The Elementals

'''1. Creation '''

The year the Great War ended, Elementia was left in ruins, The floating isles of Sivit City, the World-Tree Yggdrasil, Spark City, Tepian City, all were left smoking from previous battles. In the aftermath, the leaders of the elves, humans, wizards and angels (respectively) gathered at Judgement Falls to determine what was to be done with the instigator of the war, the Dark Wizard Sur Cosmic.

The human leaders, King Dominic and Hunter Red Harlow, simply wanted to, as they put it, “Kill the fetcher and be done with this now.” Elven-Queen Luna Aure and Queen Brianna of the Angels disagreed, thinking it would be more ethical to lock Cosmic up. The Arch-Wizard Lightning Dallows agreed to the Angel and Elf’s decision just so he could resume his studies on the elements.

And so it was that Sur Cosmic was to be imprisoned beneath the earth by Spark City, in an enchanted cell warded against all magic by the Arch-Wizard. The prison’s entrance was guarded by the most trustworthy of Bounty Hunters, assigned by Hunter Harlow himself, and hidden in a place only those of a high enough ranking knew of..

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Time passed and soon Sur Cosmic and his prison became forgotten; mere rumours now remained of the evil wizard and the struggles he caused. What was once months became years after the Great War, and the time before was deemed a whole other era of time. Thirty-three years have now gone by since the War, and the various kingdoms of Elementia are prospering.

The Bounty Hunters remained ever vigilant of Sur Cosmic, but even the most powerful of wizards cannot stop the deteriorating powers of time. Cosmic made continuous efforts to free himself over the years, and with the barraging of his powerful dark magic and the passage of time, the enchantments so carefully placed decades earlier began to weaken, until one day, they broke.

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Arch-Wizard Lightning was in his laboratory when it happened. He was working to complete his specially created element spells, with help from the Fairy Queen, Neena. The fairies were one of several recent additions to Elementia’s already diverse population (others including the dwarves and demons). They were extremely magically inclined, and as such, very sensitive to dark magic, remaining wary of any mention of Sur Cosmic and his ilk.

“Neena, be a dear and hand me that little bottle there, with the red stuff in it,” Lightning asked.

“This one here?” She replied, handing him a small, ornate glass containing a syrup-like mixture.

“That’d be the one, yes.” He took the bottle in one hand, and summoned a small magic flame with the ability to conjure up a fire atronach in the other. The wizard manipulated the dancing fire into the bottle with a flick of his wrist, where it consumed the contents with a small puff of glittery smoke.

The end goal of Lightning’s research into these spells was to make elemental atronachs available to both magic users, and Mundanes (those lacking in a magika reserve), and the summoning part safer. Most spells had the potential to blow up in your face, but atronach summoning spells were even worse at that.

“And… Done!” Lightning proclaimed, sealing the bottle and handing it to Neena.

“So this is all of them?” She asked as she flew over to a case filled with several other bottles of various colors and placed the red one down.

“Yep! And it only took two years to complete the actual spells!”

“That’s amazing. Hm.. That’s odd..”

“What is?”

“Oh,” Neena said, gesturing at the scrying bowl, “your scryer, it’s flashing red.”

“No!” The wizard ran over to said object, shoving the fairy out of the way in his distress. “Oh no, nonononono! This isn't supposed to happen!”

“Err, what shouldn't-” she stopped mid-sentence, her face frozen in shock and fear.

“He’s gotten out!” Lightning cried as Neena bolted for the door.

“WellwouldyoulookatthetimeI’dbettergoseeyoulaterbye!”

As she slammed the door shut, a large explosion rocked the room, throwing many alchemical devices and wizardly tomes off shelves. “Ah, I’ve been waiting to do that for years! Sorry to burst in like that, old teacher, I just needed to grab some things.”

“Sur Cosmic! How in the world did you escape?” Lightning spat as though the name was a curse.

“You wound me!” Cosmic said as he entered the laboratory, clutching at his heart. “It’s almost like you didn’t miss me!”

“The enchantments…”

“Enchantments fade, old man, just like you and all of your allies will.”

“You and I both know how a confrontation between us ended last time, Cosmic. Better to just surrender now and save me the time and effort of sweeping up your ashes later,” Lightning warned.

“Or, we could always skip the pleasantries and move on with our lives,” Sur Cosmic said, flippantly casting an immobilization spell  at the Arch-Wizard.

“No!”Lightning cried out, collapsing under the spell’s effects.

Ignoring him, the dark wizard crossed over to where Neena had left the case of element-bottles. “Ooh! These look important!”

“Stay away from those, they’re incredibly dangerous,” Lightning bluffed.

“Well, all the more reason to take them, then, eh? Especially if you’re so protective of them.” Cosmic examined the case. “Tell me, am I wrong in guessing that these little bottles are the results of your studies on stabilizing elemental spells?”

Lightning said nothing, and shot an incendiary spell at Sur Cosmic.

“Tch, you’ll have to do better than that,” Cosmic said as he dodged the badly aimed spell. “So, assuming that’s a yes, I think I’ll take these with me. Places to go, people to kill, you know. Ta!” And with that, he left the same way he entered, covering his tracks with another explosion.

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As soon as the dark wizard was clear of the lab, he ran straight for an old fort he’d had the remnants of his followers set up as a base. The fort was near Spark City and overshadowed a small, ramshackle village by the name of Hackdirt. Very small; the population ranged from ten to fifteen people, depending on the year. So small, Cosmic thought, that surely no one would notice its disappearance.

The old fort had four towers, all equipped with the same ballista type mechanisms, able to shoot a wide variety of things, including small magic bottles. The instant Cosmic arrived at the base of operations, he ascended the tower nearest the village, case of spell-bottles in hand. He opened up the case and grabbed the first bottle he saw, the fire one. Cosmic loaded the bottle and targeted a small shack on the outskirts of town. Said shack had but one unlucky inhabitant: a young elf girl of sixteen winters. As he aimed the ballista, he whispered a dark incantation over the bottles and fired.

The bottle broke through a glass window in the little building and shattered on the stone floor, exploding and obliterating the shack in a burst of flame. The spellfire consumed the elf, transforming her into what could be called a sentient fire atronach. The dark wizard repeated the process with the elements of air, water, earth, light, storm, sound, and flora.

By the time morning came, nothing was left of the village but rubble and eight different atronachs. Sur Cosmic sent out for some of his followers to go out and retrieve them, as he planned to use them as his secret weapons when he reignited the war. However, he did not account for ingenuity when he put sentience into the incantation. The men returned empty handed, with a report claiming that in under thirty minutes, eight then-comatose atronachs had fled into the outlying wilderness.

Enraged, Cosmic ordered, “Send out scouts in every direction! I don’t care what it takes or where they’ve gone, bring me back the Elementals!”