The Last of the Empyrean

Chapter 8 - The Chaos

The next day was the start of a new year of classes and knowledge. Now that we had roughly refined our skills to favor one specific element over the other three our classes and following assignments will help us to increase our magical ability and connection to that element.

Our day started off with the History of the Elders. "Welcome everyone!", Mrs. Sarissa greeted us all. "Last year you took Professor Cordelia's class on the history of magic, and you sort of glazed over the elders and the start of magic. In this class we will take a deeper dive into the four Empyrean and the events that unfolded and eventually lead up to them disappearing from creation all together.", she explained. She passed out our text books, which weren't very thick because there wasn't much knowledge known about the four elders.

"Now as you all are aware, mages pull their power from the earth, more specifically it's four elements. We learned this through the Empyrean, each one ruled a specific element and used their power to reward the people that gave them offereings.", she explained. "Today I am splitting you into pairs, you'll be paired with the other mage that shares your elemental connection", having us move to sit near our elemental counterpart. "This year I will give a detailed description of each of the four Empyrean and how they used the element they ruled over. You and your classmate will compile all the information you gain in this class as well as research outside of class and will present each of your given elders to the other.", she explained.

For the remainder of class she had us get to know the mages we were paired up with as to try and ease the tensions between us all. Our second class of the day was Archery. "Welcome! This year you will learn the art of archery, a useful skill if you ever find yourself in battle or a life threatening situation without your magic.", explained Sir. Aldis. Standing 6' 5" tall, this olive skinned man has a remarkable feel about him. He had a medium-length, tufty moustache that is a shade blonder than his hair. He has a wide face, a small nose, and very thin lips. His tired blood red eyes are wide set under his angular eyebrows. He had broad shoulders with muscular arms, a thick torso, and toned legs.

He wore a navy blue gambeson with the knight school's crest embroidered in gold on his chest, over a pair of cream colored mail stocking underneath armored boots that came up just above his knees. He carried a bow in his hand with a quiver fastened to his back; as well as a gem encrusted handled sword of his belt.

"Each of you will start with a basic wooden bow and arrow, you will practice on larger targets and over the course of the year your targets will shrink allowing you to refine your archery skills to hit your mark every time no matter the size or distance.", she explained. For the first way he explained the correct way to hold a bow, he assisted with our form and how to hold the bow to get maximum speed and distance.

Our third class of the day was Intermediate runes with the same professor as las year, Professor Mitra. "Welcome girls, to another year of rune study.", she greeted us all. "This year we will cover the runes you will hopefully receive this year.", she explained as our textbooks floated out of her upstairs office, one setting on each desk one of us sat at.

"Today we are going to cover the rune you all received last night, the rune of rebirth.", she began. "The rebirth rune symbolizes a mages transformation into her truest and most powerful self. As you all know during your first year you all wore uniforms similar in everyway, because you all sarted out the same. You had the same skill level as well as the same level of knowledge of detailed magic.", she explained. "Through the course of the year you each have shown an individual aptitude for a specific skill set tied to one of the four elements. As the year went on that connection grew until we were sure that was the right fit for you." 

"At the start of this year you were asked to imagine a form of your truest self, an image unique to you down to the smallest detail.", she described. "By going through this process and undergoing the transformation you all participated in, you subconsciously went through a personal growth and transformation, a rebirth." "Through this transformation you were reborn into the rawest form of your magic and personality. Even if it doesn't seem like anything has changed, as you navigate through this year and future years you will start to see changes in yourself and new undiscovered parts of your mind will unlock themselves.", she said finishing her speech just before the class bell chimed.