The wooden thorns are adorned with black leaves and peek through the sunlight as the world sleeps unaware. A warm hand rests by the tower, eyes scanning the darkness for potential threats. She leaves the wooden railing and returns to her comfort in the middle of a field filled with spell books, tables, and seats. There, a fire blessing, lit by her ancestors a thousand years ago, provides warmth that cannot be extinguished except by Ikar's potion.
Ikar, also known as the mad chemist of the Kingdom of Styga, never left his chamber. He didn't like to talk to anyone, even the gods. He was passionate about mixing tree and flower saps, rainwater, river water, tears of demigods, monarch's sweat, animal blood, and other fluids to create potions using his chemical instruments and spells. His potions, known worldwide, were used by warriors in need of a wizard's whisper and contributed to numerous victories in his kingdom.
In the telling of Lisa the Observer, he abuses himself with a potion made from the blood of a wild Ursa in the thick forest of Kelgar. The beast that is known to surge its blood to boil grants them agility that is never seen before, even outrunning the greatest war horse in the realm. The effect of his creation brightened his curiosity, and despite the risk away from his knowing, Ikar drank, injected, and bathed in the potion of Ursa and went mad. Lisa's spy wrote to the note; before he leashed out of his nest, the potion killed his sanity and cruelty surged to his blood. He bit his hands with his sharpened fangs, and the spikes of hair grew to make him scream, his body got enlarged and his pores leaked a black liquid, and he used the strength to tear all his spellbinding papers to shreds, eating the torn pieces of his work like a feral dog. He forced his chamber guard to eat the clutter before leaving the gates.
His insanity reaped its way from his chamber and killed people by biting and slashing the innocent with his grown fang and claws. The blood of the innocent bathed the city floor, and the meats of the dead people he killed decayed so quickly that even the watchers never saw the traces of their bodily existence. The knights that went through his madness instantly got killed by his blow, and the arrows that rained upon the mad chemist shattered when they touched his skin. Ikar was killed by the wounded chamber guard using his longsword from the back, the blade went through his heart and the monster ceased to growl, and died. The guard's loyalty to the master of potions made him stroke the cold white steel into his stomach and follow him to his death. He was once a human, but his passion turned him into a hideous monster against his will.
The descendants of his lineage, possessing an enchanted living heart, emerge from beneath the clouds. Sent by the gods as all-knowing sentinels with the power to influence the world, they are restless beings liberated from ignorance and uncertainty, much like their deceased master. The footsteps of his legacy wander the world in which he is interred, marking his mastery to perpetuate his spirit among the living.
The dawn is approaching, and a female descendant of Ikar is cautiously searching the ground for any nocturnal predators, fortunately finding no signs of wild creatures awake.
In the far east, from her tower window, she saw six fully covered people in gray cloaks. They appeared to be frozen in place, grim and alone, gathered around a green woodfire, with a tall group of dead trees encircling their dark presence. She swallowed her fear to maintain her composure and consciousness, but the thought of them attacking her enchantment nest felt like a dagger upon her chest. She deeply examined the ritual by bringing her eyelids close to each other, and a deep sense of uneasiness crawled through her skin like shards of ice as she saw a human, without a hair and eyes removed from its sockets, skin pale as snow but wounds frayed his beauty with blood, impaled through an oily wood and slowly lowered by a mischievous spirit while his screams grew deafening as his smothered milk skin touches the flames.
In her room, she retrieved the most powerful sentry item that Ikar had gifted to them. It was a white, glimmering sphere adorned with sparkling stars, known as the Quasanir, the ball of all sight. This magical sphere is possessed by all wizards of the realm and was forged from the rare meteorites that struck the world of Galvalon eighty years ago during the White Rain, a deadly meteor shower that fortunately hit the spirit plains of Styga, a terrain so flat and unornamented that even the best geomancers found nothing but plain dirt and grass. The Conjurer Rygaron discovered these white, glowing crystal spheres after the shower ended three days later. Among the two dozen small meteorites, he found four precious Quasanirs. Each Quasanir is imbued with a unique power, most relevant for wizards to safeguard the world from unknown threats. Upon examination, gripping the sphere tightly would cause its blue eyes to open. From these eyes would emanate a blurry white glow, and the user must direct the eye to where it must be that it reflects what it sees to the back of all the spheres existing in the world.
