Chapter 1
Few scholars of history would argue that “The Age of Wild Magic” was one of the most important ages in the history of Ioplon.
* The History of Ioplon
Life is good.
The Speaker silently thought as she basked in the early spring sunshine. Winter was just over and the first signs of spring were making their presence felt. After the dreary winter but before the busy spring, this was her favorite part of the year. The Speaker always thought of this period of the year as a time of renewal and loved the anticipation of seeing the blooming leaves of the Great Kar.
Spring was in the air and as the Speaker opened her eyes and looked up at the blue sky, she saw the sunlight shining through the leaves of the oak tree. Her smile got wider and she snuggled up tighter to her mate. Winter had only recently passed, so the ground was still wet, but neither the Speaker nor her mate was too bothered by that. She and her mate, Treznor, had spent a season confined in the tunnels of the Creator, and today the two Werewolves intended to enjoy a lazy afternoon for themselves under the sun.
At least that was the plan.
Treznor caught the scent before she did and growled as he turned toward it. The Speaker sighed and looked in the same direction. Flying through the air toward them was a harpy. With her enhanced sight, the Speaker could see that the harpy was carrying something in her claws. Her mate’s growl turned into a moan when he saw the harpy changing latitude. She was looking to land. The Speaker gave her mate a playful slap on his chest before getting up.
Her mate was having none of that. With a firm arm, the Alpha grabbed the Speaker around her waist and pulled her back toward him. The Speaker chuckled but didn’t fight him. Instead, she turned around and licked her mate’s neck. The Alpha enjoyed that.
“Seriously?” the harpy screeched as she landed in front of them. “You two saw me coming and couldn’t stop touching each other for a few moments? I’m a child, you know! And licking? I know that’s normal when you are all furry, but you two are in your human form! NO LICKING WHEN YOU ARE HUMAN!”
The Alpha growled again and this time the Speaker gave him a sharp elbow. Pleased or not, there was no need to scare children. “Good day to you too, Moro, what do you have there?”
Unlike her older sister Momo, Moro was slightly more flighty and it took her a moment to understand what the Speaker was talking about. “Oh this,” the harpy said as she raised her claws showing her prey to the two Werewolves. “Momo caught a rabbit earlier today and I thought I’d catch one too. We’re going to show them to the Creator together. See if it wanted to do something new with them?”
Her mate scoffed at the small animal in Moro’s claws, but the Speaker smiled in appreciation. “Good thinking, Moro, I’m sure the Creator would love them.”
“Don’t know why you all still bother.”
It was the Alpha who said this and the Speaker’s natural response was another elbow. This one was hard enough to get a grunt out of him. Though she was nowhere near as strong as the Alpha, the Speaker was also a Werewolf and she put in enough strength to get the Alpha’s attention.
“What? It’s true,” the Alpha protested. “It’s been several winters since the Creator created anything new!”
“That doesn’t mean it would never create something new again.” As the Speaker of the Creator, the Speaker felt she had a duty to defend the floating crystal. “We just need to keep on trying and one day it may be…inspired to create something.”
“It is lazy.” The Speaker turned sharply to face her mate. She heard a growl and realized it was coming from her. She didn’t care and the Alpha put up both hands to calm his mate. However, he did not back down and instead chose to defend himself. “It’s the truth. The Creator hasn’t created anything new since the big fight against the humans and that’s not likely to change. All it does now is dig and create new floors.”
The Speaker turned away from her mate. He was right and she knew it. Only six winters ago, she had arrived in the Great Kar as a human slave in the service of her mistress, Kyla Sacredhunt. A High Mage working for the city of Yachium, her former mistress was sent to the Great Kar Forest in search of a dark mage, but what they found was something greater than any mage. The humans she came with were all dead but for her. Somehow the Creator saw something in her that it liked and stopped the Werewolves from killing her. Brought to the Creator, the Speaker found that the Creator was a floating crystal with five lights surrounding it. More importantly, the Creator had the power to transmute living creatures into other forms and it chose to change her. Before the change, she was just a lowly human slave. After the change, she was the Speaker, a Werewolf of strength, power, and some influence. More than that, the Creator had given her something much more important.
When it changed her, the Creator gave her a family. The creatures changed by the Creator were called the Kin and they were now her family. In more ways than she could count, the Creator had changed her life and the Speaker couldn’t help but feel she owed it everything.
She defended the Creator, but that didn’t mean her mate was wrong. Five winters ago, misinformation, revenge, and a thirst for power led the humans of Yachium to launch an attack against the Creator. A powerful Grand Mage led a force of over 300 men against the Creator and, after some difficulties, the humans were destroyed. However, the Creator had been different since the fight. It no longer created new creatures but instead focused on creating new floors deep within the mountain that was Big Keg. Occasionally, it would still create a new Werewolf or Ratling when the Kin bought a wolf or rat to it, but it no longer created anything new.
