|| The Chaos Mage ||

Chapter 1 - Inauguration

A/n: Above image: Soren

Fourteen years later...

Soren, Affiliation: Rogue
Ketean outpost, Affiliation: Edotaria

Soren tugged his hood lower over his eyes, an excited smirk gracing pink lips. He is quick to conceal it beneath a tattered scarf he pulled up over his nose. Satisfied that his appearance was covert enough, the blonde teen begins his descent from the rooftop he crouched upon.

Deciding the safe way down was too boring, he instead opted to backflip off, drawing his bow in preparation during the fall, and landing in a spider-man crouch. Fucking awesome! He delights internally, deciding to ignore what the consequences of failing that jump could have been. Besides, he has more important things to think about, like the guard who in the time he was thinking had hailed other guards and was now attacking. Sigh. Thinking, is clearly not his strong suit.
Instinctually, he snatches an arrow from his quiver, pulls the string taught and with a resounding thwap, the arrow embeds in the guard's thigh. Not fatal, but enough to keep them down. "Sorry buddy, but I just cannot deal with snitches," he pats the shocked man's face before continuing, "nothing personal!"

He hops back up, not so accidently smacking the injured warden with the end of his cape, and continues into the building before him. He makes his way down the dank stairwell and into the lower levels, easily dispelling any other security with a twirl of his dagger or a flick of magic, bows were not so easy to use in close quarter combat. He mostly keeps to disarming rather then flat out homicide, but mistakes happen. Oops. He thinks as his dagger embeds into the left eye of a significantly larger man. He winces, a touch of guilt setting in at the sight of the corpse. "...my bad." And with that, he is focused once again on the task at hand.

Continuing to storm the prison, the blonde comes across a few more wardens before he reaches his target. A whole floor of captured magic users. He grimaces at the sight. Any guilt for the murder of any Edotarians is instantly dissipated. The group called themselves the Natians. Said to be a peaceful village, that had nestled out of sight in the nearby mountains for centuries. Until the Edotarian scumbags showed up, slaughtering and executing as they pleased. Soren ground his teeth. Those bastards. There are kids in here! There were about a dozen and a half captives in total, some of them barely old enough to walk, others, near too old to walk. Not to mention many of the natians were badly injured or weakened due to mistreatment.

Soren chewed his lip, this might be one of his trickiest liberation missions yet. But there was no way in hell he was leaving any of these guys. He yanked harshly on the lever the guard at his feet had been watching over, and with a great groan, each cell pops open. Many scared eyes turn on him, and he does his best to placate them without noise. When it doesn't seems to work, he snaps his fingers conjuring a small orb of light to confirm his affiliation. This seems to work, as the natians begin helping each other up.
Shit, they're all far too weak to make it to the guards' stables, I'd planned on leading them there to aid their escape. Double shit...reinforcements are coming, I can hear them stomping around upstairs. There's only one way out, it will sting like a bitch later, but I'm not leaving these innocent people to die.
Soren spins on his heel, heading for the cramped stone wall that faces vaguely in the direction of the stables. He rests his palm on the cool stone, focusing on channelling all his magical energy into the earth where his hand rests.
The natians watch on, hopeful for the first time in probably weeks. He couldn't let them down.
A spell appears in his minds eye, he knows it's not correct for what he wants to do, or at least wouldn't for most people. But as he speaks what he can make out, he feels the powerful tug of magic on his soul. His eyes flash a bright silver, and a pulse of colourful miasma snaps from his fingers. Suddenly, the rock warps and shifts beneath his hand, pushing further and further back creating a narrow tunnel, winding upwards towards the stables. He grins, flushing with pride under his disguise before the magical lash back hits him like a speeding truck.
He groans at the feeling. He stumbles and would have fallen had the natian behind him not steadied him by his shoulder. He turns to them before speaking, trying to force any fatigue from his voice. Show no weakness. "Go, it leads to where they keep their horses, take them and get the hell away from here. I'll hold them off." The natians eye him with concern, but ultimately realise they're even less shape to help fight. His own expression softens, it's been so long since he was shown any concern. "I'll be right behind you, now go." One of the older natians approaches him, resting a hand on his free shoulder. "Thank you, so much my dear boy, Iasis bless thee." "And all of you," he replies "now please, be on your way, it is my pleasure to serve Iasis and her people."
The elder nods turning towards her family "Come, Iasis has heard our pleas and set us free again."
The natians fill with renewed confidence, disappear into the subterranean passage.

Soren grins, heart singing with the pride and adrenaline of fighting for his people. He pulls his bow string back, aimed directly where the door waited to let the pursuers inside the ward. He ignored the exhaustion tugging at his limbs, and the sting of his nose bleeding beneath his scarf. Instead focusing of the thrill of adrenaline flooding his veins, and the thoughts of the natians, easily fleeing upon horse back while he distracted the Edotarian fools.

As the door is thrown open, and Edotarian soldiers flood the room, Soren knows this will be a fight for his life.

And he lives for it.

A/n tysm for reading! I promise we'll get some Soren x Alastor content soon, and Alastors intro will definitely be next chapter :D

Random fun lore fact!:  in dearotalm any magic spell casted by a magic user has some sort of magical lash back. The more powerful the spell the greater the lash back. Magical creatures are the only ones not affected by this rule as they are literal beings born of magic. The more you train, the less the lash back will be.

-Nyx