The Dawncaster Chronicles [Mages, Arcane University], Have you ever thought about taking the dark and thorny path? Options

[Illydoor]

This is my first story that I've posted on the forums, it's not finished, so I'll probably be posting updates a bit sporadically throughout the year. It entails the story of young apprentice mage at the Arcane University, thrown into a world of mystery, murder and threat as the past returns and he is plunged headlong into it. I hope you like it...

~DAWNCASTER~

Prologue

Have you ever considered taking the dark and thorny path?

The voice was so sultry and alluring it made Magnus retch. Mysteriously dark, ominously sinister, like liquid poison running through his ears. The rich sound echoed off the thin walls of his house and filled the room with a soft, reverberating boom. Magnus shuddered.

It chuckled.

I know your type, boy, I know it well, but in a thousand years of painful existence I've never seen someone with so much…potential, as you.

Magnus did not dignify the compliment with a response. He was way past speaking, or even breathing for that matter. Abject fear had rendered him beyond speech or any comprehension at all of what was happening. He was utterly paralysed.

The thing chuckled malevolently again, a deep, sonorous rumble. It sensed his fear.

Speak! Only the foolish would summon me to their whim and not have the bravery to command me!

The voice rose suddenly and thunderously in volume, shaking the floor as if each syllable had the power to crush worlds at mere expression. The words echoed inside Magnus' head long after the monster had finished speaking, chilling him to the very core as icy trepidation laced the pit of stomach and his blood ran hot under his veins.

A low chuckling sounded once again.

I can feel your fear boy, your anxiety. It warms my essence, feeds my soul. Yet I can feel your power. I foresee great things for you, boy, great things.

Magnus remained silent, staring hard at the wooden floor beneath him and sweating feverishly.

Hmph. You have summoned me, and in return for the sacrifice of your soul, I shall see your ascension to greatness and immortality, if you should so accept my divine guidance. What say you, boy?

Finally, Magnus, roused from his terrified stupor, managed to stammer a few words out.

"Th-thank you, m-my master..." Magnus winced slightly as he noticed with great discomfort how weak his voice sounded, how insignificant it was compared to that of the monster.

The thing grunted, as if sizing him up. For a moment silence gripped the room, choking and stifling.

Hmm. Yes, indeed, you will do well. Come, young Magnus Dawncaster, I have much to teach you…

***

She was miles away, but the flames were still there. The pain still lingered like a terrible after-image, haunting and chilling, flashing every time on the backs of her eyelids whenever she closed them. She wished them away in frantic desperation, but the insatiable blood-thirst of the red flames couldn't be quenched, couldn't be stopped.

They burned brightly, burnishing the night-sky a tarnished red.

No matter how hard she tried, she could not shut them out. Their fiery gaze burned through anything, destroying, ruining, killing.

And still they burned. Never to cease, visions of fire and destruction, of vivid redness and anger. Elsa watched her world burn in her eyes over and over again. An eternal nightmare she could not wake from.

Hot tears stung her eyes as she ran, the dancing embers hot on her heels, their heat prickling and their roar terrifying, cackling and howling with malicious glee.

Pain engulfed her, clouding her mind with agony. She had no strength to scream, every iota of her energy spent entirely on just keeping awake. Yet she couldn't stop running. The flames chased her.

Branches and leaves whipped her face, but she ignored their sting. Roots and stray logs threatened to trip her, but she persevered, scrabbling quickly to her feet when she fell, a new, fresh gash on her person whenever she got up again.

All the while, the incessant burning continued in her ears. If only she could get away, escape, just anywhere where the flames could not reach her and her precious, precious cargo. In her heart she knew there was nowhere, the illusory flames that cursed her mind would stay with her to the abyss and back. They would burn in the darkness, in her dreams and sleep, they would smoulder on until death took her, and even then they would follow in her the afterlife, haunting her spirit.

She kept running, and fatigue dragged at her like an iron weight strapped to her soul, though she had lost the feeling in her wearisome legs a long time ago. She knew she couldn't keep it up forever, and already she felt her pace slowing, her feet falling heavily and stumbling amongst the dark undergrowth. She could tell she was at the end of her limits, her strength drained and her willpower spent. She knew soon she would fall, and the flames would catch up with her, devouring her in a swirling inferno of suffering and agony.

She ignored the icy pain that clawed at her consciousness and pressed on, finally breaking through the shadowy woods, forcing herself onwards on sheer determination alone.

She was nearly there. So close to being liberated from her haunted life, freedom from the ravenous flames at last. She only had to make it.

Through the writhing and hissing flames that consumed her mind's eye, the Arch-Mage's Tower loomed in to view. Its steep grey walls promised salvation and release from the pain.

