The First War Mage: City in the Sky

By the time I had left the bathroom, well refreshed, several hours had passed. The comfort of just resting in the heated water left me to fall asleep for some time, only woken up when Tulip knocked on the door to check on me, alongside delivering the message that food was here.

With a sigh I pulled myself out of the water, spending only a moment to use a towel to dry off before putting on spare clothing from within my ring. The medical salve that had been offered worked wonders, taking only a few minutes for my burns to be almost completely healed, with my skin now freshly tanned showing underneath.

With my hair still wet, sticking to my head and the back of my neck I left the bathroom. The sweet scent of fresh bread hit my nostrils almost the instant the door was opened, alongside a more bitter scent of cooked, heavily salted meat.

“Feel better now?” Tulip was quick to ask as I stepped into view.

“Much… Though I wish I could go lay down there for longer. That felt amazing.” I spoke with the relaxation clear in my voice, sitting in a pool of steaming water was far more enjoyable being sprayed down by the ice cold water magic to be ‘cleaned’ in the mines.

“How’s it taste?” I asked as I walked to sit beside Tulip, looking at the bowl of food. It was a sort of stew with a large loaf of bread cut into two pieces to be split between the two of us. The bowls were filled with a dark broth, floating chunks of dark meat sat in between soaked noodles and many different greens.

“It’s weird, definitely different from anything in Berinia but it doesn’t taste bad.” Tulip replied as she sipped at her bowl slowly.

The steam still wafting upwards from my bowl left me to raise it to my lips, blowing on it gently to cool it down before I sipped at it.

I was amazed by the taste, while it was far from anything I had eaten before it was wholly unique. The broth mixed with the noodles and meat gave it a taste that left me desperate for more as I hardly offered enough time to even chew before gulping it down.

I let out a quite content sigh after gorging the portion of food offered, Tulip for her part just giggled with a full mouth as I stood up.

“Well with that… I’m going to go and get some sleep.” I sighed out, far more content now. Tulip just shrugged as I walked down the hall where the bedrooms sat, opening the door to one I could see through the bare window that it was well into the night by this point. Fires were lit through the city, presumably by the guards to keep watch.

In the distance I could hear the muttering of a handful of conversations, though they were so distant I couldn’t make out any words. The wall itself around the city had been cleared out substantially in the mere few hours it had been rubble cleared and being ground down into more usable chunks that were being repurposed into roads and buildings.

Pulling my eyes from the window for a few moments I took in the room, it was similarly bare just like most of the rest of the guest area had been. With a single bed and a stand next to it, though both were made of finely carved stone with grand decorations running through them in comparison to the rest of the bland almost gray room they felt almost out of place.

The floors underfoot were changed from harder stone tiles to a much softer wood that had a noticeable give to it which felt far easier to stand on. The bed held a small few covers, which I frankly understood given the heat wafting in through the open windows.

The walls were devoid of any decorations bar the carved lines between the individual bricks, my musings were torn away from the wall as I heard a large amount of talking rapidly approaching the wall my window sat on.

I walked over to it, while not looking out directly I stood in a position to see who was talking, looking down at the paths leading towards the keep I could immediately recognize Brimrose, who was being followed by a small line of children. None of them looked like they could have been older than twelve.

“Miss Brimrose… Why are you bringing us into the keep? I thought only important people were allowed here?” I heard one of the younger looking kids in the group ask as she looked up towards Brimrose.

“You all are important. The children of the city should take our highest priority, especially those who have lost as much as all of you. But don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll all be getting through here soon.” Brimrose replied to the young girl, I saw her gaze flick up towards the window I was watching from, for just a moment our eyes met before she went to bring the children inside.

I sighed a little, it didn’t take much to figure out how they had ‘lost so much’ as Brimrose put it. They were just the lucky few who survived whatever cataclysm had struck the city down.

I turned away from the window, returning to the side of my bed. I turned to sit down on it for only a moment before I fell backwards, swinging my legs around to lay across the top of the covers.

Sleep was quick to find me as my eyes fluttered shut, the soft sounds of the city outside of my window was surprisingly soothing. Almost familiar in an odd way, even though it was a far nicer sound than the screams of pain, and cracks of whips and batons hitting people within their cells at night.

I was thankful to not be tortured by dreams, with my eyes crawling open as a knock on the door to my room began to wake me. I could only mutter out a dissatisfied groan as I was being stirred, the knocks returned a second time with more speed and volume behind them.

