Chapter 6 - A Meeting of Two

Chapter 6: A Meeting of Two

As the roars of the rebellion rang loud throughout the capital, a young High Elf girl ran from alley to alley, ducking below fallen beams of burning wood and climbing over scorching hot piles of stones and splintered planks. Had she been asleep like most of the High Elf society, she too would have been burnt to cinders, yet she had been awake in the deep of night, struggling with the pain that sprouted in her chest and mind.

Every race, be it Orcs, Humans, or Elves, receives a blessing from Chubrion at different ages, which manifests as a Skill unique to each living being. Mere hours before sunset, the girl’s Skill had awoken, the searing pain robbing her of any semblance of sleep. Even as she scrambled down the alleyways, trying to avoid the hordes of humans seeking to toy with her life, she heard only the screams of her people. The closer she came to the blackened corpse of a High Elf, the stronger the screams rang in her mind, as if the very souls that once inhabited them were shrieking in eternal agony.

Despite the haunting screams and the roars of battle, a slimy and avaricious voice somehow made its way to her ears.

“There’s one! Follow me!”

A wave of despair washed over the girl’s face as she fled through the narrow alleyway, ripping parts of her clothing on the protruding stones and wooden beams. Though she ran as fast as she could, despite the numerous cuts on her legs caused by the rubble, the voices behind her only grew closer. Until all she could hear was lascivious laughter from behind her as the alley came to its end.

“Hehehe, looks like we got something fun to play with, boys.”

From behind, the girl heard a voice, callous and rapacious in nature, as the sounds of footsteps came to a halt. Her heart pounded as though she had been running for hours, circulating a primal terror through her veins. As she turned around, the anguished wails inside her head grew louder, as if her pursuers carried with them the tormented souls of the slain.

“Since I spotted her first, I’ve got dibs,” the man who appears to be the leader commented with his knife at the ready should the girl decide to resist.

The fear building within the girl became too much, as all strength sapped from her legs, causing her to collapse where she stood with tears welling in her bright red eyes. With a Skill she didn’t know how to use, and an impossible situation to escape from without facing certain death, the girl’s hopes were all but dashed as she wept. The leader reached out, grabbing the Elf girl’s braided red hair with a smile on his face.

“Nooo!” the girl screamed, shielding her face with her arms.

Yet there was a pause after her scream, and between her sobs, the girl felt something amiss. The vile man had stopped moving, and his breathing grew rapid, as if the fear the girl was feeling had transferred on to him. What was even more apparent, was that the ghastly screams in her head had grown completely silent. As the girl looked up with tears still forming in the corners of her eyes, what she saw was entirely the opposite of her expectations.

The man holding her hair was frozen in place, his eyes were stark white, and his skin had turned a ghostly pallor. Even his muscles and joints seemed to have been completely frozen, as if they could be shattered with a simple tap. 

“What are you doing?” asked one of the two humans that remained, stepping forward and placing his hand on the frozen man.

Seeing her chance to escape, and having shaken off some of her fear, the girl yanked her hair free from the frozen man’s grip.

“Get away, you freaks!” The girl screamed, shoving the frozen man with as much strength as she could muster.

The instant the girl’s fingers lifted off the man’s body, a pale blue wave of energy shot out through the alley like lightning passing through clouds. As the wave passed over the two unfrozen humans, their eyes froze in place and paled, just like the vile man who had first touched her.

Despite only the first man being pushed, all three of the humans toppled over like stone statues, with the magic-like wave of energy stripping them of any agency to respond. But the girl sat still with more confusion than she had ever felt running through her mind. Despite being capable of the most basic spells, she hadn’t cast any on the three men.

“How…” The girl stammered to herself, trying to comprehend the situation she found herself in. “How did this happen?”

Yet as the girl began to stand, a single haunting wail filled her mind. Although it was only a lone voice, its intensity was far greater than any of the other voices she had heard so far, being so loud that the girl couldn’t help but grab her head in anguish. Despite the pain imbued in her mind by the lone voice, she glanced around the alley, searching for the being, be they dead or alive, that was causing the horrid scream in her head.

“You won’t find anything down there,” an intrigued voice said from above her.

The girl turned and looked in the direction of the new voice, only to gape in absolute horror. Unlike the rest of the humans she had seen invading the capital, this one was different in both appearance and strength. While the others donned shoddy leather garbs, this man wore a light blue undershirt with white pants and a sleeveless tunic stained red with blood.

The man was dressed like a general compared to the rest, and his bleached white hair and deep red eyes only made his appearance all the more frightening. As the girl stood still with a renewed fear coursing through her veins, Ralogolar descended with his brilliant pickaxe in hand, using the razed buildings that surrounded the alley to slow his descent. 

