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[light-effects]

Eisele Heartford

Class: Automotive engineer and blacksmith

Age: 32

More coming soon.

[light-effects]

Heriot Marycoast

Class: Armament alchemist

Age: 23 years old

Personality: Like the source of light, Heriot is strong willed and optimistic to the point that it’s borderline delusional. His hope and belief that everything will work out somehow is what keep him going in life, he believes in needing to suffer in order to earn your right in the world and that the more you suffer, the more worth you have. This makes him mentally strong in a way, but it also makes him merciless.

Contrast to his bold appearance, Heriot is actually quite shy. He hides it very well but there are still signs of anxiety and nervousness in social situations. Despite his positivity, he has a fear of judgment and rejection thus interacting with other people resulted in emotional pressure and make him develop a certain degree of social avoidance trait.

Despite his hidden shyness, Heriot is a quick thinker and is fast with decisions. He rarely hesitates unless it’s concerned social gathering. Heriot claim to never regret his decision no matter how quick and snap it is, maybe Heriot is good at decision making. Either that or he had been rationalize things he shouldn’t.

Like most scientists, Heriot believes that everything have explanation and is curious about the world he’s in. Heriot like getting to the root of problem, understanding how and why the thing are the way it is. He has trouble coping with situations that provide no clear answer nor closure and will dig himself unnecessary deep into his fixation.

The letter describes Heriot as “Symbol of bloodshed descended” and that he is a cruel defender beloved by his people.

Fighting style: Heriot has very good reflex and is very light on his feet but can plants his feet on the ground if needed. Heriot often uses the combination of trident and magic water net.

With this combination, Heriot fighting style is similar to a retiarius, disarming his opponent and keeping distance from them. He also conjures a fishing net from water to ensnare his opponent before striking them with his trident or firearm. Heriot held trident on his right hand.

Other of his common combinations is sword and shield, holding sword on his right and shield on his left. Using this combination, Heriot fight more like a murmillo. Mainly focus on the defense, he will only switch to this style if he had completely figures his opponent out.

Heriot can hold firearm on either of his hand, and although not as good as Raynor, he has better aim than the rest of the team. His gun of choice is 0.53 magnum despite its size which is only 0.13 away from Raynor’s sniper rifle magnum, a kind of gun that would dislocate most people’s wrist from its reaction force.

Contradict to most assumptions, Heriot can’t swim. He had always been relying on his ability to control water to stay afloat so Heriot never learn how to actually swim.

Skills and abilities: Heriot’s main specialty are alchemy magic and oceanic magic. Heriot was born with powerful oceanic magic that allows him to control water which causes him to always unintentionally pull the ocean toward him, creating tsunamis that are constantly coming his way.

These tsunamis also travel faster whenever he’s in rage. Due to this, Heriot has to travel consistently to lure the ocean away or it will drown his surroundings, this also render his presence problematic for fishing and seafaring as the direction of the tide on the entire planet changed depending on him. Arland had tried sealing Heriot’s magic before, but he found that blocking this magic will kill Heriot. Still, Arland had placed a weaker seal on Heriot, so he doesn’t have to travel too often.

As for the ability itself, Heriot is able to control the velocity of the atomic structure and break the hydrodynamic law. Turning ocean into non-Newtonian fluid by making water react toward the speed it’s interacting with incorrectly. This allowed him to move and solidify water without it losing the fluid properties.

With enough humidity in the air, he can change the air density and create a mirage by manipulating the temperature of water vapor, causing major light refraction. Heriot can also create a massive fog barrier if there’s enough water around him. The fog is usually intended to blind the opponent.

As for the alchemy magic, Heriot can combine minerals and ingredients to create useful tools. Things he often makes are explosives and poisons. However, it must be noted that Heriot’s armament creation knowledge is mainly limited to development of explosive materials like gunpowders, guns, bullet and bombs. Heriot is not equipped with blacksmithing skill so he cannot forge melee weapon like sword or halbert.

Combining oceanic and alchemy magic Heriot can create many type of rain and storm by controlling the density of water in the clouds. Heriot can either increase the speed or solidify the raindrops in order to make it rain bullets. He can also alter the chemical properties of rain and clouds making it rain many things from poison to corrosive chemicals.

However, if there are no sufficient cloud in the sky, Heriot would not be able to do anything.

Heriot can also dive into surfaces and phrase through walls and ceilings like water, but he does have to return to the surface to breathe from time to time similar to swimming.

Occasionally, Heriot will suffer a severe back pain. A bloody fish tail shape bone will pop out of his back then fall off in a couple of days. Nobody knows what this is or why it happened.

Other notes:

1. No one knows if he is wearing battle lingerie or battle swimwear.

2. If it’s lingerie, it is likely that he was robbed by the medic. Leaving only stuffs that are magically bound to him.

3. Heriot and Lennard like to create medicine together.

[light-effects]

Luken Lightbringer

Class: Combat architect

Age: 25 years old

Personality: Like the speed of light, Luken is constant and unwavering. He is emotionally stable to the point that he seems disinterested. Still, there are evidences that he doesn’t actually want to live like this. Despite his love of spoiling people with affection, Luken will speak his mind without the fear of hurting them. In a way, he's both the kindest and the most heartless person anyone will ever meet.

Luken is a very easygoing and serene person. He suppressed and disassociate his personal thoughts from everything so he never takes anything personally and it’s really hard to emotionally hurt him or make him get truly angry with anybody. Despite that, Luken’s mental fortitude is not invincible and he secretly wish to be treat with delicacy so he does his best to treat people with gentleness and affection he wish he received.

Despite his chill attitude, Luken is discipline and can be stern when need. He’s quite strict with his friends when it comes to manner, living space and disturbing the town. He will not hesitate to scold them if he sees fit. However, Luken tend to assumed that he’s in the right and often forget to listen to the other.

Luken likes to play and listen to emotionless music unemotionally. He loves bland, tasteless food. He also has the tendency to sleep around with lonely people. To everyone’s demise, Luken think he’s cheering people up and helping them out rather than messing around.

The letter describes Luken as "A walking statistical anomaly" and that he is a heartless executioner of the evils.

Fighting style: Luken main weapon is scythe. He mainly relies on achieving momentum, using his scythe and armor's weigh to achieve massive impact force. Despite his size, Luken's physical strength is considerable, given how he can drag and throw his opponent into the air with notable speed using his scythe. When being counter in close range, he will use his arm guard in substitute for shield to defense himself until he got into desired distance once again.

In the case of small space combat, Luken can wield sword where in this case he would hold sword on his right and the sheath on his left. Using it both as a shield and baton, he prefers to knock his opponent with his sheath then thrust them with his sword by surprise. While he does have dagger with him, he'll only use it as a last resort as he personally finds close combat to be his weakest skill.

As an architect, Luken has a habit of setting up trap and use his surrounding to his advantage whether it be structural or geographical. Luken aim is on par with Arland and Lennard, passable but not the best.

Luken’s left eye cornea was damaged and while it is healed up properly without loss of vision, Luken is very sensitive to bright light.

Although Luken write and draw with his left hand, he engages combat with his right hand as the dominant one. He aims, holds sword and dagger on his right hand. Luken mention, this allows him to defense himself without having to stop sketching IMINT note. However, he doesn't seem to have a prefer hand when it comes to his scythe.

Skills and abilities: Luken mainly specializes in creation magic which are separated into macro creation and micro creation. For macro creation, it can be separated into buildings that Luken constructed himself and building that were constructed by others.

In the case of building that were constructed by other, Luken can renovate, adjust or rebuild the building by drawing over its architectural plans. However, the process must be done with care and consideration especially with order of change as wrong part being move in a wrong time can resulted in said building collapsing. He can also do the same to town or city if he ever gets his hand on a city plan.

This also allow him to animate buildings in a way. By politely knocking them and speak his request, he can ask them to move, lock and unlock their entrance or ask them for what they see and hear behind their closed door.

In the case of constructing his own building, Luken can conjured them out of his sketch as long as there are materials. He can also swap the rooms and floors inside like a Rubik cube.

Luken can also animated statues by amputating their head, the statue will return to their static state once their head returned to their body. This results in Luken usually being surrounded by bloodied statues with their hands on their head like they are losing their mind. The animated statue will have mind of its own and can declined to help Luken out. Usually Luken can win them over with a favor or offer like sewing them pretty clothes, move them to places they want to be or destroy another statue for them.

For micro creation, Luken can create, shape and manipulate threads which can be separated into white thread and gold thread. Both types of threads are indestructible as long as Luken's magic is active.

The white thread is less deathly and can be used to bind his opponent, weave safety net, conjure trap and aid him when he climbs mountain or building. Any threads and fabrics can be conjure into white thread, but he might not be able to return them to their original form.

The gold thread though, will cut anything in its path and it is being weaponized by Luken more often than the white thread. The gold threads are special threads Luken milled and blessed by himself which he wears underneath his outer tunic in the form of fishnet fabric.

