Have you ever had one of those days when no matter what you do, everything goes wrong?
Like when you go to work. You move outside and the first thing you do is that you step into a dog sh*t.
Then, because you are low on money, you want save some cash by treating yourself to a home cooked meal instead of going to a restaurant as usual. Although you can't cook, you do it anyway and the food ends up burnt to a crisp, even setting off your smoke alarm.
When you needed the smoke alarm to work in the past, it didn't. But now, even with batteries that you changed probably two years ago, it goes off when you just burn your f*cking food?
You then resign yourself, thinking that the day couldn't be any worse.
You forget that the meal you painstakingly made was burnt and take a bite. Obviously, the taste is horrible, but you have nothing better to eat. You chew, swallow. And then, you almost die by choking on a piece of burnt, unrecognizable food.
Can you imagine living like this your entire life? If not, you're not alone.
But. Things like this happen to Loric Dath every moment of his life. For the last seventeen years.
***
Loric lives in a world where work, and everything a person can do, is determined by an ability. This ability is gained as a child, by year three. Rarely, someone can take longer to awaken an ability, at the latest by their fifth birthday.
The effects of abilities differ from person to person. They can be almost useless, or they can be near over powered. Often, the ability is perfectly suited for the person that has it.
The effects can go from simple cleaning to ruling an entire kingdom. Or having perfect mastery of sword. Some rare abilities even grant magical powers.
Even a simple ability to farm is priceless. Whatever the person with this ability sows will produce a perfect crop.
Getting perfect mastery of an ability takes time, dedication and talent. But once mastered, there is nothing that can't be done in the given field.
Ability sets people on their path, but also allows them to do every other little thing.
What happens when the children don't have an ability?
They can't do anything. They are physically unable to perform any task. It may seem like they are just unlucky, but that's not true.
The good thing is that only young children are without abilities, because children don't have to do anything. They have no responsibilities. All they do at that age is eat, sleep and play. Nothing more, nothing less.
But, what happens if they get older and still don't have an ability?
Generally, from year six the child starts to learn the skills needed to utilize their ability. Or, they start helping with house chores.
It depends on the family and their situation. Whether they are commoners, nobles or royalty.
It has never happened that a person wouldn't have an ability. Until Loric Dath.
He was born in a noble house of Dath. A family that earned their nobility through having substantial merits in wars.
Each member of the family has a fight oriented ability. Be it talent with a sword, bow, spear or even hand to hand combat. Rarely, even a strategist is born.
So, when Loric came to the world, everyone expected great things of him.
When he turns three and doesn't awaken an ability, his parents don't panic. It isn't that uncommon to be a late bloomer.
Time passes by and he turns four. Still no ability. At this point, his parents start to worry.
More time passes and he is almost five and without an ability. Now, not only his parents, but the whole immediate family is anxious.
Everyone starts to slowly shun him. They treat him like he had a plague.
When he turns six, they know something is wrong with him.
Having a child without an ability is unheard of. They worry what the world would say about him, about their family. If they could, they would end his life.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, depending on perspective, taking an innocent life was punishable by death. And because everyone knows that he was born, his family couldn't get rid of him.
On king's order, every noble can be subjected to interrogation by people who can reliably tell if they are lying. Thus, if a kid would suddenly die, an investigation would be launched.
They need to be very careful about dealing with Loric.
Few times, they covertly try to poison his food or to stage an accident. To remove the stain on their house.
Each time, something unexpected happens.
When they accidently add ingredient, that is toxic to people, in his food, rats would steal it. Or if they put the poisoned meal directly in his hands, a bird would swoop down and take it.
One time, they arranged for an accident to happen.
They loosen a floor board on the second floor, just before a staircase. Had he stepped on it, he would fall directly inside an armory and be impaled by the stored weapons.
What happens instead is that he notices the loosened board, goes to check it but he trips and falls down the stairs, spraining his ankle.
Several more of these tries are made, but each end up in failure.
This is Loric's life. He never does anything bad. But, he doesn't do anything good either.
Ever since their last attempt on his life, his family started researching and finding someone who would help them.
Loric is a lively child, but everything he tries to do turns out wrong. He doesn't mind. He got used to it.
