《Sword, Staff, and Crown》UnSpun
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“Not this time!”
Raeca darted forward past Haroun and Brendis, magic already glowing around her hands as she called to the true nature that made her what she was.
In short, a healer. More importantly, a healer trained by the Dark Sorcerer, who spent a frankly absurd amount of time healing the Hero from things that really ought to kill him.
“No!” Calliope screamed when she realized what Raeca was doing, and tried to scramble away, determined to end her life and escape to the next before anyone could stop her.
“Brendis, hold her,” Raeca snapped without taking her eyes off the blade, where it sat buried in Calliope’s heart. “Haroun, I need power.”
By herself, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t save someone who had a split heart, and who was already bleeding out across the floor.
But she wasn’t alone.
“Of course,” Haroun said, although his voice was confused as well, as he tried to figure out what she was doing. “Raeca, what—”
“I can save her,” Raeca snapped, with little precious time to explain, and no focus to spare. “Throw me a line of power.”
“Right.”
Calliope tried to shove her away, but Brendis captured her hands, gentle, but much, much stronger than she was, and perfectly capable of holding her down. Blood stained the queen’s white gown crimson and spread to the white marble below her, and to Raeca’s hands.
“This is all your fault,” Calliope hissed as Raeca linked with Haroun, practiced after nearly a year as his sometimes-student. “You just had to intervene in our destiny! I set it in motion! I knew Brendis would never turn on me, the simple fool, but it was so easy to convince you to kill each other for me!”
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“Love makes a man do crazy things,” Haroun said darkly, one hand on Raeca’s shoulder as she went to work. “Three thousand years and we never stood against you. No more.”
“This prophesy is more a curse than a promise,” Raeca told Calliope gently, although her hands didn’t shake as she drew the crystal-hilted blade from Calliope’s heart bit by bit, healing the terrible damage as she went. When she ran out of power, easy to do with such detailed, difficult work, she reached for Haroun, who stood by, a pillar of power, even after a major magical battle. “And it’s hurt you so much, my dear friend. It is time for it to end.”
“You cannot end it!” Calliope went from fighting to sobbing as Raeca’s magic worked on her. A powerful healing, especially of a lethal wound, was a painful thing, and Raeca didn’t dare spend the power to make it painless. As it was, it would take every scrap of power she could muster just to save the queen. “It is Prophesy, written in the Book of Fate!”
The dagger clattered brightly against the marble when Raeca dropped it to the side, and finished her work, sweaty and shaking, but triumphant.
“Now,” she said, and turned her defiant gaze on Calliope, who was ghost-pale, covered in her own blood, and captured. “For your prophesy.”
It was a trick the common folk kept to themselves. Something that no one ever seemed to remember, and never used, even when they knew it existed. The true, full circle of magic.
The highest magics were powerful. They were flashy, and brilliant. They could change the world on a whim and a handwave from a single mage.
The middle magics, like Raeca’s healing, were simple. To close a wound, or summon fire, they were the magics most often used by mages everywhere. Neither vulnerable, nor invulnerable, they stood without shame, but also without notoriety.
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But it was the low magics that everyone forgot. The spells and tricks so minor that anyone could learn them with a little patience. How to make a potion of healing, or of sleep. How to find water or know the weather with nothing but the scent of the wind.
Low magic would never call fire. It would never change the weather or save a life.
But the high magics were vulnerable to it. She and Haroun spent hours talking about magic and how to undo the highest powers with the lowest. Today, that would change everything.
No country girl was ever without a bit of wool and a tiny spindle. Raeca used hers to spin the fine thread she used to stich wounds, but most maidens had one, tucked in their pockets, if only for something to do with their hands.
Raeca’s was in her pocket, intact against all odds, and with a shred of undyed, half-spun wool already wound onto it. The same spindle she taught Calliope to spin thread. The one that occupied her hands as Haroun taught her magic. The one that whirled as Brendis slept off his injuries, peaceful under her watchful gaze.
With the blood of a queen on her hands, Raeca got her little spindle going, for once, in the wrong direction.
“The Three always stand as Three,” she spoke the words of their prophesy as the thread on her spindle began to come apart under the force of a bobbin-light spindle. “One shall turn, and Two will Stand Together to face the One.”
They had done that, when Calliope turned on them back in the beginning. When she convinced Brendis to murder his closest friend to protect her from a betrayal that had not come. Now, many years later, they finally stood together to face the queen who cost them so dearly.
“Darkness will break against their Will,” she continued, practiced fingers on her little spindle as it whirled around, unwinding the threads of Fate as the spinning began to fray apart. The snow-white wool glowed with golden threads as the prophesy, spoken by a long-dead prophet within the walls of the very hall they now stood in, gathered to the call of magic that was even older yet. “and the Circle will finally be Broken.”
It should have been loud, the breaking of a prophesy. It should have been thunder, and fire, and the scream of steel through the air.
Instead it was the clatter of a small wooden spindle on a polished marble floor, impossibly loud in a silent, battle-scarred hall.
