Chapter 5: An Explanation

Following: Julian Oakley

Time: 02:12, 35 of Early Fall, 2338 AF

Place: The Hideaway, Proygas, The Ten Domains

The morning alarm rang throughout the underground lair. Everyone was to have a speaker near their bed, so they all got up at the same time. All at once, outside of Julians room, he could hear the squeaking of rubber against the darkish gray marble floors, dozens of Atlas's workers, or as they liked to be called, Blood Saints, headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. Oh, how he wished he could be a part of that group, knowing your place, knowing what you were meant to do. The thing was, he didn't know anything. He knew how to read, write, speel, count, all that jazz, but he didn't know where he was, who he was, and why he didn't remember.

Today, he learned all of that.

Julian woke up a few days earlier, on the very same bed he was in now. The bed had a dark oak frame and a red comforter. The sheets alone could put him to sleep before his head touched the pillow, which was also to die for. He had a room to himself, though it was barren of any personality or furniture beside the bed, a table immediately beside it, and a couch opposite from the bed, pressed up against the stone wall. Julian had spent the past few days figuring out how to walk again, as he had never used his legs before. It was a great struggle for him, but he eventually figured it out, albeit with the help of his new dark red cane, which was currently laying on his bedside table.

Julian threw the covers off of himself and sat up. He looked at his hands, studying them closely. Smooth and soft, fingernails neatly trimmed, skin perfectly clean. His hands were strong, despite this. He grabbed the cane off the table to help him out of bed. As he wobbled towards the door, his legs shook, as he didn't fully get the handle of walking, even with the cane. He opened the door with the brass doorknob. As he walked out of his room, he saw a long hallway, with multiple doors on either side. Behind those doors were the sleeping quarters. There were four bunk beds in each room, and six doors in the hallway, so there were forty-eight Blood Saints in total. There were, of course others that had a special purpose, but they were dubbed Blood Nobles, and were assigned their own bedrooms. Blood Saints spent the days training, or travelling the Ten Domains looking for more followers, whereas Blood Nobles worked on whatever they needed to. There was an inventor, a scientist, and many more, including a psychologist, whom Julian was on his way to see.

He passed several branching hallways, each with the same gray marble floors and the same dark red walls. Julian noticed some holes in the walls nearing the floors, most likely the homes to unwanted rodents. He walked past the cafeteria, where the Blood Saints were eating what looked like pieces of soggy turkey smashed between two pieces of stale bread. One long plastic table was all that was in the huge empty space of a room, apart from a window embedded into a wall where the Saints got their food.

Eventually, Julian reached his destination, a dark oak door with a gold coloured doorknob, and a sign reading: Dr. Martin Clarke. As he entered the room, he saw several pieces of what seemed like expensive furniture. He had a dark oak desk in the corner of the room, with several desk decorations giving it a casual look, including a small metal lamp, multiple folders, a stapler, and much more. There was a circular bench surrounding a round black metal with a hologram projector in the middle, something very rare in Proygas.

At the bench was a small, light skinned man, with a black lab coat and dress shoes. He had a bald spot on the back of his head, as a window through his graying hair to his liver-spotted head. He pushed his silver spectacles up, which were so thick that Julian could barely see the man's eyes.

"Come over, boy, take a seat," Dr. Clarke nodded at him. Julian did as he was told, and sat on the silver bench surrounding the table, which was surprisingly comfortable. "Now, tell me what you remember,"

"Not much, I know the basics of human function, reading, writing, talking, stuff like that, but I have no idea where I am, nor where I am. Because I've spent the last few days here, I know how things work, but I have no idea what's on the outside," Julian confessed.

"Okay, well then, let's start from the very beginning," Clarke tapped the table in front of him with two hands, and a great lightshow of galaxies emitted from the table, creating a three dimensional image floating in midair. Julian stared with wonder in his eyes.

"Thousands of years ago, our system; the Astro System was formed from the remnants of comet and asteroids, joined together to create our Sun and the six planets orbiting it. The first, and closest to the Sun is Metera," Clarke made a swift movement with his fingers, and suddenly the table was projecting a large red planet, fairly featureless, floating a couple feet above the table.

"Duleron's the second closest, it's pretty boring, so we don't pay much attention to it," A floating yellow planet appeared, slightly smaller than the last.

"Then, Jiegano," A bigger, silver planet with beautiful shiny rings came next. "Fun fact, the rings are made of a very strong metal you can only find on Jiegano that we call Jubril.

"Our world, Nalore. there are six continents, The first is ours; The Ten Domains. The first Domain is Eblia, The oldest kingdom in Nalore, with a struggling economy. The majority of land is a vast desert, with the King's Tower Overlooking his land.

"The second, Testrya, is fairly chaotic, King is nice and fair, but not good at his job. There are many mountains in the area, making Testrya a great place for hideouts and secrets.

"Third and fourth are North and South Prulier, separated by the former King's twin sons. Prulier is usually referred to as one big Domain, as they have a similar environment; very beautiful with lush caves and waterfalls.

"Fifth is Soprana, where we found you. Soprana is the home to thousands of people, and they were all happy until an eternal storm set in fifty years ago. Soprana is cursed with an eternal storm. To combat this, citizens coat roofs with a thin layer of quartz, in order to prevent weathering. There is no flooding due to several man-made sewers that carry the water to the ocean.

