The Benevolence Creed

Seven Years Ago

“Kyr, wake up.”

Warm sunlight trickled across Kyr’s face as a faint breeze played on his hair. It lulled him to the comfort of rest and sleep until a shadow loomed over.

Kyr yawned, scratched the back of his neck, then saw a pair of large hazel eyes squinting at him in a grin. It belonged to a boy with sandy yellow hair, round cheeks and a face like that of a puppy.

His underclassman, Roy, took a step back and revealed the clear blue sky behind him.

No, not clear. Not anymore. Not since the cracks appeared.

How long had it been already? Two months? Kyr hated the fact he'd gotten used to seeing it.

“Figured I’d find you here,” Roy said, hands on his hips. “If not the library, then it’s gotta be the hill behind the academy. Always the same tree.”

“It’s the perfect thing to lean on for a nap,” Kyr said with another yawn. “Plus, it gives me a good view of the academy in case somebody comes looking.”

Kyr put on his spectacles and his eyes immediately flicked to the bell-shaped buildings below the hill. The clocktower in the east corner of the academy showed the fourteenth hour. Too early for students to be loitering outside.

“What’s the commotion?” Kyr asked, glancing back at Roy. The boy always looked funny with that pointed hat. At least the academy's black robes fit him well. “What are you all dressed up for? I thought we won’t be—”

“They’re here!” Roy gushed as if barely containing his excitement. “Knights from the royal guard!”

“The king is visiting?”

Were they checking up on the academy’s research of the red cracks? If so, Kyr really wanted to be on that team.

“No, silly, the hero is!”

Hero?

Oh, that guy from the ceremony.

“The hell are they here for, then?” Kyr stood up as he watched a group of knights in silver armor enter a building below. “They should be assembling a group for the sacred rites. I thought the king wanted to follow the legend.”

“That’s exactly it,” Roy said. “And they’re here looking for you!”

*

They called it the Benevolence Creed.

The continent of Feonas was home to numerous legends, but the creed of Vastille was the most well-known and debated.

Long ago, it was said the world was consumed by a great evil. The sky wasn’t shattered like it was today, but the land itself was said to be covered in a dark miasma that bred dangerous beasts and filled the hearts of men with anger and greed.

They said clouds rained fire, and the seas bubbled with lightning. Crops crumbled into dust, and the earth turned red with poison.

All of this was perpetuated by a being known only as the ‘Specter’.

They said it didn’t exist.

They said it was the name of many who sought profane magics.

They said it was an ancient being with scales and horns that breathed mana.

They said the name simply passed around to whoever it was that gathered the world’s ire and hate.

The one story Kyr found interesting was that of a tyrannical king from an old dynasty who was murdered by his own citizens. They said he cursed the land and came back as a ghost to wreck upon vengeance on the people who betrayed him. The great evil manifested.

Regardless of the truth, humanity was lost, and so it begged the heavens for mercy and help.

That’s when the sun responded.

This part should be familiar to followers of the sacred order, but what separated it from the doctrines were the existence of winged giants who came down to offer humanity the gift of magic.

That’s right.

Magic.

Not even the Magic Academy taught this story, but according to the myth, magic wasn’t natural to this world. It was a gift from the sun, injected into the earth via four towers familiar to all Vastillians: the spires of strength, knowledge, resilience, and resolve. The corner stones of the nation.

The legend was practically the origin story of why the northern kingdom had the highest concentration of mana in all of Feonas. While other countries scrambled for meager resources, all derived from mana rivers connected to Vastille, the kingdom itself was drowning in power.

And therein lay the creed.

Magic saved the world from its calamitous past. They said the winged giants elected a hero from the masses to champion their power and destroy the great evil. When all of that was done, mankind was meant to prosper.

“Magic is as much your gift as it is your responsibility,” so sayeth the winged giants. “Your line shall be stewards of this land. Guard our power and spread its wealth. If the specter of your past return, seek audience in the spires. Should you prove benevolent with magic, you will retain it again.”

Basically, don’t be assholes and share the gift. If the world was threatened, go to the towers and the giants will lend their aid. Assuming humanity was still worth it.

