Medievia - Do You Dare Enter?

SECTION 2         CHAPTER 1 - Challenge of the Sea
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Continued days later...
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The 20th Day of the Month of the Frost Giant, Year 544.
August 26th, 2008, Earth Time.
 
Princess Sibyl from the Wrath clan stepped into the war room and was the 
first to notice that Marious was gone. Realizing that this was a 
monumental event she informed the immortals and they quickly came running 
and phasing into the room. The room was filled with loud chatter as rumors 
and hearsay spread like wild fire. 
 
Marious the war wizard had been a staple of the war room for as long as 
anyone could remember. When Marious needed food or water he created some. 
When he needed to go to the bathroom he quickly cast a spell to relieve 
himself. Marious the war wizard never left the war room. 
 
Princess Sibyl asks, "Here we are actually at war and Marious goes missing 
now?"
 
Heitinalonish from the Lords of Discipline clan was the first to notice 
another mystery. Prince Koin from the Order of the Silver Crescent was 
missing as well! The immortals felt that this conundrum was just as 
momentous. The room was again filled with shouting and rumor. No one could 
remember a time when Koin was not in the war room.
 
The talk quickly turned to the war and how badly it was going. The Khrait 
scout ships may be small but their greater numbers and their ability to 
control the ocean's faeborn creatures quickly defeated every attempt to 
slow them down. Just then ...
 
Thundering across the land was heard a booming sinister laugh, then words 
from the ruler of the Khrait home world, 'Vuuli jooper zitar! You will all 
die!'

 
Vorpaxis from the Rise of Mayhem clan grinds out, "Come here then! That 
monster will get my rod of agony shoved right up his..."
 
General Tiberious coughs.
 
Azenofex from clan Presence declares, "Not if my obsidian athame does not 
get there first!"
 
Princess Sibyl confidently states, "We all know that Marious is off some 
where doing what is best. All we can do is wait for a war plan."
 
The war room slowly emptied as the immortals went off to continue their 
lives of adventure and heroism across the lands of Medievia.
 
It is 2:37 am, on the Day of Compassion.
The 24th Day of the Month of the Frost Giant, Year 544.
10:00 pm, August 27th 2008, Earth Time.
 
Marious mutters as his 89th attempt fails miserably. Koin asks, "You are 
sure frae is made from fae and rae magic?" 
 
Marious sighs and replies, "There is another ingredient but I cannot 
fathom what it is. There is also the odd feeling I get when I hold the 
frae. It is as if it has a soul, or not a soul but....something." He 
continues, "I can mix fae, rae, and gold and get it to float but the 
duplication spells do not work on it. There will never be enough gold to 
make a fleet of ships. I tried every element and then some, only gold 
works." 
 
Marious shouts, "For the love of Vryce! I am a war wizard not a magician!"
 
He paces around Vryce's workshop as he speaks, "I am glad that you are 
here Koin, maybe you can think of something. What I have learned so far is 
that the rae-fae-gold mixture does make frae, or something like it, but it 
will only float on our seawater if I add blood. Please do not ask how I 
figured that out!"
 
Koin pondered it and said, "When you duplicate a complex magical piece of 
nature, it must first be in the shape of a ball."
 
Marious jumps on it, "BY GOD I knew that Koin!"
 
Marious settled down and said, "I am sorry. I am not cut out for this. I 
should be sailing Vryce's Warship right up their ruler's ass, not 
tinkering here with you."
 
Koin walks forward and asks, "Marious, did you put a containment spell on 
top of the sphere spell before you tried the duplication spell?"
 
The great war wizard looks at Koin with a blank stare.
 
Koin continued, "I would try to make a perfect sphere of this rae-fae-gold 
and then try to duplicate it. Perfection is a funny thing, impossible to 
make on Earth but here even a simple apprentice mage can make a perfect 
sphere with a constricting containment spell."
 
Marious gains control and happily says, "My old friend you may save this 
day yet! Why Vryce put me in charge of this mess I do not know. Let's get 
to work!"
 
Later that same day....
 
Marious swings his massive battle axe around with all of the force he 
could muster, aiming for the jugular, right where the neck meets the 
body...
 
