“Gerald, out of all the Watchers, you show the most promise. You have held this land above yourself and put it in front of anything else. You have proven yourself worthy to undertake this task.” Headmaster Urulin stated as he put the slender silver necklace over my head. “You have been entrusted with a tremendous honor. You will be taking the item to the Mages Guild in Ashwood. This is privileged information so this must be kept an absolute secret. Your companions will not know. Should they find out, it could put everything we all have worked for at jeopardy.”
“I understand, sir. I will guard this with my life and no one shall hear of it from my lips. You have my word as a Watcher.” I replied, staring into his dark green eyes and they peered back into mine.
He stared for a moment, almost as if he was searching for something inside me before continuing. “Gerald, you are the best among us. Being one of the strongest elemental and arcane mages here, you are the only one equipped to take this task on. You have the fate of Silitha in your hands. Let fate guide you upon your way. This is your destiny, Gerald, your destiny.” He gestured his hands outwards as if indicating everything around us. “Now, head to Eldwin, he has the package. You will receive it just before heading out. Try to relax. This should hopefully go fairly easy.” Urulin said and flashed me a grin. “You’ll do great.”
“Thank you. I’ll be on my way immediately!” I said quickly while getting ready to turn to leave.
“Remember, not a word.”
I turned and exited the room. Heading towards my chambers my mind was racing. This was such a huge task. I packed anything I thought I would need, along with a Freeze tome that I was still reading. I was in the process of learning the incantation so I may as well bring it along and finish it. With all my things packed I headed towards the exit.
“Stay safe, Gerald.”
I turned and saw my wife, Lyn.
“Please. Come back.”
“I will. Don’t worry about me. By the time I get back you’ll be so strong I won’t recognize you. Try not to worry too much, Lyn, it will be fine.” I said while giving her a smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.” She approached me and wrapped her arms around me, I embraced her and drank in her smell one last time before I had to leave her. “I love you, Lyn. Everything will be fine.”
She pulled away from me slowly and just smiled at me with a tear in her eye. “I know it will. Please hurry back, Gerald.”
“I will, I swear.” I gave her one last embrace before I turned to leave.
“Please, come back soon,” Lyn said to herself while rubbing her belly after I had turned away, “we will miss you.”
I turned around thinking I heard something but Lyn was already gone by the time I had turned around. I rounded and headed out towards Eldwin. By the time I arrived at the governing building there were already so many people around the wooden stage that was built. I climbed the white stone steps, stopping at the stop for one last look at the crowd. I took a deep breath. I can do this, I thought to myself and entered the building. The halls were empty but I could hear movement in the room down the hall where Eldwin usually is. I hurried down to the door and walked in. “Eldwin.” I stated.
“Gerald. Come in, have a seat.” Eldwin said as he saw me in the doorway. “We have much to discuss, come.” He gestured toward a seat wrapped in red leather. I made my way in and sat down with my hand clasped in my lap.
“So, I…” I started before I was interrupted.
“Do you know who the Wilders are, Gerald?”
“Hmm? I mean, I only know what everyone knows. They are a society of mixed races that practice banned magics and sow discord upon the land.”
“That isn’t quite the truth. You see, Wilders were once part of Silitha. They were the fifth ruling house. They contributed quite a lot when it came to magic knowledge and arcane materials. They were arguably one of the strongest groups in the city until the incident.” Eldwin explained to me, a stern look on his face.
“Incident?” I questioned with a concerned look on my face.
“The head of the Wilders, or, we used to know them, the elves of House Amaranth, was Lark Amaranth. He was a good friend of the previous king, King Endyme. Now this is general knowledge for anyone that is old enough to remember any of this, mainly us elves since our lifespan is so great. His younger brother, Leer, was always a jealous man. We had all hoped that as he matured he would outgrow his troublesome stages, alas, it never happened. It eventually got so bad that he disappeared for a few weeks. At the time we had thought that he had just left out of hatred for his brother but the truth was much worse. He had made a deal with a demon, corrupting part of his soul. The demon consumed what little of him that wasn’t completely malevolent and turned him into a malicious entity. When he finally returned, it was too late. Lark tried his best to figure out what was wrong with Leer. It was obvious something was off, until one day Leer walked up behind his brother in his study and physically ripped his head from his shoulders, crushing his skull in the process.” Eldwin said with a ghostly look on his face.
