Tess

“Magic. The most powerful thing in nature, but also the most dangerous. It can come in many forms, solids, gasses, energies, even inside the mind, it has endless possibilities. It was what sparked life into this world, evolving it. The very lifeblood of this and many other universes.”

Tess closed the large, dusty tome. She set it to the side, on the table next to her bed. She had spent a large amount of yesterday reading up on magic, for her knowledge was very vague. But the magic books were even more vague than her knowledge.

The worst part being that there were no magic teachers, therefore Tess was walking blind in this new age of magic. All the teachers of the Old World were dead, the only thing Tess could learn from was ancient books and scrolls that her family had been able to save.

The sun had reached its peak, and Tess decided she would take a walk out in the courtyard. Getting out of her bed, Tess walked to the armoire on the other side of the room. She decided on a simple, plain light green dress with long sleeves. It was thin enough to not be hot in the summer day.

She walked out of her room, through a few empty, but lavishly decorated halls. Passing a couple servants, she walked out into the courtyard.

It was large, filled with white stone walkways, large trimmed bushes, a few small fountains and plenty of benches. There was a colorful array of flowers, all spread out on the sides of walkways and on bushes. Tess took a pathway to the left, just walking for a while, staring at the trees and flowery bushes.

She took a seat on a bench, overlooking the small river that led from a tiny pond on one side of the courtyard and exiting through a metal grate on the other side.

Tess found her mind wandering, thoughts swirling around. She gazed absently at the slow moving water. She had always found this spot peaceful and relaxing since she was just a child.

Her thoughts slowly turned to the evils her mother spoke of. Now, the Queen seemed fine, but her words had planted a seed of unease in Tess’s thoughts. She didn't know why, but those words came back to her, ‘I can feel a great and malicious presence headed for Evrite. I can feel many of them, all in the south. The human lands. One has even breached the border and is headed here now.’

What had she meant by those words? She had also told her she needed to learn her new found power. Like she feared something may happen.

The thought of something evil headed for the capital made her shiver. What could it be? Whatever it was, they had a small army of guards patrolling the castle's walls, the royal guards. They were the best of the best, the ‘elite’, having almost perfect scores in their training, they had the option of being guards to the royal family. Even so, the city was patrolled daily by the city guard and there was a massive wall encircling it. Actually three walls.

The first was the biggest, the outer wall. It was meant to protect from sieges and the houses outside would be evacuated quickly, allowing citizens safety. Then the Inner Wall, the one that encircled the upper distract holding the noble houses, higher quality shops and finally, the Royal Wall. That was the one that encircled and acted as the royal family's castle wall. It was the biggest out of them all, if need be it could hold at least half of the Valcrest population, but that wouldn't be needed because they had a large guard force, It had to be to guard the city.

But then again, hadn’t these evils been something feared in the Old World? Who knew what had awakened, but now they had Magic. Her father, the King, would definitely start development of magic weapons, based of the blueprints they had saved.

Tess knew one thing though, she needed to get stronger, to protect her future people and hopefully lead them to peace. She detested her father's choice, his reaction to the destruction of the keep. He was gearing up for war with the humans now. It was like he had no common sense, or maybe he was just waiting for something like this to happen. To go to war with the humans. But why would he want to do that? Resources? Land? Power?

Tess would have liked to love and think her father as a honorable and good man, but she just couldn't. He was kind to her, her mother and the most of the nobles. But the way he looked at servants, and even his own people, it was like he saw them as bugs. Especially the beastmen. She was afraid he was only a report away from issuing an order to put all beastmen into slavery.

Then there was the way he attained power. His father, her grandfather, had three sons. One was her father, Nerofix. Then there was her uncle, Vanax, who was currently married and happy in house Caterer. Then her other uncle, Jurix, who was residing in the family crypt next to her grandfather.

Nerofix was the second in line for the throne, Jurix the first and Vanax last. Their father, King Zander, did a annual ball. Everything was going according to plan as they just sat down. Their food was brought to them from the kitchen. The king gave a speech about ruling for 63 years and sat down to eat with his sons next to him. They dug into their meal with everyone else, the food masterfully cooked. About halfway through the ball, after the feast and during the dancing, the King and Jurix start coughing.