** Vryce appears with an ear-splitting bang! **


The axe continues its powerful trajectory and makes a sickening sound as 
it cleaves Koin's head right off!
 
Marious looks up with a look that said, "if you ask a question I quit."
 
Vryce looks around at his workshop and at the blood splattered everywhere, 
raises his finger as if to say something, then just smiles and disappears.
 
Hours later....
 
Koin, rubbing his neck, says, "I think one hundred deaths will be enough."
 
Marious laughs and says, "I was not sure the Necromancer was coming that 
last time!"
 
They both turn and look at their creations. Resting on the work bench was 
a containment field filled with pure rae, another filled with fae, and a 
large container of gold dust. Next to the bench was a tub filled with the 
blood of an immortal.
 
Koin smiles and Marious, wasting no time said, "Well here goes..."
 
Time slows down for Marious and he would later relive the next six seconds 
a thousand times.
 
The first second:
He levitates the fae, rae and gold again, so far so good, just like last 
time.
 
The second second:
He creates the duplication spell so that when an immortal holds it with 
one hand, a duplicate will appear in his other hand. He is careful to make 
the timing right, something he has done countless times, one new ball of 
frae every five seconds or so will surely be good. It would only take days 
to make enough frae for a fleet of ships!
 
The third second:
Marious calls forth the sphere and containment spells, making sure they 
are the shrinking kind so it will all condense into a perfectly round 
sphere of frae. The simple spell goes off just as he intended, and there 
it is! 
 
The 4th second:
Koin gasps and Marious jumps back. The power is expanding in it 
exponentially! Marious's inner voice yells NO NO the power needs a way out 
now! 
 
Marious reaches out, not to hold the ball, just to touch it very gently, 
one little touch so that he gains some knowledge fast. 
 
Marious touches the ball with the very tip of the middle finger of his 
right hand, just the smallest little touch, a touch that an ant would not 
notice....
 
All of the fae and rae anywhere on the planet is sucked towards the ball 
in an instant of pure madness!
 
The fifth second:
Marious's mind was scrambling, how do we get the power out? We must leak 
it out with the smallest of the small dents, a slight imperfection to its 
absolutely perfect surface should work. It would have to be one or two 
atoms out of whack, any imperfection will stop this exponentially rising 
power within it. Just holding it will surely work!
 
Two things happen simultaneously for the next fraction of a second.
 
** Vryce appears with an ear-splitting bang! **


Marious thought, if Zeksagmak the king of dragons were here Vryce would 
have slayed it just by the look in his eye.
 
A fraction of a second later Marious had another thought, what would 
really happen if it was not perfect? Suddenly the thought hits him like 
thunderbolt between the eyes, if this thing was cracked.... if it all came 
out at once....it would fracture the planet into pieces! And it is just 
levitating above the work table! 
 
The sixth second:
 
This next second lasts an eternity to Marious as time continues to slow 
down in his mind's eye.
 
Marious carefully but quickly reaches out with both hands, ready for the 
feedback of power, and takes the ball with both hands.
 
Vryce steps back to make room but did not see Koin behind him and stumbles 
to a halt.
 
Marious is not used to being two inches taller. This is not to say that 
Marious dropped the ball so to speak, hardly! 
 
The moment in time continues for Marious, an endless stretch of a fraction 
of a second.
 
Marious notices Vryce has his sword drawn ready to defeat whatever he 
glimpsed was about to destroy the world.
 
Marious even has time to admire Vryce and his power. Seeing the tip of the 
sword, Marious pulls the ball back carefully but quickly. The ball comes 
towards him fast, just as he intended.
 
The ball of pure power is about to touch Marious's new belt buckle. 
Marious has time to curse the need to get a new outfit to go with his new 
look. He curses his vain need to appear taller during time of war.
 
There is even time to think about what would happen if even the smallest 
imperfection would happen, even the smallest tiniest of scratches would 
release power that this world has not seen since Vryce caused the great 
purging. 
 
The ball of power touches the belt buckle with barely enough force to move 
a flea's foot...

