Artemis woke with amnesia underneath the shattered remains of a once prosperous human civilization. He remembered nothing, his past or the events that happened that caused the world to become as it was. He was no longer purely human, he woke to find...
"We're done for" A shaken man was sitting on a wooden chair, his back leaned against the wooden back. The dim light of the torch was slowly fading as it ran out of fuel. There were two other persons in the room, both sitting on their chairs. And six empty chairs around the round table.
The three were the last remaining survivors of the Atira Criminal Sect, Veltras Reisse, the only woman in the group and Blue Water Streams, the other was merely a surviving pawn. Their Criminal Sect went by many names from magical criminal organizations to street slang within the slums on the underworld. The three were once part of an oligarchy of nine other mages. They were all killed back at the Temple.
"It's a disaster, we shouldn't have delved into dark magic after all" Veltras Reisse was thoroughly traumatized from what happened back at the temple.
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"We didn't even have the chance to retaliate, our magic was useless," The pawn said, tears were flowing from his eyes as he was on the verge of falling into the abyss of the mind known as insanity.
"Nevermore, Stonestinger.. everyone is dead" Blue Water Streams was rather calm yet he couldn't hide how he dreaded the loss of his comrades.
"So, what should we do now? there is only three of us left out of the 300 strong we once had" Veltras Reisse sighed, the air she exhaled came out as a frozen mist. The temperature within the mountain was decreasing at an alarming rate.
Veltras Reisse grinned but the mourning pawn and the distracted Blue Water Streams failed to notice. Something inside Veltras changed when the demons went out of the portal they created. In her mind, they summoned the ultimate life who were impervious to magic and will soon engulf the entire continent or the world.
She wasn't someone who would sink with the sinking boat, she wanted to switch sides. Seeing how the Criminal Sect has degraded to the point of such pathetic power, she had her chance.
She led the two into the Frozen Mountain to dispose of them. Unlike the other leaders in the organization, she vied for power even more than any of them, masquerading as a trusted branch attached to a tree. She was an orchid, a parasitic orchid. She would jump from tree to tree, if the tree would wither, she would destroy it throughly and jump to the next.
"I suggest you all wait here, I will go and search for supplies and turn this as a temporary base for us. Then we can get back up on our feet"
The two men were oblivious to the freezing death encroaching on them. She led them into a death trap.
Blue Water Streams refused and wanted to go out with her. Veltras insisted she was the one to go, but Blue Water was getting an ominous vibe.
Veltras knew she was about to be found out, the frozen wave that regularly freezes the room and the mountain was only a few meters away. She had to act fast. Using her magic, she dashed towards the exit, surprising both the pawn and Blue Water Streams. Before they could react, the frozen wave engulfed the room.
The walls were slowly covered by ice and traveled through the floor and crawled on their feet. The two men struggled, trying to get out of the freezing trap. Blue Water then looked at where Veltras was, she was already gone. The two froze inside the room, their mouths wide open and eyes peering through the transparent ice.
Veltras was dashing through the steep rocky terrain of the Frozen Mountain. the frozen wave was just a few meters behind her. She used almost every ounce of her magic that she stored and blasted her way from the mountain before getting hit by an avalanche of rocks that she failed to notice. The entire scene was chaotic, an avalanche of both snow and rocks went down the mountainside with Veltras trapped under it
The avalanche hit the outskirts of the Alnub Forest before finally stopping halfway through the slope. Velras used all her magic to form a barrier which saved her from choking or dying from the cold. The freeze wave stopped at the very edge of the slope.
Velras was breathing heavily, she felt her body becoming weak. It was the side effect of using too much of her reserved magic. Magic had two different types within humans. Outer and Inner Magic. Outer Magic was magic that could be exploited from the amount of magic energy the mage could harness from her surroundings. It acted as magic capacitator that would harness magic from the surrounding area and utilizes it in the form of spells. The bigger the capacity of the mage, the greater the magic he/she could cast.
Velras used up her Inner Magic out of pure reflex. Inner magic was magic stored within the host's body and could be summoned in places where magic was mostly absent or scarce. Velras accidentally used her inner magic and in turn, exhausted her reserves.
For a mage, exhausting one's inner magic would result in death if the mage wasn't to rest or replenish her magic. Velras knew this well.
The shock from the avalanche eventually left her. Her body was weakening by the second. She was in-between the Frozen Mountain and the Alnub Forest, to her right was the thick green treeline of the forest while to her left was the Frozen Mountain Slope. A barrier was keeping the two sides from merging, the avalanche wasn't part of either so it went through.
Velras wanted to cast a heal spell on herself, but her hands were too weak to move. Eventually, she couldn't feel her body. Her body was becoming numb all-over, a thought crossed her mind which she didn't know would come early. She was dying.
A memory then flashed through her head.
Velras could only see a void, there was no light. For there to be darkness, there should be light. But there was no light, it was a void of emptiness, staring at an infinite abyss.
So, this is death
She thought, she felt empty and scared. The feeling of powerlessness once again surged through her mind and soul. A feeling she wanted to forget, wanted to move on.
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the void.
"Hihi, Veltras, my sweet little angel. It's time to wake up"
A warm feeling went through her chest, she wanted to cry but she couldn't.
"Mother?" She whispered to herself, a voice so familiar yet could not see the one with the voice. Was this a demon messing with her? Or were the dead greeting her in the afterlife?
Mother.
Veltras then suddenly woke, she was lying on a bed and a blanket covered her body except for her face. She looked around and discovered she was in a wooden room, no furniture but there were windows from which the light of the sun passed through. Tears were still falling from her eyes.
