Flashback A Glyphed Blade (Solo)

[Maedoc]

30th Day of Summer, 492 A.V. The life of summer was apparent in the bustling city of Syliras. Pollen blotched the air and the sound of birds in the throngs of courtship rang out. But all this was mundane for the scrawny six year old who ran through such things daily on his way to greet his father upon his return from duty. The knight was a tall man with a hollow, if happy face. The lines around his eyes came from both a hard life of travel, and a happy one with a wonderful wife and son to share it. Maedoc would wait for his father on an old fountain in a side square deep within the city’s bowels, eager to hear the tales of his father’s exploits, and embellish them suitably for his mother’s ears. Sir Ghanderan, the knight whom Typhon had convinced to take Maedoc on as a page, was older and tended to let the energized boy off before afternoon sidled into evening. This gave his son ample time to meet Typhon at the gate. Today Typhon Galenos’s face was sunken with worry, worry he could barely hide from his son. “Hello, father.” “Greetings, Maedi. How was Sir Ghanderan today?” Typhon smiled, placing a chain linked hand on the page’s small shoulder. Maedoc bounced on his steps with an eagerness all too familiar to his father. “Alive. He made me clean his rooms while he read his old family histories again.” Maedoc thought on the past few weeks. Ser Ghanderan had indeed spent the last half month pouring over the three tomes of family histories dating the Ghanderan line almost back to the Valterrain. It seemed to the six year old as if there might be more… knightly endeavors the old salt could be pursuing. “Father, do you read when you are on your duties?” Typhon grinned and shrugged. “Not very often. But then again, old Ghanderan has been at it a lot longer than I. He must know something I have yet to uncover.” Typhon confided. They followed the well policed roadways through Syliras to the modest suit their family shared. Maedoc proudly told his fellow pages that he even had his own room. “How was your day, Father?” Maedoc asked, as he always did after running out of things to tell Typhon about his own day. Typhon’s face fell slightly and he glanced down the road towards their home, and where his wife was. Maedoc failed to notice such subtle things, being a lad of only six. His world was filled with much more dire concerns, which page would be the first to earn a dagger, and which the first to master the horse? “It was fine, Maedi. A bit slow really.” Typhon said dismissively. Maedoc did not get the hint and pressed on with the vigor of all small boys. “Did you kill anyone?” He asked simply, his childish excitement evident. He pictured a dark, cloaked figure with some sort of bloody dagger slouching in an alleyway, and his brightly clad father run him through with the gleaming blade he carried on his hip. “No, none died by my hand today. Though an archeologist and his daughters were slain outside the city, we’ll be investigating that on a larger extent tomorrow.” Typhon spoke, mostly to himself, but the boy’s sharp ears picked it up too. “Bandits?! Do you think? Was there stuff gone, Father?” He asked quickly. His heart beat with a fear, though he knew such bandits would never make it into the city, let alone all the way to the barracks. A sudden image of Typhon desperately asking him to join him in the defense of their city popped into Maedoc’s head. Images of him side by side with his father, defending their mother from dirty men in dark leathers rushed through his head, leaving as quickly as they came. “No, none of their things were stolen. This was… something else.” Typhon intoned, darkly. As orange crept up on the sky, Maedoc and his father finally found their way home. The simple wooden door to their suite meant comfort and security for Maedoc, and had been there for as long as he could remember. The outside looked like all the rest of the doors in the stone hallway, but the inside had been scratched upon near the bottom. The results of a very active puppy Maedoc had brought home with him, to the dismay of his parents.

[Maedoc]

