Chapter 5

The Hero

For the umpteenth time since entering this Progenitor-forsaken realm, Ragnor cleaved the stone warriors that approached his party. It was supposed to be a simple mission. Go in, grab the heritage of whatever god lied here and get the hell out. Instead here he was trapped with two vampyrs and the inheritor candidate they had chosen. Thankfully the vampyrs were credits to their family names, holding their own against the stone warriors that were assaulting them on their fronts. He could not say the same for the inheritor candidate however. Although he could not blame the man for his uselessness, an inheritor had to have no affiliations after all, it grated on Ragnor that he had to do the work of two. The pay simply wasn’t enough to make it work it, but the favor of a vampyr was a rare thing to get, so he grit his teeth and bared with it.

Using a surge of lightning to empower his glaive, he tore through the upper halves of the warrior’s torsos, effectively dispatching them. Once he confirmed that there were no more such constructs approaching them for the time being, he turned back to his other party members. The Susurro was still in the process of commanding his contracted beasts to destroy his stone warriors. The Incantator however, had just wrapped up her fight, the sigils carved into her skin fading away and losing their luster.

“Well this is definitely not what we were expecting” Celeste sighed, taking out her robe to cover her bare arms.

“You’re telling me, I was led to believe that I’d have my hands on the inheritance by now” Charles remarked, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his brow. Seeing his companions who did all the work glare at him, he quickly added “Because I feel bad not contributing you see. I’m grateful, but I hate seeing people worked up on my behalf”.

“Be patient little man, the masters here have put a lot of work in preparing you for this. Now, while we need your body to be hale and healthy, I didn’t hear anything about keeping your mouth in working order” Ragnor said with a vicious grin, brandishing his glaive in front of Charles’ mouth.

Charles visibly paled and clamped his hands over his mouth and moved to stand behind Celeste. Ragnor chuckled and laid the shaft of his glaive against his shoulder. It seemed that the Susurro was still toying with his foes, so he took this chance to assess the state of his to companions. The Incantator Celeste had long blue hair cascading around her pale shoulders, her eyes bore the same telltale glow present in any one who practiced the Incantator’s special branch of enchantment magic. Her face, as with all vampyrs, was beautiful, slightly angled in a perpetual frown. Celeste used her enchanting skills to enchant herself to deal devastating blows with her body. As a result she was well built, her body having a sinuous quality that only martial artists tend to have. Although she was just 17, her clan already considered her one of their top warriors.

In contrast, Charles was well built in a more barbarian sense. His hair was cut short and he was of average height. Despite his musculature, there was little he could do to the caliber of foes they were currently facing. It was very disconcerting to see someone with Charles’ build act cowardly, but he supposed having spent so much time under the thumb of the vampyrs, not many people would think to show any bravado with them present.

“I never expected god trials to be this tedious. What’s even the point with these continuous assaults?” Interrupting Ragnor’s musings, Aarok finally came back with his spirit beasts in tow, a lamia still in its serpent form and a saber tooth tiger. Aarok was the Susurro in the group, and while still in his teens, the boy could already maintain control over two beasts, spirit beasts no less. The lack of speed in taking care of the stone warriors was just him taking the opportunity to train his beasts on how to handle such foes. Aarok himself was tall and slender, his pointed ears keeping his long white hair behind his face. He wore black robes embroidered with gold seams in contrast to the brown the servant class wore.

“This place is clearly a sub-dimension, but there’s no clear way out. It’s almost like we’re just being stalled here.” Aarok looked around the white world around them. If it wasn’t for their experience in traversing such spaces, they’d feel as if they’d fall at any moment into the abyss.

“It’s strange, I keep sending out tendrils of mana to pry the structural integrity of this place, but even with the bonuses offered by my Class, the strands just dissipate.” Celeste said with a frown. The construction of this space was far complex from anything they’d ever seen, even going off of god Heritage standards.

