Tale of Eldramir

It was early in the morning that a young man in his late teens found himself standing in the middle of a large stone chamber. His eyes were pure white with only a black pupil and small black ring around his white irises being the only color to them.

At his side was a bastard sword with opalescent accents on the cross guard and pommel. The sheath was black with white highlights and several Runic enchantments engraved into it.

He wore a reinforced leather long coat with Runic enchantments woven into the fabric. Beneath that, he wore a simple tunic and trousers combination with simple socks and shoes. But those clothes were also enchanted for defensive purposes, like the rest of his outfit.

The young man also wore several beaded bracelets and a necklace with a black opal carved in the shape of a featureless face. Several smaller wood carvings depicting different animals, or beads with carved sigils on them accompanied it. The final pieces he wore were two rings. One with a black band and the other with a gold band. Both had pure white gemstones set in them.

Ezekiel and Shine had both matured greatly since their days as members of the Church. Their experiences during the expedition to Trigat and Morncrest had helped them greatly when it came to their later efforts as affiliated Hunters.

That wasn’t to say that all their time was spent out doing missions. They had also spent a great deal of time submitting their personal findings to the Church. Their roots as researchers and Scholars couldn’t simply be taken from them like their titles and badges.

“Are we ready to begin the test?” Ezekiel asked aloud. His voice had deepened over the years, as he had finished going through puberty.

“Yep! All the plans -bzzt- place -tch-” A soft but still masculine voice seemed to emanate from the pommel of the sword at Ezekiel’s side. A brief spark flashed and the engravings on the pommel cracked.

“Ouch! That still hurts!” Shine said in the mental voice that Ezekiel was more familiar with. “How much longer until you think you’ll be able to figure out that Voice Enchantment?”

“It’s still top of my personal list of projects, but you know we need to finish these requests before we get any more funding from the district leaders. Unless you want to go out on another mission with the Church?” Ezekiel continued to speak aloud.

“That wouldn’t be too bad. It’s been a few weeks since we saw any of our friends from there.” Shine said. “It might be nice to see if they’ve managed to incorporate the Voice Wind enchantments to the Com-Slates yet.”

“Well, it took them several years just to decide on an altered version of the snippets of morse code we gave them to work as a language. It wouldn’t surprise me if it took even longer to incorporate a new enchantment into the artifacts.” Ezekiel couldn’t hold back his sigh as he thought about the bureaucracy that undoubtedly held up several of the Church’s developments.

“Regardless, we need to see if we can get this enchantment going properly. Maintaining a sustained Flame will help make great strides to several industrial developments.” The lack of the standard fuel sources from his old world was something he never thought he’d miss. But finding alternatives using magic had turned out to be more difficult than he’d expected.

“Right! Test number forty-seven of the Sustained Open Flame Generator Enchantment. All Runes are in place, and the engraving are contained within the disposable Enchanting surface.” Shine said in a chipper tone. “Let’s see how this one blows up! I think there’ll be a fizzle with plenty of smoke and smog.”

“I’m ignoring that. Opening vents.” Ezekiel said as he channeled a small amount of mana into a crystal in the wall of the chamber. He then headed over to the center of the room as several shutters opened above him. “Let’s do this.”

Kneeling on the ground, Ezekiel channeled a small amount of mana into the several foot wide Runic sequences engraved on a board on the ground. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, but as the mana filled the enchantment, a small flicker of light appeared in the center of the circular enchantment. After a few moments, the flicker formed a flame the size of a golf ball that floated above the middle of the board.

Pulling his hands away from the enchanted board, Ezekiel had to stop himself from jumping with joy.

“It’s working! The flame is sustaining itself from the ambient mana in the environment fueling the enchantment.” Ezekiel muttered quietly. He quickly rushed over to a table off to the side where he started checking over his notes and grabbing different artifacts for checking the results.

He was so busy that he didn’t notice the flame in the circle slowly growing bigger. Nor the Runes engraved in the reinforced board beginning to glow brighter.