As the door opened silently Maedoc slipped eagerly past his father. He smelled something on the fire and was eager to see what his mother had decided to make for dinner. The rather large room he walked into served as an eating and cooking place, while the two wooden doors on the opposing wall lead to Maedoc’s small bedroom, which was once a small closet, and his parents’ sleeping quarters, a modest, yet homey arrangement. The red fire licked the blackened bottom of their cooking pot and the wooden logs beneath it crackled merrily. The rough wooden table was set for three, as always. But all was not normal. Maedoc was just trying to figure out what was wrong when his father bolted past him, light on his feet even under the weight of his armor. Typhon was running for his and Eleanor’s bedroom door. That moment it suddenly became clear to the small boy what was wrong. He could hear faint sobbing coming from the bedroom. He bolted after his father. Typhon opened the door and gasped. He quickly turned and held a mailed hand out to stop Maedoc. “No! Stay back, son. Your mother is, she is sick. You need to go to your room.” Typhon Galenos said shakily, his face pale beneath the mop of brown hair. Maedoc was young and justifiably naive, but he understood the fear that was splayed across his father’s eyes that evening, and it shook him. He entered the next door, to his own cramped room, but failing to close the door, intentionally of course. Though he was confused and afraid, he was more curious than anything. He could hear his parents speaking as he sat upon the rough straw-stuffed mattress that lay underneath his small window. “El, what did you do?! You foolish girl!” His father hissed angrily, fear cracking through his voice. “It didn’t work… It was supposed to work, Ty.” Maedoc heard his mother moan, pain searing through her words into his heart. She was in agony, and he somehow knew it was unbearable. “It’s illegal! This could have been disastrous, El.” Typhon Galenos’s angry voice crept in through the open door. “It was, Ty. Do you not see the circle. I fear I made a horrible mistake.” Eleanor Galenos said slowly, clearly more afraid of Typhon’s response than anything. Maedoc stood up shakily on his mattress and opened the rough wooden shutters on his small window. He squatted against the wall next to it, staring at a spot on the ground where a beam of orange light landed on the stone floor. His eyes burned as the boy fervently rubbed tears from his face. What had happened? He could not understand anything his parents were saying. “Don’t act like I know anything about all this! I obey the laws, Eleanor. This is dark stuff you have been dabbling with, and I can not believe you would bring such danger here to our home, to our son!” Typhon seemed to be in a fury, the type of which Maedoc had never seen. “Ty! It escaped, Ty. I tried to put it in the sword, but it got out and I don't know…” His mother began to sob again, uncontrollably. There was silence but for his mother’s sobs. Maedoc glanced at the open window, his heart thumping violently in his chest. His father’s voice cut through the air with a cold ice that, if directed at Maedoc, would make the boy’s blood curdle. “Eleanor, did you bring…something, here. Did you bring one to Syliras?” He said, and Maedoc could tell the knight was trying to steady his words. “Yes.” Came the quiet, fearful reply.

[Maedoc]