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Note: The story stopped here and for the next ten minutes Medievia burned 
and chaos filled the land.
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Five minutes after the ball touched Marious's belt buckle...
 
Marious, standing on top of Mount Vryce, turns to Koin and says, "That 
could have gone better."
 
Koin glanced at his old friend and shakes his head saying, "And here I 
thought Vryce was the king of understatement."
 
They were standing firm where no mortal could live as the world around 
them burned and all magic was being sucked towards the center of the 
disaster. It was an on-going disaster of epic planetary proportions.
 
Vryce, looking out at his world on fire calmly said, "We could use this 
power on the Khrait home world."
 
The world continued to burn, the disaster continued to spread, the magic 
of the land continued to be sucked into the ball of power.
 
Koin, feeling like a part of history, took in the view. Medievia was on 
fire from sea to sea, firestorms raced across the sky, lair dragons were 
attacking the towns. Then, something really terrible happened!
 
Koin ducked just in time as Zeksagmak, the king of dragons, dived down at 
them! 
 
Vryce stood back up and yelled, "Marious what have you done?"
 
Zeksagmak was killed long ago by Duchess Froto from the Knights Templar. 
It took over one hundred of Medievia's most powerful immortals to do it, 
after years of failure.
 
Marious was deep in thought, apparently not a good one, when he spoke, "My 
god sir, one of the last thoughts I had was that you looked ready to slay 
Zeksagmak when you appeared. Somehow I duplicated Zeksagmak!"
 
The three of them turned at once to look towards ground zero. There was 
nothing left of Vryce's workshop, just a large crater with the ball of 
power still there, hovering inches off the ground, as if mocking them to 
hold it as the magic of the planet was sucked into it like horizontal 
purple tornadoes of magic.
 
Vryce demanded, "No one is to touch that ball." 
 
Vryce suddenly called forth a shield room spell that only a God could 
demand and teleported three of them down, with the shield. They walked up 
to the ball of power, careful not to shield it off from its world-wide 
power grab.
 
Vryce starts, "Marious, that blood you needed, explain it to me." 
 
The war wizard explains, yelling a little to be heard over the noise, "I 
was trying to get a chunk of rae-fae-gold to float on sea water. I cut 
myself by accident on a sharp section of it when I pulled it from the 
bottom of the tank. As you know, our ocean will slowly pull anything 
below, even incredibly buoyant things. This chunk was being HELD down. I 
had to pull pretty hard and cut myself. The blood seeped into it, and it 
started to float."
 
Vryce nodded deep in thought and asked, "It just popped to the top when 
you cut yourself?"
 
Marious nodded, then Vryce, the father of Medievia, declared, "It was not 
the blood old man. It was your thought that was duplicated. You wanted to 
get it out and so it floated."
 
Koin rubbed his neck and declared, "That is amazing."
 
Vryce spoke in his commanding way, "Amazingly dangerous."
 
Marious and Koin stepped back from the ball, trying not to seem afraid.
 
Vryce said, "We must not speak of this. No one can know the power we have 
here on Medievia. Do you understand?" Vryce continued without looking for 
agreement, "No one must know what I am about to do or what you did to make 
this...this....monstrosity."  
 
Vryce looked around at the devastation and was glad a thick fog of smoke 
prevented anyone from seeing what he was about to do. 
 
The most powerful being on the planet stepped forward, grabbed the ball 
firmly with both hands, and kissed it, and at that moment the catastrophe 
ended.  
 
Vryce closed his eyes and thought of his wife Soleil, the god of hope and 
love, and he embraced the ball, holding it to him, cradling it as if 
holding Soleil after a long journey away from her, and the world breathed 
a sigh of relief. The power of Soleil went forth and the planet healed at 
an incredible rate, fires died down, dragons went home, mortals everywhere 
woke up as if nothing happened, wondering why they had not perished.
 
Vryce looked up, raised the ball high in one hand to look at it, as if to 
verify his suspicions. Then suddenly he tossed it at Marious, trying to 
get the old man to drop it, so as to scare him.
 
Marious catches the ball easily and says, "It is safe my lord? We should 
destroy it!"
 
