The Fate of Mana

There weren't always dragons in the valley. They had once ruled the open sky, revered by man and beast alike. Dragons had been the guardians of Numera's sacred temples and were seen as symbols of the gods they served. That was in a time when the nine still ruled and the races of Numera were not on such tense terms.

Kuldin crouched by the smoldering remains of a campfire. Dawn was just breaking and he was ready to get back on the road. Staying in one place too long was ill-advised even on the main trails. Flicking his hand in a fluid motion, he summoned a stream of water from the river guiding it through the air like an eel and doused it onto the remaining cinders. He took a breath and focused using his other hand to control the thin tendrils of smoke, dissipating them before they could rise. You could never be too cautious, especially so close to the forest.

After removing the protective enchantments from around his camp and gathering up his pack Kuldin continued down the high road. His instructions were to follow the road to a sign post marking the split to Eranor in the Northwest and Markamp to the East. From there he should come across a signal that would lead him to his meeting place.

He was on his third day into the valley and had barely come across any living things save for some birds, a few fish, and the trees which kept him company in every direction. The trails this deep into the valley were rarely traveled anymore. The forest gave the unnerving feeling that it would love nothing more than to reclaim the trail beneath his feet. The last two nights he had horrible nightmares of the trees digging their thick roots into the ground before him barring the way onward. He would turn to run back but the forest would already be closing behind him, and then he would feel it. The thick vines winding their way up his legs, locking him in place. He would fight and pull but the more he fought the tighter they would grab.

Finally, when he was almost completely covered by the deadly brush, he would hear a low roar from behind the trees. A dark shape would begin to emerge but just before he could see it in full detail the trees would take him, covering his eyes and pulling him into the ground where he would feed their roots. Once beneath the trees, he would feel a blast of heat from somewhere above him, giving him a strange sense of comfort.

He would awake to find himself covered in sweat and breathing like he had just ran a race for his life. The terrible images would linger in his mind and it would take what seemed like hours to feel the tethers of sleep pulling him back in. He couldn't help but feel like the forest had gotten used to being untrod-den and it didn't want the likes of him disrupting its peaceful slumber. There was also the gnawing feeling of dread left by the image of the dark shape. No mistake could be made, it had to be one of the nine dragons.

During the day he was able to keep his composure. The dragons were a threat but he would periodically scan his surroundings, searching for any large sources of mana within close proximity. Not that he thought he could take a dragon in combat, but he had trained himself in hiding his mana signature. With any luck he could find a tree to hide in or even a thick bush to blend with and hope that the dragon would pass him by. It wasn't like the dragons hunted people. At least as far as he or anyone else knew. It had been about a thousand years since the Numeic War and about nine hundred years since the dragons had been seen outside the valley. Until fairly recently the valley had still been used as a central trade route between the five kingdoms. It was only in the last three decades that things had gotten too dangerous for the common traveler.

Strange things had been witnessed in the valley over the last few years but recently the sightings of wisps, cloaked figures, and more monsters than usual was all the surrounding cities could seem to talk about. There were endless rumors to explain it all from a cult seeking to harness the power of the dragons to vampires making the forest their new home.

Kuldin mulled over the possibilities as he walked to pass the time. The idea that a cult would try to harness the power of the dragons seemed absolutely mad. Sure, in theory the dragons hold immense amounts of power. Their life force is made from pure mana drawn from Numera itself. It's what ties them to the planet and gives them special properties. How anyone, even someone as crazy as a cultist, could think they stood a chance at controlling them however was beyond his reasoning. As far as vampires went, he was also doubtful. The cloaked figures had been seen during the day which was unlikely for a vampire. It was true they had thralls to do their bidding, but normally they were average looking townspeople that could blend in and avoid suspicion.

When he finally let his thoughts subside, he looked up and realized that just up ahead was a battered looking signpost. He grew excited for just a moment before his eyes caught something else a few paces off to his right, almost out of view, in the thick brush. He stepped closer and placed his hand on the hilt of his small sword. A few paces away he could see the animal lying there was dead. The realization almost dropped his guard enough to take his hand away from his weapon. Thinking that whatever did this might still be nearby, he gripped the sword tighter and partially drew it from the sheathe. He was not very proficient in any type of combat but the blade still gave him some illusion of protection.