Maedoc had been crouched low on his bed, leaning against the wall and crying to himself. He didn’t really know why he was crying, except that his parents were upset and his mother in pain. He had not heard her in such agony in his life, and he had never seen his father lose his calm exterior like that. Now he rested his chin against the cool stone of his windowsill, listening to his parents out of the third story window. They had continued to argue in a fertile manner, harsh whispers carrying over to their small son. “It was supposed to go into the sword! And then you would be better ready, safer with an enchanted sword!” his mother’s weak voice floated into the window. “But it came here instead. I failed.” She ended, her voice cracking once again. “You let some other worldly monster loose, in Syliras!” Typhon spoke, and Maedoc knew it would have been a shout if his father had not been trying to hide the situation from their neighbors. “The family found outside. Dead and torn…. It was your creature that did it! You killed that man and his daughters Eleanor.” Typhon stumbled upon the realization and it seemed to break something within Maedoc’s knightly father. Maedoc heard the heavy stomp of his father’s armored footfalls and quickly slinked to the door. He reached the doorway just as his father disappeared through the suite door with a swirl of cloak and a glint of armor. His mother continued her sobs, still crying out for Typhon. Maedoc retreated further into his room. The shaken boy climbed slowly upon his bed and wrapped slim fingers around the window ledge. The young page gentle hoisted himself up. He pulled his small head through the thick window easily. The sun was setting over the city and the sky was bloody reds and thick yellows. He turned his head and looked over at the window to his parent’s bedroom. The sill was destroyed, what looked like talon marks had turned the cheap stone there to rubble. The shutters had been mostly blown from their hinges. One remained attached at the bottom, covered in dark, dried blood. The six year old moved his gaze from the window to the low smithy across the alleyway. The shingled roof of the smithy had been torn up by the same taloned creature that had launched itself out of his parents bedroom. Something had indeed escaped. Maedoc lowered himself once again, heart beating ever faster. His mother had loosed a monster on their city? But why would she do that? She was married to a knight. She knew what was right and wrong, she knew magic was evil. He pushed his door open and silently moved across the room to his parents door, left ajar by his father. He could hear his mother whimpering from inside. A pale hand shook visibly as he raised it to push open the door. It gave silently and his light footsteps went unheard as he entered their sleeping chamber. What he saw scared and confused him. In the center of the room was a stone pedestal, a stand his mother had bought the week prior. She had said it was for her kitchen, though it had never been used. Until now. On the pedestal was a naked sword, double edged and looking mostly ordinary. But as Maedoc looked closer he could see some sort of circular drawing on the blade of the sword, he had no idea what that could be. All around the pedestal in a circle were the five mirrors his mother owned. They were aimed to reflect the image of the pedestal except for two. One had been shattered and knocked over, the pieces shining with blood and sunlight. It had been the one closest to the window and Maedoc suspected it had fallen prey to the monster that had somehow snuck into their home. The other mirror was knocked sideways and in the corner, cloaked by shadows, was his mother. She had a trail of blood leading from the middle of the room to her and the lay motionless. “Ma? Are you okay?” Maedoc said quietly, his voice had the roughness of someone who had not spoken in a while. She started and began to pull herself forward, hands searching the floor for purchase. “Mae? Maedoc is that you, sweetheart? What are you doing in here, you should go outside.” She spoke, and her words shook with emotion. Maedoc stepped toward her, reaching out. “I want to help you Ma.” He helped his mother to her feet and gently pulled her towards the doorway. As he looked up into her face he screamed. His mother’s eyes had been burned shut, her face bloodied and charred black in spots. Streaks of blood and tears ran down her burn cheeks as she struggled through the crowded room. Her body was hunched over in pain and her hands were icy cold to his touch. She was nothing like the woman he had known.

[Maedoc]