“I agree. I guess our Intel was correct that the god that left this place behind was a mage type, and a powerful one at that. No warrior god would be this good at setting up a space like this.” Aarok concluded as he too sent out tendrils of mana to confirm Celeste’s discoveries.

Ragnor let the vampyrs do their thing while he took stock of his internal reserves. The stone warriors had cost him roughly 15% of his mana and about 20% of his qi. If it wasn’t for Thor’s blessing, he’d be worse off. The vampyr girl mentioned something about a Class and he couldn’t help but be a bit envious. There were many advancements in coming into power over the past years, and the Class system was one of them. He was too old to be bothered with how they worked, much less switch over to it. All he knew was that getting a class offered benefits along a given path when using Genesis. He took back what he said earlier, maybe Aarok wasn’t extremely talented, maybe he had a “Class” or whatever other methods they used now a days.

Looking at the 3 youths before him, Ragnor couldn’t help but keenly feel his age. Although he still looked 30ish, his hair still bright blonde, the body of a Viking, tall and imposing and not a wrinkle to be seen on his face and piercing blue eyes, this was only because of a reward his god had given him for merits accomplished in battle long ago. In truth he was already reaching 120 years old, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d have. Although it was whimsical folly, perhaps he’d settle down after this. With youths like the ones before him, including Charles should he prove to be competent once he gets his powers, the Divide would make strides to the Final Goal.

“Perhaps you could try to overload the space with your raw mana? Simply flooding the space or use your manipulation skills to form the mana into crude shapes to try and tear it apart?” Charles suggested after seeing Aarok’s look of frustration as he too failed to sense anything about the space they found themselves in. The 3 of his companions just looked at him in blank amazement.

“Good thinking Charles, all that time drilling you in theory is paying off. Come Celeste, let’s skip taking turns trying it alone and just skip straight to the working together part.” Aarok beckoned to Celeste, gesturing to a spot a short distance away from Ragnor and Charles. Discharging that much mana into the environment and haphazardly moving it like Charles had suggested was harmful to the non-initiated and Charles was too much of a heavy investment to risk like that.

“Well I’ll be damned, seems you weren’t completely useless after all. Who would’ve thought that you’d have some good ideas in that noggin of yours” Ragnor laughed while slapping Charles back. Charles had to do his best to stop himself from falling to the floor from the strength of the blows. “I take back some of the things I’ve been thinking about you. Keep this up and maybe I’ll consider you an actual warrior when all this is over. I know some people back home and we can visit a tavern. I know this one where the wenches are great at customer service if you know what I mean” Ragnor shot Charles a knowing grin.

“Surely you jest, I was raised to be a vessel since I was young. Being able to come up with this much should only be expected” Charles blushed, rubbing his shoulders and pulled away from Ragnor, his eyes making a quick movement towards Celeste when she was conveniently looking away. ‘By Thor, he fancies her? Seems this one has more balls than I’ve been giving him credit for if he’s got the courage to even think about being with a vampyr. And an heiress no less.’ Ragnor grinned at Charles when the boy returned his gaze back to him. Realizing that he’d been caught, Charles once again paled, and this time becoming so white that anyone who didn’t know the boy had caramel skin would have thought he was a vampyr himself. The only thing needed to complete the image were the pointed ears.

Walking over and putting his arms around the boys shoulder, Ragnor drew him into a sideways hug, whispering in his ear “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me, assuming the lass doesn’t already suspect or know.”

Charles gulped and nodded his appreciation. Satisfied, Ragnor let him go. If the boy had plans on the girl, regardless of their success, he could not let him go without some help. Maybe he’d gone soft due to old age, but seeing a young man in such a situation brought out the old romantic in him. Something he thought he’d lost decades ago.

