Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

Slowly but surely Calavia built up the courage to walk up to her brother and say hello. She started by standing up and walking past everyone who was in the way and standing behind and waiting for him to finish the conversation. Just as the small group finished talking, one of the older men at the table sitting opposite of him pointed to Calavia and said “Hey Caeso, you have someone waiting for you.”

A little surprised, Caeso turned around in his chair and saw that it was Calavia, his little sister that was waiting for him. “Calavia? What are you doing here?” Everyone at the table paused and didn’t say a word hoping that it wasn’t an ex that he was talking to.

“Hey Caeso, you didn’t tell anyone about your promotion to a mounted rider. I at least hope you sent a letter to mom and dad about it, they will certainly want to know about something so important happening in your life.” At the mention of parents everyone at the table aside from Caeso let out a breath and relaxed, thankful it wasn’t going to be a shit show.

“Uh yes, yes I did. The exact moment I received the promotion to be exact. Though I suspect it will take a little while longer for them to receive it since it was so sudden.”

Calavia quickly took a seat next to her brother and she joined in on the conversation. Caeso’s colleagues asked a few quests about their childhood since Caeso was always so tight-lipped about it and she answered honestly. “To be honest even from my very first memory he was always doing something with a bow. It was of no surprise when he joined the military with the intention to become a proper archer.”

“Speaking of war, why exactly are you out here on a war front? While it isn’t the most dangerous place where the fighting is happening, it is still quite dangerous compared to working as a mercenary and fighting bandits or monsters.” Caeso decided to be direct with his questioning and ask his sister outright as to why she was there.

“Oh I came here with my friend Arthur.” Calavia said and pointed to him across the room. Caeso looked over and saw a young man half asleep eating soup and wearing plate armor.

“His name is Arthur? That is quite a foreign name, where is he from?”

“I honestly don’t know, and neither does he. He doesn’t recall anything that happened in his life before around a year ago now when he woke up in an abandoned dwarven city. That was actually how he met the leader of the mercenaries here Lyra, she was hired along with her mercenaries to conduct an expedition of the dwarven city and they brought him with them back to Antium where I met him.”

“Wait, so you came all the way out here for someone you are friends with?”

“Yes I did. Is there something wrong with that?” Calavia could feel that her brother was thinking something that she wasn’t quite getting, something about her and Arthur.

“And Arthur over there is just your friend, not by any chance your boyfriend?” Calavia’s face immediately went red with embarrassment at the sudden realization.

“What!? No no no! We are just friends, we haven't done anything like that.” This embarrassed attempt at a rebuke just led to Caeso and his colleagues to start to tease her about her ‘just friend’ and how devastated he must be to hear that. Meanwhile Arthur was using up all his remaining willpower not to slam his face into what little soup he still had.

“No no no! We haven’t even kissed or anything. We are just friends. Why don’t you just go and ask him, he will tell you everything I have.”

“Alright, I will go and ask him to come and eat with us.” Caeso stood up from his seat and walked over to where Arthur was eating alone and sat down next to him.

“Hello Arthur. I am Caeso, Calavia’s brother. Would you like to eat with the rest of us instead of by yourself? Calavia even recommended that we ask you to join us.” Arthur looked over to the sudden visitor he found sitting next to him, in fact it was the same person that Calavia pointed out as her brother the night before.

“Sure thing, just whereabouts are you all sitting?” Arthur said before he accidentally let out a deep yawn while standing up. Caeso showed him to the table and Arthur took a seat on the opposite side of Caeso as Calavia was sitting while he slowly continued to eat his soup.

“So how did you meet my sister Arthur? I feel as if Calavia left out a few details when explaining how the two of you met and became friends.” Caeso smiled and looked over to Calavia with a smirk on his face annoying his sister greatly.

“Well it started in Antium shortly after I arrived from Dom Badaher with Lyra and her mercenaries. I was given a small reward from the crown since I wasn't directly hired to take part in that expedition but still contributed greatly by opening the front door from the inside and explaining some of the dangers that I encountered. I actually met Calavia in the lobby while waiting for said reward and later found out she received something similar for an unexpected discovery regarding second era magic.”

Taking a big gulp of his soup and finishing it up Arthur paused for a moment before continuing. “Later we met up again at the mages guild while I was attending lessons in pyromancy and aeromancy, from there we met more and more often and even started having lunch together on occasion. When I eventually bought my own home after I finished my apprenticeship she would often come over for dinner, and when I found an apprentice of my own she would come by and occasionally do things together.”

Arthur continued with his explanation by describing all sorts of things that they did together from paying checkers and him quickly surpassing her in skill to testing out his mage staff spells in one of the testing rooms within the guild. Arthur gave them so much detail that by the halfway point in his explanation everyone was silent as they just watched him explain. The only interruptions he experienced were from his own yawns due to a lack of sleep.

When he finally finished Caeso was the only one brave enough to say anything. “Wow, you really have a good memory don't you Arthur. You would be a really good detective.”

“I remember everything, except what happened before I woke up in Dom Badaher. Everything after that I have a perfect memory of like it happened just moments before, that is part of the reason as to why I am so talented in terms of magic.” Arthur quickly and easily conjured up a ball of flame in his hand to make his point.

