ULTRAMagic Prelude

Chapter 1

"Where... Where am I?"

"Hey!"

"Who am..." He then noticed the person addressing him. "Uh, me?"

"Yes, you. Hello there, what's your name, stranger?" A long haired woman in a trench coat asked.

"Uh...um... Blood-Wraith, I think?"

The woman tilted her head. "Blood? Quite an odd name given that you don't seem particularly bloody. All of this fire kind of goes against that, ha."

Blood-Wraith looked at himself as the woman circled and inspected him. His body was gray, sleek, and simple. His left arm was made of fire and glowed calmly. And lastly, his torso seemed to emerge from a stream of fire emanating from a point on the ground. "Who are you?" he inquired of the woman.

"Oops, my bad. Ahem, my name is Dragoslava Raynot. I'm an explorer." She then held out her hand.

Blood-Wraith took a second to figure out what the gesture was, but eventually his instincts led him to shake hands. "So... where are we?"

"Well that depends. We're close to The Iron City, but as a whole, we're in The Unlight." Dragoslava pointed around as she spoke.

While that knowledge answered his question, it was not valuable as he had no idea what those locations were. Blood-Wraith decided to ask a different question. "What's this?" He was holding an object he had picked up off of the ground.

"That's a rock," Dragoslava replied.

"What does it do?"

"It depends on what you want it to do. It can be a tool, a weapon, an ornament, a decoration, et cetera."

Blood-Wraith then looked over at a bigger rock. "What if I threw this at that thing?"

"The boulder? Why not see for yourself? Go ahead and chuck it!"

With a deep breath, the rock was hurled at the boulder, shattering upon impact. "What?! What was that!?" Blood-Wraith was quite startled by this outcome.

"Well shoot, you got quite the arm! You could easily give my big sister a run for her money." Dragoslava then knelt down, retrieving some sparkly objects from the mess and putting them in her pockets. "A couple of things happened here..." She stood up, dusting her hands off. "The wind up was potential energy, the rock soaring through the air was kinetic energy, and it ended up shattering because it could not stand the stress of hitting the boulder."

Blood-Wraith nodded... he was still not sure what was going on. It was then that he heard a random noise. "What was that?"

"Hmm... perhaps we should head to my place, if that's okay with you?"

"Uh, sure..." Blood-Wraith replied as looked around nervously.

The two left the area, with Dragoslava leading the way. She took this opportunity to explain her background and where they were heading. Her people were mages, explorers, scientists, and alchemists. In the past, they had settled down in The Iron City. This sprawling, gothic city made of iron was ancient and had signs of previous inhabitants. Sadly the city was abandoned again due to an attack from an ancient creature known as The Beast of Old. Dragoslava's people knew something was not right and chased after it once it had fled. The intrepid explorer had left her people and the chase upon reaching adulthood to explore The Unlight and hopefully learn more about the beast.

The Iron City was both haunting and majestic. Pointed towers, huge spires, and cathedral-like buildings stood tall against the sky. Some buildings had a shine to them while others had succumbed to rust and weathering over the timeless eons of The Unlight. A clock tower chimed in the distance as thunder could be heard from the dark clouds above. Entering the city revealed the colossal height of the buildings, dwarfing anything that beheld them. The mix of all of that, combined with the strange statues all over the place, and the emptiness made the city very intimidating for Blood-Wraith. Dragoslava on the other hand was just happy to be home again.