“If this Heritage turns out to be a warrior type, I’ll teach you a few things.” Ragnor promised, receiving a blustering thanks in reply. A follower of a different pantheon, no matter the circumstance, passing on techniques to an outsider was not done lightly. As such Charles couldn’t help but feel gratitude. Ragnor had no relation to them other than a hired sword, or glaive as it were, so Ragnor going this far meant that he had taken a liking to him.

Suddenly a tremor shook the room they were in, and cracks started appearing all around them. A screeching not unlike the sound chalkboard made when scratched filled the surroundings, getting more intense as more and more cracks began forming spider webs all around them.

It seemed Charles’ suggestion had been on the money.

****

Charles had to cover his ears and hunch over to try and keep the noise out, but it was little use, the sound too great for his normal body to handle. He suddenly felt a big pair of hands cup his ears closed, and the screeching faded into something somewhat bearable. He looked up and saw Ragnor standing before over him, looking utterly undisturbed by the dysfunctional orchestra playing out around them.

After a few minutes, panels of the white around them began falling and fading away. In the gaps left behind by them, several hues of green appeared. As more of the segmented panels fell away, the greens proved to belong to leaves on trees, as the windows began rapidly growing in size as more and more panels yielded to their mortality. After what seemed like a few more minutes, the panels finally fell away in full, welcoming them to a glade of trees with one last shrill crescendo that pierced even the protection offered by Ragnor’s hands.

Once Ragnor was sure the last of the noise was gone, he removed his hands from Charles’ face. Charles heaved a sigh of relief, not even the Sonic Bats the vampyrs used to train his will were as bad as what he just experienced. A shuffling to the side had him turning in that direction. Both Aarok and Celeste rejoined the duo, the two spirit beasts obediently following close behind. The vampyrs showed not a hint of exertion from their recent feat, once again after so many times he’d lost count, further solidifying the respect he had for them.

He used the opportunity to commit to memory Celeste’s appearance. The grace with which she walked, her modest chest being outlined by her fight suit, her beautiful face in its usual thoughtful expression, giving the impression that she was thinking about some great puzzle that she not solved yet but was on the cusp of succeeding. Her ocean blue hair framing the entire image in something that Charles refused to believe that there existed an artist that would not give up their passion in shame of not being able to replicate it with their unworthy skills.

Charles was no fool, he knew why Ragnor had taken a sudden liking to him after he was caught. He knew perfectly well that if there was to be any chance at all that he would succeed in making Celeste his, he’d need all the help he could get. The great families were hardly known for their coupling with humans, and even then, of the few times it had been sanctioned, it was never with an orphan with no history. That was who Charles was, being picked up in some orphanage in Mexico by the vampyrs when he was 6. Of course, he had not been the only one singled out from orphanages across the Mayan world, but he proved to be the most promising candidate. He had Celeste to thank for all that.

He still remembered when Celeste walked in, only just 8 but being assigned tasks to begin conditioning her to leadership and matters of the family. Truth be told, someone else had almost received the honor, the adult vampyrs that came to handle the actual selection explaining to Celeste their reasoning in choosing the other child. Celeste had heard their reasoning, and glanced around the orphanage in an attempt to try and immolate the grownups and be helpful. The moment she had laid eyes on him, she turned and beseeched her Custodians to choose him instead. The Custodians had applauded her and followed her suggestion, informing the Nun of their decision. Despite his memory of the event being incredibly lucid, the actual contents of the conversation between the Custodians and Celeste remained a mystery to him, the result of a spell that people of the Divide used to keep mortals from listening in on mystical matters.

All Celeste told him when he had asked, was that they were looking for a worthy person to become a hero like in the stories he so liked to read whenever he could.

