Flickering candlelight illuminated an expansive, silent room deep in the heart of the guild. Shelves of books and tomes alike formed the room together into a grand maze. Confined by the walls of bookshelves, a desk scattered with a variety of tomes opened up to a half blooded elf seated at the end of the desk. Her unkempt white hair sank down in a cascade that regularly interfered as she traced over the incantations in her personal tome. She cross-referenced with the other books around her as to fill in the faded marks lost to wear and time.
Nessa pushed her hair out of her eyes and leaned back for a break from the constant writing and studying. She caressed at her aching wrist, pulling back her sleeves to check instinctively at her casting arm. The scar had faded away over the two weeks she and her brother had been apprenticing at Hidden Star guild, yet the stinging sensations occasionally struck in that same spot whenever Nessa had to rely on her magic.
Reaching over the desk, Nessa grabbed a book at the edge of her pile and scanned through research on the effects of mana on the body. Despite her attempts, the exact details of her ailment still eluded her. She eventually decided to call it for the time being and gathered up the books to return them to their designated spots. Though she soon ended up hearing a conversation from across the library grow closer and closer.
"This is no stupid joke, Wright." Nessa recognized the voice as the priestess, Clair, who she met in the alley with Hela, "You've been way too reckless in our past missions and I'm sick of babysitting both you and the captain," Clair continued to complain to Wright, eliciting no response except a quiet chuckle from her teammate, "I swear I look away from you for a few moments and you find a way to get torn to bloody bits. I'm sick of spending all my divine mana trying to keep you sewn together!" She scolded, but kept her voice low to account for the library around her.
"Oh, don't be like that Clair," Wright responded in a suave yet mocking tone, "We got a total thing going. Hela has stuff trying to kill her, I kill that stuff, and you keep both of us from getting killed by stuff. Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't holy girls like you supposed to heal?" Wright ended with a sarcastic comment that heightened Clair's rage back into full swing.
"That's it, I'm pushing you in the deepest chasm I find next. I will wait for you to crawl back up, and then kick you down again."
"Aww, that's not very nice. Am I going to have to come in for confession next week?" The two continued their aggressive banter as if it was a daily occurrence for them. Nessa paused before she put the last of the tomes back and approached cautiously to the two adventurers with the intention to further eavesdrop. Her plan backfired as the duo turned the corner, nearly running right into her. Nessa froze in shock as they strolled past without addressing her in the slightest.
"Your ability to annoy me consistently is unparalleled. If only you could use even an ounce of that to improve your general survivability, then none of this would be an issue," Clair turned around to face Wright, resting her hands on her hips as she berated her teammate. The priestess' icy glare shifted over to Nessa who stood at the corner still. "Don't just stand there, apprentice. Make yourself useful." Clair rubbed at her temples briefly and began to leave the library, "Look what you've done, Wright. Making me agitated at the poor new bloods." Her voice trailed off as she left earshot.
Nessa sighed in relief while Wright was still laughing off the whole situation.
"Always a treat to get her riled up, sorry you had to get in the crossfire too." Wright waved off without glancing in Nessa's direction.
"Wait," Nessa struggled to bring herself to catch the attention of the eyepatched man, who shot a glare over his shoulder at the apprentice, "You're Wright of The Crimson Shield, correct? We met a few weeks ago and you said I was casting magic wrong. That's you, right?"
Wright turned around and leaned on one of the bookshelves impatiently, "In the flesh. Were you looking to prove me wrong or something?" He dropped his joking tone and returned to the threatening demeanor he possessed when they encountered each other for the first time.
"No, nothing like that," She desperately searched for courage as she began to make her request, "I was wondering if you could teach me. Like, teach me how to cast magic correctly, so that I don't mess up again. I've been looking all over trying to find an answer for what I'm doing wrong, but I'm completely lost." Nessa finished with the request. Nervous over his potential reaction, Nessa looked away.
"No." He coldly answered, "Hate to disappoint, but I'm no teacher. If you want to know what you did wrong, then it's because you failed to draw from your actual mana pool and instead leeched into your own life energy. It's as scary as it sounds too." Wright concluded with a smirk as he explained the mistake.
"Sorry, I guess it was pretty dumb of me to ask you to teach me. I just thought I'd be able to perform better if I was taught like other mages." Nessa mumbled as she inched closer to the corner of the bookshelves to leave when the opportunity presented itself.
