It has been one year to date since the kingdom of Brill was destroyed and abandoned. Stress has taken hold of each of the remaining kingdoms' capitals. Gashton has embarked on a invigorated crusade against magic users, while Eventide's rebellious prince seeks to alleviate such oppression. Ormont suffers a political division between the Royalists and the standing noble class, and Kadra continues efforts to recover from disastrous flooding.
Gashton
The woman in manacles, sided by two guards, was led to the pyre. Her head was down, and face covered by her black, mangy hair. Two executioners took places with the guards. Atop the pile of dry brush, her hands were bound above her head to a post, and her feet chained to it as well. The executioners checked their work and retreated from the mound.
A pause was left for the public to absorb the scene before the King rose on his balcony. Eyes filled with hate tore into the woman. The public regarded him as though he were a god at this moment. To most of them he was not even a vengeful or fearful god, but a saviour of the people – a burning light in the threatening darkness that was sorcery.
King Henryk cleared his throat and addressed the witch, "Today you will answer for your high crime of sorcery. Your terrorism and all like it have no place in Gashton. Before the evil that grips your soul is purged from this world, have you any last words?"
The witch slowly raised her head, her hair parting to reveal a much more harrowed face than before witnessed. She stared into the hate-filled eyes of the god before her. The king waited in silence. The witch turned her head slowly to Prince Xander and smiled widely. "I have no more words for you, my King."
The king nodded to the executioners who brought forth a torch each. The witch straightened in fear, and then the torches were tossed beneath her. A great orange flame took hold of the pyre, and a rush of heat took the spectating crowd. Screams of agony howled over the crackling and roaring of flame. The fire had engulfed the woman entirely and the screams stopped.
The execution was done. Some of the crowd began to leave, while the more curious lingered to see the ashes. Then the flames began to take on a deep red hue, then a dark purple. A voice bellowed from within the inferno.
"Thibault! Hear this curse!
Royal blood will wash away.
Scrapings shall be your food,
The castle drains your only drinking place,
The shadow of these walls your only standing place,
A broken throne your resting place!
May this legacy never be forgotten!"
With these last, echoing words, the purple flames swelled to enormous height, then just as quickly were extinguished altogether. The charred, naked body of the witch hung there as though nothing had happened.
Eventide
The sky above Stormhaven was overcast – uncommon, but not unknown to the port-city. The air was chill and damp, and the smell of fish from the harbour penetrated much deeper into the inner districts than usual. The docks were running like clockwork nonetheless, and the narrow streets of the lower city filled and emptied of crates and goods. As noon approached though, the promise of the coming storm was affirmed. The sky darkened further – thick black clouds capping the city. Looking out into the bay, dockworkers only speculated. Skies over the water were clear – the clouds must have come from inland.
"Must be a massive system to have made it over the mountains," one dockworker posited. The air was beginning to move a little.
"Most of it will have landed over the foothills. We shouldn't see much more than an hour of drizzle," answered another.
But the rain never came. The streets had grown now twice as crowded as before as folk left their homes to watch the slowly spinning clouds above. Many more were growing wary and had taken to locking themselves up in their homes. Slowly, the clockwork of the docks district had ground down to a halt. The sky had captured the entire capital's attention.
Stormhaven castle stood grey and tall. Its many square towers surrounded the castle keep which was smaller than average and set on the precipice of the mountain-like fortress. People and nobles travelling to and from the castle had stopped on the immense staircase leading from the city into the citadel. King Eamon of Eventide watched from a garden tower window – one eye on his city below and another on the growing vortex in the sky.
"My liege," began a servant, or perhaps a herald, "the court requires your attention. Worry is beginning to set in that—"
The king motioned swiftly for silence and returned his gaze to the sky in concentration. Something was changing. Above the city, the swirling clouds moved faster and opened in the middle like an eye – a black hole which led deeper into the cloud cover. The air grew still at once. The king stared.
"Ready the guard."
Back in the city, a fog began to form. It behaved unlike most fog, instead materializing in isolated patches of a slowly churning mist suspended – like milk in water. The city guard began to clear the streets of onlookers – most of who were eager to leave. As more patches of fog appeared, more doors and windows were bolted.
A half hour later, those remaining outdoors witnessed the fog grow opaque, blotting out the views of storefronts and alleyways like windows into a mist-filled world. Looking closely, shadowy shapes could be seen within the patches. Then a flash of light accompanied by a rush of air erupted from the upper shops district, panicked citizens fleeing from the vicinity. The guard reacted quickly. Screams from within the ward erupted. Emerging into the crate-cluttered main street, the guards, poised with pike and shield, watched in fear as shadowy figures began to step out of misty scar in the air.
A herald emerged from the large oak doors to the deliberation chamber. The king and prince stood with numerous councilmen and war operatives.
