The morning mist had not yet lifted, and the roofs of the small town of Dawnsinger were condensed with fine dewdrops.Vetril lay on his back by the window, staring at the back of his father, Gareth, as he followed the Order of the Flowing Glory far away. As the sound of the horses' hooves faded away, he turned to look at the wooden sword hidden under his bed, and a bold thought tumbled through his mind.
'Jack must not be able to sit still ... either,' he muttered, slipping out of the room on his tiptoes.
Sure enough, Jack was already crouched by the stone mill at the town's entrance, with Lily and a cowering Tommy standing beside him. Seeing Vetril run up, Jack grinned and waved the dirt-stained sack in his hand, 'Look! I 'borrowed' honey biscuits from Mary's bakery, enough for our picnic!'
'If we get caught, you'll be in the barrel again.' Lily clasped her arms, her blonde hair shimmering in the morning light.
'Not this time!' Jack lowered his voice, his eyes glowing, 'I heard about a field of wild strawberries blooming by the riverbank to the north, and dancing firefly butterflies-'
'But, but Mr Gareth said not to go out of town ...' Tommy tugged at the corner of his coat, snot hanging from the tip of his nose.
'Fear not! We're not going far, we're near the riverbank!' Vetril's heart raced, the excitement of a status panel identifying a novel creature coming to mind, 'In case of danger, I'll still be able to escape with Mana Enhancement!'
The shadows of the four children quietly bypassed the guards and burrowed into the bushes outside the town. With their trouser legs wet from the morning dew, Jack took the lead in clearing away the thorns, Lily chased away the cobwebs with a twig, and Tommy clutched a rock as a 'shield'. Through the last of the bushes, a clear stream meandered past, ruby red wild strawberries adorned the riverbank, and a flock of firefly butterflies circled around bluebells, their wings showering them with starbursts of glitter.
'Identify!' Vetril thought.
Firefly
Level: 1
Realm: Harmless creature
Characteristics: wings phosphorus powder that glows briefly, nectar-loving.
Comment: a small lantern of the forest, a guiding light for those lost at night.
'It's so beautiful ...' Lily held out her hand and a firefly rested on her fingertips. Tommy clumsily mimicked it, but sneezed to startle the butterfly, making Jack laugh.
The children lay on the soft grass sharing biscuits, drowsy from the sun. It wasn't until the hot midday sun baked the stream dry that Jack licked his lips and jumped up, 'I'm still a little hungry! Is there anything else to eat? Right! There's red fruit in that bush over there!'
A low bush was tucked away in the shadows, with onyx-full berries dangling between its branches. Lily frowned and sniffed, 'Smells a bit strange ...' but Jack had already picked one and stuffed it into his mouth, juice dripping down his chin, 'Super sweet! Eat it!'
Red Berry Bush
Level: 0
Realm: Ordinary Plant
Characteristics: The fruit contains a slight hallucinogenic toxin that can trigger vomiting if consumed in excess.
Comment: snack for birds, trap for humans.
'Wait!' Vetril had just read out the panel information, but Tommy and Jack had already swallowed the third fruit. Five minutes later, Jack and Tommy collapsed to the ground with their stomachs covered, Jack's face turning green, 'I was wrong ... I'll never eat without messing up again ...'
Woe betide them. Just as Lily was about to get up to get water, her skirt hooked onto a vine. The ground suddenly trembled, and a one-person-tall plant with fat leaves and two long vines burrowed out of the churning soil.
Shy Konjac
Level: 5
Realm: Elementary Magic Creature (Plant Type)
Characteristics: The root system will drill out and attack creatures within its range with its vines whenever it senses danger.
Weakness: the core of the flower core is afraid of flames.
'Run!' Vetril yanked up the vomiting Tommy as Mana surged frantically to her legs. Konjac's vines lashed like whips while Jack staggered for the wooden sword he carried, only to be toppled to the ground before he could even begin, his wooden sword flying out of his hand. Lily grabbed a rock and smashed it into the core of the flower, only to provoke the konjac into even more frenzy.
'Use fire!' Vetril shouted. As Tommy shivered and pulled out a flint, Vetril took it, and Mana surged forward with both hands and threw herself at the Shy Konjac, the sparks splattering on the vines but instantly extinguishing them. In the nick of time, Lily shot out a small Mana Wave, and the air flowed into the core of the flower, causing the konjac to scream like a baby's cry, and the vines to spasm back into the ground.
The children fled back to the town, already covered in mud. Elena's eyes instantly reddened at the sight of Vetril's bruised arm, 'Do you know how worried I was!' Jack is dragged home by Henry's ear, Tommy sobs and is shoved into the tub by Mary, and Lily is punished with three days of scrubbing the floor by her florist aunt.