Kuldin knelt beside the strange animal and inspected it along with its wounds. He had never seen anything like the carcass laying before him. It had a long neck covered in coarse black fur, two small hornlike protrusions coming from its skull, and four thick legs with tan fur that matched the rest of the body save the head and neck. Nothing about the creature appeared natural. He felt as if he had seen all the parts of it before but not on the same body. It was easy to discern what had killed it. On its hindquarters there were three deep gashes. They were much deeper than any gashes a bear or large cat would make, almost severing the animal's rear legs from its body. Bears and cats killed for food in most cases and it didn't appear that there was any flesh taken from the creature. Looking at the blood he could tell the wound was freshly made and the animal had succumbed to the wound recently.

From his days on his parents farm, Kuldin had become skilled at butchering animals and knowing where to strike to prevent unnecessary suffering. He figured that even with a creature as foreign as the one before him he would be able to give a rough estimate of where its heart should be. That made it all the more disturbing when he inspected the gashes closer and noticed that not only had the claws shattered the rear leg joints, it had also shredded the creatures heart in two causing immediate death.

Suddenly he realized that whatever killed that monstrosity was likely not more than a few hundred yards away, somewhere in the forest where it remained unseen. He took a deep breath and tried to focus. Sending out pulses of his mana, he looked for traces of any other living things, probably something with a strong enough mana signature that he would see it even through the trees. Seconds turned to minutes which began to feel like hours. When finally he decided his best course of action was to get a move on, he stood, drew his sword the rest of the way, and walked briskly but quietly towards the signpost.

He knew this meant he was close to his destination. He just had to find the clue that would lead him there. After a few minutes of searching, he turned up nothing and cursed to himself. He wanted nothing more than to get as far away from the horror lying in the brush as he could but he knew better than to go wandering aimlessly deeper into the forest trails. Again he stopped and focused to make sure nothing had crept up on him while he was distracted. As he swept the area around him in a circle he could feel nothing. No new mana signatures to his right, nothing behind him, nothing to the left. Suddenly, directly in front of him and behind the signpost, he saw and felt a faint signature. It startled him, enough to knock him out of focus. Quickly regaining his composure he scanned again. It was small and not very powerful but enough to stand out among the glow of the trees. It flitted between them in small loops followed by short spurts and leaving a thin blue mana signature trailing behind it.

Kuldin didn't know what to make of it. It was a wisp, but where had it come from. So far as he knew wisps came from one of two places. Firstly, spirits of the dead sometimes leave behind a small piece of themselves; a part of their mana that gets stuck while the rest of them moves on to Yur-Sha, a realm of pure mana. Secondly, wisps can be made by people or intelligent creatures as an illusion. Either he was looking at part of a lost spirit or someone, something, was close enough to create the wisp. If it was created by something, they most likely meant for him to see it, considering he felt no other mana signatures nearby and hadn't for the last two and a half days.

"This way."

Kuldin was startled again but he managed to stay somewhat focused. A gentle voice, very familiar and comforting, had just come from the wisp.

"Nearly there."

Again it spoke to him. It was apparent to him that the wisp was almost certainly meant to be his clue. Normally he would be more hesitant but the image of the monstrosity lying in the brush not twenty yards away came back to him. Tightening his grip on his sword and remaining in his focused state he trudged forward slowly, avoiding rocks and roots while keeping his eyes fixed on the wisp as it floated between the trees. He tried several times to call out to it but never received a response. It led him for some while, taking him deeper into the forest on what seemed like an old trail that had become overgrown. All the while he remained scanning for other sources of mana but saw and felt none.

Trying to shake the feeling that he was being followed, he looked around the old trail while frequently peering back to the wisp. He could see that he was about to be lead through a small ravine with the remnants of a stream trickling through it. By the way the riverbanks were eroded, Kuldin could tell that it had not always been shallow and there had once been a footbridge built there to traverse it. Unfortunately for him it had long ago rotted and collapsed leaving him only with the option to scale the banks on each side. He attempted to close the distance between himself and the wisp so he would not lose sight of it for too long while down in the ravine but noticed that as he sped up, the wisp matched his pace and kept him from getting any closer.

