Every story has a beginning

[Sorin]

“Sor, can you come down for a minute?”

The voice was nothing more than a hum heard beyond the veil of Sorin’s concentration. The words didn’t even register as he kept his focus honed on the bare hand extended into the air before his eyes. His lips moved fluidly as quietly spoken words came out in jagged syllables – an incantation in a foreign tongue his mouth couldn’t quite grasp. In his open palm, where his eyes were fixated, a fluctuating flood of light manifested and attempted to take shape. The warbling materialization swelled and shifted, straining to take a consistent shape under the direct direction of Sorin’s express words until it could finally bend no more and dissipated as quickly as it came into creation.

The boy huffed a sigh of exasperation. “That was close,” he thought. “I almost had it that time.” Immediately, the fair haired conjurer apprentice dove right back into another attempt. The muscles in his forearm visibly strained against his pale skin as he stretched his fingers wide to accommodate the conjuration he struggled to bring into formation. His brows furrowed and narrowed intensely as he fixed his emerald eyed gaze onto the small sphere of energy that formed out of the ether within his palm. His words came heatedly; his tongue seeming to move with an expertise it had never known before.

The conjuration – it was there! It was taking shape! The ethereal illusion ebbed and conformed to the small limitations Sorin was forcing upon it. A small handle formed with the impression wrapped leather – yes, exactly what he wanted! An appropriate blade guard, the beginnings of a blade; the imagined dagger was coming into being. He was so close!

“Sorin!” the voice from before boomed with unnatural strength.

Just like that – the conjured dagger exploded in a furious display of fizzling sparks as his concentration was shook. Sorin’s eyes widened in a moment of disbelief as he watched the rain of sizzled out energy pitter-patter onto the face of the messy desk he sat at before ultimately disseminating back into the world beyond worlds. As reality set in, so did a seething burst of anger that gnashed its gnarly teeth and sunk its fangs right into the immediately aggravated boy’s brain. All at once, the open tomes and scrolls that littered the topside of his desk were thrown aside with a wide, violent sweep of his arm, leaving the surface clear for him to repeatedly bang his clenched fists on as his ire came spontaneously screaming out of him.

He didn’t hear the heavy footsteps climbing the stairwell outside his room in the tower. He didn’t even hear the door to his dorm being thrown open and slamming against the stern opposite of the wall. However, by the time the door rebounded off of the cold stone, his tantrum had already run its course; Sorin’s head was buried in his arms on that desk he so relentlessly thrashed just moments ago.

“That close, then?” a gruff voice crooned. It was his father. Vaelorus’ hand stretched out and gave Sorin a firm, reassuring squeeze on the curve of his shoulder. Sorin nodded his head the best he could without bothering to lift it from the comfort of his arms. “Do you think you would have had it if I hadn’t interrupted you? Distractions are ever present in the world, Sorin; its better you learn to deal with them now rather than in a situation where it really counts.”

Another lesson, another test. These timely interruptions were becoming more and more frequent in the past couple of months and they were really starting to disturb Sorin on a fundamental level. How was he supposed to progress with his studies when, every time he came close to accomplishing something, his father would burst his bubble and leave him stranded back at square one? He knew the old man could sense when he was doing his practices and he knew that by constantly hounding him that he was trying to get a point across but hell if it wasn’t inexplicably frustrating.

“Ugh,” Sorin groaned into the scratched wood of his near-ancient desk. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this again,” Vaelorus chided. “There will come a time—“

“—a time when I’m not here to protect you. I know.” Sorin interjected with an annoyed tone. “This is Wintervale, father. There aren’t a whole lot of things to protect me against here – the cold, the snow, the boredom. I’m pretty sure I could fair well against any of those as it is.”

Vaelorus looked down upon the boy he called his son with a tender smile upon his face – but that wasn’t all, there was something more; something along the lines of sadness shadowed the few wrinkles that started within his features. He reaffirmed that squeeze upon Sorin’s shoulder before letting loose. Vaelorus backtracked a couple of steps, turned promptly on his heel and started to make his way back into the hallway exiting the room.

