MEMORA, academy of magic

Prologue

As the majestic silhouette of the man toiled up the steep, pristine face of the glacier, he appeared to be a mere speck of an ant, laboriously scaling the surface of a colossal dinner plate. The minuscule shantytown of Eldrida was a distant cluster of dots far beneath him, as the winds intensified with his elevation, whipping gusts of snowflakes into his face and freezing the damp strands of his raven hair. Despite the protection of his amber goggles, he squinted against the intense radiance of the setting sun's reflection. Nevertheless, the man was not intimidated by the prospect of a fall, even as he climbed without the aid of ropes or belay lines, relying solely on his crampons and a single ice axe. His name was Landon Black, and he was a mage, with the power to shape and manipulate the frozen matter of the glacier at will, manifesting handholds and footholds as he methodically progressed upward.

As he trudged through the harsh, unforgiving terrain of the glacier, his body was wracked with fatigue and the biting cold had numbed his limbs. Despite the overwhelming challenges he faced, he pushed on, driven by a fierce determination to reach the cave. The exertion of constantly harnessing his magical abilities drained him, but he dared not falter.

Finally, the cave loomed before him, its entrance concealed within the jagged mountainside. He scrambled over the lip of the cave and greedily drew in a ragged breath, berating himself for not arriving sooner and for falling prey to deceit. In the nearby village of Eldrida, the locals had witnessed the explosion and whispered fearfully about its ominous implications, the inferno burning within the icy landscape.

The piercing flames that blazed within the frozen cavern served as a dire warning, signaling either a plea for aid or a calculated assault. The refuge within teemed with vulnerable inhabitants - elderly and juvenile magic users, the infirm, and nurturing mothers with newborns - all of whom could not be abandoned, much like Landon's own familial ties. This remote location served as a sanctuary for them, sequestered away from the perils of the outside world.

Master Zoltar had been insistent, warning that without proper precautions, they would be nothing more than sitting ducks, easy targets for fate's cruel whims. Landon had placed his trust in the older man's judgement, but now, as the enemy they had feared - the Deathless One - failed to make an appearance on the battlefield, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had made a grave mistake.

Determined to make amends, Landon set off at a breakneck pace, summoning an air elemental to bear him towards Eldrida. Though the journey was fraught with danger, as the enemy's control over the elements was both unpredictable and formidable, he pushed on, his feet pounding against the earth as he drew ever closer to the cave that held his loved ones.

As he stepped inside, his heart pounding with fear, he could only pray that they were still safe. "Let them be all right," he whispered to himself, as he ventured deeper into the unknown. "Please, let them be all right.

The cacophony of wailing children and hushed murmurs of anxiety, intermingled with the subtle hum of suppressed magical energy, should have permeated the air. Instead, the only sound that permeated the barren summit of the mountain was the mournful howl of the gale as it swept over the desolate peak. The cavern walls were composed of pristine, glistening ice, marred only by sporadic splatters of coagulated blood that had melted into reddish-brown stains. Landon removed his goggles and discarded them, forging deeper into the passage as he drew upon the waning remnants of his arcane power to steady himself. The walls of the cave emitted an eerie, phosphorescent radiance, providing the sole source of illumination as he ventured away from the entrance. It was this eerie light that likely contributed to his stumbling upon the first corpse and nearly losing his footing. Landon recoiled with a startled cry, momentarily wincing as his shout reverberated through the cavern. The deceased mage was so badly burned as to be unrecognizable, yet the leather wristband adorned with a large, copper medallion identified her as a second-year student of the Memora, no more than thirteen years of age.

"You should have grown acclimated to mortality by now," he cogitated. A decade of incessant conflict with the Adversary had transpired, a period that had at times seemed interminable. Initially, the idea had appeared preposterous - a solitary youth, even one among the Magi, aspiring to vanquish death itself. However, as the Adversary's strength intensified and its horde of the Chaos-afflicted expanded, the peril had become unequivocally dire...culminating in this merciless massacre of the most vulnerable, the most innocent.

Landon brusquely rose to his feet and ventured further into the cavernous abyss, his fervent search for a single, specific visage driving him forward. He pushed past the corpses of respected elders from the Memora and Collegium, as well as the bodies of both friends and acquaintances, as well as those of wounded mages who had fallen in prior engagements. Among them lay the shattered remains of the Chaos-ridden, their eyes now forever obscured by darkness. Despite the mages' apparent lack of preparation, they had evidently put up a formidable resistance, managing to fell a significant number of the Enemy's forces. Horror roiling within him, Landon's fingers and toes numb with cold, he trudged through the carnage until he finally laid eyes upon her. Eirlys. He discovered her lying in the furthest reaches of the cave, her form resting against a wall of icy mist. Her eyes were open, unseeing, the irises clouded over and her lashes caked with frost. Bending down, he tenderly brushed his fingers over her now-cool cheek, inhaling sharply as a sob escaped him, the sound echoing through the cavern.

But where was their son? Where was Finnick?

Eirlys clutched the Styxblade, her self-forged dagger, tightly in her right hand as she lay on the icy cave floor. Her former companion, Landon, couldn't help but feel a pang of sorrow as he gazed upon her cold, motionless cheek. Suddenly, a faint cry echoed through the cavernous chamber, breaking the deathly silence. Landon's heart skipped a beat as he frantically searched for the source of the wail, which seemed to be coming from the cave's entrance. He stumbled over the frozen corpses of his fallen comrades, until he finally came upon the face of Finnegan, Eirlys's brother. Finnegan had been brutally choked to death by a cruel air mage, his face now a ghastly shade of blue, his eyes bloodshot from broken vessels. Landon's gaze shifted to the blanket-wrapped bundle lying underneath Finnegan's outstretched arm, and his heart swelled with joy and disbelief as he recognized his own infant son, alive and crying for his attention.

With a trance-like state enveloping him, Landon trembled with a mixture of relief and despair as he picked up his injured child. The boy's wide, gray eyes met his own, and a scream of pain escaped his lips. Landon's heart sank as he noticed the grotesque angle of the child's broken leg. Desperately, he attempted to harness the power of earth magic to heal the injury, but the remnants of his energy were insufficient. In a state of distress, he wrapped the child tightly in a blanket and hurried back to where his wife, Eirlys, lay motionless. Falling to his knees beside her, Landon whispered her name through tears as he held their child close to him. He vowed to raise the child in honor of Eirlys's sacrifice and to always remember her bravery. As he reached to take his wife's sword, Styxblade, from her hand, he noticed that the ice near the blade was etched with words. As he read them, the message hit him like a physical blow: "END THE CHILD."