The Origin
Late… Again
Anerya rushed to her lesson panting as she ran
“Damn I’m going to be late again” She thought.
She rushed onwards to the slender purple spire that for the day would be were she would practice her spells and read the musty old tomes that contained new incantations. However she would also have a test today in Lesser Conjuring of Inanimate Objects which would be had outside of the city itself. Finally she reached the spire. Instead of taking the stairs to the second top level she merely muttered a few words and drew a few signs in the air that activated the (usually) dormant levitating spell. She floated up with considerable speed to her classroom. She stopped outside it, straightened her robe, took a deep breath, readied her books, opened the door and walked in.
Inside it was completely quiet. As Anerya walked in she blushed furiously as everyone stared at her. Her mentor, Daelan, merely glanced up and said
“Late again? This will not look good in your record you know that.”
“I was… delayed on my way here.” She shrugged.
He sighed.
“Very well then have a seat.” Since all of the expected students were here Daelan began his lecture.
“Today we are here to delve more deeply into the intriguing nature of magical sympathy. As you all know…”
Inwardly Anerya sighed. They had already had several lessons on this and beside she knew all this. It had always been like that. She did not know but rather felt how everything should be by impulse. That meant that she had advanced quickly up through the ranks. All though she was only a second-grader she already studied the fifth grade of most of the magic schools and was way ahead of the other students when it came to geography, mathematics and history. However that innate intelligence had made her lazy, unfocused and bored.
As Daelan’s lecture lengthened she began to take notes in one of her notebooks. But as she heard the same thing being said over and over again simply explained in different ways, all of which she knew, her head began to droop towards her book. She had been up very late with an… associate. As they had gone to bed together she had justified it by thinking
“I’m very drunk, he’s really good at kissing and besides it’s not like its anything important tomorrow.” But the lack of sleep had left her very tired, and now faced with a perfect opportunity to do it basically unnoticed, she slept.
She woke up one and a half hour later by the sound of Daelan’s strong voice calling out that’s all for today and the sound of everyone standing up and casting their own personal signature spell to declare that they had been present at the lesson and that they were satisfied with it. Anyera hurried to her feet quickly murmuring the quiet words of very own spell. She was very proud of her spell because unlike most of the other students she had made her completely by herself. Most of the other ones had pieced together small bits of old spells and improvised a bit. After she had said the incantations a burning D with an L inside it glowing brightly with purple appeared. After a few seconds her own letter A, shaped like two intertwining, green trees, stood beneath them proudly. All apprentices filed out. The rest talked and chatted among themselves. However Anerya walked by herself to the stairs and walked down. Now she had two hours of break before her test would begin. Therefore she headed out to the grassy lands just outside of Dalaran to practice her spells, sunbathe and simply relax.
“Our young “Master” apprentice is learning very fast. A bit too fast for my taste. Are you sure we should really let her remain at Dalaran?” said the old lady as she stared down at the minuscule picture, of Anerya practicing her spells, in the scrying crystal. She was dressed in a black robe with skulls and bones all over it. The robe had a hood which she had pulled far over her head in an effort to cover as much of her face as possible.
“You may think so. I, however, find it a close to comforting thought that she is so powerful. After all else she would be well basically worthless. Except as the usual cannon fodder.” The speaker, from the sound a young man or blood elf in his prime, was clothed in a robe similar to that of the old lady.
“Very well then but if she turns against us she will be a formidable foe to even the dreadlords.”
“Hah. True. But if she ever gets that powerful out of the Scourge I personally will finish her.”
“That will have to be an option even if she is in the Scourge.”
“I know… I know”
Anerya walked to the place where the test would be held. With her there would be three other students all trying to outdo themselves and the others to impress the teachers. But as usual Anerya was calm; she had in her mind to summon one of the most fascinating things in the world. Just hope now that the spell doesn’t backfire on her. It shouldn’t do that after all she knew all the correct gestures and words to summon it. She had worked on the spell for several weeks so she hoped it would work out. Smiling she entered the area of the test.
