the walls were pure red, dying the walls in a color more reminiscent of blood than of flame. His throne was not an extravagant one, though its craftsmanship was legendary. Carved out of stone, the throne had been built into the wide room itself.
Far more intimidating than the room itself was the presence residing within it. Melanin left his skin dark, reddish bronze, and sprouting from his head beside his red eyes were horns that grew upward and curled forward, reaching just past his forehead. He was tall, nearly seven feet so, and standing, he would look lanky and unstable. However, unstable would be no way to describe anyone with an atmosphere that emanated pure power.
Ma'arzeos's eyebrows angled inward over his eyes, and his head was propped up on his arm that sat on the armrest of the throne. Silver hair that seemed too bright for the lack of light in the room was meticulously maintained, flowing back behind his ears and down to his shoulders.
In reaction to something, his eyes narrowed. He turned his head left, facing west, and his pupils dilated and rotated unnaturally as his body adjusted. "It has begun."
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A child sat in her room, kicking at the old, rickety wood below the window she looked out of. She didn't hide her tears, her door was locked and tied shut. She stared in bitter anguish as a man walked toward the lake residing at the center of the land. He was carrying a sword in his twice-gloved hand, holding it away from his body like it was a rotten, toxic fruit.
She turned away, her eyes shut tightly as the man threw Angra's sword into the lake. He wasn't there to protest anymore.
Asha was alone.
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Around the same time, a tall, thin figure's wiry brown hair flapped about as he dashed towards the landing site of what he believed to be a star, the linen on his back torn apart after he was knocked down by the intense force of the shockwave, consequence of the impact. His brown eyes were narrowed in rare determination as he drove his bony shoulder through every obstacle in his path.
As he reached the freshly made clearing, he nearly stumbled onto his back once more, this time out of shock. In front of him was not a fallen star, but rather a child. No older than twelve, he was tightly gripping two objects, both of which looked nice and valuable to Darren. However, being the proud owner of a well-polished moral compass, he couldn't just leave an unconscious child in monster-infested forests.
His nearly full belt had open spaces, but he found it practically impossible to lift his shiny new golden hammer, despite being able to lift the boy attached to it. 'Strange,' Darren pondered as he swiped the deep blue ingot that had caught his attention by brightly reflecting the sunlight into his eyes.
Bending over, he hoisted the child over his shoulders with strength almost inhuman for someone of his stature. Taking one last look to see if he had missed anything nice and shiny in the cracks of the ground, he took off, hunched over and tightly shutting his eyes to protect them from the endless barrage of tree branches that seemed to hate his face more than anything. "Gh… Tsch-Gah!" His grumbles probably awakened some demon in some faraway dimension, but for now he cared more about vocalizing his mild discomfort in comically spaced grunts.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
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The familiar boundaries of Darren's village were a great resting point as he fell to his knees, having run more than twice his weight in half the time it took to run the other way. With a shout of agony, he fell face-first into the dirt that bordered the road. 'Hey, at least I didn't fall from the sky.' He thought to himself as he faded in and out of consciousness, just hardly catching the alarmed shouts of nearby villagers, including the gruff voice he recognized immediately as Ross. 'And put my potatoes in my house, you ass.'
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Some hours of flibbetegibbling with the frustratingly concerned villagers later, Darren was back in his house, with a boy in his bed. "Consider it paying room and board, kid." He pulled a rolling cart over to the bedside, unlatching the hammer and covering his ears as it rolled from the bed to the cart, hitting it with a loud clang, but not causing more than an inch of indentation. "…There goes my nice cart."
The boy had had two items that made incredible additions to the collection. The metal he had been carrying was, as far as Darren knew, completely unknown, and the hammer seemed to be something more than solid gold. The greed-induced smirk only widened as he appraised the items, to the point that he was practically jumping up and down.
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"…A new ceiling…" Angra groaned as his bleary eyes opened and he stretched his back and arms, sitting himself up and wincing, his eyes tightly shut as his senses flared up with a feeling almost like an electric shock stabbing through his back. He most certainly was not quite fixed up, wherever he was. Confused, he looked at the thin, pale face of the man sitting beside the bed. "Where?"
"Mn, you don't know where you are? Alright, do you know where you were most recently?" The man responded, his hand holding up his chin as his narrow eyes appraised the boy.
"I was in… the Milalaerion, and I… I… I…" He repeated that last word like an empty room, and each time, his face tightened further and his fists clenched harder. His nails dug into his palms, drawing crimson blood onto channels of skin that never quite healed. Tears fell from his eyes as his expression shifted somewhere between sadness and pure, incandescent rage.
The man put a hand on Angra's shoulder, a reassuring, yet superficial smile on his face. "It's alright. I just need to know that you know. I've never heard of that, so I'll assume you've never heard of anything here, if that's alright.
This is North Aria, the northwesternmost of the four quarters of this continent. The other three are South Aria, North Antaria, and South Antaria. Both Antariae are united under the Demon King, mortal enemy of the humans and other races scattered through Aria. The density of mana in Antaria is far too high for any normal human to survive it, so the humans have been unable to invade.
One of the few things logistically separating the two sides of the continent is the massive body of water in the middle. It forms a giant archipelago from the tops of the mountains where a massive catastrophe sunk the rest of the land in the range. Basically, they're cut off but still connected, somewhat. You follow me?"
