Haah! Haah! Haah!…

The voice of the panting woman didn't travel very far at all; she was near her limits anyway. She had been running for more than an hour now from something, something evil, and was unaware that the darkness had overtaken the day in the sky above.

Perhaps she wasn't to be blamed, snow was still pouring heavily, and the land she was threading was densely packed with the flabby white ice to the point each draining limp she took sunk her leg deep in the snow, good thing she wore her raffia boots, and it couldn't be worse, she was carrying a child; a baby in a raffia basket padded with jute fibers inside supporting the baby.

Alongside her deep footprints in the snow were splashed crimson spots which had sharp contrast on the snow which was dripping from her; she was bleeding, her right hand was holding down the wound on her abdomen while her left supported the dangling basket hanging around her neck.

She stopped and leaned against one of the trees in the forest which appeared sparsely populated due to most of the leaves of the trees already fallen off just before winter began. She closed her eyes while sucking in deep breaths, opening then to check the severity of her injury. She looked into the basket carrying her baby; the baby girl was relatively calm in her thick woolen blanket and gave a big smile to her mother. Her mother smiled back, and whispered to the baby "not long now."

The woman looked back, focusing hard at the land behind her. "They're close," she whispered to herself, as she left her lean on the tree and continued her escape ahead.

She was now thoroughly worn out, with stitches eating at her sides. She stopped at a clearing surrounded by trees, and leaned on the snowy ground. She levelled the snow there, removed the basket around her neck and placed it beside her. Using her bloody right hand, she drew on the snowy patch she cleared three circles , the bigger circle around the second biggest which was around the smallest. The circles were unusual, they were not drawn with the usual curving lines but rather strange signs were written in a circular path to make the circles. She then placed the basket carrying the child into the circle.

Saying a little incantation, she touched her injury again and lay the hand on another snowy part of the ground, and a blue foxlike animal appeared before her. The animal had unusually long eyebrows that pointed out and a thick furry tail. The animal nodded to the woman and climbed into the basket the baby was in, and cuddled beside it.

Suddenly, tears dripped down the mother's eyes, but she didn't make sobbing sounds. She wiped the tears with her left hand. She reached around her neck and removed a rope which bore a key attached to it. She had worn it like a necklace. The key looked rather like a half key, as one side of the key looked complete while the other looked like a jigsaw along its middle. The woman placed it on the child, and looked again at her.

She patted the baby's pink hair, which was more thicker in colour than hers', and kissed the child's forehead. She looked at the animal beside the child for some time, as if they were communicating telepathically, before removing her gaze. She tore a piece of her brown gown from the lower seam and placed in in the basket. She moved back a little, while kneeling on the ground, and bowed. She stretched her hands forward to the circles she had drawn over which the basket was, and started saying some incantations again.

Suddenly, circles formed around her hands. They were drawn in foreign signs similar to what she drew on the ground, and shone in blue lights. The circles she had drawn were now shining bright red, increasing in the intensity of the colour. She heard faint shoutings from afar, and knew she had to hurry. She turned back to see how near those shouting were and faced front again, whispering to herself; "come on, come on."

With a whoosh sound, the basket disappeared, and the woman fell to the floor looking very drained. "It worked, she's safe," she whispered to herself, and smiled softly.

The owners of the voices she heard were now upon her, three figures wearing cloaks that concealed their faces which were dark under the cloak's hood. One of them used his feet to shake her head on the floor, and said to the other two; "this one's finished."

Another of the three in cloaks bent down and looked into the woman's bright brown eyes and asked; "where's the key, and the child?"

"Where you won't find her, not even I know," the woman replied.

"Hmm, I see, too bad, you don't even have enough stamina to kill yourself, but seeing as you're going to be useless to us, we might as well help with that last part," the figure squatting said.

The woman, first filled with shock smiled, but the smile was rather pained. "You won't win," she said to them.

