Five: Rise of Malevolence

Chapter 1: Purity and Malevolence

"In the cold reaches of the Amora region lies a city of old, deep in the Mountains of Purity, this city is Freewind. Freewind is known by many to be a city of the Divine for its close link to the goddess's realm of Astra, and its annual Ceremony of Purification that cleanses everyone from the malevolence that seeps in from outsiders who aren't purified. This keeps the peace in Freewind and acts as a way for the Divine to truly impact their people." I recited the passage before I closed the old book.
    "Marissa! Hurry up! We need to get more magic essence! The mayor will be quite displeased if we don't have enough to even do the ceremonies most basic ritual!" My cousin yelled.
    "Melissa, calm down, the ceremony starts at midnight!" I reassured my angry cousin, as I bolted out of my room and made my way down the creaking stairs. "Look, it's 7:00 am, we have time."
    "To get magic essence we need to go to Ethereal Cave." Melissa said while she gathered up her tome, and wand. "I may be a witch, but going head first into that cave, even with this much time is reckless."
"It won't take long with us on this mission though." I proudly said while I picked up my staff. " We are the best of the best after all."
"We're two 15 year olds talking about going into a cave where even the adults have a hard time traversing, we could actually die, but yeah, we are probably the best mages in this city." Melissa laughed.
"Then let's go! We have some essence to find!" I ran straight out of my home, Melissa close behind and we started our way to Ethereal Cave.
"Hey, Melissa?" I asked in a worried tone.
"What is it?" Melissa responded with tired breath from running.
"When we purify someone does that actually get rid of the malevolence, inside them?" I said concerned.
"Well, we see it disperse and get replaced by light, so yeah I think it would be gone." Melissa stated, as she stopped next to a boulder.
"Huh? What's wrong?" I asked confused.
"Just a breather, also we can talk while we break from running." Melissa stated. "What made you think of that question though?"
"I just feel like an oppressive force is overcoming the city, everyone is so distant and sometimes rude, like our teacher the other day, she was abnormally more angry." I explained as I looked at the Temple of Purification. "Also the light coming from the temple is waning, it's only a fraction of what it originally was."
"Yeah, the dwindling light is troublesome, but our teacher Ms. Morgan is just salty that she's weaker than us in magic duels, so I think the being angry part is just Ms. Morgan being her moody self." Melissa reassured. "Come on, let's go to the cave we had enough of a break."
"Yeah." I replied before running down the path and towards the cave. After a 15 minute trek through the city the cave was in sight.
    "Hey, before we go in, what were you doing up in your room? You know, when I was yelling at you to get ready?" Melissa asked curiously.
    "I was reading the history of Freewind, I just thought to brush up my knowledge on the ceremony tonight." I stated with a worried tone. "What if we fail? Or what if something bad happens?"
    "Bad? What would cause something bad to happen?" Melissa said as she slowed down to a walk.
    "What if someone who isn't purified turns into a Maligna? And what if we perform it wrong and we end up killing someone, I've heard it's extremely dangerous to do!" I panicked at the thought.
    "Calm down we are going to be all right, we are two of the best mages in the city, we can do this perfectly, also nobody is going to turn into a Maligna unless mass quantities of malevolence are present and the person isn't purified. Only then will the Maligna transformation start." Melissa responded in a calming tone.
    "You just regurgitated to me what our magical science teacher told us." I chuckled. "Okay, I guess I'm overreacting, thanks for calming me down."
    "Anything for my cousin." Melissa smiled in reply to my comment, as Melissa and I moved towards the cave entrance and proceeded onward. As we walked through the cave we discovered a clearing, and with it an abundance of magic essence.
    "Wow! That's a lot of essence we definitely have enough." Melissa stared at all the essence in awe at the grandiose sight.
    "Let's collect some then!" I excitedly ran into a patch of some and started to absorb them into my staff.
    "Gragghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!" A loud echo reverberated through the cave walls.
    "What was that?!" Melissa stopped in her tracks. Just as she did that a person half covered in blood and the other half emanating some sort of purple energy appeared behind me.