Other notes:

1. Luken tend to use his gardening scythe to fight and use his war scythe for gardening.

2. Luken‘s tunic is hand dyed using flowers he grows; he re-dye it once every week or the color will fade.

3. He own the place that the group is staying at which is a renovated abandon hospital in the forest.

[light-effects]

Light effects chapter 2: First light part 2

CW: implied vore, implied ED, blood, implied SA, electrocution

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Lennard and Raynor are in a lot of trouble.

The aphrodisiac is running in Lennard’s blood long enough that his head is killing him, and he feels like he’s only one step away from hypertension. Blood is pumping through his body at a crazy rate and his arm feels itchy.

Itchy ….? That doesn’t sound right. Lennard takes a quick look at his hands; a little horrify seeing that the rashes had formed on his skin. It appears that he is allergic to Kanis’s aphrodisiac.

Taking advantage of when Lennard unable to concentrate, one of the Kanises tackle him head on.

Both of Lennard's hands is occupied by the pole of his spear which he uses to stop the Kanis from biting any more than it already had. He tries to teleport himself and this Kanis away, but his eyes refuse to focus.

Lennard doesn't understand his thought however, something tells him if he could throw his weapon somewhere, something would change.

The Kanis step on the brunette’s chest, completely overpower him. Lennard can only shiver beneath the strong beast. While he struggled to break free, the other Kanises surrounded him. Lennard feels multiple sharp claws dig into the lower half of his body.

Raynor on the other hand feels feverish and agitated, he is completely drowning in mania. He has trouble controlling his speed and direction in his butterfly form, constantly off shoot his landing. He would rush over to help Lennard and Arland out, but the other Kanises are dead set on tiring him out especially knowing what the aphrodisiac is doing to him.

Raynor tried his quick travel spell once again to help pull Lennard out, but he clumsily landed on his face in a completely wrong direction. He started to question his own ability to think straight.

While Raynor is trying to compose himself, the kanis bite into one of Lennard's arms.

The moment Arland heard Lennard scream, he feels a chill going down his spine, blood escaping his head, and adrenaline building up in his body so much so that he feels like he could jump and soil himself at any moment.

The feeling identical to when he first heard Kanis’s howl, the feeling that Lennard described as fear.

But it couldn’t be right, could it?

Raynor: "Damn you ......!"

Raynor curse in a desperate tone. Once again, the exact same feeling hit Arland's stomach.

But …….

But what ...? Arland realized he doesn't even remember why he force this way of thinking on himself. Lennard screams again; this time even louder followed by the sound of fabric being ripped apart.

Lennard is going to die, if Arland does nothing Lennard will definitely die.

SCREW IT. Arland throws his baggage away and climbs up the cliff as fast as he could. He admitted, he's afraid of losing a compulsive thief who constantly look out for his wellbeing and an overreacting brute who protect them.

Once he reaches the ground, Arland run forth and drop kick the Kanis that's on top of Lennard in its face. Leaving a gold mark on the beast. Taking that opportunity, Raynor throw his dagger at the other Kanises that held Lennard's lower body, allowing the white knight to escape. Lennard quickly crawled out of the beast grip, trembling and trying to heal himself.

Arland walk forward, shielding Lennard from the beasts. Maybe he finally has what it takes to unsheathed his blade now, with a newfound confidence. He reaches to his blade again and with a firm grip, he pulls it with all his might.

It doesn’t work.

So, with that same confidence grip, Arland throws the sheathed blade at the Kanis in which they smacked away with their claws. The blade landed on the back of Raynor's head with a bonk sound, resulting in a yelp from the potato man.

Feeling better, Lennard focus his sight and teleport Raynor to the space next to him alongside Arland's blade.

Raynor: “What on earth was that?!”

Arland: “Sorry, I got frustrated”

Lennard and Raynor are surprised that Arland admitted he’s frustrated, but they got bigger fish to fry so they decided to keep it to themselves for now.

Arland start thinking, what should they do? The branch might be able to hold his weight but all three men on it is definitely out of the question, and it seems unlikely that they will be able to fend these Kanises off until sunrise.

Before any conclusion can be made though, the Kanises jump in once again.

Arland: "Lennard, can your scanning spell see their past bone injury?!"

Lennard whip up his quick X-ray spell, but due to Kanis's metallic furs it's practically useless. If he cast this from the tip of his sword though maybe he can engage a high energy X-ray wave that can phrase though metal, but these Kanises are too close and will definitely get him the moment he's busy putting his spear away.

He has no choice but to pull his long sword out while still fighting with his spear. Lennard can barely handle one weapon in his hand, would he be able to hold two at once? Guess he'll find out.

As anticipated, the moment he reaches for his long sword. One beast managed to sneak past the range of his spear, Lennard swing his long sword toward the beast, and he found that it easier than he though as the length of each weapon covers the distance each of them lack. In fact, he doesn't feel like one of his hands is stuck on his weapon anymore.

With both of his hand free to do its own thing, Lennard proficiently swung his spears with one hand and long sword on the other. The movement that was awkward now resembles a versatile knight who's used to fight in a harsh terrain.

Once he manages to push away some Kanises, Lennard cast x-ray spell at the tip of his sword.

Lennard: "Arland, the one on your left has Femur fracture on both legs!"

In respond Arland swipe a low kick on the said beast and took the opportunity where the beast is in pain to pierce its eye with his rapier.

Although things are looking up. Lennard can feel that he’s really out of practice. Like he hasn’t pick up these weapons for an entire year. What was he doing before he ended up here?

And why does he feel miserable instead of being proud of his achievement?

Lennard: "Raynor, that one's lower right Lilum is cracked!"

Raynor: "Got it!"

Raynor hit the Kanis's right rib with the pommel of his blade. The coordination went on for a while until the knights are being push back near the edge once again.

Raynor: “I think our main problems is not that Kanises are strong but rather that they outnumbered us”

Said Raynor while kicking one of the Kanises away. The other two acknowledged the statement and Arland started to consider their options.

Arland: “We should take down the leader of their pack. So far, they attack in formation. Surely there is a chain of command at play here"

Lennard: “Let's lure it out then, Raynor try throwing your dagger at the spot beyond these Kanis that reflect the light”

Raynor: "What-"

Without warning, Lennard teleport Raynor right near the Kanis that was stabbed by Raynor's dagger.

Despite the protest, Raynor roll on the ground and pulls out the dagger form dead Kanis. As instructed, Lennard cast a lighting spell to create a light source. Raynor then climb up the other Kanis’s back, jumps on its shoulder and in midair, throws his dagger at the suspicious location.

His dagger hit something with a very sharp sound, like an extremely compressed material.

Suddenly, the other Kanises slowly stepped back as the bigger shadows approached the knights. A gigantic wolf beast with a fur made of diamonds holding Raynor’s dagger in its fangs.

Lennard: "I found a big Kanis with high thermal conductivity and high refraction index during my scan so I thought that might be it"

Raynor: "That is one bold assumption! What if your speculation is wrong??"

Lennard goes quiet for a moment.

Lennard: "Yeah, I didn't think that far"

The diamond Kanis throw the dagger on the ground then bark at its subordinates, asserting its ownership on the three humans, causing them to back away a little further which create a circular area like an arena surrounded by audiences made of beasts. Perhaps the pack leader wants a duel with the knights. Raynor and Lennard placed their baggage on the floor.

After a powerful howl, the diamond beast charge in. Raynor transforms into a butterfly and tried to sneak on to its back, but this beast is faster than its subordinates and Raynor still have trouble with his direction.

Lennard tired his scanning spell again to see if the big beast has any weakness, but he found none which is odd and unnatural. Could this Kanis really never had an injury before in its entire life?

Arland then goes in with his fist and rapier, his stomach still hurt and adding to that he also feels like his blood is boiling but he does his best.

The beast catches his blade with its claw and bend it to the point of disfigured. This cause Arland to throw the rapier away and start to fist fight the diamond Kanis. The gold knight manages to dominate the fight until the beast takes the opportunity when Arland kick it to grab his leg and throw him off.

Why did I let it grab my leg? Arland thought. Frustrated with himself, Arland charge back in. Planning to tank the next hit head on but with fear and concern, Raynor leap in to push Arland off the beast's attack path. Ended up as the one who take the hit instead.

Raynor: "Cool your temper Arland"

He spoke quietly, Arland then notice the black liquid dripping from Raynor's garment. Raynor is the only one who didn't get his wound dressed, combine that with the property of aphrodisiac. Raynor is definitely losing a lot of blood right now and he's clearly struggling to get up.

Arland takes a deep breath.

Arland: "Okay, strategy meeting!"

Raynor: "Huh?"

Lennard: "What-"

Before the diamond Kanis could slash the two knights with its claw, Lennard teleport them to his location and goes in to help Arland pull Raynor up.

Arland: "This beast is both stronger and faster than us, we have to put it at disadvantage somehow"

Lennard: "Perhaps I could try blinding it, I'll burn this forest down"

Lennard is about to cast a fire, but Arland stop him.

Arland: "Wait! I appreciate your quick-thinking last time, but we don't even know if the last wildfire you causes is still burning and spreading!"

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Somewhere near the area that Lennard burned down, the poor forest critters are watching the devastating destruction of their home.

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Lennard: "Fine, I'll use lighting then"

Lennard then raised his sword but instead of casting light on the ground to create temporary blinding light, he cast it directly on the incoming big beast multiple time continuously.

