First death (1)

Mars looked at the Orb of Elentir, which was present in the center of the ritual chamber. The artifact had been an emblematic symbol of the Order of Elentir when it still existed, and it radiated sets of symbols charged with magical energies in absolutely crazy amounts.

Its power was so strong that just being next to it hurt. Rumors from taverns told of a fragment of the power of the Gods being sealed inside, and that he could fulfill all wishes. But the rumors were obviously false and exaggerated, or the power of the Gods was simply useless. Well, it was supposed to be the kind of thing you could put in the hands of a child, and come back 5 minutes later to find that he had destroyed the house and the whole neighborhood with it. Any child would have wanted one. Well, maybe.

"I would have liked to have one it when I was a kid."

Thinking back to his childhood, he missed those faraway, peaceful days.

When he was a child, he had so enjoyed the many stories of adventure and horror told to him by his grandfather before he fell asleep, lulled into imaginary worlds by the sound of his deep and powerful voice. Those rainy evenings by the fire to explore in his imagination a thousand stories of horror and adventures where the hero ended up triumphing at the price of terrible sacrifices, often death, had strangely always remained in his heart.

Ironically, the stories he had loved so much as a child had become real when his life itself became a tale of horror and terror, filled with nightmares and abominations that went far beyond any story that grandfather had told him, or even anything he had ever imagined himself.

As a teenager, he had many times hoped that his favorite games could become a reality and that he can live in this kind of fantasy world with apocalyptic parameters. Of course he had never really thought about the implications of such a situation, after all it was impossible that something like this could happen to him. But the truth is that the day it happened and he was summoned here, all the hardcore horror games he had played had been nothing more than entertainment that he had enjoyed sitting comfortably in his chair.

Living in a setting similar to one of those games he liked so much, was in fact something absolutely horrible and cruel.

Mars chanted a spell, focusing on the image of the magic seal of one of the Servant Spirits with whom he had made a pact. Immediately, the servant manifested himself in the material world, appearing before him, tapping into his reserves of magical energy as space itself seemed to be distorting.

The spirit that had materialized resembled a strange inflated leather bag, he may not have been the most powerful, the most impressive or the most beautiful of them all, but his powers to contain and carry within him an almost infinite amount of objects were certainly practical.

Mars communicated what he wanted to the servant, and the magic bag opened wide and made the objects demanded to appear in the material world by spitting them out. Once his task was accomplished, Mars whispered a few words in the sacred language, caressing some of the stitches in the bag, which made the bag whirr with contentment, before suddenly disappearing by distorting the space around it.

The booty of one of his last expeditions was some shoddy alcohol and cheap home-made cigarettes made from tobacco leaves from Jorias, one of the most prosperous trading nations south of the continent of Enoa, or so it was before the war started. In the first few years after their arrival, the call of many of Earth's inhabitants to this world made the tobacco trade flourish as never before, and the merchant guilds, already indecently rich, had become even richer.

Tobacco, which had become a rare and precious commodity after the fall of the kingdom of Joras, had become a real treasure when all the nations and merchant kingdoms responsible for its production were ravaged by monstrous armies. When he found it, he decided to ration it and use it only for special occasions.

"Hell, the end of the world seems to rank at least in the top 5 of my list of special occasions."

Taking the bottle in his right hand, he brought it to his mouth and bit the cork to rip it off, opening the bottle with a sharp gesture with his head. He could have opened it with his powerful telekinetic powers, but the feeling would have been different. Respect for tradition was one of the few things he had left at the moment. He took five large sips of this brandy, each one warming his throat more than the previous one, before spitting the sixth, then levitated the cigarette to his mouth and set the tobacco on fire with a single thought before taking a large puff.

The alcohol had a bitter taste and the tobacco was so dry and strong that it seemed centuries old. Disgusting, but enough to satisfy his old habits for one last time.

Spitting the smoke out and manipulating it with his magic, he made the shape of an angel of luscious proportions appear, and he sighed "Seriously, why haven't I been summoned to one of those worlds described in cheap and stupid stories instead of this apocalyptic world??"

On the day he was invoked, he had jubilated. He had thought that it was finally his lucky day, that he would be able to get away from the boring and meaningless life he had led until then, and that he could become a hero! The magicians had even said something like, "You're going to become supermen and half-magicians", well, maybe it wasn't exactly what they said, but it was what he understood from their explanations. He had expected that the blessing of the gods would give him the power to immediately launch trucks, stop bullets and run faster than a fucking superhuman.