As it begun…
Behold! An open story to give anyone who wants to show interest the oppertunity to do so. Let’s see how high your enthusiasm really is…
Herid stood on a hillside watching the land below when a strong gust of wind hit him. His cloak flapped around furiously in the wind and his black scarf were almost caught and blown away. While he was resetting his cloak and adjusting his scarf he saw a man climbing the hillside. The man didn’t have any luggage to speak of and seemed to be climbing in a robe of all things.
Herid was deeply surprised by the sight and only stood there squinting at the man trying to see how he was doing. The hillside wasn’t too steep here, that was why he had decided to climb here, but it had lots of hidden dangers. The boulders covering the slope seemed sturdy and solid but that was only an illusion. When he had climbed it, just an hour or two before, he had slipped several times and almost fallen into cracks he hadn’t seen. And even so this was apparently only a moderately hard hillside to climb at sight. But this mountain was different.
Nobody knew it except the very old who knew the oldest of legends about this mountain, and only this mountain and not any of the other peaks on all the lands of the rock island of Lantor. Herid had been searching for this Mountain for his entire life. And in a way the rest of his life depended on him reaching the top. He was barely 75 years old but he couldn’t stop now. Most humans would have thought 75 to be much and appreciate it as a kindness of the Creator but not Herid. Herid didn’t want to die; he didn’t want to leave his work unfinished. He wanted to know, he wanted to see and he wanted to see it all!
The man had now climbed almost all the way to where he himself was standing and seemingly without any troubles. Herid didn’t understand how he could do that. This mountain should give anyone problems. Why didn’t this man even suffer a single slip or a collapsing stone? What was his technique? Herid himself had used magic to decrease his body weight to almost nothing but still enough to not be blown away by the wind. Magic didn’t really work as it should here, but his magic had been ancient even before he knew about it. It was Dragon Magic. Magic that could, in theory, defeat Demonic Magic, but only in theory of course. One needed to be more experienced in Dragon Magic than in Demonic Magic since the Demonic Magic wasn’t meant for humans. It strained his body too much to use while Demonic Magic strengthen it as it also made one addicted to it.
He chuckled to himself; the Demons must have been worse than alcoholics in a bar at Free Hour! He could see in his inner visions how Demons exploded by the overload of Magic or how a Demon in withdrawal were running around hectically trying to get in contact with Oblivion. What a great flaw in their own design! Indeed it gave them great magical stamina but drawing and storing power had its uses and could easily be applied more efficiently than the Demonic Magic with its drawbacks. No wonder the Demons had neglected such big parts of the world’s knowledge and lore.
The man stood up, looking at him. He was only about twenty paces away now and Herid could clearly see his face now. He was young, ridiculously young; barely a teenager and he had nothing under his cloak other than a twined cloth around his groin. Then Herid paled as he recognized the face. His face was void of emotions and he had one green eye and one brown eye that sometimes turned almost black in some mysterious way. His body seemed frail and scrawny and his arms and legs were full of scars and bruises. His eyes were dead cold but even so a determination shone in them. A determination so strong that the world seemed to bend around him. He knew this boy, but it was impossible! It couldn’t be! The Creator prevented such things from happening! It was against the laws of existence!
Suddenly he heard a great explosion booming in the sky. It was distant, but still so deafening that his hearing disappeared and he almost was knocked to the ground. Then he felt a rumbling in the ground, a horrible rumbling. The rocks under his feet were growing hot. Herid looked at the boy that stood there, as if nothing were happening, with any feelings in his eyes or on his face, calmly just watching him with those determined eyes. Then suddenly a cascade of molten stone shot into the air only a hundred paces to the right soon followed by another even further away and then another. In a line the earth erupted throwing up molten rocks and lava into the air in a sinuous line eastward from his position. The world was cracking! He could feel the earth tremble and he knew this was happening all over the world and he almost cried out in frustration. Not now!
Then the boy stood before him. He had moved slowly towards him as the earth had erupted without him noticing but now he stood only an arms length away looking him in the eyes. The boy opened his mouth, and somehow Herid knew what he wanted to say, and knew that if he spoke, he would kill them both. The boy formed words with his lips speaking but not speaking, and Herid listened intently as the earth split open around them. Feeling how she screamed in pain. How she screamed for help.
The boy closed his mouth and smiled. Pointing towards a rock only a few hundred meters away from them. Herid nodded, he knew now what he must do. The Creator be praised, he hoped this would work, for soon there would be no Creator. And the fate of the world, rested on him.
So, a short story of a “young” Herid on his way to a very important mountain peak in lantor. the story in itself doesnt give away alot except some few insights here and there, one being that this must be an event thats happening somewhere before the creators death.
Other than that you could discuss the difference of dragon magic and demonic magic, since in the myth posts its mentioned that dragons teach demons to use magic, so if thats true you could question what made them different, and isnt both using oblivion for channeling magic? Although you could guess that dragon magic works differently, maybe you dont have to channel to oblivion or something. But as I said, its in the myths so maybe its not true.