“Servants entered the study to find Leer quite literally drinking the blood dripping from the mangled head of his brother, Lark. He then turned on them when he became aware of their presence. He murdered 27 members of the house before he escaped into the surrounding forests.” He sighed, “Magith, their younger sister was luckily away on an arcane expedition into the northern mountains during the event. Needless to say, she was extremely distraught after learning of the events. Leer had literally painted the walls with blood in demonic chants and glyph circles. We had to burn the building down, the curses were destroying surrounding wildlife and quite literally sucking the life from citizens near it. Luckily we stopped it before any harm was done but, poor Magith. We didn’t banish the Amaranth family, as is commonly thought. Magith took the remainder of the family and left the city. Only stating that she will see the demon that Leer had become killed. Over time the citizens started all sorts of rumours because of the incident. This was just over 200 years ago. So as you can guess all sorts of things have changed since then.”
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I just sat there dumbfounded. “Why are you telling me all of this, Eldwin? Why haven’t you told everyone? This seems like a pretty huge deal!” I was practically shouting.
“Because, Gerald. It let the discord slowly die down. I did what I thought was right for the city. Regardless, Magith reached out to me recently. She advocated for sending a group of people into the city with a package for me. I allowed this action due to the past relationship with her brother, Lark. Upon receiving the party and supplies I was very pleased to see that it was all sorts of alchemical ingredients, arcane materials, and schemas for new spells. What I was unfortunate to find along them was the note she left me. She had found where Leer had made his… Transformation. She let us know that she had found out the spell he had used to summon the demon and was working on a spell that would finally be able to locate Leer. The spell, unfortunately, was too powerful for even her or her colleagues. She had sent us what she knew of the spell and how to finish it but we both believe that only mages from the Mages Guild in Ashwood can complete a spell of this difficulty. If they can finish the spell, and somehow enchant a containment vessel with it, we can possibly find, trap, and kill Leer. If we can ever find him, that is.”
“So… what we’re actually going to Ashwood for… what I’m really keeping secret… what I’m actually taking are her ideas?” I questioned, completely stunned by all of this information.
“Yes, Gerald. It’s imperative that this remains a secret. Do you understand now? If word got out, Leer would most definitely find out and gods only know what he would do, or what he is even capable of after 200 years. We cannot allow this information to be leaked. This MUST get to Ashwood, Gerald.” Eldwin said with a firm voice. “We have included 2 other, very skilled individuals in the party. One is the daughter of George, of House Tesharion. She is adeptly skilled in the sword and even restoration magics. The other is Halith Traster’s brother, Batul. He’s a very capable brute of an orc that I would trust with my life. The other is a Wilder orc mage to tag along to help with the enchantment of the spell."
“I thought they were only elves?” I looked up from the floor. “You said it was a house of elves, what does an orc have to do with any of this?”
“They were elves. When they left, beaten and bloodied, Magith established a village in the mountains to the north. She has taken in anyone willing to dabble in arcane magics into the family. That’s why they are no longer House Amaranth. She calls her clan “Wilders” now because of the great mix of races. No one knows what her true numbers are but I believe her in this. Leer must be stopped, at all costs.”
I sat there dumbfounded, looking back at the floor, trying to comprehend everything that was just explained. “This is a lot. Like… A lot.”
“Yes, it is. But it must be done. You all can do this. This has also been kept completely secret. No one knows the real reasoning behind the trip to Ashwood. Two others have arrived already, we are only waiting on more. Rest assured, this is the best we could assemble for this.” Eldwin stated, just as we heard the door in the front open. “Go, join the others.”