This result in confused expression from the other two knights.

Lennard: "If I cast a regular lighting it will only blind the beast for only a couple of second so I'll cast lighting continuously directly on it for a couple of minutes to see if I can heat its fur up to 850 ℃"

Arland: "Isn't the average lighting temperature 28,000 ℃ ???"

Lennard: "That's an actual natural lighting; I can't just cast something five times hotter than the surface of the sun. The amount of magic I need to exert would kill me"

Arland: "I see then ....."

While the diamond Kanis is being brutally electrocuted, Arland turn his attention toward Raynor.

Arland: "Raynor, let's see if we can make it bleed this time!"

Raynor didn't say anything, he simply looks at Lennard and Arland like a father looking at his child who ask for something that will endanger them, but he doesn't have a heart to go against their wish.

Lighting spell generally shock the caster a little every time the spell is cast so overexerting it like that cannot be good. Not to mention the risk of getting hit by Lennard lighting, Raynor is agile enough to dodged it, but Arland is another story.

Arland: "Trust me Raynor"

Arland pleas.

Although worried, Raynor know he can't have them rely on him especially considering how heavy he's bleeding away right now. Raynor handed his short sword to Arland and pick up his dagger from the floor, ready for more bloodshed.

Together they start slicing the diamond beast with their blade. Arland manage to immobile some of its limbs while Raynor manage slit its stomach and throat open. After some trials and errors, the knights finally managed to corner the big Kanis.

However, the beast severed arm merged back to its body before the gravity even does its work, and the annihilated limb grow back at a rapid speed. Dread set in as they realize that this specific Kanis is likely immortal. Oddly enough, Arland felt a sense of familiarity.

Arland: "It will be okay, I know what to do"

Arland spoke softly, although it is unclear even to Arland himself if he said it to assure the other two knight or to comfort himself.

Arland: "Listen, I need you two to chop this beast to be as small as possible and scatter the piece around to halt its regeneration process then I'll take care of the rest"

Arland handed the short sword back to Raynor.

Raynor and Lennard look at each other. Although a bit concern, they did as Arland asked. Lennard continue to summon lighting while Raynor goes in once again with his short sword. This time severed the beast limb by limb. Lennard then teleport each limb away to prevent the beast from immediately regenerating. Now it's up to the gold knight.

Arland: "Stand back"

He told the other two knights in an uncharacteristically commanding tone.

Arland couldn't explain but the muscle memory is there, and it is not pleasant. Picking up one of the beast's severed arms, Arland kissed the tip of Kanis's finger. A gold and red fire engulfed every part of the beast including the severed limb in Arland's hand. Then aggressively, Arland shoved the entire hand of the severed limb into his mouth and start swallowing it in.

But Arland couldn't take it for long as the limb is very big compared to his body, he starts struggling once his gag reflects kick in. The gold knight grovels on the floor desperately grasping for his crooked rapier and severed the beast hand from its arm, the excess part of the limb drops to the floor as Arland put both of his hand over his mouth, forcing himself to swallow.

After pausing for a moment, Arland open his mouth again to breath and the excess blood he couldn't swallow pour out of him, the gold knight cough. It seems that the diamond strain of furs works like a pile of needles. But that only fueled Arland's frustration as he pushes himself to devour more of that agony.

Both beasts and humans are beyond confuse and doesn't know what to make of the scene they witness until they realized that the diamond Kanises cannot regenerate the limb that Arland ate. A different kind of fear set in as Arland completely devoured its entire arm which is longer than his height.

While the beast can still regenerate the rest of its body, it is now at an extremely slower rate. Almost like the fire that engulf it burn away all the magic the diamond Kanis use to heal itself.

Now it's either the beast regenerate fast enough to kill Arland or Arland eat the entirety of the beast before it could kill him.

Arland continues to munch in on the beast's other limps even more aggressively than before, enraged at every single strain of furs for make every swallow an agony.

I'm making a fool of myself; I need to work harder, he thought.

One by one, the gold knight shoved the severed limb into his mouth. Looking at the size of the beast's torso, he can tell that his stomach is ready to punch his brain at any moment.

Lennard: "Arland ......?"

In the eyes of a medic like Lennard, the sight is absolutely alarming, and his heart dropped to his stomach noticing how taxing this is on Arland from the way his body react to the deed especially considering that diamond has very high thermal conductivity and that Arland still has a stomach pain and nausea from the aphrodisiac overdose.

Lennard: "A-are you hurt? Hang in there I'll-"

As Lennard about to approach Arland, Raynor grabbed the white knight's arm.

Raynor: "He told us to stand back, let's trusted in his strength"

Raynor's hand is trembling, he too wants to run forth and scoop Arland up but there has to be good reason Arland told them to stand back and so Raynor will compile to it.

Some Kanises also step fourth, planning to save their leader but was stop by Raynor's cold stare.

Still, Raynor is just a frail human in their eyes and some Kanis continue to step forward anyway until the diamond Kanis growls at them to stand back. It would be a dishonor after all for an immortal beast to be rescue by another Kanises in the lower hierarchy from other small squishy human when two of them already decided to stand back.

With all the strength it could muster, the big beast fought for its life, doing everything to escape Arland.

Looking back at Arland, Raynor shout.

Raynor: "You got this Arland!"

With the encouragement, Arland close his eyes and start biting down into the beast's torso. The beast’s big and long bone pokes his inside creating an unnatural shape on his stomach, the fire burns his tongue and the sharp unbendable diamond furs also scratch and stab him. It hurt so bad and just the anticipation of having to swallow all of that make him want to scream, but the idea of what will happen if he loses to the beast is still much more horrifying to him.

Arland gritted his teeth and gulp it down, he can't tell anymore if the blood pouring out of his mouth is his or the beast, but he rather goes through this than to face the alternative.

Raynor, Lennard and the rest of kanises stand there speechless, looking into the face of hellfire himself munching down on an immortal being.

The gold knight fought tooth and nail to swallow the burning flesh and bone, and finally he did it. The diamond beast is now entirely gone. After the gold knight completely devour the leader of the pack an eye appears on the back of his neck before disappearing.

The rest of Kanises, stare at Arland anticipatingly as if hoping that their leader might be able to tear Arland's stomach apart from the inside and emerge as the victor.

Raynor slowly step toward Arland, unsure if his fiery temper had calm down yet. He lightly places his hand on Arland's head and pat him gently.

Lennard: "Raynor, Arland is not a wild animal"

Raynor: "Why are you holding your spear like that then?"

Lennard is pointing the stubby end of his spear toward Arland, he didn't answer Raynor's question and simply poke Arland with it.

Arland belch out a bit of gold fire.

Arland: "Sorry, I'm really full right now"

Once the rest of Kanises realized that their leader is truly gone, they ran off, scattered into the wood.

After the beasts are out of sight, the knights collapse on each other, exhausted.

Lennard grabs Arland's shoulders.

Lennard: "I thought I might lose you! How are you feeling, does your throat hurt? Is your stomach, okay??"

Arland: "I'm better now, the pain is subsiding. I think my body had manage to digest what I .... ate"

Raynor: "That's a relief to hear. What about you Lennard?"

Lennard's expression turns blank for a second but then determination return to his face.

Lennard: “I'm okay, right now I'm okay ...... and I'll probably be okay"

It felt more like Lennard's talking to himself, the memory of that close call situation will haunt him for a while it's seems.

Arland: "So how's your wound Raynor?"

The black knight looks at Arland confusingly at first and suddenly, Raynor burst out laughing and hug the other two. Although confused, Lennard hugged back with even more strength than Raynor. Arland though doesn't really return the hug but also doesn't push them away. It's seemed like that he doesn't know how to respond to this.

After they are done hugging, Lennard start to tend to his and the other two’s wounds and in Raynor’s case, Lennard has to go with the traditional option of first aid kit.

Noticed their tattered clothes and the crooked rapier, Raynor lean toward the blade and draw circle above it with his finger. The shape he drew glow in rainbow ray and take shape of a clock, Raynor turn the arm backward and the rapier start to straighten itself. He then does the same for all the tattered clothe.

Lennard: "You can use a subset of time base spell?"

Raynor was a little startle at first like he wasn't supposed to let anyone know. But decided that he can probably trust these two, his expression soften.

Raynor: “Yeah, this is restoration magic. I can restore item if it was damaged for no longer than 12 hours"

Lennard and Arland's brain run a little before realizing that there are only 12 hours on the clock display.

Raynor: "Also it's free this time Lennard, you can put your hand down”

Lennard lower his hand and Arland scooted away from him realizing that he was almost being pick pocket again, Raynor then realized that there is something missing.

Raynor: "Arland, where's your baggage?"

Arland: "I .... couldn't catch it in time when I fall off the cliff"

Arland lied as he doesn't want the other to feel like they were the reason Arland lose his baggage. The three poke their head to the edge of the cliff, the bottom is pitch black and a haunting sound of a howling wind can be heard.

Lennard look at the spear in his hand, a strange thin line of light appears around it like a thread tying him with the item.

Lennard: "Are there any way we can check how deep this abyss is?"

