Chapter 7 Awakening

The flames crackled and pieces of wood fell down. The house completely painted in orange creaked and cracked signaling its coming collapse. In a seemingly empty closet on the ground floor was a burning form, tendrils of red energy formed around it before intricate red glowing marks let the shape be recognized as human. Bone, muscles and skin reformed under the glowing energy before a naked human girl of around 17 years stood inside the raging inferno and opened her eyes.

Her sight was clear, clearer than it had ever been. Eleonora looked at her hands and saw the glowing tattoos and the tendrils moving away from her body. Her green eyes shined as a smile spread on her face. “Finally...” she said to no one in particular. She felt the heat around her, saw the flames and most importantly she felt the magic. She felt the magic and the power behind it...the power insider her and around her. The fire couldn’t even touch her, comparable to a warm summer day. This was all she wanted...all she was waiting for. ‘Now I don’t need mother anymore...’ she thought and remembered what had happened only half an hour ago. Her green eyes looked out into the flames as she started to take her first step for the second time “I have awakened.”

Eleonora Acantha walked through the flames, completely overwhelmed by a dozen different thoughts in her mind. She heard shouts from outside and instantly cleared her mind ‘Magic fire, demon…likely bloodmagic...’ her smile grew even wider as the thought of bloodmagic crossed her mind ‘they will assume its me, even if it wasn’t they would kill me immediately.’ she knew there was only one way, escape. ‘If I wait they will surround the house and hunt me down, even with….all this power I feel. I don’t feel confident fighting one guard alone.’

And then she moved. More sure of her steps than she had ever been before. And faster, more powerful than she had ever been before. She reached the street outside in less than a second, analyzing her surroundings in even less time. Two guards had reached the house already and they looked at her with shock and fear in their eyes. They didn’t have time to evaluate what they saw as the girl before them was already gone down the street in a flash.

She moved at an incredible speed, thinking faster than she ever had ‘They will have closed off the city already. Leaving is impossible, or I’ll be hunted down immediately by the strongest of them. A bloodmage or a demon. A trophy nobody could ignore.’ She moved down an alley and rushed through the waking city, the bells already ringing, signaling everyone to stay inside or seek shelter. She knew her magic would be felt if she was close to another Awakened. ‘I need to stop using it, need to learn to control it.’ she ran through another five alleys before nearly crashing into a guard.

His face was quickly filled with shock before he caught himself and tried to swing his sword. Eleonora dodged easily, her speed increase and experience completely overshadowing the guard. ‘Dangerous’ she thought as she felt the power of his swing. After dodging she was under his guard and kicked him. To her surprise the guard shattered into the wall opposite her, letting go of his sword and coughing up blood. She was already gone before he recovered...if he would recover at all.

‘I need time, the streets aren’t save.’ Luckily for her the central government from the empire had financed the building of sewage systems for all the major cities of the kingdoms it ruled over two hundred years ago. She came across a gully cover after searching for ten seconds. ‘How will I open it...’ she thought before simply reaching down and grabbing one of the openings. The cover was surprisingly light to her as she easily lifted it up with one hand. She went in and covered the opening afterwards.

She ran through the sewage system trying to find a way further down and soon cowered in the deepest spot she could find. ‘I need to focus, control it...’ she thought through all the magic theories and techniques she read about. Everything Jonathan and Mike described to her. What she saw from magic users and even what she read in romantic stories and history books. It wasn’t supposed to be hard to simply use or not use her power. She knew some people had to use up all their power after an awakening to be able to get out of it.

‘How do I use it then’ she thought. She was of course already using her power but a more direct approach was necessary. Internal use was apparently not depleting her energy fast enough. She thought of the easiest way to deplete her energy. ‘I am obviously an internal user, using something external will be the most efficient way to deplete my mana quickly...’ she concluded and tried to concentrate on one of the most basic external spells nearly all schools of magic had. So why not bloodmagic? A bolt, spike or something similar. Shooting and mastering it was the first step on the way of an external magic user. Using it at the start wasn’t something that usually took long for an Awakened she knew. So she concentrated, tried to form her energy into a bold or projectile of some sort.

After five minutes of concentration she felt her power drain as a small ball of red glowing energy formed in front of her. She willed it to fire as soon as she felt the strength leave her body. Her sight became cloudy as she slumped down into the pleasant mixture of excrement and other fluids.