“Right, right, Mr. Know-it-all. Why don’t you get your gear on and go clear the traps? It’s almost time for dinner and we could use an extra bit of meat to give the stew that flavor you like.” Sorin’s father was already heading back down the steps by the time the end of his sentence reached his son.

“Yeah, sure,” Sorin responded sarcastically. “That day old squirrel flavor – real delicious.” A moment longer he would hang his head but eventually, like he always did, he would gather himself and do as Vaelorus asked of him. It helped that he didn’t mind clearing the traps; it allowed him to roam about the forest freely and enjoy the beautiful sights of untamed nature the northern reaches of Salvar was known for. It was in that seclusion, away from his studies, that he truly felt at peace.

[Sorin]

Sorin pulled on the last of his winter gear with a laborious groan that far exceeded the actual difficulty belonging to the task of dressing himself. It was certainly loud enough for his father to hear, who he assumed was in the other room tending to the boiling pot hanging within the hearth. He expected criticism on how he had been slacking in his studies or a comment on how the fresh air would do him some good but the retort never came. He thudded his heavy-laden way into the archway of the door that led into the adjoining room and brought his eyes to rest on Vaelorus, who was leaning beside the well-burning fire in complete silence; his own, weary gaze staring blankly into the flames licking the bottom of the cast iron pot.

It was then, for the first time perhaps, that Sorin noticed something was troubling his father. Now, it wasn’t uncommon for Vaelorus to be quiet or reserved, only speaking when he had something important to say or to drill a lesson into Sorin’s head but this was different. His silence, accompanied by the look of worry that he wore, on top of not acknowledging his son’s dramatic theatrics was enough to bring uneasiness to Sorin.

As if his father could sense his feelings, Vaelorus finally turned his gaze away from the fire and focused it upon the bundle up teenager. Then, much to Sorin’s relief, a light smile pulled to the corners of his father’s dry lips.

“Is everything all right, father?” Sorin quietly squeaked out.

“I’m fine,” he said with honesty. “Sometimes I’m amazed how quickly the time has passed. How quickly you’ve grown up. It seems like just a short while ago that I found you in that apple basket.” His voice had a soft edge that caught Sorin off-guard, although he did his best not to let it show.

Vaelorus nodded his head to the item in question, which was stored neatly in a corner of the tower and now was the home for sets of extra blankets. Sorin looked to the basket – he had heard the story countless times before, though mostly from the people of Wintervale, never his father.

It looked like Vaelorus wanted to say more but the words never came. He instead, still smiling, walked up to Sorin and took ahold of him by the coat. His aged hands worked fast to finish securing the garment, unwilling to stop until it was snug and perfectly fastened about his son.

“Now, remember, outside these walls – no magic, remember your path, and don’t lose sight of the sun,” his voice was stern again. He was back to being the strong, commanding figure Sorin knew him to be.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve been doing this since I was nine years old,” Sorin said, trying to rebuff the lecture.

“You also used to raise squirrels and try to keep them as pets when you were nine. Are you sure you want to use nine year old Sorin as an example?” Vaelorus quipped back.

Sorin groaned and shook his head while his father laughed. He went to turn and head for the front door but he was stopped by Vaelorus who quickly, and abruptly, turned him back and drew him into a tight embrace. His father didn’t say anything and while they had definitely hugged in the past, it wasn’t an exchange that commonly occurred between them. Sorin reciprocated the embrace and lightly pat his father on the back to hurry the unusual event along.

“Be safe, Sorin,” Vaelorus finally said before releasing his boy.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine,” he reiterated to convince his father. He slipped away and made his way to the door, looking back to his father as he pried the weathered door free from its old stone jamb. He paused for a moment to get a last few words in. “Don’t worry – I won’t lose the path. I’ll be back before the carrots get tender. Don’t let the fire go out again; I’m tired of cold stew.”