This young boy is probably one of the more interesting parts of the story. Why is he there? whats so special about those eyes except having two different colors, well you could say three maybe since the brown eye almost turned black now and then, I guess thats pretty weird. Obviously this boy is something that should not be possible, atleast not from Herids point of view, very interesting though, and it really piqued my interest in the story, really made me wonder about that boy.
This is the same day the Creator dies. This is the beginning of the Apocalyptic Ages. The ages which you usually play in.
About the difference in magic, it’s way to deep lore of Nianze to go into. I plan to give more insight in that lore in a campaign on Magicka. When people choose to play as young apprentice mages in the Academy.
The boy, oh yes. The boy is a mysterious one indeed. The funny thing is, you all know who he is and have met him several times, hehehehe. I can also say that this event, is what leads to Herid’s epic status. Until this moment, Herid was just a “regular” person. Not that he was so regular to begin with, but he was regular.
I like reading stories like this, and although it’s hard to get anything substantial out of mulling it over it’s somewhat entertaining to do.
Magic is always an exciting topic, and differences between types of magic is fun to hear about. I’m curious as to why dragon magic would work where ‘normal’ magic wouldn’t. I guess it’s somehow fundamentally different. I didn’t really think dragons had different magic per say before reading this, rather just that they are so much better at it and know deeper secrets of it.
Also, dragon magic is deep lore, yet young apprentices of Magicka might learn about it? That seems a bit strange to me, even if it’s Magicka wouldn’t ‘deep lore’ still be pretty exclusive knowledge? I’m guessing practicers of dragon magic are pretty rare among the mortal races, is it something a player might be able to learn?
Except for the ever present mystery of what happend to the creator the two most interesting questions for discussion that I see in this story are: What Herid was trying to do there, he had something he wanted to do at this mysterious mountain even before learning whatever the boy told him, and he had been searching for it his entire life. That mountain seems like a very special place, the story mentions people not knowing about it before. But what about after? Perhaps whatever happend there made the mountain known to the world.
The other question is the identity of the boy. He’s obviously someone special that will live for a long time, I can’t really say that I have any ideas. Since the number of characters I know that I’ve met several times is rather limited.
All magic is different. Dragon Magic, Demon Magic, Marchon Magic (the ‘normal’ magic), it’s really different from each other but in the same way it’s the same.
What defines magic in Nianze is something that uses Oblivion in some way. Thus it’s magic. But how it’s applied and how it works is different and also what its all about. Dark Arts could be consider magical, since it uses Oblivion. As well as Hannjism or Alchemy. Though Alchemy – the type Tyniker uses can use Oblivion as well as other energies as well such as Aruhun.
Deep lore means that knowing about it more than the existance of it is consider deep lore. It’s like Mantra or mysticum. People might now it exists and might now the nature of it, but the unknowns are a lot greater than the knowns making the knowns more confusing than the unknowns.
The Dragons though use magic, or most of them do, but Dragon Magic is special. Which is something you might only learn in a campaign. It is something players CAN achieve. But it’s on the highest level of epic scale you can create characters without being given them. It’s equal to Vidjii’s Card Magic or Linsuss Ring Magic or any other exquisite magic that is not at all common and nothing that people have just because they have a cool concept about it. Lilith is the closest character to gain something similar to this.
But then again, it is possible in theory for anyone on the planet to gain this power. Even though some have astronomical chances.
Should be “was” here, “were” if it was in plural.
Try replacing the second “and” with a comma.
Remove the second “for”.
This needs some clarifications. Do you yourself need to be more experienced in Dragon Magic than in Demonic Magic, or do you need more experience to master Dragon Magic than you need to master Demonic Magic?
Also try changing it to “One need to be more […]”, since this is a fact, not something that is happening at the time. It could be a bit refreshing to not always use past tense.
“without any”
So. What is so special about this meeting… For some reason those two cannot meet, not talk to eachother without killing both of them by doing so. Almost resembles some of what happens after time travel. You cannot affect yourself in the past. But time travel backwards – which is the only kind of time travel which causes problems – is not possible. Or is it only impossible nowadays? What was the deal now again with time mages? Or did you scrub them all together?
I think you have told us, but currently it slips my mind. What would happen if Herid and Gerenan met? I guess that this is not him, but the descriptions indicate some similar form relationship between the two. And since this is before he became epic, is it before he split in two? Or is that something that happened even earlier?
Don’t really know the details about that.
Oh, and the title. Shouldn’t it read “As it began…”?
Yes, you are right.
Well, to travel in time in Nianze is impossible. But it’s not impossible to affect the past from the future assuming you do it from before the past, hehehe. If that even makes sense to you. But I have completely removed time mages and all time travel in Nianze yes. It’s too fucking weird, it would only mess up things.
Nothing would really happen if they met. They don’t want to meet each other though. And yes, this is before Gerenan even existed. This is quite early in Herid Fel’s journeys but in a sense, the end of them too.
Yup, that makes sense since it eliminates the time paradoxes if you change something that haven’t actually happened yet.