I nodded, gathered my things and headed towards the room. Just as I was leaving earshot I could hear Eldwin greet someone that had just walked in. I entered the room, and indeed, there were two other individuals. A Traster orc that I had met before and a fully robed orc that I couldn’t see well at all. Just the brown robes that he was covered in. I slowly walked towards the back of the room and stood for a second trying to gather my thoughts. How… This is so much to take in. I just hope I am capable. Deep breaths, Gerald, I told myself. Deep breaths. Over a short while I could feel my racing heart calm down and I started to finally come back down from the adrenaline. I went ahead and pulled out the frost tome and started to go through it. Shortly after pulling it out another figure entered the door. I looked up, instantly recognizing the human female. Before I could say anything she beat me to it.
“Gerald! It’s been awhile! How have you been?” The girl I knew as Emily Tesharion asked me.
“Ahhhh! Little spellsword, how are you? I see you’ve grown a few inches since the last time I saw you.” I quipped with a giant grin on my face. I heard you would be joining us and I was pleased. Not many humans can use a sword like you. What’s this I hear about healing magic, though?” I exclaimed with a shocked look on my face.
Emily laughed at my question, “It’s nothing. I’m just pretty decent with a blade and being able to heal my own wounds let's me train even harder! I’ve been doing my best to get stronger!” She said while lightly punching my left shoulder, “I could probably take you in a duel now, you know?” she finished with a playful wink.
“Oh? I’d like to see you try,” I replied flippantly while holding my hand up and starting to cast a small flare spell. “It would be interesting to see how you’ve improved.”
“What’s this, Gerald?” Batul said loudly from behind me. “I didn’t think you took your nose out of a book long enough to socialize with us commoners. You haven’t said a single word at all to any of us since you’ve arrived here.” he stated with a grin that pulled his dark upper lip behind his overgrown bottom tusks.
“On the contrary, Batul, you haven’t said a word to me either.” I said walking toward the chainmail covered orc. As I reached him Emily dashed up and stretched her hand out to Batul with a grin on her face.
“Hello! It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Emily, it looks like we’ll all be traveling together. I noticed the horse on your shield, you’re from House Traster?”
Batul just looked at her for a second before grunting. “Hmph,” he took her hand in his, “the pleasure is mine. I am Batul, the younger brother to Halith, the head of House Traster. I look forward to our trip, may it be prosperous for all of us.” Batul said to Emily with a grin. “Gerald is bad at introductions, don’t mind him.”
“Really now?” Emily quipped as she turned towards me, “Gerald we will have to work on that” she finished as she used her elbow to poke into my side playfully. I looked at Batul. He’ll pay for that joke. As I turned to look back at Emily the door behind us opened and a young troll walked in before greeting us.
““Are you all ready? We need to head towards the tunnel. My name is Jirak, if you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you to the stage.”
“Well, let’s get this shit over with,” I heard Batul say under his breath as he turned towards the troll. Emily and I followed behind him as the second orc slowly stood to follow.
Jirak led us down a tunnel that was lined with elegant white bricks. I could see Batul chatting with the troll about something before the troll stopped. “You all will be coming from this door which is just beside the stage,” he said while turning to us. “The king will come from the center tunnel to introduce you all. Congratulations on being chosen and good luck on your adventure.” He gestured and bowed. “The door will open when it’s time,” he stated as he turned to leave us.
I stood there next to Emily studying the tunnel. It was very well made, had to be of dwarven make. Only dwarves can work something so nice. After a few minutes I started to feel a slight tingle in the air and looked around. Who is using magic this far down, I thought to myself. Just as I finished that thought the robed orc looked up.
“It’s time,” was all the orc said before a red tint showed from his robes.
“Wha” I started to say before I was cut off by Batul, “Are you okay friend?” he asked with a worried look on his face.
“No!” I shouted out, realizing what spell this orc was using. Why is he using that here? It will kill us all! I grabbed Emily by the shoulder and threw her behind me. I had to be quick, please be fast enough, I thought to myself. I put both hands in the air and moved them to the motion of the alteration spell of a shield. I muttered the required words as a blue dome of energy placed itself around me and the others. “Get back, he’s using magic!” I barely was able to finish shouting the words before the orc in front of us released an explosion of fire in all directions from him. The blast of energy knocked me back into the bricks as my head slammed into the wall, just before everything went black I felt a tremendous heat.