With that final complaint, he was out the door.

For a long moment, Vaelorus stared at the now shut door. A deep, somber sigh bled out of him slowly like an air valve that wasn’t cranked all the way.

“Goodbye, my son – and thank you.”

[Sorin]

It was cold. A hell of a lot colder than it had any reason to be but what else was to be expected when you were this far north? If you went any further north and it would be too cold to snow. That wasn’t the case in Wintervale, though, where it seemed to be perpetually snowing. Even now, as Sorin took his first step out of the tower, he was assaulted by the furious falling of frozen flurries tinkering down from the lightly clouded sky. The easterly wind that tossed everything around had a nasty habit of biting you right through your clothing, too – regardless of how many extra layers you put on. Still, errands needed to be ran, traps needed to be cleared; such was the life of the hard working people who were brave enough, or stupid enough, to make this place their home.

Sorin could see the all of Wintervale from his vantage point upon the hill. It was a relatively busy morning, all considering. Billowing stacks of smoke puffed diligently from hand-built chimneys; the cold air was filled with the sound of the townspeople chattering as they made their way through the freshly fallen snow that coated the streets. It seemed that everyone was preparing for the harsh storm that was predicted to come in just a few days’ time. If one happened to get caught in such a terrible storm woefully unprepared, it would most certainly mean death – which was a strange thing for Sorin, who always regretted losing a member of their tight knit community, yet adored the opportunity to test his Necromancy mettle against a fresh corpse.

“Well,” he said thoughtlessly. “I better get this done with – if I come home after dark, I’ll never hear the last of it.”

With that, Sorin stepped down the dilapidated stone steps that made up the walkway to the entrance of the tower and onto a worn, snow-covered path that led away from home and into the overgrown forest hedged behind it.

The forest afforded Sorin a peace he didn’t know within the grip of his studies. Traversing the trails among the frail, lifeless trees was his escape from the pages of the tomes that composed his father’s library. Every step he took, every echoing crunch of snow beneath his boot, pulled him out of the real and into a reverie of his own design. It was the overwhelming silence that he always lost himself in. Aside from his own footfalls and the occasional groan of an elderly tree, there was nothing; it was a stillness that was not uncommon of those who found themselves no longer crawling the mortal coil but in the same vein, different all the same. The animals must have respected it, too. Despite the forest being populated by an abundance of creatures in all shapes and sizes, they were barely every heard from – no screeching birds, no baying wolves, no chattering squirrels, nothing.

He liked to imagine, that when it came his time to make that final journey into the beyond, that he would find the very same peace that he found walking these woods.

After some time of mindlessly clearing traps of squirrels and other little critters, Sorin came across a snare that caught something much more interesting than the usual fare; a living fox cub. The little runt couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old judging by its size and the exuberant energy it exhausted as it attempted to free itself of the twine lynched tightly around its neck. The little fire-colored furball strained and struggled until it choked itself on the resistance, leaving it gasping and yelping for air upon a bed of packed snow.

Sorin watched it for a few moments. He was curious to see what the little one would do. Fox meat would be quite a treat for his father, who seemed to enjoy the gaminess of the wild animals that roamed this decrepit forest. A young one, too, would prove to be quite tender.

After observing the fox cub whine and whimper helplessly for longer than he’d care to admit, Sorin reached into the outermost layer of his clothing and slowly undid the clasp to his favored knife. The blade zinged audibly as he removed it from the small, concealed sheath; a crisp sound against the equally crisp air. The weapon was turned over and over in his gloved palm as he made his approach toward the restrained cub; his boots crunching loudly in the snow without deliberation. Sorin had no reason to hide his presence from the helpless animal.

He dropped effortlessly to his knees in the snow beside the fox. One hand extended forward and forcefully pushed the cub into the cold embrace of the snow while the other swiveled his knife into a readied position. Sorin excelled at using the knife; he had skinned countless animals in his short life. One swift cut was all it would take to end the fox’s suffering. He took a breath and held it as he reinforced his dominant strength down upon the cub that squirmed in a panic beneath his palm. His knife hand struck out. It met its desired mark and was greeted by an anticipated tension. With a quick upward stroke, that tension dissipated.

