Now, far away from the hyperbolic … ahem … parallel world and the floating islands, in a forgotten little town, everything was burning. This town wasn't actually forgotten, the issue was that the person who had commissioned its rise had gone off to the gods know where to learn magic. What was so important about magic that they would leave the town so vulnerable? Well, even if they were here, they probably wouldn't have been able to do anything other than watch the town go up in flames.
So, what had caused this forgotten town to go up in flames? Oh, nothing much. It was the usual super powered mercenaries sent to look for foundation stones.
"It's not here!" fumed one of the said mercenaries, as she kicked some debris. She had neat, blonde hair and was wearing some really fine armour.
"I know, Myne. Pectus is not going to be pleased to learn of this", replied her counterpart. "Was destroying this place necessary, though?"
"Do you think they would have given us the foundation stone if we had asked nicely?" Myne rolled her eyes.
"Well, you might have gone overboard, don't you think?"
"Did you have a better suggestion?"
"Eh …"
"Let's just go back and report to Pectus, before he starts getting impatient", she began to walk away.
Karim was not having a great day. After the protector had left, all his decisions had been questioned thoroughly. He was now thinking that it might have been a bad choice to agree to the coalition. And now, they had been attacked by this terrible tempered wench!
Had the gods forsaken them? Even though he had managed to hold her off while most of the people escaped, it proved to be a waste of time. He struggled to rise to his feet, and as he scanned his surroundings, tears filled his eyes. All that hard work, razed to the ground in an instant. There were a few charred bodies lying around.
"I wonder what sins we committed to suffer this fate", he sighed. "At least she wasn't here, otherwise things might have been worse."
As he was busy sighing and lamenting and whatnot, the army from the Southern Water tribe arrived. They were being led by Will Valdis who, in his armour, looked quite heroic.
"The governor received your call for help. Who caused this?" he asked, as he scanned the surroundings.
"Some mercenaries", Karim answered, before coughing out some smoke. He had been burnt, and had it not been for the wench going easy on him for some reason, he would have died. Thanks to all the burns, he was now feeling cold.
"Why did they attack you?" Will frowned. This didn't make sense.
"They said they were looking for something, and when they didn't find it, they razed the place to the ground", he coughed again. With his age, what he had done was not recommended. It was a miracle that he had not dropped dead.
"And they didn't mention what they were looking for?"
"No, they did not."
"How many were they?"
"There were only two of them, but they were too powerful! Most of our young men had accompanied the caravans which had our minerals, in order to prevent bandits from robbing us. The ones who remained were not able to fight against these mercenaries, since they used some powerful magic", Karim explained, before coughing again.
"Is that so? How peculiar …"
In the Southern Water tribe, Saedis received a report which caused him to frown deeply. The newly created town of Bernice had been razed to the ground by two mercenaries. Can anyone believe this? Just two people! Just how powerful were these two people? And what where they doing in this backwater place?
Looking at the setting sun through the window of his study, he sighed. First, he had received reports that Harazade had been destroyed by a giant monster, and now this? What was the world coming to? If Harazade had been destroyed, that meant that the balance of power was going to shift again. Who were going to be the victims this time? He knew that change was inevitable, but the problem was the direction the change would take. That's what worried him the most.
Well, as long as he didn't end up getting promoted again, then all was well. All this work made him tired.
"What are you going to do about this?" asked Erica, his wife.
"Is there anything I can do? The world might be coming to an end, for all I know", he replied with a dejected look.
"After coming to this place, you seem to have changed. Back then, you would have paid someone to find you more information, so you could make a profit off of this situation."
"I don't know. Maybe I'm growing up? I'm simply tired of all this scheming."
"Then, why don't you let go of your post and focus on us raising a family? We don't even have a child of our own."
"If I could just give up, I would have, and believe me. However, after coming to this place, and meeting those people from the other continent, I just realized there is more I can do. If I give up now, and I'm replaced by someone else, then all the work I'm now preparing for, will be for naught."
"So, what are you going to do then?"
"Right now, we have to wait."
A week later ~
Rizaneth was coming from her usual routine of gathering fruits. She remembered talking someone, before everything went blank. Now, she was alone on a deserted island, wearing a red cloak she didn't remember putting on … or rather, owning.
There were four huts, and after going into all of them, she didn't find anything useful, other than clothes, furniture and a few copper coins. As her stomach started complaining, she went around searching for food, and she found trees that produced some kind of red fruit she had never seen before.
Because her stomach urged her on, she decided to eat, on the premise that she was going to die anyway. If she didn't die of hunger, she was going to die of something else.