* * *

Tobias' mission was a simple one.

He had been in enough gatherings with elders to know about Dark Magic. Since the dawn of time when gods still lived on this realm, a war so terrible had plagued all the lands as far as one could see. A war between Light and Darkness was fought amongst the gods. The war lasted for a hundred centuries until finally, Light triumphed. But at that time, mankind was already at the brink of extinction, having suffered greatly under the might of the gods waging war with little to no concern for them.

The punishment for war was delivered by the ruling gods who came to be known to man as the Five Patrons. The remaining gods banished themselves from this realm and they were never welcome to meddle with the lives of men again. The dark gods were to be slain for all they had wrought to this world. But Darkness could never be fully eradicated, just as Light could never be completely obscured. So the power of the most powerful amongst the dark gods was stripped from them and split in two.

One half was used to rebuild mankind and a new world, the other to be used as a chain that tethered the Darkness to never leave the prison created for it by the Five Patrons.

That prison was where Tobias was headed today.

He was not uncultured in the ways of his people. He believed just like every man in Arc that the gods were as real as anyone of them. But he viewed their abandoning of man as a cowardice way to amend for their mistakes. Once as a young boy, he had voiced this to an elder during their teachings. The man nearly collapsed at the thought of Tobias bringing the wrath of the gods back to this realm with his heinous blasphemy words.

But he did agree with the narrow-minded man on the aspect of magic being real. Even as a boy, he always sensed a certain hum in the air. A feeling he could never quite explain to his darling of a mother. This hum always grew louder and louder the more he ventured north from their village.

Straight towards the mountains where no one ever ventured to and came back alive.

The theory was the mountains are where the gods used to live. The air was heavier to breathe for men up there because they were a class below them. Some claimed that many were eaten alive by the demons that the dark gods left scattered in the world when they were defeated. Tobias believed differently. He believed none made it back because none was willing to pay the ultimate price in this life.

It had taken him almost five days to get his affairs in order and ensure that Nadiya and Alectra would be under good care for the duration of his journey and if he never made it back to them. He never spoke of his mission to them, but his cloak and dagger tactics made it obvious for anyone keen enough to know his goal.

It took him another day to find out exactly where the magic was rumoured to live. And the journey itself to the mountains was another three days. It felt like ages to him to be this far away from his family. It was a necessary deprivation of their love but his heart yearned for it nonetheless. He was human after all.

The cave at the top of the mountain was twice as wide and thrice as high as his house. Tobias couldn't peer in and have some sort of forewarning as to what awaited him inside. But he felt the hum in the air raging violently on his skin.

He was surely in the right place.

Tobias had never felt fear in his life quite like he did now. But even in his fear, he knew it had nothing to do with the unknown that lay inside that cave. His fear was for his family. What if he could not accomplish what he came here to do?

He decided to cast aside the doubts of his prowess and forge ahead. He was almost at the cave's entrance when he noticed the black object that stood in the middle of the darkness. It wasn't until he was close enough to the entrance of the cave that he could make it out to be some sort of a chalice.

It took him a while but he realized he couldn't see anything inside the cave was because of the chalice itself. He bent closer to the cup and examined the black fumes that were emanating from the cup and blocking the pathway. The smell was a sickly sweet stench that almost had him gagging. This truly was the work of some dark magic.

At first, it wasn't very clear. But amid his nausea, the sound became more and more pronounced. It wasn't just sound though... it felt like a force of nature.

"Very brave of you mortal."

Tobias was quickly upon his feet, his sword unsheathed to fight off an enemy he could neither see nor possibly believe he could best. That voice... it might have sounded human but nothing about it felt as such. No human sound could chill his spine so quick and leave him with pure dread in his being. It took him a minute to get his trembling body back under control when he noticed something very peculiar.

There was no hum in the air anymore.

"Great Magical Being, I seek your audience as a man in need of your assistance," There was a period of silence before the darkness in the cave begun to swirl and take form.

The black fumes from the chalice grew fainter and fainter as they allowed light to pass through, revealing the most alluring creature Tobias had ever laid his eyes on. It was perfect in any human manner possible. Its face was round and flushed, almost the same as a young maiden's, but its eyes were a quiet spark of violet.

Its hair flowed in smooth waves around its slender frame down to its back, giving the impression of its body being consumed by a blazing flame that was tempered with the calm flow of a river to bring out the amethyst colour. Its clothes loosely clung to its petite frame, making them seem more a creation of the darkness than the actual fabric.

This creature must have been truly curious with him if it hadn't killed him by now. Most men at the bar claimed that the magic had never spared a moment's notice to any mortal who ventured to these mountains. But then again, none of them had been here to know how the others had been slain and how long she took to get around to it.

"Intriguing."

Her voice sounded less powerful now. Tobias wondered if it was because it was in this human form that it lost that air of authority. Or was it just displaying its magnanimity to him by being more human-like. He was not sure how to respond to this so he stood still and looked at the impossibly beautiful creature move towards him as if the very ground was nothing but air to it.

The creature stopped shy of the chalice at the entrance of the cave but was now close enough for Tobias to see it. Its beauty was alarmingly unnatural now that it was up close to him. The tremble in the hand that held his blade wouldn't stop no matter how much he willed his body to obey him.

"The first to seek it out of love..." there was a pause between them but Tobias didn't affirm his intentions to the creature. It must have already known why he came here with its magical ways. "But why would we help you?"

