Spiders in the Ash

Part 1

Purple feels normal today, like any other day, business as usual, he walks on the streets like he does on his normal days. The people of Sheafor shoot him those same looks, probably enchanted by the awesomeness of his black cloak, that flutters on the wind as he strides to his destination, or maybe is the fang strapped to his hip.

That’s right, he has an appointment, a secret appointment like those secret agents in the books and plays. In truth, he is about to get mugged, he knows it, they know it, what they don’t know is that they are about to get way more than what they bargained for.

A smile forms on Purple’s face, as he takes large steps across the streets and his arms waver around in wide motions and the people move out of his way.

“Move aside citizens,” he yells at no one in particular, “otherwise you risk getting pulled along in my giant wave of awesomeness.”

They all make even more space for him, mothers take their childs far away from him and men change places with their wives and girlfriends. The destination is not far, in fact, he is about to enter the danger zone, Purple takes a sharp turn to the right and enters an alley that screams ‘you are not getting out alive’ for anyone that takes even a quick glance at it, at full throttle.

He is being watched, although he doesn’t know where his stalkers are, he can feel their eyes on him. Piles of garbage fill the ground, the smell of rotting food, mold and… corpses permeates the air, making it stale and foul.

Purple looks to the sides of the empty alley.

“I guess, not even beggars want this place.” He says out loud.

The sound of multiple footsteps comes from behind him, turning around, he sees three men, ragged clothes and a dangerous posture, each holding a shiv in their hand.

“Gentleman,” he puts a smile on his face, “i--”

“Who’s the freak?” A fourth voice comes from deeper into the alley.

The smile fades from Purple’s face, he turns around to see two more men coming his direction, his face quickly changes to a face of disappointment, these guys are just regular goons, barely worth my time. The other two men close the distance, one of them pulls out a pair of daggers.

“Listen freak,” he says, “leave everything that you have and if we are satisfied we might just let you get out with your life.”

“I--”

“WHO TOLD YOU COULD SAY ANYTHING?” the man screeches, pointing one of the daggers to Purple’s neck, what an annoying fellow.

“List--”

“DEATH IT IS!” the dagger wielding man screams from the top of his lungs, as if passing divine punishment and swings his weapon towards Purple.

Before the blade has a chance of making contact, the man gets punched square in the face, breaking his nose and sending him flying back towards the alley’s depths. The other four take each a step back, putting themselves in a fighting posture, one of the initial three lunges forward trying to land an attack from behind with his shiv. Purple quickly turns around and punches the shiv in the man’s hand.

He falls on his ass, scattering garbage everywhere, the other three still in the same posture remain still, he raises the shiv and sees that the blade has been crinkled in and now resembles more a spring than a knife.

“Gentleman,” Purple says while giving a dramatic spin and walking deeper into the alley, “i believe it has been made clear that you four are no match for me, in fact, you still wouldn’t be a match even if there were a thousand of you. Luckly, i’m not here to apprehend you, i came here due to an appointment. Would you kindly take me to your boss?”

Part 2

The doors open to a room liten by a single oil lantern at the end instead of the regular glass spheres, hanging behind a man that sits on a desk at the end of it, the light casts a long shadow on the ground. Purple enters accompanied by two of the four men that tried to mug him a few hundred taks ago. They walk to a chair that sits at the center of the room.

“Sit.” The man says, without moving his head to look at Purple, “it has come to my attention that you’ve been wandering around in my alley and hitting my men.”

Purple stops just before reaching the chair and looks at the two men on each side.

“Gentleman, thank you.”

He nods, right after, he delivers two powerful punches that knock the men out, then proceeds to pick up the chair and use it to bar the door closed. The man at the desk rises from his chair in surprise, a commotion is heard outside the room of people trying to force the door open.

“Nice door.” Purple says while looking and nodding in approval to the door, “very sturdy.”

“What do you think you are doing?” The man demands.

“Someone told me that you were an information broker, so i came to get some.”

“I don’t do business in person. And don’t think that i’m letting you...” his wander off to the sword at purple’s hip.

“You got it all wrong, master Giri” Purple pressed his fingers to his chest in a proud posture, “i don’t deal with criminals. You are going to give me the information for free.”

“You have no proof of anything and why would i do that?” Purple puts his hand on the sword handle, his shadow stretches further, going up the wall and sprouting wings, “what do you want to know?”

“Just break it down!” a voice shouts orders from outside the room.

“If you do that.” Purple yells, “you’ll be unemployed before you can get inside.”

The man in front of Purple goes pale enough to be noticeable even with the dimering light, the voices outside go silent.

“Boss?” one of them asks.

“It’s fine. Let me handle this.” He replies.

Purple nods, “so...what can you tell me about Franklin Dawnlight?”

“The rogue noble?”

“The only one i know.”

“He is the son of Baldo Dawnlight, i don’t know the exact day he was born, but he is seventeen years old, he is a wispshaper squire and apparently a really powerful one. They said that if it weren’t for the incident he would go directly to a darkeyed wispshaper.”