They both coughed violently, like they couldn't breathe and collapsed dying. Later they were found to be poisoned, by a rare poison barely detectable by taste and was scentless. Naturally, Nerofix was given the throne. The assassin was later found by the guard, with a large portion of the royal treasury's gold that had gone missing that night. The thief and assassin was put to death by the order of Nerofix.

There were rumors swimming around how that assassin was hired by Nerofix himself. The people telling these things went missing without a sound and talk of how the old king and his first son died was snuffed out.

Tess had her suspicions, but it didn't make sense, because the ‘thief’ was tortured and admitted to killing the king and his son with poison. Supposedly he hadn't meant to kill the first son, but some poison got in there anyway. He used the commotion to sneak into the royal treasury and stole a large portion of gold.

Her attention was drawn out of her thoughts, as a butterfly fluttered by. It was a beautiful orange monarch, fluttering gracefully in the wind. She closed her eyes and sighed. Then she gasped.

Millions, upon millions of little sparkling lights were everywhere, shifting through the plants, the ground, the water, the sky, even the fish, birds and butterflies. It was beautiful, like a the night sky, but filled with different colors, that were ever shifting.

Was this the magic the books were talking about? The very thing that had shaped the world?

Tess decided to try something she read from the books. The book had been vague about it, like saying stuff about going into trances and absorbing the surrounding magic. She imagined a kind of cave, or empty lake right about where her sternum was. Then she reached out to the lights, willing them to come towards her. Only two colors slowly heeded her call, they were a light green and white. It was hard trying to draw them in, but after what felt like hours, she had formed a sort of glowing sphere of green and white light in front of her, about the size of a ball.

Then slowly, she pulled it towards her with her mind, letting it sink into her sternum. A rush of power hit her, knocking the breath out of her. It travelled through her veins, eventually settling about where her sternum was. She could feel it, like a slight pressure in the back of her mind. Regaining her breath, she opened her eyes, looking around. The sun was just starting to set.

‘I did that till sunset?! Oh, gods! Mother must be worried sick!’ Tess bolted upright and started to run through the gardens back to the castle.

Ren

Ren let out a moan, the side of his head hurt like hell. In fact, his entire body felt like it had been used as a punching bag.

“He’s waking up,” a little girl’s voice said.

“Wh…?” Ren said, then he felt something round pressed to his lips, cool liquid poured down his throat. He coughed at first, but then he regained control and the bottle was pressed to his lips again, he greedily gulped it down.

“Hmpf,” A different voice said, this time a man's.

The bottle was pulled away from his lips, he wanted another drink. Ren slowly opened his eyes, he was met with the sight of two people. One a human boy at least 16 years old and another, a small wolf girl. The boy sat down on a log facing Ren, letting out a long sigh and rubbing his forehead.

Ren tried to stand up, but found he couldn't. Looking down, he found he was tied up to a tree. Looking back up, he saw his gear in a pile at his feet.

“Alright, sir knightly knight,” The boy said, then he pointed at himself then at the little girl, “I’m Lost, and this is my friend Fen, not hostage, slave or anything else.”

“Release me now, and I won't unleash my power upon you again, lying scum! Free the girl, too.”

Lost sighed again, “Dude, did you not hear me the first time, how about the second time? No? I said she was my friend. Go on tell him, Fen. He won't listen to me.”

The little wolf girl looked over, she glared at Ren. It was a glare filled with distrust and anger.

“Lost’s my friend, he saved me,” She looked over at the swordsman, “I don't understand… why did you spare him? He attacked us… and elves can’t be trusted.”

‘What did I do!? I tried to help her!’ Ren thought, his air of confidence slowly degrading. He slumped back against the tree.

Lost whistled, “I never thought you had such a hate for elves, Fen.”

She growled, but didn't say anything. Lost turned back to Ren. “Okay, well. You’re lucky, she wanted me to just leave you there, but I thought that cruel. So, what is your name, and do you know anything about these two?”

Lost gestured over his shoulder with a thumb, scooting to the side.

