There before him stood the snow white city. Sancré Arma, the last city of mages, was all that stood in the way of utter annihilation. He looked out at the ashen clouds as they rumbled against an invisible barrier. A icy sensation rose from Garth's lower back to the nape of his neck as he stared out at the fiery embers looming behind the mountainside. Mages from across the land had been called in the defense of the realm, but never had Garth seen the Calamity fight with such fury. Garth shook his head trying to push this darkness from his mind. He hobbled down the path following behind a small group of young mages. He could hear them discussing their road to glory. "When I arrive in the city I'm going to join the Vanguard. That is sure to be a proper use of my skills," the mage in a half-suit of armor said puffing his chest out. None of these children had seen fear, but fear had set into Garth's very bones. He continued behind the young men and women listening about their tales of adventuring. Garth smiled thinking back to the times he had lived before, and for a moment he found peace in them. It would be a fleeting moment though as the crack of thunder would fill the air. The barrier became visible and with it, its weakness. A vengeful roar echoed across the cliffsides, and orbs of hellish destruction followed. It was as if the barrier cried out when struck. Garth felt the lump in his throat grow large and his tears well in their ducts. The barrier flashed once before finally deteriorating into oblivion. The young woman in the group ahead of Garth screamed as the attack continued. Garth watch as one of the orbs hurdled towards the group. He released the clasp on his staff and guided the wind beneath his feet. It lifted him high into the air, and place him down before the young mages. His hands moved along the aged wood of his staff as he gently spun it in a circular motion. The words, that had been passed down through the generations, flowed from Garth's mouth in the strictest of patterns. A veil of cobalt appeared, and enveloped them. The flaming sphere clashed with the veiled mages, roaring in anger as it dissipated. Garth slowly brought his staff to a halt. He tore his sight from the mountainside and fixed it on the city. There it laid on the brink of destruction as the death rained down upon it. His knee's buckled under the weight of his body. This was the final age of men.
They all paused on the side of the ridge to look back one last time at their gleaming, deserted city, knowing it was the last time anyone would look upon it before the encroaching darkness consumed it forever.
My rules for writing are the same for writing prompts, even if there were rules I'd be disappointed if you followed them. You could come in here and post something that's not even tangentially related and I'd read it. The prompt is just for inspiration and motivation. I do ask that you make it clear if you want feedback. I'm no brilliant author but I can share my views. I just only want to do so if that's what you're looking for.
My first time trying this, may be a little awkward (also on mobile). Is there anything I can/should change in this? 'Our world is being torn asunder,' Lily thought as she frantically adjusted the knobs and dials on an aged, barely functional rune-scope before jamming her face desperately towards the walnut sized eyehole. The sky north of where she was observing from boiled and frothed like a cauldron of black, crimson and thunder blanketed the once delicately snowcapped mountain range that had served as the royal families' final resting grounds. Now, like the royal families' corpses, the mountains were dead. Barren, where thousand year oaks had once serenely overlooked the graves, the frotalay, flowers that bloomed by the azure waters, wilted and blackened by ash; the merry and ephemeral fairies had long since disappeared before that suffocating blackness had smothered the land. 'I wonder if I'll ever hear their tinkling laughter again,' thought Lily. She had been quite fond of them, often leaving nectar out in the meadows as a child in return for innocuous gifts circlets of lafeiyeh, flowers of snow, magically imbued to never melt. The clouds first had appeared in the horizon as a speck, and those who had first reported its discovery, Lily amongst them, had been ridiculed for overexaggerating its significance. They had been laughed out of court, the King's court nearly in hysterics to hear that a few clouds could be of such concern. It was quite a sight to see hundreds of fat, balding men clothed in swathes of green and gold, holding their stomachs or doubled over in laughter, much like overfed pigs squealing in delight upon the discovery of fresh corn in a trough. No one was laughing now. The clouds had slowly rolled in and robbed the land of its life. All that was left underneath it was eternally flickering shadows, and the putrid stench of decay. By the time the storm front had closed in upon Laon, bastion of the Light, and by the time the matter had been thoroughly ''investigated'' and a few select officials executed as scapegoats by the courts, armageddon was only a couple dozen kilometers away from Laon. Faith, Light, Honor, and 'I-swear-to-forever-defend-the-city' tossed in the trash as fear manifested. First the few informed court officials had scrambled madly out the city, then the King who finally smelled the danger, and finally the peasants. There had been a stampede, riots, massive fires that broke out and quenched by automatic wards as the commoners fled with their life possessions down the cobbled King's Path. Only Lily remained now, atop of Laon's crystal castle's shimmering and resplendent towers untained by the impending storm, atop the castle that had housed the First Angels and their descendents. Lily, and her aged rune-scope on a marble balcony unwilling to leave the place that is her home: the countless tomes in the library, polished dining halls and their liveried servants who bustled and scurried across them during dinner, and her little room on the top of the tower. There wasn't much there; a small collection of books on astronomy handed down to her by her father, a rickety chair, threadbare clothes and a small bed with a light wool blanket. She was a slave, raised to observe the stars. She could have fled, all her instincts told her to- there was nothing to hold her back anymore, she was free at last, free to roam the land now. But what was the point? There would soon be nothing left. Lily sighed quietly and expertly began to disassemble the rune-scope with practiced ease, returning it to the leather case that was its home. Then, returning to her room and closing its double windows that led to the balcony, fingers brushing the cool, stained glass one more time, she tucked in her dress, knelt, and began to pray. ''Oh father above...'' Lily's voice cracked as tears spilled down her face, composure finally cracking, ''daddy I'm so scared, where-'' Oblivion took her.
You really hit your stride after the first few paragraphs. I would recommend reading the first part again, maybe out loud, to edit for clarity. The world is solid and I loved the idea of a nobel magical city falling to the worst traits of human nature. More on that mundane moral decay might be interesting. It's a good story and it was interesting to the end. Well done.
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