Lord Joyde The Madman: Heylo, everybody! How are you all doing?

Argh.

God fucking damnit.

I fell into platinum one again... So sorry if all of my salt gets poured directly into this chapter.

Something might get bashed, or some things, maybe around everyone... ah screw it.

Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...

At the brink of dawn... - The road to Sorcierre - Alice's Point Of View...

A spree of relatively-silent knocks rouses me from my rather strange sleep. I could not remember if I had even dreamed at all... or even actually slept, really.

It was more like having your eyes closed and hoping to fall asleep while at the same time being too paranoid to actually do so. I've never experienced this before in my entire life.

First Schizophrenia and now Insomnia? Milady, I strongly suggest that you seek out a healer of mind. Some kind of shaman or alchemist who can give you a potion that offers restful slumber, prefferably one with pleasant dreams.

...?... I'll... try to find one... but what is this Insomnia thing that you just mentioned.

A mental condition which leaves its patient unable to properly sleep which may cause intense mental damage the longer it goes on, starting with simple physical exhaustion to outright dementia.

O-oh... well I guess the latter isn't so bad but I can't really allow myself to be constantly physical exhausted. Wait, maybe that's why we Chaosborne have the power to consume others? To avoid exhaustion while falling deeper and deeper into insanity.

Huh.

Anyways, someone was knocking on my carriage door. I then lowered the window down into the wood of said door to reveal a tired orc looking at me with blood-shot and tired eyes."Boss-lady... the bois and gals are gettin' pretty tired. We wuz contemplatin' askin' ya to set up camp 'ere, but de oders took ta' 'ong fer me so I 'ust ask ya... *yaaawn* ... dih-rekt-ly."

A look around on the outside proved his point. There were several soldiers arguing direcly behind my carriage in an effort to remain soundless. They didn't even appear to notice this guy getting sick of it and coming to ask me. I nodded towards the orc."Yeah, sure. Lets set up camp here."

He nodded and turned forward."Alright lads 'nd lassies! Time ta go ta 'leep! Ya kan leave dat 'riddge alone." Wait, what?

"Carriage?!" I practically leaped out of my current carriage in order to find that we were in front of my wrecked previous one. My left arm sent a modicum of phantom pain at the sight. The carcasses of two pristine black horses were still there, half-eaten as they were by Fluffy, charred black ash strewn across its top wheels."This... this is where I was attacked last time."

"Uhh... didn't kno dat... guess we's not stoppin' 'ere afta all." The orc muttered out in sadness, pitiful exhaustion seeping from his tone like a plague as I shook my head."No, no! You guys go ahead and make yourselves comfortable. I'm gonna check out the carriage."

"Right." My soldiers offered me several inquisitive stares as those with axes immediately went to town on the nearby trees, cutting down a dozen by the minute while those with daggers cleared out the underbrush and the rest unloaded their cargo and began setting up a perimeter. Approaching my broken carriage, I took note of several very strange things around it.

On my right, there was a massive rock with a strange crimson liquid splashed all over it. This liquid, which I know is my blood but don't want to admit it, was currently glowing ominously in the dark. I placed my finger onto the seeming liquid, only to find that it seemed to have merged with the stone itself. Placing my entire hand onto the rock, I could almost feel a soft, healthy heartbeat.

I am a mage and a child of Chaos. The creation of elemental familiars requires a great amount of mana combined with a regular supply of the casters blood in order for said familiars to keep functioning.

It is as you are thinking. Through your blood the rock has been granted a modicum of life energy, yet it lacks the mana to do anything with it.

Milady, may I offer you some advice?

"I'm going to destroy this thing." Was my sudden exclamation.

H-huh?! Wait-wha-

I do not want to deal with having to explain why I suddenly have an elemental being following me around. Plus, they are extremely slow and I want to reach Sorcierre before noon.

So you would take this young beings chance at life away simply because it is inconvenient to you?!

... well, when you put it like that...

Then, a flash of inspiration hits me and I pull out my sword. It is impossibly sharp, right? Maybe its sharp enough to cut through chaos-infused rock. Much to my glee, the pale-white saber easily sinks into the stone and I cut out an oval shaped piece from the crimson part of the rock. As I place my hands onto said piece, the color of the rock suddenly flows outward, funneling all of my blood into the piece of cut-out stone. After it is done filling up, the stone I cut out now had a small crimson crystal in its middle which pulsed with Chaotic power."Hn. I could have you fashioned into an amulet of some kind."

The crystal pulsed with life as I placed it into my left pocket. A new trinket for my safekeeping, eh? I wonder if it has any special powers.

