43 White Robed

Thousands and thousands of years ago, there was a man. A wizard who wanted to have the world.

He was a slave to the king of one such empire. Enchanted chains around his neck that would stop his magic, unless the king permitted him to do so. He studied the use of ice magic and mastered it very fast. Unfortunately for him, he was an elf. A race that has long been extinct, but not during those times. King Veneval's elite forces captured the elf on suspicion of dealing with dark magic. Their elite forces put him in a cell and cut the tip of his ears believing that they have cured him of being an elf.

"Now, he was a man," said one of them as blood gushed out of his ears.

They chained him up in mystical chains that would prevent usage of magic. However, the king was able to bypass the magical chains. With his word, the elf that was now a man was now a complete slave to King Veneval and all of his heirs. His name stripped of him. Eventually, even he forgot. The man laid on the floor with the pigs and chains to keep as blankets to comfort him.

Every day, the king would command him to cast storms of ice upon his enemies. At the end of each hour, the man was drained of all of his mana. When he feinted, the chains would pump him full of mana again. While the man did the king's bidding, the king drank wine and counted his tribute from neighboring villages and other countries that didn't want to become his next target.

The man continued for years. Eventually, every country, even his allies, fell against the never-ending storms of hail. The once King Veneval grew to become the fat Emperor Veneval. As he sat upon his throne, while the body of the one man was enough to lift him to that status.

His body grew pale and weak. Every day, the king's guardians fed him rats to keep him from starving and let him drink the same water as livestock.

The man's bones grew weary. Each day, he wanted to die, but each day, the chains wouldn't let him. If he was too weak to stand, the chains would lift him up with bursts of stinging mana.

He wanted to die, but death wouldn't take him.

However, it all changed one day. One day, it took for his bad luck to run out. One day, the king drank his favorite wine, but it didn't sit well. One of the king's advisors poisoned him and his heirs, so that the empire would crumble and be lost to the ages. But the advisor didn't factor one thing. Who the advisor thought was just a pitiful weapon to be wielded suddenly lashed out in joy. As there were no heirs left to control him, his chains fell off.

He breathed in and out came fog and mist. Mist covered the castle. From the ground where the king laid, demons of frozen wine sprung from his stomach. The icy red demons chewed through the fat stomach. It had eyes of a fish and teeth of a shark. Horns that could pierce steel. Their hunger and thirt was unsatisfied. They only wanted to eat and drink. They attacked the castle guards feeding on each one. The sudden outbreak of these monsters consumed the whole castle. With each new dead body, the fog birthed another ice demon from the bowels of the killed.

From his breath, fog covered the entire city, then the country, and eventually the whole empire. His whole empire.

The man grabbed looked through the king's wardrobe and grabbed his comfiest robes. He hid his devastated ears with the hood attached to the robes. Soon, he became the white robed emperor as he overlooked the remaining population with an army of ice demons. The man believed himself to be the true emperor to stand above the dead below him. He used the treasury to make sure that his empire wouldn't fall into chaos by paying off mercenaries to keep track of the peasants.

"The strong stand above the weak. I was weak once. I shouldn't have hesitated to summon these demons before getting captured. Now, I'm strong," he said as he chugged a bottle of the previous king's favorite wine.

However, his rule as emperor came to an end as he wished to expand his empire. He personally led an army of his ice demons from the comfort of a chariot made of frozen wine. Where he went, the fog followed. When he reached the shores, he wasn't met with legions of men, but of dragons. Something that his demons could not kill. The dragons flew from above and shot the elements down piercing through the fog. Fire, water, and lightning shot from the skies.

When the white robed emperor knew that they needed something big to stop these creatures, he forced the ice demons to kill themselves. One by one, they tore out their frozen hearts. As they held their beating hearts in their hand, they shattered them like glass.

As the ice demons fell, they melded into another bigger creature. They transformed themselves into a goliath made of the bodies of ice demons that towered above to the clouds. The goliath shot a flurry of giant ice shards at the dragons killing most. The goliath's armor was too thick and the fire wouldn't melt it through.

They would have lost, if it wasn't for the ancient dragons. The ancient dragon, Jezeboyah, swooped down in a blaze of white fire. His white breath collided with the goliath bringing it down to it's knees. The fire began to melt away it's arms and body.

The ancient dragon, Aquis, commanded the sea to flood the ground with boiling water. The water grew hotter and steamed upwards. The goliath melted away from the bottom.

The ancient dragon, Kytlmyne, created vines that withstood the boiling water and trapped the goliath in place. The vines surrounded the behind the goliath creating a dam, so the boiling water didn't continue through.

The ancient dragon, Azor, with the power of the heavens brought down storms of raining fire upon the goliath.

