The story starts with an opening of a blonde woman climbing a mountain until she finds an open area where a pile of rocks stood, once she reaches those rocks, she says a few words commenting on how absurd the population of the land was to keep such an artifact unguarded.
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The story would then move to describe the land. It's a north europe medieval like land, with multiple mountains, castles and small villages, the lands are fertile in some areas while others are covered in snow. Unlike the previous sand land, there is not one kingdom in this land, but multiple that struggle for control. They all want the lands, but none want to leave themselves open to another kingdom.
Scyther the main protagonist, is a war veteran of a broken kingdom that is trying rebuild itself. Although he had retired from service, the new broken state of his nation, forced him to return to the army. The story continues with him flying over the lands on top wyrven.
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Upon arriving to the capital he encounters his friend and teacher Arcos and both delegate on the condition of of the nation. Right now their nation is in dire needs of help from not just collapsing on itself, but no other nation wants to land a hand. As such the council have proposed the idea of asking help from secluded witches that live on the mountains. Arcos Actively rejects the idea, stating that witches are vile and selfish my nature, and whatever help they might bring will only bring more calamity. Scyther on the other hand has neutral stance, stating that's it's true for the most part that witches cannot be trusted, but that with the condition of the national as it is, even harmful help is better than nothing.
The council noticing the opening ordered Scyther to patrol the mountain areas and if he would encounter a witch, that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to try and negotiate before attacking.
Scyther accepts the mission much to the displeasure of Arcos.
On his patrol, he decides to visit an open area he knows about that. He couldn't really understand it, but the area always gave him an odd feeling. Upon reaching the area he encounters what he was looking for, a female it seemed. But as he got closer the area was throw in chaos, the rocks that stood in the center of the open area began to shine and the woman touched them. To his horror, he saw the blonde woman change her appearance, becoming smaller, her hair becoming dark even her skin color turned from fair white to a darker shade that resembled a tan. Perhaps much peculiar was the pair of horns that had grown on her head.
He didn't know what happen, but once he reached the ground and unmounted, he finally noticed the presence of the woman. Whatever the woman was, it didn't feel like any other witch he had faced before, heck it didn't even feel human.
The woman simply turned around a gave him a wicked smile, tells him to leave just as she casts a spell.
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Scyther braces for the impact as he regrets ever accepting the mission. But, to his and hers surprise nothing happened. Scyther stood there speechless, he felt the power in that spell, it was like nothing he had ever seen before. But the most shocked was the woman, she was completely stating, he had no idea what happened, she had simply cast a spell to send the knight away, and instead it failed to do anything.
Scyther sensing the opening closes him and apprehends her. Again she casts a spell, this time a much deadlier one to kill the knight, but again it didn't do anything. At this point the woman is panicking as she doesn't understand what's happening and almost begging the knight to not kill her and that she's sorry. Scyther is angry at the woman, at first he had intended to just talk with her, but she quickly went into hostility and tried to kill him or something else, so he was contemplating the idea of killing her. But ultimately the crying state of the woman and the fact that for some reason her magic wasn't working properly caused him to give her another chance.
Still holding her down he manages to calm her down enough to strike a conversation. She explains that she was looking through the ruins and happened to come across an artifact that gave her power, when she saw the knight she thought of testing these new powers and that she actually wasn't going to harm at first.
He makes her the proposition of helping his nation in trade for riches and power. To which the witch rejected it, stating she doesn't want to be anywhere close to him. A witch without her magic is nothing, and whatever this man was clearly was messing up with her magic, so she had no intent of helping him.
He then threatens to kill her if she doesn't help, to which again she rejects stating that there's no guaranties that they wouldn't kill her afterwards. Scyther curses his luck and releases her, normally he would have no problem killing someone, but in this case his pride didn't allow him to kill someone who couldn't fight back, even if that someone was a witch.
Scyther apologizes and parts away. Once he arrives at the castle, he first encounters Arcos and explains him what happened, Arcos explains to him that he's likely her opposite. Witch are a powerful type of people, they rule over magic as if it was a plaything, with that logic, it shouldn't be difficult for witches to simply gain control over the lands. But that's not the case. To combat the witches the land produces male counterparts that are immune to one specific witch, of course they never know who they are, and most don't even get to find the one they can kill. So Scyther was lucky in finding the only one witch that can't kill him.
Scyther finds this explanation strange since it's the first time he's heard of it, but accepted it since it came form his friend. Later on he reports to the council and is ordered to remain silent over the incident and the order. It seems Arcos managed to convince the council to abandon the idea.
Fast forward a couple months and it seems the nation is slowly recovering. However things aren't looking that well, a neighboring nation is looking to invade and with the current power that his nation has, they can at best play defensive for now. Their only saving grace is Scyther and Arcos who are both considered war heroes respected and feared in other nations. So for the time being they felt safe.
But that changed one day when they received a message, to lock up Scyther for treason. You see witches are hated all over the land, so hated that nations will join together just massacre them. Somehow the enemy nation got a hold on information which said that Scyther contacted and helped a witch. And they had to lock him up for execution or face the might of all the other nations as they come to eliminate them for interacting with witches. Not seeing any other solution, Scyther gave himself while Arcos promised to convince other nations from backing off.
Because of Scyther status it would take weeks if not months for him to be executed, but he would be locked down for the time being. But on the night that Arcos left, Scyther received an interesting visit.
A woman that he had encountered before and indirectly caused his incarceration. The witch that he had met before stood on the other side of the cell, smirking at him as if to mock him. When she finally speaks, she states that she'll help him on the condition that he becomes her pawn. Perplexed he rejects it almost instantly before asking her what's she's doing. They have a long conversation. She explains that she want's unify the nations under one leader, but that Scyther was a big obstacle on her path due to being immune to her magic. At first she was happy to see him get incarcerated and sentenced to death. But that seeing him simply accept his position pissed her off, he should be storming against the council, demanding to be released and that the other nations should F themselves.
Since she couldn't take it anymore just looking at him accept his fate, she thought of doing gamble and try to recruit him. Scyther is speechless, more on the fact that she acted based on some impulse than on the fact that she stated she wanted to counter the lands. There was something about her that clicked with him. Instead of rejecting her offer, this time he simply asked for reasons to trust her.
She simply said "Since my magic doesn't work on you, you can pretty much kill me anytime you feel like it." again this left him speechless, her way of acting was nothing like any other woman he had encountered, even witches were less direct and impulse then her.
Weighting his options, he understands that he only accepted his fate because he knew he was protecting his nation. But if he somehow escaped then the his nation would still be safe since they would not be held responsible, plus if things go anyway, he could support them from the shadows. As such by the end, he accepted her deal.
To which she blew up the bars and the wall, revealing Scyther's wyrven already there waiting. She tells him to hide for the time being since they will be looking for him during the first weeks. Just before he leaves he asks for her name. She calls herself Thevana.
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Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:00 pm
