Velicion stared down at the various runes and ancient arcane letterings that resulted in a completed teleportation circle as she quietly contemplated the results of her hurried workmanship. Within this hastily prepared circle were reinforced lines that slowly morphed into peculiar shapes that had smaller twins copied into their delicately drawn forms. These shapes were accompanied by the ancient language of magic that all users of magic must learn if they wished to cast even the simplest of spells.

A hand cupped the bottom of her chin as she eyed the various flaws that were visible to her trained eyes after the initial look over. These flaws were minor in detail and wouldn't prove themselves as hindrances in what she wished to accomplish in several hours from now, but her pride as a sorceress would take a hit if she were to let them be.

The fact that she so desperately wanted to return to the metaphorical drawing board and fix up the mistakes that she had made in a rush to save those under her care was neither here nor there. The circle was finished, and her desires to perfect the ritual site had to be abandoned if the sorceress was to accomplish her main task at hand.

Velicion clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth at the thought of teleporting a large group of people to a faraway land. Her goal wasn't an impossible task to do. She had read on the subject, written her own theories about it, heard about it being done and had even seen the teleportation being done on a very minute scale.

The only issue was the fact that there were over a dozen teenagers she needed to teleport at once while she would be left behind. Exhausted, and alone with no backup to support her deathly drained form.

A nearby explosion rocked the earth around her feet, vaporizing her thoughts into the hazy nether that served as her unconscious mind.

'Disgusting chattel,' The sorceress's thoughts turned towards the humans who had failed to hold their ground and had been routed within a matter of an hour upon contact with the enemy. She had hoped that her allies would prove themselves the victor at the end of the day, but she had been sorely mistaken to place her trust in an army that was nothing more than a glorified peasant mob. 'The least they could do is to serve as glorified target practice for the goblins and their artillery.'

Velicion shook her head in disgust over her own thoughts as a lonely sigh escaped from her lips. Her frustrations over the day's events had gotten the better of her, and she had allowed her anger to transform her usually professional attitude.

With the exception of the young Iskra, the fates of the humans were of little concern for her. All that she needed to do was to cast a communication spell with someone back at Tor’a’noc, the massive citadel that serves as her family's seat of power and have them serve as both an anchor point for the ritual and a secondary caster. Two people were required for the spell to work, and she needed someone of a moderate skill level.

There were several people that she could think of that would be of help to her. One of them was in the far north of the world, traversing the harsh lands of the frozen wastelands that were home to hordes of demons. Another was her husband; the rightful heir to all of elven kind, but the man was an unreliable sex maniac who, depending on his mood, would take far too long to even get to the teleportation room without having his other wives vie for his undivided attention.

Thankfully the self-proclaimed Witch-King of the Dark Elves had an unhealthy fetish for sorceress women and had over a dozen wives who were all sorceresses of various skill levels. So Velicion had plenty of options to pick from when it came to choosing who she should or shouldn't choose to help her.

The only real problem that she had was that those that she wished to help her in her time of need either hated her guts or were woefully unreliable when it came to time management.

Thankfully she would be able to use Prince Aurelius's name as a means to lock down those she wished to receive help from. All of the members of the Witch-King's harem were well aware of their Arch-Mistress's love for her youngest son, and most feared the wrath of the first picked queen of the elves. So it was only natural for Velicion to use the boy as her trump card.

Another nearby, but still relatively distant, explosion rocked the earth, yet the sorceress paid little attention to the matter. Velicion had long given up the idea of being concerned for the groups' safety when it came to the enemy's bombardment of Ruined Home. At one point, during the initial moments of the siege, the sorceress had blamed poor marksmanship for the enemy's inability to hit anything of note. Yet, it quickly became apparent to Velicion that the artillery's crew were more interested in inflicting as much destruction as possible upon the human encampment.

Goblins and orcs were two races that cared little for the beauty that the more civilized races created throughout the years and loved nothing more than to wreak havoc upon the world around them.