Picking up random rock on the ground and taking out his pocket watch, Raynor drop the rock into the abyss. After a thud sound is heard, Raynor murmured some small calculation before turning around.

Raynor: “About 3,000 meters, the shadow and darkness make it look deeper than it actually is”

Lennard: "Then perhaps I could teleport us up and down"

Arland: "But you can't see the bottom of this cliff"

Lennard, stab his sword on to the ground then throw his spear to the bottom of the pit.

Lennard: "Take my hand"

The other two did as instructed and all three of them are teleport to the location of the spear. Lennard pull his spear out of the ground, in awe of what he can do.

Lennard: “Either my lack of stamina explains this, or this explains my lack of stamina”

The three then start looking around for Arland's baggage. After a little bit of search, Arland found it in the pile of death branches.

Lying there, opened.

Is it really something as simple as the impact from the height? Regardless of the reason, the baggage is here. Unlocked.

There are some clothes neatly folded inside and slipped among the space between the fabric, there is a letter. [For Arland] is written on the envelope.

With that, the first light of a new day came through.

[light-effects]

Light effects chapter 1: First light part 1

CW: implied ED, implied SA (mentioned), blood, waterboarding, dead animals

———————————————————————

Head splitting pain is the first thing that hit him, a sharp piercing pain strike deep in the middle of his head followed by the realization of forgetting to breathe.

As he grasps for air. He found that his face is pressed by a cold surface so with the strength he could muster, he pushed the surface away. The sharp pain in his head turned into a throbbing pain once he realized that he is pushing himself off a surface.

He coughs, his heart is pounding but the throbbing pain in his head is slowly dying down. He stared dumbfounded at the cold marble floor he just pushed himself of off.

What is this place? He doesn’t remember coming here.

He feels that his body is decorated with some cold and shiny material, which makes a bell like sound every time he moves. It’s not unpleasant, but it surely doesn’t help his headache.

Sitting up straight, he sees other 2 strangers lying on the ground. They are inside a big marble pavilion surrounded by a forest, in the middle of this spacious pavilion stand a beautiful fountain.

As his heart rate slowly went down and his breath becomes steady, he takes a quick look at himself through the reflection on the marble floor.

The first things that caught his attention is a vibrant red veil decorated his bright reddish orange hair followed by his gold crown and gold armor. One of his hands is chained to a baggage. A brown leather coat is warp around his waist contrast by his navy-blue tunic. A circle symbol floating on the back of his head shine in warm golden light like a midsummer sun.

Is this really what he looks like? Somethings seems wrong.

Slowly and quietly, the stranger in black rose up. He stared blankly in front of him, confused and unfocused. He sat there unresponsive as if he is unable to pieces his sense together. Perhaps his body experiences some sort of delay from his brain.

He has a light mint green hair. His black armor is covered by a starry black cape that makes him look like he’s carrying night sky on his back, one of his hands is also chained to a baggage. On his head is a gold circlet decorated with jasmine leafs but what stand out the most is an upside-down triangle symbol floating behind his head, shining multiple rays of colors like northern light.

With his armor in mind it’s unnatural how the black knight made no sound at all through all of his movements.

Small annoyance creeped on to the face of the black knight, he looks around as his eyes finally starting to focus. He then turns his head to face the gold knight with red veil.

Stranger in red: "Hello ......?"

The gold knight spoke awkwardly, his voice is soft and a little deeper than one would expect. He gently waves his hand in front of the black knight to get his attention.

Stranger in black: ".... Hi …...? where are we? ….. do I know you?"

The black knight's voice is a bit raspy but overall soothing to listen to. Realizing that the black knight probably has as little idea as him about the situation, the gold knight decided to get more information from their surroundings.

Stranger in red: "I'm not sure either but I might know more if I look around, so can I leave the other guy with you?"

The black knight stare blankly for almost a full minute, perhaps he is still in a daze.

Stranger in black: "Sure"

The black knight smiles, he turns around to look at white knight like he's trying to stare a hole on the other man's armor which is a bit curious but once the gold knight turns around, a bigger question raised.

A couple of dead birds are found scattered on the clean shiny ground; the gold knight is sure that these weren't here before.

After the gold knight walk away, the last stranger groans. He pushes himself up but has to press one of his hands against his mouth, making nausea sound. He seems dizzy and disoriented.

His diamond shape symbol shine white like light bouncing off of diamonds. Like the other two, one of his hands is also chained to a baggage. He has chocolate brown hair with bold rose-pink streaks and adorn gold tiara. His white armor is decorated with gold accents, that along with the white fabric spread around him make him look like a porcelain statue coming to life.

His armor clanked together making a delicate sound like glass. The white knight is far from looking delicate though, if anything he legit dressed like tank.

The white knight observed his surroundings, trying to find the gravity of the place he woke up in. Once he figured out where the floor is, his eyes stop at the black knight who is staring at him.

Stranger in black: “Are you alright?”

The black knight asked in concern. The white knight furrows his brows a little, clearly vertigo had yet to leave him alone.

Stranger in white: “Yeah, it feels like a concussion that doesn’t kill …. what’s going on though? Where is this?”

Contrast to his appearance, the white knight’s voice is husky and rugged, but it is spoken in a gentle tone.

Stranger in black: "I don't know, but we can figure it out once you feel better"

Stranger in white: "Yeah .... I might have to lay down a bit more, you have anything I can place my head on?"

Strange in black: "You can lay down on my lap"

The white knight looks at the black knight confusingly, rightfully uncomfortable with the offer. The black knight though looks at him nonchalantly with an unhinged friendly smile.

Stranger in white: "Appreciate the hospitality but I'm not doing that, we just met ...."

———————————————————————

Stranger in black: “ACCEPT MY AFFECTION!”

The black knight said as he waterboards the white knight in the fountain, curiously he had also blindfolded the white knight with the white knight's belt.

Stranger in white: “WhAt-iN-GaH*cough*-the bloOD ARe You-*blub*"

Stranger in black: "I'm sorry, I'm just concern so I'll punish you until you lay down on my lap! I'm really sorry but this is for your own good!"

This is definitely one of the most screw logic he had ever heard, the white knight thought to himself as vertigo and light hypoxia start mixing in his head and he struggle to stay conscious. If he loses conscious now, what will this guy do to him??

Stranger in black: "I'll KEEP YOU SAFE, MAN! DON’T WORRY!"

Stranger in white: “OKay, FINE! I'll lay-*blub blub* down *cough* on your lap *blub* so just StoP!"

The black knight let go of the white knight, he sat back down on floor patting his lap. Smiling with absolutely no remorse. With a huff, the white knight begrudgingly lays his head on the stranger's lap. He crossed him arm, water still trailing down from his nostril.

The black knight gently pats the white knight's head.

Stranger in black: "My lap cost 5 rubels by the way"

Stranger in white: "For hell's sake, are you for real?!"

The black knight then feels something being swiftly pull out of his pocket. The stranger on his lap shows a black wallet in his hand, he pulls some money out of it then offer it to the black knight.

Stranger in black: "Hey, that's my money!"

The black knight reaches for the wallet he assumes was his, but the white knight quickly hides that wallet inside his tunic beneath the armor.

Stranger in white: "Although your lap is very comfortable and I'm getting too lazy to sit back up, I demand a compensation for the mental damage you’ve done!"

The black knight doesn't want to invade people privacy but if the white knight is going to be difficult then so be it. He thought as he forcefully reaches under the white knight's tunic not realizing that the gold knight had circle back to them after his little exploration.

Stranger in red: “I didn’t find anything; I thought there would be a sign telling us about where this pavilion is or just any other people around since it’s absurdly big but- “

The gold knight look at the other two men, speechless.

The upper half of white knight’s body is soaked with water and there're still trails of wetness on the floor from the fountain, he is lying on the lap of the black who had forcefully reach underneath his tunic.

There are also some death turtles lying on the floor. When the gold knight left, the only dead animal on the floor are birds and he only left them for no more than 3 minutes. These two will be bad for his blood pressure, won't they?

———————————————————————

The three strangers sat on the floor facing each other. The gold knight is sitting sideway while the black knight is cross sitting, and the white knight is in kneeling position.

Stranger in white: “So none of you have any idea about what’s going on either”

Stranger in black: “Yeah, but right now we should probably introduce ourselves properly”

Stranger in red: "Good point, I still don't know your name and we'll likely only have each other until we reach the town"

The black knight start pondering.

Stranger in black: "Raynor sound right to me ...."

A name that means mighty army and a good advice.

Stranger in black: "Yep, it's definitely Raynor. Raynor Blackwood, Nice to meet you guys"

Raynor clench his right hand into a fist and place it over his heart his right forearm is parallel to the earth and his right palm face downward, making a small metallic sound on his armor resembling a salute.

Raynor and the gold knight then look at the white knight in anticipation.

Stranger in white: "I think .... it's Lennard"

A name that means brave as a lion.

The white knight lifts the fabric that warp around his waist up slightly with both of his hand and bow lightly. A gesture resembles a curtsey of a princess.

Lennard: "Lennard Engelguard, it's a pleasure meeting you"

And finally, they then turn their attention to the gold knight in which he places his left hand on his chest then bows politely like a diplomat pledging his alliance.