Two men were tied to another tree, both unconscious. Their gear was at their feet, one giant sword and a short sword with shield. They were the adventures from the inn. Both about the same height. One had a bushy black beard, rough skin and a big noise. The other one, bushy, reddish eyebrows, a sharp noise and stubble on his chin.

“You attacked adventurers!?” Ren shouted, glaring at Lost.

Lost looked silently stunned, turning back to Fen, “I’m starting to think you were right about leaving this guy behind.”

“Grrr,” Ren gritted his teeth, this kid had no respect for his betters. But then Ren remembered what he had done. He had survived Ren’s attack, the attack he used Power with.

Turning back to Ren, Lost talked again, “I did not attack these men. They came down the road a little bit after you, and attacked me.”

Ren glared at Lost, who seemed completely unintimidated, “You must be lying, you must be forcing the lady to say these things. And you attacked those poor adventurers on the road. Now release me or else I will attack you with even more Power! ”

He glanced at Fen, looking for confirmation that he was right. She glared at him, causing his heart to crumble. At this point he was starting to believe this dark boy's words. He said them with confidence and did not appear to be lying. Then Fen seemed to have a hate for him.

Sighing for probably the 5th time, Lost asked, “So, what is your name?”

Looking down, all of Ren’s confidence went up in smoke, he responded meekly, “Renhold Fher. Most just call me Ren, though.”

“Alright! There we go! Okay, Renhold. Guessing from your reaction you're not with those two, so, I'll let you choose what you want. You can either stay tied to that tree with no food or water in this summer sun till someone finds you. Or you can join up with us!”

Ren’s head snapped upwards, while Fen shouted out in protest. Lost shushed Fen, and looked back at Ren, “So, what do you want to do?”

He didn't know what to make of this. Why would this boy want Ren to join him in where ever they were headed? Even more so, Ren had insulted him tons of times and nearly killed him.

“W-why would why want me to join you?” Ren asked, staring at Lost with suspicion.

Lost started counting points on his fingers, “Hmmmm. Well, the first thing is that you don't seem to have a dislike towards Fen, unlike all the other elves. In fact, I think you came after us thinking I had kidnapped her or something, right?”

Ren only nodded.

“Then, second. You seem like a good guy, maybe not too bright but, hey, that I can deal with. Third, and probably my most compelling reason to ask you, is the fact you're a magic user. I can say for sure that you are in some form a magic user, but you do things crudely and could be far more productive if taught how to do it properly. I can definitely tell that you had no idea how powerful that spell you cast was, or how you basically came a hair's width away from killing yourself. I have no idea where you learned that Channeling spell, but I must say I’m impressed that you were able to use it so soon since the release of magic. However crudely done.”

Ren was kinda impressed. This boy had insulted him, but the insult was also a complement. Whoever this swordsman was, he seemed like he knew what he was talking about. Then he also seemed to have no respect for others.

Also, Ren was surprised he knew what he had done to him. Even Ren wasn't exactly clear on what he did with the lightning. The spell had come from a scroll his father gave him, saying it was a family heirloom, this was on Ren’s birthday and when he left his small village.

The option of being left to die of thirst was also quite compelling. He really did not want to be out here without food or water and no guarantee that someone would find him before he died.

Ren thought for a bit more, trying to look like he was actually contemplating the option. He also knew that he wasn't fooling them, but they made no comment. “Alright, I will join you. Only to make sure you are not lying about the Lady being your friend and to protect her.”

Hey, he had to try and save some of his face.

Lost nodded, then looked over at Fen. “You can stop now Fen.”

Ren was puzzled by what Lost meant, but then the rope vanished, leaving him free to move. “What was that?”

Lost snorted and got up, sticking his hand out to help Ren to his feet. “You aren't the only one who can do magic. I just taught Fen that one, too. It's not even supposed to have mass.” He whispered the last part.

Ren grabbed Lost’s hand, and was surprised to find that the small, thin boy was able to pull him to his feet without trouble.

“Oh. One more thing. Renhold,” Lost cocked an eyebrow at Ren

“Yea?” He said hesitantly.

“You wouldnt happen to know the way to the capital city?”

Ren nearly choked, and laughed in Lost’s face. But he restrained himself. He could tell this was going to be one interesting adventure.