“This is…
Torture
Going to be fun” the lich muttered as he took up one of the gruesome instruments that were looking, to be honest, like a straight meat hook with several sharp, pointy… protrusions that were obviously meant to hurt. He held it a few centimeters above the subjects left arm and said
“Either we do this the fun way or… Gods can’t you just tell me, else I will just have to hurt you really much.” The woman laughed and tried to spit on the lich.
“I will never tell anything to an agent of the Scourge”
“Fine then, Have it my way” The lich laughed maniacally and slowly, slowly lowered the instrument so that several of the protrusions broke through the skin into the soft muscle tissue beneath. The woman, not so startlingly, began to scream in a high pitched voice as the lich slowly continued to cut through her arm and as pain rushed from her wounded limb. Although if you looked at it now it was actually hard to imagine it had once been someone’s arm. The lich smiled a devilish smile, waved with the bloody instrument and said
“Want some more?” The woman, who had at this point actually managed to block out some of the pain, answered
“Bring it on. You will never get anything out of me.”
“Are you sure? Because your body being destroyed once, that I can understand that you can take. But how about if we heal your wounds after ever single time we wound you. We can’t die of age, neither can you if we don’t want you to. Imagine how it would be like to be trapped down here, month after month, year after year, maybe even decade after decade.”
The woman now began to realize the true horror of the torture. They could, and would, hold her here for an eternity. The lich allowed her a few minutes to mull it over and watched her face change, from chocked terror, to steely eyed conviction, to the numbness of the doomed, back to the full face of terror, with an almost satisfied expression on his glowing bone face. Then he laughed and said
“Back to the slaughter. Back to the slaughter.”
The woman endured for several days, letting screams and pleas out of her mouth but never betraying any information. Then suddenly one day, her nerve broke. That day she was scheduled to be constantly pummeled by shadowbolts, each one bringing her close to death but never really killing her. After she was to be mind controlled and then forced to kill human and elven children and woman prisoners. However just before they cast the mind control on her she began crying and said
“No. NO! Plea... please… Please no. I’ll tell you. About everything, troop movements, magic preparations, alliance forming, anything just please give me a swift death.”
“Now you’re being more reasonable. What the military want to know I’ll ask about later. Now for a more” he nodded to the skeleton guards and they exited” personal matter. Tell me everything about Anerya.”
“Anerya? She is my daughter.” And once again her face changed back into steely conviction and burning rage
” I would never help you do anything to her. Do you hear me lich? NEVER!” With that she closed her eyes and used her last slight skill in seeing the Light to make it bless her with a swift death. She felt it beckoning and she beckoned back. It answered her call and an old yet kind and strong male voice saying
” Don’t worry. We’ll burn you. You’ll get a nice, swift and painless death”
She smiled and let her head slump back. She felt the Light descending. It surrounded her and…
Was forced away by utter darkness. She opened her eyes and immediately saw the lich standing in the middle of a well of true blackness uttering strange and horrible words. She felt the Light fight against the lich. Trying, straining to reach her, but in this place of defilement it simply was too weak. She could feel it being pressed back and lastly completely shrink away.
“So you had one last trick up your sleeve, eh?” The lich muttered as he fell down to his knees on the stone floor, utterly exhausted by the effort to fighting even one of the weaker of the avatars of the Light in his own zone.
The bones that were his body fell to pieces and his shrieking spirit retreated back into his phylactery. One last sentence hanged in the air
“I’ll be back, and then there will be no end to your torment.” The lich was now if not dead then at least banished for the time being.
However the woman slumped backwards, sighed and then began to cry. There was no getting out of it now. Having used her last slight reserve of power her determinacy failed her and she crumpled. She knew that either she would die out of starvation and thirst or, more likely, someone of the undead would retrieve the phylactery and then revive the lich. And so she wept. Not only for herself but also for her daughter which she in the end would betray.
The test
As the three apprentices standing around her began their summoning she saw that out of the three two was using old spells with only some slighter tweaks. The other she was, slightly, impressed by. He used a spell that was, for her, completely new and also quite potent.