“Ezekiel!?” Shine said in a worried voice. “The flame is growing. It’s actually growing faster.”

“What!?” Ezekiel exclaimed as he turned around in concern. The flame had now grown to the size of a volleyball. It would soon be the size of a basketball. Worse yet, the board was beginning to rattle from the energy that it was channeling.

“OH SHI--!!”

A flask of light was all that Ezekiel saw as he was blown backwards from the resulting explosion.

It was a calm and peaceful day in the city of Sanafalls. After the rewards for the Relics and other discoveries from the Morncrest and Trigat Ruins were granted, a large influx of ships and merchants occurred within the city. To the point where the size of the city had now nearly doubled over the course of several years.

One particular region of the city was the Old Channels, now just named, ‘the Channels’ district. A section of the city that was once quite decrepit. A place where little to no business was done. Where few, if any, people enjoyed calling it their place of residence. Mostly, it was a place of squalor, but that had changed since Ezekiel had obtained ownership of one of the larger buildings.

Given its place right next to the water, and its previous existence as an auxiliary property of the Church of Ten, a great deal of money was used to improve the conditions of the area.

Some of these changes included a larger waterway, several factories and production areas that made use of the water, and several apartment complexes that were semi-designed by Ezekiel to handle the increase in residents of the city.

The growth of the city had actually gotten to the point that the district officials actually approved the formation of a Guild district. Here, several Guilds from other cities on the island had built up properties and branch offices for missions. With the updates regarding the Com-Slates, it was also now possible to make regular communications between organizations.

Of course, even with all these grand developments, there were still a few things that the people in the city disliked dealing with.

One such thing being the regularly occurring loud noises and explosive outbursts that occurred whenever Ezekiel was experimenting with his magic.

The crack of thunder and a gout of flames emanating from a large open chimney covered in Runic Enchantments emphasized this point. The residents of the Channels all turned towards the somewhat large building in the distance. Some grumbled over their jolted reactions to the noise. While others laughed, thinking of how Ezekiel must’ve messed something up again.

This was now a regular occurrence, but while most found it annoying, Ezekiel never performed such experiments during the night, so he didn’t interrupt any sleep. He also ensured to invest a great deal of his money as a Church Affiliated Hunter to the Channels district. Most of the residents understood that the recent developments to their district were thanks to him, so while frustrated, they were forgiving.

The sight of the building in question, however, was a somewhat worrying sight. A great deal of smoke emanated from Ezekiel’s building as the enchantments on the building kicked in. The air within created a large ‘fwump’ sound as the smog was vented.

The building itself was five stories tall and was once a shipping warehouse. It was used by a few smaller merchant companies that had long since gone defunct or moved to the primary docking district. It had been enhanced by several construction teams. To the point that it looked more like a small, reinforced castle with several battlements, and an attached courtyard for combat training.

In fact, some of the Guild from the neighboring district had members that would often rent use of the facilities for a small fee. As well as occasionally acting as guards for the area. This contributed to Ezekiel’s image within the city, as he had made himself well known to most of the Guilds in the newly built district. Something that not many outside the Guild District regularly did.

Outside of Ezekiel’s building was a small group of people. Amongst them was a familiar face. One that flinched as the small explosion occurred just a few stories above her head. A small groundhog nuzzled her leg, doing his best to calm her down.

“I’m okay, Tuff. I just wish I could get used to this stuff.” Sasha said as she looked up to the large smokestack that was slowly fading away as the ocean breeze blew. “Let’s go see how that brat messed up this time. Hopefully he’s still in good enough condition to handle the news.”

Tuff snorted in amusement, but quickly climbed up his bonded Mage’s work apron and reinforced construction uniform. Opening the large entrance gate with her personal keys, Sasha delved into the belly of the beast that was Ezekiel’s private workshop and residence.

The desk Ezekiel was looking over clattered to the side from where it lay atop his body. He had reflexively ‘Jumped’ as far from the center of the room as possible. But the direction was right behind the table. So even though he was over a dozen feet away, he still got slammed into the wall when the table was blown towards him.