Stranger in red: "My name is Arland, Arland Scarletsmith. Please to meet you as well"

A name that means an oath or pledge.

After the exchange of their formal greetings, they decided to start sharing what they know.

Arland: “So you guys remember anything else?”

Raynor furrow in thought, the head pain is now gone but that make how blank his mind is become even more apparent.

Raynor: "None that is related to this place or you guys”

Arland: “What are the unrelated things you remembered?”

Awkwardly, Raynor replies.

Raynor: “How to plants a cost-effective potato?”

The other two stared blankly at Raynor, the potato planter.

Lennard: “Good for you man, you must really love potato”

Arland: “Yeah, potatoes are pretty cool”

Arland crosses his arms, digging into his head for his own information to share.

Arland: "I remember the format of international treaty and convention; my head seems to be mainly filled with document work"

Lennard: “I also only remembered raw information like medical practices, some spells and a lot of ways to kidnap people categorize by their age and family members but aside from that there's nothing that explain our situation”

Raynor: "You what-"

Lennard: “Anyway, since we appear to be capable of speech and recalling of certain knowledge, the memory loss had to either be partial or selective so it's very likely that we suffered some form of head trauma”

Raynor who probably likes potato: “It's quite concerning that you are the one with medical skill, do your patient left your treatment with all organs intact-Ah!”

Raynor yelp as Lennard holds the black wallet just above a white flame on top of his fingertip.

Lennard: "Talk anymore and this little guy will get it"

Raynor: "You are horrible! And you still owned me 5 rubels for the service of my lap!"

Arland: “Put the wallet down Lennard, you can’t use Raynor wallet as a hostage”

Arland spoke passionately, Raynor look at him with appreciation.

Arland: "Your torture method lack emotional effectiveness. I suggest you took out the items in his wallet and set it on fire one by one"

Nothing can describe disappointment on Raynor's face and Lennard doesn’t know what to respond. Regardless, Arland quickly lighten up and made another suggestion.

Arland: "I know! How about we check our wallet? Maybe there are some old photos or identification card!"

Arland and Lennard then start inspecting their wallet.

Inside Arland’s brown wallet, there’s a key that physically lack notch and ridge. The currency of money in his wallet is merlots and as for Lennard’s white wallet, there’s some money with currency of bains and nothing else.

Raynor reached his hand toward Lennard.

Lennard: “There’s nothing but money and dried jasmine in there, I already checked”

Raynor: “WHY YOU-“

Lennard: “YOU WATERBOARDED ME AND CHARGED MONEY FOR IT-“

Before the two men can grab each other's collar, their attention was taken away by an aggressive sound of fist slamming on the marble floor, before they can look for the source of the sound. They each feel a small bonk on their head.

———————————————————————

Raynor: “Let’s go with baggage next”

Said Raynor with a small red bruise on his cheek, next to him is Lennard who now has a small red bruise on his forehead. Arland had confiscated both of their wallets.

Although Arland act compose, it appears that he is actually extremely short tempered. Raynor put his baggage in front of him, but he found that there’s no visible lock.

Raynor: “Huh, that's odd ...”

Lennard: "How about this?"

Lennard said as he lifts up a big decorative rock from inside the fountain, putting his baggage next to him preparing to smash it.

Raynor: "Calm down man, the content inside the baggage is not going anywhere. Beside-"

Arland: “The rock could damage the item inside?”

Raynor: “I was about to say that these baggage looks expensive but yeah, that's other good point”

Lennard put the decorative rock down.

Lennard: “What are we going to do then?”

Arland: “Let me try something, maybe it will trigger some mechanism”

Arland insert the unconventional gold key he has into the lock that chained Raynor with his baggage, and for some reason he has a remorseful on his face.

Arland: "I don't know if it will also trigger any trap though ......"

Raynor: "Is that why you try it on me instead of yourself-"

Arland: "Your sacrifice will be esteemed and appreciated"

Before Raynor can protest anymore, Arland quickly turn the key. An unlocked sound can be heard. Arland pulls the golden key out of the lock, showing the gold light that coated its blade substituting its missing notches and ridges. Unfortunately, the baggage remains sealed.

Lennard: "Woah, can that key unlock anything?"

Arland: "I'm not sure but as long as the pole fit, I can probably conjure this key into any shape"

Raynor: "That's a little creepy but also, potentially very profitable"

Lennard: "We can definitely join force in robbing a bank and breaking into jewelry store, I can already see a bright future ahead of us"

Arland and Raynor look at Lennard with judgmental expression, he can't be serious. Can he?

Arland: "I was about to suggest we go find resident area for help and info but now I'm reconsidering it ......"

———————————————————————

Regardless of Lennard's attitude, they agreed they can't stay in the pavilion forever. With baggage now on their back, the knights decided to go out to find a town or village. Hoping that they might come across someone who know what's going on or can help them.

Unfortunately, no matter how long they walk, they couldn't find a way out of this forest. It is getting dark, but at least the symbol behind their head is bright enough to illuminate their surroundings vividly.

Arland: "... this ... could either be very good or very bad ..."

Raynor: "Yeah, we'll probably be able to save a lot of money on torch and lantern, but now I also struggle to come up with a way to sleep"

Raynor spoke while chewing on a random branch he found on the ground; Lennard slapped it away from his hand.

Lennard: "Stop eating random stuffs you found!"

Raynor: "But I'm hungry!"

Lennard: "Then at least chew on somethings edible like leaves or- I don't know, WILD BERRIES??"

Arland: "Lennard is probably right; I think that branch is cursed. Whenever I see you chew on it, I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach accompany by intrusive prediction about the possible consequence of your action"

Lennard: "That is one convoluted way to say you are concern"

Arland: “I wasn't concern; I'm a rational person”

Lennard: "You lose your cool at the pavilion"

Arland's cheek heated up in a mix of shame and frustration.

Lennard: "Look. It's okay to experience unproductive emotion, the point is how you managed it- PUT THAT ROCK DOWN RAYNOR"

Lennard scolded Raynor who is licking a random rock.

Raynor: "But this is a salt rock! it's EDIBLE and most importantly it's FREE"

Lennard: "Free salt is not worth the medical bill!"

Raynor: "I have no money now; I need to make the most out of what I got!"

Arland: “Are you implying this is my fault??”

While arguing about trivial petty stuffs, they stumble upon an old worn-out wooden sign.

[Beware, Kanis's territory up ahead.

NO MEN AND NO LIGHT ALLOW IN THE AREA AFTER DARK]

The three men look at each other, the name of this creature does not ring any bell but good things whoever write this also slap a poster containing information about this beast on the sign as well.

[Kanis, nocturnal wolf beasts with metallic fur that love the taste of men when his Testorone level is at peak, they will violate men and bite into his flesh alive every time he ejaculates]

Lennard: "That is graphic on an unnecessary level ...."

Suddenly, they hear a shuffle sound from the bush nearby. Lennard and Arland scooted together like a flock of penguin during snowstorm. Raynor though, doesn't budge and allowed the other two to hide behind him.

Arland: “I can feel it, these Kanises can blood bend from afar”

Raynor: “What on earth are you talking about?”

Arland: “I feel a chill down my spine, blood escaping my head, and adrenaline building up in my body so much so that I feel like I could jump and soil myself at any moment”

Lennard: “That's just a medical description of fear”

Arland: “Your conclusion is flawed”

Lennard: "You would rather believe that there are blood bending monsters nearby than to admit that you are scared?"

At first, Lennard sees Arland as the normal one compared to Raynor, but it seems he can throw that out of the window.

An oddly metallic wolf howling sounds can be heard not too far away alongside a sound of small metals cranking on each other.

Raynor: "It can't be them, right?? We just approach the sign!"

Arland: “Considering that we are both of the prohibited things at the prohibited time, we might have accidentally lure them out”

Suddenly, a couple pair of glowing eyes can be spot not too far away in the dark. Like an instinct, each of knights pulls out their firearm.

The first Kanis jump out of the dark. Which prompt the three men to immediately start shooting, but it doesn't work. The bullets just bounce off Kanis's metallic fur.

Putting their gun away, Raynor and Lennard unsheathed thier blade. Arland reach for the blade on the back of his waist, but he found that it was engulfed in sealing magic and refused to be unsheathe.

Arland: "What the-"

Arland swapped his hand to reach for his rapier but one of Kanis is already too close to him. Instinctively, he pulls his hand into a boxing stance prepare to shed some blood to buy time.

The Kanis jump toward Arland baring it teeth which the gold knight takes with his guarding arm. Once he's sure that the Kanis's teeth had sunk in, he pulls forth his rapier. The sharp tip goes into one of Kanis's eyes, piercing through optic nerve and landed right inside its cerebrum.

Lennard isn't doing so well. Somehow, he's struggling to handle his long sword. He feels odd holding one weapon with both hand and even the Kanises noticed that Lennard's movement is very stiff and unnatural.

The white knight cursed himself, wondering why he would carry around a weapon he's not proficient at.

After Kanis took a bite on one of his forearms, Lennard awkwardly switched to his spear which doesn’t sit right on his hand either. But he made up for his weakness with his spells book, casting fire here, lighting there to keep the beast at bay.

