The city of Oakhaven was a harsh mistress for the weak.
For the son of a fallen hero,
it was a living tomb.
Its towering stone walls, built to repel beast and rival .
Every day, from the first grey light of dawn until the stars pricked the inky sky,
Liam cleared the streets. He was paid nothing but scorn, a few scraps of stale bread
a merchant would sneer, kicking a discarded cabbage near Liam's feet. . Just like his father His father could mend a broken bone with a touch,But when we needed him,
when the plague came, his green light failed us
Liam was an orphan, cast out by an indifferent orphanage master the moment he was old enough to stand upright.
His frame was perpetually thin, his muscles barely defined,
and his innate magic was so small
Couldn't connect him to the world's energy
In Oakhaven, where power dictated respect and magic defined status, Liam was less than a whisper. He was nothing.
He ate alone, slept in a drafty leanto behind the butcher's shop, and lived with the constant ache of hunger
One evening, as the guards chuckled at his struggle to lift a heavy barrel, a desperate, burning resolve ignited within Liam
He would not spend another day like this. He would not die as a forgotten soul
He would escape.
Under the cloak of the new moon,
Liam slipped through the service gate,
his heart hammering against his ribs.
He ran, not looking back,
past the fields and into the wilderness beyond. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs screamed,
until the familiar scent of Oakhaven was replaced by the earthy smell of an ancient forest.
This was the Whisperwind Jungle,
a place whispered about in fearful tones by the city folk.
Branches clawed at his skin, and unseen creatures rustled in the undergrowth. He stumbled, tripped, and finally, on the verge of collapse from exhaustion, he fell to his knees, his hope in the darkness.
Just as he was about to give up, a voice echoed
"Come to me...".
Liam froze,
looking around wildly in the gloom.
"Follow my voice... I will guide you". He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled forward, towards this strange sound.
The voice guided his steps, leading him deeper into the jungle.
Finally, the voice led him to the mouth of a hidden crevice,
from which the sound emanated most strongly.
As he peered into the absolute darkness
of the shaft, he slipped and fell
scraped and bruised, down the dark, narrow shaft, finally landing far below. He lay there, gasping, his body aching,
The darkness absolute.
Then, two pinpricks of emerald light opened before him. They were impossibly large,
"A mortal... at last".
Liam scrambled back, fear overriding his pain.
As the emerald lights drew closer,
he saw it: a creature of nightmare.
It was an impossibly vast serpent,
"Do not fear, young one,"
"My time... draws to a close," the voice continued,
"For eons, I have hidden here like a coward.
Ireceived this power,
this terrible legacy...
but I could not master it.
I didn't have the guts to interfere with their plan. After years,
they didn't even care anymore
they understood I was no threat, they left me to rot.
But I mastered a skill that can transfer this power to someone else
in the hope that one day
some one could do it and make them pay for what they are doing to this world.
the serpent looked at Liam , "you are weak. Fragile.
But your heart holds a burning ember of hatred, a yearning for strength that I lost long ago. You are worthy".
The colossal head lowered,
bringing the massive fangs perilously close to Liam's face.
"Take this curse from me. Ascend where I have failed".
Liam squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the end.
the serpent's power, went into him. It was like liquid fire,
tearing through his veins,
restructuring every cell of his being,
ripping away the weakness that had defined his life.
He screamed, a sound swallowed by the cavern's depths,
as his body convulsed,
his vision exploding with blinding light. The last thing he heard,
was the serpent's fading whisper,
"Live, weak one. Live... and ascend"