“Ezekiel! Are you okay?!” Shine yelled in panic. “I tried to reinforce your body, but I’m not sure if I got the amount of mana right.”

Taking a second to roll over, Ezekiel coughed several times before spitting up some pinkish phlegm. He made a mental note to head to the healer he had hired for assistance.

“I’m fine, Shine. I didn’t manage to reinforce myself after ‘Jumping’ so it would have been a lot worse if you hadn’t helped.” Ezekiel stated. “For now, I think I need to get some assistance from Mera. I think I cracked a rib or two.”

Standing up with a wince, he looked over the remains of the room. It was heavily reinforced, so there was no damage to the structure, or any of the furniture or instruments that weren’t set up for use. But the center of the room was nothing more than a charred and soot covered splotch.

Worse yet, the notes he’d kept in the room were simply ashes. Luckily, he kept backups of his notes in his private storage. But it would still be annoying to have to rewrite the copies. Worse yet, the few smaller instruments he’d left on the table were little more than shattered remains.

“It looks like we’ll be taking a job with the Church after all.” Ezekiel said. “Shame. I was hoping we might finally be able to get to the eighth Step this month.”

Over the five years that had passed since Ezekiel and Shine had gone through their endeavors in Morncrest, the number of missions they had been on had varied. Since they were no longer directly under the purview of the Church of Ten, they no longer had to take missions that they didn’t want to.

However, it also meant that they didn’t get priority when it came to resources and training. Nor information, or access to missions. Their situation did allow them to join a Guild full time, but while their experience with the Island Hoppers was mostly good, they simply didn’t feel like they could trust any organizations besides the Church at this time.

“Hopefully there’s an expedition, or other mission that they can put us on that’ll get us a fair bit of coin. The percentage we get for the artifacts we’ve created for them just isn’t cutting it.” Ezekiel muttered in frustration.

“Don’t we still have enough savings to finish at least a few projects?” Shine asked. “I know those instruments were expensive, but don’t we have access to the Church’s broken stuff?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that we should be taking their scraps and handouts all the time. Apparently, the Guilds are beginning to worry about possible favoritism.” Ezekiel said with a scoff.

“The Iron Hulls?” Shine asked.

“Yeah...”

The Iron Hulls were the Guild that had ultimately cemented the fact that he didn’t want to join a Guild at this time. They were a Tier three Guild, with just one Legendary, but still had enough power to push around some of the Tier two Guilds. Like the Island Hoppers.

They had actually tried to muscle out some of the other Tier two Guilds from the Guild district when the district was first being built. In order to make room for their subordinate Guilds. Needless to say, neither Ezekiel, nor the Church, really approved of this. Mostly because the Iron Hulls never bothered to accept Church provided missions.

They were one of the three Tier three Guilds on Sanafalls and its satellite islands. But they were also the only Guild that had refused every Church mission. What made this even worse was the fact that the Guild Leader was an ex-Apprentice Scholar. He’d been removed from the Sanafalls Cathedral when he’d bonded with a Spirit, and they had to let him go due to the treaties.

The man had thrown up a massive fuss at the time and had moved to the opposite side of the island from the city of Sanafalls. Joining the Iron Hulls as a Tier two Hunter, and eventually rising to the top as their only Legendary. Something that others had suspected he took actions to ensure remained true. As there were rumors that the Iron Hulls’ peak Adepts usually didn’t last very long as members. They were either forced to quit on strange charges, or died on missions that went wrong.

“Bastard’s that don’t know how to leave things alone. The Torrent Riders Guild needs to become a Tier four Guild soon, or else those bastards will start trying to take control of the Guild district again.” Ezekiel muttered as he made his way out of the testing chambers.

The Torrent Riders Guild was currently the strongest Guild on Sanafalls, being the only one with two Legendary members. Best of all, there were several peak Adepts that were expected to break through within the next few years.

