Like every Year the Kings Ball was set on the Last Lunnon of Summer, This Year 650 Was a special one. It wasn’t only the 151 Year Anniversary of the Festival but it was also a very good year for Farmers in the middle and South of Ljus. Even though people have an ever growing fear of possible orc invasions, this day was meant to think about different times, happier times.
Together the Guild of Helgria stood in front of the gates, waiting to be let inside. Arkevh's companions consisted of Craftol, Kalliope, the two Siblings, Bianca and Bryan, an ex guard Corin, the armored Warrior Fest and Nolan who wasn’t part of the operation but wanted to set foot in the Kings Halls again.
After the guards eyed the Group and let them through, even on the side of Corin and Nolan, they made their way towards the Dining hall. Where a rich buffet was served.
Arkevh turned around to his Companions.
“Good I will meet up with Donovan in the supposed location. Kalliope will go outside with Fest. Corin and the Siblings take the Inside and look for suspicious people. Keep your Weapons under your Mantles for now and don't get drunk.”, Arkevh explains and points to Nolan specifically.
“Don’t worry i won’t lose 2 fingers while drunk”, he chuckles.
Even Arkevh needed to smile and looked at his left hand again. Karsa's strings were stronger than he thought and cut off of his fingers with ease. Bork made a temporary wooden prosthesis Arkevh focused some Mana into to move it. It was clunky but it worked as intended for now.
“I trust in you, Craftol you know what you need to do.”, he smiles at his friend who salutes.
“Kitchen Duty, and watching that no one puts something suspicious in the food.”, Craftol explains and instantly walks off in the Royal Kitchen that was close to the right side.
“Okay that's our sign, Let's keep the King safe and foil Karsa's Plans!”
As the group split up and moved into the beforehand defined positions Arkevh arrived at the room where the King was hidden. Close to the Dinning hall there was a separate Hallway that was usually guarded because it led towards the treasury. However in that Hallway on the right side, there was one room leading towards a guard room. This was the room where they relocated the King in. Arkevh steps towards the guards in front of the room and tells them the password.
“Discover.”,
The Guards nod and open the door by as many as needed to let Arkevh through, which wasn’t really hard looking at his slim statue.
Entering the door he sees some familiar faces. Donovan but also King Alexander. He hasn’t really seen him since the victory ceremony of Darkingstone. Guards stood around all across the room. The windows' brown Curtains were closed as well, like it was done at every ceremony in the castle. Therefore the room was dimly lit to not cast as many shadows but still bright enough to see if anything emerged from the walls.
“Arkevh nice to see you once again.”, Alexander greets his trusted magician with a light smile and coughs.
He looked bad. Worse than two years ago. His skin was wrinkly and dry, his blue eyes were heavy and tainted by his eye rings. His thin grey hair leaned thin on his face wet by sweat, seemingly sticking to his skin.
“Are you not well my king?”, Arkevh asks the old Alexander and watches a hooded court magician coming over to the King, he watches him closely as he lays his hands on the king and starts to cast a cooling spell on him, symbolized by a Blue light.
The King coughs once again and nods in gratitude.
“As good as I can feel at this time. This disease is draining my life slowly. I don’t have much time. In a way, I'm thankful that I don't need to show myself currently. However I will announce something when the threat is dealt with.”, Alexander explains and takes a sip from a wine glass, close to his chair. As Arkevh looked at his king he realized how much lighter he had become, even more slender than him.
“What announcement my King.”, Donovan asks, covered in his great helmet, something Arkevh has not seen for a long time.
“I do not know how much time i have left, that is why i started the search for a successor, in my ranks.”, The King explains
“What is with Carwitz?”, Donovan asks the King who turns at him and shakes his head.
“We still don’t know if Garwin took this deal with Carwitz knowing but still.”, the King starts.
“I'm scared of losing more people, we could make a full on war sure, but at what cost, is it better to find a diplomatic way with the orcs. Yasoma created them after all but they are bound to Amosay "nd the demon's manipulations. Why don’t we stand together as mortals and free ourselves from Demon Terror?”, the King asks and looks over to Donovan.
