For what common folk consider to be a long time ago, there used to be, on the cusp of the Ashes, south of Vale, a small village whose name has been forgotten. It was a village, as you might imagine any other might be like: blooming and breathing of small country life... that is until one terrible night. Lightning ripped through the sky, and the wind howled as the Blood Brotherhood raided and pillaged the town.
By the time the Knights of Lavan arrived, nothing remained of the village save for a smouldering, desiccated scenes of death and destruction, for the Blood Brotherhood spoke to their dark masters only through cries of the innocent and split blood. By the houses and window sills, the dead decorated the streets just as had the flowers only the morning before.
All but two children had died. One, a sickly, pale-skinned boy with disheveled, black hair and russet eyes- Ephel was his name, and another a girl, who had amber eyes and yellow hair that shone like the sun: Lumina, she was thus named.
Now they were companions in their unfortunate misery.
The Knights brought them to the fort town of Lavan and, out of pity, and perhaps some shame from their failed duty, took them into their own care. Within a year, Ephel and Lumina could be found dashing through the halls of the fort and playing together, never leaving each other's side. On one day, they would be in the Library, and Ephel, older and wiser, would teach Lumina the alphabet, how to read and how to write. On another, they would be scolded by Nasim, the Knight Officer, having been caught sneaking around the Knight's training ground to play pretend fights with swords from the supply room.
Lumina had not yet come of age before she entered the recruitment office of Knight Officer Nasim, an almost second father to her, and demanded with fierce determination to join the trainee knights while Ephel eschewed physical combat and kept to the books he loved as well as his frequent talks with the arcane masters of the fort.
Ephel eventually left Lavan and traveled the country as the Chascent Mage-meaning the Avenging One-so that his name was fear to those doing ill, and comfort to those ill-used. He was draped with a dark green cloak with black trimmed edges, and a staff of charred ash wood crowned with a dark emerald orb went with him wherever he went.
But Lumina on the other hand, struggled with her training.
She had been born with a weak constitution, and the Lavan knights' style of shield and longsword was enduringly demanding to her, so much that one night in her room, she wept angrily and bitter tears as she had all but lost hope and confidence in herself.
"Brilliant child..."
(For her name was Lumina)
"Please... Do not despair..."
An Elemental of purest light appeared right before her, pulsing with warmth as much as brilliance. It hummed, one hand open before it:
"Strength can come from the heart... Let me show you."
A strand of light drew itself in the air and came down to Lumina. A long staff with a sharp blade... a brilliant, yellow sheen so that the weapon seemed to be made of pure gold, though it was far stronger and more keenly edged.
"This... is yours..."
And it added triumphantly:
"The Spear of Lumina!"
Like the spear's keen edge, Lumina, with her spear, was a fearsome knight initiate. To the spear, swift and versatile, she also imbued her strikes with elemental Light like the warriors who use light-empowered abilities did: The Paladins.
Yet just as she had found her way, rumour followed that the Blood Brotherhood had been spotted in the land once again. Against warnings of Nasim, Lumina harnessed a horse and hurried off in pursuit. She came upon a fallen village, one that had suffered a similar fate to her own, and noticed the bloodshed was still fresh: by the time the Knights would come, the perpetrators would be long gone once again and free to pursue their crimes.
She rushed northeast to the edge of the Ashes-where nightmares, on some nights, would still bring her.
The woods-the ones she had been lost in more than once as a child-seemed far less welcoming than in olden days. A cold breeze snaked through the hollow ash trunks, biting her cheeks and chilling the inner lining of her armour. Out of the corner of her eye, a twinkle fled. She deftly spun sidways, slinging the edge of her spear as she went, to slice through the bloody red bolt that had been shot her way.
Out of the depths of the forest, dark shapes of human-like forms crawled forwards and surrounded Lumina-men or women, she could not tell, for the long robes obscured too much of their likenesses-like the bolt before, she could see the red death smoking from their hands.
She had been cornered.
