In the first half of the Age of Heroes, a massive white wall had been built at the southern border of the Ceruceil Desert by one of the 7 Liberators of Moros: King Rainier de Léones. This wall was known as the Rideau Blanc in Western Ordt, a language rarely spoken outside of Ceruceil after the end of the Edenian War, as the other human nations started to adopt what was referred to as the Common Language, in which the wall is known as the White Curtain. The wall separated the desert in the north from the Foretblue forest in the south, thus making it part of Éclat's territory. Not only did it prevent the desert from slowly overtaking the rest of the continent, it also kept the vicious beasts and monsters, which called the dunes of Ceruceil their home, confined within their sandy prison.
However, as time passed, the wall started to slowly degrade, leading to occasional breaks which caused some of the monsters of Ceruceil, such as giant spiders and enormous centipedes, to invade Éclat. Thus, military outposts of the size of small frontier-towns were built at its 3 gates, the inhabitants of which were tasked with repairing and securing the wall. The frontier-town at the main gate was known as the Guardian-City Värav, the biggest of the three and situated at the centre-most part of the White Curtain. It is home to the headquarters of the Watch of the White Curtain, which served as border patrol between Ceruceil and Éclat, as well as their main training grounds.
The process of becoming a fully-fledged watchman was quite arduous, as one needed vast knowledge of 3 entirely different environments. Both beasts from the forest and the monsters of the desert would attempt to climb the wall every now and then and destroy parts of it in the process. Additionally, the Ivory-Mountain-Range in the east was home to chromatic wyvern, which sometimes decided to cause havoc at the mountain's roots.
Despite the hardships, however, there were countless of trainees trying to join the Watch, as protecting the border was seen as protecting humanity as a whole, and thus was tied to rewards befitting of such work.
To prove that one was competent enough to become a member of the watch, one had to pass 3 tests in a squad of 5 people:
The desert trial, where one had to wander into the desert, subjugate one of its more dangerous monsters, and retrieve one of its body parts as proof of having done so.
The mountain trial, where one had to climb the tallest of the Ivory mountains, the Elephant Tusk, into which the wall had been embedded, and retrieve a flower only found at the top of this specific mountain.
And lastly, the forest trial, a survival exercise in which one's squad was blindfolded and led deep into the Foretblue forest, from which they needed to try and find their way back to Värav. It was a test of their knowledge of the forest as well as their survival and path-finding skills.
This very forest trial was currently undertaken by Ardea Agnis, a tall woman with long, raven black hair, and her childhood friends:
Roderick, an even taller, bulky man with long, hazel hair, who acted as the groups tank;
Pam, Roderick's sister of average size and build who possessed the same hazel hair as her brother, which she had cut short as to not get in her way, who was equipped with a short-bow;
John, the youngest of the five, a rather short young man with blonde hair who acted as their scout;
and Lora, the oldest of the group, though only by a year, who sported long, red hair, which she had woven into a ponytail, and was second in strength only to Roderick.
All of them were children of members of the Watch, who, just like Ardea, strived to walk in the footsteps of their parents, though the footsteps of Ardea's father, Aries Agnis, the acting commander of the Watch, were probably the hardest to fill.
The first two tests the group had passed with flying colours, so they approached this last trial full of confidence, even forgoing basic path-finding practices in favour of following their instincts. A fatal error, as their overconfidence caused them to walk in the opposite direction of where they were supposed to.
"Are you sure we're going the right way, Ardea? I think I've seen this tree before...", Roderick inquired worriedly.
"Of course we're going the right way, and it's CAPTAIN AGNIS during missions, thank you very much. Look over there!", Ardea chastised her friend while pointing at a mountain peeking barely visible through the thick tree roof.
"That's the Elephant tusk, I'm sure of it! As long as we head about 45 degrees to its left, we should be at Värav in no time! And even if we miss it, as long as we make it to the wall, it will be much easier. Now quit arguing and get going, I'd like us to cover more ground before nightfall."
