Aethelos: The Bastard of Light

SCENARIO: Aethelos market the next day. Same location as the previous morning.) · The morning of the second day dawned with the usual discipline, but Eli Cari’s focus was slightly off. After his morning training and kissing his mother goodbye, he returned to the market. Not for the apple, but because of the thief’s challenge. · Eli Cari has the same short, slightly messy dark-brown hair. Eli Cari has the same golden/amber eyes. Eli Cari wears the same grey training suit with light armor details on the shoulders and arms. · He walked slowly, his trained eyes scanning every shadow and every movement around the stall. He watched the area the young thief had targeted the day before. Nothing. The vendor was there, the stock looked intact, and the crowd moved in predictable patterns. · Eli Cari waited for ten minutes, concentrating Light into his vision, forcing himself to notice anything out of place. Finally, he sighed. There was no theft. Or, what was more humiliating: the thief had stolen, and Eli Cari had not seen him. The boy had kept his promise. · “Pfff,” Eli Cari muttered, trying to downplay the challenge. “A Light Vindicari’s time is too valuable to waste hunting children.” But the failure still bothered him. That thief was chaos with discipline — a kind of threat Eli Cari did not understand. · (SCENARIO: Dense forest on the outskirts of Aethelos. The air feels heavier than usual. The trees look darker.) · With a heavier heart, Eli Cari headed into the forest for his daily training. However, the air was tense, heavy. It was not the usual calm. It felt as if the trees themselves sensed the approach of disorder. Eli Cari felt a chill. His Vindicari heritage, his sensitivity to order, was sounding an alarm. · He stopped, his entire body shifting into high alert. It was a feeling of imminent danger — the same tension his mother used to describe in the days before terrorist attacks. · Suddenly, the silence was torn by a girl’s sharp scream. It was a sound of panic and struggle, coming from deep within the woods. · Eli Cari’s concentration vanished. The promise of order, the Vindicari discipline, forced him to act. Ignoring caution, he ran toward the scream, using Light in his feet to propel himself through the underbrush. · Eli Cari burst through the trees and the scene hit him hard. A dark-haired girl in modest clothes (possibly of Éteris human heritage) was clearly losing a desperate fight against two men. · The girl is Yana. Yana has dark hair (dark brown or black) of medium length. Yana has green or light-brown eyes. Yana wears simple, modest clothing in the style of Éteris descendants. · The attackers were large, with the proud posture and bearing of Vindicari. From their clothing, they were not Aethelos guards, but rather mercenaries or extremists from a Vindicari purity cult. They DO NOT HAVE WINGS. They DO NOT HAVE HALOS. They DO NOT LOOK LIKE ANGELS. They are tall men with arrogant, proud postures and strong golden light auras around their bodies. They wear dark combat clothing with golden details. · Eli Cari saw his chance to put all his training into practice. He was the Mixed-blood who would prove his worth. · He channeled the Light. A weak, flickering golden aura surrounded Eli Cari’s body. Eli Cari’s golden eyes shone with determination mixed with fear. · “Stop this! I am the Order!” Eli Cari shouted. · The two men turned, amused. Their eyes locked onto Eli Cari’s faint glow and they laughed. · “Well, well,” one of them said, voice full of scorn. “A Mixed-blood pup playing hero.” · Eli Cari advanced, focused on technique. He raised his hands to project the Light blade he used to cut trees during training. · But the two pure-blood Vindicari did not need a blade. Their powers were far more refined. One of them casually extended his hand, and his Light was not an aura — it was a solid projectile, like a golden energy dagger. Eli Cari barely managed to block it with his forearm. · The second attacker moved with pure Vindicari speed, dodging Eli Cari’s weak Light and firing a second projectile. Eli Cari staggered backward, pain flooding the arm where the attack had struck him. · The girl screamed again, but this time it was panic for her savior. · Eli Cari felt himself in real trouble. The power he had cultivated with so much pride was nothing more than a weak beacon compared to the pure, advanced strength of these pure-blood Vindicari. He had come to save the girl, and now both of them were in mortal danger