"My king, the guard have the upper shops cordoned off. Creatures are coming through a portal, the herald stated hurriedly.
"What kind of creatures are these?" an elderly noble asked.
"Beings of a different world. They have no physical form, and suck away the light they walk in," the herald replied, catching his breath.
The men talked worriedly until the king raised his hand in a forced calm. "Bring us the arcanist."
The herald nodded and pulled the doors to the chamber closed behind him.
Ormont
The throne room lay dim with morning light cutting through the tall and narrow stained glass windows. Across the marble floor, matrixes of colour ebbed and propagated. The chandeliers above, composed of strings of glass beads, rocked gently in the shadows of the vaulted ceiling. Captured by his thoughts, the duke turned the ruby ring over and over in his fingers.
A palace servant appeared in one of the naves and immediately broke the duke's concentration. The duke stared at him. "Well?"
"Duke Alaric, I—"
"
Regent," the duke interrupted with bite.
"Your grace, I bring word from the ambassador. Your presence is requested in the stateroom," the servant said, wide-eyed.
"What is the meaning of this?" Alaric knew the answer. He wondered if the servant dare say it.
"Your grace, Kadra awaits your reply to her distress. They wish to know what aid Ormont will send."
The duke returned his attention to the ring in his hands. "Ormont has a more pressing issue," he looked to the servant. "The crown prince comes of age today. Soon he will claim his right to the throne, and Ormont will fall because of it. I cannot let the fool ruin everything I have worked to sustain in the absence of his father."
The servant stepped forward from the nave, disenchanted. "Will you do nothing?"
The duke leapt to the man, pinning his neck to a column. The servant gasped, unable to speak. "If I don't act, Ormont will fall as Brill did. Tell me, would you let your own home burn because our neighbours got their feet wet?"
The servant stared in alarm before Alaric released him. His voice cracked, "I will bring them word at once, your grace."
Kadra
The streets of Arcay lay ever-busy as the people bustled around, still reeling from the damage of the floods that happened a handful of days prior. On the horizon, more dark clouds could be seen brewing and people worried if another storm was coming. The Scryers kept attempting to reassure the people of the land that there was no storm coming; in fact, the clouds were heading east towards Eventide.
The clouds did damper the moods of the citizens but they continued in relative peace and quiet. The day was coming to a close and with no major crimes or events happening, the guards felt complacent and lazy; all but one that is. One of the guards, whose name is of no consequence at this time, had a feeling in his gut that something bad was coming. Not just here, but everywhere. He knew that something foul was afoot.
His peers dismissed his worries as on-the-job stress and approaching the twilight hours, a grumble was heard across the entire city, almost like that of an earthquake. Citizens looked around, confused, but un-panicked. The guard looked around the walls and streets but no source could be determined. Another shudder coursed through the streets and the sound of cracking stone could be heard. Within moments, screams and the crashing of a tower could be seen and heard as a southern watchtower crumbled into a pile of corpses and bricks.
The city attack bells started ringing and soldiers began moving to the breach in the wall where hundreds of half-giants of all three clans could be seen rushing into the city. No words were said as a battle was waged in the streets, the guard pushed back by the sheer numbers and strengths of the half-giants. It wasn't until the Spellsword Knights stepped in before their advance was halted.
Then, strangely, all the half-giants stopped attacking and looked up towards the sky. The Knights stopped attacking because they were curious as to what they were looking at and they knew that half-giants never stop an assault without good reason.
Each of the clans began to exude pure magical energy; the Granite clan's ridges and canyons in their skin began to glow with a vibrant purple, the Iron clan's skin started to turn red-hot and the Crystal clan's skin started to warp and swirl with color like an aurora. All the half-giants in the city stopped doing what they were doing, as they, too, were experiencing this. In fact, every half-giant across the world was experiencing this event.
All the half-giants stared into the sky and started to groan. The noise they all made started off low in tone but slowly picked up in cadence until it could be, quite literally, heard across the entire world. The people looked on in horror, some running in fear, some standing idly by as this strange phenomena took place. The Knights were uncertain as what to do and when one of them approached one of the Half-Giants, he reeled back in pain from the pure magical energy radiating from them.
They all stood there, groaning, staring, into the sky. Slowly, they began to shudder as the energy could be seen pushing its way up their bodies and out their throats, violently shooting up into the sky. Across the Realm, thousands of these pillars could be seen, all hitting a pinpoint of a star (where one could see the stars). The entire world stood silent as this was taking place, holding their breath as they feared what may come.
The ground shook and the lights all exploded in the sky. The half-giants collapsed to the ground. The army in Arcay slowly stood up, their expression grave and terrified as to what just happened, began to make their way out of the city, no longer desiring a battle, leaving the people of Arcay in terror and disbelief.
And as the people of the city gazed upwards, for the second time in recorded history, the stars shifted.
