EP:hey guys this is the fourth chapter of your favorite fanfic "Another Player" I hope you enjoy this chapter i hit a tad bit of writers block. first I've been really busy lately and i also went on vacation for a week. then i was so sick all i could do was eat drink and sleep and then yo top it all off my mother was in the hospital! that's why it took me so long to update. Sorry about that :/ also i wish to note one thing. yes i'm not trying extensively much to fix my mistakes while i write however i am trying to fix them. i'm still new to this and am going to have a lot of mistakes. in any case onto the story but first the disclaimer
Disclaimer: if you haven't gotten it strait by now I think you might have short term memory loss or something. I don't own the inheritance cycle.
WARNING: this chapter includes slightly suggestive themes. However nothing unsuitable for children under 13 however some later chapters may be...
Trapped
"You two done yet?" He says motioning to the soldiers standing behind him.
"Ha and what do you plan to do with us?" Asks Eris
"We are to capture you and keep you in Terim's prison until Galberatorix comes to Terim in a weeks' time" says the soldier to the right. He looks about eighteen aging him slightly older than us. as with all imperial soldiers he wore a red tunic embroidered with gold thread in the outline of a jagged tongue of fire. The soldier to the left had the exact same attire yet looked older and far more battle worn, he even had several scars to prove it. the two most visible ones included one running up the underside of his arm and one across his face stretching from his left cheek bone to his right ear.
"Oh yea you and what army is going to take us?"
"This army" he says motioning to the forest on our side of the road. As he did a good two dozen men stepped out from behind the trees with swords drawn.
Just as I turn around a club knocks me to the ground. The last thing I see before everything goes black is Eris being knocked to the ground as well...
I don't know how long has past but when I wake up I am in a cell it's a generic six foot by three foot concrete cell with a single barred window and a solid iron door. in the corner of the room rests a small cot equipped with a single blanket. Just as I sit up a shudder is opened in the iron door and a tray of food is slid into my cell. When I take the food the shudder is once again closed. Realizing I probably haven't eaten in a day or so I hungrily devoured the food which consisted of a few slices of bread a slice of cheese and an apple. Once I had finished the food I chugged the wine to quench my thirst although I nearly spit it out do to the horrid taste. however knowing if I hadn't eaten or drank in a day or so my body would soon become dehydrated and start to weaken which would leave me no way to cast spells or escape. As I think about escape I remember Eris for the first time since I woke up. I try to stretch my mind to perimeter of the prison but for some reason I can't. I cannot expand my mind beyond the walls of my cell. "They must have drugged me" I think. So without the ability to do anything I go over to the cot Lay down on it and am soon asleep. When I next awake a man comes into my cell with a tray. he is an older man wearing the colors of the empire with a sword buckled to his waist though nothing else. On the tray is the same meal as yesterday. He sets it down in front of me and grabs a stool from outside the door before securely locking it.
"Go on eat" he urges as he settles into the stool
"I'm not exactly hungry at the moment"
"Alright so I've just got a few questions for you then"
"Ask away"
"Alright first off what is your relation to the girl?"
"Eris? She is my sister"
"Don't lie to me boy"
"Alright I just met her last night at an inn"
"Do you know why you are here?"
"I'm a wanted fugitive am I not? But before you ask any more questions how long have I been here?"
"Three days"
"And is Eris alright?"
"She will be if you cooperate"
"What do you want from me..."
Meanwhile
"My my you are a pretty one"
"What do you want!" Says Eris who is currently chained to a table.
"We don't want anything but our king does"
"And what does your king want?..."
Back with Aaron
As the man speaks to me I grow more and more distant until I realize that I'm able to actually spread my mind farther than my cell and I can now recall several words of the ancient language. Just as the man starts in a new question I lunge at him wrapping my hands around his neck and when he reaches for his sword I whisper thrysta and it is thrusts back into its scabbard. The man struggles for a few more seconds then gives up and dies. I take his sword, the keys, and his dagger then unlock the cell and walk out immediately spreading my mind out in search of Eris. I find her in a room a floor up from mine and fairly nearby then I notice another figure in the room and I start running.