A purple outline and eyes appear, somehow making the winged shadow emit light. Giri’s soul would have left his body behind if it could.

“A few days ago, he fought three wispshapers and fled to the ghost woods with a grey one and a steel mage.” Giri continues, “he is already dead, you came too late.”

“What about the gravity spirit?”

“Haven’t heard anything about it.”

Purple nods, the shadow comes back to it’s proper place and size, he turns around and walks up to the door.

“I appreciate the information.”

Purple tosses a small pouch that clacks with coins as it hits the floor before knocking down the door with a kick and leaving nonchalantly walking between the men positioned outside the room.

“For the door.” Purple says, his voice far, as another pouch hits the hallway’s floor in front of the door, now that was a cool exit, he thinks to himself.

Interlude

Rach currently sits alone in the wagon’s back, the coachman said they would arrive at the first tak in the morning. White uniform and eyes clear as the light reflected on a lake, surrounded by an abyssal black. The ground shaking and rumbling with the shock waves as he gets closer and closer to The Battlefield, the thundering roars of battle can be heard from kilometers away. Yet, despite the humongous task that lies ahead, he is not nervous, he trained hard for it, he dedicated years of his life with this single goal in mind, to complete his training as a wispshaper and become a darkeyed just so he could come here, The Battlefield.

The wagon jumps up due to the incoming shockwave, the light coming from within the crystal spear that Rach is carrying shifts to a dusk colored orange and yellow, the color of danger.

“Steady now, no need to be afraid.” He says as he caresses the spear, “this will be our daily lives from now on, you can’t glow like that all the time.”

A thousand taks later, the wagon arrives at its destination, Rach gets down on one of the hallways in the western side of Lotian the furthest hallway from the center, it is linked with the furthest room and together they are known as the far edge. The far edge has an entire war camp built in it’s hallway, since the main room was made inhospitable.

“Welcome to The Battlefield.” A voice welcomes him.

Turning towards it, he sees a wide and muscular man, wearing a military uniform much similar to Rach’s own, but blue colored instead of white, making the general easily distinguishable in the midst of a crowd.

“Sergeant Jamiro, it is a great honor to have you come in person to welcome me.” Rach makes a sharp salute.

“It is not everyday that a darkeyed comes to our corner of Lotian.” The general replies.

Using the word corner was an understatement, the room currently known as The Battlefield is the second largest room in all of Lotian, large enough to fit mountains and even an ocean inside.

“Come with me, i’ll show you around.”

They walk for a while, Jamiro shows the weapons storage, their accommodations, the small shops and taverns that brave merchants decided to open there, and even stop for a bit to get themselves some food.

“I’m glad you decided to come here, we are really in need of reinforcements you know, but the proper procedures must be done first, come with me.”

“Where to, sir?”

“I’ll show The Battlefield to you.”

They cross the war camp to reach the end of the hallway.

It is known to all wispshapers that rage wisps, like all mind wisps, take the form of small spiders, and are colored a brownish red to differentiate themselves from the others, also, for some reason, they are very rare, appearing only during great feats of rage. They also like to cling to one another, forming larger spiders as more of them get together. They are recorded to get twice as large as an adult man in some of the most extraordinary moments of rage ever witnessed.

Rach approaches The Battlefield’s entrance, where the hallway suddenly ends. A large crater as wide as the entire room sinks thousands of meters deep on the ground, the seas, the mountains, the land all ravaged by battle. Hurricanes of ash wander the wasteland, rising almost to the same height as the hallway, the rain of illusory blood falling from the sky without rest.

The rumbling on the ground continues, lightning and fire rage in the center of the hole, illuminating the dust and ash in the air. But then, Rach’s eyes get drawn by another detail, something he is not sure how he wasn’t able to spot earlier, or maybe he didn’t want to spot it. Three brownish red spiders standing as tall as the mountains of the room should be, visible even from that distance, when his eyes wander off to the sides he sees two more clinging to the side walls and a last one on the ceiling. Their eyes turn in his direction, he can feel it, the rage wisps serving as a conduit for the bloodlust and fury that hides inside that dust cloud in the bottom of the hole as if it was right in front of him.

Paralized with fear, his body almost forgets how to live on it’s own, he loses control of his own bodily functions and takes his mind a solid moment to remember how to think again. The crystal spear shifts it’s color to dark purple, the color of death, and fear wisps paint the ground around Rach in yellow, still trying to form a coherent thought, the words stumble into each other as they try to get out of his mouth.

Jamiro puts his hand on Rach’s shoulder, bringing him back a little.

“Son...”

Rach turns his head, fright painted all over his expression, face as pale as if his skin had been melted off and now only his bones could be seen, he feels his pants wet and the sweat running down his skin, body numb, he doesn’t answer the call.

“The proper procedure,” Jamiro continues, “it demands that i ask you. Do you really wish to fight? You can go back if you want to.”

Go back? But Rach trained all his life for it, it was his dream, to become a hero on The Battlefield, was he about to get himself intimidated and flee in shame from what he sought his whole life? Was he that much of a coward?

Rach left the far edge in the evening, on the same wagon that brought him.