Just beneath the surface

[mathiukislev]

The winds blew as they always did, trickling over and around buildings and flora alike. Within the depths of the earth there was a disturbance, albeit a small one. What was once earth and stone parted as readily as air before the physical form of the incarnate races. A great sapphire filled the space, the form of a thin, pallid male humanoid garbed in azure raiments resting within it. A flood of magic followed, what some know as mana, others as essence, even others as motes of aeterna. The grass above did not simply grow, it thrived, nearly glowing with its own vibrance.

In other parts of the nation, magical implements long since dormant, marked with a sun rising over an ocean's waves, came to life once more. Others baring the same mark began to function as though they had been made anew. More interesting yet, an array of golems clawed their way out of the ground in many corners of Valeska, all heading for one point: that of the sapphire radiating magic.

[mathiukislev]

It had been a day since that first disturbance. The emanations from the sapphire had calmed down from the supernatural equivalent of a hurricane to a light, constant breeze. Five of the golems had already arrived on the site and were ponderously digging into the earth. Each one was of a different shape and design, though all consisted of metal. All too bore that same sigil, the sun rising over an ocean's waves.

It was some hours work for them before the sapphire was uncovered. Longer still before it had been excavated to such a point that they could pluck it as gingerly from the earth as a mother might lift a newborn child. They set it upon unbroken grass, two of them breaking off from the others to stand beside it as the rest set about filling the hole once more.

Those with access to the proper information would discern that there were a total of eleven golems on the move, including those five at the dig site. Any animal that strayed near the sapphire was shooed away or caught by the golems only to be turned away unharmed.

Those able to look upon the sapphire would now see yet more of the being within it. His garments consisted of azure robes, hung about what was certainly a slender frame. His flesh, though pallid, was not sickly but had something of a supernatural vibrance to it. Slightly-pointed ears and a thin nose adorned his face, his eyes closed to the world as he remained within that gemstone. Platinum wisps fell from his skull down to the middle of his back, nearing the base of strange wings. The wings were barely visible within the sapphire, and seemed ethereal in nature, each individual, azure feather translucent to the point of nearing transparency. Only when stacked one upon the other did they become truly apparent. The greatest oddity about the wings was that they seemed to have no muscle or sinew to them, nor extra bulk of muscle within the back to support them.

[mathiukislev]

So it was that the mage had been released unto this reality once more by the efforts of those who had been present when the golems had brought his entrapped form to the castle. Further still, it seemed that his old capabilities had waned in his time away from this reality. The mage had not even demonstrated a single use of aeternaflux since his return, which was quite unlike him.

Thus it was that the fair-skinned one had taken up something to pass the time: cleaning. He didn't wish to overly disappoint the hertasi, but these days he regularly made rounds of the castle, a broom slung over his back as one might carry a claymore, a small shovel hanging from the belt about azure robes like a mace, and a bucket in his offhand. He had spent so many years cleaning up the nation before his untimely departure, and now he was spending his time doing it more literally than figuratively.

This day, however, he was visiting the memorial for the dead to rectify a clerical error and had both chisel and hammer in the bucket with him. He placed the chisel next to his name, frowning in concentration as he brought the hammer down upon the back of its handle with a loud TAP. Working with surgical precision, he carved his name from that memorial. He certainly wasn't dead. No, not yet.