While they didn’t have the closest relationship with the Church, they were much better than the Iron Hulls. Usually taking at least one request from the Church per year. The only reason they, and the Rooted Circle hadn’t been employed during the expedition to the Temple of the Void was because the former had already accepted several large commissions when the request had been made, and the latter didn’t leave the waters around Sanafalls, as they were also the island’s primary marine force.

Hopefully, if the Torrent Riders became a Tier four Guild, they would be able to settle things down in the Guild district sooner, rather than later.

As he exited the room, the broken instruments had been gathered into a box for disposal. The one’s that could still be repaired were left against the wall where the table had been placed against it. He’d try to fix those ones when he had some money for parts.

“Hello, Ezekiel, you’re looking fairly smoky.” Sasha’s voices from behind him pulled Ezekiel from his thoughts. “Here. Let me help you with that. You go to see Mera. I’ll meet you there. I have to talk to you about something.”

Unable to get a word in as his friend took the box from his hands and made way towards the building’s disposal center, Ezekiel could only look on in shock as Sasha walked away. Sighing in frustration, as he wasn’t sure if Sasha’s presence was a good thing or a bad thing, Ezekiel headed towards the small infirmary that his resident healer had set up.

Sitting on a medical table without a shirt on, Ezekiel couldn’t help but wince as he felt his ribs being knit back together. Mera, a girl with long black hair that covered her bright green eyes, who was the same age as Ezekiel, looked sorry as she saw this.

“Sorry...” Mera muttered as she saw Ezekiel’s reaction to her healing. “I’m still working on incorporating numbing magic into my bone knitting.”

“It’s fine. That’s why you’re here. Though you may wish to practice dual casting.” Ezekiel said. “Apparently, it is easier to think of the numbing spell as a separate spell, which has a bone knitting spell stacked on top of it.”

Mera nodded her head in understanding, even as she focused on the spell at hand. Though she winced immediately afterward as she saw Ezekiel flinch. The motion brought her to a finish, but also dispelling the numbing sensation.

“Thank you, Mera. I know you think you need more time, but I honestly believe that you have a chance at entering the Church within the year.” Ezekiel said.

“... Thank you, boss. I’ll take your words into consideration.” Mera muttered, a small blush on her face as she turned away and began going through some books on one of the shelves in the room.

“Are you trying to do that?” Shine asked. “I feel like you might be leading her on.”

“No, but I’m not going to hold back on my compliments and opinions, especially when they’re positive.” Ezekiel replied. “Though I may need to clarify some things sooner, rather than later.”

A knock on the door to the medical office pulled the occupants’ attention toward it.

“It’s Sasha. Can I come in?” Sasha’s voice called through the closed door.

“Yeah, come in.” Ezekiel called out as he pulled his shirt on.

As she opened the door, Sasha and Tuff stood there, giving a disappointed look as she glanced between Ezekiel and Mera.

“Did I interrupt something?” She asked.

“No.” “No!”

Ezekiel and Mera simultaneously replied. Though the latter was more forceful than Ezekiel’s.

“Hmm. Disappointing.” Sasha replied.

Ezekiel ignored this, though Mera turned redder. Getting off the table, Ezekiel moved toward the door. Grabbing his coat from the hook on the wall as he did.

“Ignore her, Mera. She’s just teasing you.” Ezekiel said. “Thank you for the healing. I’m sorry for interrupting your studies.”

Leaving the room with Sasha, Ezekiel and Shine turned their attention to one of their oldest friends, wondering what was going on.

“You shouldn’t keep leading her on like that.” Sasha said. “I know you’re still young-ish, but I’d have thought you would have been more mature than that.”

“I’m not leading her on. I’ve never even shown any interest in her.” Ezekiel said as he pinched his nose in frustration. “I genuinely just wanted to help her get accepted in the Church. Especially since she showed some good potential as a healer.”

“That’s the problem. She thinks your feelings are more than that. You need to clear things up with her. She’s been here for nearly a year now.” Sasha said.