"You clearly got far enough being self taught," Wright mumbled a bit of encouragement that caught Nessa by surprise, "You don't need a teacher to lecture you on all the boring crap of magic in order to use it effectively. You just needed some guidance to avoid screwing up again. For example—"
Wright raised his hand from out of view. Nessa spotted her tome in his hand, which mysteriously left her grasp in an instant. Before she could protest or even question him, Wright instinctively flipped to a page without looking and revealed its contents.
"This spell right here, it looks freshly copied. It appears you were looking for a way to heal your allies with arcane mana then?"
"Y-Yeah that is correct. I thought it'd be important to have just in case things went awry." Nessa responded as Wright tossed the tome back to her carelessly.
"I might've been just teasing Clair about her healing, but there was truth to what I said. Divine mana can perform restorative magic much more efficiently than the arcane ever can. It requires an overabundance of mana to properly catch up. That spell you have is a gateway to the exact thing I warned you against, spending lifeforce to make up for lack of mana: otherwise known as blood magic."
Nessa froze and shivered at the mere mention of blood magic. She wasn't all too familiar with it, but she knew of the horror stories often told about it, and how it was a taboo of the casting world.
"Don't worry about it too much. You should be able to cast that spell just fine. Just be sure you're not overexerting yourself and you'll be alright. Now if you'll excuse me, I should make sure Clair isn't strangling anyone right now. Don't die." Wright threw out a half hearted wave and sauntered out of the library.
Nessa waited patiently for Wright to leave out of sight to check up on her arm. She pulled back the baggy sleeve of her new apprentice uniform and inspected where the scar was. The searing pain stung at her with the accompanying knowledge of what it meant wracking her with anxiety. Pulling the sleeve back up, Nessa tightened her fist to distract herself from the pain and carried on out of the library.
In the halls of the guild, she still found many who would see her as a new face and stop to greet her. Equally as often they would sneer and speak under their breath. Though the striking eyes of all she would pass have dulled over the past week, she still occasionally felt ridiculed by the voices of doubt that clouded over her. Despite everything, Nessa gave it her all to keep going. Though things would certainly improve for her were the tasks and duties she was forced to perform weren't so mundane.
She turned the corner to the hallway where her designated living quarters were situated. Outside the door to her room stood Mair, scanning the hall nervously with a crumpled sheet of paper in his grasp. He was suited in gray leather armor for his uniform and had his steel pike sheathed on his back.
"Took you long enough, I swear I've been waiting all morning. I got something important." Mair rushed in a frenzied whisper as he unfurled the crumpled paper excitedly.
"I was busy studying, why are you in such a hurry anyways? Wait—" Nessa noticed the sheet Mair held was identical to the bounties and quests she used to put up when she worked as a papergirl, "Did you take a quest from the bulletin board!? We're not allowed to take those yet you dumbass!" She swiped it away and held it away from him as she scanned the empty hallway to make sure no one had noticed.
"Come on, sis. I watched for a whole hour and not a single team would take this quest. The reward and rank listed on it was probably too low for anyone to pay any attention to it. Who cares if we're not allowed to. We have to do something." Mair protested with an attempt to call his sister to action.
Nessa sighed. She knew he was telling the truth, so she passed her gaze over the quest. The details were vague and explained to meet with a demiserpus woman in the lower districts of the city. The past few weeks, she and Mair were delegated to simple chores and low risk tasks that anyone could do. Everything Nessa wanted to do as an adventurer wasn't available to her, and it frustrated her to no end.
"Alright fine, Mair. But I need you to be careful when we're out there. Let's get going quickly and make sure we don't get noticed by anyone." Nessa smiled to her brother who nodded in agreement.
"I knew you couldn't resist an offer like this." Mair commented.
"Oh shut it before I report you to Director Veridan." Nessa rolled her eyes and led her brother through the winding halls of the guild.
After successfully slipping past the guards and personnel of the guild, the two siblings traversed down the walls of the ravine city towards its lowest districts. They found themselves packed tightly on the narrow walkways. The netted drop into the waters below passed them by as they came upon the hive-like homes of the lower districts of Eil'Drawwt. Occasionally dissecting the homes from each other were crevices that opened up into winding tunnels, leading outside of the city into the roads of the underground.
Nessa held the written quest and glanced over the address until she narrowed down the location of the woman who made the request. On the doorstep of her small outlet in the ravine wall, a demiserpus woman with thick lime hair waited in a panicked state. She held a child close to her chest as she broke her focus between the nearby tunnels and the walkways.