The act was done.

Sorin watched as the fox scrambled out from underneath his hand, simultaneously slipping out of the severed twine while scampering away into the depths of the forest. A light smile twisted the corners of his pale lips as he watched the lively cub flee. So much of his life was filled with death – it was nice to, once in a while, grant life through natural means.

“Be a little careful next time, pup. A couple minutes longer and you’d be in father’s bowl.”

In the corner of his eye, he caught something. Something that was dark and unnatural against the brilliant white backdrop of the dead winter woods; it was a silhouette that was not there a moment ago. Sorin turned his head so his emerald gaze could take in what inevitably became a figure clad in all-black robes. The shadow of a man had no distinguishable features about him aside from the lone crest that adorned his left shoulder, where the layers of his robes came together and were fitted by an insignia. Sorin had seen it before but could not place where he had known it from.

The man in black did not move and Sorin did not speak.
They stared at each other in cold silence.

[Sorin]

It was Sorin that broke the silence first.
“Hi—“ he started, his voice cracking like a teenager gripped by the fickleness of puberty. He quickly cleared his throat soon after to reset the situation. When he spoke again, his voice registered deeper than normal to make up for the earlier travesty. “I mean… Hello. I didn’t expect to see someone so far out here. Are you looking for Wintervale? It’s not too—far—from—”

The cloaked man was steadily drawing a previously unseen sword from a scabbard beneath his robes. It was about that time that Sorin realized that he was still clutching tightly to his own knife. If at all possible, that grasp on his weapon became a little tighter. This was unlike any other situation that he had ever been in before. You don’t find these kinds of scenarios in ancient tomes on raising the dead. A million thoughts at once were burning through his mind yet none of them seemed to find traction enough to get Sorin moving.

“I—I—I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he stammered out.

The man in black took a step forward; his footstep deafened by the blood pounding in Sorin’s ears. The bundled up boy took a few steps back with the same efficiency of a toddler, trying to keep the distance that separated him from the swordsman. The cloaked man moved with a purpose as he came upon Sorin who was still bumbling his way backward, his sword hand raised in preparation to strike out at the flustered kid.

Crack. The ground shifted beneath Sorin. Crack! The earth moved and sunk an inch or two, his whole body jolted from the movement. He didn’t realize it at the time but he had backtracked onto a half-formed platform of ice that ran just over the edge of the small cliff contained within the forest. It wasn’t enough to deter the swordsman who still pursued Sorin and, when he came close enough, lashed out with a wild swing of his blade aimed at his neck.

Another voluminous crack and the ice gave way. Sorin lurched forward uncontrollably and into the man in black’s attack, though now that his height and body had shifted, only managed to get clocked in the side of the head by the sword’s guard. The entire world was immediately swallowed in black.

[Sorin]

There were no dreams to be had while Sorin was under. The only thing his mind did was ache as a result of the head injury he sustained. It was actually from the relentlessly throbbing pain that he did eventually come to – opening his eyes to stare up at the cold, dark sky, several hundred feet down from where he last remembered being. He moved to sit up but his body couldn’t register the movements and while he wasn’t yet formulating proper thoughts, he could assume that it was in part due to the penetrating cold sinking deep into his limbs.

It was only after countless long minutes of staring at the face of the cliff he laid below that he put two and two together. After he blacked out, he must have taken the long fall to the bottom, which explained the several body sized impressions dotting the snow-covered rocks that made a perfect path to where he now rested. There was no doubt that his conscious-less body bounced, rolled, and thumped its way to the base of the cliff. It also explained the numerous pains present throughout his body aside from the glaring pain in his head that was stifling him.

