What if we're all just sleeping satellites?
Why do we drift so far from home?
Asking Erd is by far your best bet if you wish to learn more about the twin warlocks. Ard would only tilt his head curiously and stare at you as though you had grown two heads. If you were lucky, you would get a grunt of, “Ask Erd.” Erd would laugh but tell you anyway, although you may not receive the entirety of it in truth. His tale would go something like this;
’It’s hard to say when our journey really began, but if you really must know. Ard and I? We were born in a land called Luminous. It’s pretty, I guess, if you like dead forests and cold mountains in a war torn country. Gets its name from the natural luminous stone formations that make up the countryside. They give off a bioluminescent glow when hit by moonlight. The nobles like to mine the stone to make their castles and homes, but, that’s beside the point. There’s something you need to know about Luminous in order to really understand everything; they’re a terribly superstitious lot. Scared of everything they can’t understand, really, but they’re absolutely terrified of magic.
There was a big hunt a hundred years ago or so and the country turned on itself, tearing itself apart to get rid of anyone who carried the blood of mages. Pretty much all of them were killed off.
Anyway. We were born in the middle of winter and cooped up quite a bit for the duration of our younger months. Our parents weren’t around very often after we were weaned, but at least we had each other. That was all that mattered. Spring came around, and we got to finally stretch our little wings and explore the countryside. It was all good fun, though. We lived like typical children. Ard even talked back then, believe it or not. Our parents were proud of us. Even though they weren’t around, they loved us.
As we grew older, we discovered that we could do things that others couldn’t. At first we could only move objects with our minds, but after months practicing, we were able to summon the very elements of nature itself with just a mere thought. It was amazing, but terrifying. Remember how I said that Luminous had a strict ban against magic? Yeah, that law didn’t really do us any favors. Despite that, Ard and I kept practicing our abilities. We wanted to get stronger, even though we were only kids. It was only inevitable that we messed up, though. We got caught. Our parents caught us practicing with fire, and they were horrified. Things… Changed pretty quickly after that. They regarded us like we were monsters, just because we were different.
One day, they left. They just left and never came back. Ard and I were nearly a year old at that point. After that, it was just the two of us. Some of the King’s men came to fetch us soon after our parents abandoned us. They must have told the authorities about our magic. They yelled and cursed us, called us ‘abominations’. We managed to escape capture and hid in the mountains, but, well… It might have been better to just go with them.
By then the civil war was in full swing. The rebels wanted to overthrow the corrupt monarchy, and the monarchy wanted to squish out the rebellion. We had been in hiding for a few weeks when the leader of the rebellion found us. His name was Vreis, but he was no better than the corrupt King. We were both sick from hiding in the snowy mountains with little food, but Ard tried to use his magic to try and scare them off. Vreis and his men immediately knew what we were. They could’ve easily killed us, given that we were practically surrounded by an army and we were sick, but they didn’t. Vreis, he… He gave us an ultimatum. He would let us live despite being warlocks, on the one condition that we served him and fought for his army. If we refused, he would kill us. It was as simple as that. Ard and I didn’t have much of a choice, not if we wanted to live.
We spent the next year and a half honing our magical abilities and fighting in a war that we wanted nothing to do with. Not only did we have to survive the war, but Vreis’ army. They were cruel, manipulative, and twisted, raping and pillaging as they saw fit. We became Vreis’ personal ‘pets’ and we served him in whatever way that he wanted. He particularly liked the sound of Ard’s voice. We knew we wouldn’t survive if we stayed, and so Ard and I began to plan. To make us more powerful, Vreis had ordered his men to find us as much information on magic and elemancy that they could. We read everything that we could obtain, and found a particular spell.
Supposedly, if done correctly, the spell would open up a portal to a new world. It required two skilled magic users; one to mold and shape the portal, and the other to supply the magic ‘reservoir’. Deciding we had nothing left to lose, Ard and I took the chance. In the middle of the night, we snuck from Vreis’ personal tent and tried our luck at opening the portal. It was taxing and took a considerable amount of focus and discipline, all while depleting our magic reserves… But with a bright spark of light, a portal seemed to rip into the very air before us. By then, the rebel camp was aware that we were meddling, and so we did the only thing we could think to do; we jumped in.
Luminous was never our home, not really. Leaving it behind meant nothing to us, not when all that really mattered was each other. Now we’re here, in this world, this Novus, and that’s all that’s to it.’