(A/N: Please put up with the difficult names just a little more, I promise that only half Elves from the Empire or someone that is the Elfic Empire "property" have these names. I will explain more about the reasons later, and I hope you still enjoy these characters despite this. kkkkkkk
Anyways, have a good reading!)
__________ / _____ / __________
The first three days of travel were normal.
They hunted some normal and magical animals during the best part of it. The first was to eat, and the last was to sell for a good price on the city, as magical beasts were always needed to make potions or enchant some weapons.
Atímia and Prodótis were always hanging out and talking peacefully until Micrós showed up. Still, they were like three brothers hanging out.
Áspro was always talking with Mikró or practicing with her rapier when her fiance was hanging out with the twins. Ímicy was practicing her magic alone, sometimes discussing about her fire ability with Vrómiko and asking him some tips( he talked with everyone when he was free.)
On the third day, when they could already see the city in the distance, Alice asked him casually:
- Why did you offered to replace Átimia at the infiltration?
The half-orc seemed puzzled at the sudden question. He scratched his head before replying.
- Wasn't I clear enough at that time, Captain? I wanted to avoid problems on the mission and my powers would be more suited for...
- I know it wasn't just that, Vrómiko. Why you offered yourself?
He was quiet for some seconds; she couldn't see his expression as she was facing his back. After some seconds, he turned himself with a bitter smile on his face.
- Do you know that I have a wife and a daughter back home, right?
Ímicy nodded, remembering about the woman and the girl. She was a normal High Elf and still a young kid, living with her mother that was also a High Elf. She still remembered how happy he was when he met his wife, Calíope, on a mission thirty years ago. She was one of the merchants that they needed to guard against enemies of the Empire, that wanted to steal precious products from them. After it, they soon married, but only had their daughter Calipso less than a decade ago; they seemed to be a normal happy family.
- Well, the Marshal Artys himself visited me, offering a retirement from being the older Shadow alive and all my achievements.
Artys Sklirós was a Dark Elf and Marshal of all the military in the Empire, even above Generals, the most important and busy person in it. To meet such a person in such a minnor matter seemed unnusual,to say the least.
Ímicy felt a strange hollow and minor pain in her chest thinking about him leaving. She never felt it before, but didn't gave this feeling much tought. Instead,something else started to bother her.
- Why would you want to retire,and why did he offered it to you? We swore allegiance to the Empire and serve it until our death. So why...
- I can't tell you about his motives as I don't know it either, only that he entrusted me to retrieve something from the target, her sword's clan apparently. Maybe he wants to use it as a bairgain or a blackmail in the negotiation tables. I need to infiltrate with you guys and find it, so he will grant me the right of retirement. As to why I want it so much... I don't think you would understand. It's something emotional and personal, you know? I hope you understand that I keep it to myself.
He was right. She was young and full of health, brimming with a sense of loyalty and duty to her nation. She wouldn't understand a tired and old man, that resents and hate his birthplace and wants to settle down with his family. To him, even if he liked her company and leadership, she was a cold and insensible person: he couldn't trust these kinds of things to her.
She accepted it, but the hollow and pain in the chest returned. Trying to put this strange sensation to the side, she speeded her steps, forcing everyone beside her to do the same, but with some grumpy remarks.
After some hours, they reached the gates of the small city, Crimson Town. It was named like this because it was located in the Crimson Land, a territory they were in since yesterday, and was red because of the blood from battles through centuries.
The city was a recent aquisition to the Empire six years ago, so they took advantage of it and sold their hunted goods, purchased some extra potions and took a fast rest. The group pretended not to notice how Mikró and Áspro entered together a room in a tavern, coming back with messy clothes and hair.
They departed the same day and camped in the afternoon, repeating the cycle of eating, walking and sleeping until they finnaly reached the surroundings of the Frontier, swarmed by all kinds of soldiers.
It was not a normal walled construction, but a huge mountain range carved to simulate big walls. The mountain's rock had a red-mettalic color like copper, but more shinny and surely more resistent. No one (in the team) knew if it was a Dwarf's work or some mysterious magical phenomenon with copper; the Fiamma clan used it to mine materials for weapons and decorative purposes on the oldest buildings.