Deep within the dark fire that raged inside her, a shadow of hope flickered, and with renewed vigour she fought away the flames for one last time, stumbling through the giant iron gates and scrabbling helplessly at the door.

Blackness began to seep into the corners of her eyes, and the flames began to deaden. Her breath slowed, and everything went into a time lapse, her movements sluggish and her vision blurred like a misty window.

She fought it, struggling to keep the flicker of hope in sight. She knew she was living on borrowed time. Any second now, death would take her, siezing her in it's inescapable grasp.

Through bleary eyes she saw the heavy wooden door creep open, and the Arch-Mage stood there, silhouetted in the yellow light that spilled from the open gap. Not able to keep herself up any longer, she slumped to the floor with a cry of supressed relief. The Arch-Mage ran to her immediately, holding her head in his hands and uttering inaudible words.

Darkness. It was beginning to consume her, her gaze narrowing as death prepared to embrace her, to finally make the flames stop. She beckoned the release.

With her last dying breath, she pushed something into the Arch-Mage's arms and whispered a final word before her world was plunged into blackness.

"Nathaniel..."

As he watched the life seep out of Elsa's eyes and her motionless body settle against the cold stone floor, Arch-Mage Honorius Greymane stood frozen in shock and grief, and in his hands a newborn baby began to cry.

This post has been edited by Illydoor: Apr 25 2009, 08:50 PM

[Illydoor]

Okay then, here it is, the last part is unedited, so as always crit is welcome:

Chapter VIII: A Narrow Escape

Nathaniel was paralyzed to the spot, every muscle rigid, abject fear jolting through his veins as his mind raced and his heart pounded against his ribs, so loud he almost raised a hand to stop it beating lest it cause anymore noise. The gloom-veiled corridor was eerily silent, permeated only by the regulated, timid breath of Nathaniel, quickening with each second.

He stared wide-eyed at the motionless figure of the Warden, his features obscured by the concealing shadow, drab and undistinguished like cold stone amidst the darkness.

Had the Warden seen him? What would he do if he had? Questions raced through Nathaniel’s mind. If the Warden had indeed seen Nathaniel he gave no sign of acknowledging him.

Maybe he was just watching, waiting until Nathaniel acted, at which point he would spring from the gloominess and capture him. The prospect sent a stab of fear into Nathaniel’s chest.

Nathaniel was at disbelief as to how he had missed him, so engrossed in finding the right door he must have completely overlooked the warden, sitting statuesquely in the dark corner, shrouded in shadow.

Consciously, he cursed himself for his lack of concentration.

The warden still hadn’t moved. A flicker of denial – and hope – crossed Nathaniel’s mind. Perhaps, just like the warden, Nathaniel too was cloaked in the all-consuming shadow of the corridor and thus the reason why they had not spotted each other as of yet.

Jolts of adrenaline rushed through Nathaniel, leaving an electrifying tingle his skin. It was a sort of exhilarating, thrilling fear that he found himself craving despite the danger of his situation. Nathaniel realised all too fast that the success of his mission was on a knife-edge.

Silently, breath caught in his lungs, Nathaniel leant forward towards the Warden, into the small patch of light that occupied the middle-ground of the passageway.

A quiet, whispery rasp emitted from the Warden’s direction, like an intake of air being breathed in and out – so faint it was barely audible – punctuated every moment or so by a soft ululation of air.

Snoring. The warden was asleep!

Relief washed over Nathaniel like a bucket of icy water, though the adrenaline in his blood didn’t fade as easily, leaving him practically shuddering with excitement. He was safe!

Nathaniel knew that if he had set out but a moment earlier, the warden could have been awake and he would have been captured before he even left his room. The realisation of how much influence luck and chance had over things frightened Nathaniel to the very core.

Waving a wary hand under the Warden’s nose to check that the he wasn’t just feigning sleep as a clever ruse, Nathaniel sighed with a certain measure of relaxation. Satisfied that the coast was at last clear again, he returned his attention to his original goal, the door to the room of Damyond Modroggle.

Placing a wary hand on the cool brass doorknob for support, Nathaniel put his ear to the ingrained surface of the door in an attempt to discern the lock’s difficulty.

He was about to test the lock but yelped as suddenly the tension in the handle slacked and he felt it twisting beneath the weight of his hand, and too late, he realised to his folly that the door wasn’t locked at all. The side of his face still pressed to the surface, the door swung violently into the room on its own accord, dragging Nathaniel with it.

By some otherworldly miracle he’d managed to keep his hand firmly on the door handle as it had burst inwards, preventing him from falling onto the floor and creating any unwanted noise. Grunting quietly with effort, he hauled his legs up to a more comfortable couching position, quite impressed with himself for his little stunt.

