There was a demon. Framed in darkness a silhouette haloed in the stark gray of a barren sky. There was chaos in his wake. A mad confusion anchored by a nail. Even as it was harried by armies of demons, and the ground beneath - to which is was anchored - blazing like the sun. Even as neighbors were uprooted, wrought apart and cast aside.
That damn thorn in my side persisted.
In a second, I would feel the echo of a heartbeat a thousand times over. For hours, a deathly unmitigated calm. Incantations flogged the limits of my sanity. Throughout all this, that demon dared to entertain himself in my presence.
I step aside, and I know his gait to pause. His gaze like a leash, and his eyes filled with an unforgivable lenience. There is a power behind them. A meager, pretentious power. I feel a hunger, and a responsiveness so long lost as to feel foreign and ancient.
He’s measuring me. Sizing my limits, as though he has any right to them. I feel livid, yet my body is sluggish, and the source I aim to tap is buried deep and held fast.
Vengeance can wait. I will not allow for such complacency. If I stop now-
My hand cupped against a polished globe. My breath and train of thought hitched, while the pact my feet made with the earth replayed in my mind. I wasn’t just wandering, scouring a patch of the endless desert. I have a heading. I am flying across the land.
I looked up to the stranger with newfound respect. He knows where he’s going.
“What’s that look?” His face moved and a moment later, It struck me that people could do that.
I brushed two other stones as I gathered my wits, “You can get me out of here?”
He opened his mouth to draw a breath, and then smiled. He- He laughed? “Thankfully, yes. I do this often enough that the strange looks are deserved. I always bring a compass out here, so that I can make my way back. It’s not the shortest route, but unlike the wilderness, I’m confident that there will be a safe haven by the end. Just a day or two now, and we will arrive.”
The land had darkened and brightened twice already. I had to wonder if this was really the same place. Where are the storms? The flames and quakes were gone. The desert was still. Save for a layer of ash and dust, nothing had changed.
Hours later, I nearly forgave the difference, but then I saw something unthinkable.
A flower broke through the rubble. A massive bloom that stood half as tall as I, and at least as wide. Furthermore, it was surrounded. The fields were spotted with bursts of color. Vegetation, minerals, and clusters of crystals cropped up.
I nearly stubbed my foot against a plant that crawled up before my eyes, spreading underground and spilling gemstones to the surface. I was truly in another world, and the guy with me smirked, “We’re close.”
The contamination only got worse as we went on, but then it wasn’t hard to pinpoint what he called safe harbor.
There is a crater full of life. Fields and fields of flora, orchards and farmland. Stone and crystal, hills and rivers. The air was so full of magic that I could feel it’s caress within my lungs. I fell to my hands and knees, gazing out across the valley, “Is this a dream?”
“This, my lady, is the Sorcerer’s keep. The last vestige of civilization in the mountains.”
I gripped my brow and stomach. It’s a dream alright. My veins sputtered, fighting against an odd balance. I felt ill as my senses grappled with an unnatural atmosphere. At a glance, the caldera was beautiful, but I could feel snakes latching onto it.
With deep and half labored breaths, I looked over my shoulder. I scanned the horizon. For what i do not. A calm void bubbled up within me, swallowed the alien pressure and converted it to suit my needs. I feel a cool breeze flow over my shoulders. Petals of chimeric blossoms brush through my hair, yet within them lies a twisted fate.
For all the finesse they have shown, they are still only prototypes.
I found it. A visceral lapse drew me back to the brink, surrounded in an alien world, power and intent. A sinister matriculation. That all that I had faced an imminent and comprehensive defeat. That I would be destroyed.
I felt that familiar power of the settlement itself rejecting me. I refuse to be defeated like that, to be disarmed and thrown out so callously.
I will not be so defenseless, taken by surprise. I am to face a reckoning, it will be on my own terms!
--Grave--
The ground beneath her darkened. Black sand licked at her feet and shins where she knelt, and a red mark appeared over her forehead. Her eyes were rimmed in red, and a faint aura spilled through her lashes. All that paled to the sheer intensity that gripped her features.
Grave was wary when she dropped. He was paralyzed with fear when she began to rise. Spirits wrapped his body, screaming to reign her in at all costs. He knew it was pointless. An impulse, clouded and fleeting. He had heard of them before. Souls corrupted by draconian magic, and the havoc they could wring.
But this was unlike any of the stories. Her focus had been like that of an apex predator, capitalizing on an ambush. That was when it was directed at him, and backed by little more than surprise.
Standing next to her now, her resolve was like standing before a tsunami. A terrific drag that sent ripples through his abdomen. Even still as a rock, and forgiving her plight, he prayed that the next thing to catch her eye wasn’t human.
Inevitably, the students in the yard noticed drawing, and reacted defensively. The senior magicians formed ranks, and the masters rushed to engage. Tracy was like a beacon. A roaring inferno pulling intent to herself like a draft.