However, as Ralogolar landed a few meters away from the girl, her perception of time began to warp. Not simply out of fear, but from something else deeper within her: something that began to gently cry out as the two locked eyes with one another. It was something she had never before experienced in the twenty-one years she had lived, almost as if something infinitely more complex than herself had awakened inside her.

“S-stay back!” The girl screamed as Ralogolar took a step toward her. “Or I’ll attack you just like I did them!”

She pointed to the petrified humans lying on the ground as she spoke, yet despite her obvious bluff, Ralogolar stopped in his tracks. 

“You, what’s your name?” Ralogolar asked the girl with intrigue in his voice. “Answer me and I promise I'll let you go unharmed.”

The girl hesitated after hearing Ralogolar’s words, not knowing if she could trust this mysterious and powerful human. 

“Solana Virro Razorwyn, that’s my name,” Solana said after a moment of thought. “Now keep your word!”

Upon hearing her name, Ralogolar stepped forward, flipping his pickaxe in the air and grabbing it by the head. With each step forward he took, Solana retreated, until her back was firmly planted against the cracked stone wall of a ruined house.

“I said, stay back!” Solana yelled, turning her face away and squeezing her eyes shut as Ralogolar came within an arm’s reach.

Yet despite her defenceless state, Solana felt nothing, not even the pain from the wailing voice in the recesses of her mind. As she opened her eyes slowly to look at him, she could only see Ralogolar, extending his pickaxe toward her with one hand.

“Take my pickaxe and head for the capital wall. A human woman named Rolozuthen will recognize it and keep you safe from anyone who would wish you harm,” Ralogolar said, waiting for Solana to accept his offer.

Solana hesitantly grabbed the pickaxe’s handle with both hands. The instant Ralogolar let go, the pickaxe sank to the ground, dragging her down with it. As she struggled to lift the pickaxe off the ground, he stepped to the side and knelt over one of the petrified humans. His body twitched as he grabbed the sword that was strapped across the man’s back; his Skill, Toolhandle, began to morph his body to match his new tool.

“Wait,” Solana said while struggling to hold the pickaxe in her arms. “What’s your name?”

Nevertheless, Ralogolar did not respond; he simply turned his back to Solana as she spoke. During the silence between the two, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, raising his new tool above his head with both hands. With each passing second, he adjusted his stance, the angle of his arms, and the strength he held in each muscle, fully letting his Skill guide him with the new tool. Moments later, his eyes flash open. As he exhaled, his arms, legs, and torso all moved in perfect unison to slash the sword through the air.

At first, only the air felt Ralogolar’s sword slice through it, but as seconds passed, the wind howled furiously, and a single diagonal cut spread across the building in front of him. The building began to slide along the cut, and the further it slid, the more apparent the power behind his slice became, as dozens of buildings split into two along the same diagonal cut.

“H-huh?” Solana stammered, both confused and awestruck at the display of power.

Satisfied with his newfound strength, Ralogolar leapt to the roof of a nearby building, leaving Solana alone in the alley with nothing but his lustrous blue pickaxe to defend herself. It was only after she was left alone that the voice screaming in her head subsided, finally allowing her to relax as her legs gave out from underneath her.

‘What was that feeling?’ Solana asked herself, finally letting out a sigh of relief as she gazed up at the night sky.

***

‘What was that feeling?’ Ralogolar thought to himself as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, making his way toward the castle walls.

From the moment he landed in front of Solana, something deep inside him squirmed uncontrollably, as if something that had been dormant inside him had been awakened from her presence. 

‘It almost felt connected to my Skill…’ He thought, tightening his grip on the new sword. ‘Perhaps it could be related to her Skill? She seemed powerful in her own right. Since she managed to turn the tables against three decently trained humans with a single blow.’

As Ralogolar was still contemplating his encounter with Solana, an ear-splitting ring ripped through the capital at frightening volume. Followed by the entire ground beneath the capital trembling, as if an earthquake was occurring directly below. Deeming it foolish to keep moving, Ralogolar came to a stop atop a half-demolished roof, glancing around the ruined capital to first locate the source of the tremor.

“Ha! So they made it to the castle wall!” Ralogolar exclaimed as he identified the source of the trembling. “They made it rather fast.”

Without further hesitation, Ralogolar continued to leap from roof to roof in the direction of the castle wall, where a breach nearly twice the size of the outer walls’ created passage. Even from halfway across the capital, the roars of the army as they spilled through the breach thundered in his ears. 

A small smile tugged at his lips; the revenge he had pursued against the High Elf country for as long as he could remember was finally coming to fruition.