"We cannot", Vryce answered, "I will explain later. I must go away for a 
while to test some theories. The Spirit of the world mentioned something 
to me once about not understanding her ability to make the heroes 
immortal. They die, the Necromancer comes, they turn into the undead, then 
all they have to do is ask, one simple prayer to be alive, and POOF they 
are back. I believe I now understand what is happening." Vryce nodded 
towards the ball and said, "That ball must never be destroyed and we must 
feed it."
 
Koin looked at Marious who looked at Vryce and asked, "Feed it what sire?"
 
Vryce, looking like he was already wasting too much time explaining said, 
"Death Marious. We must feed it immortal death. Don't worry. It is safe 
and it cannot be harmed. It is now a timeless piece of Medievia and must 
forever be held by an immortal who must hold it and love it."
 
Before Vryce disappeared Marious yelled, "Master, we must love it and feed 
it immortal death?"
 
Koin rubbbed his neck again as Marious glanced in his direction as he said 
the word, 'death'.
 
Vryce took the ball again, held it tight and called forth a spell of his 
own.
 
THE WORLD SHOOK!
 
Marious and Koin stood up just as Vryce threw the ball back at Marious and 
said, "You will find that it will give the immortals something they all 
desire, gold and fae, but only if they hold it and feed it their death. 
Make it the law Marious, and again, do not speak to me again until you 
have found the ACTUAL source of Medievia's frae. Do not attempt to create 
it again. Find the natural source Marious and do it soon!"
 
With that, Vryce became blurred and distorted and then vanished.
 
Marious turned to Koin and said, "Go back to the war room old friend. 
Tiberious may need you and the people need to see you there. They will 
have many questions, answer what you can but remember, we have been 
commanded to silence about the details."
 
Koin, looking ready to slay Zeksagmak himself said, "You can count on me 
sir! Where are you going then?"
 
Marious shook his head as if wondering the very same question and said, 
"To the Sea of Infinity and those two strange islands. It must have taken 
centuries for that little bit of frae we found to collect there. The 
natural source of the frae will show itself eventually."
 
The great wizard Marious sighed and said, "Koin, I used to be a war 
wizard. Then war came and I was made into a magician, now apparently I am 
nothing but a naturalist."
 
Marious clapped his hands and appeared shorter and older, more like the 
Marious Koin knew and loved, and then vanished.

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Note: The story stopped here, the first players to play with the Fae Ball 
would be written into the story.
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Later that day Marious released the ball. He stood on top of Mount Vryce, 
held the ball high over his head as if in sacrifice, and let it go, as one 
would send off a carrier pigeon. The ball whipped away at high speed, 
searching for an immortal to love it. Marious felt odd releasing this ball 
of doom, knowing that it would forever be held by an immortal, until the 
end of time. 
 
Koraxis was the first immortal to take over the job of holding the ball and 
giving it love. He quickly dropped the ball by accident as he tried to 
mount a beast. Karnox was the second Medievia player to ever touch the ball 
and the first to give it his life! Leamyer ended it with an obsidian athame 
twisted into his back!
 
Vryce will be proud when he hears of the first battles and how fast the 
immortals took to loving the ball and giving it their life.
 
Leamyer killed Karnox.
Leamyer killed by Aimonsorcio.
Aimonsorcio killed by Sekieli.
Sekieli killed by Ghoti.
Ghoti killed by Asiamou.
Asiamou killed by Raithir.
Raithir killed by Vereor.
Vereor killed by Supirio.
Supirio killed by Strategeus.
Strategeus killed by Noelio.
 
And so it went forevermore...
 
Marious was happy to see the immortals take to the task like a sport. They 
were already talking about a game between towns to see who can control it 
the longest. They also named it, everyone was calling it 'The Fae Ball'. 
 
With that Marious the great war wizard stepped forward into his spell and 
instantly appeared on Star Island in the Sea of Infinity. He sat down, 
elbow on knee, and chin in hand, watching the waves steadily beat onto the 
rocks, waiting for the frae to appear, waiting for inspiration, waiting for 
that moment when he can summon Vryce again.
Section 3