1 The Encounter

In the beginning, the noise was merely a small rumble in the background. The Earth sometimes moaned in pain like that and, as usual, he ignored it. It became interesting to him when it grew louder and louder, making his bones rattle on the cold stone. His mind which had slowed down to a nearly halt after millennia of boredom suddenly sprung alive again with a glimmer of excitement, freeing him from the maddening downward spiral made of his own thoughts.

Rest was nearly impossible to him and he felt it more than ever. Yet, he recovered his cunning and sharpness quickly, scanning his surroundings in case something had changed. His dear, quiet prison-house was a small but perfectly round cave. He had around 36 m² of living space with 5 beautiful quartz crystal pillars at each extremity linked by a magnificent pentagram of nacre on the ground. A faint pale light was running in those lines, producing milky white reflections on the grey rock walls. That was nearly everything stuck in here with him, deep down in his half-sphere of stone.

Everything was as usual, nothing had changed, it was the same as before. He had seen every single grain of stone enough time to burn their shape in his memory and yet, he studied his surroundings with interest one last time. However, the only novelties were the slight vibrations and the noise, nothing else. A part of him wanted to recover the peace that reigned before since the headache he got thanks to the noise made him want to die even more but he only sighed, knowing it was a useless wish for he was cursed to live.

A sigh whistled through his empty throat, escaping through his rattling teeth. His bony feet landed on the unsteady ground as he lifted himself off his seat. A blue flame danced in each of his orbit and thanks to them, he could somehow see. It was called a soul flame and he theorized during his long time that it was what allowed his soul to interact and sense the material world. Pondering about it once more, he walked around and tried to understand what the hell was happening, without any success.

'I definitely feel the ground I'm standing on vibrate though. Maybe there is an earthquake? The barrier always stabilized the place before though, it isn't the same as the other ones.' Walking in circle, he tried to probe the ground and the walls to understand why it was so different compared to what he had seen through his time down there. His investigation didn't give him any answer, but he knew that it was good for him.

'If I could cry, I would. Finally something is happening. Finally my boredom is broken by an unexpected event.'

Executing a little skeleton dance with his weak, bony body, he started to laugh and thought out loud :

"Looks like my luck finally came ! Maybe this damned formation will break and I'll be able to access the world's mana again ! It's been so long, I forgot what It taste like. Does it taste something to begin with?" Scratching his forehead, he started to ponder on those new possibilities like he never did before. His thought process was between the ravings of a madman and the cold composure of a scientist, his mind showing signs of breaking down yet remaining determined and focused.

' Can I be hungry for mana? I even forgot what hunger feels like. Dammit, one more feeling lost.'

Curious, he started to walk as fast as his clumsy body let him move to the closest pillar. After all, moving a whole skeleton through sheer willpower and the little bit of magic which was left in his soul was pretty hard. The thought of being able to reconstruct his body with Lifomancy made the blue light of his eyes become brighter, tainting the milky quartz with a few blue reflections.

With a doubtful look, he raised his arm and touched the precious stone. As expected, power was still coursing through it and he got painfully blasted away. Rolling on the ground, he started to chuckle with his raspy and weird skeleton voice thanks to the memories of the past where he tried everything to break away. Every attempt of his ended with a few broken bones and his soul turning into a ball of pain.

"Aaaaaah... Without you goddamn array, I would already be free and burning down the world... Godda- This kind of cursing is particularly wrong for this case. Well I hate you Gods, thanks to your crappy oracles they had the technology to jail me up in an indestructible and perfectly manaproof cage. I swear when I get out the first thing I'll do will be burning a church, whatever kind it is."

While he was grumbling like an angry grandpa, the noise turned into a deafening thunder and the ground swayed so hard that he had the feeling of being on a boat. Trying to sit on his precious throne, he started thinking seriously for the first time in centuries to devise a plan and take in account all the possibilities.

Deeply focused, the blue light illuminating his eyes sockets turned into an ominous carmine red, tainting the cave of the color of blood. The milky, dreamy white atmosphere started receding and revealed a few cracks inside of the translucid quartz while the world continue swinging, wrecking the stone harder than ever.

After a few hours of meditation, he opened his eyes and smile at the sight that welcome him. One of the enormous, sculpted block of quartz laid on the ground broken in pieces while behind it was open a huge and dark hole. Eager to leave his cursed room, he ran to the opening in the wall only to turn into a human puzzle after impacting the barrier. One pillar down wasn't enough for it to go down !

Trying to resist to the waves of despair flooding his mind, he started to notice that something is different.

'The air taste differently than usual... Wait a second. I doesn't even have a tongue, how come I taste something?'

his teeth started to clack as he laughs of pure, genuine happiness for the first time since he had been captured. Ignoring the fact that his bones were still in separate pieces and they were rolling to each other to reconstruct him, he moved his remaining hand in the air to draw one of his favorite minor spell : Ice Arrow. It was a pretty simple construct : You draw mana from your heart, make it move to your hand and turn it into ice mana then shoot it.

Seeing a small needle of ice dart to the roof and explode on it nearly gave him enough pleasure to make him forget that his heart was lost and sealed away, forcing him to use magic through his soul.