"We weren't after winning, you should have just given up the key and the baby as planned, and a lot of unfortunate things would have been avoided you know," the squatting figure said. "Hope it isn't too late to meet the rest of your family, or perhaps we should leave you to the wolves."

The woman looked at the dark space that was supposed to be the face of the figure with much scorn, and then looked away. "Party's over huh," she said to herself while looking up.

"Ya," the squatting figure said. He then touched the forehead of the woman, and a white light shone from there, after which the woman slowly stopped breathing, and passed away. The figure stood up, and looked at the other two.

"We'll leave her body there, the wolves will take care of it. We'll go back to council to report of our failure, and head back to Tóme."

"Hmmn," the other two replied affirmatively. They turned around and set off into the night back in the direction they came while chasing the woman. Their tracks had been mostly covered up by the pouring snow, and the woman's bloody trail was now a fading pink. The woman's lifeless body was left behind as it gathered snow in the chilling breeze which blew at her gown, and left icy deposits around her face. Poor thing.

The howls of wolves were now more visible in the surrounding area where the woman's body lay. Time had passed since she was killed and the three figures in cloak left, but the bloody stench of the woman never left, and it was what inevitably drew in the hungry predators, who would have thought the relatively fresh scent belonged to either a wounded animal or one that recently died, not one they would want to pass in the freezing cold night.

As they circled the woman's corpse in a frenzied manner, one of the wolves broke out of the circle and approached the corpse with much excitement as it hopped through the snow, its tongue out as it panted, and shook out the excess snow on its grey fur. As the wolf's muzzle touched the woman's side, a wild wind blew out forcefully from the woman's body with such force it threw the wolf away, leaving it whimpering some meters away from the body, and scattered the other wolves around on the ground.

The shockwave of the breeze was visible in the snowy dust it displaced. The terrified wolves, in shock at the retaliation their proposed food had shown, scattered in the different directions they had been thrown before aligning ahead and fleeing the scene, howling hysterically as they ran away.

Soon after her frozen body had given off that vibration, a relative calm ensued, one that lasted a few moments.

Then, her eyes and mouth opened calmly, both emitting white light, and this was followed by three circles again formed with signs forming round the woman. A small white light, about the size of the thumb nail, emerged from her open mouth which was lit with the same colour, and rose above the woman's body. After the light rose a reasonable distance above the woman to about twenty meters, all other lights around the woman and from her mouth and eyes shut. The small light above her glided and drifted away like a wisp till it left the tree lines and faded away up into the skies. All that was left below was the corpse of the woman, one a certain park of wolves were now scared of.

Howls could be heard all over the forest as the intensity of the snowfall increased, and the night got colder. One half of a mysterious key and a child had been successfully saved and sent somewhere unknown by a mother who had died in the process.

Like a wisp, the white light passed through the blood-red sky. The clouds were stained red, in harmony with the sunset, creating a dazzling scene reflecting off the red scenes below.

But what lay below was in stark contrast to the sight above, a worn-out battlefield, but one that lacked life or movement; all were dead, blood was flowing all over like tributaries all leading to a hollow filled with a lake of blood, on greater concentration, there were more lakes of the kind, a lot of gore and body parts scattered across the land with various weapons of swords, spears and arrows ****** into bodies on the bloody plain's soil whose atmosphere was filled with red dust and vapour – if you could see it. How could no-one have survived this? Of the thousands of men and women in armour that lay slain on the ground with crows feasting on their flesh, no one to take victory? Or was it just…sad?

"Tsk, this'll never heal, not on this poor stamina, and a wasted battle that defended nothing…damn them all!"

Along a path clear of bodies but not of blood, a woman staggered through. She was thoroughly drenched in blood, clutching the middle of her abdomen with her left hand and holding a key attached to a rope with the other hand.

Her black hair was visible through her blood-soaked head, so also was the green outline of her eyes. The injury she bore through her abdomen was from an impaling with a sword. She had already lost so much blood and was thoroughly weak.