“The orcs will only change their ways if their species depends on that, even then we can’t be sure, they kill each other too.”, Donovan explains annoyed.
“Haven’t we done that since our creation as well?”, Alexander asks his knight.
“But we don’t see it as a sport and do it when we are bored.”, Donovan counters.
The King coughs but then goes into a chuckle.
“I Understand that the church wants to punish the orcs by picking the wrong path, but we are similar to them in every way. We too fight ourselves out of Fun and boredom in Arenas we even pay for someone being killed. The Orcs are more social in this regard and make it for free.”, the King laughs.
“Carwitz will lead us into an age of war, after we, as you said it killed a big portion of the orcs, they will hate us like we do and then we will kill ourselves for the next 1000 years to come, we need to find a better solution to that problem.” The King explains surprisingly furiously. However Arkevh knew that he was right.
Carwitz would start another full on war, that may or not cause even greater casualties than the war 250 years ago and Arkevh would be used as a weapon again. It would hit the innocent and the once forced onto a side.
“Then we exterminate all orcs so the problem will never arise again.”, Donovan explains and looks at the King in anger.
“My child do you know that this would start a war all across Ljus, it would not be a war to save our borders but a war to establish our position as a tyrant!”, the King yells at his adversary and starts coughing again.
“Millions would die!”
Arkevh takes a while to respond, he knew that Donovan hated the orcs but would he indeed offer so much to get his revenge.
“Donovan, think about Craftol, not every orc needs to be evil, you would kill innocent people!”, Arkevh tries to calm the Knight.
“Tell that to the orcs that killed so many innocent villagers and my family!”, Donovan yells and raises his sword.
Everything happened so fast, in that exact Moment as Donovan's sword flew down on King Alexander, Arkevh raised his hand to shoot an orb of dark magic. It hit the sword right before it plunged itself into the king and launched it across the room. Where it fell to the ground and turned into dust.
The Guards started to circle Donovan as his skin suddenly peeled off revealing a young looking man.
He had short cut blond hair which suddenly transformed into a long and blond one just like Arkevh. Suddenly all his body parts started to rearrange, poorly representing Arkevh. Indeed this magic was able to copy people with enough time.
As Arkevh's Copy stretched his arms out the same attack he fired to counter Donovan's sword was launched back at him, only able to dodge it in the last moment, the right side of his mantle needed to suffer as the orb burned through the door behind him.
As the mage tried to attack the copy he got impaled by a spike formed out of dark magic from behind. Not to Arkevh's surprise he was able to see a young girl in a black mantle with even as dark hair emerging from the wall. Accompanied by an older man covered in a dirty apron and with a strange black potion in his hand, Veleno and Fade had arrived as well.
Quickly Arkevh runs towards the King and shoots another orb at his copy, as he evaded this attack Arkevh took the opportunity and hit his opponent with the best uppercut he could. Then he grabs the King and assists him outside of the guards room. The guards still standing close by understood what he was trying to do and formed a line in front of Arkevh and the King, escorting them further outside.
Trisor touched his chin and spit out some blood.
Veleno just laughed.
“Seems like you were not prepared for that.”, he explains and drinks from the black potion growing him and his muscles.
“Shut up old man, without me you would have stepped right into a trap.”, Trisor tells his father, annoyed.
“Both of you be quiet, we have someone to assassinate and we won’t be held back by some guards and Arkevh.”, she reminds them, resulting in a nod for both of them.
Karsa's Operation just had begun.
“And why are you here? You implied that you failed and that you want a new chance at it right?”, Kalliope asks at the rather small but muscular Fest.
He looked back at her, his face covered by the Burgonet helmet.
“Since then I have trained a lot. I'm doing that for my little brother. We need the money and the guards are rather well paid. I also want to protect him from Monsters he yearns for the outside world and if he ever wants to venture out there he needs some training.”, Fest chuckles.
“What about you?”, Fest asks then
“I also saw you training a lot. You really seem to hate this Karsa, so why are you here?”
“I was forced to commit crimes all across Ljus because of my adoptive Family. Everyone did it for money but I also think they were scared by Karsa. Like she planned something greater, probably because of the magic I possessed. She shortly adopted me after my parents supposedly died.”, Kalliope explains and looks over to the expanses of the royal Garden.
