There was an explosion.
While this was nothing new for Louise, this was the wors possible time for one. It was the result of her attempt to summon a familiar. Just as she was about to go back to her room and begin to silently cry because of another failure, and more comments about her being a failure, a zero; she noticed a figure in the smoke. It had a bulbous head and a lean body, slightly taller than a man. It stood, not making a single move.
Her peers were about to comment when the smoke cleared, showing the figure fully. It looked almost like it was a combination of clay and rock, with no mouth, but two green eyes. It had what looked like red paint on it in places, and a dirty red in others.
Blood, Colbert noted dully.
It stood, still unmoving, as if it were a statue.
"The zero is still a zero, she tries to summon and gets a statue." One student commented.
Louise ran away, headed to where she could usually be found when omething this bad happened, the top of the tower.
Colbert, Tabitha and even Kirche all hoped she wouldn't make another attempt.
She had made three the previous year, the first was a jump from the top of the tower, she had been saved by a wind mage, who had caught her halfway down.
The next had been poison, a water mage had stopped her from dying, but she was still recovering from it a week later.
The final attempt had been in the winter. She had attempted to drown in freexing water. Kirche had dove in and brought her out, creating a fire to warm her back up. While Kirch may have teases Louise, that was because it was who she was, she never meant for anyone to be hurt by it.
One by one, the students began to disperse, until finally, only Colbert was left. He turned around, seconds later, he died, his neck snapped.
That night, Students closed their doors and their curtains, cutting off their view of the courtyard of the school. They slept, none of them knowing the horror that had been unleashed.
Osmond, sleeping in his own room, was awakened by a scratching at his door. He opened it, and was greeted by the statue Louise summoned that day. Thinking some of his students had pulled a prank on him, much like he had done in his school days, leaving odd things at the doors of the staff, he wondered how they had gotten it there in the first place. He blinked, attempting to figure out how.
He didn't open his eyes again.
All around the building, students and staff were dying at the hands of this horror.
One of them screamed as he died, he had managed to open his eyes quickly enough to notice it had moved. His scream woke the rest of the school.
By that time, half the students and all of the staff were dead.
Kirche and Tabitha moved quickly through the halls. Guiche was with them, until the statue had found them. It was hunting the students in the halls. Guiche had summoned his Valkyries and stood, attempting to hols the line, letting them escape. His golems had held for a minute, while he had figured out how to keep it in place.
Don't blink.
Unfortunately he was human, and he had to blink some time. After a little less than two minutes, he blinked, and joined the ranks of the dead.
This, however, had given them enough time to get outside and away from any doors.
"The gate." Tabitha said, her usual deadpan tinged with hints of urgency and fear.
Kirche understood, they couldn't let this thing escape, and they were prepared to lay down their lives to keep it there.
They ran into the gatehouse and closed the gates, then broke the mechanism that opened it, keeping them closed forever, or at least until the gates themselves were broken, which could easily take millenia. Then they turned around.
The statu was mere meters from the enterance. Kirche burned the mechanism for good measure as Tabitha's dragon landed. They left the gatehouse, nver taking their eyes off the statue as they mounted the dragon. As soon as they had mounted, they noticed that the statue had moved. They took off, getting as far out of it's reach as possible.
That was when they noticed the figure falling from the tower.
Louise had finally succeeded, because they couldn't take the risk of dying now, not when they had to get the news of this thing out.
Louise had reached the top of the tower and locked the door behind her. Thinking about her life, she sat on the edge of the opening, crying silently. Within minutes, she was sobbing openly, tears streaming down her face. it would be so easy, she thought, so easy to jump and end it all. She cried herself to sleep on the hard stone floor.
When she woke up, it was already night. She looked down at the courtyard and saw that the statue was gone. Then, she heard a scream. Not knowing what was going on, she panicked, keeping the door locked, and piling things in front of it. Eventually, she finished, and saw two figures running for the academy gatehouse. Not long after they entered, she saw the statue standing in the courtyard again. Another student entered the courtyard not far form the statue. She blinked, and the student was on the ground, the statue standing over him. She watched as the gates closed, silently agreeing with the decision to close them. The statue aproached the door to the gatehouse. When it stopped, she saw smoke begin pouring from the door, and she realized that they had set the opening mechanism on fire,sealing the gates forever. She then saw a dragon land and take off, with both figures mounted. As they turned in her direction, she mad a snap decision, she had to catch their attention, she had to get out. So she jumped.
She never expected to hit the ground.
Kirche and Tabitha watched as Louise, the girl they both felt sorry for, and always wished they could have helped, hit the ground. There was a sickening splat, that even they could hear. Her blood went spurting into the air, a meter up at the most, and Tabitha would swear, years later, that she heard the breaking of Louise's bones as she hit the ground years later. The girl's body rolled slightly, and that was the last movement it would ever make.
But that was not the concern of either of them. They had to warn the princess, they had to get the news out to every nation, everyone, even the elves needed to know that the academy had been slaughtered, and the thing that had done this could not be destroyed, it could only be contained.
Five months later, the political situation of the world had cooled as the news spread to various leaders. The Reconqista and the governent of Albion had stopped fighting, both recieving the same news, and choosing a representetive between them, an peace talks had pregressed from there.
Henrietta and the kaiser of Germainia had received the news at the same time, and had cancelled their arranged marriage, because too many had died for there to be any thought of anything else.
The Pope in Romalia had created a new chapter of knights when he had heard the news, they were to deal with this new threat in any manner they needed to.
In every human nation, the anniversery of the event was declared an annual day of mourning.
There was a summit of all of the leaders of the world that could be found, and even the elves had attended. While there was some resentment, eventually, consensus was reached. The elves would allow humans into their land, so long as Humans didn't initiate hostilities while there and they would participate in the containent alongside every other nation, and they would recieve the same rights every other had. All the leaders attending the conference knew that while their people may resent them for decades to come, it was better to be resented but living than a beloved corpse.
Five months into the containment, elven and human gaurds were standing on the inaccessable walls of what was once the Tristain Academy of Magic, silently watching the courtyard, keeping the statue contained within.
Then something inexplicable happened. Green ovals appeared on every wall, dozens of them. Within minutes, people began pouring out of them, all heavily armed and armored. They took positions on the walls.
"Move," one of them shouted, "I want that damn statue contained damn it!"
Another green oval, now known to be a portal, appeared next to the commander of the gaurd, an elf. A man walked through it. He wore a long, white coat with a pocket on one breast, and his eyes were like steel. The rest of his face seemed almost as if there was nothing there, and yet there still was. It was almost as if it was a blur. Then, the man spoke.
"Hello, I'm Doctor Clef." He said, "I have been ordered to make first contact and contain this object by the goupr I work for. The Foundation takes this very seriously after all, especially when these objects disappear from containment."