The stone radiates an aura of Chaos energy which it seems to have been storing up ever since the blood merged with the rock. Like Chaos energy itself, it will likely provide you with enhanced physical regeneration and, if it is left to grow in strength long enough, enhanced physical strength.

Oooh.

Well that's nice.

Maybe if I added some runes onto the stone I could increase its potency? But.. I could also damage it by doing so. Oh well, best leave it alone for now.

Anyways, looking around some more, I noticed that a piece of wood next to the stone was still softly burning, almost like the wood was unable to turn to ashes. A gust of wind blew towards me and the aforementioned burning stick, yet it didn't put out the fire. No, the flame seemed to grow more powerful in defiance.

An ever-burning torch? This is the stick I used to cauterize my own severed arm. I picked the thing up and waved it around, feeling a slight increase in my own magical energy as I did this. Maybe I can rebuild this torch into a staff carrying an ever-burning flame on top of it? That'd be kinda cool.

I wonder what would happen if I sent my mana inside of the wood?

Doing so sent a gout of fire straight at my face which I only managed to dodge thanks to half-expecting it to happen in the first place, eliciting several questioning looks from my soldiers.

Hm.

How odd.

The torch you picked up seems to posess its own mana-circulatory system which is built in such a way that any magical excess is expunged outwards at the top point, which is what you used to cauterize your wounds. Yet the torch only has about as much natural mana as the woodland around us and if someone drained it fully, the torch would likely cease to function completely. As for why it isn't turning to ash... well, that part is a bit more difficult to explain.

Huh? What do you mean? Is it something you can't explain in my worlds words or?

Exactly, milady.

The fire seems to be magically enchanted so that it only burns the sourrounding air and not actually the wood itself. Apart from that the stick is just a regular stick with a slight amount of chaos energy contained within it.

Wait... not burning the wood but only the air? So... it has no ... fuel? Or is it fueled by the anger of nature?

... what?

What kind of idiot taught you this, milady?

I-idiot?

I mean, I guess -no, thats totally disrespectful. Tius, please explain yourself!

Young lady, what exactly do you think fire even is? Some kind of magic phenomena?

Well no. First off, there are two types of fire: the magical and the natural variety. This everburning torch is clearly the former!

Wrong. This piece of burning wood represents neither, but is far closer to the latter.

O-oh? How so?

... I do not have the words to explain this to you properly without confusing the everloving hell out of you, young lady. Perhaps, one day, when you possess more knowledge of the world in general, I shall give you a more proper explanation.

... I am not okay with you avoiding the issue like that, Tius.

But...

Maybe my diary can help!

Rushing inside of my current carriage and digging out my diary- aka, The Lunatic Scribbles of Alice Pendragon-, from a massive pile of books and notebooks alike, I open up the pages with those circles I tried to explain with the blood-magic teacher."Chaos, much like you did just now, once told me that fire does not work like I, or rather this world, believes it does. When I asked her to teach me more about fire, she instead sent me these... images. I drew them here, see?"

Atoms?.. and... electrical charges?

"So they're called atoms?" Murmuring to myself as I quickly grabbed hold of a pen and wrote said information onto another page of my diary, urging Tius to explain further.

Alright, these will help the explanation.

I can see that you've already managed to set up the types of charge onto the correct type of particle. The two innermost particles are protons and neutrons, while the ones outside are called electrons. Electrons are negative, neutrons are neutral and protons are positive.

These particles, you see, are the building blocks of everything around us. Me, you, the wooden torch and hell, probably even Chaos in a twisted sense is made out of them.

... okay. So does that mean everything is made out of the same stuff?

The answer to that is both yes and no, but to answer the question in the most simple terms: everything is made out of a different combination of these three subatomic particles.

Oh and an "Atom" is the name for these three particles combined into a single cohesive particle.

So then protons, electrons and neutrons are subatomic particles while the atoms are... just particles?

Correct.

I wrote the information into my diary."... but what does this have to do with fire... wait, teacher and me came to the conclusion that these particles are very close to each other which would make sense since we can't see them even if they make up everything and that when they start moving around for whatever reason, they create a lot of heat. Is this correct?"

Particles are always on the move, milady. It would be correct to state how they never truly stop, though that has yet to be proven or disproven.

But you and your teacher have made the correct conclusion. Hm, perhaps I was wrong about calling them idiots? No matter.

Either way, the heat created during this movement is what eventually becomes fire.

Eventually?... and if they don't stop moving...

Does that mean that everything is actually always on fire.

.... In a way, you aren't exactly wrong, milady.

Everything is, technically, always on fire.

