The Hidden Truth

“Shortly after leaving you at the orphanage, mother remarried a count. He took us to the capital and began to educate me on noble etiquette and liberal arts. He said it was necessary in order for me to find a good match. Since language was a part of the curriculum and I like history, I decided to learn the ancient language. Eventually I asked the count if he could get me a job in the royal library, under the pretense that I could make connections and study at the same time. He agreed. The royal library had a section for books and manuscripts written in the ancient language. Hardly anyone goes there because most people don’t see any merit in learning a dead language. When I wanted to be alone, I would read there.”

“That’s where she met me” Tyler picked up the story. “Before the war, Duke Silvester had asked my father permission to approach me for a favor. He said the imperial family was carelessly playing with things they shouldn’t. At the time, my father didn’t think it was worth the risk and he denied the duke’s request. But when the war started, things changed. My father saw first hand the incompetence of the monarchy. He told Silvester that should we return alive, he would help him. Unfortunately the duke died and we never heard the full story. But he told my father enough that I knew where to start looking. So I asked Tali if she could find anything related to the mage wars. I had access to the library but I can’t read ancient language.”

“And I found them,” Tali continued. “There weren’t a lot of references but there were a few. I put them aside and began translating the ones with relevant information. That’s when I realized this wasn’t some light reading. The mage wars took place before the current kingdom was established. Back then, the use of magic was the norm. But a group of mages thought they were better than humans without magic. They tried to kill off the regular humans and start a new race with only mages. They practiced forbidden spells that required sacrifices. Eventually, the mages who did not agree with their radical views rose up against them. This started the mage wars. There were certain family lines that used elemental magic. The current royal family is one of those families. There were also wind, water and earth elementals. They banded together with the good mages, to seal the ones practicing forbidden arts. They nominated the head of the fire elementals to lead the people and to guard the seal. This was the first royal family of Arrs. Unfortunately for the rest of the mages, people were now afraid of magic. Many families that were made predominately out of mages chose to relocate to a country without such negative stigma. Of the few that remained, they chose to work for the imperial family. A few more generations passed and magic was no longer the norm. Mages began sealing their magic so as not to face discrimination.”

“The secret was passed down within the royal family. When the current king took the throne, he became worried that people would revolt. It had been many generations since the last aura user, so weren’t the royal family just regular people now? He was paranoid that other nobles would realize that there was no longer anything special about the current royal family and that a different family could easily fill the role. So he started experimenting on the seal. Later, when he realized his favored son had nothing to offer but his lineage, the king got reckless. The seal eventually broke and the crazed souls of the already depraved wizards were released. Since their bodies were long gone, the souls resemble black mist. The irony is that the King’s favorite son was the first to become tainted. I heard that he might not actually be dead but instead locked up.”

There was dead silence after Tyler finished the tale. There was so much information to process. The mist that had taken over people’s bodies turned out to be the souls of ancient wizards. And the royal family is to blame for unleashing them on us. After that, they explained how they had fled the capital, with the manuscripts, under the cover of night. Tyler had left a note with his father but Tali left without a word to anyone. Eventually they travelled here and discovered a group of people hiding in the mountains. They were people either somehow related to the pandemic or political enemies of the current king. They decided to band together in an attempt to put an end to the madness.