Velicions blatant disregard for the actions of her enemies came to a slow but methodical stop when she realized that a concerned voice had been calling out to her.

"-ress Velicion!" Shouted Varrik, a boastful boy that had managed to make friends with the sorceress's half-son in a relatively quick manner. Something that the motherly concubine was glad for, as the young prince had been without friends for most of his entire life. A consequence of the overly protective actions of the boy's mother.

Another explosion erupted from the ground around them, forcing quickly heated chunks of mud to rain down upon their many forms.

"What do you want us to do?" The young teenager allowed his question to hang in the air, confident that the sorceress was aware of the intent behind him asking for direction.

The teenager, whose hair was as white as the freshly fallen snow, winced in pain as hot chunks of dried mud smacked into his arm, forcing the boy to quickly scrape off the chunks of super-heated dirt while he waited for a reply

Velicion looked at the boy with a face that only a mother could make. She had told the group of teenagers to remain close and stick together so often that she had wondered if that was all she knew what to say. She had even gone so far as to force the group to recant her instructions on multiple occasions as they ran around their portion of the encampment as they picked up the last of the youthful elven nobility.

The sorceress was well aware that no one within the adventuring party was thrilled to be treated like newborn infants, but Velicion didn't care. She needed to get the large group of teenagers to the back of the encampment and teleport the hastily created elven expedition back to their homeland where they would no longer be in danger.

"Remain as you are and stick close to me," Velicion said with confidence to the boy who could only look at her with a concerned face. The young boy opened his mouth but quickly closed it as he watched the sorceress incant a spell that bathed her right hand in flames. For the next part of her plan to work, Velicion needed to light a fire and incant a quick spell that would allow her to communicate through the recently lit fire. "I want another headcount. Are we all here and present?"

"Mistress Velicion," Varrik said with a hurried voice as he turned to look around him, ensuring that he did as he was asked while also trying to grab the attention of the powerful sorceress. "I don't think that- Wait."

The boy's confused voice fell into silence as he scanned his immediate surroundings. There were several pressing matters that he wanted to address with Velicion, but the young noble's mind had stalled out on him as he tried to think of what he should bring up first.

Eventually, the etiquette of Dark Elven noble society had won in the end, and the words that next escaped his lips brought a sharp breath from the sorceress. "Where's Aurelius?"

Velicion's eyes went wide as she quickly turned around, nearly jumping into the air to avoid twisting up her feet as she called out for the elven prince at the top of her lungs. "Aurelius!"

Concerned frustration quickly morphed into anger as her eyes failed to catch sight of the golden-haired prince. The elven woman's usually calm face burned with a fiery rage that only a mother could produce when upset over the actions of an undisciplined child. "Aurelius! Stand in front of me now!"

As soon as those words left her mouth, Velicion's thoughts turned towards the frustratingly absent visage of Iskra's unmistakable form.

"Where's Iskra?" The elven mother turned to look towards Varrik, who could only offer a confused look in response to the woman's inquiry.

"Who?" The boy asked as he failed to come up with a face to the name.

"The girl," The sorceress shouted as she brought out her hands to mimic the human teenager's impressive bust. "The one with the massive tits!"

"Oh-Uh-" Varrik covered his ears and recoiled back in fright as the ear-piercing screams of the elven sorceress assaulted his senses. The unbridled rage that came from the sorceress was a new sight to behold for the young elven lord, as it was the first time that he had seen a parent so concerned for a child that wasn’t their own. A factor in part due to the fact that the boy had grown up in an emotionally cold and physically distant noble family that saw little use in showing affection to the children that had the misfortune of being born after their firstborn son and daughter. "Well-"

"I haven’t seen her since we passed through all of that siege equipment the humans made!" Another voice rang out, bringing attention to the group's chaotic foray into the encampments artillery batter. Other voices rang out in support of the second voice as several others began to offer their own words in the matter.