As for what I meant by eventually, fire requires that a certain level of heat, or rather energy, is collected before things burst into flame. By "burning", fire creates more energy to keep itself a blaze, which is why it needs fuel to properly keep on burning. Fire also creates light and radiates heat to its sourroundings, heat that was collected deep within it only to burst outwards, creating more fire.

This is made possible by a constant consumption of oxygen, a form of particle found within air. Humans need it when they breathe, because with every breath you take, your body burns the food you've eaten much the same way, releasing heat, or energy into your body in the process.

So... fire needs heat, fuel and this.. oxygen stuff?... to create... more heat? Isn't that kind of pointless?

In the grand scheme of things, a lot of things appear pointless at first.

But, create a big enough fire and things start to become more apparent, as high levels of energy collect at the same location.

You mean... like the sun?

Yes. The sun. A massive gathering of heat and flame.

A ball of energy that both creates its own fuel as well as many other things from which all life is descended from.

Did you know that through human blood flows iron? And that that very iron was forged at the heart of a star? Your sun, that is.

A blink.

A drop of blood flowed down my left cheek."Magia Insanium... Damn, I think we should stop here before my head bursts open."

What? Before your head bursts open?!

Magia Insanium. Its some kind of unnatural law of this world which affects people who seek out and learn supposedly dangerous knowledge and attacks them. It is said that it is the reason why none of the races has managed to conquer the planet, why the demons have lost their ability to summon legions of shadows and the true reason why humanity has lost all of its technology and power.

... was this always a thing or did it suddenly start sometime in the past of this world?

I do not rightly know for certain, but I do think that its been around ever since we humans appeared on this world.

Then it is most likely the work of your "gods".

A ploy to limit the powers of mortals, but all things considered if the original humans brought nuclear weaponry into this planet when they arrived...

I do not blame them in the least.

Nuclear weaponry?

What's that?

Imagine a massive ball of fire which utterly obliterates entire capital cities, makes the sourrounding lands unlivable for thousands of years, actively burns everyone even beyond its blast radius and causes incurable sickness and disease to strike the entire continent it was thrown upon.

Fish and plants wither inside of the seas nearby, as poisoned clouds ferry liquid death across the entire world, spawning even more destruction and death in the process.

That, in a very bellitled way, is a proper description of what Nuclear Weaponry is capable off.

... in a... bellitled, way?

W-what the hell?!

Why would someone even make such a thing?!

A question for the ages, young lady.

The Greed of Mankind is both an atrocious and a grand thing. It can drive your race into doing amazing things...

And create weapons with the power to obliterate worlds.

O-oh.

So maybe the Magia Insanium is there for a good reason, is what you are trying to say, right Tius?

Not maybe.

The more I think about it...

It is definitely there with perfectly good reason.

... thought it also presents a system which is easily abused. Mayhaps, we could parley with its administrators in the future to set the bar a little lower?

Converse with the Gods? What makes you think I'd ever be able to do such a thing?

You already call something far greater than they will ever be, "Mother".

... fair point.

Walking out of the carriage as I record all of my newfound knowledge into the diary, I took the ever-burning stick into my right hand and channeled magic through it once more, this time pointing it in a safe and empty direction. Experimenting with the stick, I found that the more magic I put inside of it does not make the gout of flame any ... stronger, per say. It just makes it longer. Like a dragons breath, rather than a fireball.

Hmm, maybe I could channel the fire before it bursts out?

I take the white glove off my left, metallic hand and place said hand over the top of the stick, the heat of the ever-burning flame helping grow my already edging excitement. Placing the glove onto a wheel of the carriage behind me, I channeled mana into the torch and managed to catch the ensuing gout of fire by trapping it within a sphere of mana.

However, my sphere was not perfect and thus the flame slowly burned out with no fuel to sustain it. So for my second try, I caught the flame and began to funnel mana into the sphere which caused the flame to expand rapidly and explode all over my hand. Thankfully, the metal on my arm didn't seem to be damaged, if only slightly blacker than usual.

For my third attempt, I decided to throw the sphere before it explodes. The bluish sphere of magic containing the expanding blaze was flung across the road in front of me and slammed across the ground, exploding in a torrent of fire much greater than the small blaze which struck my arm. Hmm... maybe the sphere collected air when I threw it?

Wait, what would happen if I drew in some air towards the torch?

Doing so resulted in the torch's ever-burning flame growing in size but only for a short period of time. This time, instead of drawing air, I tried to focus solely on the oxygen around me and filled the torch that way, which was strangely a lot easier and less mana intensive than drawing air itself. Maybe because I am only drawing upon part of the *air* and not it in its entirety?