He almost let out a nervous laugh at his own misfortune, but composed himself quickly and stopped himself. The Warden was still outside, and could wake up at any moment. He couldn’t afford to go by on luck alone; Nathaniel knew that more than anyone.

He closed the door silently on the sleeping warden and the gloomy corridor, and what little of the waxen, shallow light that spilled in through the gap diminished into shadow, leaving the only source of light for Nathaniel to go by a single tallow candle flickering in the darkness by Damyond’s window.

Taking a cautious step forward, Nathaniel finally had chance to examine the spacious interior of the Redguard associate’s room.

It was true what the other students had said, it seemed Damyond was truly and utterly devoted to alchemy. There was not an inch in his room that wasn’t occupied by some kind of alchemical equipment. Peculiar phials, tubes and flasks filled every flat space available in the room along with a myriad of oblong-looking glass containers, the colourful, viscous liquids inside reflecting the wan moonlight and the sallow glow of the candle, glimmering like a thousand coins in the darkness.

Nathaniel wondered how he was ever going to find the right potion amongst all those; it would take him hours to sift through each and every bottle. With some apprehension of his task to come, He took another step into the dark room, admiring the rows upon rows of potion bottles while they twinkled like a backdrop of stars in the silvery moonlight, as if there were no walls at all and they were in the open-air under a night-sky.

Regaining focus, Nathaniel glanced down, and noted with a small measure of contentment that it wasn’t only his room that was cluttered and disorganised. Various paraphernalia littered Damyond’s floor in careless abandon, mortars and pestles and retorts, strange calcinators and curved alembics, and many more twisted, bizarre tools that Nathaniel knew would have names he wouldn’t be able to pronounce properly.

All sorts of different ingredients lay in dusty casks around the floor, and Nathaniel tread with a wary step around them, making sure not to disturb anything. Even on the bed, where Damyond slept in peace, snoring gently, there lay discarded and crumpled pieces of paper, recipes and notes and lists of ingredients.

Nathaniel crept forward silently, as above him in the various alcoves of the shelves, the potion bottles still glimmered and pulled at his eyes with a rapturous delight.

Cautious talking and skirting persuasion with Damyond Modroggle the day beforehand had revealed that the Redguard kept his best, most potent potions in the wooden cabinet by his bedside table, so Nathaniel decided to start his search there. With a careful eye on the floor, he made a pathway to the bed, towards the slightly askew cupboard beside it, all the time watching the sleeping Damyond as well as feet.

After a few tentative steps Nathaniel had reached the cabinet, only having to stop once to allow Damyond to snort, lie still for a suspenseful, heart-stopping moment, then to Nathaniel’s relief shift to a more comfortable position and settle into sleep once more. After Nathaniel had checked that there was indeed no chance of Damyond waking, he proceeded in his attempts to open the worn cabinet. To his surprise he found it again unlocked, though its rusted hinges and badly-fitted door meant it took Nathaniel a good few heaves to get it to open.

To Nathaniel’s annoyance the age-old hinges squeaked noisily as the brittle wooden door flung open, and he took a quick glance at the slumbering Damyond to ensure he hadn’t been disturbed. Luckily, the noise hadn’t seemed to waken him from his calm sleep, so Nathaniel relaxed, returning his attention to what lay inside of the cabinet. It contained only two shelves, each packed with at least a dozen potions each, of varying size, colour and shape. Ragged, shorn pieces of parchment had been attached to the surfaces to serve as labels, some in ominous, capital lettering, others in minute, secretive notes barely visible.

The candle flickered by the window, its yellow glow merging almost invisibly with the silver light of the moon as Nathaniel began to search for the right concoction, replacing each potion with exacting care in its previous position as to not arouse suspicion. Every moment or so he drew his hands out of the dark interior of the cabinet, wiping off the sweat that had accumulated on his palms before resuming his search with renewed vigour. Several tense seconds passed by before Nathaniel’s hand closed around the last bottle, no taller than his finger and no wider than his fist. He withdrew it with care, wincing at the clinking sound as it made contact with the other phials within the cabinet.

Judging by the weight, the bottle was full, and Nathaniel could feel the liquid sloshing around behind the glass in his hands. Hoping fervently that this was the potion he’d came for, he turned its label towards the faded moonlight that filtered through the window, where – scrawled hastily in thin ink – it read ‘Potion of Chameleon’.