Back with Eris
"Where is it!"
"I don't know"
"Lier!" He hisses and he punctuates the word with a harsh slap across my face. Then a cruel smile forms on the man's face and I know that I'm in trouble.
"You know boss said I could use any means necessary to make you talk and know just to one." He says with a sly note in his voice as he pulls out a knife.
"Yes you are a very pretty one indeed he says as he positions the knife at the collar of my tunic."
"No no! Please don't!"
"Tell me what I need to know then"
"I can't because I don't know!"
"Your still going with that approach?" All right then" and I force myself not to cry as I hear a sound *rip* and suddenly the room is much colder. "Still not going to tell me?"
"Please don't do this" the end of my sentence is greeted by another rip. "still nothing?"
I am utterly silent as I am too scared to say anything. The remains of my cloths fall off to the side of the table and once again he comes back up to my face.
"Tell me now or I'll finish what I've started" again silence and he positions the knife at the straps holding my underclothes on my body but just as he is about to cut them off a sword sprouts from his stomach and he topples over dead.
"Aaron!"
"What did you really miss me that much?" I say with an obvious smirk and she playfully slaps my face.
"We need to get out of here do you know the way?"
"We need to find our weapons first and our packs otherwise we wouldn't last past the hour after we get out of here"
"alright do you know where those are?"
"My sword's hilt has a gemstone in it that is filled with pure energy but they drugged me if you give me a minute or so to concentrate I might be able to find it." Suddenly we hear men marching down the hallway.
"I don't think we have a minute. I'll buy you as much time as possible just hurry"
As I concentrate on the forces of energy around me Eris springs into action locking and barring the door then grabs the dead man's sword and wields it in her right hand.
"Got it!"
"Good please say you found a way out of here too"
"Actually yes let me see here." I say pressing on bricks in the wall
"aha here we are!" I say as a door-sized space in the wall opens up
"Come on let's go" I say grabbing her hand and pulling her into the darkness. Just as the doorway closes we hear a loud "bang" telling us that the men had finally broken into the room...
The passage we were in was dark. So incredibly dark. I entered Eris' mind and instead of the harsh reaction I expected like at the inn she allowed me in.
"Don't speak we need to stay here until they leave. If they find out where we are this tunnel leads outside of town but out packs are in the room next to this one."
"Ok" she thinks back to me and I exit her mind...
Still gripping Eris' hand we wait in silence everything is still. We hear the soldiers talking outside of our secret passage. We hear every word of their conversation yet don't dare utter a word ourselves lest we be caught.
"Damn magicians I hate them"
"The boy killed Tom as well. He was found dead in his cell"
"These two are dangerous. boss didn't tell us how much trouble these two would be"
"Aye maybe they'd be just better avoided by the likes of us."
"Aye" another soldier agreed"
"Aye. Whoever gives boss a run for his money is definitely somebody we should stay away from"
"Alright now that you all have let the prisoners go and talked it over get back to work! Galberatorix will be here tomorrow and he won't be happy you let those prisoners escape"
As they walk out the door we hear one last thing said from one of them.
"You hear the king is offering an
earldom a piece for whoever catches those two?"
We wait ever so carefully until we hear nothing more, then we carefully sneak out of the passage and into the main room we were in before.
"Alright follow me" I say quietly and we move out.
Treading carefully on the floor as to not make any noise we slowly make out way to the next room over only to be confronted by six soldiers when we enter the room. We quickly Dispatch and kill them using the weapons we took from the already slain guards. As soon as we had finished our rather quick fight we heard more soldiers coming up the stairs so we grabbed our swords, packs, and other weapons then ran back to the room we were previously in. When we were the I pressed the brick that opened the door and we got in but we didn't stop there instead we ran and kept running for what seemed like an hour but was only ten minutes. "Wait Eris stop" I say holding up my arm I dare to speak because it is so dark in the passage we could only see the outlines of each other. I am tired yet still use a spell to create a floating were-light that travels above our heads so we can see. We wait there for another extremely slow ten minutes but when no loud noises or soldiers are forthcoming we decide it is safe to walk.
