The Awakening
Mana, the force of change and the breaker of reality. As a master mage, Ellion Forcewright mastered mana and bent the world to match his desires. He rose to the highest ranks of the Mystic Orders and ruled the greatest magical empire the world had ever seen. Then the Wilting began. The great intercontinental transports fell from the sky, no longer able to bear their own weight. The gardens of the mystics, forests of the dryads, and even the lush poison swamps of the lizard men began to die and fade. Dragons disappeared into their lairs and even the great, fiery mountain lords blocked their calderas and left the world behind. The signs were undeniable. Mana, the force of change and breaker of realities, driver of magics, and source of great life was leaving the world. Ellion watched as his lands and people withered. Cold hit and crops failed. As a being of magic himself at this point, he knew his time in the world was ending too. Ellion Forcewright, last of the master mages, sealed his lifeforce into the last of the great mana crystals. He too decided to sleep as the dragons, to awake again when magic, and mana returned.
An unfelt breeze began to blow. “I, Ellion have awoken again! This feeling, my sight, why can’t I open my eyes.” Ellion reached out but didn’t move.
“I can see the chamber as if through mana sight. I cannot move and my mana flow is weak and strange. The ritual must have had an unintended side effect.”
Ellion inspected himself using flows of mana. The flows were weak, almost placid. His body felt as if it was made of stone. It was made of stone! Precious mana stone!
“I see, the ritual succeeded but at the cost of fusing myself with the mana stone entirely. This must be how the great dungeons of old felt the world.”
Ellion’s body was now made up of a beautiful translucent stone. When gazed upon, it appeared as a perfect sphere, so perfect any other imitators bore their imperfections plainly before it. Looking into the stone, you can see a deep lush green around the edges with pulsing purple and red radiance glowing in the core. As Ellion moved his mana, the pulsing deepened in slow, methodic waves. A hum filled the air. A soothing, gentle hum. One you would swear you did not hear; but feel. Ellion floated about a meter off the floor, a sphere-shaped depression beneath him. No voice came from this sphere as Ellion spoke with himself. He reached out with his mana based sight and observed the room.
Cracked floors, some patterns still carved in the smooth, white marble surface spread out 10 meters in all directions from Ellion the floating sphere creating a circular floor before meeting pitch black walls. These walls were no longer smooth and polished but chipped and cracked too. Only dust remained of the ancient stands that held the shattered remains of smaller crystals, the only survivors of the ages that must have passed.
“Time to take stock. I live, but don’t know how my lab has weathered the time I was asleep. The mana in the air is thin. I cannot mold or change it, and even if there was enough it seems I will need to relearn how mana flows in this new body of mine.” Ellion reached again with his mana. As a master mage, this act would be unconscious. Mages held a pool of mana in their bodies. Not truly an organ but a mental construct, mages reached into the world with their own mana and manipulated mana in the air and used it to create change. This is in the form of spells and rituals. Mana was the very act of change in controllable form. Ellion no longer felt his pool.
“This flow is all wrong! I pull but there is nothing to pull from. Yet I feel the mana in the air move. How can this be!” Ellion reached again with the mana for a crystal shard. The air stirred and the shard rocked.
“That is it! The space around me is my pool. It is as if this external mana is my own pool. I can manipulate it directly! Amazing!” Ellion began moving the surrounding mana with his will. Crystal shards rocked. The dust stirred then fell.
“Only this room. I cannot feel outside of the ritual chamber walls. What is going on?” Ellion moved the mana again and began to push at the walls. He could feel them slowly absorb the mana in the air, but Ellion could not perceive what was beyond. Soon the movement stopped and Ellion’s consciousness began to waver.
“Too much. It is as if I have drained myself. I…. … must…. stay…. awa…”
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Ellion slowly began wake, the room visible in his mind once more. As the picture began to come into focus, Ellion noticed an addition. Lying next to his floating, spherical form was a beast! A large 4-legged body lay with 2 pitch black wings folded along the side. A serpentine neck wound around the wing further from Ellion. A feline face rested on the base of a 3-meter tail that stretched to an opening in the wall that was not there before Ellion fell asleep. The body nearly glowed in Ellions sight with feeling of power radiating out. The scales shined deep purple, the color of a beautiful amethyst. As Ellion’s sight focused more upon the being, it’s eyes opened. Forest green gems focused upon the floating sphere and a slight grin stretched out on the feline mouth.