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The Voice of the World
Jason Elric used to be an ordinary college student living in the heart of San Francisco. He had a part time job, he played online games with friends he got along moderately well with, and he earned reasonably good grades. The worst he really had to worry about in life was turning in his coursework on time and not being late to class. Now, though? Now fighting for his life and running from a horde of giant frogs that want to make him their next meal is just another Tuesday. Thanks to a summoning ritual gone terribly right, Jason has found himself trapped in a world eerily similar to the role playing games games he used to play for fun. Unfortunately for the now ex-college student, everything happening around him is terrifyingly real and if he wants to survive, he’ll have to figure out how to exploit the system for his benefit before it’s too late. The Voice of the World is the first part of what is planned to be a multi-book, Isekai LitRPG story with crafting elements, set in the fantasy world known as Verdania. This is my first time posting online for public consumption, so bear with me as I work to find a style that people like. While I may occasionally write scenes that may deal with heavy concepts, expect this story to be primarily light hearted high fantasy. There will be a lot of common fantasy tropes involved, as this story got its start as a simple practice exercise, rather than any plan to actually post it. However, it’s grown on me, so I felt it’s worth sharing after all. Thus, if you’re looking for more serious/original/unusual stories, you might want to look elsewhere. For the rest of you, feel free to leave suggestions, as well as to point out grammar and spelling mistakes; I’ll do my best to make edits to correct them. I do my own editing currently, and it’s easy to miss things when you know what’s supposed to be there, so such call outs are highly encouraged. Content TLDR: No harems, probably no romance (unless it makes sense for the story later on) (it did, eventually), definitely no sex (keeping this PG-13 or close to it), limited profanity. Does/Will contain mixes of magic and technology (think Warhammer, Final Fantasy); copious amounts of blue tables; race, gender, and sexual equality concepts; crafting sequences; and (slightly, but not overbearingly) strong protagonists. If you don’t like these things, go elsewhere instead of downvoting people for content instead of writing quality. Update Time currently varies, due to personal injury, but the goal is 1/week on Wednesdays, with a possible smaller chapter on weekends if time/health permits.
8 293Fallen
He hadn't even gained a consciousness yet that he was bound to lose everything if he ever came to life. He hadn't offended anyone, but they offended him. He hadn't cursed anyone, they cursed him. He hadn't killed anyone, they killed everyone related to him. Thus, he silently vowed. "They plan to offend me for their own interest? I shall give them plenty of reason to do so. Do they want to curse me? Please do so, since I'm more than willing to be your living bane. Kill me? Sadly, you won't be the last having this type of wishful thinking."- The Devil -------------------- I think that I can manage 1 chapter per week now, maybe 2 but certainly not three. PS: As I think that there should be small mistakes here left and right, I'd gladly welcome a proofreader.
8 136Star Wars: Pyro Rising
*story arc not on canon timeline* Set in the first years after the fall of the empire, where species admitted into pilot training academy have to meet diversity requirements for the school to receive government funding; Ketch Vantil is nobody's idea of a perfect candidate for officer training. Stealing the Dean's spaceship and his daughter's heart are the least of Ketch's troubles, bounty hunters abound as he flees his only home to escape his past misdeeds. *very rough draft*
8 151The Electric Archipelago (WIP)
This is the first draft of my new cyberpunk novel, The Electric Archipelago. In the future humanity is imprisoned by massive corporations. Computers are directly connected to their brains, creating a nightmarish state of absolute control, every action is monitored and harshly judged. Perhaps worst of all, the victim's perception of reality itself is controlled. A system of social credit hangs over everyone's heads. If you want to survive you will need to pick a company and stay loyal to that brand. But it goes beyond that, because each corporation has been infiltrated and taken over by forces that are interested in more than just profit. John is a Skinwalker, a free man, a man who is immune to these restrictions. He goes where he wants and does what he wants, moving from one augmented reality to the next, always looking for the next score.
8 198Death Mark
Synopsis:The tragic death of his parents left Dante alone in this world were Cultivators capable of sundering the heavens and Gods capable of sealing an entire realm weren't just the stuff of legends...With the loss of his aunt, Dante’s childhood was short lived as he had to deal with the world’s harsh reality and fend for himself.His only hope was to cultivate and become a Dungeon Soldier, proving himself on the battlefield, his weakness had made him realize that revenge was still too far away for him.However, fate was cruel to him as his cultivation was to never advance to the next realm due to his body's constitution. Dante’s condition didn't stop him though, he still persisted hoping to achieve a breakthrough under the pressure of life and death battles.After more than a decade since his parents’ death, Dante is still nowhere close to his goal. Will he give up on his vengeance and live a quiet mundane life or will he take his fate into his own hands?Watch him as he embarks on a journey filled with legends, magic and ancient secrets!!
8 145Two Existentialists | S.R.
"How many existentialists does it take to screw a lightbulb?" Spencer asked with a small laugh. Once again the room was silent. You faintly heard Agent Rossi mutter, "Don't.""2. One to change the light bulb and one to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness," he said. The room was silent still, until you laughed. His eyes looked up at yours in confusion. "Wouldn't they sit in the dark and hope that the bulb decided to light again? An existentialist would never change the bulb. He would allow the darkness to exist," you questioned.-#1 #spencerreid#1 #mgg#1 emilyprentiss
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