The woman looked up as she noticed an unusual small light descending towards her. She stretched her hands out upwards so the light landed on her palms. As it did so, it shone brightly on her face and around as she lowered her hands.

The woman's face sobered up as the light faded, and she looked up with her hands still outstretched and whispered to herself; "goodbye sister, looks like I'll be joining you soon, hmm, hope I still have enough in me to store this hehe," she giggled in rather sarcastic fashion to herself. She removed what little armour was still left on her body, leaving behind the light blouse and short trousers she wore underneath behind, and got down to her knees. She cleared a patch of dirt on the ground and began drawing circles, with symbols similar the ones the pink-haired woman, her sister drew.

She drew three concentric circles with the bigger ones enclosing the smaller one, clapped her palms after and then placed her right palm over the circles' center, and said; "appare!"

The circles lit up with a green light and suddenly five men appeared gradually from their feet up alongside a bright green light, all dressed in dark-blue cloaks. They removed the hood of their cloaks and took a knee before the woman who had summoned them.

The woman was now even more drained of energy after the act she had just done, and coughed deeply, spitting out blood in the process as she clutched herself tightly while still on her knees.

"You stress yourself too much lady Ilya," one of the men summoned said. "What do you seek of us now?"

Ilya looked at their faces with a pitiful smile and nodded her head as if in shame, in shame of what she was about to tell them.

"I need you to give your lives, this time permanently, forever. It's come to that as the war was lost. The ghost fairies will be coming for the half key soon, it's got to be sealed at Askander fast. Accel's already fulfilled her role and has secured the key with her farther away than we can get to, I have to now," Ilya said.

"What is to become of the Esteria clan if I may ask?" Another of the men asked.

"Leave that to us, it'll be sorted," Ilya responded.

The men hummed in response. Ilya stretched her hands out again to the circles she had drawn and this time red lights appeared from them. After saying some incantations in a foreign language, the five men disappeared again with a whoosh sound, and Ilya fell to the ground. This time she knew she was done in, she had barely any stamina left, and sighed. "So this is what it feels like, last man dying in a battle field sure is cool huh," she said to herself. She felt cold trickles on her face, and turned her eyes to look up. She noticed it was snowing through all the red around and whispered silently as she faded away; "aah…snow."

A big magical ring appeared on the rocky surface with the signs drawn to make the circle shining red, and out stepped the five men. After they had all come out, the magical circle disappeared.

The five men had varying heights; the shortest of the lot was standing at the left extreme, followed by the tallest, the remaining three had heights descending in length from the third man to the fifth. They appeared on a flat mountain range that resembled a plateau three thousand feets tall, and were beside a rock just above their heights.

"Right now let's start this before them Garbeasts bring on the shitshow," the shortest of the men on the left said.

"Right," the tallest man beside him said.

All five men gathered around in a circle and held their hands, with the third man bringing out the key Ilya had given them, which looked very much like the halfkey her sister, Accel, had teleported along with her child, except the one with the men now had the key edges facing the right and a jigsaw edge facing the left, the opposite of the one with Accel. The two keys were meant to fit with each other.

The five men started saying some incantations while in their circular formation, and within time, the half key left the hand of the man holding it and floated in the middle of the men. They stretched out their hands with their palms pointed at the key, and the key produced beams of brilliant green light.

Suddenly, the men heard shrieks from afar, and knew what it meant – Garbeasts, creatures which protected the mountain – Askander.

Askander was a mountain within which was a prison which held various prisoners of the world too powerful, from witches and wizards to normal humans and those that had other such crafts to even monsters, and was heavily guarded by the Garbeasts, fierce monsters that ensured the dangerous beings entrapped within never got out, that is, if they could ever get past the spells and enchantments trapping them within.

It was a truly horrible place within, and nothing that stayed in there had peace. To add to it all, the lands around the mountain prison lead to absolutely nowhere, it was like another dimension, and those lands were haunted by Garghosts, spirits of the ones who had died in the prison.