To aid Lennard and Arland, Raynor jump on the back of Kanises that the other two knights couldn't counter in time and slit their neck from behind. He then switching into his butterfly form to dodge the attack of other Kanises that try to remove him from the back of their comrade. Every single oversight made by the other two knight is covered by him.

But he began to wonder, should the feeling of life leaving one's body with the tip of the dagger be this addicting?

Unfortunately, the knights are soon overwhelmed by the sheer number of Kanises surrounding them.

All on adrenaline and instinct, Lennard cast a fire spell to set nearby trees on fire, once the area is bright enough to mess with Kanises nocturnal vison. He grabs the other men then disappear into a line of light then reappear about 10 meters away from their previous location.

They all stumbled on the ground panting.

Lennard try to teleport again, hoping to create even more distance between them and the beast. But they only travel about 2 meters from their previous spot.

Lennard: "Sorry guys, I think this is a sight base spell. It's too dark so I can only see within the area under the light from our head"

Although it didn't work, the other two are somewhat horrify with what Lennard can probably do in the broad daylight.

———————————————————————

The knights continue to run until they found themselves at the edge of a cliff. Lennard fall flop on his face like a soggy marshmallow, it appears that he has a very bad stamina compare to the other two thus they have to help him up. Lennard mutter an apology all the way until Arland scold him to save his strength. Tired, they snuck into the nearby bushes. Hoping that the leaves will help dim their light down a little.

Although Lennard’s heart is still racing and some form of migraine is developing in the left side of his head, he approaches the other two men in hope of healing their wound.

Lennard: "Guys, let me see-"

Raynor: “NO”

Raynor tightly placed his hand on his wound and scooted away from Lennard, sounding oddly distress. Lennard tried again but this time Raynor lightly pushed him away.

Confused, Lennard takes a look at Arland and found that the redhead also seems anxious. His normally proud body language appears more reserved than usual. But instead of pressing on his wound, Arland uncomfortably warp both of his arms around his stomach.

Raynor pants, his face is a little pink. Although it’s a small detail, Raynor skin had always been a closer shade to magenta than red. But now that detail is explained as Raynor's blood is visibly dripping, pitch black in color.

Raynor: “Sorry … I don’t feel well, and I can’t quite explain ….”

Unsure if Raynor's blood is always black or if the Kanises are venomous, Lennard scan their condition.

Lennard: “There’s an aphrodisiac in the saliva of these beasts”

That would explain how these Kanises could make men continue to ejaculate after the blood loss and shock from pain

Lennard: “We should dress the wound while we have the chance”

Lennard decided to approach Arland first this time since he appears to be the less difficult option.

Lennard: "Is your stomach injured?"

Arland: "No .... it just feels uncomfortable"

Lennard: "Do you feel dizzy and nauseous?"

Arland nodded. Another classic reaction to aphrodisiac overdose, Lennard thought to himself. He cupped Arland's shaking hands together and conjure some clean water into it.

Lennard: “Drink, it will help”

Obediently, Arland start sipping. Lennard then start to recount what he knows to heal Arland’s wound. Starting off by casting a weak sealing magic on the nerve near the wound to migrate the pain then clean the excess blood with clean water. The white knight then cast a purification spell to disinfect the wound followed by a stronger sealing magic to stop the bleeding.

All that left is to close the wound with a magic thread. Unfortunately, Lennard found that his vision had become blurry. The brunette struggled to land a precise stitch on the wound and the redhead yelp as the needle mistakenly poke into his flesh outside of the active sealed area.

Lennard rubbed his eyes, the focus return for a moment before slowly fading away again. He shakes his head as migraine throbbed along his heartbeat. He almost jumps when he feels Arland’s hand on his chest.

Arland: "You should drink some too; you don't look well either"

Arland push his hands that are still cupped together on Lennard's chest, offering him the other half of water. While Lennard is capable of conjuring more water for himself, he leans in for a drink to accept the kind gesture ....

..... of allowing him to pick pocket, but before Lennard could reach the wallets. He feels one of Arland's feet on his shoulder.

Arland: "Are you serious?"

While the other two men are bickering, Raynor is lost in his own thoughts.

Raynor: "Even the third times ......"

He cursed under his breath, glancing at a couple of death squirrels on the ground. As discreetly as possible, Lennard approach Raynor.

Lennard: "Raynor"

The black knight turns away.

Raynor: “No it’s okay, I don’t think it’s deadly. You should save your magic in case one of us ended up on the dead door”

Lennard: “The point of having your wound treat as fast as possible is to keep the death door away from you"

Raynor: “I don’t know, it sounds like a lot of work on your end and I’m afraid I won’t have enough to pay you back”

Raynor pulled his hood up, he tugged his cape over his body and hugged his knee. Almost like he's trying to make himself as small as possible. Noticed that Lennard isn't sure what to do, Arland decide step in.

Arland: "How about we compromise? Just let Lennard disinfect your wound, he'll still be able to save some magic that way"

Raynor still refuse to look at them, clearly, he’s not yet convinced but the words from these two seem to melt him enough that he lets go of his wound. Lennard gently approaches Raynor to begin the process. However, the second that Lennard disinfect the wound. Raynor’s blood catches on fire.

Raynor: “Ahhhh, it burns!! It burns!! It BURNS!!!“

Lennard: “What the-I’m sure that’s a purification spell-”

Said Lennard as he quickly summoned water to soothe Raynor’s wounds. Unfortunately, both the extra light from fire and Raynor's scream give away their hiding spot.

The beast swipe its long claws toward their location, cutting the bush that covered them, the wind from the speed of it push the bush and anything inside it toward the edge of the cliff. While the other two could escape the force with their quick travel spell, Arland was pushed into the abyss.

Lennard: "Arland!"

Lennard and Raynor's hearts dropped to their stomach at the sight, there are couple thud sound from the cliff followed by the sound of creaking wood.

Arland: "I'm okay!"

Both men sigh in relief hearing Arland's respond, the redhead is hanging on to a branch along the cliff. Unfortunately, he can't quite climb up with just one hand as his other hand is occupied with his baggage. While his chest was protected by his armor, the shoulder strap of his baggage was tear apart and the branch that he's hanging on is too far down for him to throw his baggage up to the surface.

Raynor: "Stay put man! We'll go get you-"

Arland can hear a sound of metals grinding against each other, it appears that Raynor already have his hands full.

Arland look at the item occupying his hand. It should be easy; the choice is either his life or this baggage. He doesn't know why but he is convinced that this baggage contains his entire identity.

But then again if he just continues to hang on this branch until the sunrise while the Kanises are busy with the other two men. He will definitely be okay, and he won't have to throw the baggage away.

It's not like he knows the other two personally anyway so he shouldn't have any kind of reaction toward losing them especially that Lennard is just a compulsive thief and Raynor is just an overreacting brute. The gold knight knows better than to let feelings take over him. All alliance expired at some point, it's normal and he is completely clam, stable, compose and logical about it.

So why can't he fight the urge to throw everything away and climb up this cliff?

[light-effects]

Chapter 1-10

More coming soon.

[light-effects]

Story Archive

More coming soon.

[light-effects]

Light effects

Light effects is a spell use with a magical needle as a last effort to treat the patient. The needle 10 centimeters long and is applied in patients by repeatly hammering the item into the patient’s skull using application machine.

[light-effects]

Treatments

List of procedures that medics of this world use to treat their patients.

[light-effects]

Beloved

Beloved is a defense mechanism spell that could be cast on patient to moderate their condition and behavior, the spell can only be cast once cleric ripped patient’s mental womb open.

Mechanism

Beloved will be craved into patient’s mental womb. They are incapable of direct communication or forming relationships, they only fight with the interests to preserve themselves which is done by protecting their host whom they love unconditionally. However, with bad comprehension. Love can be both cruel and selfish. In some instances, the beloved and their host body switched places as a defense mechanism. This is done under one of these 3 conditions:

1. Beloved feel that their host is in a state that threatens their existence and so pull them into mental womb In order to prevent them from taking anymore damage. Beloved will absorb the negative situation for their host and will return the body once they deem that their existence is stable.

2. The host feels that the situation is impossible to solve in the real world and so decided to enter mental womb willingly which push beloved into the real world. This is because the memory appears in mental womb is more vivid than in reality and problem are fair in solving with only yes or no as clear answer.

3. Similar to the second situation however in this case, host find themselves not suitable for the task and so have beloved took over the task for them.

The memory of what beloved do in their host body will be transferred to the host after the host returned. Which pushed the host to take responsibility for the action they are completely disassociated with. Beloved don’t eat or sleep in mental womb and so can not comprehend the physical need of their host, if beloved is left to control host body for too long. They’ll likely kill their host out of ignorance.

However in some cases, patient’s gear got stuck. Making both them and their beloved stuck presented in the real world at the same time. In rare case, neither host and beloved know which is which. One patient’s situation showed that beloved can learn to become more sentient if being in the real world long enough without their host dying. Some patients also reported to suffered some screw loose so their vision shift constantly between mental womb and reality.

Application of Beloved on each type of mental womb.