Here they sat, waiting for something to arrive. The gardens were close to the main throne hall but also the Guard room the king was located. Generally speaking there where the castle ended started a giant well polished garden. Alexander's Pride.
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I saw that you trained a lot. I know some magic by now but I'm leagues away from you. I think you can beat this Karsa.”, Fest smiles under his Helmet.
“Then show it to me.”, a female voice rings out from the gardens as a roll of thread bounced on the terrace. As it stopped rolling on the stones the roll’s threads shot up in the air and started to manifest a figure.
Karsa.
She was covered in a white tight dress that was the opposite to her looks. Her face was even more wrinkly as Kalliope remembered and her suddenly gray hair almost lay in her face. She seemed to have aged by 40 years in just a few days.
“Show me that you are useful for something, if you mean that you can get rid of me prove it. You are just a confused child not knowing about the powers within it. You need my guidance!”, Karsa exclaims.
“Seems like you aged, you took parts of my Mana to look younger, haven’t you old hag. You need me not the other way around.”, Kalliope smiles at Karsa.
“I will teach you brat manners like a good mother!”, Karsa explains and stretches out her arms, releasing multiple threads that fly towards Kalliope and Fest.
Kalliope tries to counter with a wave of fireballs that all hit their targets and burn as many strings as they can. However the sheer mass on strings makes it possible to pass the waves of fire. As Kalliope was about to prepare another wave of Fireballs, Fest steps in front of Kalliope and holds his sword in front of his chest. Before the strings could hit him he started to radiate in a brown glow. Blocking as many strings as possible with the Aura of Protection.
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As the Strings push against his armor they change their form, normally they would pierce through objects but now they turn sticky clinging on to Fests armor. Before Fest could do something Karsa moved her hands in a pulling gesture. Resulting in Fest flying through the air and being pushed headfirst into a wall. That started to crack by the impact.
“Idiot, everyone that touches my strings will die.”, Karsa explains and starts another attack of strings that were about to hit the unconscious Fest.
Not sure why Kalliope was doing that, she runs towards Fest, throwing herself in front of him and creating a wall out of Fire to block the incoming strings. While the strings burn down as they hit the wall, Kalliope turns towards Fest and tries to shake him awake. As that doesn’t help she takes off his helmet. Revealing the giant laceration on the young warrior's head. She could do a bit of water magic, but she never learned to use it for healing. She was too focused on learning fire magic to let Karsa pay. So she ripped off parts of her mantle trying to close Fests wound.
While she treated the young warrior, who thanks to Yasoma still had a pulse, Kalliope’s wall of fire died down. As she is done treating Fest, washing away the blood with the amount of water magic she could use, she looks back on the terrace. Karsa was gone, in her place where dozens of thread rolls.
In Anger Kalliope starts to fire orbs of fire onto them burning them in an instant.
“Where are you now!.”, she yells
“Why are you always fighting so dir…”, Kalliope wants to continue but can’t as a striking pain emits from her back as strings pierce through her flesh. Karsa had thrown a thread roll up a window sill behind Kalliope as she was looking after Fest. She wasn’t aware of this and now got the punishment for it. She felt the strings going deeper in her flesh and yelled out as the pain got stronger. Karsa let the strings pierce down the whole back covering her clothes red and letting Kalliope go down in the pain. As she fell down she pressed her hand into a role of thread and tried to not scream out in pain. She listens to Karsa who appeared from a close by piece of thread as she tried holding back her tears.
“Child, how foolish. You protected someone who you only know for three days and now look at you. The wonderful mantle I bought you is ruined.”, Karsa taunts her daughter.
“Those three days were better than the 21 years with you.”, Kalliope explains and starts to raise her head in anger as she looks at Karsa. She looked younger once again and had a sadistic smile on her face.
“Call yourself lucky that I did not break your bones tot”, Karsa dispraises Kalliope.
“How old are you?”, Kalliope asks and slowly starts trying to stand up again. She tries to forget the pain and direct all her anger towards Karsa. And it worked. She was able to stand on two legs again if shaky, still losing blood from her back.