"Ah!*cough*" My growing glee was caught inside of my throat as I began coughing uncomfortably and then remembered that Tius told me that us humans need oxygen to breathe too. My spell just now drew all of it from the surrounding area. Maybe I could weaponize this? After all, drawing air from a place will only cause the area to be refilled within moments unless it is completely closed off.

I guess oxygen is a bit more difficult to replace? Or maybe we just need for there to be an exact amount of it in the air before we can breathe properly? The latter part sounds right.

Either way, drawing solely oxygen into the torch caused much the same effect that drawing air. Probably because the fire only needs oxygen anyway. In the end, its all either safety and smaller reward, against high risk, high reward.

Both forms of the spell are highly likely to be useful.

Hm. What else have I learned today that I can apply to this spell? Ah, the movement of the particles is what makes fire. If this is true, rather than creating fire through heat and fuel and oxygen, maybe I should try using mana to move the particles around?

I put my hands close together and focused onto a very small area between them as I channeled mana into it and willed many, many small orbs imagined in the likeness of my drawings to move around. At first, absolutely nothing was happening and I was getting sort of pissed so I poured more and more mana into the flame.

For some reason, the particles I imagined inside of my mind began moving faster and faster until two red-colored ones... struck against one another and then... there was a spark. My closed eyes burst open as a gigantic flame surged outwards, causing me to throw it onto the ground in a panic. The cold, watery-rich dirt immediately put the fire out.

But the rate of that fire's growth... the heat...

And those red particles?... Those must be the oxygen particles! When the struck one another, a great amount of energy was released, which in turn formed a flame. However, creating this kind of fire requires a lot of my focus and is extremely dangerous when its so close to m-.. the torch!

Immediately, I repeated the previous process with more accuracy and much more safety as I took the stick into my right hand used mana to force the particles of the ever-burning flame to move even faster. Heat could be felt rapidly growing around me as I continued channeling magic into the torch, a rather sizable ball of fire forming before me, all of it contained within one of my mana spheres.

You see, the way a normal mage creates a fireball is by creating one of these mana spheres and filling it with as much rage and mana that they can muster before throwing the fireball at the enemy. Only the mage in question can see his or her own spheres, but anyone can tell if the spell is a success or a failure depending on if the fireball has exploded or is stable.

Another thing to note is that the only ways to increase the power of a fireball is to:

A- increase the amount of rage and mana provided or B- concentrate both of these factors to a smaller point within your personal mana sphere!

Which is exactly what I did just now. I poured more mana into the sphere, increasing the amount of energy inside which in turn created more fire.

Then I concentrated that power, compressing the flame into a tiny sphere of itself, contained within my larger sphere. Then I drew a little bit of oxygen inside and found that, while it did make the fire sphere grow... it didn't really increase its power at all. It only made it less stable and harder to control.

Magical fire does not need air, after all.

So what if I just let my flame naturally consume the oxygen it needs and focus on empowering it by making the particles move faster and faster?

Massive gouts of flame burst out of my torch, all consumed into the growing inferno which was being compressed to a point as tiny as I could make it. Eventually, the heat it radiated was so great that I could no longer bear it being close to me.

It was then I realized that I was holding a massive bomb-on-a-stick.

Swallowing down hard, I promptly took the bomb into my hands, dropping the torch onto the ground in the process and sent the thing flying into the air as far as I possibly could. It flew some twenty meters upwards before imploding and consuming half the direction in size in pure hellfire.

And then... it dispersed completely, leaving behind nothing at all but a surging wave of super-heated air blasting against me in the process and setting a few parts of my carriage ablaze. Several sudden screams echoed throughout the night as my poor soldiers were rudely awakened by the molten air which now surrounded them.

It was probably a bad idea to breathe in the aftermath of my fireball but thankfully, it didn't look like anyone was hurt or saw what had happened. My soldiers were all so tired that they all just went back to sleep right after the initial shock had passed, most likely deciding that it was all just a freak heatwave.

Which it kind of was.

That begs the question, though... Why am I completely unhurt?

The infernal blood of Chaos flows through your veins, milady.

Your body can handle five times greater temperatures than that of a normal human adult, much less a child.

A gift from mother dearest then, is it? Well, I suppose I should have expected as much.

Still, I suppose this means that I should switch out today's classes for something more fire oriented. All spells are more powerful the more their caster knows about them and what they do. This is a singular rule that has never been broken. Of course, different spells will have varying power outputs, but a fireball cast by a master pyromancer may evaporate a lesser mage's ice lance.

Such things I was taught long ago...

Yet, only now does their significance catch up to me. I suppose this is the price of my neglect and willful ignorance.