Standing at the edge of the nearer bank he took one last look at the wisp and sheathed his sword before jumping down and attempting to cross to the other side as quickly as could be managed. About halfway across the small stream he stumbled on a rock covered in river slime. Several items, including his crudely drawn map of the woods, fell from his pack. He scrambled to grab the map and a pendant given to him by his mother while letting the rest of the contents float off. The map was pretty well ruined but at least the pendant had not gotten away. His mother claimed it would keep evil beings away and was the closest thing to a blessing people could hope for in these godless times.

Standing, Kuldin pressed the pendant to his heart and then to his lips. He tucked it back in his pack and crossed the rest of the stream quickly but more carefully. As he pulled himself up and out of the ditch he could no longer see the wisp but could see where its last signature had been. It was as if the thing had just disappeared. Jogging forward a bit, he noticed that the path had brought him to a circular patch where no trees had encroached. It was large enough that there could have been a building there at one point but the lack of one now left no explanation for the absence of trees.

Standing in the center of the clearing Kuldin sent one last pulse out searching for the source of the wisp or an indication of what he should do next. As his pulse traveled outward he felt nothing but the faint glow of the trees. Then, he felt something that froze him to his core. Directly behind him, near the tree tops, sat the strongest mana signature he had ever felt. The appearance of it had hit him like a shock wave causing him to stumble forward. Slowly turning his head, he brought his eyes up to the bright violet glow of mana and released his focus. Staring back at him was a deep cerulean dragon with emerald set eyes. It looked at him without moving, seeming almost as curious and surprised as himself.

Kuldin slowly raised his hands to show he was no threat. The dragon turned its head to one side but made no noise or indication that it understood. Slowly reaching into his pack, he pulled out the pendant his mother had given him. Thinking that perhaps the symbol was something the dragon would recognize as a show of peace, he held it up on its broken chain. The dragons head turned back to its neutral position and it craned its long neck forward as if inspecting the trinket.

Without warning it let out a loud cry that echoed through the valley. To Kuldin, the cry had not sounded threatening but rather reminiscent and longing. It had startled him all the same. Before he could call out in response the dragon unfurled its wings. The outer margins were the same deep cerulean as the rest of the body but the inner veins and bones took on a purple hue and were somewhat translucent. No sooner had he taken in the sight before him when the dragon leapt from the treetops and dove down towards him.

He didn't bother going for his sword. Fighting a dragon in close range, rather fighting a dragon at all, was suicide. Rolling clumsily to his left he was just able to dodge the dragons hand which came down directly where he had stood. Glancing at it quickly he noticed it had three fingers each with a sharp claw protruding from it. It became apparent that this was most likely the dragon that had killed the beast in the forest. Without hesitation he turned to run for the tree line and put some distance between himself and the gargantuan creature.

Kuldin had taken three steps when he felt something tangle his legs causing him to go down like a sack of rocks. He knew this feeling. He had felt it every night since he came to this cursed place. It was the vines. Rolling to his back, he could see the dragon slowly approaching, almost gracefully. He could also see that it was indeed vines that had grabbed him. He could tell by the freshly broken clumps of earth that they had broken through the ground directly beneath him.

The dragon continued its approach, only two large steps away now. Quickly he unsheathed his sword and made a swing at the thick green vines. He cut through one and made a deep mark in another but no sooner had the vine been severed when another sprang from beside it and tightened the grasp. This was how he was going to die. In the Valley of Delnor, in some random clearing, on an untraveled path, in the belly of a dragon or fertilizer for the forest. Kuldin shut his eyes tight and waited for certain death.

Thoughts of home swirled through his mind. He could see the fields in which he spent most of his days tending to the crops or guarding their livestock. The light scent of menthol drifting through the air from the rows of camphor trees. Delmuth cattle roaming the field, their thick tails swatting at the marsh flies as they prodded their calves towards the nearby brooks.

Kuldin could see his mother and father's faces as he waived them farewell, almost a month ago now. They were smiling but he could see the sadness in his mother's eyes. They sparkled with the formation of teardrops as the morning rays of sun laid its golden glow on her face. He could feel the warmth on his back and the coolness of the morning air on his face as he set off that morning. There was an air of sadness in it. Brookdale had been his whole life aside from the few trips to the city he would make with his father. This was different. This wasn't a day's ride to a populated city. This was a month's trek to a distant part of the country where the roads were strange and the people even stranger.

It would all be worth it at the end. He was fulfilling the promise he had made to Lyanna the summer before she left. She had always led him on adventures and was the one who had introduced him to magic. Before her he had only known farm life and had fully expected to some day take over the family farm. Probably he would eventually find a wife, have children and raise them to do the same.

