"Vox, Celeste; time for bed!" Their father's voice echoed gently down the hallway.
"COMING!" Vox sprinted around the corner, his voice rattling the dishes far over in the kitchen. Ardan nabbed him by the collar before he could make it past him and held the other hand up to his mouth.
"Inside voice, Vox." The crestfallen boy nodded solemnly; his father chuckled and set him gently back into his run to bed. His twin sister Celeste came around the corner gingerly and slowly, dabbing at the towel encasing her flowing locks with glowing, purple hands. Ardan shook his head and pointed to his daughter's head.
"What did I say about using magic in the house?" The glow faded and the celestial girl hung her head, beginning her walk around the corner as well.
Even before she was visible, another presence became apparent to her husband. Her twinkling laughter slipped around the corner and reached Ardan before she did, her arms wrapping around his cotton-clad torso and calves lightly straining to indirectly lift her chin to rest upon Ardan's shoulder.
"Always such a hard-ass, love. They're learning." Ardan sighed in tune with his wife's hum as he turned around to rest his hand beneath her chin.
"It's a good thing they have such a kind and loving teacher." Ardan leaned in and closed his eyes before being violently shoved into the wall in sync with hearing a sudden "ew, gross" and "shut up, Vox!" come from behind him.
Ardan looked over from his forced lean against the wall to see Celeste and Vox hovering from clenched, phantasmal hands; their red glow tracing back into a pair of outstretched arms. Glancing back towards his wife yielded a view of fury incarnate; her eyes and hands glowed a dangerous crimson while her hair hovered like it was a comic still given life. Even so, a slight tinge of embarrassment softened the edges of rage.
"Julia." Ardan got a slight head turn in response before all of the anger seemed to drain out with a sigh; her golden hair hit her back as her children hit the floor and her eyes shifted back into their usual sea-green shade.
"Get in bed. Now." A pair of voices echoed "yes mom" to fanfare the children's defeated march into their bedroom, Vox lagging slightly behind his sister.
"I'll go get the book." Ardan nodded and glanced over to his son who was looking up from underneath his hair. Ardan glanced behind his shoulder and turned back with a grin; his son shared the smile and in turn, both were met with a sharp, invisible knock upside the head.
"Vox. Bed. Ardan. Kitchen. Now." Vox shuffled away quickly while his father turned back around slowly, rubbing his head as he walked in on his wife angrily shuffling through the cabinets in the adjacent living room, mumbling to herself.
"Ten years; ten years of that child talking and he's done nothing but get himself in trouble with that loud mouth of his." Ardan barely suppressed a chuckle before instinctively raising a hand behind his head, blocking the blow before it landed. Julia looked up and glared red daggers before resuming her search.
Some things never change...
"Sweetie, fourth drawer from the left cabinet. Under the receipt box." Julia honed in on the proper drawer, pulling an old, leather-bound book out from underneath a now-spilled box of white and yellow paper. The leather had faint symbols inscribed upon its front, but the lettering upon the side was clear, albeit shorthand.
HMRTS-TCH-MGE-WR, 1-1
"Thank you. Now can we get them to sleep? I'm especially tired today." Ardan chuckled again as he wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders as they walked.
"If they fall asleep before I do, I'll give you a massage before bed?" Julia glanced up with a smirk and a determined look set deep into her gaze. She stole back her interrupted kiss before she increased her pace, leaving her husband behind. Quickly entering the room, she kissed both of her children on the forehead before sitting in the rocking chair in the corner and crinkling open the old, slightly jaundiced pages of the book. Ardan paused at the doorway, shaking his head at his wife and taking in what his twins' room had developed into over the years…
On his right, the room was, well… Purple. Lots of purple. Constellations covered the ceiling and pin-up posters of famous actresses and singers filled the wall. The sheets were purple, the bed was a darker purple and the pillowcase was… surprise, surprise: another shade of purple. It gave off a sense of longing; longing for a world unknown or perhaps… undiscovered.
On his left was a much different story; the ceiling had a single pattern of silver concentric circles, but the wall was covered in a multitude of overlapping music artists' posters while various types of headphones hung from the headboard, a series of varied hats filling the floor near the foot of the bed. Adventure and excitement were surely never more than a step behind, with this one.
Sighing, Ardan closed the door behind him and plopped down on the floor next to his son's bed, leaning his head back onto a pillow he left with his son just for this occasion. Every week, the whole family would gather for their own sort of movie night, as Celeste had dubbed their get-togethers.
After Julia cleared her throat and took a deep breath, the room seemed to take on an electric charge, slowly building to the brim like a fountain slowly filling a cup. Her eyes began to glow a soothing, calm blue and her voice washed out over her lips like a stream trickling past smooth pebbles. The entire process put her listeners at ease; it never ceased to amaze her husband, especially. He and his children all closed their eyes in anticipation for the visceral, breath-taking experience that was Julia's "storyshowing", as Vox affectionately nicknamed it.
"Once upon a time…" And so they were lost to the magic of history.