Inwardly, Nathaniel grinned with satisfaction. His efforts and narrow escape had paid off, he had what he’d came fore, and now he was one step closer to gaining his revenge. Nathaniel only needed one more item…

***

Pocketing the small bottle of invisibility potion, Nathaniel realised he could waste no more time skulking around in the dormitories. He whispered a short and polite thank you to the peacefully sleeping Damyond for his services, closing the cupboard door and exiting the room without another sound, leaving not a thing out of place. The room was identical to as it was when Nathaniel had first entered, minus the missing potion from Damyond’s bedside cupboard.

Outside in the sparsely lit corridor, the warden still slumbered quietly in the shadows, oblivious as a young mage apprentice stole away right under his nose down the passageway, suppressing a mischievous grin all the while. The unknowing warden would never know he’d even been there, the only trace of his existence the rapidly diminishing whispers of his footsteps on the floor as Nathaniel sped away, heading for the common room.

Skulking amongst the darkness, Nathaniel descended the curved staircase to the living room at a wary pace, taking great care to avoid those steps that creaked or groaned when you stepped on them, having already made note of them during his secretive researching only days before.

He took the last steps two at a time, not daring to risk moving on the floorboards which were so warped and bent from overuse even the slightest of touches would make them moan loudly in protest. Using the spiralling banister, he swung himself down onto the rug with a deft leap, landing in complete silence, the fall of his jump muffled by the carpet’s fur skin.

A warden sat, completely oblivious to Nathaniel’s presence, by the still-crackling hearth fire that glowed warmly across the lounge, shading the midnight darkness of the room in a golden tinge. The flames had long since died out, leaving only the smouldering coals to burn and hot and spitting in the inglenook’s frame, glowing balefully like angry, red eyes.

Not wasting any time, Nathaniel crept underneath the shadow of the armchair’s towering backrest where the Warden reclined languidly, using the crackles and hisses of the waning fire to hide the sound of his movements. He could see what he needed on a small, rounded table, directly beside the bulky armrest of the huge sofa, where the greying sleeve of the Warden’s robe spilled over them like an ashen waterfall.

As he edged ever closer, the Warden’s gnarled fingers – wrinkled and somewhat shrivelled by the overexertion of spellcasting for many a year – came into view, tapping lazily on the lip of the armrest like some contented spider. Nathaniel’s heart-rate suddenly increased tenfold.

Nathaniel reached out with a tentative hand, holding his breath and wishing dearly for the luck that had been with him so far during this eventful evening to hold out for just a few more seconds. His hand was inches away from the Warden’s arm, but Nathaniel continued onward, placing his confidence that as long as the Warden’s eyes were fixed by the fire his intrusion would go unnoticed.

Almost directly under the Warden’s nose, Nathaniel reached towards the circular wooden table, silently plucking a dull brass key from its surface. He withdrew the weighty item with a quick motion of his arm, glad to be safe and unnoticed – until he knocked the edge of the table with his enclosed hand.

It clunked immediately, rocking to and forth on the floor beside the armchair on its three wooden legs. Nathaniel thought to fire out a steadying hand to stop its motion, but thought better of it. The warden had already noticed, his eyes immediately averting the rocking table at his side.

His heart hammering against his chest, Nathaniel curled up against the backrest of the armchair, trying to make himself as small and as unnoticeable as possible. He clutched the key in his hands with all his might, feeling its blunted blade edge dig into the skin of his palm in contrast to the smoothness of ring-shaped bow. For a few, stomach-quailing seconds, Nathaniel shut his eyes, waiting for something, anything to happen.

Nathaniel dared to open one eyelid, letting a small slit of vision appear in his focus, a rift of light in the blackness. He heard the chair creaking audibly as the Warden stood up, and a grey hook-nosed face suddenly peered over the lip of the chair, with sunken eyes redder than the coals in the fireplace. Nathaniel shrank even more into its darkness. One, quick glance down and it would all be over.

However, fortune seemed to smile upon Nathaniel; the Warden’s focus seemed intent on the staircase rather than anywhere else. Nathaniel watched the calculating eyes of the Dark Elf do a sweep of the room, before he muttered something in a harsh tongue, finally settling back into his armchair. He hadn’t seemed to notice at all that the one key to the dormitories had gone missing, right under his very nose.

Nathaniel relaxed his cramped muscles, suppressing a sigh of relief. Once again, he’d escaped by the skin of his teeth. It seemed luck was with him this night no matter what he did, however, he wasn’t about to stay any longer to test that theory.

Key in hand, he made his way noiselessly towards the front door, inserting it into the lock with a precise movement. Without a sound, Nathaniel turned the bow, feeling it click as the door opened, and soon he was outside under the crisp, midnight sky, the stars winking like tiny pinpricks of silver paint amidst the blue-black darkness as he made way for the towering building of the Mystic Archives…

This post has been edited by Illydoor: Jun 10 2009, 08:10 PM