Alaric Hearthstone

Heavy panting was heard throughout the dungeon, followed by screams that turned into a hollow cry. "I will kill you all... I swear" our broken protagonist spit at the torturer.

"You have become problematic 69, do you think you have authority here? Do you think you have power?" Mr. Gibbs said back in a relaxing tone, as he turned around.

The torturer lifted a single finger and let it fall lightly on the chained young man's right arm.

His touch felt cold, almost deadly so, it felt absolute, yet so petite, if this was any other situation I would say he was hitting on me, but that was far from the case. I knew what was about to happen, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of my useless cries for help.

"Right now, I will show you what real power is" and as if he had summoned a large ice spike from the coldest cave and covered all of my right arm with it, then proceeded to shatter it with a Warhammer made of dragon scales and swung it with the might of a giant, my arm shattered to a thousand glimmering pieces.

As the glimmers exploded around in the room, and the following pain still hadn't reached my pain receptors, everything went in slow motion for me. I took a moment to admire the sight, after all, it was quite rare for something beautiful to happen down here in the dungeon.

My eyes eventually landed on the only light source near me as it reflected most of the light in the glimmers, the torch which I had become well known with after all my time here. Seemed like it had a childish battle going on with itself about how many pieces of ice it could melt before they all perished. Again the fire lashed out after the ice and whipped it out of existence as if it was having fun.

My sight was turning vivid and uncontrollable, things were getting out of hand and my senses were once again in flow with the rest of the world. Everything I saw seemed to be incomplete like my head couldn't process all the data it received from my eyes before my consciousness faded in and out of reality. It was a sick state and with it came the pain, I bent forward and crippled in pain as I let out a hoarse shriek. I was vomiting blood on the floor, and it had begun to add up as I found myself standing angels deep in my own blood. I couldn't focus on anything but the pool of blood and my mouth constantly feeding it.

"You like power don't you 69?" He came up to me and licked himself around the lips as he spoke inches from my ear. "You wish it was yours, don't you? This will never be yours weakling"

As if out of nowhere wrath of extreme anger overcame me, and I was going for a headbutt before I even noticed it, but my movements must have been too rash, or too predictable because all I hit was the stone-hard rock surface behind me, and my body was in a constant struggle to not give up, as I had just given it more things to repair.

"Clink Clonk" I picked up the sound of Mr. Gibbs iron leg leaving the dungeon and my agony to myself, I was still furious and squeezing teeth after him, the only thing holding me back from agitating him was my remaining self-control, I knew what would happen if he was to not care about me no more, he would simply dispose of me.

When I came back to myself I felt the pain in my right arm just as much as I did before, And I cringed in pain again and began to yell unpleasant things after the disappeared Mr. Gibbs, he couldn't hear me now after all.

--> Unknown castle<--

A heated conversation could be heard from long down the corridor, and you could see a worried and hesitant waitress covered in a plain white dress, hesitating to open the door from where the loud uproar was seemingly coming from. She took a deep breath and straightened her back, she then reached out for the door handle which was weirdly enough formed as a screaming bald ghoul head. "Shrieeek" Was heard as she rotated the old metal handle, and her face cringed in discomfort as the uproar on the other side was all hushed upon in anticipation of someone entering the door.

Funny enough the door itself went up without too much of a hassle, and on the other side was a sight for the eyes.

Three humanoid creatures stood towering over a table with a laid-out map on, the first was a handsome young man, he looked like he was straight out of any teenage girl's dream, he had short dark curled hair, and his face was that of kindness, yet mysterious.

He had a sleeveless hoodie on, and you could see it was made with the finest thread and weaving that was sold on the market, his arms were strong as an ox, but looked lean and masculine.

Following down his chest where you could see how broad his upper body was and the muscular T shape was executed to perfection. He was wearing sweatpants seemingly of the same quality, but the most peculiar thing about him was his two majestic shadowy wings that were dominating everything behind him, it was as if the waitress couldn't keep herself from trembling.

"Crash!" A high pitch crash noise was heard right below her, she came to her senses and looked down and at her feet was the scattered plate with the only thing she was supposed to deliver.