Once upon a time, there was a legendary Mageborn known as Hamartius. Many loosely speculate that he was indeed the first Mageborn, a human blessed with the power to tap into one's inner energies and manipulate the world around them. He was rumored to have lived for centuries, floating between kingdoms and advising various rulers on matters for years under various guises and names.
Texts dating back through these centuries and stories passed down through a multitude of generations make Hamartius out to be an ethereal being whose power was only exceeded marginally by the gods. In-fact, the further back you travel in history, the more likely it is to find a depiction of a glowing, golden God-like figure presiding over bowed heads. He shows up later in history as well; the closer to present-day the incidents are, the more likely they sound like the impact of an extraordinarily powerful Mageborn. Hamartius is often revered as the most powerful Mageborn to have ever lived; some even call him the father of all Mageborn. Some sources think he discovered the secret to immortality and immense power when he was young while others think he simply learned to prolong his life and strength by absorbing the life force of others.
Some sources believe him evil incarnate with faith in the latter reasoning; kingdoms long peaceful often suddenly quested for wealth and power beyond their scope after a strange new advisor appeared. On other occasions, immensely successful kingdoms fell apart suddenly and seemingly without precedent; their kings and queens dying of various diseases unexpectedly.
Others still separated the evil accounts with the good, saying that those events were caused by an entirely different force of evil and malice. They believe that Hamartius was actually the force of good set to balance it with acts of kindness, generosity; healing the sick in times of catastrophic plague, feeding the hungry in times of never-ending famine.
History does completely agree on one thing, though; Hamartius' last known kingdom of influence was a sprawling city-state located in the same place as modern-day Gythia. The location was a prime location for a city to grow and thrive while defending itself from enemies; sheer cliffs to the ocean surrounded it on three sides and the perfectly intact ruins of an old, massive wall had been built upon to create the current, famed Gythian Wall that protected the modern people from outsiders.
Nearby, a massive mountain was discovered to have been carved out by hand to create a multi-level food-production system. An intricate system of indoor tiered-farming far, far beyond its time filled the caverns from base to summit and tunnels only recently discovered connected the inner city and the mountain-farm, suggesting it could hold its own against sieges almost indefinitely.
Speculation from other historical texts dug up from beneath Gythia depict Hamartius as somewhat old during this era; in images, he is often standing next to a golden figure interpreted to be their king in an advisor-like, secondary position. The same modern texts who reference this era also note the shifts in his behavior over the past, cross-referencing other texts that show the spikes of "evil" and malicious, fire-throwing Hamartius appearing further back in the past while the "good" and benevolent, miracle-delivering Hamartius appearing closer to his time spent in "old" Gythia.
Gythian myths surrounding the reason the previous civilization fell, however, heavily implicate a gigantic "explosion" of sorts that suddenly froze the entire city solid. The lands beyond the wall remained lush and green, but the insides of the walls were frozen to the core; citizens were mostly in the process of going about life upon being stopped in time. The myths continue, saying that a man with a description similar and contemporary to Hamartius made the trek up to the top of the mountain desiring more than the paradise that was old Gythia.
Even today, the Gythians believe that a legendary well named Agradável lay hidden at the top of the same mountain; that its waters do not freeze and are purer than a newborn's soul. The legend continues by saying that those who manage to transcend their "limits" are the ones worthy to drink its waters; waters that grant the wish most desired within any human's heart.
What the myth and legend both fail to mention is their connection with one another; accounts from worker's journals from inside of the farm have tales of both seeing and hearing strange occurrences. Workers who checked on the snowmelt passages reported seeing an old man covered in frost from beard to cloak; workers from the inside reported extremely loud bursts of shouting going on about "limits" and "consequences" and "truth". The top floor workers report these recordings earlier and much more frequently than the penultimate floor; by the time the antepenultimate workers begin to write, it seems the final blast had already set in. All of the workers reported colder temperatures beginning at the same time as the top floor first reported the noises. One of the workers from the antepenultimate floor was found frozen with a quill still in hand.
(Hamartius and the Techmaturgy-Mageborn Wars, ed.1, vol.01)
NEXT ABSTRACT: Areas previously located where history dictated Hamartius to have done good deeds are most commonly ruled and inhabited by a large majority of Mageborn. Areas where Hamartius had inflicted terrible calamity often developed into a technologically-dependent state devoid of Mageborn influence.
Julia snapped the book shut as she spoke the final words to punctuate the rise and fall of Vox's symphony of snores. Ardan's eyes blinked open; standing up, he grabbed the headphones hanging on the left and gently set them around Celeste's head. Looking over at his wife, Ardan nodded and the two walked out of the room before shutting the door.
Julia looked her husband up and down expectantly, frowning when all she received was a raised eyebrow.
"So… About that massage?" Ardan's deep chuckle provided a bass line to the melody of his wife's melodious laughter as their song softly sang deep into the night.
A/N: So that's it for now. Maybe more to come. Thank you for reading!
This story assumes Grangor land is on the exact opposite side of the mountain that's to the north of Gythia in the one map I'm provided with from the NS Taka lore. This allows for (REDACTED)'s lore to fit. I work with what I have!