Prologue: Abandon All Hope

   A thick mist rolled slowly across the countryside.  As a half-moon rose gently through the night. Viran watched through the slit in his window as the boom of war erupted in echoes across the sky.

     Screams and blood rained viciously onto the ground below. Fear ached through his veins as adrenaline surged. He had heard of the fighting but never dreamed it would spread this far beyond the trollshead mountains. Revolution, it seemed, was becoming a national war.

     Bards strummed furiously upon lutes with broken strings, and woodwinds scorched the skies with melodies that once lulled children to sleep. The brooms whirred amidst shouted spells and blasted into the front lines with wands covered in mud and blood clotting from fantasmic claws raking through arteries.

     The ministry dealt in more death than mercy. There were spells to bind and discourage enemies, but not one witch or warlock used them tonight.

     Black robes roiled through the air upon a rider as she shouted ,"firus furious!" Yet a druid on the ground leaped through the air shifting into a bear. He swatted at the flaming ball, deflecting the rage into the stone entryway. Shards of the building erupted into debris and filled the air with a burning dust.

     Viran gripped the sides of his bed as the house shook. His door flew open and Shira rushed in to grab him.

     "Get up! We've got to get out of here!" She shouted, dragging him out of the blankets.

     She held his hand tightly as the two ran down the hall towards the stairs. A bolt of eldric blast hit the wall behind them shaking shira's footing out from under her. She clutched his hand tightly, dragging him down the stairs with her.

     His arm twisted through the fall and battering stone stairs before she landed solidly upon him. Her head lay at an unnatural angle and he watched the whites of her eyes slowly fill with blood. Fear sparked throughout his body and he physically recoiled against the wall.

     Another Blast rocked the house, debris flew violently in different directions splintering off of eachother, and his last sight was blood spraying across his outstretched hand.