But it was always common knowledge that Askander was a good place to seal up things you didn't want unsealed easily if at all, after all people in their right senses never attempted going there, especially if it wasn't worth it given they knew they wouldn't be coming out. The only exceptions were those who controlled it, the high-ranking members of The Council, the highest governing group in this world, at least supposedly. But even they didn't have the power or authority to unseal something sealed in Askander. Only Askander released its prisoners.

"I'll go stall them for a bit, you guys continue, don't forget to implant the breamoculcs in the key before sealing," the fourth man said, as he broke out of the circle.

The remaining four men nodded, increasing their concentration on what they were doing more while the man that broke out ran ahead. The intensity of the light emitted by the key increased, and the tallest of the four men retracted his right hand and put it on his chest. He closed his eyes and said an incantation different to what his peers had been saying. Withdrawing the hand, a white light similar to the one Accel released and Ilya received was withdrawn from the man's chest, but this time it was brighter and almost double in size. This was a breamoculcs.

"Looks like the two sisters merged theirs together, its too big for just one person's," the fifth man said. "Let's merge em' now!"

The men had only started chanting another incantation when they heard a loud groan from the direction the fourth man went. They knew what had happened, and looked at each other before the fifth man broke out of the circle and ran in the same direction the fourth man had run. Not long after, they again heard a loud shriek from another direction perpendicular to where the two men had run.

The men felt more agitated, and the tallest of the men broke out of the circle to run to the direction to defend it. Putting in more effort and energy, the remaining two men increased the intensity of the spell they were casting, and lowered their hands gradually towards the ground lowering the key along until both the key and their hands touched the floor. As this happened, three brown rings with completely different signs formed on the rocky floor. They increased their tempo and raised their voices on their haste, trying to seal the key properly.

Shrieks around them only increased and got louder, and in no time, the monsters were upon them.

"Darn it, we're all gonna die anyways. See you in the afterlife, Elvis," the third man said. And with that, he turned around to face the Garbeasts now around them, releasing spells from his hands which appeared in green lights and fire as well all while shouting and shielding his short companion who continued the sealing spell.

With a loud groan, the third man fell to the ground with a spear through his chest, staring at the ugly winged beasts infront of him, beasts which resembled undead overgrown bats in facial appearances and a humanoid body just bigger than most, yet so powerful, so dark.

The beasts were now upon Elvis, the last man standing, the last of the Shadows loyal to the Esteria clan. One of the beasts ****** its spear deep into his chest, leaving Elvis to let out a great groan, yet his hands were still outstretched, trying desperately to complete the spell. More spears pierced him from all over his torso, and with a last gasp, he completed the sealing spell, sealing the halfkey into Askander, and he gave up the ghost, on his knees, with spears pierced all around him.

The air felt heavy, thick, cold.

Winter hadn't arrived yet, but was just weeks away, and most leaves had already given way in anticipation, but the clouds were not quite ready, it was dark and heavy with cumulonimbus forming about it. The winds had picked up and were creating whistling sounds as they drifted through hollows created by the trees that were scattered around. Behind this trees was a great building, the Council building.

Spanning about a kilometer across, it was only six storeys tall from the ground, but extended ten floors below, bringing the total floors of the building to seventeen. Across its one kilometer span were rooms of different sizes ranging from halls to offices to restrooms, all in the seventeenth floors, although some rooms cut across more than one floors like the great hall within.

The exterior entrance protruded outwards, and had eight doors in total. Above it on the roof was a large statue of a golden eagle which had its wings extended. The bronze eagle spanned twenty-five feet across and nine feet tall. Around the edges of the concrete roof were gargoyles shaped like small flying humans. The walls of the exterior was designed with big flat granite rocks attached in a mosaic fashion.