Velicion, red-faced and clenching her shaking fists with near unbridled rage, allowed her frustration to manifest itself in a monstrous and deeply guttural growl as she snapped her neck towards the center of the raging inferno that was once called Ruined Home.

In doing so, the sorceress had caught sight of an approaching horde of goblins, orcs, wargs, and trolls. The hideous and gangly limbed creatures would be upon them in mere moments.

"Of all of the-" Velicion screamed as she turned her attention towards the band of misfit elven nobles.

The emotions that raged upon her face was all that was needed to be said for the teenagers to form a defensive position around the angered sorceress.

"I tried to tell you about them!" Varrik nervously let out before quickly shrinking beneath the sorceress's burning gaze.

No one else dared to say a word as the group continued to close ranks and rallied themselves for a tough fight ahead.

For the orc that had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, his confused expression at having a sword explode out of his chest from a position of relative safety had managed to convey the feelings of shock from both himself and those around him. Even the blonde-haired elven teenager, whose body was still feeling the effects from the short-distant teleportation spell called Blink, had the look of someone that couldn't believe what had just happened.

For those that employ the spell known as Blink, or otherwise called by the name of Warp, or Jump, it was said that the caster needed to be cautious when breaking out of the realm of reality and into the other-world that lay between the various planes of existence. If you weren't, then one would find themselves in the exact type of situation that the young elven prince had landed himself in.

The pack of goblins that made up the now-dead orc's party of looters looked to one another with looks of blood-draining fright, especially for the unfortunate creature that had the misfortune of having blood and gore splatter across its deformed face. A few tried to speak, but could only mutter out worldless sounds as Prince Aurelius began to look nervously around him as he slowly rose back onto his feet.

The elven prince kept a tight grip on his weapons pummel as he straightened out his back and tugged on the weapon to free it from the miserable corpse's wretched form. Unsure of what he should do next, Aurelius let out a single cough as mud and blood dripped down from his face and onto the ground below. The boy's fingers tightened around the weapon given to him by his father as his black and silver eyes looked from one goblin to the next, waiting to see what they would do.

No one made a sound as the shellshocked group of elf and goblins looked at one another.

"Uh-" Aurelius's body reacted quicker than his mind could react upon seeing signs of movement to his left. Within a blink of an eye, his sword had gone from being embedded into the body of the unfortunate orc to slicing the face of the goblin that had sought to take advantage of the prince's confused state.

The goblin, whose face had been torn apart by the expertly crafted elven sword, collapsed to the ground as if it was little more than a bag of rocks.

This was all that it took for the rest of the fallen creature's comrades to snap out of their daze and seek vengeance for their slain brother. As one, the goblins lunged towards the golden-haired warrior. Unfortunately for them, their weapons had failed to connect with their target, and a second goblin lay dead at their feet.

Prince Aurelius took deep breathes as he looked at the collective group, amazed at how quickly his body reacted to the danger that had presented itself. Blood oozed down the sword's blade and collected itself upon the weapon's uppermost point before slowly dripping down onto the ground below.

"Um-" Aurelius's face was of mixed emotions as he quickly realized that his body had reacted quicker than his mind had been able to. In one moment, he had been surrounded by a pack of bloodthirsty creatures, and then in the next, he had somehow managed to jump back and fell one of the nasty creatures in a single stroke of his blade.

The boy let out an uneasy chuckle at the situation he had found himself in.

Due to his mother's protective nature, Aurelius had never received any official instructions when it came to swordplay, as she claimed that it would invite an adventurous nature to take hold of him. However, he had always made it a distinct interest of his to watch on from the distance as his older siblings received the best training that the Dark Elven people had to offer. He had even gone so far as to come up with a secret training regime that he would practice on a nightly basis while he was supposed to be well asleep into the night. He did this to ensure that no one would catch him in the act of embarrassing himself while he flailed around and smacked himself into the various furnishings that were spread throughout the room.

