The dark elf high court convened beneath an open sky, velvet black and glimmering with constellations that once blessed their founders. Elders from the three great clans sat shoulder to shoulder---robes lined with ancient magic worn by their ancestors. Before them lay a map of the Serekhal and a decision.
Tamura. Barely a month old. Marked by Lazuri. Born of legacy.
Kara Kurokishi, the head of the Kurokishi clan---known for their overwhelming flame magic slammed his cane against the court stone.
"That child is not just her blood. He is the end of our treaty! The faeries will annihilate our entire culture for his mere existence." Miyu Kazukuro, another elder leaned forward. "Lazuri walked with pride and the strength to back her arrogance. But this child? We cannot risk our people's safety on a gamble that he might hold that same strength." Across the courtyard, a quiet figure stepped from the shadows. Levi, one of Lazuri's closest friends and the newest head to the Xirkhal clan. He had just came home from his diplomatic assignment with a tribe of Beastmen when he heard the news of his friend's passing. "And here I thought we were a proud race dedicated to fixing our image and showing the faeries and all those who agree with them that we aren't foul monsters without code. Yet here I find you not even a month after our leader's passing deciding if we should kill the only one who could match her and that would also share her blood." The elders and their advisors all stand at odds with some wanting to keep the child and nurture him into a weapon. Meanwhile, others would rather send the boy to an early grave to preserve themselves and all other dark elves. Levi speaks out amidst the commotion. "If we cannot come to a peaceful settlement then might I offer a way that gives all what we want?" The room goes silent, and Levi looks around briefly before continuing. "Why not clip the boy's ears and make him seem human? It would be simple and all we have to do is use some high level concealment magic and contain his marks as well as anything that seems tied to us or Lazuri's infernal blood. We give him off anonymously to gilded kingdom known for unity and freedom. Xathia." The elders whisper around to each other and so it was decided. Tamura would be exiled unless options changed during his time away.
Levi however, made a case that Tamura should at least be taken in by him secretly until he is six years of age. The court reluctantly agreed and permitted Levi to take the boy for the next 6 years. "If you cannot raise him in honor... then allow me to carry him far away from shame." The vote passed in favor of his exile thirteen to twelve with twelve wanting to keep him.
For the next 6 years Levi would travel with Tamura, feed him, bathe him, teach him so that he might be ready for whatever challenges that should meet him in Xathia. They crossed through the Dustwrought wastes west of Nyxirath, a corrosive wasteland where light warps and the sand echoes with memories of old wars. Ash storms, mana-drained soil, echoing mirages that speak in dead languages. Ancient tombs with trap sigils still armed thousands of years later, rune howlers that grew beyond their normal size and towering over even someone as tall as Levi who already stood at an even 7 feet tall. They would escape the hellscape that was the Dustwrought only to find themselves in a not as climately harsh environment, but still had equally terrifying inhabitants. The Withergreen veil. A dying forest overtaken by parasitic plant life that feeds off mana and memory. Hollow trees with roots that extract dreams. Mimic travelers to confuse and isolate. Once a sacred grove protected by Faeries and Beastmen druids alike; now corrupted by abandoned pact magic. Here, Levi must teach Tamura to keep quiet and sense dangers that did not seem apparent and how to keep his mind calm. The dying veil actually turned out to be only the first half of a bizarre world that sperated them from their greatest obstacle yet. The Stonehorn Wilds. A biome of petrified growth where movement triggers territorial stonekin golems, sentient beings left behind by the Faeries who created them. They were also hunted by fae strays known as Echokind. The wilds were made of static groves with rooted crystal thorns. The wind carries seismic vibrations. Believed to be cursed by fae exiles who restored life to the less dangerous parts of the veil only to corrupt the new life with their hatred and chaotic magic out of grief. It's the last natural barrier before the climate fracture that leads into the Deadlands. The Deadlands was the only piece of land connecting the western and eastern worlds together. A scar left on the world where time and set climate was a joke. The storms amplified by magic, the winds everchanging, the clouds so thick that once you entered you couldn't tell how much time had passed by or how far you were inside thanks to the landscape forever shifting. Throughout their journey together, Levi had noticed something about Tamura. The boy whenever they were not in danger, the way he would look at the sky, as if he already knew it would never look back at him the same way.