She fought valiantly to keep the onslaught at bay. She was talented and courageous, but they were numerous and had ambushed her. A bolt grazed her left thigh and its debilitating magic robbed her leg of its strength as it did with anything else. She fell to one knee as the cloaked ones fell upon to her.
A green explosion tore through their midst and the blood robes were violently pushed back. A green mist surrounded Lumina, making her disappear in seconds. Lumina stood on her feet again, and to her side stood a man in the dark robes of a mage, with a black stub of hair on his chin, ash wood staff and a dark emerald orb. Ephel and Lumina had been reunited again- and now together they rushed into battle. They landed blows on the bringers of red death, swift and deadly, unable to be contained so that they overwhelmed and culled them until none but their leader lay before them, wounded by one of Lumina's previous strikes.
Solemnly, Ephel intoned:
"Your following has been dealt with... Your murdering spree ends here!"
The Chief among the Dark returned a hateful gaze. He shoved one hand into his wound and brought it back before him crimson red. He muttered words whose very sounds were toxic to the ears and air so much so that the duo staggered back from the miasma. A nauseating, dangerously dark energy surrounded the evil one. But Ephel mustered his physical and mental fortitude and, slinging one last emerald bolt, struck him squarely in the neck. The wretched energy dispersed and he fell with empty eyes.
But without warning, his corpse erupted in the same energy as before and large strands of it shot out, arcing, grabbing and seemingly pulling to itself the bodies of his fallen followers around him. Ephel raised his staff, intending to strike once more, but suddenly another strand, larger than the others before, rushed forth and wrapped Ephel in its grasp. Lumina desperately caught Ephel's hand and pulled... but it was too late. His hand was ripped out of hers and he disappeared into the mass.
There was a large bust in the clearning and Lumina was catapulted to the ground. Where the bodies had been taken and where Ephel has disappeared... there was a strange, floating being. A long, tattered cloak of a nauseating, dark green, with traces of black trim almost extended to the ground where no feet or legs laid.
It had the upper half of a skeleton's body, a torso with a rib cage encapsulating a dark, pulsing sphere. And it had a half-decayed face: a rotten eyeball in the right socket of its skull and an empty, hollow void lingering in the left.
"I am..." it rasped with a dead, diseased voice, "I AM THE ARCHLICH NEPHELDEM... RULER OF THE WASTES! HAHAHIAAAAHEEEEUUUGH!!"[
But while the newborn Lich crowed and cackled frantically, Lumina's mind was elsewhere. Her eyes watered and stung...
"E... Ephel?"
A sad cast poisoned her gaze as a voice came from the Spear.
"Wake up, Child! That Lich may still be reveling in its own birth... but not for long!"
"What... what happened to Ephel..?"
"I... I fear that he is lost."
The spirit of Light paused.
"...But you can yet still free his soul from the wretched body of that Lich."
"...How?"
"It possesses great magical abilities... but it is still vulnerable to direct attacks. Aim for the dark mass hidden away in its ribcage! That is the heart of the Lich!"
Woeful rage powered through Lumina's veins and the sheen of her golden hair redoubled in brilliance. With boiling wrath she bolted, light gathering round her spear, while the Lich still cackled and, in one great strike, plunged her spear into what she thought be the very center of the Lich's heart. There was a great flash...
And when Lumina came to, she was alone in the midst of the cold twilight of the Ashes.
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Lumina had then only been an initiate- while the Lich she had faced had indeed been strong. It is likely that the strike she dealt had connected, possibly even wounded the Lich, but it had sadly not killed it. Several stories tell that Lumina then followed on a long quest to slay the Lich that had robbed her of her closest friend, but from my father's word, those stories stop short of telling whether she succeded in the end or not. Whichever it is, time has remembered the wily girl paladin with gold hair and amber eyes wielding a fierce spear of Light: The Spear of Lumina.
Orphan to warriorness. Light in the dark. As told by my father, Turlough the Bard, before his passing. May the Light live long and the Paladins longer.
~Lucis Veritatis