Marlassor's battle chapter 1

1.

         It was the hardest thing Marlassor had ever done, but he thought he had done it with the strength and resolve that only a great warrior sorcerer of his standing could accomplish. True the battle had cost him the great eye of Scarmos, but what he had received in return was worth tenfold of that artefact - knowledge of the position of hearts desire for the past thirty years.

He stumbled to a nearby tree stump, shakily sat down upon it, letting out a great huff of exhausted air as he did and rested his head on his legs. He waited until the world seemed real again, brought his head back up and turned around to look at the huge, tangled corpse that laid behind him. A few minutes ago that corpse was animated with the strength of which few people in the seven fields could withstand, let alone defeat.

He drew upon his inner magic and re-sustained himself, peeling of shards of energy and feeding them into his body until he was sated. Although his energy was back his wounds and his joints still ached with the effort of the spent battle, he groaned as he rose and moved towards the corpse.

The gnarled form of the tree-sire laid before him with the splinters of the great eye embedded in what was left of its chest and face, he gazed upon these splinters and rued the passing of one of the greatest and beautiful objects he had ever owned. The eye was acquired over a period of five years by skirmishes and questing that had nearly broke him bodily and spiritually, he had overcome these in the end and took possession of the eye. He then used the eyes unique properties to collect and capture the life force of a mist-wrath - one of the most beautiful creatures of the seven fields - and encase it in the eye. The wrath was not only beautiful to behold, but it possessed a calm and trusting nature and would often go out of its way to help and heal travellers in distress and need; how it had begged and pleaded for release when it was imprisoned.

The fact that Marlessor had captured and bonded a free creature to the eye meant nothing to him, the fact that he was depriving all the travellers of the aid it could give meant even less. He had a tool he could use in the next step of his journey and that was all that mattered, any moralistic or ethical deviations fell by the wayside.

He then sought out the tree-sire. He had to inject the sap of the formast tree into his bloodstream to fool the forest into thinking he was one of their kin and therefore allowing passage through its dense foliage. Then he made his way to the clearing where tree-sire dwelt. This enchanted being was noble, wise and savage in the defence of keeping what it possessed. Marlassor challenged it to either surrender its guarded secret or to die, it took Marlassors' demand as an insult and leapt to defend its honour and retain its secret. It was stronger than he had anticipated, after having two fingers ripped from his hand and depleted most of his power he found he had no choice but to sacrifice the eye.

The encaged mist-wrath had now been driven insane by the eye, having been caged after a lifetime of freedom had added anger to its madness. With his ruined hand he flung the eye towards the tree-sire and smashed it open with the last of his magic against the bark of its chest. Power that had been used for centuries to heal and repair had now been perverted and turned into a terrible, destructive maelstrom. The force tunnelled into the tree-sire and diseased his body in an instance, turning the virulent force of life that flowed through its veins into a putrid soup of decay. Snarling at its own paradox of existence the mist-wrath snuffed its own life out in an explosion of despair, taking most of the tree-sires chest - and its life - with it.

Now after resting Marlassor stood over the tree-sire body and felt himself filled with the sense of fulfilment. He had now obtained the thing he had strove for all of his adult life, the object that would make all his sacrifice and hard work worthwhile. With his good hand he reached into the tree-sires shattered chest cavity and clamped his hand on its heart-branch. Muttering words of power he slowly rocked the heart-branch back and forth with the rhythm of his verse. His voice and actions grew stronger until the veins stood out in his neck and wrist, with a mighty shout and tug the branch came free. He held it aloft, shook the putrid sap that coated it away and stripped off its bark.

He went back to the tree stump and sat down, unfurling the bark as he did. Turning over the bark to its smooth side he revealed burned lines and icons that formed a map. He studied the map and smiled, he now knew where he had to go to end his life's work and claim what was his. He now knew the path to the tomb of Ackmar and the fabled door that lay beneath.

First he would spend some time on healing himself and concentrating his energies, he had a feeling he was going to need them. Now, what was the spell that would enable him to regenerate his lost fingers and splice his two broken ribs together?