"Aye aye, captain!", came the answer, followed by a mock salute, causing Ardea to groan as they headed further south, opposite of the way they were meant to go.
As the sun began to set, Ardea gave the order to build up camp. Roderick and Pam helped Ardea with the tent, while Lora gathered nearby sticks on the ground to use as firewood and John scouted their surroundings.
"EVERYONE, HIGH ALERT!", John suddenly yelled out from behind them.
The entire squad dropped what they were doing and gathered around the makeshift fireplace, weapons at the ready.
"What is it, John?", Ardea asked, trying to spot something out of the ordinary.
"Listen!", he ordered with a whisper-shout, to which all of them complied.
A minute passed, but the only thing they could hear was the crackling of the fire.
"I don't hear anything?", Ardea replied, unsure what her comrade meant.
"That's exactly it! We heard birds chirping and other noises for the entire day. Now there's nothing, not even the wind rustling the leaves. I don't like this."
"...true, it IS kinda unsettling, isn't it? Let's put setting up the camp on hold and scout the area."
"Don't worry, lady, there won't be a need for that!", an unfamiliar male voice called out to them from the trees, causing them to draw their weapons and look for the perpetrator.
"I am Captain Ardea Agnis of the Watch! Reveal your identity and show yourself!", Ardea demanded, still trying to pinpoint the position of the voice.
"Oh, the Watch? Now I'm shaking in my robes.", the voice replied mockingly, before breaking out into heinous laughter. Several others seemed to join him, as their laughter started to echo around them.
"John, can you see how many there are?", Ardea asked, barely audibly.
"At least ten, we're completely surrounded."
"Shit. Everybody, keep calm. I still got the flare to signal we got lost, we'll use it to distract them and then make a run for it. Get ready.", she whispered, slowly inching her free hand towards the flare affixed to her belt.
"I'd advise you against doing anything stupid, young lady. Drop your weapons, and no quick movements now!", the voice demanded, as if it had listened in on their plan.
A hunched-over figure clothed in a black, hooded robe emerged from behind a tree, using a pitch-black, polished staff as if it was a walking aid. The robe was decorated with all kinds of runes which shimmered in an eery red light, and the staff ended at its tip in a claw holding a rather large eye. The eye moved erratically in the claw, as if switching between locking onto each one of them.
"I have enough firepower aimed at you right now to level an entire city. Drop your weapons if you want to stay alive.", the hooded figure commanded, aiming his staff at them, which caused the eye to cease its movement, now solely fixating on Ardea.
The rest of the squad looked uneasily at their leader, who herself was at a loss of what to do. She considered fighting the hooded man and whatever he had prepared for them, but if what he said would turn out to be true, her entire unit would die. Running out of time, she decided to comply, and dropped her weapon, signalling the others to do the same.
"Good choice.", the hooded man commented, and the eye atop his staff started to glow and emit a red aura, the tell-tale sign of dark-elemental magic being used.
"Wait, we complied! You said-", Ardea yelled out, but was immediately interrupted.
"I said we would keep you alive, but not for how long. Now sleep!", he replied and released the magic, causing a grey mist to be emitted from his staff that now engulfed the entire squad.
A sudden wave of nausea hit Ardea, as she saw three of her friend's go limb and drop to the floor. The remaining one, seemingly just as dazed as her, tried to pick up their weapon, but was stopped by an arrow which hit the ground in front of them, causing them to stumble backwards and fall to the ground
"Ooh, how unexpected. I did not think I would see the day on which 2 people could resist [ Bragi's Invitation ]. You over there! Tie them up and bring them to the other sacrifices.", the hooded figure ordered while pointing at random locations, from which more hooded figures emerged.
The last thing Ardea remembered was her vision being obscured before she was knocked out cold.