When his family started to avoid him, some were even mean to him, he understood and didn't really blame them. He knows how the world works. He knows what ability means. And him not having one goes against nature.
He thinks that he was born this way for a reason. He wholeheartedly believes that.
The head of the Dath family, a renowned strategist, attends a royal banquet celebrating princess Alliana's eighth birthday. He gets drunk and lets his worries about his grandson slip around the court physician, who is captivated by this information.
The court physician, his name is Balen Croft, becomes obsessed, eventually contacting the Dath family.
The entire family is elated about this turn of events.
Balen thinks he would have to persuade them, bribe them or promise them something unimaginable, but he is willing to do anything for the chance to study Loric.
What he doesn't see happening is that not only he doesn't have to do anything for the Daths, but they are even willing to pay him to take Loric off their hands.
"You want Loric? You really want my grandson?" asks Ordan, the head of the family.
"I know it's a strange request. No. It's borderline offensive, but.." said Balen, but Ordan cut him off.
"We are willing to part with him, but I have one condition."
Balen's eyes started to shine with expectation, "What condition?"
"If you take him, you must make sure that no one will know that he is a Dath. Once he leaves, he is no longer part of this family. Can you make sure of it?"
"Yes, that's not a problem," Balen blurted out.
"If anyone learns about his true identity, the consequences will be dire for you. Whether someone sees you taking him from here, or the boy tells anyone who he is. It doesn't matter how it happens. But if it gets out, your life will become very difficult."
"I-I understand."
And just like this, Loric's peaceful life came to an end. The excuse his family would use is that he is taken into training, where he would eventually lose his life.
Loric is torn from his family. Even though their behavior left him without any positive feelings toward them, he doesn't hate them.
That is not just a childish resilience and naivity, it is his nature, the way he is.
Loric is in his room playing with knight figurines. Those were the only toys he had.
What other toys would a household full of warriors and soldiers have?
Since he is without ability, his parents still hope, deep down, that having him do fight oriented things would be the spark for their son to become normal.
He can't fight. He can't watch people train. The only thing left was to have figurines made for him as toys.
Once, he begged his parents for days to let him try and join others in training. He wore them down and they hesitantly relented.
Loric was overjoyed. He rushed to the armory to get a training sword. He finally found the swords and went to take one. When he was taking it, he knocked the other wooden swords down, and like a domino, every other weapon started to fall to the ground. By a miracle, he is unharmed. But that couldn't be said bout the armory.
From this point on, he was banned to enter the armory ever again.
Many similar events happen which eventually lead to him being confined to his room.
His family isn't afraid of losing him. No. What they fear is what he could destroy.
Doors to Loric's room swung open and a stranger walks in. Balen looks at Loric like a child looking at a new toy.
"Come, boy. From now on, you will live with me."
Loric stares at him, dumbfounded.
"Are you deaf, boy?" Balen approaches Loric and picks him up.
Loric doesn't know what's happening and he starts to cry. This only puts a smile on Balen's ugly face, making him even more hideous.
Suddenly, he jolts, remembering the conversation with Ordan. He quickly covers Loric's mouth to shut him up. No one can know about this.
All the servants are called over by the head butler. Balen is able to get to his carriage with Loric in his grasp, unseen.
Once they arrive to Balen's house, Loric is locked inside a room.
He is afraid and crying.
With some time, he gets used to his new normal. It is not much different than how he'd lived.
This is just the calm before the storm.
It is an initial phase in Balen's experiments. He watches Loric and records everything he does.
After a week of meticulous observation, Loric is accustomed to his new life. But, Balen's research has only just begun.
The vision of understanding abilities, the possibilities, drove Balen to do unimaginable things to Loric.
Would he be able to change person's ability? To transfer it from one person to another? These are the questions that drive Balen.
After the initial phase, the real experiments start.
Loric is poked and prodded, cut and burnt, probed and observed. All for one goal. To find out how he's different from people with abilities.
Time passes by and scars accumulate on Loric's body, but he doesn't break.
'Is this my purpose?' he starts to think that he is meant to be used as a guinea pig. Why else would he be alive? All he wants is for his life to have a meaning, to matter.