Mental womb have 4 forms:

1. Storage, also know as dark place. This is where things that the host tried to repress are resided. Each items are accessible through complicated puzzles but if beloved see the item as a threat to their self preservation, they can destroy the puzzles to make it impossible for their host to solve. Permanently leave unfixable damage in their host’s mental womb If beloved are pushed to destroyed too much of these puzzles, there will be consequences on their host.

2. Garden, known in simple term as happy place. If beloved took over to protect their host, this will be where they trapped their host in.

3. Toy store, known in simple term as memory lane. This is one of the place host often visit willingly. While memory here are more vivid than imagination in real world, it is ridden with bias and certain details will be heavily exaggerated.

4. Playground, known in simple term as dream world. This is the only mental womb where neither host nor their beloved are required to be present in reality. In playground, host and their beloved can interact. However, not much will happen as beloved are incapable of communication.

5. Theater, also known in simple term as mindscape, a place where the perspective of host toward the situation is materialized. Allowing the host to understand their thoughts and sort through the situation with different efforts.

[light-effects]

Patients

Follow these princes on their quest of self-rediscovery as they tried to get by in another world that appeared to be familiar yet ridiculously wacky. They are still figuring stuff out as they go but at least this world will be kinder to them, or so that is what the psychiatrist that treated them hope.

[light-effects]

Arland Scarletsmith

Class: War diplomat

Age: 21 years old

Personality: Like the energy of light, giving various degree of heat through radiation and excited particles. He is an odd mix of serene calm and passionate conviction. Despite his patience, he actually has a fierce temper and is easily frustrated. He tried his best to suppress his emotion and rely on intellect which can make him came off as elusive at time.

Arland is an excellent strategist and negotiator which makes him a good war diplomat but because he is very good at planning and managing things, he has the habit of saying yes too much almost as if he was being over relies on in the past. He think he had to do everything, complete every single tasks and that it is wrong to refuse requests or jobs no matter how impossible it sounds.

Arland's overriding goal is to win. He approaches each task and situation strategically and efficiently. Arland is observant and logically persuasive, he knows how to encourage and comfort people in their difficult moments. He likes to assume the best in people and is always ready to hear them out no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

Although Arland gives the appearance of absolute confidence, in fact out right egotistical at times. He is insecure about living up to other’s expectation. He's more afraid of failure than death and can't take compliment well as he feels pressured that he has to uphold the standard of people who complimented him.

The letter describes Arland as "Face of the hellfire himself" and that he is the fiery voice of the defenseless.

Fighting style: Arland main weapon is a lightweight rapier, relying heavily on his agility and precision. Despite his refined and optimized movement, it is noted that Arland seems to fight with frustration.

Once he switches to using his sword though, his fighting style becomes brutal and aggressive. He holds his sword in backhand grip, preferring to get close and personal. However, he doesn't unsheathe his sword often as it tend to either refused to be unsheathe or try to burn Arland alive with itself. It's seemed the sword was made to seal Arland but Arland is the only one who can use this sword.

Arland has good endurance and can run for a long time compared to the other two. Likely due to him being the only one out of the group who appear to be train in hand-to-hand combat. Arland tend to coats his fist and kick in sealing magic to strengthen his hit and protect his body. Interestingly, if he suffered adrenaline rush then he will leave a remnant of gold dust on the places he touches.

Arland marksmanship is passable, he's on equal footing with Lennard and Luken but not as good as Raynor.

Arland can hold sword and rapier on either hands but can only aim with his right hand and while he can hold firearm on one hand and blades on the other, he cannot fight holding both sword and rapier at the same time.

Skills and abilities: Arland appear to be proficient in sealing magic, being able to utilize it in many ways as well as being very knowledgeable about breaking seal. Curiously, it was commented that Arland is the thing his sealing magic was designed to seal.

There are mainly 2 branches in sealing magic, pure sealing and applied sealing. For pure sealing magic, there are holy fire and sacred fire. Holy fire is a fire that burn red, its purpose is to absorb and digest both magic and particles. If Arland's knife allow him to unsheathe it, it will usually coat itself in this type of sealing magic.

Sacred fire is a fire that burn white gold and can manifest itself as a chain of the same color. Its main purpose is to prevent force or magic from going through it whether one direction or both direction and it is the magic that Arland usually coated his fist when engage in fist fight.

Combining two pure sealing magic, Arland can seal immortal creatures in his blood by coating them with both kind of sealing fires and eat them alive. Once they are digested, an eye will appear on Arland’s skin as a jail cell window.

For applied sealing magic, there are contract, sealing mark and key. With the scarlet pen, Arland can write a contract to bind people to their promises. It is usually written in the form of international treaty and he can check all the contacts by using the key to unlock the archive inside the pen. The contract can be canceled using the contradiction in itself. Oddly, Arland use this to bind himself to his own words more than using it on other people.

Once the contract is signed, it can never be unsigned. Even if one travel back it time, the contract will stay signed until it expires.

Using the same scarlet pen, he can draw a mark to seal or unseal things ranging from items, person to the mind, emotions and that person’s free will. There is an evidence of Arland abusing this and use this to seal some functions of his own brain. He can also animate things that he draws with scarlet pen, these drawings can interact with physical world. However, they have no mind of their own and will dissolve the second Arland lose focus.

The scarlet pen use red fruit as ink. Without this pen, Arland can use other pen with red ink, but the magic performs will not be as efficient.

With golden key that lacks notches and ridges. Arland can open any lock as long as the pole fit. If the pole doesn't fit, Arland can coated any metal with sealing magic for the same effect. However, that metal must be pure gold.

Other notes:

1. The coat warped around his waist is too big for him to wear, it is likely that this coat belongs to someone else.

2. The knees part of his armor was bluntly cuts, indicating that the war in his home nation broke out abruptly.

3. Arland has heart shape freckles but it’s very subtle and will only be visible when his face is red.

[light-effects]

Lennard Engelguard

Class: Battlefield medic

Age: 22 years old

Personality: Like the properties of light, reflecting on shiny surface and refracted away depending on the environment. Lennard is rebellious, anti-authority and refused to be a straight line, he thinks laws held him back and couldn’t care less about honor and dignity. Lennard is also exceptionally good at problem solving which also resulted in him being impulsive and doesn’t think things through.

Lennard is type of person that do things immediately once a thought crossed his mind which make him an ideal reactive battlefield medic but also make him a compulsive criminal. If he sees a wounded person, he’ll immediately go in to help them and if he cannot find proper equipments he will resort to robbing other people without a second thought or hesitation. Lennard is not proud of this.

Despite his shamelessness, being able to brave embarrassment with his ego unscathed. Lennard has low self-esteem, always compare himself to others and is always unsatisfied with himself. Although he believes that he’s less capable than the other people, he never gives up during hardship and always faced the challenges head on at best of his ability.

Beneath his stoic exterior, Lennard is a very gentle person as he takes joy in nursing people back to health. He is also an idealistic social dreamer who wants everyone to be happy in a world that he visualizes regardless of the questionable method use to archive it.

The letter describes Lennard as "Personification of war crimes" and that he is an unyielding light among the oppressed.

Fighting style: Lennard fight in a versatile and resourceful way; he is very knowledgeable in medicine in which he can weaponize by spotting and exploit his opponent’s health conditions that they may or may not even know they are suffering from. It was commented that the way Lennard swing his sword is very wide like he's used to fighting in harsh terrain while being outnumbered.

Lennard is capable of using every single type of weapons as well as magics which is quite freaky in most worlds standard. However, his main strength comes from his ability to multitask, allowing him to use multiple weapons at once. Lennard main combinations are sword+lance, but he swaps his weapons around depending on the situation using teleportation as well as stealing other people’s weapons.

Despite his wide array of skill in combat, Lennard has very low stamina and endurance. It is believed that he might have ruined his health trying to learn this number of skills.

Lennard's long sword seems to drink the blood of people it cut or stab, once the blood is gathered to certain amounts. It will boil these blood white. No one figure out what is his sword doing yet since nothing came out of it.

Lennard marksmanship is passable, he's on equal footing with Arland and Luken but not as good as Raynor.

Lennard is ambidextrous and can wield any type of weapons on any of his hands. He is capable of casting a spell with both of his hands occupied but instinctively, he tends to use his right hand most often.

Skills and abilities: Lennard carries a spell book with him because the sheer amount of spells he knows exceeds his abilities to remember. The pink cover is for medical magic and the brown cover is for other magics. Among all magics Lennard can use; medical magic seems to be what he is most proficient at.

Medical magic is a combination of 3 applied magics; elemental magic, sealing magic and divine magic. Divine magic is used to disinfect the wound. Sealing magic is used to stop the bleeding and sedated the wound while elemental magic is use as medication and tool. Because of this, Lennard is able to use every type of magics on basic level. Either that or Lennard really did try to master every single magics in his world alongside all weapons.

Aside from medical magic, Lennard is quite proficient in divine magic which is separated into purification spell and dimensional spell.

However, purification spell in Lennard’s case works a little oddly as mud and soil move away from him because the earth is disgusted by the very idea of touching him. All the sacred artifact and place also violently refused him so much so that most church tear itself away from the earth just so Lennard wouldn’t enter it.