It was a sight to behold below the midday sun, but they didn't want to waste time to admire it during the infiltration. Ímicy took of a little branch from her space pocket, and broke it with both hands. When she did that, the apparently common branch shone in a green light,forming a dome around her and her colleagues. When the shining subdued, all except the twins were nowhere to be seen.
It was a new way that Ímicy found to use her talent in Light magic, making the light in the surroundings pass trough her body and people that she desired, instead of reflecting it. No one beside her knew about this spell, so everyone was very surprised to see the show.
After the infiltration team disappeared completely, a new branch materialized from thin air and seemed to jump at Prodótis, followed by the sound of Ímicy's voice:
- Break it after we get away from you. The two spells active and close to one another can make light around us mortal. Then, stay quiet and be careful to not use magic as you scout the soldiers. Good luck, everyone.
The twins agreed, even not knowing where to look at. After a whole minute, they broke their branch too and also disappeared, not knowing that a misterious figure watched them from the shadows.
__________ / _____ / __________
The figure was a young man, with barely twenty years of age.He had a white skin with freckles all over his face, and a redish-brown hair. He was attracted to the green light close to him, and came to check in time to hide in a bush and see the second group receiving instructions and disappearing from the naked eye; still, he could see all of them with what someone from Earth would think as infrared vision.
Ímicy was a powerful Sorcerer with a new and powerful spell, but new nonetheless. It could block a Mage or a fellow Sorcerer to see them, but unbeknowest to her, it couldn't block the natural heat that a living being emmited; any Mage with a Heat Enchantment in their eyes could see them, as well as any Fire Sorcerer, as they all had a high sensibility to heath.
Unfortunately for them, the young man matched both requirements. He was a Sorcerer and a Mage at the same time: a low-medium Sorcerer with Fire talent, and a talented Mage with the enchantment Heath Vision, a magical version of Infrared Vision and a common enchantment among the Army of the Fiamma Clan.
The young man used a scout uniform from the Army in the Frontiers.The scouts had dark red clothes, that matched the colors of the surrounding trees. They had a orange-red fenix at their left chest, that looked above it with a brave expression and with open wings in defiance. His hair, that was equal to his uniform's tone, was straight but with countless red leaves messing it.
He continued to stay hidden in his bush, listening to the talks of the two apparently invisible spies:
- Hey bro, it will be dead tedious until they come back. Can we talk a little?- the elf with longer hair said
- Just the necessary, and more quietly. Do you want to wake up the whole forest and alert the army?! - the one with shorter hair whispered quite desperately
- Sorry - he lowered his tone, forcing the hidden scouter to cast a Hearing Enchantment to hear the two better- but don't you think that the green light from before didn't alert them already? We should get out of here and...
- I said to only talk the necessary! - the one with shorter hair seemed to want to sream, but hold himself - Besides, they should think it's just a magical beast hunting or something. But you're right, we should move and see if any scouters are close. You go to west, I will follow to east. If we don't find anyone, we come back here and wait a little before doing it again. If one of us finds one or more, kill them at the fastest way possible; if any of us needs reinforcements, we call each other trough our Blood Spell. Got it?
- Yeah, but I don't think it is a good idea to split. I'm having a bad feeling...
- Hei Atímia, didn't you tell me that I need to relax? I would notice if something strange happen. Don't worry, just do your thing and think about women as always.
-....Fine.
The one called Atímia ran to their west, northwest from the hidden young boy. When the one with shorter hair also vanished with his hood on, the young man immediatly went to south, were he came from.
He was a talented soldier in melee batles and enchantments, but a brand new and inexperienced scout. He couldn't deal with it alone, so he was grateful to be acompanied with a more experienced scouter, and an old friend.
In less than a minute after leaving, the young scout arrived at a small hill apparently normal. When he got closer to it, a door made of earth and grass opened, revealing a stunning young man with the same uniform, but with tanned skin, short brown-redish hair and almond eyes. He smiled seeing his friend arriving, but his smile froze when he saw a worried expression at his friend's face.
- Hey Dante, what happened? Why so serious?
