Fantasy Grim Hollow (The Lost Dae & Moondustborn)

[The Lost Dae]

The once sleepy village of Liverdale used to look almost idyllic with its mountainous backdrop and forests surrounding it, but that's all in the past, now it looked like a village that was in the midst of war, buildings were boarded up and barricaded, the locals-only glimpsed out of the windows if they needed to, and the few people that could be seen outside were armed with the best weapons that the small town had available. Liverdale seemed to all that would happen upon it, to be a town in waiting, though the chance of someone simply stumbling on it were so remote in the current times as to be non-existent. Sadly Liverdale was a good ten days ride by horse from the nearest walled city so they would never see the defenders that they enjoyed from the capital, not Liverdale had been cut off from help since the darkness had fallen.

It is of no doubt to the villagers, and the people who now held up there that the village had fallen within weeks of the first night of the 'darkness' as it had come to be called, if not for Asha deciding to abandon the relative safety of the capital, and the school she had been attending off and on for years now, to return home and protect everyone. It is hard to see the once vibrant girl slowly deteriorating under the constant pressure of maintaining her magical wards. Her magic has been the only thing keeping the horrendous things that lurk in the dark back and during the worst nights she even has to fight magical beasts back that have the ability to penetrate her barriers. The town is aware her training is incomplete and they do everything they can to help her, which is precious little given that Liverdale rarely produces children that have the aptitude for magic, and she is the first in many generations.

the town was preparing for another harrowing night and what passed for the town militia were watching the sun slowly sinking past the horizon as dusk took full hold of the land around them, they were trying to let Asha sleep for as long as possible, she seemed even more tired every time the sun rose, they just hoped, even if only a distant thing, that someone would come help take the burden off her, or that a new monster would break through their barriers and release Asha from the torment of protecting all of them. Several of the elders had begged Asha to return to the capital, if she left alone she could have made the journey being able to use her magic to protect herself, but each time these pleas fell on deaf ears, both literally and figuratively.

One of the guards noticed a figure moving in the shadows, stumbling and shambling and immediately yelled out an alert and a young boy would bolt from a nearby house to one that sat near the center of town, simply opening the door and entering without preamble. The boy found himself in what would be considered a utilitarian house, having no more than what is absouletley neccessary for survival, he knew that the room to the left contained many magical aparatus and creatures in containers which Asha often used for her magic, though he wasn't heading there now, he went to the right finding the young woman curled in a ball her body seeming to have withered further and there were blood stains marring her otherwise pretty face where it had run from her eyes. He approached her gingerly not wanting to distrub the small modicom of peace she had while asleep but knowing they had not choice but to wake her.

He gently touched her arm and she would yawn before opening her eyes which seemed far more sunken then they had been the day before, but she simply smiled at the boy standing and stretching before her eyes seemed to shift from their normal colors to a deep purple that was almost black she would whince as she did and her breaths would pick up, however she then quickly moved her hand through the air purple words appeared before her saying "thankyou Marco, go back to your family now." and she would leave the room, her body all too thin as she crossed to the magical room gathering a few supplies then heading out. As she walked she crushed several insects in her left hand as she began forming a rune in the air in front of her with her right, as she did a purple light would begin to flicker and shimmer into existence around the town, a dome that followed carefully prepared runes that were along the ground, however in doing this her eyes began bleeding once more, a clear sign she had over taxed her magic.

 

[moondustborn]

Alyva had been running away for as long as she could remember.

She didn’t stay anywhere long enough to know anyone, not even herself. That was what she knew about herself, though; she ran. And she knew how to hide.

Even when she hadn’t been long wherever she currently was, she knew something was wrong. The weather felt angry and dark. Dark, above all. It felt threatening and she did not care for it. But she didn’t know where she was. All she knew about the place, was that there were beasts in the forest. All kinds of hideous, monstrous and aggressive beasts that didn’t fail to want her dead. Beasts so horrendous her own mind wasn’t capable of imagining them. So she did the thing she did best: of course, she ran. Until one of those beasts caught her by the ankle. Her heart stopped for an excruciating moment.

But then she remembered to do the second thing she did best: survive. Her overwhelming urge to survive to see the sun rise again took over her, and so with her screams, came a burning white force so intense she had to close her eyes. Her whole body was shaking and her lungs burning. She felt a rush throughout her body and then—nothing. Peace as she never knew it. Quiet as she never felt it.