A rumble from the beast’s throat rolled over the room. “Ah, so you appear to have some form of consciousness. Interesting, normally that would not occur for another century of accumulation.”
Ellion’s crystal sphere shimmered as his purple, central hues vibrated. His hovering wavered and he fell to only half his previous height from the floor.
“Don’t panic young one” the beast spoke. “You interest me, and your dwelling is refreshing after so long without the caress of mana. Do not fear, for I am only visiting and shall depart soon.”
Ellion then spoke out, and found he could not speak. The deep purple waves covered by a thin fog of forest green within his sphere form sped up. The red core pulsed in a rapid shift.
“Oh, you try to speak. Already intelligent. And your form is unusual too.” The creature lifted it head and inched towards Ellions crystal surface. “A soul is contained within. In that case let me be known. I am Thun’gar, youngest of the Storm Dragon Brood. First to awake and seeker of a new range. Fear not, these lands hold no interest for my kind. We prefer to be near wide fields and deep streams. Send your thoughts my way, I feel as if you were once in a different form.”
Ellion stopped. Focusing his will, he channeled his will. In his time as magus, he could speak over leagues with his mind when channeled through great spells. Now, without the aid of the great rituals of his past, he spoke with his mind again.
“Hello and well met. I was known as Ellion Forcewright. First of the Mystic Orders and ruler of the great empire of Suadus. It is an honor to be graced by a great one such as yourself.”
“Ellion, I have heard of you. To think you managed to survive the great withering.” The rumbles from Thun’gar’s throat became light and free. No longer a shadow, the smile on his feline face was wide. “What of your form? You appear now as one of the ancient dungeons your brethren harvested in an attempt to live, though they appear not to have been as fortunate as you.”
The purple waves slowed, and the red core dimmed slightly. “Yes, I felt the loss of mana deeply and knew my time would not be long. Your kind were an inspiration to me. I wished to bind my soul in place as the litch but maintain my life through slumber. It would seem I was only half successful in my attempt. I live but my previous corporal form is no more.”
Rubles bubbled from Thun’gar’s throat. “Hahaha. What a spectacularly successful failure. To have lost one self but become more. Your home is flush in that which you lost. I would say you are truly more now. Even we, the dragons ancient in our lineage and powerful in our might cannot claim to be a true mana source as you have become until are ages reach millennium in number. As one of the ancient line let me be the first to welcome you, a new creation, to the fold. Give yourself a new name and become one with our kinds!” Saying this, Thun’gar stood. His height reached only 2 meters and his head lifted above that, but his power began to radiate out giving the room a shimmering glow. The mana in the air stilled even more as if waiting in anticipation.
Ellion’s form shook, truly shook in place as one looked upon it. The forest mist withing was practically covered in the purple waves as they violently pressed upon the sides of his form. The red glow, tho small, rattled around and shook too. A mana source! It was inconceivable. All things except the greatest of dragons, the ancient labyrinth dungeons, and most powerful creatures could only tap into the mana already in the world. It was the mana around you that filled your pool, activated spells, and created all the wonders of the magical age. This is why the withering was so devastating. With the loss of mana, how could magic exist. To be declared a mana source. The power, undeniable, the risk…. Doom!
Glowing, forest gems shined in the dark. Tightness wound about the sphere. The air was still. The mana called. The earth itself began to sweat. Glistening streams of pale golden hue oozed from the wall and flowed towards the shivering sphere.
“Eon. I take upon the name Eon. It shall bear the memory of my previous self and show my resolve to last. I have survived the withering, endured an age, and will not fall to the challenges that shall come my way!” All around, a great blast rose. Nothing was moved but deep within a cavern, in a great mountain on the coast, mana began to move.