"Esmaria is the sixth one. The country is very cold, always having nearly a foot of snow in the winter, and being below 50° Fahrenheit. Esmaria houses two of the four Sorcery Academies. Esmaria is run by the Royal Wizard Society.

"Vethon is the seventh. All the Ogres in Nalore take refuge here, under the rule of Tizug, The Ogrelord. Vethon is a rather humid area, and very swampy. Vethon sits on the largest Aquabrass deposit in Nalore.

"Üsbad harbors exclusively Elves of the world, for both regular and Dark Elves. Other races are allowed passage as long as they have an elf in their party. Üsbad houses the other two houses of the four Sorcery Academies, one for regular Elves, and one for Dark Elves.

"Dagria is the most stable kingdom. The people of Dagria made a deal with Dragonborns long ago, giving them jobs at both the Prison and the Forge. A new Dragonborn king was appointed long ago because of the overwhelming population of Dragonborn in Dagria.

"Deblaton, the final Domain, is a collection of four Islands off the coast of Dagria, There's a Tower on each of them, and there's a Vampire king that takes refuge in each of them. Each Tower is similar, having dozens of undead enemies on each floor. Make sense so far?"

Julian nodded slowly, this was a lot to take in.

"Okay, moving on," Dr. Clarke huffed. "The second realm of Nalore is Phuroth; The Undead Realm, when people die in Nalore, their spirits go here, and manifest a new body looking exactly how they did when they died, becoming Ezures. Ezures are pale, and retain the intelligence they had before, although they are now based purely on instinct and have one goal: to feed. They also retain whatever skills they had in life, including magical ability. The world they reside in is completely different in terms of geography, and humans are not a thing, but once a couple hundred years ago, a big group of humans traveled through and got stuck. The Ezures made human farms, believing that humans taste the best, and forced them to breed.

"Then, we have Serqira. The Forest Realm previously used to be the home to Dwarves before an extinction event, causing all life other than plants to perish. The world now houses a huge forest that seems never-ending. Some ancient tunnels can be found, leading to overgrown dwarven mines and cities.

"Vulvyn is next. Some commoners call it the Underworld. It houses all Demons and Fiends. They usually don't bother us, so we don't bother them.

"Daatore is the fifth, being directly on the opposite side of the world from us. The Reflection Realm copies every single aspect of The Ten Domains. Anyone who enters becomes absolutely silent, and can't change aspects of their surroundings, but can hear and see anything that happens in The Ten Domains, making it useful for spies trying to get information.

"The final Realm is Leamyth, where The Beings Above live. You can recognize any Being Above by their huge pearl-coloured wings. Beings above were created by the Divined; which brings us to the next planet...

"Sinarus is the planet of The Divined. Being further away from the sun than us, it's freezing cold there. The Divined are fifteen ultra-powerful beings that were born with our galaxy. We pray to them for things we want or need. There are rumors that some Divineds actually help out. When they join together, it is said they wield unimaginable power. When they are gone or busy, they appoint the Beings Above to watch over us.

"We haven't named the last planet yet, as we only recently discovered it's existence. From what I've heard, it's dark blue, and there's even a metal ring surrounding it, like Jiegano." The floating planet disappeared with a flick of the Doctor's wrist.

"Okay, now for the magic. So, I know you've seen us use magic before right? Well, the way we cast our spell is with these things; Spellstones." He took out a small gray rock with two strange symbols carved into it. "We carve things called runes into these. The first rune specifies which element the spell's cast with.

"There are 16 elements; Fire, Ice, Water, Earth, Lava, Wind, Chain, Wood, Plant, Lightning, Energy, Sound, Mirror, Acid, Time, and Gravity.

"The second rune casts whichever spell you want, and if you would like to learn magic, I'd be happy to help you, but 'til then, I'll save my breath." As if on command, he started to have a coughing fit. He wiped his mouth with a shirt sleeve before continuing. "To learn the rune of an element, you have to go through multiple counts of torture and pain. If you notice something, no matter how hard you look at this first rune, you won't be able to memorize it." Julian then tried it, by looking at the rune for a moment, before turning away to try to recall what it looked like, and was shocked when he couldn't even remember the basic shape of it.

"Crazy, right?" The Doctor said, as if he could read minds. "That was done by The Divined, by the request of the Royal Wizard Society, those bastards."

"That's great and all... but.... why am I here, why do you need me?" Julian stood up to make himself more intimidating.

"I'm so glad you asked..." Doctor Clarke smirked, and stood up as well. "We don't know where you really came from before we found you, and we don't know who you were originally, but you're here to serve our leader; the one who freed you, and before you ask, no, you don't have a choice. You will join a team, and perform missions for us. I hope you're comfortable with killing, because that's what you'll be doing."

"I... don't know if I am..." Julian looked at his hands.

"Well, you'll find out soon enough, It's time for you to meet your first teammate." He winked.

Then, a towering purple... thing, with a lizard-shaped head and shiny skin walked through the main door.

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "This the kid? Kinda puny, don't ya think?"

This'll be fun...