"Planet Endera and the Fallen Paragon" - 1

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Author's Note: I want to thank @thewritersblock for their help in making this first part much better than it was. The Editors volunteer their time and offer their knowledge selflessly in an effort to make authors like me suck less. I appreciate everything they do. Much, much love to them!

Part I of the Verana Saga, in the evening where the summer air has its sweetest touch, the stars shine their brightest, the moon holds high and proud, and everyone smiles, laughs, carries on with their lives...

...until a boy steps out of the stone wall

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Verana stifled a yawn and looked about the party. Silence loomed and made its presence known. The music died and the laughter withered away. All eyes were on him.

He stepped forward, his stare like two green orbs glowing in the pitch of dark. The crowd gave him a wide berth as he waded through, eyes wandering, analyzing, taking everything in. He stepped near a crackling fire, its flames nearly twice his height. The orange-red light cast a warmth upon Verana’s face; outlined his small nose and thin, expressionless lips. The moonlight reflected off his shaved head and the crescent-shaped tattoo stamped there burned a bright blue.

He raised a hand over the fire and thrust it inside, face rather blank. Almost bored. No one moved a muscle. They hardly even breathed as they bore witness to the miracle before them. Verana gave no sign of pain. Moments later, he pulled out a ball of fire that floated just above his palm.

He spoke. “I am Verana, Arch Magister of Endera.” Despite his apparent youth, he articulated himself with the ease of an educated adult.

“I understand this may be confusing, but I assure you that I am much older than appearances give me credit for.”

Someone in the throng yelled. “Why are you here?”

Verana flicked and rotated a wrist. An apple manifested itself out of nothing in his free hand. He chewed on it slowly, taking medium-sized bites. He answered as he ate, some of the words jumbled in his pursuit to quell hunger.

“Well… Unfortunately, you all have to die.”

He tossed the apple aside and threw the fireball at the nearest person, setting the old man ablaze and then instantly to ash and dust, collected by the small breeze. Panic ensued. Wooden chairs knocked over. Firepits ran into. Screams and shouts emanated in the air, echoed across the starry-lit skies.

Verana raised both arms above his head and the fire next to him grew.

He closed both fists and vanished completely as the surrounding area exploded into a fiery inferno. All was ashen. Grey. Burned from the last child to the last blade of grass.

Verana drifted in the space above, arms crossed. A figure shimmered next to him, taking the shape of a blonde little girl in a long, flowing black dress. Her blue eyes looked sideways at Verana.

“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”

“This is the price to be paid,” he said.

He unfolded his arms and dusted off the rags he wore. Soot fell like snow toward the planet below. He looked as though he swallowed something bitter, but only briefly. The girl touched his shoulder with a gentle hand.

“If you feel this is what we must do, then I’m with you. Till the end.”

He nodded, still looking down at the result of his carnage.

“Thank you, Marilda.”

Three days later, the Magistry’s Sanctum, where the evening sun lowers beneath the horizon, and its fiery light shrinks from shadow, Verana leafs through a hefty book, eyes searching for something specific…

Marilda enters, the wooden door scraping along the floor giving her away, and for a moment she went to turn back..

“It’s alright, Marilda,” said Verana, not looking up from his reading. “I need you to help me with something.”

Marilda was dressed in huntress gear: leather greaves to protect the wrists and forearms, shoulder pads and chest armor made of the same tough material. Her hair was tied into a ponytail, revealing her pronounced cheekbones and the single narrow scar underneath her left eye. A bow was in her hand, and in the other, dead rabbit. Its blood dripped onto the floor.

She dropped their meal and stood next to him, looking down at the spellbook. He was stuck, she was sure. Otherwise he’d have flipped to the next page by now. Marilda placed her bow on the ground, slung her quiver off her back. She gently nudged Verana away from the podium so she could scan the text for herself. The dying of the day took with it the light and she asked Verana to cast some mana torches. Moonlight shone dimly through the glass roof, largely obstructed by gathering clouds as they moved along a dark, grim sky.

“Soul Oaths?” she probed, running her finger along the words. She glanced in his direction. He made no indication that he’d heard her. He faced his back toward her, still as a statue. Then suddenly, shocked back to action, he turned around and beamed a wide smile.

“Don’t move, Marilda.”

He walked over to her and jabbed his palm into her chest. Her body slumped and fell to the floor. An astral projection of herself floated above her limp vessel, and she glared at him. The projection was ghostly, her every movement haunted by trailing wisps.

“Really? You couldn’t have just asked?”

His grin never faltered. “The look on your face was absolutely priceless.”

She rolled her eyes.

“So what am I doing?”

“Um…” he paused, weaving his hands into different signs, some known and some invented, then he placed his left hand on Marilda’s vessel. The body twitched. Convulsed. Rattled around as if a quake was erupting inside of it.

Verana pursed his lips. “May have done that wrong, honestly.”

“Am I going to die!?” Marilda flitted about, waving her hands frantically in a panic.

Verana shrugged. “Fairly certain you won’t.”

“Fairly certain? You’re just fairly certain you didn’t miscast a spell no one’s used in over a thousand years and haven’t accidentally turned my insides into slush!?” Marilda fumed.

The body stopped. Lay there like a log. Then it moved, stood on its knees, then on its feet. The eyes were tinted red, and where normal eyes would be white it was as dark as the night.

“Verana,” said Marilda’s body, voice now distinctly a man’s with a thick accent. “Why have you summoned me? Again?”

“Evening, Aedys.”

Marilda’s eyes grew wide.

“This was your plan?”

Verana looked at her, an eyebrow raised. “I thought you knew what I was doing?”

“Yeah! Soul Oaths! Not Greater Demon Summons!”

“The Summons requires a Soul Oath. Meaning yours is a bartering chip at the moment, Milly,” said Aedys. “I’m not too happy about it either. I was having a pretty good nap.”

“Don’t worry, Marilda. You’ll be back in your body in a few minutes,” said Verana. She deciphered the look on his face and decided not to press the issue.

Verana directed his attention upon Aedys.

“Now,” began Verana, casting a wooden chair for him to sit in. “Tell me what you know about Shade Mana.”

Aedys looked at him, unblinking.

“So you’ve heard that the Paragon has gone missing.”

Verana nodded. Slowly.

“Shade Mana cannot prevent the hell about to descend upon Endera. Lucky for me I’m on a completely different plane.”

Verana grit his teeth, lowered his head.

Aedys stared and said simply, “Blood sacrifice.”

Tremors shook Verana’s hands and he quickly got to his feet. A shout left his lips as he punched a nearby wall.

“All of it… in vain…?” Marilda could hardly be heard, her voice not much more than a muffled squeak. Her translucent hands covered her mouth and she sobbed.

To be continued...

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