He was cold. Terribly cold. He felt like one of the many frigid cadavers he had worked upon in the basement of the tower. It actually felt like there was a thin layer of ice lining the roof of his mouth where saliva had frozen. Despite the pain, despite the cold, Sorin knew he needed to get up or he would die out there like one of the critters that were snared in his traps. Crying wildly in pain, the teenager forced his body out of its collapsed position to one where he was laying on his side. From there – he could see the skies above Wintervale aglow with the light from the fires below.

“No—“ he choked out in a voice that was raspy with unused dryness. His body was visibly shaking from the glacial environment and there was little he could do to stop his wiry frame from succumbing to it. Little he could do naturally, that is.

A trembling hand was brought to his chattering mouth, where his clacking teeth weakly sunk into the fingertip of the glove that clothed it. Weakly, he tugged from both ends until his hand was freed from the protective garment. Those shaking, bare fingers were brought to the closest open wound he could find on his body and pressed into the mess of blood and tissue. Sorin winced and cried again as a squirt of stagnant blood gushed down the backside of his hand from the force of his fingers and then he began chanting. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper and the words he spoke were foreign to most but not the shell of a boy crumpled in that snow.

It was the Blacktongue. A language known to those who dabble in the kind of arts that most certainly damned their souls for eternity. Here he was, though, a boy of nineteen, speaking the words of those who the Church held as an enemy.

Almost immediately, he could feel the effects of his spell. The temperature of his blood, which was chilled to an almost non-sustainable point, started to climb slowly. The heated blood started to flow through his body; his heart began pumping in overtime to flush the revitalized life essence from head to toe, what hadn’t been spilled out onto the snow, anyway. Soon, the feeling in his fingers and toes returned as well as the ease of movement—albeit, pained movement—but willful movement none the less. The effects of the paralyzing cold left his body, though it did little against the chill winds that would cause chill to one ordinarily. More or less, battered and bruised with a few open wounds, he was as recovered as he would be without proper medical assistance.

He made it to his feet and looked toward the enflamed town of Wintervale in the distance. Immediately, his thoughts went to his father. He had to make sure he was safe. He had to get back to town.

[Sorin]

Through the pain and fatigue, Sorin managed his way back to Wintervale; a dodgy trail of blood and troubled footprints left in his wake. It was worse than he imagined. What he saw before him was a scene straight out of a nightmare. The bodies of those he had once called his friends were strewn in the street, laying about in contortioned ways they weren’t physically meant to, often in half coagulated pools of their own blood. Behind them, their homes, businesses, or favorite watering holes, were burning with an intensity not often seen in natural fires. It was quite apparent to anyone that had a background in chemistry, or interest in watching buildings burn, that they were started with some kind of alchemical accelerant.

The worst thing of all was the silence. Aside from the raging roar of the fires and crackling of desecrated timbers giving away to the flames, nothing was to be heard. No screaming. No shrieking. No shouts or cries of battle. It was just the fire and the silence of the desolate wilderness that surrounded it.

Sorin’s eyes turned beyond the town to the tower that stood haphazardly on the hill. It looked like a single gravestone upon an untouched hill of white; a lone, sad reminder of the hermit that used to live there. Wary of the heat coming off of the scorching town, despite how it protected him against the chill of Salvar, he kept to the tree line as he made his way for the path that would take him to his home. As he staggered through the heaps of unbothered snow, Sorin could make out several other sets of footprints that followed near the path he was taking. He couldn’t really gauge how many people the sets of prints belonged to, as that was something far outside his empty book of tracking, but he could tell that it was definitely more feet than a single person could have.

He wasn’t nearly as cautious as he should have been when he made his final approach to the tower. Anyone around could have heard the chomp of Sorin’s boots biting into the hard snow, let alone the heavy, labored breathing belting out of him like exhaust fumes. None of that seemed to matter, though – the tower appeared like it had been abandoned for the past century. It looked very much the same when he pushed his way past the heavy door barring his way and into the tower itself. It was like his home, the place he had grown up in since he was a babe, had aged tremendously in the past few hours he had been gone. The walls were chipped and discolored, furniture was dilapidated and hanging on by threads, even the apple basket his father looked so affectionately upon earlier today, had been reduced to nothing more than warped planks held together by a steel band. It was an unbelievable sight.