When she opened her eyes, the beast was gone; vanished into thin air. Silver dust flew everywhere. And it took her long enough to realize that the burning white force so intense she couldn’t breathe had come out of her.

She shook the silver dust off her dark dressings and kept walking through the night. Suddenly, the woods came to a stop. There was a town. There, in the middle of nowhere, was a town. And above it, up in the sky, were abyss black clouds threatening to eat the place whole. Behind the blackness in the skies, the first rays of sunshine were melting through, fighting their way through the darkness to touch the earth. She needed to hide before the light touched her and someone saw her and mistook her for a thief or a murderer. She put her black mask back on, so that only her black eyes were visible. She tried to hide every lock of her white hair inside her cap. That hair was unmistakable, she’d been told before. That Thebe hair. She needed to hide it. She had put mud all over it before, in the hopes it would turn brown, at the very least. But that didn’t last. So she hid it in a cap.

And when distracted hiding her hair, she failed to notice a thick root sticking out from the earth and she fell, as loudly as she could. She lay there, waiting to hear any notice that would alert her she’d given away her location. Nothing but distant footsteps. That was good. It was, until she realized something else. Her left foot was suffering from a blindingly high amount of pain. The beast must have done real damage before it disappeared and she couldn’t feel it before due to the adrenaline. Now she couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes in the hopes it would get away but it didn’t. She had to get away before she was discovered. So she got up and painfully climbed up the nearest tree.

Up in the tree, she ripped a piece of cloth from her cape and tied it around her ankle, so as to keep it supported and try to prevent it from swelling even more. Then, when she had a moment of rest, she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten. She was seriously wondering how she could still get on her feet and walk.

But then something happened.

She felt it in her bones. How the whole atmosphere had changed. All around her there was a purple light. For a second, it was so strong she couldn’t feel the paint in her foot. It was so strong she couldn’t feel anything but it. Suddenly, the light was gone, and in the ground, purple symbols drew the path the light had touched.

What she felt, with the purple light. It was nearly as powerful as the white light that came out of here. Nearly as suffocating and fearless. She was mesmerized. She needed to find the source of that light, because if she could know where it came from and why it is there, then she could have the key to the answers of her many questions.

She was set to get off the tree and chase the purple light, until she saw it. The source.

There, in front of the first line of trees, there was a girl. And there were purple shadows dancing all around her.

 

[The Lost Dae]

The Rune Night was young when she finally got to the side of town where movement had been spotted, however by the time she had gotten there she was unable to see anything, the night looked still, but that would be a mistake to underestimate the things that lived out in those woods. She took a deep breath scanning everywhere at once trying to spot anything out of the ordinary. At one point she had thought she had seen a shock of pure white in one of the trees, however she knew that wasn’t possible, nothing white lived in these woods, so after a little she brought her barriers back down panting heavily. Her body was shaking as she brought it done, so hard she almost collapsed however though she did stumble she stood, the sole person on the streets at this time of night.

She would then start slowly walking the perimeter of the town, a path she had taken every night since creating the rune ward, she wanted to power the ward for the entire night but knew her energy wouldn’t hold out that long, so for the last few days she had been powering it for an hour at a time before she brought it down. It was not until the dawn was threatening the shadows with its rays that she spotted a monster charging towards her. This was the main reason she walked the edge of town. While the barrier was down, she was a small girl, and appeared to be an easy target for anything that would otherwise attack the town.

The monster stood clearly twelve feet tall and had the base body of a wolf, but that’s where its similarities ended, it had eyes that seemed to burn with black flames and its body was covered in razor sharp hair that would slice anything to pieces that tried to attack it, she knew this beast as a Wearg. Reaching into her pocket she retrieved a small vial, this had a soft green pulsing light in it, this was distilled essence, she made it by draining life into liquid from not only creatures but herself. She rapidly began drawing a sequence of runes into the air again as the Wearg charged her.

Sperre, Rune of Barrier, as she finished the first rune the purple light that formed the dome went back up, just as the Wearg slammed into it, it dented the barrier as if pushing against a solid wall, she took a deep breath before she wrote into existence another.

Rustning, Rune of Armoring, her body began to glow with the same purple shadows, it would swirl around her almost like a purple mist. As she completed the second rune the creature would begin tearing through her warding runes. She would write one last rune as she assumed a battle like stance.