“Who is it?...” I managed to barely slur out from my still sleep-addled mind. My eyes fluttered open slowly only to quickly close as the sunlight shining through the window began to assault my eyes.

“It’s Brimrose, Princess Tulip requested for me to leave you resting for the time being. But I have something I could use your help with.” Brimrose spoke through the door.

I let out a groan with my confusion, my still groggy mind couldn’t make sense out of how or why I would be useful to Brimrose. But pushing myself off of the bed I walked over to the door.

“Kirin?” Brimrose asked again through the door.

“What… Is it exactly? Why do you need my help? And where’s Tulip?” I winced a little as I opened the door to greet Brimrose, looking up to meet her eyes as I unleashed the torrent of questions.

“I can tell you as we walk, come on.” Brimrose turned on a dime to begin walking, she was wearing clothing much like the previous day. “Tulip is elsewhere in the keep, it will take the majority of the day for our smith to get her out of the shackles. It is… A labor intensive job.”

“Alright…” My eyes moved around the room as we began out through the guest area. It remained much the same as it was the previous evening, a few things were moved from Tulip this morning.

“What I’m needing you to do is to watch over some children. I believe you saw last night I was bringing them in… They are the lucky few survivors. Those without their parents left. I cannot spare any guards to watch them, nor can I spare myself as I am the only Earth Mage capable of repairing the walls quickly.” Brimrose sighed, shaking her head. “We have reason to believe that Raiders are preparing a large attack while we are weakened like this”

“I… See.” I spoke out after several moments of silence. “When will we be able to make contact with Bernia?...” I asked once the silence began to drag for uncomfortably long.

Brimrose remained silent for several moments as we turned down a hall, heading down a set of stairs back to the main floor. She walked with purpose in her steps and confidence that left her heels echoing as they struck the floor.

“Tomorrow morning is the current plan.” She finally broke the silence, following with a sigh before continuing. “The Mirror however, is damaged, and I am not sure if it will be capable of contacting Berinia for very long.”

“Damaged in what way? How… Does that even work if it's damaged?” The confusion was clear in my voice as my eyes shifted away from the hall we were walking through up to Brimrose once more.

“Enchanted items, such as Spacial Mirrors, require crystals that store specific Elements of mana. One of the crystals that powers this specific Mirror was fractured during the storm, and it is a rather high chance that this mirror could simply not work, or if it does work it will be for a limited amount of time before it breaks entirely.”

“So there’s a chance that it could just not work at all.” I turned my gaze straight again. “What exactly are you wanting me to do with a bunch of kids?... I'm not exactly ‘skilled’ when it comes to that.”

“Just talk to them, many of them are scared of humans. And while it may sound absurd, I hope for a day that Elves and Humans can stop hating each other so adamantly. Even if I can only make so much difference… The slow outlawing of the slavery of Humans has been helping already.” Brimrose shifted her head over to look down at me with a smile.

“Scared of humans?...” I asked as I met her gaze.

“Similar to how you Humans tell stories of the ‘Monsters under the bed’, Elves tell stories of the olden days… Before even the Elves had their first kingdom, when Human hunting parties would hunt us all down. Kidnap us and Enslave us… Some of the Elders say they still remember those days, nearly a thousand years ago, yet only one Elf is known to have lived that long and he refuses to leave his abode. They use these folk tales as the excuse of their ‘rights’ to enslave Humans.” Brimrose spoke with scorn in her voice. “The only way to stop these vicious cycles is to start with the new generations. And, separate them from those hates and fears.”

“I guess I understand that… And is there anyone alive that old? That seems… Absurd.” I was left gawking at just the idea of someone living for over a thousand years.

“The more powerful a mage is, the longer they live. And while ‘Magic’ as we know it is relatively new, stories of it go back far longer than just a thousand years. It just spread explosively in more recent generations. And, we Elves already live for nearly a hundred and fifty years on average as opposed to the roughly seventy years that Humans do.” Brimrose shrugged gently as she spoke. “Who's to say if the ‘Elder’ actually exists or not. If they do, they're a hermit who hides in the Jungles doing nothing.”

I nodded softly, thinking over the information for the few moments of silence given before we stopped before a door that conversations could easily be heard behind.

“Only a few of the kids, the two youngest are here right now. The older ones insisted on being able to help around the city however they could.” Brimrose spoke quickly before she pushed the door open, stepping in and I followed behind her.