secret ninja chapter revision... proofreading support done by rouge and by someone else who has not deemed to name himself....

so without further ado chapter 1 - remastered

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Deep within in the basement of the Royal Castle.

“My king, the summoning preparations are almost complete.” A blue robed man stated.

“Good,” the king said, “I want you to have Thantos come and see me before the ritual.”

“Yes, my king.” He replied before he dismissed himself.

The king looked over the different magi that were preparing for the long ritual. Magi scurried grabbing various items that were necessary for the ritual. Other were setting various objects in some form of pattern. “To think that the rumor was true,” the king said to himself, “we were lucky that news of this reached ears so quickly.” The king noticed Thantos was approaching him.

“My king.” Thantos said while dropping down on to his knees, “You called for me?”

“Yes, I want to know how preparations are going.” The king asked.

“They are going well; the old scrolls are being copied and inscribed into the floor exactly like the last hero summoning ritual.” He replied still on one knee. “We have also gathered the rest of the materials, we are about to finish the last of the preparations.”

“Well then continue your work; I want the hero here to defeat the demon king as soon as possible, so we can dispose of it before it becomes a threat.”

“Yes my lord.” He said as he stood up to go look over the preparations for the summoning.

The king then leaned back and watched the preparations for summoning.

After a few days the preparations were completed and the day of summoning had dawned. Deep within the royal castle there were over 20 magi gathered. The summoning circle in the middle was inlaid in the floor. The outer part of the circle was made of silver runes. In the inner ring, symbols were all made of gold. In the center of the circle precious gems were inlaid into the stone floor. The outermost ring of gems were finely cut pieces of lapis lazuli. The middle ring was made of perfectly cut rubies and sapphires which gleamed from the light in the room. In the exact center of the circle was a single large diamond the size of an egg that seemed to glow from within.

“Let us begin.” The king commanded to all the magi.

The magi gathered around the circle and started to chant, their low tones reverberating throughout the room. Thantos took his place at the northern end of the circle joined in. After ten minutes the chanting started to rise and the outer layer of runes rose from the floor and started to spin. A few more minutes passed. The voices continued to rise as the second ring of symbols rose from the floor and started spinning in the opposite direction of the first. Everyone in the room could feel the mana gathering as a heavy weight pressing on their shoulders. The diamond in the center of the circle grew brighter as the ritual continued. A few more minutes passed as the ring of lapis lazuli rose like the others and started to rotate. Small sparks started to appear around the circle. The magi’s chanting started to crescendo as the ring of sapphires and rubies rose off the ground. Suddenly, one of the magi in the circle collapsed. A look of horror spread across faces of all present, but they continued for fear of the consequences if they stopped. The magi thinking quickly poured more of their own mana into the circle to compensate for their downed friend. The ritual was progressing, but there was a growing tension and sense of dread at the thought of the potential consequences of continuing without their friend. Finally the diamond cradled in the center of the circle rose glowing even brighter as the power contained within the stone surged. The amount of mana in the air made it hard to breath yet the magi still chanted. The gathering started to crescendo. The entire circle collapsed into the diamond, and in a blinding flash of light, a loud boom shook the castle.

“Was the summoning a success?” The king asked as he tried to rub sight back into his eyes.

Regaining his sight, the king noticed in the cradle where the diamond once rested was now a large blue and white egg that glowed slightly. Staring at the egg, he noticed on the face of the egg was the crest of their goddess.

“What happened, where is the hero?” He shouted to the magi that were still standing.

The mage Thantos stood up and moved toward the king. “My king,” he stated as he shakily got down on one knee, “it seems with the sudden death of mage Hagair there was a problem with the ritual. Whatever is in that egg is our new hero.”

“Damn. What are we supposed to do with an egg ?” the king shouted. “How are we supposed to defeat the Demon king with an egg, give him poisoned scrambled eggs?”

“While certainly an option, my king, I don’t think that is wise. That egg has the seal of the goddess.” Thantos replied to the king’s wrath. “I think we should immediately identify what sort of creature the goddess gifted us.”

