Tag: magic

Chapter 13 – Too Many Empty Graves

“People think of dying as something to fear. Death is a boring, bureaucratic matter. Just heaps of damned paperwork.” – Journal of Maron

Boros let out a bellowing yawn, stretching his trunk-like limbs in every direction, like a big, fat, ugly baby. The cloudless ceiling was light blue, while the desert looked like a field of sunflowers when he squinted his eyes. He took a deep, deep breath, filling his entire chest with fresh, hot morning desert air. Lazily, he grabbed a glance of the campsite, which was on another dune than where he’d slept. Boros liked sleeping alone, it was peaceful, and he liked sleeping late and waking up on his own time. This would’ve been utterly impossible with soldiers around who woke up early out of habit and routine. He reached for his enormous bag, his breakfast was in there somewhere. While stuffing his bearded face with juicy bread and a leather pouch of water, his curiosity was piqued. Smoke was rising from the camp, the puffs too large to come from a casual campfire. While feasting on his food and drink, his back resting on a thick blanket, contemplating what might’ve been going on, the area where the smoke rose from expanded. An entire patch of the desert was being burned black.

Do not read. this is ultra super early draft. everything subject to change.

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Chapter 11 – The Monochrome Rainbow

The desert that had glistened like a sea of gold by day was neither shimmering, or stagnant as night came. A restless wind was blowing through the field of unwashed bones still lingering untouched. Clouds were gathering, promising a chilling downpour.

A campfire in a flimsy tent. The group of survivors took refuge outside of the ruins, in the shadow of a pillar, for they could not know how long it would rain. As the ruins were like a pit, water could flood the exhumed tomb of the unnamed civilization. But there was no rain. The black clouds flashed and rumbled.

As Karma waited for rain, looking up at the thick, patternless, smoke-like cloud formations, for a fleeting moment he felt as if he saw a recognizable pattern. A black-grey arc. A monochrome rainbow.

Karma whispered under his breath: “Where does the light come from?”

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Chapter 9 – Poem to Lady Death

Battles between mages had a formula that had formed during the violent centuries. As much as the kingdoms attempted to quell the rise of unsanctioned speakers of the language of creation, new prodigies appeared constantly. But these men were often jealous, prone for one-upmanship. An unofficial dueling etiquette formed around their destructive engagements. As every spell had its direct counterspell, the element of surprise was often the tie-breaker between equally matched speakers. Secretly developed techniques that no other speakers knew of ensured the dominance of a magi. Without trump cards, every duel came down to chance.

Skilled speakers feared each other, as talent posed too much incentive to kill a rival mage and steal their research. Alas, the most important part of the etiquette was to avoid direct confrontation, until one had successfully forced an opponent to reveal the extents of their study. Nothing was more dangerous than a magi who concealed what they knew until the last moment.

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Chapter 8 – A Comedy of Bones

The putrid smell of burning flesh was everywhere, there was no escape from it. The carpet of carcasses stretched towards the far end of the sand valley to the other end, growing thinner from the sides, like its threads were unravelling. The killing fields were being devoured by the fire, purged from horror, only the pace was dreadfully slow. It was an absurd nightmare, more absurd than any maddened mind could conjure. To see so many battle-mutilated carcasses at once, the visage grossly clashing with what a mortal mind considered normal, your reaction would not have been to scream. Any man or woman to see such a thing, would have been gripped by awkward laughter instead. Charred ribs and skulls trodded randomly in the most awkward of angles, many stuck in the sloppy mass of other corpses, like skeletons having rough, bloody intercourse. The brush strokes were countless, the golden canvas of the killing fields was the stage for a comedy of bones.

The corpses posed not just a sanity test, but a physical challenge for those wishing to traverse across this red line. The desert had effectively been cut in half for a second time in its history. The indomitable colossus stood still on his post, unfazed by the carnage.

