The Adventures of Melina The Mage (version 2)

Once Upon a Time...

Thousands of years ago, in the Empire known as Byzantium, there was a city known as Zadar. In the chilly air of December, the people were seemingly unaffected by the cold hurried along to their destinations. Throughout the town, most horses were carrying passengers to their jobs and plays while the air reeked of horse droppings. Some noses curled at its repugnant stench while many just moved about their daily business, attending to their affairs as usual. It also occurred that slave owners felt the need to force other humans to do laborious tasks, only because their skin color was different from the norm in the region. Citizens who were less worried about how slavery benefits them were conversing among each other. Some of these conversations included were the recent wars with Bulgaria over Thessalonica and the other was between the nobles of the city, who were meeting to consult each other about the idea of allowing magic to be available to more countries, including the Duchy of Benevento and the Avar Kingdom, as Byzantine, The Franks and Northwestern Bulgaria are the only countries in possession of this power.

All over Byzantine, there were jobs and hobbies people used magic for such as the professions Battle Mage, Beastmaster, and Wizard. Though they were the remnant of the Roman Empire, they have struggles with nearby countries. There were many spies with the same power and their goal was to be the cause of the empires fall, even when it was still difficult for their goal to succeed. Though there were these many ways to use magic and about 0.25% of the population using it, one sets the stage for this story. This mage had black hair accompanied by light blue eyes and a heart-shaped head, which included a celestial nose and thin lips. That Mages name was Melina.

Melina had been working on a spell for years in her tower made of plastered bricks and a dome roof with purple, blue and green stained-glass windows between the roof and the actual tower. They created light similarly colored to themselves, allowing the colors to mix and create even more colors such as cyan and blue-violet. The tower had been passed down from her Grandfather, to her father and finally, to herself, as she was the only child who lived. As she grew up and went through many hardships, while also seeing how others were being affected by the world, she set a goal to try to stop or reduce the death and depression in the world. But other events prevented her from achieving that dream.

She sat in her towers top room with the walls looking the same as the outside, but inside of the room, she has a desk similar to that of a Credenza desk, made of Dark Ash Wood, containing a shelf with books about magic and spells. A map was also attached to the wall depicting Eurasia, but after it being up there for the past three generations, it is unclear what the map showed entirely. Along the floor, though, there was a pile of documents keeping track of someone's whereabouts, but a lot of them were just different accounts of the same things.

She began to drop Time Roots into a cauldron full of water believed to be used by Poseidon. Alongside them, she dropped in a berry that makes you hallucinate and finally, she put in pointed animal horns. She stirred, stirred, stirred while also chanting words not understood by the common man. She continued for 10 minutes until the water turned white colored, where she proceeded to, at last, drop a horse leg into it where she stirred continuously for five more minutes where the water was now a grey color. She took her stirring spoon out and tapped the side of the cauldron facing north to west to south to east, where once she put her spoon into the cauldron straight to the center, waves of sound began coming up the side to form a sphere on top. It then collapsed in the center to form the shape of a donut. The waves then dispersed around the room, where it bounces off the walls, back into the cauldron where the water turned pure white.

"Finally, I am done," Melina told herself laying back in the chair.

The water and her tower began to shake but Melina thought it was apart of the spell. She was wrong. Buildings began to shake and fall outside of her tower. Even those who should be able to withstand this. She stared out of her window, eyes widened watching as buildings collapsed onto the ground. horses were freaking out, starting to run into the forest and the people tried to save their homes using ropes or by pushing, while some tried to help others escape. Their efforts did nothing and before they knew it, the buildings fell atop of them. Melina attempted to run out, but before she could reach the door, her tower fell. She spread her arms and legs apart to reduce the damage done when she reached the ground, where she fell into a coma-like state.