She looked up with wet eyes at the dominating master who hadn't changed his expression throughout the whole time. "Pl... please forgive me! It will never happen again, please I will do anything!" She barely finished the sentence before her head was sliced clean off and landed on the scattered plate, still looking at the master for forgiveness.

The hooded demon was standing with the same look as before, but now with a straight arm out in front of him. He had sliced over space itself with a horizontal motion of his arm. As space was reconstructing the sudden collapse, he spoke in a deep but manipulative voice.

"Now now, who dares disturb my meeting" He began walking towards the scattered plate and lifted the now delivered letter with an invisible force. As it landed in his palm he began reading out loud.

"Dear Alaric Hearthstone.

I want to inform you about where Amon will be going the next week.

Amon is going to L##### to report how far he has come with his obsession over the parasite project. It seems that there might be more to this than just a job, but I'm trying to find out what it is! And will report as soon as I get intel.

If you were planning the attack on the castle, may I recommend breaking into the dungeon from the outside? The walls are easily breakable with the power at your disposal, and you may access the whole castle from there. It is easily guarded at the top of the stairs leading down there. But that's about it.

That was all.

From your spy."

"Looks like the name has become unreadable after the little accident, but it's okay, I know what she meant". He ran countless scenarios through his head in a couple of seconds, and most of them turned out with him winning the battle if they were to go through with the strategy in the letter.

He turned back to his counsel and discussed how they should proceed from here. The council was agreeing that this was a rare chance, and they had to take the initiative to gain the castle with the least amount of losses on their side. They pointed out a date and then scattered to do their individual duty in preparing for the upcoming battle. For Alaric, that was lying in a bathtub with 6 beauties.

...

..

.

2 days went by in a flash, and there was loud chattering outside the castle gates, Alaric's army consisting of nearly 100 well-armed men, and 30 strong demons, most humanoid, some looked like big wolfs but 1000 times more deadly for sure. If you listened closely you distinguish the demon's wild and excited conversations from the unsure and scared humans. Who could blame them? They were about to attack a noble demon's castle after all.

However, as Alaric began to walk through his army, everything seemed to slowly be hushed upon.

You could feel the tenseness in the air, just how much Alaric's men both respected and feared him, they did know what he was capable of, after having served him for many years. Alaric kept walking and even though this was outside, you could hear the heavy footsteps echo throughout the camp.

"Soldiers, family, friends. We have fought shoulder by shoulder more than I can remember now." Alaric spoke when he reached the end of the camp. He slowly turned around and observed his army with a strong and determined expression. You could see how some of the men got a lump in the throat when their eyes met his. "In a few minutes we will set off for Amon's castle, so I would advise you to say your goodbyes to those close to you shortly after my speech".

"We will engage the attack on the dungeon and therefrom enter the castle from below them unnoticed. But that will not be possible without a distraction. Therefore a list is made with who will go with me to the dungeon. And who will be a decoy." As he finished the last sentence you could hear housewives break down completely in fear of their husbands ending on the front line. Some even tried to get through the half-circle surrounding Alaric just to beg him for mercy on their husbands but was quickly stopped by the guards. And the hustle slowly died down again.

"If you were to fall in battle, you will have a grave made for you in the graveyard, But that's it. If you don't want to die, then fight harder. If you die you are weak, and that's your fault. So let us win today, and come back to our families!" He finished off as yells of excitement were heard from everywhere.

10 minutes went by with soldiers either enjoying what might be their last moments with their family or trying to convince their spouses that they will return safely from the front lines.

Alaric had been discussing some important looking things with a hooded figure, which looked to be a head shorter than Alaric himself. The hooded figure had a large important-looking staff held in his right arm.

The master then turned around and saw that most of the soldiers were waiting for his command.

"begin now". He spoke to the hooded figure who begun to chant something unwritable.

A large vertical black line appeared 4 meters tall from out of nowhere in front of Alaric, and shortly after, it expanded no short of 10 meters to both sides, a dooming "sruuum" sound was continuously heard from within the vortex looking square. "Forward to Amon's castle!" Alaric yelled with his sword risen high into the air. Humans and demons alike charged forward and disappeared through the black gate, leading straight to Amon's castle.