Already the signs of magic strain began to show on his face. Anerya however would best them all.
She began muttering the magic words while drawing in the air with her hands. Sparkly blue and purple light shined in the air where she had had her hands.
She felt the object she would summon begin to take place in her head.
A light dash of yellow here, a brown speck here and of course a blue sheet over here.
Soon the image was complete. Now to “apply” it to the world.
She frowned and with pure force will forced the image in her mind in to the world. In front of her was a ten square-feet perfect map of the known world and if you looked close enough you saw that it wasn’t just a image.
It was a perfect real-time replica. All the cities and even all the inhabitants were there going about their lives. Everything, absolutely everything, which was in Azeroth was there to on the replica. The spell had been tiring even on her. As she looked around her she saw that for several feet around her all life was gone. Drained as fuel for the microscopic living entities that were living on the replica. Her teachers looked at each other with uncertainty, astonishment and amazement that a mere second-grader, albeit an exceptionally gifted one, would be able to conjure up something so… so fantastic as this.
Anerya saw that the others had conjured if not amazing then at least interesting things.
However for now instead of looking at the others she instead gazed upon her own creation with pride. But when she looked closer she for some reason saw a black… mass moving towards Dalaran, just north of Lordamere lake. She frowned and, concerned, called the test mentors to her so that they would come and help her figure out what it was.
The mages, hearing her worried voice, came walking towards while congratulating her on this extraordinary feat of magic. One however complained about that it wasn’t completely inanimate. After all, all the living people on Azeroth was there. When they reached Anerya she merely said
“Look. Just north of Lordamere lake. In Lordaeron, something’s. Something’s there. And it’s moving towards us!”
As they muttered among themselves about ungrateful students, one of them said Anerya
“It’s natural that your spell would have misfired in some way. After all it’s quite an achievement. Some of the fully trained mages could probably not do it. So it’s probably just an anomaly in your spell.” However one of the mages suddenly cried out
“There actually is something there.” Several others quickly agreed.
“Yes I see moving forms inside it.”
“So do I”
“Yes something’s definitely there.”
One of the mentors said then.
“Very well I shall attempt a scrying spell then. To check.”
He began muttering words in a high voice while at the same time taking a clear crystal ball out of his wide purple robe. He held it with both his hands and finished the spell. Anerya felt the magical surge as scrying spell began to function.
An image appeared. In it she saw twisted skeletons, lumbering ghouls with some flesh still attached to their rotting bones, flesh piles made of several dead bodies being stitched together, dark magicians in black robes, liches, gargoyles. The horrors she saw in there was plentiful and the army seemed to be going on forever. Then suddenly one of the necromancers looked directly at where the scrying spell looked on from and cried out.
“Alarm! Someone is spying on oss! Negate the threat.” The necromancers began shouting the words of a powerful mindtwisting spell which would give control over someone’s body to him.
Luckily the mage that had cast the scrying spell recognized the necromancers own incantation and quickly severed the scrying spell leaving the necromancer to target the thin air.
“Who was that?”
“Contact the magocrats let them deal with it”
“That was the Scourge. They’re done with Lordaeron now they’re coming for us!”
“Very well then. We shall fight them when they come. Now someone alert the magocrats”
And so begins the Mages pitiful preparations against the Scourge. So begins the Demon lord’s, entrance to the world. Beware mages, beware. For he is coming for you. And he will not be merciful…
So ends the first chapter of the story The Origin which tells the story of a young mage apprentice, skilled in the ways of magic and with a ark destiny ahead…
This is an unfinished version and I am still working on it. However I would like some feedback. If you liked the story feel free to download it and continue working on it. However if you do so please. Please tell me before reposting it on the internet or publishing it or whatever.
Made by Olle Karlberg
A.k.A Natchos
A.k.A Drilinda Dimstar
Part of the Darkfall Online chapter of the Covenant of the Phoenix guild.
Total Members: 3502