Still, Sorin journeyed further into the tower. He knew how clever his father was and figured that something like this was not beyond his power. The teen scaled the curved stairwell that rounded the outer tower wall and made his way for his bedroom. Inside his room was no different than the rest of the tower – run down and seemingly undisturbed with the exception of one thing. Upon his now broken desk, upon an ancient layer of dust, a single hand sized book sat squarely in the center. Sorin approached the book and took it into his hands, turning it over in his palms a few times to analyze it before attempting to crack it open. It was leather-bound and well taken care of; you could tell it was oiled regularly to keep up the integrity of its outer shell. The pages themselves were distorted from repeated use but none the less, it was a beautiful piece.

With quiet reservation and a bit of nerves, Sorin opened the book. The inside cover was blank aside from the initials “V.S.” scrawled in uniquely legible handwriting in the bottom left corner. He proceeded to thumb through the pages while his eyes did their best to absorb everything that was available to him on the pages without spending much time on a particular one. The more he read through and the more he observed, he came to realize that this book he held was something of a diary. A diary, a planner, a workbook, and a tome all in one pocket sized book – it was his father’s personal everything.

Somewhere near the end of the book, on the last written page, something caught his eye: fresh ink. He paged the diary back open to that point and looked upon the words.

“Sorin,

I’m sorry. So terribly sorry. I thought – perhaps – that I had earned a life of peace. I was wrong. I know now that our time together was only a reprieve from the horrors that existed before you came into my life.

To you, my son, I leave everything. This book holds a great many things that I have come to know from my years of study and practice but know this, there are many more like this book stored away for safekeeping. I entrust them to you. You’re clever - you’ll figure out where I’ve hidden them and by what means I’ve kept them secret for so long. I have faith that you will do right by them and not let the power that exists within them corrupt you like it did so many others. Like it corrupted me.

I have so many things I want to write on these pages to you but my time is already gone.

Regardless of anything and everything you might read in the pages of my books about me and the atrocities I have committed, I want you to know this -

I love you.”

It wasn’t until the end that the weight of what he was reading truly hit him. Sorin wasn’t going to round the corner to his father’s room and find him there; he was gone. The passage was more like a make-shift, last minute will than it was a random note from a father to his son. It was painful to try and comprehend the reasoning behind his words but whatever the reason, the end was still the same – Vaelorus was gone.

Sorin moved the thumb that was posed to keep the book spread open and beneath it, he found another bit of text on the same page. One last little line to finish off the page.

“P.S. Remember our argument this morning? I told you so.”

[Sorin]

Streamlined tears welled into the corners of Sorin’s eyes before spilling out onto the curves of his bruised cheeks. The weakness of his battered emotions only seemed to amplify the pain of the open wounds that still went unaddressed. He closed the handheld book and sluggishly moved to sit on the edge of his busted bed, staring blankly at the nurtured binding at the book barely hanging on his fingers.

He had no clue what he was doing. He was numbly wandering through actions with no clear idea of their purpose. Where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do? Find books? He could barely make his own breakfast let alone embark on an adventure to find some books his cryptic father had hidden who knows where. If he could get frustrated and let his anger overwhelm him, he would but right now he couldn’t make heads or tails out of the emotions strangling him. Maybe he could find someone else in town that survived but even then he wasn’t very hopeful. The nearest town was countless hours away on foot and with the storm expected to come in the next couple of days, it was almost guaranteed he wouldn’t make it. It was a terrible situation and he was the entirely wrong person to have to suffer it.

This was it, then. He had survived that fall from the cliff only to die a slow death at the hands of winter. Sorin seemed to accept his fate silently without protest.

