《Shackles》


 Prologue: A Wish

    Green grass. Meadows filled with flowers. I bend down to pluck a flower and sniff, but it crumbles at my touch. I''m sad, and lonely, but I have no where else to go, nothing else to do except wait for anything to end this loneliness.


    As though my wish has been granted, I return to the real world out of this reverie. A stinging pain across my back rouses me and motivates me to pick back up my rock and keep moving.


    Silky, dark crimson hair, so dark it is almost black. It is matted with blood and sweat. Blue-green eyes as deep as an endless ocean. These eyes are filled with pain and suffering. Features that could be considered incredibly adorable. But this face is covered in bruises and more blood, obscuring his true features. A young body that is frail, weak, small, broken, and scarred. A tongue that is unable to let out words. I am Bayan. I am a mute. I am a slave. This is my story¡­

 Chapter 1: Life and Death

    ***NOTE*** I will be writing whenever the urge hits me, if people seem to like this story then I will continue with it. Otherwise I may or may not go ahead with some other of my ideas. If anyone has suggestions, I''m more than open to them because this story is not even close to being set in stone. -fatpanda


    I am Bayan. My name is the only thing that I actually own. I''ve been enslaved for as long as I can remember and have acquired countless physical and mental scars to attest for that fact.


    In recent days, I''ve begun to wish for the cold scythe of death. I just want my suffering to end. Whether it be through death or another form of salvation.


    A week later...


    BOOM! A large explosion rocks the whole quarry. I look up from my work of carrying rocks back and forth from pile to pile and see a single man in a dark purple robe floating in the sky. With every glance at an area, an explosion blasts into existence.


    Within a few moments, most if not all of the slavers were dead and the still surviving ones cowered, begging for their lives.


    However, the man ignored their pleas, their heads all exploded one by one until no slavers were left.


    "Slaves, gather over there!" The man shouts in a powerful voice.


    With no other options, I hurry over to an open area where the man directed. As the last of the slaves gathered. The man spoke again.


    "Line up!"


    With this order, a long line of emaciated slaves was formed. The man looks closely at each man, woman, or child that he passes. The slaves shiver with fear whenever his gaze roves over them, seeming to search for an unknown entity.


    Eventually, he stops at a boy of no more than ten years of age. Then the man pulls him in out of line and tells the boy to stand at another spot.


    As the man comes closer to my location, he picks out another boy and a toddler of a girl. After an excruciating amount of time, he comes to me. I don''t expect much especially since I have no idea what he is picking people for, but just the same my only wish is for some form of salvation whether it be death or living a free life.


    However, he pulls me out, much to my surprise and puts me with the other children. Later on in the line of more than three hundred slaves, he pulls out three more boys and two girls all within the ages of four and fifteen.


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    Finally, he stops and turns his gaze to us children. He separates us into pairs in which each of them were of similar sizes.


    "Each of you has magic potential. If you wish to survive then you must prove your determination to learn magic. In order to show your loyalty and determination, you must kill the person next to you. If you refuse to kill your opponent, then either you will die by his/her hand or mine. Begin!"


    Surprised, I am almost unable to react to the rock held by my opponent. Over the years in slavery, I have never experienced emotions like anger, joy, or sadness. I''ve really only felt exhaustion or pain. Although it may seem surprising that I''ve never felt anger towards my cruel captors, somewhere inside me I know that those emotions wouldn''t do any good. I might as well dull myself in order to do the labor assigned to me so that I could receive some food.


    As the boy rushes at me again, I clumsily dodge while sticking out my foot as a trip. This easily knocks the child down. Without any more hesitation, with an uncaring gaze, I pick up a nearby stone and begin bashing in his skull. I keep bashing until I feel bits of brain matter splatter on my face.


    Standing up once more, I notice the dark robed man''s approving gaze on me. I glance around to see that I was the first of the children to end their fight.


    The adult slaves stared in horror at the scene, yet they did nothing, knowing that they were powerless against the seemingly near god-like being standing before them.