The great hall was what followed after entering the building. It was the whole seven floors in height above and had a large glass dome as its ceiling which had a golden eagle similar to the statue outside designed on it. Passage extensions attached to each floors connected sections of the floors across around the hall. It was very busy, with people moving to and fro, most of them dressed smartly, some carrying files, most hurrying.

The council building was the office of the Head of Council, an official position that headed six others; the councillors, people who were governors over the six continents of this world. Ofcourse, the building had to be this big, perhaps bigger given the offices it housed.

At the middle of the hall was a complicated circular structure, the Crurix, its exterior was made of transparent glass so the insides were visible. It extended from the first floor up to the fifth, and was surrounded by railings on the floor twenty feet from the structure. The first to fourth floor had offices with people busy in them, while the fifth floor was largely empty…except for a man staring at the wall of the room. Above the structure was a bronze statue of a man in robe holding the decapitated head of another man.

The man in the fifth floor's room was staring at something in the wall. It looked like a wooden box fitted into the concrete wall, with a keyhole at its middle – it looked more like a safe. The man staring at it was a tall middle aged man. He was dressed in a black robe reaching his knees, with a black suit inside and a black trousers. The front pocket of his coat was designed with an embroidery of the golden eagle that designed the hall's dome and the statue outside. It was the council's symbol. Under it was written 'Head of Council'.

The man had been staring at the box for some time now. His arms were behind him with his palms folded into each other. He had also been waiting for someone.

The man wore an emerald ring, and it began to glow. On noticing the glow, he touched the gemstone, and on so doing three large concentric circles drawn around in foreign language appeared behind him. The circles shone red as they appeared. These circles were the magic circles for teleportation.

Three humanoid figures appeared out of the circles, all in black plain cloaks covering their heads and extending to their feet. They went down on one knee and bowed their heads, taking off the hood of their cloaks, which revealed masked faces. The masks were white in colour, with holes for sight, breathing and talking made in. The magic circles disappeared after the men had fully come out of it.

"Did you get the key?" The Head councillor asked.

"No, master Ferenc, Accel hid it away. She escaped while we tried taking it off her," one of the figures answered.

"Hmm? What's this I hear? Another failure?" Ferenc Nebulous, the Head councillor asked again.

"It appears she teleported the key together with her baby across time or something more complex; we noticed blue rays coming from the direction she cast the spells," another of the three said.

Ferenc closed his eyes, and appeared as if in deep thoughts, then turned to face the figures. He reached for the face of the middle figure and removed his mask. What unraveled was a faceless figure, no eyes, nose or lips, it was all just plain extending from his hair to his beardless chin to his ears, which he had. Ferenc frowned at the faceless figure, turned to look at the two other masked faces left and right, before dropping the one he was holding and regaining an upright posture.

"You faceless men were cursed to become shadows since the old world era. Wouldn't be surprised if it was because you lots were just plain useless. I enchanted you all with a masking spell so you could sneak into the Esteria household and extract one half of the key while their battle-hardened sister was at war. How did it get to Accel escaping, and what about her other family members?"

"It appears Accel could sense up even slightly, her powers were underestimated. She eventually removed the masking spell on us and revealed us to her family, who put up a fight, but they all eventually died, including Accel. It was pointless investigating her since she didn't even know where she sent the key to, and the baby," the third shadow said.

"Tsk, Accel damn you, she was just too talented in magic, a big waste she wasn't on our side. The rebels trying their best to bring down the council. They might have actually succeeded in that regard given the war's purpose for…me wasn't achieved. Sigh!" After the Head councillor had spoken, he turned around to face the box again. 'I must open Pandora,' he said to himself.

"Go meet councillor Gione, tell him to ready an armament to counter the invasion coming to the council from his continent, or he won't find life very easy," Ferenc said.

The three shadows hummed in response.

"Dismissed!" Ferenc ordered, and red magic circles appeared again which took the shadows away.

Ferenc frowned a little, lost on deep thoughts. This failures weren't going to be too kind on him. He turned around and left the room he was.