All along the stoneshaped mainroad of Oldspine people of all walks of life did what they did best, live loudly. Street merchants shouted out their wares while others haggled. Horse hooves clopped along the street carrying goods from apples to dragonbones this way and that. Gentlemen in fine clothes guarded their coin purses from the dust-covered urchins who may snatch them and beggars laying along the road. One person walked through all the hustle and bustle, almost as if she didn’t notice it. A positively ancient woman in a brown dress carrying a basket. Patricia Bonfire was the woman’s name, and she was visiting her great grandson.
Bonfire was hardly a common name, but everyone in Oldspine was familiar with the name. Quillus Bonfire had caused quite the controversy when he took his place at the top of the tower last month and became the youngest archmage in a century. Patricia was so proud of her great grandson she had come as soon as she heard.
She was at the foot of the magetower, a hundred foot tall ebony spire etched top to bottom in colorful runes that burned with active magemarks. Patricia stepped into the tower and was immediately stopped by a young mage in blue robes.
“Hey, you can’t just walk in here lady, just who do you think you are!” The rude young man shouted at the old lady, looking down at her with the leer of a man with no actual authority.
“I’m Patricia Bonfire and I’m visiting my great grandson, now if you could excuse me I do need to be on my way.” Patricia responded calmly before walking away, leaving the young man sputtering where he was.
Fortunately the mage tower was equipped with a proper magelift saving Patricia the trouble of going up the stairs. She stepped into the small cylindrical room, a rune etched brazier unlit on the back wall. Patricia willed some of her mana into the runes and the brazier burst to life, and the room began to slowly rise. She stopped feeding the flame as the lift reached the archmages chambers on the top floor. Most mages wouldn’t dare intrude on the archmage’s chambers, but Patricia wasn’t a mage, so she just stepped in. Her dear great grandson was standing in the center of a large open room, its black floor covered in silver runes and its light provided by the ball of light hovering in the center. He was chanting in a melodious language while slowly pouring a vial of blood into a green flame. The flame was surrounding a series of seven interlocking rings, each ring etched all over with runes. Most people would be terrified to interrupt an archmage casting, Patricia was just impressed, this was a very complex looking spell. Quillus looked up in surprise to see his great grandmother, and he paused a moment too long. The spell destabilized and to his horror exploded out. He managed to conjure a shield in front of himself, but the green inferno completely consumed the rest of the room. When the fire cleared Patricia was gone.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
—
On the other side of the world
A goblin wandered through the forest looking for berries to forage. This was Ribble, and at 3 years old he was only two years away from being an adult. He liked foraging, mostly because his siblings couldn’t push him around if he wasn’t near them. To the goblins surprise a small green spark appeared before him, and this surprise quickly turned to horror as this spark rapidly expanded into an inferno. Ribble sprinted away at top speed towards the village, he had to warn them about the forest fire. He reached the village in a record five minutes and immediately ran to the village elders hut.
“Fire! Green Fire! In the forest!” The entire village began to panic at his declaration, goblins running around, jumping in the river, and grabbing blankets to beat out the fire. The village elder hobbled out of his hut. He was the oldest goblin in the village at thirty six, so old that his once dark green skin had faded to the color of new grass, and he was half blind. The elder took one look at the chaos, and shouted.
“Calm down! The little one is lying, fire is not green." The villagers stopped panicking upon hearing this, and paused, realizing the elder was right. Fire wasn’t green, so there couldn’t be a green fire, and if there couldn’t be a green fire then- Ribble watched in horror as the crowd started approaching him and several larger goblins cracked their knuckles.-The little goblin was lying, making everyone panic for fun. The elder spoke as the voice of the people.
“You, little Ribble, will soon learn that fire is no laughing matter.” Ribble stumbled back, only to bump into a tall goblin who shoved him onto the ground.
“No no, I swear there was a green fire, I can prove it, please I can prove it.” Ribble begged, and the elder paused.
“Bring me to where you saw this green “fire”, and if you are lying your punishment will be doubled.” Ribble was pulled to his feet, to see the elder be raised onto his palanquin, four goblins holding it up.
“If we go to the fire then it will be too late to do anything about it.” Ribble pleaded, and the elder shook his head.
“There is no fire, we are just going to prove you’re lying.” Ribble tried to complain, but someone smacked him in the head. Ribble sighed.
“The fire is this way.” Ribble started to reluctantly lead them toward where the green fire had been.
—
The closer they got the more worried Ribble was, there was no sign of the fire anywhere, and Ribble began to second guess himself, maybe he had been wrong, fires weren’t green. But it was too late to stop, maybe the fire had gone out quickly, it was green after all, who knew how green fire worked. Ribble finally reached where the fire had been and stopped in shock. The fire was gone, as were all the trees, bushes and even some of the dirt in a large clearing, the only thing remaining was a mysterious figure laying out on the ground.