As these four worked togethor to bring down the ice goliath, the other dragons jumped into the fray. Each one breathing fire upon the giant monster. Eventually, the goliath melted back into the water. With it, the fog began to slowly disappear.

The four dragons surrounded the chariot carrying the white robed emperor. However, instead of afraid of being killed, he decided to drink the king's favorite wine one more time and admire a gold coin.

Instead of killing him, they decided that his fate should be worse for trampling upon the world.

Aquis buried him under the sea in a dome of ice never to return again.

The white robed emperor once more became the white robed man, but Aquis referred to him as just a monster.

He was chained up below the ice with his white robes.

Once more he slept with the comfort of chains. His chains once more suppressed his magical abilities.

Every day, he would starve and die, but the chains wouldn't let him die. He would awake again only to die from starvation every day. The eternal feeling of hunger and thirst that will never be quenched. Although, there wasn't even a sense of a day, any more for the white robed man. Only darkness.

Every day, he would dig a hole upon the ice wall, and every day he would die of hunger only to be brought back by the chains.

Every day as checked the ice wall, they would regenerate the next day as if his work was for nothing.

Eventually, as the years passed, he would see visions of King Veneval and his king's guards. The darkness played tricks on him.

"Go away. I don't serve you any more," he muttered weakly.

One day, he saw the king drinking his favorite wine. It was too much for the white robed man. He scratched out his own eyes with whatever strength he had hoping to never see it again.

He kept digging and digging, but the ice would just come back the next day.

He sniffed. Smelled the scent of fish in the ice. He dug deeper and grabbed the frozen fish. He bit deep into the old bloody fish and sucked on its juices.

His mind reawakened once more. He sniffed more and smelled where there was food. He could smell the water dragons above him as they swam. The scent of dragons would be engraved in him. Every day, he smelled something new. There was always something new. Eventually, he smelled the flesh of a human at one point, although it was too far for him to eat.

He continued to dig even though he knew it to be pointless as the ice would only regenerate itself.

Thousands and thousands of years have passed. He dug into the ice with a frozen fish in his mouth. This time, however, the ice didn't regenerate. He sniffed and couldn't smell any water dragons above him. He continued to dig and dig and dig. Until one day, he broke through.

Water rushed into the dome and broke a hole large enough for him to go through. The water pressure crushed his body, but the chains kept him alive. He struggled to rise to the top of the ocean. But he did. As he reached the top of the water, he smelled the air. The creatures all around him. He was able to smell them and he was able to know what they were.

He swam back to the surface in joyfully. As he reached the land and felt the sand between his fingers, he smiled. His vision was poor and no longer usable. He grabbed a nearby crab and ate it. However, he didn't need his vision. He could smell the environment better than any other creature. This only amplified his belief that he was meant to rule as emperor.

He didn't know how long it was. His chains were still on him, but as he chewed on the crab, he grabbed a rock. He hit the chains day after day. He would easily grab a meal whether it be a crab or a bird. His muscles grew back and he broke free of the chains. He breathed in slowly and breathed out a short breath of fog that fell to the ground.

The white robed man returned to recreate his empire. But his powers were rusty and weak. He needed time to regain his lost power.

So, the first thing that he needed was allies and soldiers. Men to be stacked upon each other to reach his empire.

Upon his travels, he came upon a damaged wagon. It had been looted before, but he smelled something familiar. He sniffed and smelled the presence of gold. He opened a secret compartment under the wagon filled with treasures that the other bandits and looters missed.

He walked for days covering himself in his white robes. As his powers were regained, he first created a mask to hide his contorted face. He could feel the wrinkles and worms that dug into where his eyes once stood. A mask of ice to hide that imperfection of himself. And the hood to hide his ruined ears.

One day, as he was traveling, he came upon a campsite full of bandits. It was time for him to test himself. He walked straight in without trying to hide.

"Hey! We got an intruder here!" one bandit yelled holding his sword in front of him.

The white robed man sniffed the human. And he could smell the other humans around. They would be useful, he thought.

More bandit came out of their tents. Fog covered the camp. The white robed man disappeared among the fog right in front of the bandit. He walked hidden looking for the one in charge.

"Where did he go!?"

"Search around. We can't have other people snooping in our camp!"

A woman came out holding a crossbow and whip. Next to her was a large man holding two morningstars.

"Boss, where did this fog come from?"

Perfect, the white robed man thought.

The fog quickly disappeared. In front of the two was the white robed man.

"I presume you are their leader. I'm interested in building a better world. Would you be interested in helping?" the white robed man asked.

The two looked at each other and laughed.