Each step across these lands echoed with the presence of a woman Levi once stood beside. He remembered her voice, poised between command and compassion. The way she'd touch the earth before decisions, always listening before leading. The last time he saw her was the night she conceived Tamura, eyes bright with hope yet slightly dimmed by sorrow. "He will not need saving," she'd once said. "He will need someone brave enough to let him decide what salvation means." And Levi decided even at his old age that he owed it to them both to become that person.
At last, the shining lights of freedom loomed. Xathia. Diverse. Welcoming. Revered by diplomats. But Levi's instincts screamed out to him once he could see this majestic place. The walls were too clean. The banners were too perfect. Guards intercepted the two elves. They scanned Levi recognizing him as a high level threat and important official from the Eastern board. They then scanned Tamura and staggered upon reading his mana level. His aura was too condensed. Too primal. Too wrong.
They welcomed Levi with polite words. Asked Tamura's name. Smiled a little too tightly. Tamura might've not been able to tell exactly the problem but he knew the guards, this place was completely off. The took Tamura by the hand and as much as the boy wanted to cry, Levi prepared him for his eventual departure as much as he could and he knew it would disappoint Levi if he were to breakdown at the finish line. Levi had only whispered one thing to himself before the gates closed behind Tamura. "Lazuri... guide him through this hell as you've led our people during your time among the living. Because this place, it is no paradise. It's a hell of a performance though."
Tamura would soon be delivered to his new home later that night. It towered at the edge of Xathia's third district---it's gates gilded with silver light, lanterns ever-lit with a soft rose colored glow, and a courtyard designed to mimic the pinnacle of high-elven society and architecture. Out front, noble visitors often praised it as a sanctuary. But inside? It was a catalog.
Children were not named. They were numbered. Trained to smile when watched. whispered to never ask for more. Monitored for strength, obedience, and sale potential.
Lady Vayra, head of the Mourncrest house was the embodiment of practiced grace herself. She wore robes laced with threads from across many renowned regions. Her laugh was brittle and simply perfect to any man or woman she would take advantage of. She adopted orphans with radiant PR campaigns... and sold them through off-record auctions cloaked in guild privilege.
The guards escorted Tamura like a weapon. Six years old. Small. Quiet. No traceable parents. No legal sigil. But his mana and his strength? Unstable.
Vayra scanned him with a glance. Her voice was cold but not with judgement. With calculation. "Hello darling, you look awfully strong. I'll bet that you are hungry. Do not worry, we have plenty of food for the ones that do well here. Let's hope you do not disappoint me, my sweet child." She looked back at the guards. "He'll need isolated training and enchantments to keep a lid on that rather explosive mana he's holding in. No public assignments."
Tamura was assigned a cell---not a room, marked No. 34. The walls were dampened with mana nullifiers. The bed was metal-framed with a dirty sheet. On the edge of the sheet he could see something red, dark and appeared to have been left on the sheet for a while. Blood.
The children passed Tamura silently at first. They'd seen what happened to the last "special one." But one boy, No. 25---watched from afar, observing the way Tamura moved without blinking, how he didn't cry when pushed, how his fingers would twitch and his eyes would stare off like was remembering something lost too young.
25 was older. Smart. Tired.
He began sneaking off to Tamura's cell, periodically leaving code fragments, trail marks from old freedom stories and basic alphabet glyphs. The two didn't speak for days but Tamura understood this boy was trying to help him learn how to navigate this hell they both were trapped in as well as learning how to get out of it. Then one night, in the basement during ration sorting, the boy looked up from a moldy box and said---"You're not just strong. You're dangerous. And you need someone who'll teach you how to make that matter." Tamura was shocked that the thing that made everyone else avoid somehow got turned into a compliment. He laughed, before talking back.
"What's your name strange guy?" he asked. "I didn't know I had one but somehow I feel in my gut this is the one I was meant to have. I call myself Mugen. Although, don't let that evil "mistress" hear you call me that or she'll go feral and beat us real good." The two laughed for a bit before Mugen asked---"what's your name fire boy?" Tamura responded "It's Tamura and don't worry, the only people who will know you have a name are me and you."
"So does that make us friends now or something?" Tamura asked.
"Nah, you hold something personal of mine that could also get us in trouble. Both of us. And you're willing to take that risk for no reason other than I asked. We have to look out for each other." He said in laughable disbelief.
"This makes us brothers..."