She woke up a couple hours later. “Eww...fuck...eww!!” she shot up, slipped and fell right back into the beautiful broth. “Fuck..motherfucker!” she then sat up “Ha...hahahahahahahahaha!” she was elated by her success. Even her looming capture, the implications formed by what she saw and heard from the shadow being couldn’t bring down her incredibly happiness at her Awakening. She looked at the opposite wall where a two by two meter hole could be seen. “That was me? Holy shit!” she touched the wall, not believing what she did “And I’m not even an external...” she said. ‘I need to leave here. A naked girl next to a hole in the wall looks pretty bad.’ She moved after listening for any noise.

‘I can’t go to Jonathan, he would kill me immediately if he knew I was a bloodmage’ they didn’t have that strong a bond outside of their training and some help. Being a bloodmage was very bad. Not as bad as a demon but close. As close as a sentient being could come really. ‘Maybe necromancers are worse but they’re probably even rarer...’ She walked down the sewage tunnel ‘Mike would help but I can’t do that to him. His whole life would be over if they found out. Like this he can even deny knowing what I was.’

She didn’t know where she was and simply kept walking, thinking of some way of escape. ‘It’s still night but everyone is on high alert now. The sewage system will be searched too but with less priority than the streets itself.’ she suddenly stopped and went back the way she came. Running this time ‘They will have thoroughly searched our shop and the blocks around it already. Some guards will be stationed around it...’ she retraced her way and soon reached where she went down...at least she was fairly sure it was there. ‘There won’t be any guards around three to four blocks away from our shop’ her reasoning was that the guards spread their search away from where it started. It was the best plan she had right now. ‘Staying down here means death...’ she thought as she looked for a different but close exit and went up the ladder.

She looked up through the opening seeing a dark alley and hearing nothing. She easily lifted the cover and went up. ‘How am I this strong? I’m not using mana right now...’ she closed the cover again and looked for any open doors or windows in any buildings she could find. ‘Not the time to think about it...’ it was hard to find anything that was opened. The bells would signal everyone to close everything up and get to the most save place in their house they could reach.

She also couldn’t stay outside, the guards or adventurers would find her in time. She soon found an opened small window to a cellar of a nearby house. The people there likely closed all windows and doors but forgot the cellar in the panic. ‘First time I don’t mind my lacking bust...’ she thought as she squeezed through the small opening. She immediately and quietly closed the window behind her, checking if any stains were left that would lead anybody there. She had tried to clean her feet as best as possible on anything she could find in the alleys she walked through before. ‘First time also that I enjoy the city being as dirty as it is...the shit will likely not alarm anyone immediately.’

She looked around her and found herself inside a rather large cellar. ‘Let’s see what we can fiiind’ she thought as she rubbed her hands together and started to quietly search through cupboards, boxes, chests and closets. After looking through all of it in the span of a couple hours she took some food and clothes. Practical pants and a shirt that was a bit loose on her. She even found a brown cloak that would be perfect at hiding her features. She then hid inside one of the bigger closets and slumped down on top of some old clothes that were way to big for her.

She ate the rocky bread she had found and went to sleep, exhaustion taking her.

Eleonora’s eyes opened slowly as she yawned and covered herself in more of the clothes that were in the closet. ‘Coooold...’ she thought and shuddered a little. She didn’t dare speak if there was anyone in the cellar or close enough to hear her. She stayed inside the closet for a couple hours and started analyzing her body. ‘I’m way stronger, denser muscle, stronger bones it seems...and even tougher skin.’ She reasoned it was because most of her body was destroyed in the fire before the awakening took place. People often recovered lost body parts or healed wounds after an awakening and sometimes those parts had special attributes.

‘Guess the pain wasn’t for nothing after all...’ she stayed there for another couple hours before boredom overcame her caution. The closet slowly opened and a girl clothed in a bit too big clothes came out. She covered herself in the cloak she found and looked out the window. ‘No movement...’ She thought the city would likely still be on alert. ‘The magic fire was obvious so for anyone seeing it the existence of a demon in the city was unquestionable. Considering their nature they must’ve already concluded that it has already left to where it came from...’ Demons normally appeared and disappeared in minutes to days, wrecking havoc in that period of time. ‘The problem is that some of the guards saw me but I read about some demons taking a close to human appearance, plus I didn’t show intelligence...but I was fleeing, demons never flee….’ she bit her lips ‘fuck...’

‘So worst case they know about some girl that sprinted out the house and used weird magic. Maybe the guards didn’t recognize it as bloodmagic...not even I have heard of an internal bloodmagic user...’ she turned around and started walking through the cellar again, maybe she missed something. ‘They would conclude that I’m not a demon so the overall alarm level would be lowered and a simple criminal mage would be searched. Possibly a couple guards and adventurers looking for a bounty. Not the best ones though, they wouldn’t hunt on mere rumors...I hope...’