So his surprise in seeing the results of his impromptu training had made the boy crack a nervous smile. Though he still wished that he had received proper training, as that would prove itself to be the most useful in the current situation at hand.

While the young prince's mind was distracted by his childish amazement towards his sword skills, the goblins took the pause in the battle to look towards one another for a second time. The creatures nodded to one another and chattered to those close at hand as they reorganized themselves to fully encircle the strange warrior that had seemingly come from nowhere.

Distracted by his own thoughts, the young prince was caught unaware when the goblins lunged towards him for a second time. Aurelius tried to dodge but failed to get out of harm's way. The reward that he had received for his absent-mindedness were wounds that were glancing blows and non-life threatening injuries, but the elven prince took the lesson to heart and struck back at his adversaries.

With a single, powerful swing, the elven prince had managed to overpower two of the goblins and shatter their weapons. The creatures, shocked at the sudden development, tried to take several steps back but found that their bodies couldn't move at a quick enough pace when Aurelius twisted his weapon back around and cut down the pair of grey-skinned beasts where they stood.

With two more down and a handful of the creatures left, Prince Aurelius allowed his body to take over where his mind would begin to fail him.

Within an instant, the rest of the pack of goblins strengthened their resolve and charged towards the blonde-haired elf with disregard for their own safety. They only sought to sate their thirst for vengeance upon the towering elf creature that had dared to kill their kinsman.

Surrounded and outnumbered, Aurelius did his best to dodge, duck, and weave through the various attacks upon his person. With each thrust of a spear that made its way towards him, the young prince parried the blow and struck back at its wielder.

For his bravery in standing his ground against so many attackers, the young prince received various injuries from his many adversaries that had remained out of his sight.

By the end of the ordeal, the goblins had all been slain, and Aurelius was all the worse for the wear. Albeit with minor injuries that would only serve to slow him down. Thanks to the enchanted chainmail that was hidden beneath his shirt, Prince Aurelius had been lucky enough to receive only glancing blows to his body.

The young prince didn't dare to think of what would have happened to him if he hadn't been wearing the magically enhanced piece of armor.

Aurelius winced in pain as he knelt down to the ground, bringing a hand down to one of his wounds. The prince let out a groan as he brought the hand back up to his face and wiggled the blood-soaked fingers in the air.

Not wanting to dwell on the matter of his injuries any longer, Aurelius forced himself to stand. The teenaged elf let out a pain-filled grunt as he took a step forward as he tried to balance his weary body and clear his clouded mind. The boy shook his head and turned to look around him, hoping to find anything of note that had managed to stick out in all of this chaos within the besieged human settlement.

There was nothing that he could see that had stuck out to him in any particular way. All around him were fiery pits of burning corpses that the young prince quietly wondered how they came to be. Beneath his feet were the pulverized corpses of humans and goblins alike with the bodies of various orcs breaking up the sea of death on the rare occasion.

To his left were pillars of black smoke that rose high into the air as the fires that fed them continued to burn through the wood construction of the palisades that the human leadership had ordered to be built. To his right were more corpses and more death with the rare pit of fire raging in the distance. He didn't even bother to look at the ocean of fire that engulfed the other half of the encampment's defensive walls. There was nothing to be said about it, except for the fact that it was there and threatened to consume any nearby corpses that had the misfortune of being slain next to the relative safety of Ruined Home's walls.

What he did notice, however, was that there was a multitude of orcs and goblins that were packed tightly together for reasons that were lost on the elven prince until he caught a glimpse of several humans that were struggling to hold their ground.

Confusion wracked the teenager's mind as he became astounded at the fact that a small group of exhausted and mentally drained humans had somehow managed to not only hold their own against a superior group of enemies but also to find themselves backed into a position that was near the very front of the human encampment. Well away from any fighting that Prince Aurelius was aware of having taken place.

To ensure himself that he had not somehow stumbled upon the frontlines of the battle, Aurelius looked around him and quickly recognized the smoldering remains of the encampments front gates. Bits of man-sized shrapnel had been strewn about the nearby area when the trolls had first broken through, and the horde of goblins rushed in to do battle with their human and elven adversaries.

