Arc 0: The Forgotten Soul
The world was fire and stone, magic and blood.
In the kingdom of Elandar, where towering spires of obsidian stretched into violet skies, magic flowed not in whispers, but in commands. Wizards were real. Feared. Revered. Each mage wielded a single elemental domain, their power as absolute as it was singular. A fire mage could scorch armies, but could not mend a wound. An earth caller could raise a wall in a blink, yet be helpless in the rain.
Magic was not a gift. It was a truth—rare, inherited, and tested at birth.
He was tested. And he failed.
No name remained of that life, not anymore. But once, he had a name. A boy born to hopeful parents who waited for a flicker, a spark, a sign. The priests came, robes heavy with glyphs, and laid the crystal of measure upon his chest. It remained dark.
"Null," they had said, with gentle cruelty. "No affinity. No Thread."
He was not cast out, for that was illegal. But doors closed slowly. Education was redirected. His path narrowed. No apprenticeship to any Circle. No sigils etched in his skin. No legacy of power.
But he was clever. And angry.
Where others threw fire, he built furnaces. Where others called wind, he sailed ships. Where others levitated stone, he moved markets.
By thirty, he was rich. By forty, powerful. By fifty, feared by those who once pitied him.
He crafted an empire not of spells, but of systems. Trade routes, banks, labor networks, and city contracts. His name became a weight. He spoke, and kings listened.
But the world was changing.
In the east, non-gifted factions whispered rebellion. They saw the mage-towers as leeches. They saw him—non-magical and powerful—as a symbol. An ally.
He tried to stay neutral. Too long.
One city fell. Then two. The rebellion spread like ink in water. The High Circle retaliated. Entire provinces burned. There were trials. Massacres. Magical and mundane alike fell into chaos.
They came for him during the ninth month of war.
He was in his high villa on the cliffs of Armathar. A thousand feet above sea. Walls reinforced with alchemical steel. Guarded. Safe.
Until they used the skies.
A wind witch, perhaps. Or a beast-rider. He never saw who opened the way. Just that the flames breached from above. Guards turned to ash. His last view was the red light eating through marble.
Then nothing.
No pain. No sound. No time.
Just... drifting.
A soul, unanchored, without thought. Without name.
Drifting through a place where senses did not exist. No light. No dark. No feeling. Only awareness, floating like dust in the stillness between worlds. He forgot time. He forgot ambition. But not... being.
He waited. Or perhaps he didn't. There was no will. Only presence.
Until—
A tear. A pull.
He had no eyes, yet saw the rift open. A ripple of reality undone. A screamless sound—space twisting, a scar across the void. And from it, a force. Not malevolent. Not kind. Just... movement. Purpose.
It reached him like gravity.
He fell.
He awoke to pain. Cold. Pressure.
His lungs seized, gasping instinctively. A child's lungs.
His limbs thrashed. Cramped. Small. Wrong.
He blinked through darkness. Shapes loomed. Stone. Wood. Air stung his skin. A distant cry—was it a baby? No. Himself. He was crying.
A woman's voice. Footsteps. Gasps. Arms lifting him.
"Oh Lord in Heaven... he's freezing! Someone, bring blankets!"
He was cradled, swaddled. Heat returned.
Through blurred vision, he saw the sign.
St. Theresia's Orphanage
And beneath it, snow gently falling, and the faint sound of church bells.
A new world had begun.
Unseen to all, above somewhere in england, a green light faded into nothing.
It was Halloween. 1980.