"Aaron you think we're safe?"
"From now on Eris I don't think we'll ever be safe. But for right now we're safer than we have been."
Next I step my boot falls into a thick sludge-like albeit somewhat water like surface. As we look down both myself and Eris realize where we are
"We're in the sewers?"
"Indeed, the sewers lead out of town we'd be wise to follow them."
"Aaron how do you know so much about everything?"
"I'll tell you when we're out of town when we stop for the night. It's a long story and we should concentrate on getting away from here for now"
"Alright"
We travel forward. Always forward ignoring the side tunnels that lead all over the city. So lit only by our floating were-light we traveled forward. The stench of the sewage was enough of a reason to hate the place but then you have the constant squeaking of mice and chattering of people above your head.
"Aaron I see something!"
"What is it?"
"I think it's daylight I'm not sure though it looks distorted almost like its flowing."
As we come closer I see what Eris was talking about then I think about it for a minute and realize what it is. "Eris how long would you recon we've been down here?"
"I don't know probably almost an hour"
"In that case we need to run"
"Why?"
"That" I say pointing to what we saw earlier "I's a pillar of water the elves figured out how to use the ocean to their advantage in their coastal cities. Using magic every hour on the hour this place flushes out with water then everything is dragged out into the ocean. In other words run!"
We both start running and it takes us almost a good ten minutes to get to the wall but for some reason it hasn't flushed yet.
"Can you swim?"
"I'm not the best but I can"
I grab her hand as to not get separated we take a gulp of air then we dive in. We swim up the surface without issue and just as we swim to shore we see and excess amount of garbage and feces float to the surface.
"We'll that was fun."
"Yea let's not do it again haha"
"We should get out of here"
"Agreed do you have a horse?"
"No"
"alright then we'll have to ride shorter distances at a time but I believe we should be able to get to Surda in a relatively short amount of time"
"Ok I say quietly, thinking about what that soldier would have done to me if Aaron hadn't shown up."
Aaron whistles and his horse bolts out of the trees obviously happy to see his master again.
"Here." He says tossing me a robe that looks extremely valuable. It is seven different colors of blue and shimmers when light reflects off of it. Then I take a closer look. All over there are tiny gems encrusted into the fabric they glisten and sparkle almost as much as the robe does. I put on the robe and voice my opinion. "It's beautiful" I mumble, silenced by the sheer amount of skill I know it must have taken to weave these threads together for in the entire robe there is not a single thread out of place.
"Thank you I made it myself"
"You made this?" "Indeed the only thing I didn't do myself was find the gemstones. By the way those are diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and lapis. however most of them are lapis. My uncle spent years of his life finding those stones and filling them to the brim dull of energy that I can use for spell casting. It is my casters robe but I figure since I'll be with you most of the time anyways I can still use the energy when I need it."
"Aaron do you think you could teach me how to use magic?"
"Me? I'm probably not the best person to ask to teach you. However if that is what you wish I shall try. now put the robe on and stand still so I can adjust it to your size."
I do as he says and the robe shrinks slightly and is now much more of a comfortable fit.
" one of the advantages of being a spell caster is you never have to wait for a tailor" he says with a toothy grin... "Now just wait I should make it look less appealing. People are bound to notice us if we go around wearing clothes fit for a king." He mutters another semi-long spell under his breath and the cloths start to shimmer then they change into slightly worn travelers cloths. "Haha it's still the exact same robe. Nothing has changed other then the age. I had to first remove the protective spells on it then I had to age the robe nearly three hundred years just to make it look similar to travelers cloths,"
"You are extremely thorough on everything aren't you?"