    "Marissa look out!!!!" Melissa screamed immediately starting to chant a spell. "Oh violent winds, storm through and smite our enemies, Gale!" Immediately wind was summoned through Melissa's wand and blew back the incoming enemy.
    "Thanks." I said while I readied my staff.
    "It's not dead yet! Marissa hide and heal me if I need it." Melissa orders while casting another spell.
    "I can fight offensively too!" Marissa readies herself while the foe is dazed from the wind spell.
    "Divine spear rain down onto this belligerent foe, Seraphic Lance!"I summon a glowing lance that swiftly descends down to the foe and pierces through it's chest.
    "Crimson energy shoot out from the ground and eat up our foes! Enveloping Inferno!" Melissa finally casted her spell. The earth cracked below the dark being and numerous flames shot out from the blazing cracks in the earth, the flames all gathered onto the monster and quickly turned it into ashes.
    "We did it!" I celebrated.
    "If anything survived that spell without dodging or blocking it, I would be surprised." Melissa looked at its remains smugly, but also with tiredness. "My magic is severely drained, so I don't think I'll be using anymore spells for a bit."
    "The big question though is, what was that thing?" I looked at the ashes and it looked like an object was buried in it. "Could it have been a Maligna?" I asked. "I did sense a vast amount of malevolence emanating from it." Melissa went to the ashes and picked up the buried object.
    "It looks like some kind of gemstone, maybe its crystallized malevolence?" Melissa stated. "We should bring this to Mr. Freewind, maybe he might know something about this?" Melissa suggested as she casted a spell.
    "I'll carry it." I asked as I put my hand out for the crystal.
    "No, I'll use my magic to hold it, we don't know what'll happen if we hold this thing for too long." Melissa said as she began to cast a spell.
"Gravity bend to my will, Levitoma." The crystal started to levitate.
     "You never cease to amaze me!" I compliment  Melissa who's jogging towards the cave's entrance. "Hey!!! Wait up!"
    "Look we need to hurry up and leave this cave before another monster appears, so let's race to the Mayor's house!" Melissa yelled back to me. I eventually caught up to my speed-demon of a cousin, who was at the trail leading back to the city.
    "The crystal kind of unnerves me." I gazed into the crystal which was a dark shade of purple that got darker towards the center.
"It's a crystal, don't worry about it!"!Melissa said forcefully with a glare.
"Geez! You were so happy before! What happened!" I replied back to her. Almost In an instant Melissa's demeanor goes back to normal.
"What's the Mayor gonna do about this crystal I wonder?" Melissa looked at the crystal hovering next to her.
"He's very wise, and very giddy when it comes to ancient artifacts, so he might know what this is." I explained. "We just need to tell him to seal it away, since I think you were affected by this crystal just a few moments ago."
    "What do you mean?" Melissa asked confused.
    "When you glared at me after I asked you about the crystal." I replied back equally confused to why she can't remember what happened like a minute ago.
    "Sorry, if I did glare at you, it was probably just me being exhausted from the spells I used." Melissa apologized. "I'm just tired even while using weaker spells, I did drain myself of magic before the cave."
"Doing what?" I asked out of curiosity.
"Trying to learn a spell from my tome." Melissa took the tome from her side and showed me a page. "Teleportation more specifically the spell, Telecyna (A/N Te-Le-si-na) was what I was trying to learn."
"You do realize that most teachers here can't even use that spell?" I said looking at Melissa. "You are brilliant at casting magic, but that might be out of our league."
"I've used it before, I just didn't teleport that far." Melissa explained. "I teleported from our house to the Temple of Purification."
"Woah, thats still like 500 feet away!" I said shocked. "With a bit more practice, maybe you can successfully use it."
"This spell teleports you to a place you have been to, you can choose which place too." Melissa explained as we stepped off the trail and back into Freewind. "I didn't choose to teleport to the Temple, so I still have a long way to go, if I want to master it.
Melissa is totally, working herself too hard. I feel like she's definitely going to seriously hurt herself trying to learn these advanced spells, I need to keep an eye on her. I thought to myself as we continued onward to the Mayor's house the place where we realized the truth, where we made the choice, and where our eternal regret is born.