As night falls, Vetril curls up by the fireplace. Elena's hand trembled slightly as she applied ointment to him, 'Promise me you won't worry your father any more ... He's suffered enough.' Vetril hung his head, the question that had been circling for so long finally coming out, 'Mother, what did father ever ... really go through?'
Elena then spoke of Gareth's past events
Fifteen Years Ago - Quicksilver City
Gareth knelt on the marble floor of the family chapel, his older brother Kane's sword across his neck. Moonlight poured through the coloured windows onto Kane's twisted face, and a mist of blood steamed from the pitch-black lance in his hand, the tip of which still dripped with the blood of his own parents.
'Why ... brother!' Gareth hissed, tears blurring the dome in which the family crest was embedded. A few hours ago, Kane was the 'Shield of Phyrexian' admired by millions, but now he was as mad as if possessed by an evil spirit.
'You don't understand ... this power ... is enough to make us rise above the mole!' Kane's pupils shrunk into pinpoints as his lance suddenly pierced Gareth's right shoulder, 'But you're too weak to share eternity with me!'
The excruciating pain caused Gareth to remember only one thing before he passed out - the spell on the gun was eating away at his sanity when his older brother brought it back from the depths of the mines.
When Gareth woke up in a pile of corpses, Quicksilver City had become a hell on earth. The heraldic flag of House Dornsinger was soaked in blood, and the streets echoed with the wails of survivors. Kane's maniacal laughter came from the direction of the castle, the power of the Black Lance allowing him to slaughter half the city's defenders by himself.
Just then, a great knight travelling here from afar stepped forward to stop Kane's atrocities. Seeing that he was outmatched, Kane fled in a frenzy, and the great knight followed close behind. And Gareth, who remained there, was forced to endure the wrath of the populace.
'The devil's brother!' A stone hit Gareth in the back of the head, and the angry populace gathered around. They had lost their children, their parents, their loved ones, and the last bloodline of the Dawnsinger family became the only object of their anger.
The lord of the city had to declare an eviction order at dawn. Gareth was stripped of his knight's armour and staggered out of the city with only his family's short blade. Behind him was his burning homeland, and before him was the endless wilderness. He grips his blade tightly to finish himself off, but he hears a baby crying - a baby girl struggling in the arms of her dead mother in the ruins.
'Not even allowed to die? ...' He picked up the baby, only to hand it over to the orphanage and continue wandering.
For three whole years, Gareth wandered the border town like a wandering spirit
He let drunken men beat him while he worked as an odd-job man in a tavern, exchanging all the money he made for bad ale. Until one snowy night, he fell drunk on the side of the road and dreamed of Kane's black gun piercing a baby girl's heart.
'Wake up!' A crisp female voice pierced through the dream. Elena held up an oil lamp, snowflakes falling on her long golden lashes, 'Do you want to freeze to death?'
She stiffly dragged Gareth back to the apothecary's shop, healing his frostbite with herbs and waking up his numbness with venomous curses. 'Self-loathing is blasphemy against the dead!' She shattered his flask, 'Look at this scar - I wanted to go over and die when I was scratched by a wraith when I was a child, but now I'm going to save more people with these hands!'
Elena teaches Gareth to grip his sword again. When he was first besieged by mountain bandits to protect her, the nucleus of the source that had been dormant for years actually flowed again. On the day of his wedding, he trembled as he slipped her a ring made of wildflowers, 'I swear to wield my sword only for guardianship in this life.'
The night Vetril was born, Gareth sobbed uncontrollably outside the delivery room. The baby in her arms was like a warm ball of mana, melting the last of the ice. 'This time, I will never let the tragedy repeat itself.' He whispered into his wife's sleeping face.
The fire crackled in the fireplace and Vetril stared at his mother in awe
'So the one thing father was always afraid of was losing his family?' Vetril asked.
Elena stroked his hair gently, 'Yes, he was afraid that fate would repeat itself and return him to the pain he once felt, but remember-' she pointed out the window to the starry sky, 'Kane was consumed by the power because he only had himself in his eyes; and you father chose to guard because he had love in his heart.'
With that said, Elena sent Vetril to his own room, signalling for an early night, before walking out of the room.
The moonlight was like a silver spoon, scooping up the last vestiges of fluke in Vetril's chest. He curled up on his bed, his fingertips clasped in a death grip on the book, Biography of the Legendary Knight Grand Mark. Memories of Mikaelle's previous life, huddled in the ruins of war, suddenly came flooding back - when he had clutched the thin blanket his mother had left behind until the flames of the bombardment had burned the last vestiges of warmth to charred ash. And the residual body heat from Elena's tucking in the corners of his blanket in this life, which burned him to the point of near tears at the moment, made him experience a level of kinship he had never known before.
At the same time, he swore in his heart that he would guard this family in the future and never let his father's tragedy repeat itself.