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Quite some distance away, after having finished his meal and stored the excess meat in his bottomless pockets, curiosity took the better of Ignis, and he decided to head into the forest to find the source of the smoke he had noticed earlier. The main reason for this was, that every now and then some adventurer had gone into the woods to look for herbs or certain beasts, and more than once they were on the brink of death as Ignis stumbled upon them, having miscalculated how treacherous the Foretblue could be. The smoke was already gone, but he figured that, if he just ran straight through the forest in the general direction of where he believed the smoke had come from, he had to find its origin somehow.
'Hmm, I wonder why someone would make a fire before dusk just to put it out before the sun was completely gone. Better hurry up.', he thought to himself and readied his staff.
"What was the spell again? Oh, I remember! VELOX!", he called out, casting the
"Alright, hold on to something, Mira! This is going to be quite the ride!", he yelled, as he assumed a sprinting stance. With a sound akin to a cannon being fired, the wizard started running into the forest, cutting through the trees in front of him in the process as if they were made of paper.
Though this should have at least led to broken bones under normal circumstances, his robe was not of ordinary make, as it dispersed the impact of the collisions to a point were Ignis would not even feel them.
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"Whoops, should have started more slowly. Never mind, what's done is done.", he mumbled, as he traversed the forest at break-neck speed. After a while, he suddenly heard a pained female scream sound throughout the forest, which prompted him to dig his heels into the ground and grind to a halt.
"Fall back old man", a voice far more sinister than ever before started to whisper to him as he tried to figure out where the scream came from, but as usual, he ignored them.
"Return! NOW! This is neither the time nor place for interloping!", the whispers started to push into the foreground, breaking through the mental barriers and now buzzing in his head like white noise as the headache they caused brought the wizard to his knees in agony.
'Begone! I am concentrating on something here!', he screamed in his thoughts, banishing the whispers back into the darkest corners of his mind.
"You shall regret this!", one last voice called out, and the noise subsided. Ignis slowly rose back to his feet and made his way towards the source of the scream, until he reached a clearing covered in tents, with figures in black robes walking between them.
He recognised the symbol on their backs, though he could not quite remember from where, or what they meant. The symbols on the altar in the middle of the ruins, however, he did recognise completely, as they seemed to be the same as those he himself had scribbled onto it all those years ago, when he was put into a trance by the voices in his head.
'They might have been led here by these damned voices as well, seeing how hard they tried to keep me away from here. I better make sure they don't do anything stupid.', he thought, as he readied his staff and charged the
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Ardea awoke on the cold earth floor to the scream of a women. She did not remember how she got where she was, but she noticed that both her arms and legs were bound, and some sort of cloth was obscuring her vision. It took a bit of effort, but she managed to rub her head over the floor in a way that caused whatever covered her face to slowly remove itself. The first thing she saw was John, who she recognized even though his face had been hidden by a cloth bag similar to hers. All around her, other people were in a similar position as her, all bound and lying on the floor, under what appeared to be a large tent, a lamp hanging from its ceiling, dimly illuminating its surroundings. Through the tent's entrance, she was able to see that night had fallen already.
"Psst, John! Can you hear me?", she whisper-yelled.
"Ardea? Where are you?", he answered as he tried to pinpoint where the voice was coming from.
"Not far away, but keep it down, they might have guards outside! Do you have your hands free?"
"I don't think it matters. And no, no I have not.", John replied in a defeated tone.
"Don't give up! It's not over as long as we can still move! We have to stay alive and report this to headquarters!" she chastised her friend.
"What's the point? I have no idea where Roderick and Pam are, and only the gods know what they are doing with Lora. Didn't you hear her scream? We're dead meat.", he stated, his voice wavering near the end as if he was on the verge of breaking into tears.
"That's exactly it! We can't give up! We have to go find them!"
"Tch. If you can come up with something, I'm all ears."
Seeing her comrade losing all hope and the knowledge of having led her friends to their doom only worsened the sickening feeling in her gut, the guilt Ardea was feeling because of her inability to keep her comrades out of harm's way. However, she refused to give up hope, and with a heavy sigh, she started to shuffle around in the dirt.