She took quick notice of Nessa and Mair as well as the emblems attached to their uniform, hurrying to cross their path, "Excuse me, are you two from the guild?" The woman said through choked tears, struggling to continue, "My eldest went into the tunnels last night and hasn't returned. The guards ignored my pleas so I made a request to Hidden Star."
"Don't worry, we're from the guild and we're here to help find your child," Nessa attempted to comfort the demiserpus through the ordeal, "It's peculiar that the guards would outright deny to help, but that's what we're here for. Do you know which of the tunnels he last entered?"
The demiserpus sniffled and came to her senses as much as she could, "My neighbors saw him enter the tunnel that led to the abandoned mine just four blocks down. You won't be able to miss it. Thank you so much for your unending kindness, I pray my reward is enough for the both of you."
"You don't need to thank us," Nessa responded, "And we're not in it for the reward. We want to help you and your family stay safe. We'll find your son, I promise you that."
Nessa's heart pounded with aching stress. She put up a front of bravery, but she feared facing failure in this first true mission. The fear and doubt cleared away as she saw the briefest of smiles from the demiserpus woman. The immediate relief spread to Nessa as a driving force of confidence and aspiration.
With newfound determination, Nessa and Mair went on their way towards where the child wandered into. Just as the demiserpus explained, it wasn't long until they made it to their destination. Abandoned equipment had been laid scattered at the entrance to the mine before them. They eventually entered the abandoned mine, making their way past star crystals that mysteriously flickered and wavered from their constant cooling fluorescence.
Nessa's attention was glued to her tome as she practiced flipping to the correct pages. She concluded her practice by slamming it shut and addressing her brother, "I need to make sure we're clear on this, Mair. The top priority is getting that kid back safe, understood?" Her typical scolding tone rang true in her confirmation.
"Of course, sis. I wouldn't wanna screw up our first actual quest," Mair heaved his pike off his back and held it close in preparation, "What do you think could've gotten the kid lost anyways?"
"Nothing too serious I'd assume," Nessa stepped further into the tunnels and looked around for tracks. She found no signs, but instead found more and more leftover pieces of equipment littering the area. They consisted of outdated mana powered devices that miners used to safely and efficiently excavate the tunnels, "We're way too close to the city for anything threatening to make through its defenses." As she finished speaking, the crystals around her continued to flicker as if losing energy. Their attempts to remain alight slowly failed as they dimmed.
The dimming crystal caught her attention, but she quickly refocused back on the task at hand. The tunnels around the siblings were split into branching paths that seemed to continue on into darkness or looped around out of sight.
"Damn, we're gonna be stuck for a while if we just wander around this place without direction." Mair squatted down, observing the rocky ground for any evidence of tracks to no avail. While Mair searched, Nessa turned her gaze to another of the flickering crystals on the ceiling. With a moment of focus and a turn of her wand, the earth around one of the smaller gems softened, allowing the crystal to fall into Nessa's open palm.
Nessa tuned out the environment around her and focused on the mana of the star crystal in her palm. A mental image was painted before her of a disruptive wave of energy overworking the crystal to the point of burning away its remaining mana. Nothing was left but a husk of what it once was.
"There's something terribly wrong here," Nessa whispered under her breath, and in her revelation turned to address her brother, "These crystal's aren't meant to burn out like this, something must've interfered to have caused this black out. No doubt that woman's child got lost in the sudden darkness."
"I understood like half of that," Mair stood up and slung his pike over his shoulder casually, "But if you think the kid's further in the dark, this path right here seems to be the best option." He pointed down one of the many branching paths that was concealed in a pitch black blanket. Nessa's diluted eyes could only take her vision so far into the absolute darkness, but she knew her brother had a much easier time as a full-blooded dusk elf.
"Lead the way for now then. I'll be right behind you." Nessa trailed behind her brother, who carried his pike pointed forward, occasionally aiming it instinctively when the crystals around them flickered with the last of their remaining energy.
"Y'know, I'm at least grateful we have something important to do now," Mair struck up some conversation as they stepped cautiously through the darkness, "For a while I thought this whole adventure guild thing would be boring as all hell."
"Were you really that quick to discredit your childhood dream?" Nessa jokingly teased in a light whisper, "It was only a matter of time until things picked up. Not to mention we sped the process up a bit."
"Hey I wasn't gonna jump ship just yet. Not after I've put in all the effort into training and the like."
"I believe more of your effort went into daydreaming and thinking of lame team names than anything else. Remember when you were little and wanted your team name to be something vengeful?" Nessa scoffed playfully.