- Let's get in to talk about it. We might be discovered here in the open.
Dante may be inesperienced, but he wasn't stupid to talk about something so important while being possibly watched: he was a trained soldier, after all.
His colleague agreed, entering and stepping aside to allow Dante to get in. When he crossed the door, it immediatly closed behind his back, revealing a campsite inside the small hill: it had two beds on the ground next to each other; a table with two chairs that were made of stone; a pile of dried meat and water and some paperwork alligned in a corner. The hill as well as the table and chairs were made of Earth magic from Dante's friend, a rare occurance in the clan that worshipped a fire godess.
Dante looked at his companion, always joking and smiling now having a straight and focused face. He knew that he wouldn't take the news calmly, which made him more nervous to tell it; anyway, he sighed before dropping the news.
- I saw six Elfic Empire's spies. They casted a spell that made them invisible, but I could still see them with my Heath Vision and my Fire magic sensibility.
Even before he finished talking, his friend's eyes turned cold and full of a confined rage, creating a dark-brown aura very similar to the one that Iruna would create in the future, but much less dangerous; it carried his subconcious but enormous bloodthirst, nurtured by his little magical talent.
In this world, every magician with enough rage could create this aura, called Rage Aura. It assumed a color based on the most talented in an affinity someone was: Fire affinity had a red aura; Earth affinity had a dark-brown; Water had a blue aura and Air had a golden aura. They could make someone faint, lose sanity or even die, depending on the Rage Aura level or the target's level of protection.
A magician with little anger but too much mana could make the Rage Aura very visible and spread it easily with a high control, but with poor effects; One with too much anger and little mana, like Dante's friend, could make their aura almost invisible and very powerfull, but the little mana made it hard to maintain and spread trough multiple targets. A magician with plenty of both like Iruna...could be a death sentence if you provoke them, or the magician couldn't control it yet.
Still, as Dante foresaw this reaction, he created a thin mana layer aroud his body to protect himself; even if his friend didn't had too much mana to subconciously nurture his Rage Aura, his anger was still enough to injure someone weak like Dante that wasn't protected. Besides, he couldn't blame him to lose his calm and just wanted his friend to assimilate and calm down on his own.
The two of them grew up toguether, and had a hard childhood as orphans in the Crimson Town, that was outside the Frontier and hard to protect against enemy's attacks. It only got worse some years ago, when the Elfic Empire attacked and conquered Crimson Town, killing all the humans they could find, including their other childhood friends. Dante was lucky to be rescued by the clan's Army at the beggining of the battle and not see the main carnage, but his friend wasn't so lucky. He saw all of their friends die, becoming much more resentfull than him, having nightmares almost every night for a whole year. After some time, he came back to be outgoing and a jokester as always, but when it came to Elves, he turned someone else: vengeful, bloodthirsty and merciless.
Dante also shared a similar grudge, but he was much more calmer and rational than him. After he calmed down, he asked:
- All of them are half-elves?
- They divided in two groups: one of four half-elves headed to the Frontiers, and the other two were pure High Elves, acting as scouts like us.
His friend breathed in, deeply in thought.
- Could you see the affinities of the two High Elves?
- My Affinity Detector Enchantment showed that both had an Air Affinity and were probably good Sorcerers two; one of them, a man with short hair, seemed to master a Variation, probably Lightning. The first group vanished before I could see better, but two of them had a Fire Affinity.
- Well, then... I guess we need to be quick and get rid of the two High Elves first.
Dante blinked twice, not believing what he just heard. After some seconds of unconfortable silence, he said:
- Uziel, are you sure? I don't think that we can defeat even just the two with our battle experience all alone. We can ask the higger ups for reinforcement and...
He was interrupted by Uziel, that was already using his enchanted brown gauntlets in his hands
- We will ask for reinforcements to deal with the other group. We will face the two alone, we can't let the other scouts around here get hurt. Besides...wouldn't it be fun to kill two of these bastards personally?
Dante noticed the pshycopath look in Uziel's eyes at the last phrase, and gulped in saliva, while accepting and following the already exiting scout to outside the hill, searching for his preys.