Short Starter

It was now the third week into snowfall, about a foot of snow filling the normal green forests of Edith, a small town about a day or two walk from the provenance capital, Epagos. The town did not have a lot of people, only about three families permanently living there, but the town had an inn with a pub that had a lot of traffic due to it being the last stop before the capital city from the south. The inn was made of stone on the outside, and wood on the inside, a fireplace in the downstairs large enough to warm the whole pub area on the first floor.

The pub area was the first room in the building, welcoming anyone with warmth as soon as they walked through the front doors. It had a few cafeteria like tables on its left and right walls, which were reserved for the Military's soldiers. There were four smaller tables in a diamond formation in between these two tables,which were occupied by travelers and the families husbands for their "Man’s night out". The last table was a two person table in the corner of the room, which attracted the most attention in the pub.

There sat Raijin (pronounced rye-jhin), waiting for the other two mages who were recently admitted to the The Epagos College of the Arcane. He was six foot four inches, and was moderately built due to the amount of labor work he did when he traveled. That, combined with his signature red vampire eyes and his tattoos contributed towards his intimidation. He had what people assumed were tattoos on his shoulders and his biceps, the black tattoos on his pale skin consisted of two uppercase "lambda" letters on each shoulder, then a simple band about half an inch thick that went around his biceps. If one knew about the Arcane, they would know they conducted mana, a method used to increase ones mana pool.

Raijin was left at an orphanage when he was younger. It wasn't a "random baby on a rainy night" sort of thing. There was paperwork involved, and he could easily track his parents.... If they were alive. His parents were mercenaries that were always on the road, and could hardly afford to keep themselves. That, combined with the fact that one was a vampire and the other was a human (cross breeding with vampires was social suicide), Raijin was given up shortly after birth, at the age of 7 he learned his parents had died defending a caravan. What bothered him the most to this day was that he couldn't do anything. The thieves were caught, put to death, and the money returned. He couldn't make any kind of vendetta, personally redeem them, or even attempt make anything right.

The only thing left to Raijin was a blank, and very thick book. At first, it seemed pointless. For years, all it did was serve as a reminder of what could have been, but will never be. Then, one day at 16 when he was working at a mill, it showed it's use. Bandits were raiding the village, and one of their mages casted a basic flame spell towards him. He stuck his hand out to try to have his hand take all the damage... but nothing happened. As he ran from the village, every spell thrown at him he could negate just by "catching" it. Then when he went to work at another village the next morning… he discovered it.

A massive pain flowed through his head, a migraine at a level he couldn't even imagine. Raijin's peers checked on him when it was done, but within ten seconds the pain was completely gone. The book that he always kept in his bag felt heavier, but he figured it was just a migraine that had him feel weak afterwards. Upon finishing his work, collecting his payment, and heading to an Inn, he settled down to find that his book had every spell thrown at him from the previous day, as well as instructions on how to perform them.


This is mostly why he was joining the Epagos College of the Arcane. He wanted to use the colleges resources to study into the book, and learn more about the arcane so that he could learn more about it. Sometimes the college would reach out to others to join, while most cases were young mages applying to it. In this case it was Raijin applying to the college, and his application was accepted. He, along with two others he was told about, were instructed to meet at this pub to be escorted to the college for orientation.

Raijin waved over one of the workers, a young female at about the age of 17, who hesitantly walked over to him. "Another glass of gin and tonic" He asks. "Same amount as last glass please, I want to be able to fill my canteen before I travel" Raijin adds, as the worker nods before leaving him. A fun fact about vampires is that their alcohol tolerance allowed them to drink a huge amount without being drunk, but regardless they would still receive a hangover.