That had all changed when he met Lyanna. She had said she could feel something different about him, and then she had shown him her powers. He wasn't afraid. He didn't run or scream. That was when Lyanna had decided to teach him what she could.

Almost every day when Kuldin finished his farm duties, Lyanna would take him into the forest and they would practice the basics of magic. She had been right about sensing something about him. He did have some innate ability for the craft and by his second summer he was able to do basic manipulations of the elements with relative control. On the nights before Kuldin would have the day off, they would often sneak off into the mountain and camp out under the stars. Lyanna knew quite a bit about living off the land and navigating by the stars.

In his sixth and last year of training with Lyanna, he had made his promise to her. It was a clear summer night and they had been sitting around their campfire laughing about the day's antics. Tonight,she had told him, he would learn to manipulate fire. It was the only element he hadn't experimented with due to its potential to cause so much destruction with the slightest of missteps.

During their sparring session she showed him how to create a simple spark without creating actual flame. He would use it to cause distraction and create a flash to temporarily blind her while he got the upper hand. This night was different because they had gone into a nearby cave they had never explored so the effects of his sparks could be observed better. Their sparring had stirred a large cave ogre awake and let it right to them. Right in the middle of their session, due to being distracted by their sparring and the darkness of the cave, it took them by surprise.

As Lyanna went in for a leg sweep she was suddenly knocked flat by a forearm the size of her torso. The ogre stood about seven and a half feet tall with limbs weighing down its center mass. It took its muddy green arms and swept Lyanna up, threatening to break her in two. The sight had enraged Kuldin. He was no longer thinking but rather letting his emotions lead him forward. He had meant to simply send sparks at the beasts face but his anger had overcome him. The heat leaving his hands was immense and he watched as a large fireball lit the walls of the cave hitting the beast square in its jaw. When it impacted it exploded with the noise that made the inside of the cave feel as though they had been in the center of a thundercloud. He could see Lyanna's shadow as she tumbled to the ground and let out a cry of pain that he had never heard from her.

That night he had saved Lyanna, his closest and oldest friend. He had also hurt her in the process, leaving her left arm scarred from the blast. Kuldin had refused to train with her from then on and downright refused to use fire ever again. Seeing that she wouldn't be able to change his mind Lyanna dropped the subject. She did however make him swear to a pact. At some time, however distant, she would need his help and companionship. When the time came, she wanted to know that he would do what she asked and that she could count on him. Kuldin had agreed, not knowing that his word would lead him hundreds of miles from home, and bring him face to face with one of the nine dragons.

After seven years of friendship and adventures, Lyanna had received word from her uncle who was a member of some ancient order founded by her family and several others. It could, according to her be traced all the way back to the Age of Numens when the gods still communed with man.

In his mind, Kuldin could see Lyanna standing on the horizon. He had walked her to the border of Brookdale, where the road turned to mere dirt trails leading into one of the other far off kingdoms. He had stood there until she reached the horizon where she would go down the mountain and out of his view. Just before she left his sight, she turned and gave him one last wave. That image had burned into his mind like a hot coal.

The golden yellow sky turning to rose and eventually giving way to tinges of violet; as enchanting a backdrop has the woman who stood against it. Her chestnut hair falling over her shoulder, golden waves against her fair skin, as she smiled sadly and turned to leave behind Brookdale.

As Kuldin lay here now, waiting to die, he could almost smell the scent of fig and citrus that Lyanna had favored. It also occurred to him that he should be quite dead by now. Mustering up the courage with a count of five Kuldin opened his eyes expecting to be looking into the jaw of the cerulean beast. His eyes took time to adjust to the sun but as they did, he saw before him what appeared to be a woman. She was standing just in front of him, one hand outstretched and laid gently on the dragons closed mouth.

Kuldin's eyes met her's, piercing cool blue like dessert oases accented by the chestnut hair he could never forget. His voice caught in his throat, choked with both the relief that he was not about to die and the excitement at reuniting with his oldest friend.

"Someone hasn't been practicing their magic." Lyanna mused trying to hide the emotion in her voice.

Helping him to his feet, Lyanna threw her arms around him and Kuldin returned the gesture. Kuldin was not sure if he was happier at being reunited with his friend, or more confused that he was embracing her in front of a dragon.