And so, the Vastillians made a promise.

A creed.

Throughout history, several disasters threatened the land. It usually came down to war, but regardless of how mystical or political the problem was, a hero always emerged, and the spires were at the center of solving them.

When the sky first shattered, the continent trembled to its knees. All save for Vastille. Whatever the phenomenon may be, they knew of a solution. They already have an answer.

*

Kyr was lost in thought as Roy led him around the academy.

Long hallways, empty classrooms, dark chambers smelling of sweet potions. Kyr paid no attention to them, instead ruminating on the old legend, wondering how relevant it was in solving their problem.

The sky wasn’t shattered in the stories. The legend was known all across Feonas, but no version ever mentioned red lines that shifted, or the fact that it counted down to something. If only the records weren’t muddied by teachings of the sacred order.

Still… every record, even those found outside Vastille, talked of the power the spires held. And how a hero was always the one to activate them.

Even without fully understanding it, Kyr wasn’t against the king’s plan to follow the legend. Far from it.

“Here we are!”

Kyr looked up and stopped himself before bumping into Roy. He glanced around.

The stadium was a large, circular field on the lower side of the academy, wedged between the Forest of Confluence and the Samari River. It was inspired by the amphitheaters found in the southwestern republics, with rows of spectator seats and an open-air ceiling. The difference was the magical barrier erected like a transparent dome above the architecture, preventing magic from leaving the stadium.

It was used for magical bouts and end-of-the-year exams, but for the majority of the time, it was a practice field for students to freely use their magic. The wealth of mana beneath the earth was second only to the royal palace within the city of Esmerand.

Today, however, the stadium didn’t reverberate with blasts of mana but the clashing of steel. A dozen or so knights in gleaming armor loitered near the center of the field, while students in robes spectated in the seats, cheering.

There was a match between an old knight with an axe… and the hero Aven, wearing a simple white tunic, wool leggings and dirty boots.

Kyr noticed the prismatic glimmer of magic on the older fellow’s weapon and armor, while the hero tried his best to whack at him with a practice sword.

Aven was unbelievably fast. He twirled around in a very unorthodox style of combat with an easy smile on his lips. Little by little, he chipped away at the old knight’s armor—who was purely on the defensive—striking at precisely the same spots in the chest and the flat part of his axe.

Normally, the armor would crack at the repeated blows, but the layer of magic refilled the chinks on those same spots whilst decreasing its overall potency.

As if realizing this, Aven started hitting the old knight in easier spots to attack, but at an even faster rate. He was practically a blur at his speed.

Eventually, the magic in the knight’s armor burst like shattered glass as its potency was fully exhausted.

Aven stopped his sword just short of the old man’s chin.

“Magic shields are impressive, Headmaster Lwenas!” the hero shouted with a big grin. His brown hair and emerald eyes gleamed brightly against the sun. “But considering every part hit reduces its overall effectiveness, it functions more like… what do you call it… a buffer?”

The knights echoed murmurs of agreement.

“I’m surprised you already deduced that much from sparring once,” Lwenas said. The headmaster wore her formal robe, white-and-gold unlike the students, while her pointed hat barely held the knots of her crimson hair, splayed like overgrown vines. She fixed her spectacles in place, then summoned two transparent spheres in the air. One was thicker than the other. “The fragility of magic depends on how much of it is used. The larger the quantity, the harder to maintain. While relying on a sorcerer is fine, the quality of armor and skill of the wearer are far more important in surviving a fight.”

The thicker sphere disintegrated, while the thinner one stayed longer before vanishing as well.

“That makes sense…” Aven said. “I think I understand why magic shields are barely used outside of Vastille. They’d rather conserve mana for spells that mattered more.”

“Quite,” the headmaster said. “Your quest to perform the sacred rites is an established tradition, but stories always spoke of its hardship. We’ve already heard reports of beasts gathering near the spires, and who knows what challenge await you inside them. If the cracked sky is any indication, expect the unexpected.”

“That just means they’ll need the absolute best sorcerer our academy has to offer!” a voice declared. Roy.

The knights all turned to face them. To face Kyr.