Crunch, crunch, crunch - There were footsteps in the snow below his window; someone was approaching. Sorin’s ears perked and his mood instantly lifted. “Father!” he thought as he shoved himself off of the bed and scrambled forward. His legs gave out on him before he could get any traction and he collapsed onto the hard floor momentarily before finally finding his footing. Each step was painful and the bouncing down the stairs did terrible things to his tattered body but still he raced to the front door. Undeterred by obstacles, he wrapped his hand to the handle of the door and ripped it wide open to greet his returning father – his savior.

Except it was not his father. A living shadow stood in the snow several yards before the door; a sword-armed man enshrouded with black robes, much like the one he had met in the forest before. For all Sorin knew, it was the exact same one – it was impossible to tell from the lack of defining features. Sorin’s face broke as the rest of him did and he collapsed onto the snow-covered entryway in an ugly fit of sobbing; his father’s book tumbled out of his hands and onto the ground. Perhaps his death wouldn’t be as long and drawn out as he imagined.

Twing! A strange sound came from the forest surrounding the tower, followed by the sharp whistling of an object tearing through the air. Next, the dark swordsman reeled and cried in pain as something unseen struck him. Sorin looked up from the tear-melted snow to watch as his unknown assailant struggled with a crossbow bolt that was stuck square in the middle of his chest. It took him only a moment or two to pry the blood-stained bolt from his chest but it was a distraction that lasted long enough for a man in weather-worn gear of white to make his way onto the scene.

What occurred next happened entirely too quickly for Sorin to clearly follow. The robed shadow led with a sword attack that was countered by the man in white’s own sword before they went at each other again. The cold air was filled with the shrill sound of metal striking metal; some sound blows, most were glancing shrieks of grinding steel. The engagement was over in a blur and the black swordsman was crumpled on the ground in a heap of pooled midnight against a backdrop of white. The other man quickly approached Sorin while he fastened and racked another bolt into his crossbow.

“Get up, kid. The longer you spend crying like a baby, the harder it’s going to be for me to get you out of here in one piece.”

[Sorin]

Sorin was stunned. He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened much less what the out-of-nowhere man said to him. It didn’t matter if he understood or not – it seemed the man was going to force him to understand regardless. After he finished loading his crossbow, he slung it around his back while simultaneously dropping to one knee and helping Sorin. He scooped up the fallen book and shoved it against the lost soul’s chest until he took ahold of it then aided in pulling him to his feet, intentionally negligent of the wounds that would regularly slow the boy down.

The man took a minute to look Sorin over. He shook his head after his quick inspection.

“Damn, you’ve made a mess of yourself, haven’t you? We’ll fix you up later. Let’s go.”

With one arm wrapped around Sorin, and the other with its hand firmly wrapped to the handle of his sword, they moved as one toward the path that descended the hill into town. The man was strong – Sorin could tell as much by how easily he moved his limping body on top of carrying all the gear strapped to his body. He couldn’t run. He didn’t think he could pry himself out of the stranger’s grip even if he tried with all his might. All he could do is get shuffled along down the winding path while occasionally craning his head enough to steal a look at the man’s face hidden beneath his hood.

He was relatively young – not nearly as young as Sorin but he wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t much older. It was clear it had been a number of days since he had last shaved but even through the grown stubble, he could see the faint silver of a scar occasionally marring his features. His eyes were warm; he wasn’t able to pick out their exact color but who could fault him? It was dark and he was tired. After all that analysis, it was still as clear as the moment he first saw him, he had no idea who this man was.

“Wh-who are you?” Sorin croaked out between wounded breaths.

Before the man could answer, his hold on Sorin was released and he promptly fell to the ground; the burden of supporting his own weight was too much to bear. The man moved to stand in front of the fallen teen, putting his own body between him and two other robed figures that made their way out of the woods. There was a tension in the air that was almost palpable. Bloodshed was inevitable but the all waited for one another to see who would be the one to make the first move.

