The next thing I awoke to was a tavern of cheering and drinking people, a bard furiously scribbling in the corner as Pyro told him what happened.
In a time of peace and hope galore,
A titan made of rock hungered for the worlds core.
Its footsteps shook the valleys, its fists could crush the sky,
Till three heroes united, to make the titan die.
Oh, heroes of this age, your legend shall be told,
Of how you faced the titan, so fierce and mighty bold.
With water, fire, and shadow, you brought it to its knees,
And now we sing your glory, carried on the breeze.
First came the mage of swamps, who bent both death and tide,
With waves that danced like silver, the titan’s strength declined.
He wove the waves around him, confounded earth with sea,
And in his hands, the cosmos, brought the titan to its knee.
Oh, heroes of the ages, your legend shall be told,
Of how you faced the titan, so fierce and mighty bold.
With water, fire, and shadow, you brought it to its knees,
And now we sing your glory, carried on the breeze.
Then came the pyromancer, with flames that kissed the night,
With fire pure and blazing, he joined the valiant fight.
He melted stone like butter, his passion fierce and bright,
The titan’s power dwindled in the scorching, searing light.
Oh, heroes of the ages, your legend shall be told,
Of how you faced the titan, so fierce and mighty bold.
With water, fire, and shadow, you brought it to its knees,
And now we sing your glory, carried on the breeze.
And last, a silent killer, from shadow’s dark embrace,
She struck with blades like whispers, unseen in every place.
The titan’s heart of granite, she pierced with lethal art,
And as the silence followed, the beast was torn apart.
Oh, heroes of the ages, your legend shall be told,
Of how you faced the titan, so fierce and mighty bold.
With water, fire, and shadow, you brought it to its knees,
And now we sing your glory, carried on the breeze.
Together they stood fearless, united by their quest,
Each one a vital spirit, their courage put to test.
The titan now lies broken, its terror finally gone,
And in the hearts of many, their songs forever sung.
Oh, heroes of the ages, your legend shall be told,
Of how you faced the titan, so fierce and mighty bold.
With water, fire, and shadow, you brought it to its knees,
And now we sing your glory, carried on the breeze.
So raise your voices higher, music fill the night,
For the heroes who brought daylight, where once was only fright.
Their tale will be remembered, as long as bards do sing,
Of magic, blades, and wisdom, and the triumph they did bring.
The song sounded good, it still had ways to improve, but with a relatively classic bard song tune almost every hero story could make a nice sounding song.
It felt great to be celebrated, and maybe it was then that I developed a love for the spotlight, maybe I had it before, but as people paid our drinks that evening, I stopped caring about a lot of things.
I never undid my mask, the shriveled skin beneath too obvious a sign of my real nature to share with those I did not trust or plan on killing.
Shaking my head felt weird, the thrumming pain of the power I had unleashed, yearning for more and mercy at the same time. With my protection retreating, knowledge overwhelmed me, that night, I drank too much, and the things I thought of were not what I wanted to think of, my at first celebratory mood overtaken by the sadness of losing my friends.
We shared a few stories, and when we retreated to our room, we decided it was time to share something more than just handshakes and hugs.
“My name is Luce, Luce bravelight.” I simply stated, and the other two were just a bit closer to tears.
“I am Egon, no last name that still holds value, after I abandoned my sister for this quest.”
“I wear the name Sandra, and my people see no value in last names.”
We then went to sleep, our eyes closed quickly with the exhaustion, and I felt something stir within me.
Like a shackle, my soul was released, the oath of revenge fulfilled and my mind clear enough to understand what had eluded me for so long.
My own weakness was the lack of life. My magic hungered and decayed, every spell I made would have destructive aspects to it. I knew I had reached the limit for how much my body could be refined, and to expand my mind would be a pain in every way.
Only this revelation of death was available to me, the acceptance that I would suck the power and life from everything just to fuel another day of life.
The new aspect was like fire upon my mind, suddenly extinguished and turned into a feeling of pure cold.
At first, I was inside the ocean, simply splashing as light refracted through it in every possible color and shape, and then began the dive.
The water became cold, and slowly I saw corpses remaining just below the waves, the cold drawing on my life force as I delved further.
And of course it just became more horrific. Below the sea of corpses, nothing remained, pure blackness I was falling through, just outside realities grasp, and that was when I truly realized what the aspect of death meant. It would make sure that nothing could hold me without severe costs.
I longed for freedom, and my actions resonated with this urge.
My water was cold, for it froze anything it touched and would draw the life force from it.
My manipulation of space would decay realities bounds, opening it for anyone mad enough to search it.
The light reflecting on my skin came with a hint of radiation, changing the world below and around it ever so slightly and bringing it closer to the end.
Lastly, the decay I commanded would be fiercer than it was before.
This refinement was a qualitative change the others were not, a breakthrough made possible by the endless hunger within me and the pains I underwent on the journey to this point.
It was the end of an era, seven and a quarter years spend in training, with the next bit of training just on the horizon.
It made me wonder, though. What would that damned academy look like, and would it allow me to complete my other quests?
A number of questions that would be answered soon, but first, it would be time to pick more runes.