Their leader replied, "Old man, was that supposed to be a joke?"

He flailed his two morningstars at the white robed man. In an instant, from the ground, spikes of ice grew and broke through the two morningstars and went straight through the man's head.

The woman looked in shock and her surprise turned to anger.

"Damn you!," she shouted angrily while shooting bolts of arrows at the man.

A wall of ice grew from the ground and shielded him from the arrows.

"I'm not here to kill all of you. But I just needed to display my dominance over you in some way," he said.

The woman wasn't listening as she continued to fire arrows. She stopped and ran to the side. The other bandits started coming.

In one swoop, the white robed man froze the feet of all of the bandits including the woman's.

A mist covered around the bandits. They were all terrified of what was going to happen to them. The white robed man assumed that they never faced a mage like him before.

As they started to sweat in terror, the mist faded away revealing gold and jewelry all around the ground. The bandits' fear turned to surprise.

"This treasure and much more can be yours as long as you serve me," he said.

The ice on their feet froze. Slowly, one by one gathered around the treasures. Soon, they were all taking pieces fighting over it.

However, there was one not going after any of it. The woman stared at the white robed man.

She said, "Why should we serve you? Because you're paying us?"

He replied, "No. It's because with me as your leader, this whole band can become something bigger. You will all be able to do as you please. After we're done, everybody here won't need a coin for their lifetime and their children's lifetime," the white robed man said. He wasn't lying. He believed every word that he said.

The woman was reluctant, but she saw the power that he held. He could have killed each one of them. She put away her whip and crossbow.

"Fine. So, you want to be in charge?"

"Yes. With me on top, do you think anybody could stop us?" He asked believing that he was indeed all powerful.

She looked at the man and thought that maybe they would easily be able to get some easy money with this mage fighting for them.

"So, what do you need with us?" she asked and as she did the other bandits looked up after they grabbed all of the treasure that they could carry.

"I need foot soldiers," he said while looking around at his new band, "And with me on your side, no force would be able to stop us. We will take all of the riches of the world. You can all do as you please under my watch."

They all nodded and agreed that following this mage would be a profitable idea for at least a while.

"So, let's get moving. Let's go to the nearest village and take everything there," one of the bandits said.

"I like your enthusiasm," the man said as the mist covered the camp, but instead of blocking the view of the bandits, they were able to see clearly through it. The white robed man allowed each of this bandits to see through his fog. They knew it was there, but they didn't have any vision problems.

They marched to the nearest village and took it by storm. The white robed man went in first to showcase his power. The thick mist covered the village and spikes of ice from under the ground pierced through any farmer who tried to fight back. The woman and the children ran away, but those who ran were met ice piercing through their hearts. The ones who hid in their homes weren't harmed at first.

As soon as the mage was finished, the bodies evaporated and became a part of the mist. No trace of their existence was left.

"I'm finished. Whatever measly defenses they had are gone. And nobody can escape the fog. You may all go and do as you please. Take what you want and have your fun with the women," the white robed man said and as he looked at the woman who was known as Miranda, "or men, if there are any."

The other bandits realized how easy it was to take a village without any fighting. They stormed in, taking whatever gold they had and some took turns with the women.

As Miranda walked into the village, the white robed man grabbed her warm arm. She quickly pulled out a knife at the man's neck. After realizing what she has done, she put it away.

"Oh my. I'm so sorry, boss. I didn't mean to do that," she apologized in fear of what the mage may do.

"Apology accepted. Actually, I may need you to bring me up to date with the world. This world is very much the same, yet different. I want to know about current events," he said.

She looked at the mage and said, "Sure. But first, I'm going to quickly loot some gold before the other boys get most of it."

She ran off into the village with the mage walking slowly behind. Miranda was only interested in becoming rich from standing behind this mage's power. She thought that she could use him and he knew it. He knew that they all thought that way. They only followed him to stand behind his power and quickly get rich off of it. He accepted and took pride in that. The white robed man truly believed in one thing. That the most powerful should stand above all others and he believed he was the most powerful being that deserved to be on top. But his magic wasn't as strong as before he was under the ice. They were growing, but too slowly.

When they were finished, the white robed man killed whoever was left alive and absorbed them into his fog. As they moved onto the next village, Miranda told the mage about what she knew. Most importantly, she told him that dragons were being hunted to extinction which was the news he wanted to hear. The one variable that stopped his reign was no longer around to stop him again. He suspected something happened that weakened his ice barrier, but not that the dragons were being hunted. He grinned showing off his shark-like teeth.

And so they went to the next village. And the next one. And the next one with the fog covering their tracks every time. The authorities only knew that villages were disappearing.

Eventually, they reached a town. Jaeden town.