Ancient Four - Initiation

Prologue

Ossaria

They wore robes whiter than a bed of snow. Gilded with trims of gold at the centre of their hoods—which were donned up—tracing all the way down to their backs.

As they sat floating two inches above the glistening marble floor, with their legs crossed, palms facing down on their knees and eyes closed as if deep in thought, they looked like an otherworldly assembly of magical monks who had unlocked their inner chakras to the fullest of its potential from the tranquillity of meditation.

Positioned in an extraordinarily large circle, accommodating the whole space which spanned vastly wide, they levitated side by side within a metre apart from one another, as their bodies bobbed up and down together as a whole, serenely and slowly as if in a slow rhythm.

On each four sides at the end of the open space of expanse marble, stood behemoth sized thick pillars, which supported the structure of what looked like an anachronistically modern looking dome at the very top.

Wisps of silver curled tendrils loomed over the atmosphere, which seemed as though it exuded off from each and every one of the bodies of the magical sentients that stayed adrift on air. The tendrils travelled up towards the dome, slowly losing its opacity as they rose, until at the very top, where they disappeared altogether.

Blood trickled down the left nostril of one of them, and instead of following in the motions with the rest, he slowly floated down until his bottom touched the cold marble floor. Using his finger, he swiped the blood and looked at his fingers, as if confirming what he initially suspected.

After he was certain, he stood up unsteadily, using one hand to balance the weight of the rest of his body, as if he was an old and fragile elderly, when in fact his countenance looked no older than thirty years old. Then, he hobbled his way out of the formation, betraying the once previously perfect circle, and managing only a few steps before falling completely on the floor with a loud thud.

"I.. need.. to rest," he whimpered, as he lay on the floor, semi prone, with his face to the side, suddenly feeling his energy ebb away from him. When he spoke, blood sputtered out from his mouth. The others in the circle continued without so much as a glance, remaining as focused and as though he was invisible. As if he did not exist. As if there were other matters more important at hand.

At the very end of the area, in a corner, stood a lady with her arms crossed. With sleek auburn hair so long that it just barely touched the floor, wearing a black tunic overall with a crystalline bandolier around her waist which glimmered so radiantly that the guy, who remained as though in a paralysing stupor on the floor, when averted his eyes to her, winced from the blinding sparkle. She looked at him impassively, and if she felt as though she was repulsed with his weakness, she did not show it.

"Please.." He coughed once more. "Xe.. Xelphy," he finally managed to muster, as he averted his gaze away from the light. His eyelids flickered as he battled to stay awake, afraid that if he were to succumb to the voices of his own fatigue that whispered to him to fall asleep and take a moment's rest, he would cease to wake up again.

The lady who was apparently named Xelphy, relaxed her folded arms, first raising her left hand as she intoned her words to the man, "Sibilar, as a seeker for this high ranking mission, I had expected more from you." She then raised her other hand, "I suggest you work on controlling your aura." She focused her gaze at her hands that were held up, watching it glow increasingly. The glow transitioned from silvery white, almost similar to the rising tendrils, into a tainted hue of purple, and seconds later, as the glow thickened around her palms, she swung her hands and blasted it onto his direction, ostensibly intending it to kill him.

He did not attempt to evade her, he did not move in the slightest, nor did he react, but as the purple blast landed on him, a faint smile could be seen appearing on his face, before he disappeared completely with the blast.

"Next!" Xelphy bellowed to her side, at the direction of an outdoor stairway, while keeping her eyes fixed on the formation before her. Another similarly robed individual, who stood standing at the staircase leading up to the marble platform and leaning over the balustrade, brought his hood up to cover his head, then made his way into the hall, nodding to Xelphy first before moving in to take over Sibilar's position. She nodded back.

"Good luck."

It was first just a dot which appeared far back in the horizon, Xelphy however, could notice it from her peripheral vision right off the bat, but she did not falter with what she was doing. As it creeped closer and closer, the dot, now visible as an eyeball, with streaks of thin yellow pulsating veins around its sclera, and with a pupil the colour of onyx black, drifted forward and then stayed afloat beside the head of Xelphy.

"Do not rush me. If we continue this, we will eventually have to pause while all our seekers recharge their aura," she muttered.

The eyeball turned counter clockwise, the pulsating sinewy veins inside it throbbed harder, and the wisps of silvery, cirrus-like streaks of clouds in front of it which filled and permeated the area started to form together into something intelligible,

But we have everything except time..

"We are pushing them way past their limits. I do not know how long they can keep up with this."

The words that bobbed up and down in the air, seemingly in rhythm with the seekers in the circle, moved and rearranged again, into another sentence.

We need to get there before they do..

"They will still find it eventually, and when they do, they will still take all the future darkened," she turned to look at the eye, as if admonishing her plea.

The words scrambled more quickly, gliding and constructing itselves into a longer but now smaller sentence.

If the darkened of Devarion do reach there first, they will kill all our possible champions..

Xelphyr turned to look back at the circle, her eyes focusing on the figure in the middle inside of it.

"Syrene Supreme seems tired. I reckon she will faint anytime now. And when she does, none of the other seekers can temporarily take her place."

Syrene is Supreme seeker for a reason. I do not doubt that she will complete our mission soon..

There she stood at the centre of the circle. Her robe, instead of being white as milk, was an enchanted colour of gold all around. And instead of the usual gilded streak of line that started at the middle of the hood, it was a purest innocent shade of white possible, which lined down not only from the top of her hood, but also along all the seams of her robe. Her hood was not up, thus revealing her short brown hair and angelically soft features on her face.

Her eyes, searchingly lavender in colour, burned incandescently as bright as the crystalline bandolier on Xelphy's pelvis. Her eyes, searchingly as it was, did not betray her rank of a Supreme among all seekers, but rather, reinforced it. No doubt she was the leader of the seekers. Strongest of them all. She was only individually one of a kind, like all the other Supremes among all the other classes within Ossaria.

Her nose was a small nub, and her lips, although thin, curled faintly yet beautifully.

Her arms were up in the air, with a huge ball of clouds churning incessantly atop of it. She maintained her gaze up on the ball, which was not exactly very clear, but it churned and zoomed in and around abruptly and quickly in what looked like a blurred alternating kaleidoscopes of the myriad of stars, nebulae, milky ways and round unknown spherical globes.

She slowly heaved, as if a foreboding had occurred, and then, suddenly, a small stream of blood ran simultaneously down both her eyes and nose.

Perturbed, Xelphy and the enigmatic eyeball both moved closer to a corner of the circle.

The look of worry on Xelphy's face was apparent.

"Syrene..."

With her arms still extended up in the air, and lavender eyes that now glowed with much ferocity, she stifled a laugh and then shouted, "I found it!" Heaving deeply once more before she finally said again but this time almost in a whisper. "I found Earth.."

And then she passed out.