In the isolated village of EddervostĂ©, a place so rooted in tradition that time itself seemed to have forgotten it, there lived a boy named ElĂas Thatticus, who lived alone with his father.
His father, once a proud Knight, had moved away from a far off kingdom with his wife, seeking refuge from war, had returned to hometown on the other side of the continent.
But now, he lies broken and battered, hidden away in his cabin on the far side of the village of Eddervosté..;
The village of Eddervosté is a small township, nestled deep within a forest perpetually shrouded in mist.
The inhabitants of this village have long clung to its antiquated ways, with a fervor bordering on fanaticism, many of them never leaving the confines of the village limits, unless they need travel for trade.
The village of Eddervosté is lined with old cottages, built from wood and stone with thatched roofs lined the cobblestone and granite streets. Their ancient walls weathered and cracked, like the souls of the people who lived within them.
The air around the village always smelled faintly of peat fires and damp earth. The people who inhabited this village often spoke in hushed tones of omens and curses, wary of anything that deviated from their customs.
For ElĂas, life in EddervostĂ© was nothing but a daily torment... The other children, encouraged by the disdain of their elders, bullied ElĂas and mocked him mercilessly.
They called him "Cur-Child, Witch-Spawn, Muddle-Blood," and other demeaning things they liked to call people from the outside world.., their sneering voices snickering throughout the streets.
Growing up, the other children in the village often chased ElĂas with sticks, threw mud or small rocks at him, and whispered cruel rumors about how his birth had brought nothing but misfortune to the village.
At times, even the adults participated in his ostracism, shaking their heads in disapproval or clinging to their rosaries, and muttering prayers for protection whenever he passed by.
At home, life was no kinder to him.
ElĂas's father, once a knight of renown in a far-off kingdom, was now nothing more than a broken man..
Rumors swirled about how Elias's father had fallen from grace; Some said he had been enthralled by a witch, while others claimed he had betrayed his Liege and was being punished by *Divine Wrath*.
Whatever the truth, the man was a shadow of his former self, missing half his limbs and drowning his daily misery in drink.
He often blamed ElĂas for the death of his wife, ElĂas's mother, a woman of mystery whom the villagers often whispered had dabbled in forbidden magica.
His father would often throw things at him in a drunken stupor while screaming at him, "You should never have been born..," his words always cutting deeper than the boy dared let on. "If it weren't for you, she'd still be here." He'd exclaim as he would throw his bottles at ElĂas.
Growing up poor, ElĂas had no refuge except for the nearby cathedral's library, an ancient and towering structure of weathered stone that loomed at the edge of the village.
The other villagers rarely entered the cathedral, considering it a place of relics and dusty tomes unfit for their simple lives. But to ElĂas, the library was more than a graveyard of tombs, it was his sanctuary. Its vast shelves were filled with books that told stories and legends of foreign gods and far off worlds.
Worlds where heroes triumphed and the downtrodden found redemption.
Although he was led to believe since he was young that these books were merely the works of fantasies, ElĂas spent most of his hours reading, memorizing texts of history, mythology, and even alchemy.
He pored over faded manuscripts detailing the lives of foreign gods, their tales of creation and destruction, and the rituals used to honor them.
He read stories of lands far beyond the forest of Eddervosté, lands of shimmering deserts, vast seas, and towering mountains covered in snow.
Each book was like a window into a life he could only dream of, a life far removed from the misery of his own existence.
But even in the library, his tormentors found him at times;
Once, a group of boys discovered his hiding spot and ransacked the place, tearing pages from his favorite books and laughing as they scattered the fragments across the floor.
Another time, a village elder caught him reading a book on alchemy and slapped him so hard that the book he was reading flew from his hands. The elder began declaring it as heretical nonsense, before grabbing the book and throwing it into the fireplace.
Yet even despite all this pain, ElĂas did his best to endure. Over time, his loneliness hardened into resolve, and his curiosity deepened into a burning hunger for forbidden knowledge.
He began to wonder if there was a way for him to escape, …not just from the village but from the life he had been condemned to live for so long.