"I try"
"Oh great so now you have a sense of humor too"...
We leave as soon as possible deciding it was for the best having two people on Alistair's back we had to travel slower then we normally would but it didn't matter at this point nobody would be looking for us so for right now we were safe. And overall I enjoyed talking to Aaron and quite frankly I enjoyed his company it was nice to finally have somebody there to talk to after so long spent alone. When we finally stopped for the night it was just starting to get dark, we were avoiding the main roads so we were far off the road before we stopped as a safety precaution. We gathered wood dead leaves and grass and whatever else would burn. It may have been hot in the afternoon but at night the temperature dropped below freezing point still. Therefore we lit a fire.
"So you want to learn magic ay?"
"Yes" I said confidently
"Alright you said you can't use magic however. Am I correct?"
"Indeed"
"Ok here is the thing there is something like a wall in your mind. In order to use magic you must be able to feel the world around you and be able to spread your mind out to feel things. In order to do this we must break down this wall. For some it is destroyed during a traumatic experience, it happens automatically if you are bonded to a dragon, due to the elves close bond to dragons they are born without this wall, some are naturally gifted without it. And the final way is to have another magician go into your mind and forcibly remove it. However I would prefer not to do that as it can be somewhat of a painful experience... So what else is there to do? Well with your permission I would like to go into your mind and have you relive your most traumatic experience as though it will be emotionally painful this is the only other way other than forcibly removing the wall and sometimes doing that can lead to memory loss and temporary yet dangerous insanity."
"I'll do it but I want you to be there while I do."
"Alright are you ready? The first thing I need you to do is lower all the defenses around your mind and let me become completely entangled within your inner thoughts I will talk you through it as best as I can alright?"
"Ok" I say lowering the barriers I put around my mind as he holds out his hands palms facing upward.
"Ready?" He asks.
"Ready" I confirm taking his hands. As I do my mind swirls and I am back at my home but this time as a young child... I remember I was five.
Suddenly I hear a voice in my head
"Alright Eris I'm right here if you need me just say the word."
I knew she wouldn't say anything though she was a strong girl but she was also very stubborn quite accidentally I stumbled on some of her memories that I wasn't meant to see things that described her character, herself as a person. I now knew enough about her that I could probably write a short biography. She was a farmer's daughter. Her mother left the great elven city of Elesméra to be with her father. Eris herself was hardworking, quiet, respectful, smart, and was always extremely beautiful. Her parents never let her socialize or leave their house as her elven looks would attract the attention of the king. However one day Eris disobeyed her parents and went into the town. When she did a man saw her and went to tell the guards when they came Eris was already gone. But they followed her back to her house...
I walk forward opening the door to my home. There my mother and father greet me with warm smiles and hugs. Then I went to go play in my room. Having nobody to talk to I had always had an imaginary friend that I would play different games with. This one just happened to be hide and seek. So I hid in a secret compartment that was built into the wall. But just as I close the door to the compartment I here a loud boom and men talking. Then I hear swords being drawn and two loud thumps. Then I hear the men talking again and they come into my room. By now I am too scared to move so I hide there in silence. A few minutes later I hear the men talking again, then nothing, I assume it is safe so I leave the cubby hole.
I stand by watching myself slowly move down the stairs and I know what is coming next but the little girl doesn't. I start to cry.
I feel that Eris is crying and assume this is when her parents died.
"Eris are you ok?" I ask her
" yes keep going!" She says through gritted teeth. I realize then she is going to do whatever it takes to break the wall and learn magic...
I watch as the little girl steps down the stairs the. Starts running. There on the ground lay her parents, my parents dying. As she runs to her father he says one thing which I say out loud in perfect unison. "Eris *cough cough* run!"