Vapen, Rune of Armaments, the rune, once completed, would change form taking on the form of a purple Glaive, an odd weapon for the girl to wield given her clearly small and weak stature but she grasped it and it was clear to anyone watching her that she was trained in it’s uses.

By the time the Wearg broke through her barrier she was fully armed and as protected as she knew how to make herself, it launched at her with its maw open wide and saliva dripping from it’s canines, it moved quickly to try and bite her in half however she was faster, a single strike she took it’s head from it’s neck and sighed, She immediately scanned her barrier looking for more breaches and the only interesting thing she could find was a human had been caught in the activation ring, she had thought that all of the people were inside, especially at this time so she dismissed the weapon, blood slowly dripping down her face from her eyes, she turned to see who was outside at this time of the morning.

She was surprised to see another girl who was clearly injured, though concealing most of her features. She tilted her head sideways as she wondered who this person was and brought her hand right hand up as she channeled the last of the essence from the vial into writing in mid-air.

“hello, are you ok?” she wrote the question though her eyes showed how curious she was, the other curiosity that the stranger would notice, is not only had she not spoken, instead used power to write in the air, her eyes would seem to be trying to look at her lips through her mask, or looking at the general position they would be.

 

[moondustborn]

The girl turned and when Alyva could have a better picture of her face, she noticed blood tears ran through her cheeks and she knew something had to be wrong.

Then the girl started walking, purple shadows half vanished following her every step. She decided she had to follow her, but she couldn’t do it on feet, because there was a high chance she’d be heard, so she moved through the branches of the trees, as silently as she could. When the girl looked around, she stopped and then she kept following. Until one of the beasts she’d seen came out of nowhere and ran directly towards the girl. Alyva gasped loudly, but her gasp got lost in the middle of the beast’s growl.

And the girl was so small the beast would tear her up in a matter of seconds. And instead of looking after the beast, the girl was searching for something in her dressings. Whatever was she doing? She was about to be shredded to nothing. Alyva had to get down and fight the monster or else that girl wouldn’t make it. Except... she did.

Purple light came from her and the beast crashed into an invisible barrier. And then, symbols. The same purple symbols that covered the earth earlier, she drew them on the air in front of her.

She wasn’t sure what happened after. Or how. But the beast’s head ended up in the dirt next to its body. The blood-tears wouldn’t stop running down the girl’s face.

And then the girl saw her.

She panicked, and quickly began to conceal into the tree branches, but it was useless. She had seen her and she did not seem to be a person who would let anything go unnoticed.

Alyva flinched when purple shadows started to twirl around the girl’s hand. Thinking that would be the end of her. The girl would destroy her as easily as she had the beast. But instead of chopping her head off, purple words drew before her.

“Hello, are you ok?”

Alyva frowned. Looked at the girl upside down and realized she looked like fainting. She got off the tree and she winced at the spike of pain in her ankle.

When she decided the girl possibly wouldn’t hurt her, she closed the distance between the two of them. Analyzed her one more time. “You’re bleeding,” she said through her face mask, because the girl didn’t seem to notice she was. “Who are you? Where am I? And what—what was that?... Not the beast, the light and the shadows and the... You cut that thing’s head off and you had no weapons on you. How—?” She wasn’t chatty nor was she used to speaking much on a daily basis, but right now, nothing felt like it mattered. She had just seen the impossible. And it all felt too much familiar for her to take it in lightly.

It was so overwhelming she forgot the primal necessity to keep hidden in the background and just keep going. Take food, weapons and head off to the next place before she was spotted.

She had broken every single rule she had and she knew that. But she too knew she could not keep going without knowing what it was.

 

[The Lost Dae]

Asha noticed the wince only in the girls eyes, not being able to hear was a hinderance when it came to others, as the girl girl approached she guessed that the girl was saying something by the movements of the mask covering her face though she was unable to read her lips thanks to it she would slowly bring her hands up to her ears and shake her head slowly, a way of telling the girl that she was deaf that most could understand before she Channeled some of the power from the fading life of the beast and wrote again,

“I’m deaf and can’t hear you, I can read lips though if you uncover your face.” She would write quickly as she noted the girls’ white aura. She was Curious how the girl could have a mages Aura yet not know spell forms, sure others didn’t use spell writing like her but there was always a spell form that would appear when they cast a spell. Then her eyes slightly widened, “You’re not trained, are you?” she quickly wrote below her other message.

