The Lost Lamb
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: in Darkness
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well this chapter took a lot longer than i expected it, it is also quite long but it reveals the major past of Arwin.
it is also very fast paced as i had to put lot of stuff into one chapter, it has been the most difficult chapter to write till now,so i hope you like it.
"Chapter 20:Four Years Ago"
Spoiler for Chapter 20: Four Years Ago:
Four years ago, in a small town named Grasmere...
A 15 year old arwin woke up in a bed, he was bandaged and his head still trying to cope up with recent events. He looked around he was on a bed in a small room, wearing a shirt and trousers that weren’t his. He looked sideways there was woman cooking something in a pot at the fire place, he could smell it, his stomach made a loud noise for not eaten in a few days. The woman turned around,
“so you woke up finally”she said
“who are you? And where am i?”he asked
“i am the one who saved you and you’re in my house”she answered, she came near with a bowl and spoon in her hand and offered him the bowl of stew.He accepted the bowl, at first he looked at the food but did not eat it,
“don’t worry if i wanted you dead i wouldn’t have picked you from the street”she said, he rapidly put spoonful into his mouth one after another, in minutes the bowl was empty. He eyed the woman, she wore a white top, trousers and a sword rested on her hip. The woman came near him, she put aside the sword and took a stool and sat next to the bed,
“so what is your name? And what were you doing lying there unconscious all beaten up?”
“it’s Arwin, a bunch of guys tried to rob me and i put up a fight, i....wait where is my watch?”
“you mean this watch”she showed him the broken pocket watch hanging from her palm
“that is it”he said and extended his hand, she pulled back.
“oh no, i am keeping this as a payment for my hospitality”she said, he then didn’t had say anything to say as he had already eaten the food.
“what was your name again, arwin what?”
“Arwin Klein”
Suddenly a guy opened the door , “Sabetha come on it’s Vincent he is fighting the street gang, you don’t want to miss this” and went ahead hurriedly
“come on kid, we have to go” she said, she strapped the sword on her waist and handed him a pair of boots
“this is women footwear”he complained
“oh please, you are wearing a woman’s clothes and you complain about the boots?, come on put them on we got to go”
He unwillingly wore the boots and followed her out. There were running through the streets, they went into an alley and from one turn to another went on going deep into the inner streets. Finally they came to a square, this was the uncivilized part of the city filled with unsophisticated people consisting of workers, vendors, small shopkeepers, thieving crews and beggars. They people were crowding at the centre of the square.
They met up with the guy who had appeared before at Sabetha’s house, from there they went to the roof of a nearby building from where they could see the centre of the square clearly. There he saw an unarmed man dressed in proper clothing against five men.
“what’s going on?”asked arwin
“just sit back and enjoy the show we got the best seats”said the guy with them.
The five men were armed with knives and daggers as they attacked him he dodged with sharp reflexes. They surrounded him and attacked from all sides, suddenly he disappeared and there was a blur of his image in the area at multiple places at the same time hitting all of them, then he stopped and could be seen once more, a mage circle appeared beneath him, as soon as the crowd saw the circle they moved back making more space for the fighters. He took out a veil and emptied it in his mouth, one of them attacked him head on he dodged and sprayed liquid fire on him, another dashed him from the side, he jumped over him and placed his palm on his back, he was thrown away with blast of magic on his body. Then he threw a spell at another one that paralyzed him on the spot, he picked up a knife that had fallen and threw it charged with magic, it went through the shoulder of the paralyzed guy. The other two guys were near him, he quickly coated himself in a cloak of lightning and soon as the other two hit they were electrocuted and fell down.
He looked around and saw they were dealt with, he looked above and noticed the spectators on the rooftop.
“what was that about?”asked arwin
“He is Vincent, our leader. Those other guys hired us for a job and later refused to pay”she said
“hired?, who are you?”
“we are guild mages”she answered
“but not official yet. And i am Billy by the way”said the guy with them
“hello people, i hope you enjoyed the show”said Vincent who was now standing behind them,“it seems we have a new guest here”he added when he saw arwin
Sabetha pulled him aside from them, “listen i found him on the street with this on him”, she showed him the pocket watch
“well that is certainly not a commoner’s item, so what is he a noble?”
“i am not sure but, but he surely is not from the common rabble. May be he is lost or ran away, but we can use him and get some big money from his family acting as ransom”
“it could work, and we need of funds for the guild” he said
“alright then i’ll keep him with me and try to get the info on his background from
him”she said
Arwin was eyeing Vincent, he was fine handsome man, he wore violet-blue robes, brown pants and boots. He din’t look the part of street rabble like others did. Arwin noticed he had a crest like tattoo on the back of his hand.
After their talk they joined others and came down the roof, after a little chatter Vincent and Billy went on their way, Sabetha and arwin went the other.
“so listen would you work for me, i could use a hand. You work for me and you get food to eat and a place to sleep. Or do you have somewhere else to go?”