Angra just nodded, his eyes wide. He had no idea that such a world was below him for his entire life.
He soon snapped out of his groggy state, though, as he found two heavy objects were no longer in his hands. "One more thing, where is my hammer?" He asked, his voice higher in panic as he turned over, moving the sheets of the bed around and running his palms across the mattress, hoping they had just fallen out of his hands in his sleep.
"You aren't stayin' here for free, kid." Darren responded flatly, standing up. Within seconds, Angra had stood as well, the fury visible on his face. His expression wasn't even disturbed by the surprise that both of them felt as a pillar of purple flames erupted from Angra's palm, rapidly dissipating to give way to a sword he had left at home… no, not home. That place wasn't his home.
The blade was something above 40 inches in length, and its two edges were separated by less than an inch of metal, the extremely thin weapon giving way to a round crossguard of wire, and a crystalline hilt and pommel. However, one difference made itself clear in the weapon: every part of it had changed from the bright silver of the original to dark, sinister purple. Smoke in the same deep hue seemed to float lazily within the pommel.
Taking this in stride, Angra brought the deathly sharp point of the rapier to Darren's neck. "I will not ask again. Where is my hammer?"
"I-it's right over here, follow me," Darren's voice cracked as he stammered, quickly slinking toward his storage room.
"…Why are they colored like this? The hammer wasn't even close to this color, and the metal wasn't this blue. Where are they?" Angra's voice trembled with rage as his weapon raised again.
"THEYWERELIKETHISWHENIFOUNDTHEMISWEAR!" He jumped and stepped back, his voice several octaves higher than one would expect a man's voice to be able to go.
He sighed, closing his eyes and lowering his head. As his anger dissipated, so did the sword in his hand, and he picked up his items to go on his way, hoping never to have to encounter this kleptomaniac again.
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Hammer and metal in hand, Angra strolled out of the house of the man that now had a bright red bump on his head that wasn't there before. Not bothering to look back, he decided to see what or who he could find. Oddly, people would flail their arms around at him while smiling, so he would look the opposite way to see if they were doing something in particular. 'These people… so strange.' He thought to himself as he trod along the loose dirt of the road.
After some minutes on the road, he was near the outskirts of the small settlement, and without time to look back on the houses and businesses that were scattered about the roads, he smelled something very, very familiar. Within seconds, he had disappeared from the road.
He sat in the open front of a building much hotter than the rest of the town would be, especially at this time in the evening. Behind a heavy iron door, the sound of metal beating against metal reverberated through the smithy. For the first time that week, Angra smiled. It was out of anticipation, relief, and excitement that he did so, for he had found the comfort of all of the world he had known before.
After some time, the hammering stopped, and out stepped a man. He was large, perhaps above six feet in height, and one might mistake him as being portly if they didn't see the muscles built into his comically large arms. His facial hair was kept short, but that was likely less because he shaved it and more because he burned it off every other day. With the foolish smile on his face and his graying black hair, he seemed like the type to say, "it's a good day if you only light yourself on fire three times."
"Welcome to my humble abode, young man!" His voice boomed, loud to an unnecessary degree. "What might I be able to help you with? A commission?" He knelt down to match Angra's height, which felt patronizing. However, he didn't object, the man seemed to be well-meaning.
"I wouldn't need any such thing, thank you. I'd like to use your smithy, what would it take for you to allow me that?" He spoke as politely as he could, still fumbling with his response. Angra, unfortunately, was not used to being treated as a normal human.
The man let out a hearty laugh and stood up, hands on his hips. "You want to walk the path of the blacksmith, is it? Good, good! Very well. I will allow you a chance. If you can assist me well for a week, I shall give you the apprenticeship you desire." He smiled, and gestured for Angra to follow him into a room.
Apparently, the man was a bit of a showoff, as any smith would be if they had common sense and were proud of their work. The room seemed to be a showcase for customers or anyone curious. Weapons and armors of all types were placed on the walls and in boxes. Giant hammers with handles longer than Angra was tall, two-pronged swords that would take unbelievable strength to wield, halberds, axes, everything imaginable was here. Plenty of them were things he had never seen before. There were even several crates full of iron daggers, all of the same make, size, and design.
"Impressive, is it not?" The man, still yet to introduce himself, boasted. Angra walked over to one of the pieces that was more up his alley, a one-handed longsword, bright silver in color. "You have a good eye. That's one of the best works in the shop, though it's just a steel sword."
The weapon was made from top quality steel, Angra could see that much with just a glance. Its sharpness, however, was dubious. Its edge was thick and chipped, it seems to have been used and not sharpened recently at all. Despite its good source, whoever crafted it had not thought about the passage of time, only about making it win in a fight with other swords. 'Apprentice my ass.'
He did not voice these concerns, of course. "Anyway, what is your first task for me, sir? You said that I had to assist you."
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Author's Note: Hi!
Haven't seen you in a while. Glad you stopped by, didn't abandon my story because of how long it took to get a connection!
In case you're wondering what happened that made this take so long, I kinda moved. It wasn't a long distance, but I had to get my desktop an ethernet connection, one that you can likely guess I didn't have. But now I’m here, and I’ll be releasing on a regular schedule again.
Thank you for your patience!