The Chronicles of Arnora: The Curse of the Blood Moon

Chapter Ten: Curse of The Blood Moon

(Warning: this chapter contains depictions of blood, torture and strong language that might not be suitable for some readers.)

~Chapter Ten~
Curse of the Blood Moon

Luke awoke in a dimly lit room, he tried to move but couldn't. In fact the only thing he could move was his head which he raised up as high as he possibly could and saw that he was tied to a table. He struggled to get himself free but the ropes were tightly tied. As he looked around the room he noticed it was lined with many shelves and tables full of unknown magical items while magic warding symbols decorated the walls and ceiling. Then he heard footsteps coming from behind him, he tried to turn his head to see who it was but saw no one. Then the figure stepped out of the shadows and walked right up beside the table looking down at Luke. It was none other than Isis Mock, the High Mage of Zemor.

Isis: "You're awake I see, that's good this shall be much more enjoyable for me then." She turned and walked over to a nearby table and examined the instruments laying on it.

Luke: "What do you mean? Where am I and where are my friends? Answer me!"

Isis: "You have quite the mouth on you Luke, I guess that Noxmore never taught you to respect your superiors. As to where you are, you're in the Elysium Tower, a boy who's as bright as you should know all about it and your friends are nearby imprisoned just as you are. In fact I actually just finished interrogating that white skinned elf, I believe Ryo is his name? He's a tough one, I'll give him that, but I'll get what I want from him eventually." Isis then picked something up from the table and turned back towards Luke. "But now it's my turn to have some fun with you." She smirked as she walked back over to the table the boy was tied to, looking down at him while holding a rather large syringe. Luke looked back up at her with fear in his eyes.

Luke: "What is that? What are you going to do to me?"

Isis: "Oh this thing? This is nothing, it's just a simple syringe that's made specifically to extract someone's mana, and I'm highly interested in yours Luke. I promise that this won't hurt one bit." Isis stuck the needle of the syringe deep into Luke's arm, he couldn't help but to wince from the pain as she slowly started to extract his mana. "Dark blue mana? Now that's very interesting indeed. You see Luke most mages have a light blue mana flow, some even possess red and purple mana but dark blue is extremely rare." Isis finished extracting Luke's mana and pulled the needle from his arm. "Now see that wasn't so bad was it?" She then turned away from Luke and walked back over to the table she got the syringe from.

Luke: "Why are you so interested in me Isis? What does the Right Hand of the Zemorian Empire possibly want with a mere kid?"
 
Isis: "A mere kid you say? I think you know you're way more than that my dear Luke. From what a mutual acquaintance of ours has told me you are far more." Isis pulled a large stone bowl from one of the shelves in front of her and emptied the syringe full of Luke's mana into it.

Luke: "I have no idea what you speak of, and just who is this so-called mutual acquaintance?"

Isis: "Why Killian of course, he told me what he saw of your past when he entered your mind. For a young child so young to kill a coven of upier now that's quite something. He said you slaughtered them after they killed your family, and I intend to find out just exactly how you did it." Isis added a few ingredients into the bowl along with the boy's mana and mixed it together.

Luke: "Of course you're in league with him, it seems that all I heard last night was the truth! I'm going to tell you the exact same thing I told Killian. I have no idea what you're talking about, everything from that night is a mystery to me."

Isis: "It sounds to me like your memory has been suppressed, that's common when traumatic events happen. Our minds lock away the bad memories in order to help us cope with what happened. I could fix that for you and bring back your lost memories but it's impossible to do so without knowing how it was done. If I use the wrong spell I could kill you and we don't want that now do we. Luckily for you your mana holds memories within it just like your mind does and with this simple spell I'll know exactly what happened all those years ago." Isis then put her hands over the bowl and started to chant an invocation. "I invoke the power of Inera, Goddess of Truth to reveal the true memories of this boy's mana and the power of Otjun, God of Knowledge allow me to understand what exactly he is. I also invoke the power of Oxmes, God of Logic to let me better understand." The bowl started to glow with a blue light, then it started to shake and in an instant the light had turned from light blue to a very dark red. The bowl started to crack as it shook even harder, Isis ducked just in time as the bowl exploded into hundreds of tiny little pieces. As she got back up and looked at the table, what she had seen both frightened and surprised her. Luke's mana was splattered all over the table but instead of it being a dark blue it was now a pitch black. "By the Gods I wasn't expecting this!" She quickly turned back to Luke staring at him. "You really are quite something my young Luke." He looked over at the table, surely this must be a trick, he thought. He grew very angry as he looked back over to Isis.