    As the last of the bloody, vicious fights ended, the remaining children stood. Three boys, one girl. Each of us covered in blood.


    The man nodded at us and said, "Well done, you qualify to enter Ether Magic Academy. As for the rest of you slaves, I will be taking your souls."


    Turning back around to the remaining slaves, he raises both hands towards the sky. An almost imperceptible screech fills the air as the line of corpses fall to the ground. In the man''s hand coalesces a tiny sky blue crystal in the shape of a tear.


    "Shall we go then?" Without even glancing back, he uses his magic to lift us all off the ground. We then begin hurtling off into the distance towards an unknown future.

 Chapter 2: Roommates!

    We flew for a long time, day eventually turned into night and at some point I must of fallen asleep in a still standing position. When I awoke, the first thing I felt was a steady and controlled descent from our constant altitude. I glanced downwards and spotted a massive wall with multiple watch towers.


    There were guards patrolling the huge wall. As the dark robed man neared, the guards immediately recognized him. they bowed in respect and returned to their duty as we flew by. The man didn''t even acknowledge the guards.


    The moment that we crossed the threshold between the outside world and this place, I felt a tingling sensation that passed in an instant. I glanced around but found nothing.


    "That was the barrier, kid. It protects Ether Academy. Speaking of which, this is where you will be living until you graduate or you die. So take in the sights while we''re up here."


    Each of the kids in our group looked around curiously. I was no exception and tried to engrave this sight into my heart, this is my home now.


    Another fifteen minutes or so and we landed before a large castle like building.


    "This is both the registration building as well as the Council building. As for what the Council is, you don''t need to worry about that for now because you will be told later today during the introduction ceremony. Each year the Tier Two to Tier Four mages search across the continent for children with magic potential. You are some of these children. the rest in your year you will meet later during the ceremony."


    It takes me a good minute to absorb this information because while thinking, a few questions pop up into my head like: what is a tier two mage? What is the difference between tiers? How many tiers are there? How many other children are there?


    We enter the castle after passing by two guards.The hall is magnificent, there are tapestries on either side and pillars holding up the ceiling. It is as though one were entering a hall fit for kings. And for all I know, there may just be a king here. But that''s beside the point, at the end of the hall was a large oak table with one young man and one elderly woman sitting behind it. Not only that, but there was another group of children led by another dark robed old man, but his robes has red embroidery.


    As we came closer, I noticed there are quite a few orbs on the table. The two orbs sitting directly in front of the sitting air were clear. The line of orbs closest to our side of the table goes in order from left to right: cloudy white, earthen yellow/brown, crimson red, azure blue, emerald green, bright near white yellow, jet black, bright sun-like white, and finally an ash grey one.


    As the last child of the previous group went up to the table and followed the instructions of the man and woman, he touched each orb in succession. The second, yellow/brown orb lit up the brightest, followed by the yellow, and then followed by the crimson red, none of the others lit up at all.


    The man behind the table nodded and bade the child to place a hand onto the clear orb. As palm touched crystal, a light came up followed by some strange characters.


    "Very good, Mage Milton, good work, your batch seems pretty good this year." The man chuckled.


    The elderly mage just laughed back in response but it was in a joyful way. He hurriedly led his group of kids away, not even bothering to greet our group''s mage.


    "Ah! Mage Edward! How was the trip this time?" this time the elderly woman spoke before the man opened his mouth.


    "It went well." Our group''s mage said in a curt yet fairly friendly tone.


    "Good, good! Very well, let''s see what you have for the academy this time. Hopefully it will be better than last year''s batch." she snorted in a slightly rude tone. Then with a cold voice, she speaks to us children, "here is what you need to do, when I tell you to, place your hand on the furthest to the left orb. Keep your hand still until I say otherwise. Then you will go to the orb to the right and repeat until the last orb has been touched. At that point you will touch this clear orb over here. So as not to delay, you, come here!"


    She points to the sole girl in our group, she looks to be around six or so years old. Following the lady''s instructions, her hand is placed on each of the orbs. Two of them light up brightly while another three showed a dim glow.


