COMPLETE
[Featured by @Fantasy in High Fantasy]
➳ ✦ ➳
Elvina Hearst's life is the epitome of boring and with temperatures constantly in the high nineties, there aren't many things to keep her engaged. But when she gets caught in a raging inferno at...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Kai grunted, his hand gripping the side of the cliff tighter as a rock slipped next to him. He'd barely started on the journey up the mountain where the Sunpool was and already, things were starting to get rough. He wasn't exactly on a ledge but there wasn't much spacing between him and a thousand foot plunge to his death.
As his fingers dug into the wall next to him for support, Kai glanced back to see where his horse was. Barely a distance worth noting. The steepness of the mountain had begun so abruptly that Kai was already tired but his horse was merely a few hundred feet away. The road under his feet wasn't sturdy either and it only added against his efforts to climb up. Dust, gravel, and small pebbles were mainly what it was made of and his foot kept rolling a few inches back every time he took a step.
Kai continued up, slowly making progress towards the summit. Each step was difficult as the air around him got colder and he knew the sun pool was testing his worth. The pathway to the sunpool was devoid of any life. His powers had no use here and from the book he's read, his power wouldn't work anyway, even if he tried.
The sunpool determined a seeker's worth by determination and sheer willpower. The usage of powers would indicate that the seeker had given up and that they were not strong enough to possess the truth the sunpool withheld. So, from the stories he'd heard as a child, the only possible way to get rid of the seeker was to throw them down the gorge or to drown them when they arrived. Both of which Kai didn't like the sound of.
He arrived at a turn and his feet slowly went around the mountain. His fingers dug into the rock to maintain whatever grip he could as he carefully passed the tedious turn.
The Yefgil Mountains weren't forgiving. Named after the tallest, most difficult mountain to summit, the Yefgil mountain range was said to have been the product of the mother's wrath. When the medallion was created, it wasn't immediately gifted to the guardians. Many gods and dakrai (demon gods) sought after it. One day, it landed in the Yefgil mountains, however back then, it used to be a grassland where many animals found food after the rain seasons. As it fell, so did the gods who wanted it. It is said the medallion fell out of the heavens and the gods chased it down to Yefgil. Reginleif begged the mother to do something, knowing that if the medallion fell into the wrong hands, it could wreak havoc. So the mother erupted in fury and land changed and morphed, a raging force stronger than the gods.
By then, an elf had been passing through to see to it that his sheep came home on time. Accidently, he and the sheep were killed. The mother, knowing that he did not deserve death, turned him into the first guardian elf, rendering him immortal. Reginleif entrusted him with the medallion as well, hiding it away from the gods forever. The Yefgil mountains stayed, a reminder that the wrath of the original elements were far more than the power of the gods.
