Into The Illius Hiatus - Chapter 1 Awoken

William woke up and quickly sat up drenched in sweat. He looked around the room as he tried to calm his shaky breath. As he admired the odd architecture that made up the dull colored room his eyes focused on a middle aged man with a white goatee preparing a cold cloth, likely for to clean William’s sweat.

The man with the goatee eventually turned around to see the weary eyed William sitting up in his bed:

“Young Master William, you’re finally awake!” he spoke in a dignified manner as he made his way towards William. “Don’t worry after your little accident during your spar with Young Master James you were quickly brought back to the Manor”

“Manor? What Manor, and what do you mean by accident?” William asked quizzically while staring at the servant.

The middle aged man stared at him for a second before breaking into a smile and explaining;

“You must be joking with me Young Master! Why the Fireheart Manor, where you were born and raised.” He paused for a second before continuing, “Maybe you took a stronger blow to your head then we thought…”

“What about my parents? Where are they right now, shouldn’t at least one of them of been here for when I wake up?”

The servant went silent while looking at William with a more serious expression before speaking once more,

“Young Master William, your father died during the Beast Tide of year 337, when you were just 8 years old. Your mother on the other hand disappeared when you were just a little kid, your father was devastated.”

William didn’t know what to say. He was uncomfortable over the fact that he felt nothing over the news of his parents, one missing and the other dead. Maybe it was because of his lack of memories, he didn’t know anything about his father or mother, didn’t have any memories of them whatsoever. Regardless he didn’t want to think about it anymore.

The servant held a blank face as he got and turned towards the window.

‘My father must of been an incredible man to have servant think so highly of him even years after his death’

The servant sighed as he made his way to the door,

“I must go inform Master Fireheart of your current condition, it seems worse than what we originally predicted. I will make sure that a maid comes to help you clean yourself up as well as maybe explain a couple things to you”

He quickly exited the room and after a couple of minutes a young maid entered the room.

“Hello Young Master William, I’ve been informed about your current condition and will provide as much support as I possibly can!”

The young maid who looked no more than 16 years old made her way towards the corner where the servant with the goatee left the wet towel and water. As she moved through the room William was able to get a better look at her, she had brown hair with a light curl that went down to her mid back. Her eyes were blue which were complemented by her dimples when she smiled.

Before he could look at her more he noticed an identical fish tattoo on both of her arms. Noticing his stare, the maid sighed before speaking:

“You really don’t remember much do you, gosh where do I even begin?” She made her way over to William and began wiping away his sweat before continuing, “I guess I’ll start with the awakening ceremony, since that is probably the most important part of everyone’s lives as well as the next one being in a couple days.”

“The awakening ceremony is where a child of twelve years old enters a state where they explore the Mind Realm, to make a long story short you search for your Beast Soul. Everyone has one so that’s not the problem, the difficult part is taming and capturing your Beast Soul, but very few people ever fail.”

“When you finally absorb your Beast Soul you gain your first ‘umbra’, which is the symbol you see on my arm here” She waved her arms showing off her odd markings around before continuing.

“Of course it provides multiple benefits other than allowing you to become a Beast Tamer, but you’ll find out more from someone else.”

“The next big important thing is Magic. Of course you don’t have to focus solely on magic, but everyone is able to learn a bit depending on a couple different factors. One is your natural talent, which is quite rare but still possible of course. Most of the time though your magic potential and physical abilities are based off of your Umbra, so it’s important to choose your beasts carefully”

William took a minute while the maid continued to help clean him to take all of this information in. It seems that the most important thing in an individual’s life is the Awakening Ceremony where an individual gets their first Umbra as well as deciding their talent in magic and potential as a fighter. However, there was one question that was still really bugging him that no one had answered yet:

“I get all the Umbra stuff and all now, it seems really important but Where exactly am I?”

The maid was confused for a second before suddenly coming a better understanding about Williams current situation

“Of course, how could I forget We are on the supercontinent Illia, otherwise called The Illius. The Fireheart Manor is on the outskirts of the City Cratha. And maybe we’ll pick this up later”

Suddenly the Umbras on her arms began to glow before a strange fish about the size of baby appeared before William. With a wave of her arm the fish swam through the air around William rubbing itself against his clothes and sheets.

After a couple seconds of the fish squirming around a pleasant smell started to surround him, he realized that the sheets he was sleeping in and the clothes he was wearing had all been washed.

“Not really impressive to be honest” The young Maid spoke up before William could say anything “Of course it is quite useful in my line of work though”

“Not at all, that was incredible!” William exclaimed quickly, he had never imagined how interesting and useful these beasts could be.

“Not at all Young Master, my little fish here has no fighting ability whatsoever, and I’m sure you’ll get something powerful as your first Umbra” she smiled wryly her dimples increasing her beauty twofold. Before he could say anything back she made her way towards the door while speaking:

“I’ll grab you some food quicky Young Master, you must be famished due to not eating for the past couple of days”

She then exited the room leaving William alone to organize his thoughts.

—–

In another room found in the Fireheart Manor two men could be found sitting across from each other having, what seemed to be an important discussion. One of the men, wore an expensive red robe and had long Red hair tied into a ponytail was currently scolding the other man in the room.

The other man, who was covered in muscles despite his seemingly old age, listened worriedly to the man with red hair:

“Nero, your son James as really screwed up this time! I said I didn’t mind you giving him a hard time, not sending him into a d**m coma! What will I do if William doesn’t wake up? All of our plans will have gone to waste, and it’ll be at best your position as elder on the line!”

“Master Provus, don’t worry we’ve called in many doctors from Crathan and all of them have told us to wait patiently and he’ll wake up soon enough. I-”

“Nero, I’m sure you understand our plans perfectly, but let me reiterate slowly just for you to understand: I need him to participate in the Awakening ceremony. He needs an Umbra in order for us to achieve our goal!” Provus yelled as he smashed his hand into the desk, causing cracks to appear across the surface.

Before Nero could retort once more a knock could be heard from the door to the study.

“Master Fireheart, I have an update on Young Master William that you may want to hear” The voice of a familiar servant could be heard from the other side of the door. Provus turned to glare at the Elder Nero once more before telling the servant to enter the room.

“Young Master William has woken up from his sleep however”

“However What?” Master Provus’ Umbras began to glow on his arms as the temperature in the room began to increase.

“He seems to have lost his memories. And not just some of them, he seems to have forgotten everything”

Elder Nero turned to Provus and gave him a nervous smile has he laughed a bit.

“See, like I was saying, he was going to be fine”

The Umbras on Provus’ arm quickly dimmed and the temperature of the room returned to normal, before he turned back towards Nero.

“Good good, it truly seems like the gods favor us today” Provus gave a hearty laugh as he got up “Come Nero, let’s go talk to Young Master William, it seems like we have a lot of talking to do”