His hopes may have been in vain, but while his mind saw impending crisis, his body registered a doldrum in the flow of mana. A dull thump as the elements converged to form a spell. Was it upon them? The seal over her third eye vanished, and the aura about her became still.
Then he felt it. Remote, but clear as day. A thump of pressure, and a mild seism in it’s wake. Over his shoulder, Grave watched a wave of sand and dust expanding over the horizon. The volcanic plume reached high enough to see even over the ridge of fortified rock, and as it slowed, Grave could feel mana thrashing about a super heavy object.
All was calm in the caldera, but he less than doubts as to the source. His eyes found their way back to the refuge, to the calm- nay, fugue that enveloped her. She didn’t respond when the three master magicians swore at him, nor when they slung mud about her presence.
She didn’t need to. The subtle tug on her mana told him more than enough. She was painting a picture of them in her mind. Considering the face of the desert had just been rearranged, he hoped to entertain a second opinion.
“Where can I find the headmaster?”
---Tracy---
Features softened. The sheer force of will collapsed into an aimless determination. Even as the foundation gave out, and her consciousness split in two, Tracy would leave no stone unturned.
I sank, falling through the ground like quicksand. Tumbling through a crowd. A gentle cascade that brushed and swept over me. I felt the pressure begin to thin, and a clarity of mind unfolding.
I took the reins, clawing at the streams of energy and surrounding it’s source. I will not be ambushed. For every power that might oppose me, I will harness all else to hold them at bay until I have reconciled with my mark.
Each stream I took with my own hands thrashed, sending a wave that tore through the ground. Stone shattered. Chunks of earth dissolved into thin air. All else continued to lag behind in influence until all that surrounded me became still.
A sphere of influence taken as my own, the site no longer troubled with me. It wasn’t the last to try. At its center stood a hive. Steeped in fractious and warped energy. A pack of dogs came at me. Charging across the field, they fanned out to flank me.
My head swiveled to track each of them - taking their number - then bowed to the middle ground. Gauging their movements, the sound they made as they did, and the rhythm they telegraphed to one another.
I’ve never fought a wolf. I am only human. So what? I just need to take the fight out of them.
Fronts shifted around me, clouds of energy and sprites that shivered in their wake. Their eyes locked on, ferocious and searching, and I shifted my stand to ward each of them. Exposure - Guarded. Danger - Averted. A double edge sword, for each movement they made toward me, would spell undoing. I will cull them at a moment's notice, let there be no doubt.
They saw that, reluctant as they were, but they were tempted all the same. Hackles raised. A blue frosty mist, a red ember pocked coat, A feral flowing mane. They tugged at portions of the space around me, compromising my zone.
I force my will into the remains. Lest the site spell my exile, my spirit is ransom. Conquest my answer.
The first time a beast lunged at me, It was like learning to swim. The pressure rises and falls - dragging on each breath - drifting across and seeping into every corner of my skin. I turned. Gaze locking onto the beast as it rushed me.
A storm rolled in my torso, an urgent writhing filled the air around me, and my muscled drawer taught. An arrow drawn through my body, unleashed at the last second.
The beast noticed it at the last moment, bracing before impact, but it never realized where it would come from. First strike was a knife hand thrust to the shoulder. When it landed, its torso was a warzone between an effort grapple and drive punches through. Meaty blow after meaty blow until the beast’s eyes rolled.
Another moved to intervene, but spooked when a kick was launched from the tangle of limbs. Friend or foe, they couldn’t get at me. I raised myself, Shoving the larger beast to the side and shedding a fair amount of emotional beef.
The second beast wavered, seeing enough of raw fight despite the fatigue that came with it. It stepped back, and watched as it’s friend recovered.
The sky began to darkened with clouds, and rain began to fall. As the three disappeared into the deluge, a sob wracked my chest. I gripped my mouth in surprise and felt streams pouring down my cheeks. I shivered in dismay as sobs tore their way unbidden, savaged by shouts of frustration.
I looked up as though to spite the rain, and channeled my grief down my arms. Blending the ground as much as I could, shifting the blame, exploiting the weakness. A deeper and deeper pit I dug for myself, entering into layers and veins of elements. I saw a fair amount of familiar resources nearby, and then - to my surprise - one of them emerged before me. I took it in my hand, and suddenly the stone around me was filled with the warmth of an open flame.
---Grave---
Wandering the halls of the academy, the girl seemed dead as I’d ever seen her. The unsteady fight and occasional flicker in her eyes was nowhere to be seen. It was like her spirit went out without fresh air.
We reached the office without incident, and the Dean heard her case. It was decided that she would need every avenue to recover, that she would be given free reign and privilege of the students. Doubtful that she would ever get the chance to become a civilian in this life, the Dean recommended to her the path of a sorcerer. As much preying on the imagination of a child as to offer her a path forward.
Seeing her face light up the moment she received that staff, I could not believe in false promise.