"Would you quit bringing that up? Besides, it was Ral'Kacet! It sounds better in elvish." Mair lashed out in mild annoyance but was interrupted by a heavy buzz echoing from further down the winding path. A presence shifted in the dark and slithered closer to the siblings in the mask of the vast shade. The creature made itself known as it rose and towered to the ceiling of the tunnel. A long insect with an expanse of curled legs looked down upon the adventurers with a low hiss.
Without a word or hesitation, Mair held his pike up to the beast ready to keep it back. The territorial insect gnashed its pincers and leaned back in preparation to pounce. Before a strike could even be made, a familiar light shone and temporarily blinded those who had adjusted to the pitch black darkness. The interruption laid in the form of a vibrant pulsing light shining off the metal of Mair's weapon, a light that mimicked the cool colored radiance of the crystals that had all but burned out.
Nessa stood close behind her brother, her wand shining in the same light with her hand held forward in a conduction of the pulsing lights. The centipede stared into the light and calmed down, sinking to waist level to remain near motionless.
Mair only stood confused and speechless as he watched the once furious creature turn completely docile. Slowly stepping around the beast, he looked to Nessa, desperate for an explanation.
"They're domesticated insectoids tamed by the hypnotic patterns that the crystals emit. Without the star crystals, most insectoid livestock grow wild without dosages of exposure," She scoffed and then explained while dimming the light on Mair's pike, "We need to avoid as much conflict as possible, not pick fights with random beasts around here."
Mair nodded but kept his focus on the centipede until they finally broke sight passing it by. Their trek through the cavernous paths continued, occasionally looping around into once tread ground and nearly getting lost several ways through.
Though soon enough, their destination and a relieving sight laid before them. A young demiserpus crouched to the ground with his faint cries echoing through the tunnels. He sat at the mouth of a larger cave with his arm stuck out of view. Once the siblings saw the situation, they hurried to his side to find his arm and leg stuck in a web clinging to the wall.
"Don't worry kid," Mair leaned down to the child and began to cut away at the web restraining the child with a dagger pulled from his belt, "We're gonna get you out of here real quick, your mom's worried sick for ya."
The demiserpus nodded and wiped his face with his free arm, struggling to even voice out words of gratitude choked behind tears. Nessa smiled with relief that the child was safe. The doubts that clouded her mind quickly parted. Her relief however was just as quickly washed away as she put together the situation at hand. Her attention shifted to the mouth of the cavern past the child to reveal a spiral of webbing encasing the way forward. An array of scarlet eyes gazed past the wall of webs directly at Nessa.
Fear paralyzed her as the myriad of eyes grew closer with the horrendous sound of several legs shifting forward. Nessa broke through the shell of fear and spoke without turning her gaze, "Mair, take the child out of here." She ordered quickly.
Mair looked up as his gaze widened in surprise, he lifted the demiserpus up with one arm and gripped at his weapon in the other while stepping away slowly. "Oh, gods," He spoke under his breath, "You're not serious are you? We'll just get out of here together, come on!"
"Just do what I said." She muttered as she raised her wand in front of her between the darkness and herself. Nessa knew the encounter to be dangerous and understood her place to keep both the escort and her brother safe. Mair had finally picked up on the gravity of his sister's decision, so he broke into a sprint towards the exit, which caught the attention of the eyes of the darkness.
Everything occured in a single moment. The eyes of the creature shifted forward in chase. but was interrupted by the fluorescent cool lights casted from the tip of Nessa's wand. The sea green and sapphire blue pulses casted the creature in a new light that revealed it to the half elven mage before it, a massive insectoid with a furred body and bladed fangs separating the visage of its thousand eyes. It stared into the hypnotizing lights unphased and raised one of its many clawed legs to bat away the distraction.
Nessa leaned back to narrowly dodge the strike. She stumbled away, only disarmed of her wand as it ricocheted its way back through the tunnels, the casted lights careening with it as it fell to the rocky floor. Instincts kicked in as Nessa fled from the spider towards her wand, Mair had already left her miniscule vision, and she could only hear behind her the slow approach of the gargantuan arachnid. Pages flipped through her tome in a nervous frenzy as Nessa dove for her wand. The moment her grasp latched onto the grounded wand, a spell formed in her mind, acting through her motions.