Why that was the case was something the Kin had debated at length. The Speaker believed she knew the reason. To the Speaker, it was as if after that big fight, the Creator felt that there was nothing the humans could throw at it that could endanger it. If she was correct, the reason why the Creator no longer created anything new was because it no longer felt a need to do so. It felt safe.
The Speaker did not say this to the rest of the Kin. The Speaker wasn’t exactly displeased with the contentment of the Creator, but the others may not feel the same. In a way, the Speaker understood the position of the rest of the Kin. Like them, she felt that life was missing something when no new creatures were made by the Creator. She still remembered the excitement she felt that day when the Creator created the Harpies, the Tengu, the Angels, the Pegasus, and the Porkasus. Five new species all created in one day! The Speaker would love to have another day like that, but since that big fight, the Creator had not created even one.
“What is this?”
The Speaker looked up at Moro and felt it. The ground was shaking. The trees were moving. The whole forest was shaking.
“MORO, FLY! IT’S AN EARTHQUAKE!”
***
Overlooking the northern end of the Great Kar Forest was a trio of mountains that first got their names from the lovely drink known as ale. The cities of Yachium and Yaslay were enemies, but no animosity could stop the human love of alcohol and the ale from the northern city of Yaslay was widely considered to be the best in the region. As they say, “love conquers all” and the love of ale was no different. A trade route was established between the two cities and as the trade route skirted the trio of mountains, humans began calling the mountains the Kegs. Of the three mountains that made up the Keg, the middle one was the tallest, so humans just lazily called it Big Keg.
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Never let drunks name anything.
At the foot of Big Keg was a cave first made by five Mage apprentices who wanted to make a name for themselves. They failed, but they unknowingly left behind a legacy that had changed the world. That legacy was a crystal. Floating on top of a stone slab, the crystal had four lights turning clockwise around it and within the crystal you could see thousands of small lights dancing within. The crystal was named The Hive and the small lights within were the trapped spirits that made up the creature. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of spirits were trapped within the crystal and currently they were a happy lot…mostly.
“Alright! It’s done!” an Earth spirit shouted within the hive. “The ninth floor of the tunnels is finally finished!”
Cheers rang out within the hive at the announcement. Although no one outside the hive could hear them, the noise within was deafening. Most of the spirits within the hive were delighted by the completion of their latest floor and were congratulating each other loudly at the achievement. However, as was the usual case for the hive, there were always some spirits who disliked the current direction of the collective.
“Yes! Wow! Yeah! So what? So what if another floor was built? It’s not like we intend to leave the fifth floor any time soon?”
The complaint came from one of the spirits within the hive and it rang loud and true. Currently, the hive was within the underground forest that was the fifth floor of the tunnels, and the spirits of the hive had no intention of going any deeper into Big Keg.
“Oh, cut that out! Creating new floors is fun!” one of the Earth spirits of the hive said. The Earth spirits loved to dig and more than any of the other spirits, they enjoyed the creation of new floors. Something that was not missed by the other spirits.
“Only for you Earth spirits,” the discontented spirit answered back. “The rest of us are bored.”
“Very bored.”
“Super bored.”
“Incredibly bored.”
“Amazingly bored!”
“Let’s do something!” the first spirit suggested.
“YES!”
Several of the spirits within the hive immediately shouted their approval, but just as quickly, someone asked, “Like what?”
One of the Earth spirits sighed dramatically and replied, “Come on, you guys, we’ve been through this already! There’s nothing to do right now except the creation of new floors. No humans have arrived to kill or steal from us for several summers already.”
The other spirits heard this and understood how right the Earth spirit was. Five winters ago, over 300 humans attacked the tunnels and their deaths gave the hive a feast of energy. However, since that battle, no humans had arrived. The hive had waited patiently, but for some reason, the humans had decided not to visit the tunnels anymore. Even when the hive ordered the Kin to attack the humans again in the hope of drawing another response from them, no humans came. Instead, the Speaker informed the hive that the humans had withdrawn from the Kar Forest and there were now no human settlements within a day’s ride of the great forest.
Honestly, the spirits within the hive didn’t understand everything the Speaker had said. They had no idea of what “a day’s ride” was and little idea of what “withdraw” meant. However, they did understand the essence of what the Speaker was saying; no human was coming.
Thus, the seasons passed, and the hive was now more bored than ever. The hive took satisfaction in the creation of new floors, so any time a new floor was completed, it was an accomplishment, but the only reason they were doing this was because…well, there’s just nothing else to do! The Earth spirit was right. The spirits of the hive weren’t creating floors because they wanted to; they just had nothing better to do! Even the creation of new creatures had long lost its luster. What’s the use of creating new creatures that weren’t even needed? Of course, that was not something the spirits wanted to tell members of the Kin, like the one currently standing in front of them.