“no, i....uh i’ll work for you”he said
(Sabetha)damn it, he is a runaway, i’ll have to get him to talk somehow.
After that arwin started to live with sabetha doing odd jobs and household chores for her, he got three meals of the day and a bed to sleep.
Two weeks later,.....
Sabetha and Vincent were meeting at the villa that served as their base of operations for their so called guild,
“it’s been so many days, every time i bring up the topic or try to make him spit out some information, he carefully avoids it and slips out of it. i even asked him directly about his family, he made up an obvious lie and then i couldn’t counter without him getting suspicious of us”
“i see, wait for a few days, if he still doesn’t talk we will use the hard way and make him talk. Honestly i wouldn’t like to torture kids but he left us no choice”
Later the next day arwin and Sabetha were walking through the market after some work. At the noon when the market was most crowded they had to make their way through the crowd. A person bumped into sabetha from back and moved along. When they were out of the crowd she felt something missing on her, her pouch of coins was gone. she looked around and saw the man who had bumped into her running in the opposite direction.
“oh!,fuck!”she cursed and went after the man leaving arwin behind. He din’t knew what to do, he thought for a moment and ran straight ahead of them.
He went across the street and ran into the alley, taking a few turns he spotted a coffin shop that had a coffin placed against the wall, he sprinted and ran over the coffin and grabbed a window on the building, he climbed swiftly to the roof, he jumped on to the next building and dropped down to a lower roof. From there he spotted the thief closing towards him from right and Sabetha was behind him. when the thief was a few steps short he dropped straight down and landed on the thief both crashing into a heap of cartons by the side.
Sabetha came to them and picked him up and the thief unconscious, she took her money from the thief and kicked in his face. She looked at arwin for a few moments, he was covered in few bruises
“may be you could be of more use”
Later that night at the base.....
“you want to train him, that’s a foolish idea. we recruit mages not teach wizardry
”said Vincent
“it’s been over two weeks and we haven’t gotten any information, rumours or gossip from our contacts about his family. it’s seems more like he was kicked out of his house and there hasn’t been any search for him, even if we torture him to speak up i doubt his family would take him in more than one piece. I am saying we are stuck with him now and he has skills and the guild can always use a new member. If we can’t get any money from his family this way, he might as well work for the guild and make money for us that way” she explained
“fine , but he is your responsibility he better worth this trouble” he said
The next day she offered arwin to join the guild which he gladly accepted, they went to their base and arwin was introduced as the new member of the guild, he met with other people in the guild. Later that day Sabetha took arwin to the backyard garden of the villa.
“i will be training you to use magic”she said, while they were admiring the burning disc drowning into the horizon
“well i already about magic”he replied
“do you now, then things will be easy i guess”she said “you are part of this group now, we built this because we can use magic to do work that cannot be done by any normal person”
“i see and Vincent is your leader, but i rarely see him doing any guild’s work”he asked
“Lately he has been very busy with his research. Anyway, you will be having you share of the work from the guild and will be paid likewise.”
Later he shifted to live in the villa with others and now arwin was a part of this small faction.
One fine noon arwin and sabehta were sparring in the backyard, when arwin noticed the odd weapon of hers
“that sword of yours is quite different” he said “is it some kind of magical tool”
“of course it is”she said, and she streamed her magic through it and the blade turned yellow “it uses the magic from it’s user, so with a different wielder it can have different effects. it’s called Greywand”
“how did you get it?”he asked
“my master gave it to me when i was young, he had no longer use of it so he passed it on to me. When i asked him about it, he told me he had won it from another wizard.”
“quite a fancy equipment”he said
“a few days ago i encountered a witch, when she saw greywand on my waist and challenged me to a duel and asked for greywand as the prize if she won. she also used magical swords, she could summon different magical blades with different abilities. But was very inexperienced and inevitably lost and then she was gone.”
“well i wouldn’t cross blades with you now”he said, they continued their training
And then one year passed by, during which arwin learned to use magic and cast spells and later developed his own unique magic. Sabetha also taught him how to use a sword, he couldn’t master it but could wield a blade if needed. He not only learned new skills but also made new friends and relations with other people. He would go on mission and adventures with them, train, eat and have fun together. Few asked details for his background but most of them didn’t care for it. For the time being he was settled in this place and had forgotten about his runaway from his home.
One such day....
“so now using alchemy his research might go in a whole new direction”said Billy one of arwin’s fellow wizard and good friend, “i am working with him on that one”
“he should get some result by now he has been at it for more than a year”said arwin as they sat eating their meal in a nearby tavern, “alright i have to go meet up with Sabetha. I’ll see you later”saying arwin ate the last spoonful and took off.
