Troy’s outlook on life had changed drastically for two reasons. The first being that she’d been treated like little more than a doormat for season cycles only to be returned like cheap clothing after it’d been worn a few times. While the second gave her hope. The second reason was the season cycles worth of free lodging she’d gained from Almarine. She could use the time to train, save for a local college Sekt, and potentially set herself up for the rest of her life. “If the orphanage survives the season…,” muttered Troy. She ran through the forests held within the orphanages perimeter wall. Lost in thought and with no destination in mind. She let the light of the suns bathe her skin and felt her core pull at every bit of the ambient energies. “If only I knew a better way to use everything I have stored…” Troy had at first felt she’d been blessed. Her affinity for light gave her access to a mana type that the suns above made in abundance. So during the daylight hours. She felt like a water balloon on the brim of bursting with the energy. The sensation when she tapped into the source was enough to make her mind go blank and her body go numb instantly in an odd ecstasy. This alone made the self-teaching experience that Troy dreamed of in her head since she’d formed her core, impossible. Her parents had kept her in the dark for days in a vain attempt to balance the amount of power she’d already ingested, but nothing had worked. This being one of the many reasons why she’d been returned. “I knew my fear of the dark would hinder me one day, but...” Troy sighed unable to finish the thought. She began to wonder if the training would have worked if she would have given every bit of her effort and drive to the process offered by the odd couple that had adopted her. “Who are you kidding Troy, if you really believe that then do it now, no excuses,” said Troy. The attempt to pump herself up to be in a dark environment almost worked. Then she came across a random cave entrance consumed by darkness and was faced with the potential of actually being in the position to force herself to follow through. “Embers and sparks! Is the Maiden trying to freeze my corpse where I stand? Why not make me run pass an abandoned building, or a hut, or I could even turn off the lights in my room?” said Troy with a slow veer in her path toward the cave mouth. She peeked in and decided that sitting within the entrance would suffice. She couldn’t see down further into the path that led into the cave’s mouth. The darkness beyond was so thick it made her feel as if it was alive. So much in fact that she rotated to face it rather than the light that led to freedom. “So what should I do here?” The darkness beyond gave no answer, and Troy grew nervous at the odd combination of silence and seemingly endless darkness. “Yeah… over the dark let's see what is beyond.” Troy focused on pushing as much light out of her body as she possibly could. If she succeeded in at least this small feat, the immediate void before her should be dispelled. The moment she pressed on her core the flood began. Illumination bright enough to vanquish shadows from the darkest of corners unveiled all of 100 meters in front of her. "What the…" Troy knew she’d found something irregular the moment she recognized the telltale signs of a clean cut hallway, with high arches and lavishly designed pillars. “Well…” … Winter sat at a desk in a pit, four walls and a roof surrounded him in an attempt to give the sergeant an office. Privacy was needed for the formal interrogations he’d been instructed to perform. Those who’d returned to work had to both deal with the reconstruction of the Graveyard headquarters, amongst a short list of other duties Winter was more than annoyed to have to deal with. “Did you commit the practice of acquiring a mortal through lawful or unlawful means for the use of any activities that go against the Foundations of Life and its Divine Morals?” The officers across from Winter looked toward one another, the husband and wife had shown no signs of anything odd until that slight glance. The only change in behavior seen from Mr. and Mrs. Bradly, and Josie Vellum since they’d sat down. “Our son was snatched from our hands, Sergeant Winter,” said Mrs. Vellum. “The only thing I can admit to doing wrong here, Sergeant, is not discussing what I had planned with the chain of command,” stated Mr. Vellum. “And what exactly do you mean by that, Bradly?” Winter watched the man’s neck twitch as he fought against the instinct to look at his wife. While Josie remained calm in a way that made Winter be forced to fight down a smile. You may call the shots, Brad, but how much of those shots aren’t inspired by your wife, we’ll see… “I should have reported my findings immediately, but feeling as if my slight actions couldn’t be so grand, I assumed the underground club I found to be but a small piece of a criminal organization, not a megaplex filled to the brim with depravity,” explained the man. His wife nodding during his entire statement. “To the point that you let your adopted son be beaten bloody?” Winter waved his hand an a news image that showed Almarine in the air above a crumbling nightclub flickered into view created by holograms. The headline read, Defender of Freedom?. The bloodied Arson and Almarine the only pieces of the holgram shown in color. A night sky filled with orphans illuminated in greyscale all around the two further emphasized the impact of the image being displayed. The man and woman, shared another unintentional look that made Winter sigh deep enough that he wondered if his age showed. “That may have been my fault, Sergeant, I pushed him to stay quiet that night as we did not want to reveal ourselves to the other active members in the club,” said Mrs. Vellum. Winter scoffed, having had heard that same reason from the other dozen officers he interviewed internally already. A feeling of disgust filled him at the amount of revolting activities that went unseen by even his own officers, men and women supposedly trained to do right by their own society. Not everyone takes the vow of the grave for honor ,Winter, you must remember that. “So you didn’t inform any commanding officers, you didn’t stop the gross actions of the surrounding parties, nor from what I can tell were you afraid to let the child under your protection suffer for the pleasure of those gathered, so what is it that you feel you actually did other than be directly involved?” He’d tried to keep the heat from his voice, but it hadn’t worked. Winter could see both of them begin to perspire. Almarine’s training flared in the back of his mind and he noticed both man and wife tense in a way that let Winter know everything he needed. Please run… I still have some aggression of my own to work out over this pile of embers my sparking self. “Hmph.” Winter crossed his arms at the pair even as they both rose to their feet. The portal that began