While he only knew that he was raised with the express purpose of getting his hands on a Mayan god Heritage and becoming a hero, he never wished to know more, the time he had spent with a Celeste made it all worth it. Celeste had been ordered by her father to teach Charles everything that she learned in her magical theory classes as it was her decision to choose him above the choice of the Custodians, and he would be tested regularly to make sure that Celeste did her job well. He still remembered the first time he had failed a test. The subject matter had been too confusing and he was too ashamed of his incompetence to admit as much to Celeste. She had come back the following day bruised and battered, her martial instructor having “taught” her a lesson. Celeste had never blamed him, had never admonished him for not asking questions. She simply resumed teaching him as normal. He was filled with so much shame that then and there he swore to himself to always do the best he could in everything and grow up to become a man that could be her Hero to her and the human race and someday marry her. Back at the orphanage, whenever one of the boys got rowdy with the girls and they ended up getting hurt, the nuns would read story books of knights in armor saving and protecting the fairer sex.

“A proper man must be the heroes that protect girls. When you all grow older, you’ll meet a woman that above all others you would want to be a hero to protect her the most” the kindly nun would remind the boys every time someone got too rowdy with the girls.

Back then, at that moment, he knew he wanted to protect Celeste, and that he wanted to protect her above anyone else, so it had made complete sense to the 8 year old him to make such a declaration. It was the first time Celeste had graced him with her laughter, and he had seen her blush for the first and only time.

“If you become the best at our selection, maybe my father would let you” Celeste had remarked with startling casualty, immediately moving forward with the lesson. The phrase had been an innocent comment on Celeste’s part, simply stating a fact, but it had thoroughly impacted Charles, awakening a drive to succeed he never realized he was capable of. As one would imagine, this ultimately led to Charles zealously internalizing all the knowledge thrown at him.

He succeeded in not only becoming one of the candidates moving forward into the physical preparation round, but he had done so in first place, his scores leaving far behind his competition. The physical round was much of the same, his tenacity and will power giving him the edge needed to never fall, always holding his ground and never backing down from the different scenarios thrown at them, even when it was in the 1 to many fights. He having succeeded in fighting and winning a 1-10 fight guaranteeing his selection. He had been 12 at the time, Celeste having just celebrated her 14th birthday. Although she had on her signature thoughtful expression, she had gifted him with one of her rare smiles, thanking him for having made for investment worthwhile.

His victory had been such a landslide that when Celeste had been lauding him for his success, the Patriarch of the family of all people came to him for the first time since his daughter had brought him home.

“Congratulations….Charles is it? I expect great things of you when you get a Heritage.” That was all the Patriarch told him. With a pat on the shoulder, the man left the room, leaving Charles and Celeste alone in the lounge again.

“Maybe you can be my hero after all” Celeste said, and with after a rather awkward hug, walked away. Just that sentence said in passing sent Charles over the moon. He did not slowdown in his training and dedicated himself as much as possible. To have one of their leads confirmed just when Charles had reached the ideal age for entry into the Mayan Mystical Arts Restoration Academy. It would be the best place to have Charles start carving a corner into the political landscape for him and his benefactors because he’d be mingling amongst future leaders of the Divide. He had been so eager that he hardly slept the night before they left the manor. Ragnor had implied him to a useless coward earlier, but it was not that he was coward. It was more accurate to say that he would not endanger himself before he could his hands on the power that was rightfully his. He had faith that Celeste was strong enough to protect them both until he could get their goal here. So until then he’d swallow his pride and let them do all the fighting, once he got his treasure, he’d make sure Celeste never had to fight again.

Now, here he was with the love of his life Celeste, a new friend in Ragnor and the Susurro Aarok in a glade in a different dimension, surrounded on all sides save one by ancient trees. Before him stretched a pathway down a hill, leading up to a massive Mayan temple, the steep steps leading up to a doorway, the hill they were standing on too far to see anything other than darkness from their vantage point. The temple had a massive hole at the very top, through which he could see a clear indication that that was where they needed to go. Was this not like the stories he had been read back at the orphanage and at the manor when he was in the library? Him and trusty companions and the Susurro finally reaching the end of a journey to claim the treasure?

Just you wait Heritage, you won’t be here all alone for much longer.

The Hero was coming.