As Aurelius turned his attention back towards the group of unfortunate humans, the young prince was at a loss as to what he should do next. While his injuries were small of note and would most likely prove to be superficial in nature, him having received them in the manner that he did made him take a second look at how he should approach the situation at hand.

His mind was a blur of all kinds of emotions as he ransacked his thoughts for what he should do next, but he continued to stand there, lost in his own thoughts as he failed to come up with a plan of action.

That is until he saw a warg-riding orc, scrawny in build but powerful in presence, charge towards one of the humans and howl into the air as the powerful mount clawed at the unlucky human, tearing the arms from the unfortunate conscript before quickly pouncing over the human's form and tearing into his neck and face with its powerful jaws.

From that moment forward, Prince Aurelius steeled his resolve and began to sing the incantation that would allow him to warp towards the danger before him. As he sang the ancient words of magic, a strange and whimsical mist slowly rose from his body. The boy's vision began to spin, and his mind was a blur of endless thoughts, but he never lost his concentration and continued to sing the song that he had been taught.

Suddenly a bright light engulfed every once of being within him, and the elven prince disappeared from reality in a thunderous clap.

In a flash, he was gone from the sight of those that grew curious about the lone elven warrior, and within another instantaneous moment, he would reappear right where he wanted to be.

Or that was what he hoped would happen at least.

There was a strange sensation of Deja-vu for Aurelius as the young prince slipped back into reality. Arcane vapors trailed off of the sweat-drenched teenager as a bright light blinded the boy for a split second, Aurelius tried to look away but found that it was impossible to escape from the eye-searing light.

Just as the young prince had thought that things couldn’t get any worse for him, Aurelius opened his eyes to find out that his sword had materialized into the head of a ferocious warg. His enchanted blade had found itself coated in the jellied brains of the unfortunate beast after having exploded out of the other side of the creature’s skull.

This wasn’t the end to the series of misfortune prone deja-vu for the blonde-haired prince, however. With no real sense of control over his movements after having completed the spell, Prince Aurelius was unable to stop himself as he collided with the warg's still standing corpse and lock eyes with the creature's astonished rider as the teenaged elf somersaulted through the air.

Shortness of breath and a pain-filled croak came out of the exasperated elven prince as the blonde-haired elf landed on his back. Thanks to the immense pain that he now felt, Aurelius had been temporarily blinded as bright stars filled every corner of his vision. To the unfortunate teenager, it had felt as if a massive dragon had landed on top of his back.

As his vision swirled around him and his mind struggled to catch up to the reality of his situation, Prince Aurelius could only look to the still flabbergasted orc rider whose mount was somehow still able to stand.

As Aurelius continued to lie there, gasping for air as he attempted to recover as quickly as possible, he couldn't help but wonder if the warg had yet to realize that it had been killed.

'Is it actually not dead?' Aurelius asked himself as he watched a small number of sinewy strands of muscle strain against the dead weight of the miserable creature's nearly decapitated skull.

As the young prince wracked his brain to find the answer to his internal question, Aurelius noticed hints of movements from the corners of his eyes. What happened next gave him quite the shock.

"Kron'ha," The boy heard himself sing as his body was quick to react against the newfound threat and shift itself over to reach out and punch the nearest body. As it swung through the air, Aurelius’ fist became engulfed in a bright purple haze before brutally connecting with the face of its intended target, a goblin with a heavily scarred face. The young prince was taken aback as the creature’s head exploded in a gore riddled shower of shattered fragments of its skull and liquefied brain ooze.

The shadows that had once begun to surround the prone prince now moved to back away from the frightening display of power. This sudden power reveal by the newly arrived elven prince had proven itself effective against his enemies as his vision became clear enough to recognize them as more goblins.

The creature’s looked to one another with trepidation in their eyes as they sought out the bravest of their kind.