The blood tears still flowed from her eyes as she scanned the barrier again making sure that no more breaches were going to happen, and she let a small sigh, albeit a silent one escape her lips as the sun finally reached the edge of town. The danger having passed she would bring down the barrier again the purple dome petering before it completely winked out of existence. She then turned her attention completely to the girl and noted the injury.

She would walk over being careful not to spook her before reaching with her magic to the corpse of the beast once more she would write a completely different sigil into the air the moment it was complete she would squat down and push the sigil towards her hastily bandaged injury. The rune;

Ævi, rune of Life, Was a healing rune that would heal small injuries and help one recover more quickly.

Once the run touched the girl the injury would instantly feel better and then Asha would sit on the ground with a smile, not wanting to stand up again with how tired she was suddenly feeling “My name is Asha.” She would write into the air before she fell backwards the blackness from her eyes fading away revealing her light brown eyes that seemed almost to shimmer before they closed as she collapsed.

It was about this time that the same young boy that had gone to retrieve her at dusk came out of a house nearby, as if he was used to rising at this time and he started walking towards Asha before he noticed the other girl and froze temporarily “please don’t hurt her.” He would say quickly as he gestured wildly, a look of slight panic crossing his features. “she’s our only defender here, well she’s not a full defender just a student, but she’s the reason we’re all still alive.” He continued rapidly trying to convince the stranger not to attack his friend, and the towns guardian.

 

[moondustborn]

The girl was deaf.

Non of her questions were heard.

She looked around at the village. Everything seemed to be of stone and wood and it looked like someone’s home. Not hers, but someone’s. But it was empty.

She looked at the girl again and hesitated before ripping the mask off her face, revealing the white scar crossing her left cheek, visible like snow atop the dirt.

She frowned and flinched at the girl’s question, still unused to the purple words of smoke in the air. “You’re not trained, are you?”, she’d said. “Trained?” Alyva asked. “For what?” Her eyes kept drifting to the purple shadows dancing around her body. And she tried not to think of the men in red robes with the black shadows dancing around theirs.

She took a step back when the girl approached the dead body of the beast. New symbols coming out of her and then—the pain in her ankle was gone. She moved her feet, turned it so to work her ankle as the girl sat in the ground. Nothing. A feet as good as new.

“How did you—?” She started but stoped to read the girl’s words. “My name is Asha” and then she fainted. She collapsed to the ground as her pupils went back into her head and her eyes closed. Panic took a hold on her and she looked around. She saw a young man running towards them and felt the instant necessity to run away. But she didn’t.
The boy looked pale and then he started talking. She barely heard him.

“Shut your mouth!” She yelled before she rushed towards the girl and lifted her off the ground in her arms.

She hadn’t the faintest idea what she was doing. Every cell in her body was asking her—begging her to turn around and leave. But she couldn’t do that. Not after what she’d seen. You’re not trained, aren’t you. She needed to know. She needed to learn about the white force and the silver dust. About the symbols and the purple shadows. And something inside her knew that unconscious girl in her arms was the key to that.

The boy was still talking. He was begging her not to hurt the girl. “Take me to a healer! Or somewhere we can wake her up. Now!” The boy nodded and started walking through the stone streets of the village as she followed.

The girl’s body was as light as a feather, and having her so close, she could notice how sunken her eyes and cheeks were. Her skin looked a sick greyish color and her lips were pale. There was dried and fresh blood staining her face and neck. Whatever was happening to her?

The boy led them to a small house. He opened the door for her and she had to stop for a moment. It was full of jars and things she didn’t recognize. Neither did she recognize the funny smell crawling up her nostrils.

“Empty that table,” she commanded the boy and he did. She laid the girl down in it. Alyva looked at her not knowing what to do next. “What happened to her? Why did she faint?” The boy looked at her with big, scared eyes, which annoyed her. “Do something of use! Where in the hell is the healer? Or get her something here that will help!” They boy seemed clueless and too late did she realized that he was. He had no idea how to do what he was being asked to. “Go get someone who will be of actual help!” And with that, he took off.