Lennard body also attempted to purified itself when Lennard is extra low on self-esteem, his blood will boil white as his veins tried to exit his skin and the rest of his innards will attempt to escape his flesh through any hole on his body. Although it is also possible that Lennard is the one pushing them out of his body.

For dimensional magic, there are short distances teleportation and long-distance teleportation. In case of short distance, he can teleport as far as he can see. Which means he will not be able to teleport inside a close building unless the inside is exposed to the view. Lennard often uses this spell to aid him in combat, remove bullet from wound, steal stuffs and kidnap people. This spells can also be enhanced with the use of binoculars.

In the case of long-distance teleportation. Lennard can go anywhere he left his surgical thread on which allow him to go anywhere his patients are or teleport his patients to his location. Once the patient is completely heal, the thread will naturally faded away and the spell will no longer work. He can also tie this thread on object for the same effect, but he has to re-tied the thread whenever it fades.

Other notes:

1. The fabric warped around his waist is a national flag, likely from his home nation in the old world he comes from.

2. He seems to wear his crest upside down, indicating that his nation is in constant distress.

3. Lennard carry himself like a princess and tend to lift the fabric on his waist up a little whenever he’s on a stair.

[light-effects]

Raynor Blackwood

Class: Time engineer

Age: 23 years old

Personality: Like the frequency of light, Raynor is best represented by the rainbow spectrum of visible light wave. He often brings a practical perspective to the group and acts as the voice of reason, but he is also unpredictable and impulsively decisive. If he set his eyes on something there’s no backing down no matter how much it cost him.

Raynor is very good at analyzing problem and comparing information, making him a very effective time engineer. However that also gives him an obsessive trait where he will redo something until it appears as close to perfection as possible. Whenever he’s in tunnel vision, it is almost impossible for him to snap out of it since he will likely keeps looking for defects even after there’s no defects left to fix.

Despite his confusing demeanor, Raynor is actually a very simple person. He find contentment in little things and can pick himself up quite quickly in dire situations. It’s easy to make him laugh as it easy to upset him. Unfortunately this also makes him insensitive as he usually fail to grasp why his over-the-top decisions are considered cruel.

Raynor is also an extrovert that has no idea how social clues works. He gets lonely easily and so has trouble staying still, always needing something to distract himself from the reality that he is alone. Raynor sees himself as the big brother of the group, and desperately wants the other four to depend on him.

The letter describes Raynor as "Death itself dressed as human" and that he is a ruthless protector of the weak.

Fighting style: Raynor is very flexible, his movement is swift and quiet. Combine that with his ability to turn into a flock of black butterflies and his parkour skill, Raynor can be very stealthy. He approach targets from different angles and catch them off guard, a minimalist that strikes like the dead of the night that will not get into an unnecessary fight.

Complementing his assassin fighting style, his primary weapon is dagger accompanied with basic knowledge in human anatomy like the location of major arteries and veins.

His main weapon aside from dagger are short sword and large shield. He can exert magic into his sword to make it expand in size without increasing the weight, the glowing part of the sword can penetrate lepton bond, breaking anything it touches on atomic level. Thus, can permanently severed immortal beings' limps. Although he cannot endure fatigue as well as Arland, Raynor can tank more hits from the enemy compared to the other.

Raynor has the best marksmanship out of the group and is very proficient with his sniper rifle being able to make an accurate shot as far as 3,000 meters without a scope.

Raynor is left-handed and can only hold his sword as well as aim with his left hand thus, can only hold shield with his right hand. However, he can hold dagger in either of his hands although he still prefers his left hand more.

Skills and abilities: Raynor was born with a natural gift for black magic which he refer to as elder magic. Black/Elder magic is separated into, practice of relativity and practice of static.

The practice of relativity included rewinding time and restoring object. For rewinding time, he needs to sacrifice people or animals lifespan. One year of life equals to one minute he can rewind. Once time is rewinded, the sacrifice will stay death. Raynor abused this spell a lot and so is constantly surrounded by death animals that seem to appear out of nowhere.

Restoration magic is a less complicate technique of rewinding time where only a certain set of atomic particles is rearranged. This spell can only work on restoring physical from of object that were damage for less than 12 hours and cannot heal living thing.

With practice of static, Raynor can turn into a flock of black butterflies for a quick travel and escape. While he's in this form, he can still be captured but no attack can harm him as he himself also cannot harm anyone. However, he can only stay in this form for 30 minutes, the timer will be reset once he turn back to human.

On advance level, Raynor’s conscious can leave his body and enter objects or machines. This allow him to find defects in complicate machine or escape any form of physical pain as well as the reality itself, with this Raynor’s conscious can choose to never return.

If that happened, Raynor's brain will automatically develop a new conscious to replace the old one and the old conscious will be permanently locked out of his body. Each time new conscious is developed, he will be less and less grounded in reality.

Unfortunately, Raynor also suffer from a chronic illness where his magic is constantly leaking. This cause him to constantly starve, and turn his blood black as the leakage cause his blood cells to age past its expiration date. Since his blood is technically rotten, purification spell will burn away all of his blood cells resulting in all healing spell being deadly to him. However, his wound heals at very fast rate due to this and so medical aid is usually not needed. His leaking magic can also grow or aged small critters, bug and plants to death in a span of couple seconds if he’s not paying attention.

This illness is likely developed due to constant exposure to parasites that drain magic out of people, one can be infected by them through eating raw meat of infected animal, eating rotten food from the garbage or sleep with rotten corpses in their coffins.

Other notes:

1. His circlet is decorated with jasmine leaves, the white flowers on his armor sleeves are also jasmine.

2. He hand painted his armor black once a week to prevent it from rusting, indicating that he fought in a slow war that takes place for a long period time.

3. Raynor’s blood + purification magic is somehow more flammable than gasoline and gunpowder.

[light-effects]

Medic’s guide toward applying Light effects on their patients

Here’s what medics need to know before casting Light effects on their patients.

What does Light effects do?

The idea of the treatment is separated into 2 parts. First part is that it was evaluated that the patient broke because there were too many bad things happened to them all at once while also dealing with multiple unprocessed traumas at the same time, Light effects’s needle removes everything from patient’s brain and have that patient re-experience their trauma to processed it one at a time without the disruption of other factors. And thus, the patient must recollect the pieces of themselves to complete their treatment. The second part is to let the patient recognize their problematic behaviors, some of extreme responses might make sense when taking their past into the account and so the patient doesn’t feel the need to work on it because their rationalization and environment normalized these bad behaviors for them. By living with their abnormal thoughts and behavior with no context, it is more likely that they will realize how ridiculous they are behaving in certain situations and will be more prone to accept help.

How well does Light effects work?

This spell is in fact not very effective This spell is effective but with flaws. These flaws are however not within the spell itself since in most cases, the patient choose to stay in the world that the needle transported them to after re-experiencing the horrible events in their original world. Some patients want the choice to live in blissful ignorance. Some patients either postponed their journey until they become a vegetable or forcefully attempted to remove the needle themselves which is possible by tracing optic nerve through one of eye sockets. However, side effect of permanent blindness is guarantee. It should also be noted that the longer the needle is active, the more sense of emotion and feeling the patient will lose because the purpose of the needle is to suppress emotion and memory.

What is the cost of Light effects?

To aid a barren world in need of help. Yes, this spell basically had unwell individual stripped off of their identity then force them offer their labor in a foreign world with no one to care for them in exchange for a treatment that may not work. In most cases when it comes to the point that the medic had to goes through with this treatment, the patient is no longer in the condition to give consent to anything anymore. A lot of patients did also pass away aiding the other world before they had a chance to fully recollect themselves or are too caught up helping the other world that they ran out of time. So, if you are a fellow medic and you are reading this, put this thing down, don’t cast this sh*tty spell on anyone and if you still have kindness left in your soul, please burn this goddanm manual then feed it to the whale. It is an extremely risky treatment; however, it is definitely worth putting your patient through if this is their last chance of recovery. Please see the next page for the chant required to cast Light effects during the application of its needle. No. F*ck. Stop reading-

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End of the guide’s introduction

[light-effects]

Three men woke up in a foreign world with partial memory loss and odd symbol floating on their head. Turn out it was due to a medical treatment called Light effects which was done by hammering needle into their brain, blocking their negative past experiences and hold what is left of their sanity together.

To complete the treatment, they have to hunt theses bad experiences down and make peace with it while offering free labor to this new world as a price for the chance of recovery or their brain stem will become permanently damage from the intrusion of the needle.

However, mistakes were made during the surgery. Either that or they already are a complete lost cause and the psychiatrist only use Light Effects as a means to extend their life. Thus they can either press on with the treatment that likely will not work or accept their fate and enjoy the additional short life they have left.

Light effects is a light heart medical fantasy story with a bit of body horror undertones, explore the world of mythical medicine and follow five princes as they try to figure out what to do with their life.

cw: mild body horror, legal abuse, financial abuse, failed medical treatment, humiliation, war, abusive workplace, implied chronic illness, implied terminal illness, forced medical treatment, implied SA, implied self harm, implied ED, prostitution, implied vore.

This blog is an archive for information, if you have any questions or comments please send ask to @kervl-klear