"My life would be in your hands to do as you see fit." It was not exactly what he and Nadiya had agreed upon. He wasn't supposed to willingly give his life up until it was necessarily needed.

"Yes, in our hands to do as we see fit..." the creature continued to eye him as if he were a meal she would have liked nothing more than to devoured whole. It could barely handle the curiosity in its eyes as they glowed with a violet flame. It seemed that Tobias wasn't the only one here who needed something done.

"We can see to your soul, Tobias of Arc. We see the love in it, and the fear of losing that love. But what we do not see is the fear of death. Not yours in any case. What you ask for will not come without sacrifice. If one life is spared, then another must take its place."

It seemed like a reasonable demand from the creature. Spare his daughter for his life. It was no trouble at all as he quickly agreed to do as per its wish.

The smile it showed was dazzling to Tobias as they raised a hand in one graceful flick and the chalice levitated between them both. The creature instructed Tobias to drink of it and his life would be transferred to his daughter.

It seemed a bit anticlimactic to him, but who was he to dictate the enthusiasm of how magical spells worked. This would save his child. That was his foremost goal in this life. For a man who rarely believed in the gods, he whispered a silent prayer to them just as the bitter liquid passed down his throat that the last bit of magic left on this world would at least be used for something good. He felt the pain almost immediately he had swallowed the potion. His entire being was lit with it. His skin felt as if it was being burned all over. His lungs felt filled with water that he couldn't draw breath. He felt his entire body being absolved into the earth and just as he was about to think if this was what death felt like, his sight was obscured by a blinding light.

* * *

The smell was what brought Tobias back to consciousness. It was a smell he was so used to in his life. It was the smell of wood-burning. But what would be burning in the Afterlife? Or was he not in Oblivion, the haven for all fallen Arcians?

Fear dawned on him that the gods had probably sent him to Purgatory to live out the rest of time in eternal damnation. But that smell was couldn't possibly be the Fires of the Underworld. It was the smell of wood burning. He had burned a lot of wood in his life to know exactly what it smelt like. That was enough guessing. He needed ocular assistance to get bearing of his surroundings.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes were burning embers close to where his face laid moments ago. That explained why he smelled the burning wood strongly than anything else. He was practically inhaling the ashes.

His muscles felt awkward but usable so he sat up. Nothing in his being hinted at him sustaining an injury. But they felt odd... as if his senses were not his, to begin with. And the hum... it wasn't just a hum anymore. It felt like the earth was speaking to him.

Speaking of earth, he realized that that was what he stood on. It was dirt that he touched with his hands as he got up. He got to his feet and noticed that it wasn't just a few burning piles of wood that he smelt. The entire sight in front of him, as far as the horizon was burnt to the ground. It was horrifying to think of it let alone for him to see it with his own eyes. He didn't know why he was this terrified about viewing a burnt land. But he just knew this was bad.

Everything in him knew this was his worst nightmare. That was when he began wondering where he truly was and how he had landed here from the mountains in the first place.

His foot crunched on something and he instinctively looked down at it. It was burnt like everything else there but it was clear what they were. He had just stepped on the bones of a human. And the truth hit him almost physically. The familiar smell of wood burning... the constant dread he couldn't explain... the scattered remains of what was still burning. It all made sense now.

What he smelt burning was his house, and the skeleton he had just stepped on was surely that of his beloved Nadiya.

He could not believe it. He didn't want to believe it. He was only gone for three days. How was it in three days his entire home and his people had gone up in flames? But there was no denying the truth that the burnt house was the very same he had built. How could he now that he saw one of the red bricks that Nadiya had made, as perfect as her, on the ground?

Everyone he knew was dead. He didn't need to go screaming his head off in town to know this. He could feel the barrens of the land. The lifeless blank extending to places he didn't even know existed in Arc. Everything felt burnt to death.

Nothing remained of his life. And worst of all he could not find the remains of his daughter anywhere near her mother's or the house. It was as if she ceased to exist altogether. The creature had promised to restore her. If she had already died, then he must have angered the gods so badly that they did this to all of his people. He had just caused the death of Arc.

His life... that was what they had taken from him.

But wasn't that what the magical creature told him would be required from him? That for one life to be spared, he would have to give up his? But he thought she meant his own. That his existence was the price to be paid. Not his people, his wife, his beloved Alectra. The pain was so intense that he felt the shift of earth beneath his feet and cracks spread out in all directions from him. Fear gripped him so badly that he almost keeled over.

The gods were here to end him surely.

<Calm yourself, mortal. You have nothing to fear from me.>

The voice was soothing and gentle. But no person was in sight. Was he now mentally addled as well?

"Who are you? Why do you not show yourself?"

<I am the mother of all of you, my child. I am Gaia.>

He was taken aback by this. He truly must have been insane if he could hear voices in his head that calmed to be from the Patron goddess of Earth.

<Your doubt wounds me, Tobias. But not as much as what you did here.>

For some reason, he now believed the voice in his head was the goddess. She must have been real if she too knew that he was the one who caused the deaths of every single Arcian alive. But the creature... it lied to him. He was only prepared to give his life. Not the life of his people. If he had known, he would have never done it, even if it was to save his beloved Alectra.

<I believe you, Tobias. And that is why I am here to help you understand what you must do.>

He wasn't sure that Gaia was truly aware of what he desired. He wanted greatly to destroy the creature for what it had done to him. Taking his life, his Nadiya, his Alectra... but he was just a man.

<That is where you are wrong.>