14 Inferis

Two hazel brown eyes unblinkingly followed the sight of a giant semi-black sword, as a tall man was sharpening its sharp edges at either side.

It was a beautiful big sword, the middle marked by a long black design as it lightened to a color of metallic gray at the edges at either side. It was a double-edged sword, embedded with a transparent crystal in the middle of the blade, sticking out on either side. It was twice as wide as the man's arms, and far heavier than the child's weight, but it did not stop the child from looking at it lovingly as if it were the greatest treasure in the world.

Restless, he inched forward bit by bit, and when the older man wasn't looking, he reached his hand towards the sword.

Just a bit won't hurt...

Slap!

"Ow!" He rubbed the back of his hand. "Did you really have to slap my hand?" He looked aggrieved. "It was just a touch or two...", he pouted.

"No means no", the cold-faced man did not give in. He dried the water off the blade as he lifted it up to his eye-level to see its judge the uniformity of the sword. "Besides, you'll be getting it during your coming of age tomorrow. You can touch it all you want by then", the man said, with one eye open and squinting at the tip of the sword to the hilt, and the other closed.

"But Apa—"

"Forget it, Obrecht." His father did not even spare him a look. "Go practice with your friends."

(A/N: Apa = Dad)

Seeing that his pitiful acting and begging didn't work, Obrecht took off to the training grounds with his large wooden sword.

Almost of age but still acting like an immature kid.

Amusedly, Halvalt shook his head at the thought, smiling at the antics of his own child. Besides when sword fighting, he rarely saw that child looking so serious.

When a child of Lumea was to come of age, they are free to choose what occupation they would take. Most children choose to be a warrior to protect the small city of Lumea, while some of the strongest choose to be hunters that explore the rest of Inferis' forest, deep underground rivers, and a few uncharted places. Only few choose to become healers and scribes or so other occupations, but it does not diminish their importance in the slightest.

Halvalt was a swordsmith, a warrior, and a part of the Batrani that ruled over the Lumeans, of which all his skills came naturally with the help the blood of his ancestors, the Hunter-kind.

He had forged Obrecht a sword, with which the child himself had asked his Apa to create in the way he design and wanted it to be. Even the weight and length of the sword did not escape the child's fastidiousness, staying beside Halvalt every day from when he had started with the first pound on the steel until the day he was simply refining the sharpness of it. Apparently, already quite satisfied enough to leave the rest to Halvalt.

While Halvalt was busy, Obrecht on the other hand had come out of his Apa's small home to roam around instead of practice his sword. He reckoned that his Apa wouldn't know either way.

Although there were no storms and rain to be found in the underground city of Lumea, the houses the citizens had made were sophisticated but extremely strong, not for protection against any natural calamities or beasts, but protection from the strong and reckless kids that could tear down a wooden house so easily with a kick.

Inferis was the name they called the underground country that their ancestors had founded. It could account for a small continent for itself as it was divided into three large places; the first was Lumea that was founded upon the ruins of an older, more ancient city. The whole city itself was located in a deep wide lush canyon that had plenty of space for its residents to nest among the walls, creating intricate houses one atop the other with various bridges to and fro, and countless mazes and passages digging deep from the canyon going to the walls that surrounded Inferis, like those found in caves and mountains. Some holes even providing various small waterfalls, and numerous ponds from the clean underground water that seem to be near Inferis.

The second was the temple of Aovialutre where all people are forbidden from entering. It was said to be guarded carefully by a guardian beast. Although not entirely sure, the people of Lumea had avoided the place, if not because of the beast myth, but because of the deadly cliff that surrounded and isolated the temple like a small island; the torrent of water beneath those cliffs looking twice as deadly as the sheer drop, or so the elders say.

The third part and vastest part of Inferis was its bountiful forest. Lush giant trees had mutated in this underground country, their leaves painted in variant colors of lavender, red orange, indigo, red, gray, black and yellow.

The blue light coming from the temple of Aovialutre made sure that all creatures and vegetation within Inferis had lived peacefully for more than a dozen millennia.

It shines from somewhere in the middle of an open-top temple, directed straight up into the ceiling of Inferis that was filled with various transparent crystals that reflected the light everywhere. And just like the sun, Aovialutre, the Lumeans had called it, would get brighter at day, and grow dimmer during the night.

Thus, the Lumeans had lived their lives contentedly in their paradise, ignorant, happy, and separated from the surface-dwellers.