Karl's full name was Karlon, the son of one of the chief-smith of the dwarves
He awakened in the embodiment route rather than the soul route his family specialised in.
They didn't treat him with scorn or change the way he was addressed due to that, infact, his position as the heir was still intact.
While his family specialised in the soul route, it didn't mean they didn't have members that had awakened in the other routes or had methods of training and crafting tailored to their specific needs
Karlon spent a more time and energy than any of the youngsters in the whole clan, striving and learning both the battle aspect and the crafting aspect of his route
After ten years of learning, when he was a mid level awakened practitioner and decided to walk the path of inscriptioning, while he still learnt how to create stuff, he was more into inscribing runes and drawing arrays on items to increase their abilities
After spending sixty seven years in his clan, he had become a master of inscriptions, learning all that a book or watching a master could teach him.
He was at this point already recognised as the next head of the clan, his skills had made him acknowledged by the whole mountain, not just in his clan.
But Karlon made a decision to leave and travel the world abruptly, abandoning his role as the next leader.
His words:
"Such a title isn't meant for a free spirit like me, I'd rather be somewhere drawing some runes or finding the next great thing to work on, you can just give cousin Gar, everyone agrees he's more responsible"
After throwing a big fit, he was eventually kicked out by his father Kalder, and that began his journey.
Another 60 years passed after that and Karlon eventually made way to Gamora
His travels had taken him across all the continents and he had wandered many locations, scored countless cities and even made a name for himself as a legendary inscriptionist.
It was in one of his travels he had joined the expedition to uncover a new ruin, he had hit a bottleneck and wanted to advance his craft to the next level, and what better way to do that if not a ruin.
The expedition spent over ten years before it was shut down, the reason cited was that nothing of importance was found, but those who would eventually become guardians knew the actual reason.
The expedition had found a massive magic circle at the depths of the ruins of Gamora, this circle was the biggest and grandest they had ever come across, and they could say for sure that no sorcerer in this age could try pulling off even a tenth of it alone.
They took the effort to find out what it meant and how they could use it, that is until after a year of working, nether, the force of the other side seeped through the circle.
It was chaos, members of the expedition started to hunt themselves, as if corrupted, driving by madness, if it wasn't for the timely efforts of the temple, to cleanse the area and put up a seal, perhaps they would have all died.
The expedition scattered, but a few remained behind to make sure the tragedy of the last never happened again.
Led by Diara, a representative of the temple, five other ascendants that had witnessed the events of the ruined became the guardians of Gamora, the outpost their new home.
Diara, Helen, Ivern, Maria, Karlon and Ryan.
The others who were left in town, were those that had nowhere to return to after the expedition ended, most of them didn't even know what really happened in the ruins, and those who did had suffered trauma so bad they fled the kingdom.
That was how the town of Gamora and its guardians came to be.
Karlon no, Karl as he was now called raised his glass, and took a sip, drawing a set of runes in the air
This was a magician's attempt at replicating the magic circles used by sorcerers, while they failed, the magic scripts became a different study with its prowess.
Karl was a grandmaster of the scripts and had even created his own art by incorporating his inscriptions, his embryonic art and some grimoire he got in his travels.
He kept writing scripts in the air with his other hand as he drank.
If one looked closely, they'd find bodies littered on the floor, all in different gruesome conditions
Some pierced by earth spikes, others enclosed in rocks, there was even a giant boulder in the middle of the room
Kaldur had taken care of every one of the assailants that came to him without even leaving his seat or pausing from his drinking.
Dropping his now empty mug on the counter, he got up and stretched, releasing his aura.
His aura spiked before spreading around and encapsulating the whole town, it spread all the way to the outer edges of the forest, where he picked up on 2 distinct aura.
One he wasn't familiar with, but the other he knew very deeply
"I see, so that explains it, you son of a bitch, twenty years, twenty damned years"
Karl made his way to the entrance of the village.
*************
The battle all around Gamora had come to a complete halt, not because one side had won, not it was because of the aura that had been projected all over the town
Everyone, from the townspeople to the masked assailant didn't move a muscle as they didn't want to be made a target by who unleashed that aura, and only a few could tell what level of power the aura was from
A mid level ascendant, the fifth stage perhaps.
Pure silence reigned in town, the only sound one could hear, the footsteps of a man walking towards the entrance
With every step he took, a spike impaled a masked figure, they couldn't escape, dodge or block it, before the strength of this aura, they were sitting ducks.
*************
The two masked figures in the forest felt the aura that emanated from within town, the commander staggered before regaining his balance
The one who held Diara in his simply released his own aura to counteract it, ensuring that the woman in his arms wasn't affected by the clash.
The commander however this time got knocked off his feet, falling to his knees
It took him a while before he could get back up, releasing his own aura minimally to reduce pressure on him, but not enough to reach outwards and bother the young master or his guest.
The aura from town kept heading towards their direction and the young master knew he'd been found out
"Looks like there's no escaping this"
He sighed as he got up, setting the priestess in a comfortable position on the chair before turning to the commander
"If a single hair on her head gets affected, your head will roll"
The commander nodded before bowing, he'd give his all to protect her
The young master sighed before he took out four gadgets, setting another barrier around the woman, then he took off to meet his opponent.
At the crossroad that connected Gamora to the forest at the entrance, there was another path which led outwards, back to civilization.
This was the path, Ryan and the others who left Gamora passed when going on their missions or journeying to procure supplies from civilization
There the masked man waited for his opponent, his wait however didn't take long, as the drawf eventually arrived before his opponent
Karlon versus the young master, they had come face to face, their aura surging out and clashing.
"Why, just why brother, twenty years, twenty damned years we watched this wretched place together, abandoning everything else to make sure that incident never repeated itself again"
Karlon spoke as he looked at the masked man
"Ryan put off that damned mask and look me in the eye, answer me dammit"
The masked man sighed before removing his mask, and underneath it was indeed Ryan.
"And here I was trying to end all this as fast as possible, but I really underestimated that intuition of yours, Karl"
"Shut up and answer me"
Karlon screamed and pointed to the town behind, him, Gamora now in ruins
"If there was a problem, couldn't you have just spoken to me or anyone else, what sort of madness drove you to this point"
At this point something finally dawned on Karlon
"Ryan, where is Diara?"
As he knew if she was here this disaster wouldn't have happened
"What did you do to her?"
He clenches his fists as the earth began quaking underneath them
Ryan's expression changed from his previous indifference to a cold one, he got into his battle stance, as steam was released from his body at a steady rate
"Even if I explained it to you, you wouldn't understand, besides, at this point are you going to talk some sense into me?
Get me to explain all this and hope for the best?"
Ryan chuckled as the cold expression contorted into an evil smile
"Look around you Karl, you're too naive
This isn't a fairy tale or a story where you all live happily ever after, they are already dead, the town's gone, your fellow guardians are defeated and you're gonna be joining …."
He couldn't finish his words as he was cut short by massive earth spikes shooting towards him