The wand dragged against the rocky floor with mana sparks striking past in a blur. Using the motion of reaching for the wand, Nessa shifted the momentum of her sprint into a turning leap to aim the sparking apparatus at the creature following her. A stray bolt of violet mana shot out from Nessa's wand that crashed against the exoskeleton of the spider, causing it to stop and flinch from the foreign energy. Even with Nessa's best efforts, it ultimately only proved to be a minor annoyance to the towering beast.
The spider locked on to its target as Nessa struggled to stand on her feet after her acrobatic maneuver. As the territorial insectoid made its approach, Nessa barely managed to get on her feet and make a break for one of the tunnel paths. Thoughts raced through her mind as she made her narrow escape. With a glance backwards, she noticed no change in the spider's movements or damage to its body from her spell. Nessa made a sharp turn and dropped down a slope, slowing down the spider only ever so slightly before it followed. It clung effortlessly to the ceiling of the sloped tunnel to follow after its prey.
Nessa closed her tome and quickly tossed it into her bag. As she slid down the slope, she raised her wand and kept her free hand hovering near the tip. Her signature violet sparks gathered at the tip of the wand and with the guidance of her free hand, remained charged and focused at the point. More and more mana gathered at the wand as Nessa continued to blaze through the maze of tunnels, hoping to leave the chasing creature behind to no avail. The spider lunged forward prepared to bite at Nessa's legs, but failed as its target jumped over the attack and landed onto the spider's head.
Nessa struggled to hold back the mana she had carefully charged during the chase, she held her wand down and fired off a mere portion in the form of a concussive blast that separated the two of them. Nessa had collapsed further down the tunnel while the spider shook off the magical burst. It inched forward cautiously, expecting its downed prey to not give any more of a fight.
Nessa shifted ever so slightly, rising up to reveal her wand held beneath her, still crackling with the culmination of her remaining mana. Before the creature could react to its prey having fight left, Nessa released the charged power of her spell directly above the beast. The earth above the tunnel was torn apart by the beam as chunks of stone and clouds of dust collapsed through the ceiling.
With an averted gaze, Nessa waited for the dust to settle, relieved to find that the tunnel behind her had collapsed with no sign of the spider in sight. With a heavy sigh and a pat down of her uniform, Nessa made her way out of the old mine with a slight limp to her step. She managed to survive the encounter only using her own mana, rather than the life energy that Wright warned about. Despite this accomplishment, Nessa felt that the entirety of her mana had been drained. If things had gone any differently, she couldn't imagine the same result would've played out. With that thought in her mind, her scar began to ache on her way back.
"Come on, sis…" Mair mumbled under his breath as he waited at the entrance of the mine, nervously staring forward and hoping for his sister to show up. The child he had carried out of the mines stood close to Mair, in cover behind the adventurer. Moments passed like minutes as only silence greeted their patience.
Eventually, an exhausted Nessa arrived out into view and was met with her brother rushing to her side, "Can you not do something that stupid in the future? Doing stupid stuff is supposed to be my thing." He mentioned while helping her out of the mine and checking her for any injuries.
"It was the safest thing that could've been done," Nessa smiled to reassure her worried sibling before kneeling down to the young demiserpus, "I think it's about time we bring you back to your mother don't you think?" She spoke softly, contrasting with the scrapes and cuts harshening her appearance.
The boy nodded in agreement and gratitude, his gaze then shifted to the emblem pinned to her uniform "You two are adventurers aren't you?" He spoke nervously and stumbled over his words yet his eyes sparkled with amazement and his smile brightened, "You must be a part of an awesome team then?"
Nessa giggled in response, "Well, it's only us two so far," As she guided the child carefully through the streets, Nessa looked back to her brother, "but if it means anything, our team is known as Ral'Kacet." She told them both.
Mair crossed his arms and barely held back a laugh, "And here I could've sworn you said my team name ideas were lame."
Nessa shook her head with a chuckle and looked up at the vast ravine ceiling that acted as the city sky, "Guess that one must've grown on me." She said faintly, remembering it as the catalyst for her younger brother's aspirations many years ago. Though the name might've been childish in nature, she couldn't help but connect that team name with her and her brother's childhood. So she walked proudly as a member of Ral'Kacet.
Later in the day, the artificial stars shone upon the underground city as the dusk elf adventurer and his half blooded sister returned to the guild, unaware of the shadowed figure who stood far above and watched them. The man rose one of his slender hands to his face as if yawning, while the other caressed one of the stars above him, dimming it ever so slightly just from his touch. Translucent, ashen fairy wings casted a radiant dust around him. The dust washed over him, taking his form away with the faint memory of a smile where he stood.