This supposed, mysterious hero had failed to rise to the challenge of rallying their brethren and laying waste to the still dazed elven prince as the pack of worried goblins continued to look to one another for guidance. The creatures were still in shock over the fate of the last goblin that had dared to come close to the blonde elf, and some appeared to be on the verge of dropping their weapons and running from the magic-wielding elf.

The final straw for many within the small gaggle of goblins was when a blood-engorged grunt erupted from behind the pack of diminutive creatures. Many turned their heads, with Aurelius only able to shift his eyes towards the source of the sound, and laid their eyes upon the warg’s rider as the orc brought a hand down to its chest where a bloodied spear had pierced it from behind.

All eyes were on the orc pack master as he stared at his chest with a dumbfounded expression. The orc struggled to grasp at the bloodied edge of the as he began to turn his head and seek out its mysterious attacker, but the still confused creature was forced to twist its neck in an unnatural angle as a second spear pierced itself into the side of its head.

At this point, it had become quite clear to those within the immediate vicinity that the near-defeated group of humans had rallied themselves and set about on taking revenge on their would-be killers.

As the humans moved in to rescue their apparent savior, several of the goblins turned to flee the scene while those that remained bared their yellowed teeth at the pack of humans. For those that had fled, the deaths of both the vicious warg and its cruel master had proven too much for their cowardly nature to handle and for those that had dared to remain behind had become drunk on their thirst for bloodshed.

The goblins that remained managed to give pause to their rallied enemies as they let out a unified menacing cackle. This newfound opportunity to slake their evil desires had proven itself to be well worth the risk of throwing themselves into danger.

The battle was swift, and without mercy as the two sides charged towards one another with hate in their eyes and by the time that Aurelius had recovered enough to the point where he was able to stand on his own two feet, the battle was already over.

The humans had won and slaughtered the remaining goblins with only minor injuries to their side.

Aurelius brought a hand to his head as he shook his head to clear away the lingering after-effects of his recent tumble through the air. As he blinked away the last remnants of his blurred vision, the young prince vowed to never again experience any similar ordeals. The last thing he wanted to do was to find himself tumbling through the air again while those around him looked on with sadistic smiles over their faces.

His silent vows of bettering himself came to a standstill when he felt a hand place itself over his right shoulder. Aurelius turned and looked behind him to see the shell-shocked face of a human boy, who the young prince thought as being no older than himself. The teenaged human began to speak in his native language as the two of them locked eyes with one another.

The young human, whose blonde hair was matted with both blood and mud while his face was covered in still bleeding wounds, spoke rapidly and without pause. The boy’s hands began to move at an equally rapid pace as he tried in vain to get the elven prince to understand what he was attempting to say while his hands moved as quickly as they could in order to catch up with the human’s words.

Aurelius opened his mouth to speak but quickly closed it shut as his eyes moved from the human’s left hand and then to his right as he became lost in the human’s one-sided conversation. It wasn’t until a second human appeared behind the young boy did the teenaged warrior understand that his words were lost on the blonde-haired prince.

The young boy, whose hand was still over Aurelius’ shoulder, paused his conversation with the elven prince as he looked back towards the second human. The blonde-haired boy became embarrassed by his actions and quietly dropped his hand from Aurelius’ shoulder. The second human, who appeared to be older than the both of them, gave a light-hearted smirk as he shook his head in amusement.

The two humans conversed with one another while a still confused Aurelius looked on. He wasn’t sure what their conversation was about, but by the time that it had ended and the older teenager had sent his younger counterpart to attend to those still need of aid, the young prince was well aware of the fact that this older human was the de facto leader of the group of survivors.

“Uh-Thanks.” Aurelius extended out his hand in both a greeting and thanks for their help. The group’s leader looked down at the gesture and smiled before quickly taking the prince’s hand in his own.

The two of them shook hands in a lively manner as they each gave their counterpart an awkward, but well-meaning smile.