Later at evening arwin and Sabetha came back from their special assignment that she had invited arwin to, they were headed towards the villa,
“i still can’t believe you tricked me into coming with you”said arwin, “you told me that we were going to a noble banquet”
”hey we did go to a fancy party” she said
“we were delivering groceries because their vendor was not in place and we barely made it in from the back door”he said “is that what we do now, sell vegetables?”he added mockingly
“hey sometimes we have to suck it up to the nobles to get their support, now shut it”she said
When they arrived at the guild, the place was abnormally quiet, there were a couple of mages in the hall who had also just arrived. Faces who would usually be seen were absent along with Vincent,
“okay listen, you guys go check out the upper floor”she said to other three wizards, “arwin and i will look into the basement”
They made their way down, the room at the far end was lit with floating orbs, as they approached Sabetha noticed a trail of blood on the floor. They silently entered the next room, Vincent was standing at an altar, the floor was flooded with blood, arwin looked up he saw the bodies of the wizards from the guild were crucified on the wall, wounds and injuries all over their body and a trail of blood on the wall beneath each body.
“what the devil!”yelled arwin, Vincent turned and saw Sabetha and Arwin, he wore an aporn over his clothes that was stained with blood and his hands wet with fresh blood till elbows, on the altar was the body of Billy, the chest was ripped apart ,the ribs were sticking out from the side and the torso was torn open. Arwin was shaken by the horror of the site, he was stunned and wasn’t able the utter another word.
“what in the bloody fucking world are you doing in here!”said sabetha in shock by the absurdity of the site and the monstrosity she saw in Vincent.
“i am sorry you had to find it this way, it was necessary for the experiment” said Vincent “let me explain.....”
“MURDERER!!”she yelled, she quickly grabbed and arwin and ran back up, Vincent took off the apron and quickly followed.
Vincent came running to the main hall and saw the two along with three other wizards waiting for him,
“how could you do such a thing to your own comrades. You will not get away with this”said sabetha
“i needed human sacrifices to experiment, this was part of my research, magic requires sacrifice you know that. We both set out to do great deeds in magic.” he said, his voice was calm while sabetha’s was shaking.
“not like this”she said
“we started this together and now you dare stand against me. i have come too far and no one will stop me, not even you”he said
The Wizards fired blasts of magic at him, he blocked it by a force field. sabetha attacked him with greywand, he dodged and caught the sword in his bare hand and placed another hand at her stomach, with a blast of magic she was thrown away and crashed into the wall. One of the wizard levitated weapons from the rack and threw towards him, Vincent created a barrier that turned every weapon into dust of metal when it passed through it. Other two wizards attacked him from either sides, he countered their magical energy with his own, arwin appeared behind him and almost touched him with black lightning sparks. He ducked and turned and caught arwin’s arm, lifted him up and kicked him in mid air, arwin went flying and crashed into the roof then fell down and crashed into the furniture, suddenly sabetha appeared next to him and swung the sword at his neck.
Arwin coughed up blood and spit it on the floor, hot streams of blood were running down his temple, his clothes were in tatters and was bleeding from his shoulder. He got himself up stumbling and saw Vincent and sabetha were standing close to each other, his on hand was on her shoulder holding her and other hand was half way through her torso, blood was dripping from his fingertips as he penetrated his hand further into her body and then pulled out and let her go, she fell to the ground with a splash of blood. Vincent turned to other wizards. When arwin saw this he got too scared, while Vincent was busy with other wizards arwin jumped out of the window and ran away.
Even though every movement of his body pained him, the fear made him run for his life. He ran away from the villa towards the edge of the city, on the building ahead was a pulley for lifting heavy weights to the roof, he caught the rope and opened the lock, the load came down from other side pulling him up to the roof, from the roof he jumped to the high wall from there fell on the other side into the bushes outside the city. He got up and was stumbling his way trying to get as far as possible, his vision was becoming blurry now due to the blood loss. Suddenly he felt a wave of magic energy pass though him. He looked behind and saw a bright light coming from the city, he fell to his knees as the light expanded from the city then everything was bright and there was light everywhere as he fainted and fell on the grass.
When the next ray of sunlight touched his face, he woke up. His body aching and burning injuries, he somehow got to his feet and when he looked towards the city his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. The city was gone, a giant scorch mark on the ground and few structures standing, while most of the building and the people in it were turned to dust and ash. He walked into the city and there was no sign of life. He saw a few remains of the structures and nothing but ash on the black colored ground. He went towards the villa which was now a small pile of broken woods. He sat on the ground and placed his hand on his face while tears began to flow down his cheeks, all the people from the guild, his friends and Sabetha were all gone now. It was then that he realized that had he not ran away like a coward he would have met the same fate.
He sat there for sometime reminiscing over the some memories with them from the past year, then something caught his attention. He saw something shining on ground, he moved the pile of trash and found the greywand beneath it, the events of previous night came rushing into his mind. Now there was rage building up inside of him. He took the picked it up and was on his way.
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Present day....
On the send night after arwin left Isengard and when all the moons were in the dark sky, arwin was running through the woods and kept on going until he finally reached a cliff and stopped.....
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