    I was chosen as the second person to go. When I placed my hand on the first, cloudy white orb, my whole arm and chest area felt a slight tingling. The orb lit up slightly. The next orb lit up a slightly brighter earthen color. The crimson orb didn''t light up at all, but when I reached the fourth, azure blue orb. My whole body felt as though it was overcome by pins and needles. The orb shined incredibly bright. The old lady''s eyes, as well as the man''s eyes opened slightly wider than usual before returning to their normal states as though nothing happened.


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    Next I moved to the green orb, this one lit up with the same intensity as the first orb. The next three orbs didn''t light up at all. And when I moved to the final orb, the ash grey orb, the whole room lit up with a blazing grey orb. The orb seemed to contain a liquid grey fire with the intensity of the light.


    Only at this point did the three mages in the room let out a shocked gasp. "Dimensional magic!"


    I would later find out that dimensional magic is fairly rare, but what was truly impressive is the intensity of my affinity towards it. The greater one''s affinity towards an element, the easier it is to learn and understand that element.


    Not entirely sure what they are that surprised about, I file away this memory for a later date. I then reach towards the clear orb and a similar flashing light appears. Within the orb shows the some more strange characters. It doesn''t take much longer for the tests to finish. The other two boys lit up six of the orbs with fairly good intensity.


    "Well, I must say Ed! You''ve reeled in quite a few uncut gems this year! Congratulations!"


    Our group''s mage, Edward, scrunched up his face in a slight smile. His eyes seemed to betray a sort of feral happiness for some reason. We were then led to a series of buildings that were the first years'' dorms. My roommates turned out to be the two boys from before. The three of us ended up being on the third floor in room 315. Later that day we will have to attend the introduction ceremony, but as for now, we were told by Mage Edward to use the room''s bathroom to wash and then change into the school uniform.


    Thus begins my incredibly difficult task of nearly scraping a layer of skin off myself in order to remove countless years of dirt.


    After I exited the bathroom, I changed into the uniform, it is a simple pair of shirt and breeches with shoes. The shirt is white with an emblem of a purple snake on the left breast, and the pants are a plain brownish color. I comb my hair back with my fingers, feeling the silky texture of my long crimson hair without all the debris and blood matting it.


    Soon after we were all done in the bathroom that held a small tub that was purified after each use by an enchantment.


    Inside the room are four desks and four beds. I took one of the bottom beds and had no one sleeping above me. As one of the boys bathed, I sat across from one of my former fellow slave.


    "Hi, I''m Xander. What''s your name?"


    In response, I gesture at myself trying to demonstrate the fact that I''m unable to speak. When I was born, I didn''t cry simply because for some reason I was unable to speak. I still am unable to speak as a matter of fact. I am a mute.


    Seeming to get the message after a few tries, he nods his head and asks, "You can''t speak?"


    I nod. "So you''re a mute?" Another nod. "That sucks." I shrug my shoulders in a half agreeing way.


    The brown haired green eyed boy spoke again, "I can''t believe we''re not slaves. It''s as though I''m in a dream." he says the last part with a chuckle.


    Nodding in response. I notice as the bathroom door opens, letting out a blonde haired yet jet blacked eyed boy. "I''m Hector. Heard you guys talking in here. Yeah, I can''t believe it either. Anyway, we''ve got the chance to be mages, and I''m not gonna waste it!" Sticking out his chest, he says that proudly.


    I smile and nod as that''s all I''m really capable of doing.


    "Hey, do you have a name?" Hector asks me.


    Nodding, I think to myself as though to answer him, I am Bayan.


    "Since you can''t answer, what if I help you choose a name that we can call you by? If you ever find a way to tell us your name, then we will use it. How about it?"


    I think for a moment before nodding with a half smile.


    "Hmm, Astyroth? *I shake my head* Asen? *Nope* Ault? *Unh-Unh*..." This goes on for a while until I finally hear a name that I don''t mind being referred to. "How about Borrai? *reluctant nod* Alright! Rai for short!"


    Hmm, I guess Rai will do.