“You can’t have him. His father is gone. The boy means nothing. You’re welcome to try and take him but you’re going to have to go through me – and trust me when I say, you aren’t going to walk away unharmed.” The man yelled. His rough, gravelly voice broke over the dull roar of the flames tearing apart Wintervale.

No movement. It wasn’t due to hesitation on behalf of his statement but they were definitely waiting for something. Further assistance, perhaps? It seemed the man sensed this too, as Sorin could see his gloved hand steadily reaching down to unfasten and then coil his fingers around the handle of the handaxe holstered on his thigh. Certainly the robed ones had seen it, too – it wasn’t that discreet of an action – but they didn’t move and remained where they were, their swords drawn before them.

“Witch Hunters are coming,” the man said. His voice was only loud enough for Sorin, who was still on the cold ground behind him, to hear. “Not initiates like these ones - the real deal. Can you walk?”

Sorin nodded in response. The man seemed to acknowledge this, even without seeing it.

“Do you know the road to Archen? A few miles down the road from here, there’s an inn. You need to get there. Talk to the Innkeeper, tell her you’re waiting for Cross. She’ll hide you. You can trust her.”

As the man continued to talk, Sorin worked his way to his feet. One hand supported his weight while the other still clutched his father’s diary. As soon as he was standing, he took that book and lodged it within his coat against the thick shirt that covered his chest before securing his layers again. He wanted to ask the man questions but it was quite clear that the time wasn’t right. Who was he? Why was he helping him? Who was Cross? He didn’t even know if he could trust this stranger but what was the alternative, get massacred by these “Witch Hunters” that was clearly intent on maiming him? He knew where the Inn was – he could make it as long as his body would let him.

A third robed figure appeared to the side of them. The stranger noticed as well.

“It’s time. You need to go.”

The moment the words left the tip of his tongue, the man took a quick – impossibly quick – leading step forward, unsheathed his hand axe and raised it in the air, and threw it hurtling forward all in the timing of a short breath. It was one of the most amazing things Sorin has ever seen.

“Now!” he commanded.

Just like that – Sorin was off in a hobbling run toward the south road. In the corner of his eye, he could see the whirling axe whipping end over end at one of the robed menaces. The whu-whu-whuh sound of it buzzing through the air ended with a startling scream as it met its intended mark. The last thing he saw before he rounded the path and fled into the woods was the man engaging another of the hunters with his sword while the last moved to attack him from behind.

As much as he wanted to help, he knew he couldn’t. The best he could do was follow the order he had been given and run – run as fast and as straight as he could down that road toward the inn.

[Sorin]

Dear Diary? I guess.

I’ve decided to chronicle my activities in this book just like my father did before me. I can only guess that is what he intended when he left it for me – to learn from his words and leave my own for others. It’s hard to say what that old man was thinking.

It’s been three days since I’ve made it to the Brackenfield Inn. My wounds have been healing nicely thanks to Isabella, the Innkeeper. It turns out that she knew my father, too, but only through a man named Cross. Cross, this man I’m supposed to be waiting for, never showed. Isabella said that if he was going to show up, he would have been here by now. When I tried to inquire about him she became shy – she mentioned that Cross is many things but if he is a man of his word.

I haven’t seen the stranger from Wintervale, either. I don’t know if he survived but I’d like to think he did. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy that died easily. I’ll never forget how fast he could move – it was unbelievable.

Isabella said I should wait a couple more days before heading out. A few soldiers have stopped by the Inn and inquired about a boy matching my description. I’m told they belong to the Church of Ethereal Sway. There is a hideaway in the cellar just big enough for me to fit in and unless someone was looking specifically for it, they’d never find it.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. I know my father spent a lot of time in Archen before he settled in Wintervale so I’m probably going to head there next. I’m going to continue reading this diary to see if I can find any special notes that’ll help me find these mysterious books. I don’t know what I’m going to find out about my father but I hope, whatever it is, won’t make me look at him any differently the next time I see him.

If I do see him.

~

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Sorin receives 730 EXP and 100 GP!