Several winters ago, when humans were still visiting, the hive created the fifth floor as a huge dome with an underground forest for the various flying creatures it had created. Now, one of those flying creatures was standing in front of it. The creature had a human face, but instead of arms, it had wings and the creature’s legs were bony and bird-like. So bird-like that the creature had talons instead of human feet and trapped in one of the talons was an animal called a rabbit. The spirits within the hive immediately knew what the harpy wanted and, not for the first time, they got into an argument over the matter.
“See!” a spirit shouted. “Here they come again. Let’s just create a new creature for the Kin so that they would stop doing this?”
“Oh please!” a spirit argued. “The Kin are not going to stop and you know it. They want new creatures and even if we create a new creature for them, they would just KEEP ON COMING!”
“That’s right and what’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong is the simple fact that we don’t need any more new creatures! If we create a new creature for them, they will just come back some time later with new animals, hoping that we would change those animals too! Let’s not encourage them.”
“Who said they need encouragement?” another spirit argued. “How long has it been since we created something new? That hadn’t stopped the Kin from coming to us in the hope of us creating something new. We should reward them for their efforts if nothing else.”
“No, we should not!” a different spirit argued. “We should not encourage them at all and more to the point, we should not waste energy creating new creatures when no humans are coming for us!”
That was the crux of the matter. The hive actually enjoyed the process of creating new creatures, but it took a lot of energy to create a new creature and the hive could only replenish energy in one of two ways. It could absorb the spirits in the environment and convert them into energy, or it could absorb the energy that was released when a creature was killed within the tunnels. The latter method was faster and far more effective, but the hive could no longer use it because there were no more visiting humans. In desperation, the hive in the past had even told the Kin to bring back some creatures to the tunnels before killing them. The Kin did as ordered, but the energy that was released just wasn’t the same. Several of the spirits within the hive believed that this was due to the fact that when the Kin captured the animals, the animals knew they were going to die, so by the time they reached the tunnels, the fight had already gone out of them. As such, the animals released less energy when killed. The hive didn’t know if this theory was correct, but it felt “right” and the hive always followed its instinct.
More important than the loss of energy, however, was the simple fact that the hive did not need more varieties of creatures. When the humans attacked the tunnels, the Kin helped the hive to kill the humans and that proved to the hive that the number of creatures it currently had was enough. In fact, some of the Ratlings and a pair of the Werewolves were even having children! Having more varieties of the Kin wouldn’t hurt, but the hive didn’t need them, so most of the spirits within the hive agreed that they shouldn’t be wasting energy creating more of them. Creating a new type of creature it didn’t need was a waste of energy that the majority of the spirits within the hive simply couldn’t support.
So for the harpy standing in front of it, the hive did what it always did in this situation. It did nothing. The hive knew from experience that, in time, the harpy would get bored and leave. All it had to do was to wait patiently. For a floating crystal, that was easy.
After a few moments, the hive felt it. There was no tremor or warning; the ground just began shaking. The hive immediately spread its focus outwards, throwing energy throughout its tunnels. This wasn’t the first time the hive had faced an earthquake, but after a few moments, it realized this was a strong one. The ground was still shaking! The harpy took to the air, but the hive maintained its focus. It couldn’t do anything about the shaking, but with its energy, the integrity of the tunnels was maintained. The spirits within the hive would be mightily embarrassed if there was a cave-in in their tunnels.
“This earthquake is different,” one of the Earth spirits said after a while. “It doesn’t feel natural.”
“What do you mean?” The other spirits within the hive did not have the same connection to the earth that the Earth spirits had.
“It just feels different,” the Earth spirit replied. “It’s still shaking. Something created this earthquake. Let’s see if we can find out where it came from.”
With energy to spare, the hive spread its power outwards. Unfortunately, the range of their senses extends only a short distance beyond the entrance of the tunnels, but the power that was unleashed could still be clearly felt. Whatever made the earthquake came from the south of the Keg Mountains, well beyond the Great Kar Forest, but even from this distance, the hive could feel the impressive amount of power that was released. It was honestly beyond anything the hive had felt before. The power was burning like an inferno that was turning everything in its path into ash.
It also felt somewhat familiar.
One of the spirits in the hive had to ask, “You guys don’t think…?”
“Must be…this power…it must be the Fire Hive!”
“They caused an earthquake? What for?”
“Who knows with those morons? It could be an accident for all we know. We need to send someone down there to check things out.”
“Send who to check what? We don’t know anything yet.”
“That’s right. We don’t know anything and that’s why we need to find out. Knowing those Fire spirits, they’re liable to do anything!”
“Yeah and whatever it was, it was something big.”
“Well, at least something good came out of this.”
“What?”
“We’re no longer bored.”
The spirits within the hive joined together in laughter. Whatever you want to say about those Fire spirits, they were never boring. In a way, the hive missed them.
“So…who are we going to send?”