The king walked out of the room and told a squire to fetch Atheros and bring him here at once. Walking back into the room the king surveyed the magi. They all were all haggard and in the corner he noticed 3 bodies in the corner of the room. The king sighed, he didn’t see when the other two died but their faces were desiccated. The king looked once again at the center of the circle were the mysterious egg laid with the symbol of their goddess emblazed on its surface. The king walked back to his chair and lamented over how poorly this summoning turned out.

The king was still sitting in the summoning room when the door open. Walking through the door was, the head of the royal scouts, Atheros.

“My king,” he said as he kneeled, “you summoned me?”

“Yes Atheros, we have an issue, I need you to identify the egg over there.”

Turning towards where the king directed, Atheros’ eyes widened. “My king, where did you obtain a dragon egg?” he asked confused.

“That’s a dragon egg?,” the king said to himself.

“Yes, what happened to its mother and what species was it?” Atheros asked, “I am not familiar with this coloring.”

“What I am about to tell you is to be kept secret,” the king gravely spoke, “this egg appeared out of the hero summoning ritual.”

“My lord, how is that possible!” Atheros replied with awe in his voice.

“We have not figured out was the cause. Though we suspect it was the death of Hagair that caused the failure. My assignment for you is to guard and hatch this egg.” The king stated with a determined look on his face. “This might be a test from the goddess herself. Though I loathe relying on other races, I have no choice in the matter.”

Atheros bowed to the king and left the room to make preparations for the hatching of a dragon.

Atheros, taking charge of the matter, quickly sent requests to various well know beast breeders and trainers to come and aid him with this special project. Atheros moved the dragon egg and placed it in a large chamber in the lower levels of the castle.

Several weeks after the egg arrived, Atheros walked into the creche where various breeders were arguing as to why the lights in the room kept going out.

“There were plenty of magi in the castle and they kept the light crystals charged, it seemed that the ones in the crèche were always forgotten.” one of the breeders complained.

“They always come when we ask. So quit your whining.” another said.

The lights in the room dimmed causing all present to fall silent, everyone instantly stared at the egg that had started to stir.

Looking at one another Atheros said “You don’t think that the egg is causing the lights to dim?”

“I havn’t hurd any dragon do that.” One of the breeders said.

“Well should we put more light crystals in here or less?” Atheros asked.

“How about we call one of dem magi in here and ask them?” Another breeder stated.

“Sounds like a good idea.” Atheros said and walked out of the room. The other breeders just look at each other as the lights in the room continued to darken.

About a half an hour later Thantos walked in with Atheros. “So, could out see if the dragon egg is sucking the mana out of the light crystals?”

Thantos started to stare at the dragon egg. After a few minutes he spoke “Yes the egg is absorbing the mana from the crystals. Though what it does with it, I know not.”

“Should we put more mana crystals in the room for it to absorb or take them out?” Atheros asked.

Thantos stroking his gray beard thought to himself. After a few more minutes passed he said, “I truly don’t know, though if it drains mana it must need it for something, so I think it might be a benefit to have more crystals in here.”

“Well then i will have more place.” Atheros replied.

Months passed while watching over the egg.

One day atheros walked in on a maid holding a hammer over the egg. Atheros watched in horror as the maid brought the heavy hammer down. He screamed “Stop!” as the hammer hit the egg, a clear note rang throughout the room like a bell. Atheros, running, tried to slam into the girl, but he could not reach before the girl hit the egg again causing another note to ring through the room. Atheros slammed into the girl and quickly brought her down.

The guards hearing the loud noise rushed into the room. “Guards, this girl tried to smash the egg, take her to the dungeon!” Atheros commanded. After the guards took the girl he inspected the egg and was relieved to find that there was not a scratch on the glowing shell. Thanking the goddess for the shell’s resilience he left the crèche and headed towards the dungeon to integrate the maid.

After, almost a half a year has passed since the summoning. As Atheros walked into the room he noticed that the egg was glowing brighter than normal. Opening the door Atheros said to the guards, which were posted due to the incident about two months ago where a group of demon slaves tried to smash the egg, “I need you to retrieve Thantos and the other beast breeders and bring them here.” One of the guards nodding quickly ran down the hall deeper into the castle.

After a few minutes everyone was gathered in the creche, staring at the glowing egg when Thantos asked, “What does this mean?”

One of the beast breeders spoke up, “Maybe it is starting to hatch?”

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