“He made it…” Edvard forced out these words as he continued to shoot arrow after arrow. No longer was it possible to keep the rooftop clear of orcs. The best he could do was kill them as they gathered their footing.The continuous pulling of his bow was showing its strain on his untrained body. His shoulder acts, his fingers burned, and his arm trembled. Yet, he pushed on. He had to. He couldn’t die here.He still needed to find Yawen. He still needed to find a way home.The screams from below had long since died. The knights had fought valiantly. But valiance was not enough to turn the tide of a battle.“Are we going to die like this?” Abigail asked, forcing herself to stay calm and take deep, steady breaths. Collecting her focus and doing her best to gather the ether in the surrounding. Thanks to overusing magic and a lack of sleep, her mind was already foggy. Yet, she pushed on.“That… isn’t… part… of… the plan.” Edvard replied between the twang of his bow. Luckily, he had more tha
Edvard stirred, his entire body afire. Grimacing, the previous events slowly came back to him. ‘So, I survived…’“Careful now.” Abigail instructed, bringing a cup to his mouth and having him take a few small sips.The herbal tea helped soothe the blazing fire in his throat, sadly it did little for the rest of the flames. Trying to force out any words caused his chest to explode in pain, so he remained quiet. Taking sips as Abigail offered them.“I can’t believe how reckless you were.” Abigail said, Edvard noticing that they were in the shade of some tree. The gentle sound of a stream was barely audible. “I really thought you were going to die on me when you didn’t stir for two days.”Unable to form any words, Edvard simply held his peace. Listening as Abigail detailed what had happened after he had lost consciousness. Atop the horse, she had rushed with him along the main road, heading deeper into the kingdom. Stopping long after night had arrived.That night, she had cleaned most of
It was like this energy was a part of him, yet it was clearly a foreign substance. Apparently, the first step to learning how to become a knight was channeling it into a blade. Most swords made for knights were made of special magical metals and enchanted. The glow that Edvard had seen so often was the process of the metal being filled with ether. Activating its magical properties, and naturally, the effects of the enchantments. Edvard’s blade was apparently different from the norm. It did not glow when he pushed the strange energy into it. Though, Edvard suspected that was because the amount he could gather and focus was too little to affect the magnificent blade. While Edvard still had a thing or two to nit-pick about regarding the Vespes prince, he had to accept that he was only alive thanks to the prince’s ‘gifts’. While hell, the illusion had truly prepared him for the harshness that this world was filled with. “Can you teach me how you form spells?” Edvard asked. “I can’t be
"Everyone, get ready to start." Ven's voice traveled through the speakers, reaching every single place in the facility.Slowly she started the countdown, during which most nervously swallowed. Everyone had the same thought going through their minds as the words slowly counted down: 'Moment of truth.'Everything started well, things going as they predicted they would. But slowly, as the reactor reached higher and higher temperatures, it became clear that things would not continue as predicted."This is too fast, stop everything now!" Ven shouted once she saw that they were already at 1% of the total predicted energy levels.This might not sound like much, however, it was supposed to take ten minutes; only one had passed.Everyone scrambled as Ven's shout reached them over the speaker. But... They failed.By the time the team responsible for manually deactivating it arrived, after the automatic system had failed them, the reactor was already a
"Yawen! Yawen! Have you seen Yawen?" Edvard shouted and asked as he ran past panicking colleagues. After helping Ghakarhi and Maxwell out of the reactor room, he had quickly done his best to stabilize them and then rushed to find his wife.A total shutdown meant they could no longer contact the outside world, the force fields completely cut them off from the rest of the world. Which meant it was too late to contact their families. Edvard now only wished to spend his last moments with his wife.In this rush and panic, time froze… Yet it did not freeze.Everyone could still feel, see, and reason. But they could not move. Things which had been falling were now stationary, people who were bleeding now seemed to stop. The sound of the alarm was no more and so too the flashing of the lights.'What the hell?' Edvard asked as he tried looking around, finding that he could not move his sight. He was completely stuck, but aware. He could not even move his ey
Gasping for air, Ven struggled to flip herself from her current position; face down in the dirt. It took her a few tries as her body struggled to follow her commands.Back against the dirt, face staring at the canopy of leaves, she spat a few times to get rid of what she had eaten in her struggle.Taking a deep breath, she felt the dirt mix with her saliva slipping into her throat, causing her to cough from the irritants. After a few more bouts of spitting, she finally managed to breathe comfortably.'Gods… How long has it been?' She asked herself as she stayed on her back and enjoyed the rays of sunlight flickering through the leaves. This simple scene a rare one on Earth.She had no idea how long she had been in that frozen state. Where she had seen her friends and colleagues dissipate and die. It had felt like years, but surely that can't be right.It took some time for her to come back from these thoughts, tears flowing down her cheeks a
'Then again…' Ven doubted for a moment. Her entire belief in science had been rocked due to the accident, a pulsar being able to support life made her doubt herself even more.She had been brought here because what they knew was wrong. The way they believed everything worked… Was wrong.'No, believe. That is all I can do… And hope…' Her thoughts returned to her children as she cleared her mind of doubts. Pushing through the pain and tiredness in hopes to find a water source.She knew that doubts would do her no good, that it would be even worse than worrying about her children. So, she allowed the latter to keep her mind occupied as she followed the moss on the trees.Recalling what she had read, long ago, she tried her best to not follow the false moss.Ignoring all that grew near the ground, she looked for moss higher up. Choosing her waist as the cutoff height. While this would do little for direction, it should hopef
Gasping for air, Edvard struggled to get up. Much like Ven, he ate a few mouthfuls of dirt before managing to turn around. Also like Ven, he was in a forest and fatigued to the bone. This forest was less dense, with sparse undergrowth and no vines. Making visibility far clearer.His first actions and thoughts were similar to Ven's, only his desire to go back was far stronger. He knew the first thing he needed was a source of water, yet he could not keep his thoughts focused on that.Unlike Ven, his search was interrupted much sooner too. He saw a monster, an orc, come through the treelines in a panicked sprint. Edvard froze upon seeing the fantasy-like creature.The orc looked exactly like the fantasy representation of orcs. Large bulging muscles, tusk-like teeth, and dark green mud-colored skin. It looked vicious and like it could kill him with ease.Edvard did not freeze for long, realizing that the orc was running towards him, he looked for a place to