Magic and a sword

The long relaxing sleep did an excellent job on Lyns, he felt refreshed and curious, after all this time he started to examine the sword. It was an excellent work of art; its edges were razor sharp and the vial looked mesmerizing. The whole sword gave of a very cold and detached aura, the aura of bloodlust and fury. After examining it for a quarter of a candle's time, Lyns decided to swing it a few times. After the first swing a really weird feeling started to appear, the feeling of joy, he swung again and again until he smiled like a mad man and swung the sword like a lumberjack swinging an axe. Lyns hit the chair in the room with one swift motion from the top, and the whole chair was cut into two clean pieces. The noise it generated startled him, as he stopped his frenzy of destruction. 'Why would I enjoy wielding a sword this much and start to vandalize and destroy things in my room?' thought Lyns.

He was truly scared about what happened, he really had no memory about his life, but he knew one thing for sure, he didn't really feel like destroying furniture out of boredom and couldn't believe why he was smiling when wielding the mysterious sword. It all felt like doing something, he always did and enjoyed it, this thought really scared Lyns. 'I am not some mad psychopath am I?' was what he was wondering about when his thoughts got distracted by an interesting idea, 'What if I have the same feeling when trying to feel the world's energy around me, I might be a mage who forgot everything because of an experimental malfunction or something.' These ideas were not too collected and there were a lot of things that didn't add up with these theories, let alone with reality.

Lyns closed his eyes and started to focus on his environment, his breathing took up a slow rhythm, like it was second nature to him, as he opened his eyes, the room looked different from before, he could perceive every little detail around him, he could even feel some kind of fluid movement inside the thin air of the room. He tried to get up when a weird feeling emerged again, it felt like being in control of his surroundings, like the whole room was part of him, and he could move it as he could move his hands or legs. The feeling of being in control didn't last more than a few seconds when he absolutely lost focus and fell into deep thinking.

'I must be a mage, I could clearly feel the spiritual energies of the world around me, I even felt like I could control them.'

'I bet If I try and concentrate now on my sword instead of the room, I might even stumble upon something useful.' Just as he was having these thoughts, his belly gave a loud roar, signalling it was time for a breakfast. Lyns tried to concentrate on his sword anyway and as expected, the sword seemed different than before, it seemed to be a blackhole, sucking all the energies around it, and he could feel his soul resonating with the red like fluid inside the vial built in the crossguard, as before the feeling of control was there, but he could also perceive a force coming from the sword which seeped inside every part of his body, it gave of a warm feeling. After a few seconds, the connection with the state of focus was broken again by his hunger.

The innkeeper was polishing the tables when Lyns came down from the residential floor. He greeted him warmly and asked for breakfast. The taste of bread was superb with the pleasantly cold milk.

There were 2 day left from his stay in Zendia, so Lyns thought about visiting the local shops for the necessities of a wandering lifestyle. Unfortunately, there was only one shop in the village, so he was done with the shopping in 3 candles time. He bought a rucksack, a pair of regular clothes, a sleeping bag, two water flasks, and a flint stone.

With his remaining time before the night, he went back to his room, and sat on the bed with crossed legs. After a second concentration, he reached the unknown special state. He tried to grab the energy streams in the air with his hands, but like expected, his hands went through the energies without disrupting them at all.

'Why can't I even touch the world's energies? If I were a mage like the ones in the merchants' stories, I would be able to do at least something.' after venting his sudden rage. Lyns thought about it a bit more and came up with a very logical explanation, he didn't really know what he was doing or trying to do, and everything he tried were things based on his imagination and the rumors about magic. It was simply a fool's errand to understand something so hard with literally no knowledge about it.

'Okay, let's try something else with my sword!' The sword was the only thing that he could perceive differently from the rest, so it was his only clue to magic, to his identity. The sword once again had a faint but deep connection with him, after four candles of trial and error, Lyns could control some of the energies inside the sword, the feeling was very vague and the only effect that was visible he could make the sword vibrate. After one more candle of time, he gave up even the idea of being a mage.

Lyns spent the next day chatting with the merchants, and he received his scabbard from the blacksmith, it was nothing fancy, but perfect for hiding his sword, he also bought some dried meat from George.

Afternoon when Bob, Gordes and Tim were all ready to depart, they said goodbye to the innkeeper, and left the village. Lyns was sitting next to Tim who drove the wagon, meanwhile Bob and Gordes were riding their respective horses in front of them.

When the night arrived, they made a small camp next to the road. Lyns couldn't help but say anxiously: "Everything feels wrong, why is there nothing here?"

"We have been traveling all day and we haven't seen anything, just the grey dirt and the road, there was literally nothing, not a tree or a bug, or anything. Why is that?"

"You know, there is a legend about the corner of the continent, it is said, longtime ago there was two empire on the Niver continent, one of them was the current Niver empire, meanwhile the others name is already forgotten, but it was a very powerful empire where mages were common, and they all used insane artifacts even in their daily life. One day this empire perished with a giant explosion, from the continent, there was nothing left, at least nothing that is normal." said Tim with a scary tone.

"Tim, just wants to scare you."

"Although, most of it is true, but believe me, there is nothing abnormal out here, I mean, we have been traveling here for years and besides the lack of nature, there is nothing here." followed up Bob.

"You just got an answer for everything, I feel like my worries are just due to my imagination."

"I still have one question, I have been told that there are bandits and demons out here, how can the three of you just go around with all your goods?" asked Lyns again, slightly annoyed by the carefree attitude of the merchants.

"You seem to be a really terrible observer…" said Gordes

"Actually, we are seasoned warriors, to be a traveling merchant you have to be able to protect your goods, this is the bottom line of any merchant alliance."

"Okay, to be fair, after you told us you have no memories, it is not surprising you don't know such a common knowledge and we don't wear armour either, but you know the fabric which our clothes are made of is special."

"This fabric is called mevlar, it is made from giant spiders' web which is so strong, normal weapons can't even scratch them, also as you see we are all armed with a rapier and a dagger, so we have nothing to fear." continued Gordes like he tried to impress Lyns, which he actually managed to do.

Lyns hadn't noticed their weapons, because they were hidden under their cloaks, but it all made sense. He now learned not to judge anyone based on looks, and also made a mental note, when they reach the capital, he should try to buy one mevlar cloth, so he can try if his current armour is stronger or not.

'Maybe tomorrow I will ask them to teach me the basics of sword fighting.' little did he know this was their last peaceful conversation.