“Around 200 Years.”, Karsa smiles.
“I knew it, keep your Bullshit.” Kalliope yells and throws the piece of thread towards Karsa that she catches.
“You know how to use the Aura off Offering from somewhere. And you use it to keep yourself alive.”, Kalliope explains with the last power remaining
“Seems like you learned something, Child! I learned the Aura of offering and combined it with the Aura of control and creation. I knew you were not stupid.”, Karsa compliments her daughter.
“I'm ready to spare you know if you see that your efforts are useless, look how good you learn with me. If you continue to resist you will die of blood loss.” Karsa explains
“Never i won’t learn from someone that is more stupid than me, you talked so nicely about your powers and how you used your Auras but forgot that most magicians have two, like me!”, Kalliope explains as Karsa stares in shock onto the piece of thread.
The thread exploded in a burst of fire burning and tearing the skin off her face, blowing the fingers from her left hand like she did to Arkevh. In Pain Karsa yelled as she tried to regenerate herself and extinguishes the fire.
“I use the Aura of creation primarily but I also know how to work with the aura of Merging, and creation just like you. I can beat you with your own weapons, Karsa.
Kalliope shoves another fireball in her face, burning her freshly generated face once again. Then she steps towards Karsa, hobbling she approaches her. Igniting her hand punching towards her face. For the first time Karsa could feel Kalliope's parents as she used her strings to defend herself from the demon. However it kept pushing.
Even though her strings pierced through the flesh even getting rid of some of her fingers. The Fist continued to approach her and hit her directly in the face. Obliterating her Nose and pushing her against the wall under the guard room. Karsa started to lose control over herself as she felt an ever growing pain tearing through her face, revealing her old age. She wouldn’t survive another punch. Before another attack would strike her she disappeared into a distant thread, she planted outside the garden for emergencies. As Kalliope's Punch tears down the wall it struck, Karsa knew that she revealed the child's Powers. The Powers she wanted to control granting her unlimited youth.
The walls of the Hallway in which Arkevh stood in shacked as the assassins left the Guard room. Hopefully the rest would hear Arkevh's call through the compass as soon as possible.
The Guards did their best holding them off, trying to impale them as they stepped out the door. However Veleno had other plans.
Thanks to the mysterious trinket the Cook had drunk, his defensive capabilities seemed to have increased. Breaking the tip of the spears as they were launched at the now slightly dark blue turned skin.
“Karsa finds the best stuff!”, Veleno laughs and grabs a scared guard, crushing his skull with his bare hands and throwing the body in front of Arkevh.
“Just hand us over the King. You really want to waste lives for that old man?”, Veleno laughs at Arkevh as a third eye grows from his forehead.
Arkevh takes a few steps back while the guards close in around the King, who still needed to be supported by two of them.
“Where did you get this power?” Arkevh asks, enraged seeing the third eye pop up again.
“Countering a question with a question.”, Veleno points out and chuckles.
“Well you can be happy that Karsa's trinket did not activate fully right away. No matter what it is, it gives me strength. So on to you why are you throwing lives away?”, Veleno asks and steps closer to Arkevh.
“You are alone right now, don't do something stupid.”, Veleno tries to intimidate Arkevh as a throwing knife bounces off his skin. As he turns around a glass bottle shatters in his face burning a bit in his flesh.
“Guess he isn’t alone anymore.”, The old guard Corin explains and rummages through his beard. The Siblings and Craftol were with him.
“A Goblin, an old man and two brats.”, Veleno asks, ignoring the small burned parts in his face. Before he could laugh at the group he feels a sharp pain and flies back towards the direction of the guard room, crashing in the king's chair.
“I take care of Veleno, he is immune to most of your attacks. Kalliope doesn’t answer right now. I hope she is doing fine. Craftol I trust you with the king's protection, how many trinkets do you have left?”
“Five, one freeze, two acids, one strength and one healing potion”, Craftol answers.
Arkevh just nods and vanishes in the guard room
Fade and Trisor did not waste much time. Trisor took the form of fade and together they shot multiple orbs of dark magic towards the defenders. The guard did their best to evade and led the king into another side room, giving the other four enough space to fight in.