“Alright, alright, I’ll talk to her later today. Now, what did you need to talk to me about?” Ezekiel said. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but as far as I was aware, you were supposed to be leaving on a mission to Tarquessa today.”

“Yeah, this is somewhat about that.” Sasha muttered. “We should probably go to your office. Perhaps a place where you can sit down.”

Ezekiel was starting to look more worried now. Shine wasn’t much better. Things had gone up and down for them over the past five years, but this seemed to be something big. Sasha wasn’t known for being evasive, or even all that careful, when it came to addressing information pertaining to Ezekiel. But that was something that helped him understand that whatever this was, was serious.

Seeing that they were not too far away from a small rest area, Ezekiel directed them all inside.

“So, what exactly is so bad that you think I need to sit down?” Ezekiel asked. “You’re usually not like this when it comes to news.”

Sasha looked uncomfortable, but she knew that this was something that Ezekiel needed to hear. Though she wasn’t sure how he would handle this.

“It seems like my mission has been canceled. As have almost all the missions outside the Archipelago.” Sasha said. “It seems like there’s been an outbreak of conflicts, all along the Continent’s border of the Desolate Lands.”

Ezekiel immediately went still as he understood what Sasha was saying. If conflict had once again opened up along the border of the Desolate Lands, then that meant Harkem was going to war. He was now very thankful as he went somewhat limp in his chair.

“Are you okay?” Shine asked. Though they could tell that Ezekiel was greatly concerned.

“I... I think I will be. I just need to process this.” But Sasha’s next words would make this nearly impossible.

“That’s not all.” Sasha said. “It seems like conflict has also broken out all across Tarquessa. With the more powerful faction being the Cult of Light.”

Ezekiel felt his heart clench up as chills ran up and down his spine. He hadn’t heard any news in the past few years regarding the Cult of Light. It was something he thought was strange. But he had put it to the back of his mind as he focused on his own life. Apparently, that was a mistake.

“Ezekiel... I don’t think we can stay out of this.” Shine said in a nervous tone. “If the Cult is moving again, then I don’t think they’re going to keep leaving us alone.”

Thinking Shine’s words over in his head, Ezekiel couldn’t help but agree. It seemed his relative peace was now at an end.

“Agreed. But we’ll need to be smart about this. Going straight into an open conflict is almost guaranteed to get us killed.” Ezekiel said. But as this crossed his mind, something else confused him.

“Why are you the one telling me this? Shouldn’t this be public news?” Ezekiel asked.

“It hasn’t been released to the public yet. Though rumors are certainly going to start flying soon. The Church just got news first, since several Cathedrals in Tarquessa have already been destroyed.” Sasha explained. “We’re hoping that the Guilds that are there can help things settle, but many of them have been converted to the Cult.”

Ezekiel winced at that. The Guilds were considered separate entities from the Church of Ten, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t support each other. To have lost even a little bit of support from the Guild could be bad. Especially in a place with as little unity as Tarquessa.

“Thank you for bringing this to me. I’m going to assume that the Church would’ve told me about this when I went to see them later. But this works out for now.” Ezekiel said. “Now I need to figure out what I’m going to be doing next.”

As Ezekiel paused to think things over, he noticed that Sasha seemed to be uncomfortable. Tuff had actually climbed into her lap and was nuzzling her to comfort her.

“What is it?” Ezekiel asked. “What else is there?”

“... It seems that the Willowbrush Empire has been lifting a lot of punishments, in the hopes of garnering additional support to bolster their forces.” Sasha muttered. “Given your situation, I’m worried about what you’re going to do.”

“That’s fair.” Ezekiel said, after a few moments of thought. “But you can rest assured, that I won’t be doing anything stupid without addressing a few things with the Church and the Grand Scholars first.”

Internally, Sasha wanted to believe him. A part of her did. But she knew that Ezekiel had set his mind on something. She didn’t know what it was, but it was definitely something that she’d undoubtedly want no part of.