ραпdα nᴏνɐ| сom The scent of fluxior herbs being melted by acid wafted through the air. The bubbling of chemicals in glass containers over a bright orange flame sent puffs of white gas from the container’s tip. There was a large set up of tubes on a desk, with substances of all sorts, being mixed methodologically and with the utmost care, just to produce one single potion.
The potion possessed a dark purple colour as well as bowel-aggravating scent. The one in charge of the experiment took up the vial and looked at it closely, her dark eyes scanning for any errors. Putting her hand to the tip, she shook the vial vigorously for a few more seconds, then brought it back to observe. There was no visible change and the woman shrugged. She put down the vial in a tube rack, where other vials of similar colour were found.
They all possessed varying shades of the colour, purple.
Slowly, she removed her white gloves made out of slime resin and quickly disposed of them into her special storage ring. Normally, a very hard to find item and a highly valued one amongst adventurers, yet nothing but a means of throwing away trash to her. She walked to the desk at the far corner of the room, where a journal laid, open, with a quill and a tab of ink to its side.
The quill made scribbling noises on the paper as her hands moved.
“Day 42 since the Arch Devil was summoned to kill my prey. I have made 10 attempts to create a poison potent enough to put an Imperial Beast to rest for good, but to no avail. I may need to more time to acquire the ultimate solution. Time that which I may not have. My body is deteriorating faster than I imagined, even though the Arch Devil still failed to kill my prey. I will have to leave soon. The Lord of the town only permitted me to use his resources since I lied to him that I would create an immortality elixir. He is growing impatient. Thankfully he is still not aware of my true identity.”
Heavy knocking was heard on the door, yet she ignored.
“The fluxior herbs I acquired recently were a great addition, but I need something more potent. I need Renosue herbs said to contain the ultimate poison with them. I need to infiltrate Larm, but the portion in which the herbs grow is where my prey lies. Travelling in there would be risky. Although, there are rumours that they grow in the Winter Zone beyond the Demise Mountains.”
The knocking on the door did not stop. In fact, it had intensified this time, making the woman drop her quill. She looked back at the door and scowled. Orders had been given that if there was a knock the first time with no response, then they were supposed to walk away. The exception to this rule was if there was an emergency.
“Open the door, this instant!”
An enraged stoic voice came through. It belonged to the Lord of the land. But why would he personally come to her quarters? Had he grown impatient to the point he actually came to investigate personally? Either way, it couldn’t be good. Reluctantly, she pulled herself away from her notes and walked to the door.
It creaked open after she released the lock on it and behind it, standing there with a red face was the Lord of the Town, Lord Taut Fullier. He ruled over a small town in the Keimen Kingdom, called Rankel. Although it was called small, this Lord was one of the more influential characters in the Keimen Kingdom’s upper echelon of nobles.
To his sides was a group of soldiers, five of them in fine steel armour with barely any openings for attack, all with their swords at the ready. The lord himself was in a fine vest, a sign that he was absolutely confident in his personal guards.
“You! What is with this letter I received?!”
He showed her the parchment. After reading through its contents, the woman became enraged as well. Absolutely unbelievable! So, they even chased her down to this tiny town where barely those without any political interest would even glance. She looked behind at all her work, then back at the parchment.
“I am sorry, my lord, but it would seem that I would have to evacuate immediately.”
She bowed her head curtly and slammed the door shut, going back to clear up all her work. One of the nobleman’s knights tried to twist the door’s knob open, but only yelped after making contact. The metallic door had been sealed to the war with intense fire magic. She cut off the fire supply to the tubes that were still being prepared. From the pouch under her cloak, she took out a tiny slime.
“You insolent wench, open this door immediately!”
Taut Fullier yelled at the top of his voice, but that was soon overshadowed by the sounds of legs kicking the door.
The woman grabbed the tube rack and pushed it into the tiny slime, without its size even changing. She saw the other tubes and was thinking about how to take it all with her, but realised that it would take too much time to clean them up and shoving them into the special storage ring where she kept her trash would lead to horrifying results.
BING! BING!
When she looked at the door, it had been dented. Something heavy and sharp was being used to stab the door, meaning amongst Fullier’s personal guard, those men had knowledge of at the very least, intermediate techniques. Underestimating them, even if she was fairly powerful would be fatal.
“Tch. You’re a paladin, aren’t you? That infamous Arcane Inferno, right!?”
From the other side, Fullier’s voice managed to come through. However, the woman was not interested in the slightest. Rather, she threw the test tubes and herbs onto the ground and started a tiny fire on one of the liquids. She rushed for the journal on the desk and put it in her bag.
She then turned her back to the door and crouched. Her body tensed up automatically in anticipation of the explosion, which hit in the next second, blowing the door off. Her cloak was a Fire-resistant cloak she purchased over her years finding ways to kill her prey.
Post the explosion, she ran out of the room, jumping over a collapsed guard’s body. In front of her, there was a large number of guards she hadn’t anticipated there being. Maybe the explosion caused a massive state of arrest amongst all the guards in the mansion.
“Oh lord of the Brightest Light, hallowed be thine name too great to be spoken. Bless mine hands with thine gift so I may put my enemies to shame. Let me soar high above! Propulsion!”
She chanted an intermediate spell quickly and bright orange flames appeared in her palms. With it, she managed to lift off the ground like a bird, flying above the heads of the guards. The soldiers stood in awe when they saw her fly above their heads using the fire.
She made a sharp turn to the left once she flew through the massive door on the corridor and sped through towards the courtyard with immense speed.
“With quivering arrows, allow us to shoot down those above the film. Water ball!”
A mage amongst the guards yelled, shooting a powerful water ball at the woman, but she easily avoided the attack and raised a finger and drew a symbol in the air. After adding a bit of mana to the symbol, multiple arrows of fire flew from it towards the mage who had attacked her first.
However, with only one hand controlling her steering, she ended up colliding into a wall and falling to the ground. She managed to recover quickly with a roll that would make one assume that she had planned all of that and resume her run.
When she made it to the door however, she was stopped by a young man whose hands had been folded. His blonde hair had a few braids in it and had been decorated in golden ornaments. He looked at the frozen woman sternly, his leafy green eyes were somehow cold and distant now.
He looked like a usually serious man, with his straight face and large build, taller than the average person, yet clothed in light armour with an arrow slung across his shoulder. His two, pointed ears twitched at the sight of the woman and a low growl could be heard.
“I am sick and tired of chasing you around, Charlotte. The day for meet up is soon.”
This man was Yvon Realtk Seris, The Paladin of Nature. The woman dropped her hood and scoffed.
Her black hair had been ruined with a few streaks of grey in it now. Her face looked mature, like that of a woman approaching her early 40s. The pair of crow’s feet at the edges of her eyes and the wrinkles that were starting to form made Yvon withdraw in disgust. The eye bags under her eyes spoke of the number of times she had avoided sleep in pursuit of her research.
She, was the Paladin of Fire.
“What happened to you, Charlotte?”
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