She was panicking. She needed to do something, so she went through the shelves, reading tags and trying to find something that will help. But she knew not one of the things in there, so she went back to the table. She looked at the girl and decided to do the one thing she did when she kneeled before her father’s dead body; she shook her.

“Wake up!” She shook the girl hard, until the whole table was moving. She was desperate and she was hoping the girl wouldn’t be dead.

And that’s when she felt it. The rush through her body, the pulling in her gut. Her palms, where she was touching the girl, started to shine a white light. She felt how something, some kind of current, was going out of her. It felt like screaming. She ripped her palms from the girl and the light went off slowly. She saw, for a second, her hands shine and she thought she might be going insane.

She thought that everything that had happened, had surely to be a dream.

 

[The Lost Dae]

Darkness was all that Asha was aware of, for how long she could not have told you, somewhere deep in that darkness she thought she could hear a voice telling her to wake up, but the voice was so distant and she was just so tired the slight rocking she could sense didn’t even bother her so complete was the darkness. She simply wanted to curl up in that darkness where she didn’t have to use her magic constantly, where the ache of constant tiredness didn’t chew at her bones, where her body didn’t feel as if it were made of Osmium, the heaviest metal on earth.

She thought she might be able to stay like this forever when suddenly there was a bright white light that shot through the darkness and slammed into her causing excruciating pain though relieving her weariness just a little. The darkness instantly vanished as she sat bolt up right and let out a scream of pain as her mind tried to clear itself. She saw a young girl with a white aura, ‘another magic user’ the thought registered as she tried to calm her racing heart and bring her awareness back completely.

The white Mana surging through her system hurt but that was purely because it was wild, unrefined mana and being white it was the opposite of her own magic. When she was able to process this, she closed her eyes and focused inwards regulating her flow of power to absorb it quicker. To the girl watching her she would seem to calm almost instantly and enter what looked like a meditative state for only a moment.

However during that time an old crone would hobble into the house, she was clearly age worn and far more disgruntled than most, the cane she used to walk was an old gnarled branch as she looked at the pair of girls she would let out a grunt.

“You!” she said pointing at the new girl with her staff, “Get me some Essence from that room” she said her tone carrying a wizened authority, she expected to be obeyed no matter who she spoke to. She then hobbled over to Asha who opened her eyes finally.

The old crone waved her hand in Ashas’ face to get her attention and then she would speak when Asha finally turned to look at her.

“You collapsed again; your body won’t keep up this output girl.” She said her tone neither gentle nor was it harsh. “The fact is this town is dying, and you’re letting it kill you as well.” She continued as she pulled over a chair and sat down with a grunt. As she waited for the other girl to return with the essence she asked for.

With quick motions Asha began moving her hands in what anyone who had spent time in the bigger cities, would recognize as sign language.

‘but grandmother, there is no other choice, I have to defend this town, I am the only one out here with any power, and we only have to hold out till a defender arrives.’ She signed quickly even though she knew no defender would ever come, she had repeated this line to everyone so often that it was a natural response.

With that the old crone let out a sharp, bitter laugh and tapped Asha on the head with her staff, “There will be no Defenders coming here Asha, and you intend to die along side us, or hell at the rate you’re going you will be the first to die.” She said again with that matter of fact tone. “your dark magic is killing you, you’ve already lost more than half your weight, your eyes are sunken, and your eyes have been bleeding so long now that you’ve stopped even trying to remove the blood from your face.” She admonished before her tone softened. “I don’t want to see you kill yourself for a dead town.”

Asha let out a silent sigh before she signed again “Grandmother I can’t leave you guys, It’s not fair, Just because we’re on the outskirts doesn’t mean that we should be abandoned, and the school does know I’m here.” She signed back.

In the room that she was gestured to their would be several vials of green liquid labeled with ‘Essence’ along with numerous other concoctions, and in the center of the room would be a book that simply floated in the air. As the new girl entered the room the book would flip open and would set on a page with a rune that looked almost airy in the way it flowed, looped and curled on itself.

‘Air bonded rune, Vind: This rune can allow the user to create a link between multiple entities it is often used with master and familiar, to tie them together’

The title read it was an lengthy article about the bonded vind rune, however one small part at the bottom the page would state that this rune was sometimes used in desperate times by war mages to pull power into themselves from others to allow for rapid regeneration of their body or used by healers to regenerate others with their own power.