Time can change so many things. Even in the single blink of an eye, one can miss the sight of a lifetime, and never know it was just in his or her grasp. Although, in present times, this part of life is quite annoying, let me remind you of what it was like before the Coral Pillar had fallen to its sandstone form seen so often in the starlight off the southern coast of Relmarka, half-sunk in the underwater canyon forming, once, its protection; now its prison.
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In the distant history of our people, there lived a sorcerer by the name of Chamil. Unlike the other court magicians that specialized in the natural magics such as water, light, and earth, Chamil was blessed by Ticklit, god of time. From childhood, he was able to conjure spheres of slowed or quickened time. This worked well for his farming family, who used his skill for slowing time to keep their wares fresh.
It was in the market where Chamil, now a grown man, was found by the head magician Torah while unsealing the time spheres to reach the vegetables. He popped them, sucked back in the magic, and was towed back to the palace where he was initiated into the brotherhood (there were females, but they just refer to the whole as a male) within the same day.
There, Torah specially trained his meager skill and changed it until Chamil was able to create any geometrical shape bubble of warped time. It also differed in size, too. Once for the sake of practice, he was able to suspend an entire island off in the ocean about the size of the royal palace and its grounds.
In the palace, the work he did wasn't very serious. Coupled with an extended feeder spell, he worked at quickening the growing pace of the garden; he reversed time on the palace walls; sometimes he did some quarry work at cutting rocks by beating away the seams with time (he made sand the same way); and the least favorite thing he did was make the fertilizer by working with remains of nearly whatever was lying around.
More often than not, he dreamed of taking adventures like his peers. He wanted to feel the exhilaration upon bringing rain to the fields, shoving away tidal waves, leading volcanic lava through the land into water, condensing lightning into special blue stones; things like that; things away from this boring, empty thing of a palace. Sure, he could do some rudimentary elementals such as call water from the ground and beckoning heat into an item, but wasn't very good at it, so he was never chosen for dangerous missions able to take one's life if safety wasn't cared for.
So he ran away.
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Ten years after Chamil's disappearance, the southern part of Relmarka sent messages to the palace casters concerning a teal, pink, yellow, coral-like tower that suddenly became visible off the coast. Unfortunately, it was half-sunk into the tricky underwater crevasses which could slice a boat in half if the hull came too close to a concealed edge of a wall. Nevertheless, a handful of Naurasian guards maneuvered themselves across the jagged sea and landed on the island. Upon standing on the doormat, however, the first guard found himself teleported over the water near the other shore.
Anything that wasn't the floor got teleported to the same spot the first guard was if they touched even one hair of the grassy mat. Knowing that they couldn't deal with things like this, the guard retreated to make way for the Knights.
Three naurayas were seen in the air the next day, their six legs equipped with magical flat plates to keep them standing in the water while their companions do some exploring. The green nauraya landed first, the plates stiffening the water so it can hold its weighty load. The red and the orange were next, expertly landing directly next to each other. The Knights all had the same plates in their sandals, and were trudging up the water onto the island. The doormat was set on fire magically, erasing it from their list of problems. With that, the tower began to glow, the rough stone door slowly opening.
One of the Knights hesitated to go through the door, finally staying outside because of "a feeling I had". Two Knights were more than enough, they thought, so they took a step in. With a small pop, the Knights were catapulted right out into the water. The plates prevented them from going far in, and in less than five minutes all three were back to square one, doormat and all.
This was very confusing for the lot of them. "That can't happen so easily."
"I know; conjuring teleporting magic without being there is very difficult."
"Not to mention draining."
"We're missing something here, aren't we?"
"Wait…" the Knight that wasn't soaking wet walked up to the coral wall and kept a hand near the stone, but not directly on it. "This is strange…"
"Torah, did you find something?" The soaked Knights looked up at the ex-head magician as he gently pulled off a twisty nearly-invisible strand of something. "This magic…" His eyes snapped up, "Chamil!"
Just as he said the name, the glow of the tower enveloped the entire island. "W-what's this?" stuttered one of the Knights. "It's a restarting magic."
"Restarting?"
"Yes, and by the looks of it, we'll be catapulted off again in three, two, one…"
Torah never liked his pants wet. Not now, not ever.
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"So that's how the mat kept coming back; he restarted it!"
"What?"
"It was a past time of ours; he would cast the spell as a bubble around a set of rocks and focused on how he wanted it to be when it 'restarts'. I then would do something with the rocks; turn them blue, take one away; and when the time to restart comes, they go back to the form they were in regardless of what I did. I once saw a rock I buried inside a stone actually break out of its casing to join the rest of the rocks."
As they stood on the water, dripping back into the sea, Torah felt something at his foot…and saw the edge of the restart bubble. Eyes widening, he ran back to his nauraya and hurryingly flew into the air, followed by the two others.
Three, two, one…
Opening his eyes, Torah found himself over the water without his nauraya. His companions were there, too, but they were upside down in the waves. Managing to get the two into the air, the bubble around them changed into a grey-hued, misty kind of bubble. "What's this?"
"Something we won't like."
"What?"
"An arena."
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As the three Knights were suspended in their own bubble of time, the other clear restart bubble spread fast over southern Relmarka. The people didn't notice too much, but many did when about one in seven were catapulted right out of their homes, off the streets, even out of the small castles, crashing through anything in their path. They were protected from damage, but that's not saying that it didn't hurt.
The people that were left were farmers like Chamil in his young days. The town sellers were confused when their neighbors were sent out, but most were in the fields, oblivious to the sudden banishment. But they were not oblivious to the fact that the crops were growing faster than ever.