'There has to be some sharp rock on the floor or something! There just has to be something! ', she thought to herself in desperation as she continued to crawl.
Just as she was about to give up, the sound of chaotic footsteps could be heard outside of the tent. Orders where yelled, as hooded figures could be seen running past the tents entrance, and the sound of explosions filled the night. The explosions rocked the tents walls, causing the lamp at the ceiling to swing violently. Ardea barely managed to move out of the way, as the lamp came crashing down, shattering into large shards of glass.
"Ardea? What's going on?", John asked worriedly.
"The Gods have answered our prayers is what's going on!", she exclaimed excitedly, as she made her way towards the remains of the lamp. She received a few cuts because of the glass, but managed to grasp one of the larger shards, which she now used to cut away at her bindings.
After freeing her hands and feet, she quickly made her way towards her friend and took off the sack from his head. His face was bruised and cut, as if he had been dragged all the way here on the floor, but otherwise, he seemed to be in relatively good shape.
"I know things could have gone better, but whatever is going on outside just gave us a chance to look for the others and get out of here alive! I'm going to need your help! Think you're up for it?", she inquired. John looked as if he could not believe what had just transpired.
"You kidding me? You got to be the luckiest person in the history of humanity!"
"So, is that a yes?", Ardea asked with a smirk at his comment.
"Of course I will! We told you from the beginning, we'll always have your back no matter what. Let's get the others and get the hell out of here", he answered with a grin.
Ardea had to struggle to not burst into tears at the relief she felt that her friend was still willing to follow her as she started to cut his restraints. She gave him one of the larger shards of the lamp as a makeshift shiv, and, with a nod, made her way to the tent's entrance.
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"Hahah! So they stored explosives in the darker tents! I wonder if...", Ignis cackled in pleasant surprise, as he saw the tent, which he had hurled his spell at, go up in flames before exploding loudly.
This time, he conjured a
"Ooh, do I love me some fireworks.", the old pyromaniac exclaimed with glee as he watched the carnage caused by his spell.
Hooded figures, which had gathered near the burning tent to extinguish the flames, where now running around in a panic, as the second spell had not only caused another explosion but set some of the cultists' hoods on fire as well. The burning cultists where now setting more tents on fire, adding to the chaos that ensued. Ignis decided to move closer to better look at what was going on while charging the next spell, laughing like a mad man through it all.
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"BY THE ARCHONS, WHAT IS GOING ON?", a hunched over man leaning on his black staff adorned with a frantically moving eye screamed at another man in the same attire, who he held up at his collar.
"I-I-I don't know! One of the tents suddenly caught fire, then something exploded in the middle of our base. I was trying to put the flames out, but..."
"ENOUGH! I WILL DEAL WITH THIS MYSELF! GATHER THE OTHERS AND-", he yelled, but before he could give out another order, mad laughter started to fill the air, seemingly coming from behind them.
As he looked around for the culprit, a ball of golden fire obscured his vision. The only thing he could do was reflexively activate the defensive-charm embedded into his staff before the ball connected with his face, and with another loud explosion, the two men went up in radiant flames, screaming in agony, as the flame destroyed the defensive-charm and burned through their robes with relative ease.
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The wizard, who had just released one of his signature spells, a version of the
"...oh no. No, no, no, no, no. That's not good. Nope. No, no, no. I think I went a little too far this time. I don't want to be thrown into some gaol for arson! Not again!", he mumbled while thinking of what to do, before deciding to hastily make his exit from the scene. His run was cut short, as he accidentally bumped into someone, who appeared to wear some form of guard uniform.
"Erm...It wasn't me, I swear! Erm...Look! Over there!", he burst out, pointing at a random point behind the guard. Though she did not avert her gaze from the strange old man, he quickly pushed past her and continued his flight.
"See ya suckers!", was the last thing she heard before he too vanished behind the trees.