If I had the power to use this fireball during the battle against Ulfo's horde, the fight would have been over way before it started. Granted, people would probably think that I'm a monster for setting so many afire, but thats something I don't particularly mind.

Picking up the everburning torch off of the wet ground, I felt myself smiling widely as I imagined turning it into a legendary staff of power, using it as a focusing point to topple nations. Ahh, such sweet daydreams~.

One's which I may one day turn into a reality.

With a snort, I approached my wrecked carriage once more and used my newfound powers to turn it unto ashes, not leaving even the horse carcasses behind. That part of the dirt road appeared to be eerily dry in comparison to the rest of the rain-wrought path and people would certainly question it should they pass it, but I don't mind.

There is nothing here to indicate my presence. And, even if there was, I can easily sum it up to traveling!

Wait, why am I even making up future excuses that I may or may not use?

...

Ah dammit, is something bad going to happen because I did this?

A massive fireball in the middle of a gods damned forest... I'd be lucky if nobody saw me cast this.

Quickly looking around the place, I find no evidence that anybody did, though that still does not prove a damn thing. There are people within this world who possess the ability to spy on others from afar, after all.

Same time... - An unknown place... - An unknown's point of view...

"Hmm..." A melodious tone echoed throughout the room of purple silk and gleaming gold.

An elven man rushed inside with worry clear upon his frame."My Empress! Those filthy merchant-princes have outright refused your right to rule this continent! It seems they have chosen war instead of abdicating."

The pale woman smiled and caressed her male courtier."My oh my... such an interesting era I find myself in."

"M-milady?!" The man stuttered, entranced by her beauty and grace."My little sisters power grows exponentially by the moment..."

He swallowed in uncertainty as she dragged a finger across his throat and pulled him in closer."My brother is nowhere to be found..."

She bit his lower lip and placed her hands around him, urging him to do the same to her."Mothers power has grown as has her bestial rage, fathers screams of outrage have been replaced by perpetual laughter..."

He swallowed once more and tried to say something, but she placed a finger upon his pale lips before he could utter a word."And now I'm told that the elven race would prefer the wealth of a free market than the safety of my rule..."

Then, her wet lips joined his own. At first he relaxed into the kiss and pulled his Empress closer, thinking of her as a woman in need of comfort. And who was he to deny her?

And then, his scream died inside of his own throat as torrents of arcane energy pulsed through his flesh and bone again and again... until nothing was left of him, but ash and a pale, almost crystalline skull.

The woman smiled to herself as a bright flash of pink consumed the room and soon she found herself staring down a balcony, looking upon what remained of her once grandiose and opulent capital city. Anger consumed her body and soul as she crushed the skull in her hand, throwing it onto the plateau below her.

She closed her eyes and stared at the offending bright moon. She would silence its light if she could.

Her fury boiled inside of her as she gazed down onto her already terror-stricken populace."We shall see how much time their precious wealth can buy them, for I am Empress Ash'illithine the Black and nothing can ever escape my wrath!"

Then, she turned back around and went inside of her palace once more. Another flash of pink and she was back at the scrying crystal, a frightened maid already cleaning up the remainder of her previous meal. A poor meal, at that."Bring me another man! A healthier one and preferably not an alcoholic."

The maid nodded quickly and made herself scarce."Y-y-yes, m-m-milady!!"

She gazed into the crystal ball once again and found cultists and tribes gathering in the far off corners of the world... something was off about this era. Something was dangerously wrong."To go from trying to conquer the world to saving it?... or maybe I should join forces with whatever is coming to take it? Perhaps father would like another try at devouring the world?"

A visage of her little sister appeared once again and the Empress found herself shaking her head in negativity and confusion alike."No... not like this. This isn't like him..."

Her pale gaze then turned towards the strange wraithblade upon her younger sisters hip. A sword which cuts stone so easily it appears to sink into it rather than actually cut."Maybe... there is something, someone else at play here? Someone new to the playground. An unknown force. A dangerous power capable to stand on equal ground against father?... and alone, at that."

She bit her lip as she pondered this and closed her eyes once more. Then the empress took her ancient staff, still reeling with magical energies flowing through it and turned around, to face the rotting corpse of her once glorious empire again. She clutched the staff tighter in her hands and began channeling untold magic into the wood.

This was not an appropriate time for such dreadful thoughts.

This was the time to take back what is rightfully hers!

Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...

There we go, a little bit more of worldbuilding, science and the like.

I actually managed to diss abortion, authoritarianism (I'm sure someone will be surprised by this), teachers and mental conditions in the same bloody chapter.

Oh well.

I hope you've enjoyed it. XD

Anyways, read and review! And Good Morning/Day/Night to you all! ADIOS FOR NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!