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Chapter 7 – Battle of The Burning Dead

Tarot stood his ground, whereas the royal army was a mess of vomiting men. The most physically fit, combat-hardened men in the entire kingdom of Sharam were vomiting their guts out as they dreamed their own bloody deaths repeatedly, but not Tarot. He had already died a thousand deaths and would die a thousand more.

Unshaken, step after step, he approached the giant that had crawled from unnamed depths. It did not breathe, nor pay heed to his presence. Curiosity, it showed none. Fear, it showed none. Its size and physique, the four tower-like arms protruding from its torso, possessed unquantifiable crushing power. None could say if a beast not of this world of such awesome stature could rip apart the very planet. But where it had punched the ground, deep cracks certainly showed. Tarot jumped over them, no heed to the potential fall.

A rumbling and cackling from the digsite poured into open air, like a sudden thunderstorm. Racing in the burning shadow of the colossus, the rotting army was caught on fire.

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Chapter 6 – Trial of Severed Heads

The translation work was nearing completion. The diggers were clawing, shoveling, reaping the sand off hungrily and relentlessly. The stone stood in a deep hole, and he sat on its edge. With a mere paper and pen in hand, he wrote words that had not been read for countless generations. It was the ending of the great story, the climax of the journey of life in the universe. The fate of every star, every soul, every war and struggle, was written on the monumental slab towering before him. As he scribbled, his mind and body hovering in a strange middle-ground of this life and the next, he felt at peace. The the sheer act of writing gave him profound joy.

Behind him, at the edge of the digsite, the nameless gargantuan monstrosity awaited still, its lumpy, veiny back like a wall of rocks. He couldn’t see anything past it. Like a loyal guard, protecting the excavation process, it paid no heed to what he was doing. Its unholy presence was almost comforting.

In his life, he had been a soldier, rising the ranks with hard work and determination. In battles, he had blocked blades, cut down men, for gold and food, in defense of the provinces of Sharam. But deep down, attending wars and lesser skirmishes had never been about gold or status. He had lived according to his nature as a man. That weighed most.

The air turned cold behind him, and in the next instant the necromancer named Maron appeared, carrying in his left hand the severed still-bleeding heads of four people by their hairs.

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Chapter 4 – Clear Shades of Black and White

It was night, hundreds of military horsemen were travelling with lights everywhere, an oil lamp strapped on every soldier on a horse. It was not a subtle war effort. They were coming and they wanted the magi to know they were coming. At the back of a supply cart being pulled by horses, a conversation was taking place.

“What you suggest is madness! Throwing this world off balance is too easy, that’s why we need laws and enforces and a hierarchical system that ensures the rules are followed! One mage gone mad can turn everything upside down! There is no grey area to this! One brilliant mind, who reads too much, can upend the social order overnight. That’s clear shades of black and white!”

“And if the prevailing order stinks, like a toilet?”

“I’d rather have a stable dictatorship, than an anarchic democracy.”

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Magic – how spellcasting works in this world

In usual fantasy stories, magic is always restricted by something. There are drawbacks, item requirements, it depletes mana, whatever. But the magic in this world is stupidly powerful, restricted by almost nothing. If you know the spells and can speak the words, you can cast them repeatedly. The restriction on magic is the social order that is maintained with heavy censorship. The ruling class of every nation is busy keeping rogue mages from running rampant. And rigidly dogmatic religions add numerous rules to magic usage, with harsh punishments for anyone crossing the line. Nations are in perpetual struggle to retain the social order.

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Chapter 1 – Necromancer in The Desert

“You come from Sharam… a city besieged by sand, and more recently, the living dead. Your past, my dear boy. I see death in there. Unshed tears, frozen in your heart, growing darker by the cycles that consume your youth. You carry a heavy burden from which you have no salvation. I’m afraid you won’t easily shed this weight…”

The short hooded figure barely nodded, but the elderly woman noticed regardless. The difference in age between them was easily decades, but it wasn’t so obvious. Whatever other arts she was dabbling in seemed to be preserving her appearance. Her deep voice betrayed her though. She drew another card from her black deck.

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