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"...what?", the confused Ardea asked her comrade, who just looked at her and shrugged.
"Dunno, maybe he's the one who caused all this commotion? He DID just light two of those cultists on fire."
"Whatever, we gotta get out of here, fast!"
"Oh yeah, do you still have your flare?"
"Oh for the love of...! Almost forgot about that damned thing! Let's call for backup!", she grumbled, mentally slapping herself for forgetting about the one lifeline they were given. She pulled out the small wand from her belt and pointed it at the sky.
"ARISE! FLARE!"
Upon supplying the wand with some of her arcanum while yelling out the words inscribed into it to activate it, a red flame exited the wand, rising high above the trees where it exploded, leaving a glowing flower made of red smoke behind.
"Let's keep moving and find the others. Even if these guys are currently busy with all this fire and the explosions, they probably caught wind of the flare.", she said, continuing towards one of the other larger tents, which looked similar to the one she had found herself in earlier.
"Right behind you.", John replied and ran after her.
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"COMMANDER! The flare has been lit near the temple ruins east of the Marais Marches!", a man in the uniform of the Watch addressed his superior, Aries Agnis, commander of the Watch of the White Curtain, who was just about to head home for the night.
"Heh, I knew they'd get lost. Probably mistook the first mountain of the Ciel-Plateau in the west with the Elephant-Tusk. I told Ardea she needed to be careful, but she just won't listen to her old man. Get the others, let's go pick my little lamb and her crew up!", he replied, donning his helmet, but he was interrupted.
"Commander, that's not all! Numerous people in black robes have been sighted near the ruins, and parts of the forest seem to have been set on fire!"
This caused the commander to almost drop his weapon in shock.
"WHAT? Are they affiliated with some order?", he said, his voice filled with worry as he shook the man in front of him.
"...yes, it seems likely, as they all bear the same symbol on their backs, it looks like a book pierced by a sword or something like that, but I do not recall-", the Watchman answered, causing the commander to frantically get armed and ready to go.
"Why didn't you say so earlier? Sound the alarms! Call all units available and tell them to apprehend those cultists. Tell them lethal force is not only permitted, but encouraged!", he yelled out, while pointing at two other watchmen.
"Are you sure about this? They could just be pilgrims on their way to-"
"Oh, they are pilgrims, alright. You're probably too young to remember this, but 40-something years ago, a group with that exact symbol on their robes appeared near those damned ruins trying to sacrifice the luminary, among other people, for some heinous ritual that would resurrect an ancient evil or something. The aftermath of that incident caused every living thing in a 2-mile radius from there to turn to stone, including an entire village."
"You think this might be the same group, commander?"
"I was a kid back then, but I remember how my old man described it quite vividly. Also, I know no other reason why someone would go near those accursed ruins, especially not in a larger group and clad in the robes of a banned cult. Now get going! Our rookies might be in bigger danger than they realize!"
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After running for a while, Ignis came to a dreadful realization.
'I don't know where I am.'
He took out his pet rat, who seemed to have just been ripped out of her dreams by him and patiently waited for her to finish her stretching and yawning.
"Mira, it seems that I have made a wrong turn at some point. Do you recognize these parts of the forest?", he asked and stared at the rat, which still blinked heavily, as if half asleep. Mira looked around for a bit, then back at the wizard, and squeaked.
"Most irritating, but know that you are not at fault. It looks like we will have to sleep here and continue our journey tomorrow.", he said, while stuffing his rat back into his pocket.
"Very well, I will assume this tree here as my new bed. You never know what kinds of creatures tread these woods after all.", the wizard mumbled, as he started to climb one of the sturdier looking trees around him.
He sat down on one of its branches, his legs dangling off on either side of it, and laid his staff over his thighs.
"Goodnight, Mira.", he yelled out, receiving a tired squeak echoing out of his pocket as response, as he pulled down his hat and started to drift off into the realm of dreams.