to stretch open beneath the pair on the ground, caught the husband, but Mrs. Vellum moved quickly enough to step off of the edge of the portal and jump into the air. Mr. Vellum scrambled as gravity took hold, his upper half the only thing visible in a blink. The man summoned a green chain from within his core. The strange metal wrapped around his wrist before it extended out like a whip’s tail to wrap itself around the end of Winter’s desk. The man dangled above a pit similar to the one Arson had been pulled from. Only differences were the size of the pit, and how many cultivators fought endlessly below eclipsed the few dozens by almost a hundred times over. “Get me out of here Josie, get me out of here right now!” Winter snorted at the face of panic that consumed the man’s wife at the sight of the prison planet below them. Bradly dangled helplessly, while his wife showed all signs of running away. Widened eyes, spontaneous heavy breathing spawned by an increased adrenaline rate, Winter merely had to wait. “Don’t you dare do it Josie, this was all your idea, you better not leave me to suffer here alone!” Winter didn’t have to wait long. The stress of what was happening stripped reason from the woman’s mind. There… Mrs. Vellum turned around so quickly that her leap backward and away from Winter sent her directly into a second portal he’d opened behind her. The woman disappeared completely as the portal closed behind her; the only traces of her existence the scream cut off by the gateway being shut. A knock came from Winter’s office door, and Winter extended an invitation for his secretary to enter. The woman opened the door and saw Mr. Vellum dangling inside what most who saw the sight would consider to be a hell-mouth, and her jaw dropped open. “I just wondered if you needed anything sir,” stuttered the elderly mortal woman. Winter shook his head at the same time that a portal opened in front of a wall positioned just above the portal Mr. Vellum swung in. Mrs. Vellum flew free of the portal at terminal velocity. Her spinning figure both smacked into the wall the portal was positioned in front of, before her speed forced her to crumble like clay pots tossed from a rooftop. The woman folded in on herself, and dropped into the hole. Mr. Vellum doing his best to avoid the body of his wife from hitting him as sweat from his grip on the chain he held grew desperate made Winter miss Almarine in a way he hadn’t in season cycles. “No just send in the next group,” said Winter. The portal at his feet closing slowly while Bradly Vellum’s pleading cries rang out the office and into the waiting area filled with Graveyard officers. Many of which could see Winter standing above the portal being illuminated by strange spiraling lights. The sounds of violence and screams coming from the pit he stood above all that could be heard between Winter’s own words to his secretary. Another young pair of officers made eye contact with others further down in line from themselves, and all four got to their feet without a word. “Are you sure sir,” said Winter’s secretary with a nervous glance toward the fleeing group. Winter’s hands filled with runes and a soft mix of multi colored light in that moment, his upturned palms a threat enough to freeze everyone who remained. “Absolutely…” … Arson slept. His body lay in a pond filled with water created from mana. Which was different from mana created from water in that the former of the two was far more pure. Almarine left him in this pond, as it was a point of power in her study. She’d designed a group of three fountains to overflow and spill into the pond centered between the architectural decorations. One fountain created a liquid ambient mana. The second created artificial life force through the mixture of the 11 basic elements and the use of nano bots small enough to synthesize the mixture at an atomic level. With the final fountain being a celestials fountain. The final fountain could only be gifted to immortals, or mortals by gods, as a fountain of manna, was even more precious than the second fountain, more prominently known as a fountain of youth. Arson’s mind was so far deep into unconsciousness that the subtle bob of the ripples made by the fountains river like overflows was unfelt. The sound of the machinery around him didn’t make him stir. So even as entire rooms and buildings moved through the air above him, the work left behind by Almarine’s children remained undiscovered, while Arson slept peacefully and undisturbed. It had been a fortnight since he’d been rescued, and without a single action being taken on Arson’s part, his adopted mother, was a few moments from being confronted by one of the realm’s most prominent cultivators, Jade of CloudLake. Almarine strolled into the pocket dimension from one of the many entrances hidden throughout the orphanage, and crouched near the water. Her soft smile at seeing Arson, was soon reflected on the young boy’s face, Arson able to smell the scent of flowers that usually accompanied Almarine’s presence. “I’d say you were faking being asleep if I couldn’t sense that your inner light is in a state of hibernation, but you smiling every time I come visit is going to give me a big head whether you wake up soon or not,” said Almarine. She looked around at the skyscrapers interior that formed her study, struggling not to cry as the closest thing to her son Arkanous battled for his life in front of her. “You are so much alike, it scares me sometimes, I’m afraid what will truly happen if you find the same love for crafting as he had. Maiden help us at the ember load of stress that will add to my plate.” Tears flowed free from her eyes and she reached out to brush hair from Arson’s face as his path floating within the vortex made by the three convening streams brought him into arms reach. “I need you to make me a promise, child,” said Almarine as she wiped her face and smiled. “Promise me that if I lose, you will become everything your fellow orphans need and more,” started Almarine, standing from her crouch. “Promise me that you will live up to your own potential.” Almarine clenched her fist as she gained the confidence to say what she needed to. Fear, so unfamiliar to her, that she found herself breathing in a meditative fashion in between words. “Promise me that you won’t be controlled by the demands of a pathless society, a society incapable of supporting those that hold its corrupted structures above their own heads while they’re only able to find value in those who share in being anchored down, traumas of the past placed upon their necks.” Almarine turned to leave her study. Accepted the contract written by the system that named Arson as the owner of the orphanage and all the grounds held within the perimeter wall. Only glancing back a single time at the boy she loved like her own son. “Promise me that you will remain free.”
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