A bashful young man found himself in a smelly inn surrounded by lasvicous pigs and oud proud prostitutes, it was the bright and early day yet the brothel like institution still kept it's door open.
As his jade eyes slowly glared at everything around him he wonders how he got himself into this perplexing situation. He didn't have much time for that though considering the fact that his ceremony one which every single self important noble had invited themselves to was currently in progress.
The bloke sitting beside him holding a comically large gourd filled with a concoction that Auther was sure would kill him in months.
"You see those nobles make a mess of everything I was supposed to go to work as a coal miner...." he was expecting praise in a population where you were either unemployed or working for some noble having a job was a godsent something comparable to being a doctor.
"Really boss I don't see the mess a colleague told me it's the best time when they are rolling around the capital." the blonde haired man got that from a passing pickpocket who drunk himself silly and now lay face planted onto the rough table and was now being pointed at.
"Don't mind him Carl is a pickpocket been that way since we were kids but look at me now fifteen and living the dream... sorry I was babbling on the nobles bring one single element one too strong," the middle-aged teenager paused looking around the tavern part of the repulsive inn before whispering into Auther's ears "their knights scary people they say that they are usually over rare rank they can't be beat unless..," he paused again looking at Auther again though deformed he was still miles ahead of the coal miner his frame a bit too nourished and eyes a bit too polished "you be a bandit you are a bandit aren't you you must be rare rank maybe extra rare part of the no..."
Auther had stopped listening, the coal miner had nothing more to say but made it eerily clear to him that he stuck out like a sore thumb he was too rich for his own good.
While Auther was having a hard time blending with the common bloke Viola was tensing in her seat at the front of the huge cathedral Elizabeth looking at her as if gesturing her to do something.
The ceremony was supposed to have began hours ago but now Auther was nowhere to be seen
"I'll go check on the prince, give me a moment."
"Please do, hopefully he is also presentable, I would not wat to be called names." she responded though Viola did not expect her to she never gave a shit about her son's life but now Viola was questioning that.
"I will." she said walking out.
"How the hell am I supposed to get into the church and avoid unnecessary drama?" he silently asked himself.
He walked out of the inn covering his face with a hood now only his chin was visible, he planned to go back to Lana's home and regroup for a plan.
"I can't go back to the palace or they'll find out I was with Lana and they will find her and put her on trail for kidnapping and trafficking me, I can't go into the church cause I don't look like myself what do I do?" he silently asked himself walking the dirt road lined with horse excrements.
Suddenly as if some Eldritch god was tuning in he saw a lady, too pretty to be a commoner too familiar to be a stranger, too cruel to make him feel comfort, he met Viola's azure gaze and quickly backed into a wall trying to hide far away from her.
Though his bones hated her he was still paralyzed by fear as he simply fell from the wall surrendering to his fate. Viola finally caught up bending down to his level looking at his face staring at his eyes and feeling his body.
"Idiot everyone has been worried sick lets go!" she said tryin to pull him up, she didn't expect to face resistance.
"Vio I'll tell everyone what you did to me, unless..." he stopped when her hand blew a crater to the wall beside him.
"Are you trying to blackmail me, you little runt?" he was sweaty the beads as cold as ice sending shivers down his spine he had caught his tongue in between his teeth body tensing
"I'm not trying I'm blackmailing you if you don't come up with an excuse for why I look like this I'll only answer truthfully and let's see what my mother does to you then."
Viola on any normal day would have told him that she didn't care but the previous conversation with Elizabeth made her second think her lover for her son.
"Fine just know that you owe me punk."
"I owe you nothing you almost killed me you are the one who owes me!" he said still running on adrenaline.
"Almost, thank me that I didn't and just because I find resistance cute don't think you can be as sassy as you want now got that?" she said pulling him up.
Soon he was plastered with lead his face lookin unusually pale, though the pseudo mascara hid something the extent of the mauling was a bitt too much and everyone in the church saw it when he entered Viola beside him.
He walked down the aisle avoiding eyes from both sides only looking forward towards the old man with a thin build that beckoned experience and the young man dark skinned wearing robes too holding a pillow with the potion the alchemy department created.
The walk felt like a trek though it was simple 50 meter walk the eyes were too pervasive but the trek was completed and Viola left him half way taking a seat beside his mother elegantly dressed in a black dress.
"Where has he been the past three days?"
"H_h_ow did you... I don't know."
Auther was now ingesting a potion more bitter than the brews Lana had made for that both of them but his resistance helped him stomach it. He felt nothing at all not a tingle not relief. Unaware of his slowly healing face and the pait falling off hisl face.
The man put his crusty hands on Auther looking high up at the cathedral ceiling.
"Dear Goddess please help this soul awaken it's latent abilities given only by you..." he said a lot more but Auther's consciousness faded quickly almost like dying but without that pain and without Hopelys, still he floated somewhere to a darkness so invasive that it felt personal but slowly his soul orb glowed and separated into two not a single mass.
One which placed itself somewhere where the other one knew was the middle of the darkness exploding giving birth to an endless cosmic sea one which he could not see the end off.
The orb which now housed his consciousness split again into two on which floated into the sky and becoming the infinite starry expanse above the cosmic sea and also endless like his cosmic sea.
The other one made a body of his shape and that was himself he walked around the infinite expanse until he found a fallen star more like a shiny pollen dust which turned bright red.
Will you be my friend.
The word made him stop and he was pulled out of his reverie only to find the priest an Archbishop looking at him as if looking at a god. above him was written word namely
divine rank, supreme magus
The whole church was filled with fickle adults all pointing at him and the words above him looking at him as if looking at a piece of meat a meal something better than a fresh breath of air, a fighting chance and an invaluable tool.