The little girl runs out of the house. When this happens the tears blur my vision and I can only see the blurred outlines of two bodies on the floor and a giant pool of blood. "Eris in order to break down the wall you must find peace in this. You must become at peace with yourself and with this memory." "I.. I can't Aaron I just can't." And the memory fades as I open my eyes I am now back in my own world but am still crying. Aaron reaches over and wipes the tears from my face and says two simple words "I'm sorry" somehow that simple statement allows me to forget what I had gone through and wipes all the cares in the world away from me for a few moments for the next words out of my mouth surprise even me. "Remove it." I say drying the last of my tears.
"What?"
"I want you to go into my mind and remove the wall"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes" I say holding out my hands again and as soon as he takes them I once again feel his mind enveloping mine and I feel the immense strength that he holds and I feel safe. For once in my life I actually feel safe. I know not what it was perhaps it was the warmth of his hands or the strength of his grip but it made me feel safe. Then I feel a sharp pain in the center of my skull almost as though somebody was stabbing me with a needle. Then my entire body starts to hurt almost like I was hefting a thousand pound boulder upon my back. My entire body starts to ache but I don't say anything.
I feel how much pain Eris is in and I get the sudden urge to protect her. So I envelope her mind further shielding her from pain. I could stop most of it but not all.
I take a deep breath as the pain is substantially lessened but as I look up and Aaron has appeared but his body is blocking a beam of white light and he has a look of severe pain on his face. Soon it is over and I collapse at Eris' feet letting go of her mind and hands and reaching for her robe. I touch it and my energy is slightly restored. I made sure not to take much energy out of the gems as we would be resting and that would replenish the rest of my energy.
"you didn't have to do that"
"I know"
"It may not have needed done but it was very sweet. Thank you" I say hugging him but I let go after a few seconds unused to the strange contact."
" would you mind getting me some bread I'm exhausted. I expended nearly all of my strength with the spell to remove the wall. So how do you feel?" Standing up I get in Alistair's saddlebags and grab a loaf of bread which I year in half. I toss one half to Aaron and having not eaten myself I bring the other half back to the fire with me. The. I close my eyes and stretch out my mind. "Aaron hold onto me I feel as though I am about to float away."
"That is quite normal. You will get used to it in time. Now let us start. With a lesson on magic. Magic is not all just mumbling spells and making things happen. There are certain rules and limitations you must follow and must have. In order to cast a spell you must first have the bodily energy to fuel that spell. If you cast a spell and do not have the energy to fuel it there is a multitude of things that could happen. You could feint among other things but most of all spells that expend too much of your energy the spell could kill you. Therefore in order to cast a spell you must first know your limits as a beginner spell caster you will most likely struggle to cast the simplest spells this is why I beg you not to try any spells you hear me use as they will oftentimes be much more complicated then the simple spells I shall teach you now. Let us try something simple for now the first spell I learned was the word for fire you see in order to cast a spell you must first know the word in order to cast that spell. This language also prevents you from lying so it is a good way to make people tell the truth. This is why the elves speak in the ancient language because they believe honesty and respect are higher virtues than any other. The word for fire is brisingr I want you to light these twigs" as I say this I start building a small pyramid of twigs.
"Alright shouldn't be too hard. Brisingr" but nothing happens.
" allow me to explain further. In order to cast a spell you must first feel the energy that is flowing through you. You must then harness this energy concentrate on what you wish to do then say the word. After that you should feel a drop in your strength and what you willed to happen should take effect. Now try again!"
I did as he said immersing myself in the energy that I could now feel flowing throughout my body, concentrated on the sticks and said once again "brisingr!" This time the twigs lit and Aaron clapped.
"Good job; you may make an impressive magician yet."
We trained late into the night until we were both too tired to cast any other spells or even bring out our bedrolls. Eventually we both simply lay on our backs and fell asleep.
EP: alright there you have it. once again I am very sorry for such the long time before this update but I hope you understand. In any case there is chapter four of "Another Player" hope you've enjoyed it so far as there is more to come.
Brisingr: if you don't know this one you shouldn't be reading this Fanfiction...
Word count: 4499