Corin steps upfront, enhancing his spear with earth magic, he starts to spin his spear in front of him in circles. Even with one eye he was still a skillful Warrior that had fought with his spear for countless years. None of those young lings could penetrate his defense and they knew it.
Seeing that their magic attacks did not have a chance against the experienced Warrior, they faded inside the hallway.
“Keep your guards up, they could come from anywhere.”, Craftol explains.
As Bryan focuses on the room where the King was located he doesn’t realize the hand that grabs him at first trying to drag him through the ground. However Craftol is fast enough and throws a freezing potion on the hand. Freezing it in position. Bryan takes his chance, grabs the hand and drags one of the Fades out of the ground with the help of his sister. Instantly placing the knife on Trisor's throat who leaves his disguise at this moment.
“Come out of your hiding spot, I won't hesitate to kill.” Bryan explained.
In desperation the real Fade came out from the ceiling above him and fired multiple orbs of dark magic towards them. Corin did his best to step in front of Bryan, blocking as many attacks as he could. But it was not enough he still got hit and lost heavy amounts of blood as the dark magic pierced through his shoulder letting him go to the ground breathing heavily.
“Corin!”, Craftol explains and tries to find Fade as she goes back into the ceiling preparing her next attack.
“Give it up Craftol.”, Bryan explains and starts to cut deeper into Trisor's throat, as the first drops blood touched his knife Fade suddenly appeared in front of them.
“Stop, please.”, she insists. Bryan however keeps the knife on Trisor's throat making it hard for him to breath.
“Why should I believe you? That is just one of your tricks right?”, Bryan asks.
“No it's not.”, Fade explains and raises her arms.
“Trisor, don't you feel Karsa's power fading?”, she asks his brother.
Bianca looks over to his brother.
“He can’t answer, let him go.”, she insisted to him.
“Look at Corin, she almost killed him. Why should she change so fast?” Bryan asks confused.
“Don’t worry about me Bryan.”, Corin explains as Craftol walks over to him and gives him a healing potion.
“They are both young and confused.”, Corin explains further and sights as his pain got relieved thanks to the potion.
Bryan lifts the knife of Trisor's throat and shakes his head as Trisor goes to the ground gasping for air.
“Yes I can feel it, what do you want?” Trisor asks.
“Have you forgotten that we are not Karsa’s real children? Karsa killed Veleno's wife, our mother and we just lived with that for years. Scared that she would punish us, we acted like Veleno. That bastard sold us to her crimes, she just wanted our magic powers for keeping her young. Kalliope was the only one that dared to stand up to her, and now look at it she defeated her. The Compasses are broken now she can’t keep them running anymore. We can be free!”
Veleno felt another magic orb exploding towards his stomach. He tried his best to counter Attack without any success. As soon as Arkevh had the third eye on him as well, he learned why it was so known. It was Veleno’s Mistake to break Arkevh's arm with a skillful punch turning him into the monster that attacked him at this moment.
Arkevh used his staff pointing towards Veleno. Before Veleno could react a giant ray of dark magic hit him making him tremble towards the wall. Another few orbs gave him the rest. Arkevh was able to catch up with Veleno, getting in his reach. The Last thing that Veleno saw before going unconscious was Arkevh himself ripping out his third eye, turning into dust instantly as it left the cook's body.
Arkevh used one more punch enhanced with dark magic, punching him through the wall. With a hole in his stomach he falls down the terrace.
As Arkevh’s third eye vanished as well, he had a hard time staying awake. He looked down the terrace and saw three people, Veleno the unconscious fest and Kalliope who seemed to have no damage dealt to her. However he knew that she was the one beating Karsa. He knew that she was strong and the one deciding her own fate.
He reminds himself about what Veleno said, as he spit out blood. Arkevh still was not in a stable condition when using his third eye.
That was the reason he was scared about the reign of Carwitz. With Carwitz on the Throne he would need to use those powers every time, every time he would lose control as soon as he got hurt. Seeing dead People in front of him. With the realization that his arm was broken he blacked out as well.