Ten minutes later, the land 'restarted'. The tossed-out townspeople who managed to get back inside the bubble were, again, thrown out. The harvested crops stayed, but the restarted half-grown plants now had weeds among them, too. Just about everything was going the wrong way. And the palace was next.
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The three Knights were standing cautiously, swords out in front, when a cloud of insects suddenly solidified from the mist and charged. For five minutes, stings tore into their body as the sword swings did minimal damage to the opponent. Suddenly, the arena restarted, but didn't take away the early fatigue of the three astonished Knights. Again, the insects came, but magic now was tossed at them, so by the end of five minutes, all the insects were gone.
The next opponent was a giant two-headed creature not unlike the Earth dog, but with sharp wing-like projections on its flank as big as each Knight. It took three tries to finish it off, and one Knight even had a tooth pulled out of the carcass before it too vanished back into the mist.
Third in line was a metal creature, shining with a black aura around its slim, spiky body. The size of a straw mattress, it had three dangerous horns atop a snout filled with iron teeth, as well as the blades that served as fur and armor. The three considered just dying before getting destroyed limb by bloodstained limb by the horrendous monster. Right then, the mist again restarted, doing nothing at all but start their match as the monster charged at the battered Knights, scaring one onto his behind. Torah raised a sword, powering an ice spell as it came nearer. At the last second, he lashed out, slashing a small sliver of the creature. The paw plowed through regardless of the hit, and slammed Torah into the ground. But it lifted, ever so slowly, as the ice blossomed from its cut armor. Seconds that felt like hours flew by as the metal frosted over.
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The present king of Naurasia was enjoying afternoon tea when he bothered to look out the window. The liquid was sprayed everywhere as he ran down the towers and into the Spellcaster's Hall, where he ordered every magician, assistant, and apprentice to try and repel the sphere inching closer and closer to the palace walls.
With no success.
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At about the same time, the three Knights escaped from their battle and appeared unscathed on their nauraya's backs, floating right in front of the coral pillar. Together, they descended and burned the mat again, this time stepping over the ashes into the tower together. Sighing with relief when they found that nobody had teleported out, they ran over the stone floor and climbed the first thing that came in sight; a spiral staircase that seemed to lead into oblivion. Not stopping, the three charged it like a herd of maniac creatures, bursting through the door at the end of the line…
…and nearly fell out the tower doing so. Apparently, the door they burst through was actually a window, so after heaving each other out of harm's way, the three were befuddled at what happened. So confused, that Torah actually tried to swing his head to hit the stone wall in frustration, instead getting sucked through the hidden portal alone.
He got himself on a completely different island, with no tower, no city, no companions, no people. Or so he thought.
"Come to fetch me, have you, you stinking Knight?" Shocked, Torah turned his head slowly to the speaker, not flinching at all as he saw that Chamil was standing behind him. The surprise was to the magician, not the Knight, as Chamil's jaw seemed to drop onto the sandy floor. Recovering, his eyes again flew to its previous malicious glare now aimed at his own sky-blue eyes, also drawing out dark gloves inlayed with coral. As he fitted his fingers inside, Torah recognized them as Caster's Gloves, the basic equipment for magicians to channel their magic. In reply, he drew his sword, setting it in the attacking position. "Chamil, why are you doing this?" he asked, not keeping his eyes off the glimmering gloves. In reply, his ex-pupil charged, gathering basic fire magic in his palm. Quick as the wind, Torah leapt back, swinging his thin sword at the gloved hand.
His eyes showed surprise when the glove turned and gripped his blade. Time swallowed it up to the hilt, making it rust and fall to pieces before him. Grinning wickedly, Chamil swung his free hand and out shot a needle-sharp gust of wind aimed at Torah's face. He did not parry it fast enough and the magic blew off the sap-leather gloves on his hands, just about to fetch his extra dirk. The energy forced him to his knees, cradling his battered hands away from Chamil's view.
"Why am I doing this? Well, nobody let me do anything," he hissed, stepping closer. "And since leaving your pitiful brotherhood, I have done something. I learned. I took up the dark arts and planned to model the world into someplace everyone can have a chance to do something. And the best way to do it is to take the throne. Oh, and on the way, it wasn't too bad to eliminate the other people that were on the way there, too. Just the controlling ones, that's all. But this won't matter to you." Lifting one hand, a dark ball gathered inside. When it was as big as a head, Chamil swung it like a club, aiming for death.
It never reached its target as a ball of pearly light flew up to meet it, blowing the two contenders to opposite sides of the island. Chamil looked up to see Torah standing straight, the green gloves of the Spellcaster's Hall inlayed with icestone for his hands facing his unprotected face. "I'm sorry, but if this is your reason for magic, then I have no choice but to banish you once and for all."
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Outside, the two Knights ran as fast as they can off the island as the tower around them began to change. Once in the air, they watched as witnesses while the time bubble imploded, swallowing itself with quickening time. By the time it vanished, all that was left of the tower and what happened inside was a series of pillars made of sandstone mixed from the coral sand with Relmarkan dust…and a green glove inlayed with icestone, its fingers intertwined with a black glove inlayed with coral.
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The king was helping in the shattered village when he noticed a boy alone in the crowd. He held a bundle of vegetables encased in a bubble, with a look that showed confusion and misunderstanding. "Young sir," the king began, approaching the boy, but never finished, for he then saw that one hand, the one holding the vegetables, was in a green glove, inlayed with coral and icestone together.