As he pulled his mother from her bedroom, Maedoc realized for the first time that his parents were not infallible. They were flawed, both his mother and father. It was shocking to see his mother so wrong, so mistaken, so weak. Her zeal to aid her husband had sent her into a desperate search for dark magics. She had thought that if she made him stronger, there would be no more danger. She had been wrong. Even the small six year old page in front of her knew that much. Magic was wrong. It corrupted good intentions and made honest people have dark secrets. But all this was a bit beyond the boy’s ability to grasp. He just knew it had brought misfortune upon his family. His hand was sticky with his mother’s blood now, smearing the liquid across his knuckles and fingers. He smelled the tang of it for the first, but not last, time in his life and he didn’t like it much. Did his father deal with this? Did knights feel the same way he did when their mothers or wives or daughters were in danger? “Come on, Ma. Come sit down at the table. We can wait for Father to come back in there.” Spoke a crackled, weak sound from his own mouth. His mother jerked her head up from where she was concentrating on not falling on her hazardous trip into the main room. “Your father is not here? He- he left?” She said worriedly, turning her head as if she could search the room with her eyes. “He left, to get help I think.” Maedoc ushered her into a chair and fetched for her a wooden mug filled with well-water. Her fingers gripped the cup, stopping the shaking in her hand. “Ma, why did you do that? Father was angry with you.” Maedoc struggled to formulate a way to ask her. He was only a boy, and barely understood what had happened. But he understood his parents’ emotions. Their actions had jarred him into a numb shock, a shock that left him the most functioning person in the suite. She shook her head, face scrunching up in silent tears. She seemed to search for words for a long moment. “Sometimes, when you love someone, you do uncharacteristic things for them. Sometimes you would be willing to do bad things for good people because you know they wouldn’t do it themselves.” She said weakly, trying to put it into terms the six year old could understand. “I was trying to help your father, Maedoc. I was trying to make him stronger. And a knight should always be strong.” Maedoc did not hesitate, but recounted one of the lessons old Sir Ghanderan had taught him that week. “A knight should be, at all times, and above all else, right in his actions.” A silence fell over them, thick with shame. “Sweetheart, it’s a hard world, and sometimes you have to do hard things to survive in it. Would you rather have your father be a righteous knight and be dead, or have him be a strong knight and be here with us?” His mother asked, trying tiredly to defend her actions to a six year old. “I don’t know.” The words came out quietly, worrying the boy. He had never thought on such a hard choice. To give up his happiness, for his beliefs? Such deep conundrums were not for young minds like his. But it was there now, and would not leave. Like an annoying neighbor it knocked against the walls of his mind. Slam! The door to their suite flung open and crashed against the adjacent stones of the wall. Maedoc and Eleanor both turned their heads at the sound, though only Maedoc saw anything. His heart leapt when he made out the uniforms of three Syliran Knights, one being his father. He was just about to comfort his mother when his father pointed a finger, a judgement and an execution. Silently he condemned his wife to the fate that followed. The other two moved forward quickly, hands on their sheathed blades. “Maedoc, what’s happening.” Eleanor Galenos said, fear thick in her words. Her face searched the room, to no avail. She seemed so weak and for a moment Maedoc forgot who she was, a stranger in his home. “Eleanor Galenos! You are under arrest for the following crimes. Traitorous acts, murder, and the unlawful use of dangerous magic. You will be tried and sentenced.” Boomed one of the knights and he and his compatriot seized Maedoc’s mother. Both faces were covered in prospective helmets, but not his father. Typhon stood beside the door, a dark look looming on him. It made Maedoc fear to go close to him, and his silence only added to the trepidation. “No! No, I am married to a Knight! Wait until he returns! He will speak for me.” Eleanor cried out in frantic panic. He already has, Maedoc thought. When neither knight seemed to pay her any heed, Eleanor began to struggle. She breathed a sort of eerie mist that turned into flames, but soon flickered out. She thrashed and kicked, screaming nonsense about her husband. Flames appeared on his arms and the knights had to loosen their grip on her. But those flames dissipated as well, leaving the guards free to pounce once more. “Sweetheart! Tell your father the Knights have taken me, tell him when he returns.” Eleanor said, facing where she thought Maedoc must be. Her son was not looking at her though. He had been staring at his father, silent, unmoving. Maedoc was just beginning to totally grasp what his father had done, and where he had gone to. “Okay, Ma. I love you.” Maedoc said. He didn’t know why he said it, mostly because he knew he had to say something. He had thought the knights would come and help her, but now he was certain they did not intend to. His father had not helped her either. “I love you too.” And she was gone. With her went the struggling Syliran Knights, and the last bit of strength Maedoc had. He sat down on the stone floor and began to cry. Tears ran freely down his soft cheeks as his forehead lowed to the floor. He could barely breath for sobbing. He felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. It was neither comforting, nor unwelcome. It was just there, like it’s owner, his father, had just been there. Maedoc continued to cry. It was partly because he didn’t want to look up at his father, and partly because he had no idea what to say. “Maedi. It was a bad thing. Your mother hurt people.” The knight’s words seemed to be trying to show Maedoc a lesson. He may have seen what it was, but did not want to learn it just yet. His mother had just been taken from him. “But it was on accident! She meant to help you!” He whined, finally sitting up, but not meeting his father’s eyes. He instead looked at the knees of the knight in front of him as Typhon knelt before him. “Eleanor was worried about me. We have a quest into the Wildlands that I was just informed of. She didn’t want me to get hurt, Maedoc. But with her actions she killed a man, an innocent man and his two young daughters.” Typhon said, choking back tears of his own. “We must always take responsibility for our actions, Maedoc. It is what makes us men. It is what makes us good.” He sounded tougher now, as if the loss of his wife did not hurt him. His emotion was once again shrouded, and would remain that way for a long time. The sun was down now, and the low light of the fire was all that illuminated the father and son. Red light gleamed off of Typhon’s armor and the wall behind them as the two sat on the floor. “It’s a lot harder than Sir Ghanderan says.” Maedoc whispered. “Yes it is.”

[Emblem]

Congratulations! You Get Glorious Experience! Maedoc Skill Points Earned Investigation 2 XP Lore Earned Mother's Secret Knight's Code Other Shenanigans: Nope Comments : Great thread Maedoc! You are definitely a solid writer! Hopefully skills and lores make sense, and if not, shoot me a PM!