He stored the magical spheres in his hidden chambers and was rumored to have offered those precious gifts to the gods of Astari in exchange for a place in their celestial city. His methods are undisclosed and were said to be unsuccessful. Rygaron ran out of time to distribute the white spheres to his wizards. He was found by his servant bedridden, severely sick, with purple skin, and bleeding from his nose, eyes, and fingers after he returned from the Kingdom of Jon-gur, a large continent in the far east of Galvalon, traversed by majestic eagles at the Eagle's Port.
Before his death, he gave ninety-five Quasanirs to Ikar, his younger brother, and kept one for himself, wishing to Ikar that it must be beside his grave, which Ikar willingly did. Ikar replaced his brother as the leader of the sorcerers. He gave the magical spheres to his people, allowing them to communicate and see what other wizards around the world should see.
When she returned to the balcony from her chambers, she gripped the Quasanir tightly and aggressively, desperate to share the horrifying scene with all the wizards of Glavalon from the seeds of Ikar. Finally, the eye of the sphere opened like a starry night behind a veil of white clouds. It shone, a pale mist spume out of the sphere and it reflected behind for her to sight for all sorcerers. The beauty entranced her, making her gaze at the ball until she was dazzled and hypnotized. The time of use is enough for Stella to lose her grip and return the sphere to its chest.
Stella realizes that it's the least of her concerns and that disrupting them might cause her danger. The feeling of remorse consumed her, but she continued to pour Ikar's memories into a glass, causing a yellow mist to rise from the mixture.
Stella: A potion for offense, this might work for them.
She approached the wooden chest beside the door that leads to the hall where the hole to the ground is placed. She opened the chest with a key and grabbed a dark nasty rat amongst the dozen bundles of fluff. The rat was placed on a table carved with a skull without an eyehole, Ikar believed that the sacrificed were blind to the natural way of death. She put the rat atop the skull's mouth and whispered.
Stella: Ardu'falaris!
A magical spell hinders the creature from moving as if a chain wraps it tightly. The rat is now immobile and no longer breathing. When she pours the concoction into the wretch's mouth, sudden chills run up to the tower's fire.
The wails of the unfamiliar echoed near her ears as if they were loudly whispering, the visitors prayed, and some of them screamed until their throats gashed with blood. Stella left the sacrificial table and rushed to the deck, where she witnessed indescribable horrors lurking below the tower. She heard the footsteps of that creature, one foot stepped three times, and although they looked terrifying, she did not gaze at them for long. Stella couldn't recall anything from the pages she read in the books about the myths that seemed twisted, wicked, and crafty. These myths were different and not well known to many until they made their way to her home.
The mage fought back with the blessing of Ikar's spell by blocking the hole that led to her nest. She placed two barriers that are invulnerable to piercing. The shield is also known as the God's Armor, which even the mightiest and sharpest sword forged in the City of Tendro cannot impale.
Stella: Guardio Sealora, in'karo adusilar!
The shield was set, and she waited until the silence swallowed the terrible threat below where she stood. The stifling atmosphere of dawn clutched her heart when the light of many fireflies, which spurted from the mouths of the beasts, wailed like embers from a furnace. She dropped a tear and an ice-cold sweat and wiped it off in disbelief that the tamed were damned by an unknown creature of the night. Down the structure, there was a mumble of a savage, and its voice was as cold as a corpse. For the first time, a minion of the mad chemist was struck by fear as the gaze of a twisted humanoid went through her like a blast of ice.
Stella: Go away!
She shouted, and it seemed that the others approached the column, but only one paid attention to her dread and fueled it even more. The shrill sound of its hidden, fluent voice made her heart take flight.
Unknown: You'll pay for what you've done.
Suddenly, the protective blessing from the gods faltered, and the claws of an unnamed entity pierced through the barrier as easily as a stick popping a bubble. Their footsteps sounded like thunder, shaking the surroundings. In a panic, she grabbed and threw whatever potion she could reach on the shelf, but the offensive enchantment did not affect the incomprehensible being. Her throat tightened in terror as the inhuman screams overwhelmed her. Beneath their feet, Stella saw a swirling mass of black fog slowly approaching her. She closed her eyes, her chest tight with fear, feeling cold fingers and a foul stench against her neck. Shadows seemed to drain the light even from behind her closed eyelids.