'It is pretty inefficient to store mana as it's not something physical but it's still better than nothing,' he thought while shrugging with his new and rebuilt skeleton. Walking as close as possible to the rift in the wall, he let this sweet breeze of air charged in energy soothe his mind and engulf his body.

'No matter what it takes, I'll follow my plan and get back what they stole from me. First step first : I'll charge my soul to the brim then wreck this disgusting formation. Maybe I'll keep my throne as a memento, I've grown quite fond of it. Even if with a few precious stones and some gold it would be way more beautiful. Maybe it's lacking a cushion too, I forgot what it feel to sit on something else than some stone.'

During this time, in a small village of the Azure Mountain, a few kilometers from the cave...

"Run and don't turn back sweetie. Remember, I love and will always love you. Now go !" A huge man said, staring at a small kid with long blond hair running away. He seems to be around 1.80 meters high and full of well trained muscles. Short hair of the same color as the girl's ones covered a sad but motivated face, and two pearl of amber were burning with fighting will were sitting in his eyes sockets. His clothing of poor quality with dirt and blood on it wouldn't protect him in the slightest and neither would the rusted fork that he held in his callous hands but he didn't care about such details.

Looking one last time at his daughter who was running away while sweeping her tears, he turned around and walked courageously to the middle of the village where his friends were fighting. Looking at the wooden houses burning, hearing the screams of the women and the cries of the men he tightened his grip on his weapon and charged in to find the tribe of orcs that was currently raping, murdering and eating the other villagers.

Behind one the houses, he found one of them crouching while eating bloody remains through his massive canines. Steeling his resolve, he stepped in and stabbed through the nude neck of his prey with all his strength, making the blood flow on the green skin of his enemy. The orc tried to turn around, his muscles bulging while he was choking on his own bodily fluid. Yet, the only thing he managed to do was to break the wooden handle of the fork, turning around to stare at the human and taking a few weak, uncertain steps before falling down.

Rejoicing, the farmer started to laugh before hearing an unhappy grunt coming from the house. Slowly turning, he saw the door being blasted open and also noticed that it's resident was pretty damn big. With more than 2 meters of muscle, the orc stared down on the puny human who dared to kill his kin. Dragging his unconscious female prey by the hair and having a huge wooden club in the other hand, he started to walk toward his new toy while laughing.

AN: this - mean that it's not the common language and usually not understood.

-"Human, you are funnier than the others of your feeble kind. Entertain me will you, this small woman was for sure a disappointment. I hope you will last longer than her !"- The orc grunted while swinging the poor woman as a makeshift weapon toward the horrified farmer. The human jumped on the side, feeling his hair rises and his blood boil when he heard the broken, discordant noise that her body made when it touched the ground.

"You damn orc ! I curse your whole family for ten generation, may you all die while puking your entrails ! Helena... Rest in peace, I will send your murderer deep down for you !" the farmer howled while using his stick like a lance. To his dismay, the orc caught the weapon without any effort.

Despair flooded him : He wasn't particularly fast, skilled or strong but he hoped that his determination would have helped him. When the orc severed both of his arms by ripping them he learned that there was no luck nor blessing in this world of Kaneoldor. Only strength, ruthlessness and skill separated the strong from the weak. When he saw the wooden club closing in, his last thought and tear went to his daughter, Evelyn, and he wished that she would be more cunning than he had been.

During this time, a skeleton was oblivious to the sufferings that those people were undergoing and was fully focused on his magical activities...

"So with only my soul, no physical body and no magic heart I can only go up to one tier one magic or three minor spell per day?"He growled while laying on his back. "And they said that minor spells are unlimited and unaffected by mana... I'll shove this knowledge up those scholar's asses when I go out."

Going through all the spells he knew, he decided to settle down with Bone Arrow. It was a tier zero magic alias minor spell that allowed the user to throw a bone with a speed up to 90 meter per second. As he had as much bones as needed this spell was by far the most cost efficient one he knew. His days flew by as his peace had only been disturbed by a few goblins which had lost themselves inside of his cave. The sight had made him smile as he knew that it meant that there was an exit and he had promptly baited them to see if one his theory was correct.

Seeing them coming in and looking at him with dumb eyes, he had confirmed that the barrier was only a one-way one and that he could bait things inside. More than happy, he had gently slain them by breaking their necks since they were stuck inside, had as much strength as him and he was immortal. Company after all those years alone would have been welcome but those green, stupid and childlike humanoid creatures were more pest than fully acknowledged beings in his mind.

However, their bodies were perfect experiments to regain some fluidity in Lifomancy and Necromancy. The deep difference between those two branches of Magic was that one of those brought back what was already there, while the other created something new with, in this case, what was there as a component. Unfortunately the little mana he had wasn't nearly enough to make something useful with the Lifomancy. He had created a cute cat he was pretty proud of but that was the extend of it and he quickly got bored of this small thing fooling around so he had ended its life.

Same with the necromancy, the undead he had raised weren't strong enough to do any damage without getting ripped to shred. He was about to break his second pillar after 6 days of hard work when he heard steps coming again. Making noise to bring his prey again, the soul fire in his eyes went out for a second because of his surprise.

Before him was a ragged, bleeding and dirty little girl. She was looking at him with eyes full of despair and exhaustion. Her way of looking was the same as him, years and years ago. It was the gaze of somebody so deeply hurt, so lost that he had lost hope in life.