“Wow, that is certainly impressive. But have you tried putting this impressive memory of yours to other talents, like say archery for example.” Calavia turned and raised her eyebrow at her brother at this question. Like she recalled everything in his life was about archery.

“I can’t say I have, most of what I have done has been in relation to magic. Even alchemy technically falls under the category of magic due to the unique spells that are used in the creation of most useful potions, like the healing potion for example. I also dabble in enchanting which is just adding spells to physical objects to cast without the use of mana.”

“Well I definitely recommend that you at least consider looking into trying something new. Who knows, you might find something that you enjoy doing.”

*********

The table soon cleared out as everyone was done eating their soup. Those that were on duty for their patrols exit to go and do that while Arthur and those who were just recently on duty went back to their dorms to sleep. With this new company to reinforce the fort everyone was feeling a lot better about their odds of protecting it, so much so that several patrols and scouts were sent to investigate what the empire’s forces were doing within their own fort.

To their surprise they didn’t encounter any patrols or even scouts outside the walls of the fort, there were guards on the walls that would fire an arrow or two if they got too close, but that was about it. It was odd, very odd, and Captain Bjorn wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“What do you all think of the situation? The empire hasn't made a single move since they attacked us directly. Are they planning another strike against us or are they waiting for their own reinforcements?” Captain Bjorn said to his high ranking subordinates and the leaders of the two mercenary groups that were hired.

“It could be nothing, but knowing the empire and how they acted during the previous war I wouldn’t be surprised if they were summoning a powerful demon to bring us down.” The second mercenary captain, a Pyrosa native man carrying a scimitar and shield on his back was the first to speak. “The only thing we can do if that is the case is try and find out what type of demon it is and how powerful it is. We would be lucky if it were just a brute, but knowing the empire they would try to switch things up with a warlock or succubus.”

“Any other possibilities aside from the worst case scenario, and do keep in mind it is not our job to conquer the enemy's fort but to keep our own from falling into their hands.”

“We haven’t noticed any person of any size or shape leaving the enemy's fort since their attack. Odds are they haven't sent any messengers to request reinforcements.” The leader of the scouts dressed in light leather armor and a grey cloak stated.

“Unless their mages are capable of casting powerful conjuration magic and teleported an individual or group in or out of their fort. And don’t anyone discount that possibility, you all saw the powerful spells they were throwing around without any worry for preserving their mana reserves, and I didn’t see any magic items in their hands.” An older woman with greying hairs stated as she stepped forward, her grey mage robe showing she was a member of the mages guild. “Unfortunately we have no way of detecting anything like that unless we knew they were casting that ahead of time. The best we can do is set up a long distance ward or two to detect any sort of conjuration magic, this will also be useful for detecting any summoning spells as the wards will detect the spell for a lot longer than a simple teleport spell.”

“Thank you Ms. Corda. Does anyone else have anything else to say because if not I will be ending this meeting.” Waiting for a moment to allow anyone to speak up Captain Bjorn but no one did. “Very well, that concludes this meeting. If anyone thinks of anything please come and visit me at my office so we can discuss it in private.”

Everyone quickly left the room aside from Ms. Corda who wished to speak regarding the wards she wanted to set up. For a moment Captain Bjorn looked out the window to the courtyard and watched as several soldiers walked around or practiced their chosen weapon. Deep down he could feel something was wrong, something that was going to cost him and everyone within the fort dearly. The only problem was he didn’t know who or what it was.

*********

Captain Bjorn wasn’t the only one to feel this way either, Arthur had been feeling the looming threat growing closer and closer as time went on. It actually woke him up with a sudden jump in intensity after a few hours of sleep and kept him from sleeping any more. Taking a look around the hallway Arthur suspiciously looked around for any signs of this danger but came up empty handed. All he saw was the occasional soldier or mercenary walking around.

Slowly Arthur made his way up to the surface looking around like he was paranoid, though he didn’t find anything that was worrying he could still feel the danger shooting up and down his spine like a cat being chased by a dog. Eventually he looked across the entirety of the fort that he could access and found nothing out of the ordinary.

This went on for another three days with the feeling slowly becoming stranger and stronger as the days went on. This came at the cost of sleep, reducing Arthur’s sleep to around four or five hours a night leaving him tired throughout the day. Captain Bjorn and his advisors started setting up the wards that would detect any and all conjuration magic but not where it is coming from to save on power, not that they really needed to know where it was happening because the empire’s mages were the only ones that have are capable of conjuration magic for several miles.

“Hey Arthur. Are you alright? You don’t look so good.” Calavia asked Arthur as she found him half awake looking around the courtyard like he was a zombie. He was so tired in fact that he took a moment to register that Calavia was talking to him. “Oh, hey. I'm just looking around you know.” Arthur tried to play off how exhausted he was.

“Arthur, I think you need to take a few hours to sleep. Come on, we are going back to the dorm.” Calavia proceeded to take Arthur by the hand back to their shared dorm and forced him to lay down. “Here drink this, this will help you sleep.” Calavia handed Arthur a blue potion in a bottle that slowed slightly indicating it had magical properties.

Popping off the lid and smelt the potion. “It is a sleeping potion. It will help you sleep for around four hours before the effects wear off. I suggest you drink it.” Calavia said with a stare that could kill, so Arthur quickly downed the potion and quickly felt the effects kicking in. Slowly Arthur started having difficulty keeping his eyes open and drifted off to sleep.