kopiteste
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2010
- Messages
- 43
Hey All,
This is my first effort at writing something of a decent length. It is planned to be a trilogy about a young magician who finds out he has magic in him when going for an interview to join the army. He gets recruited by a government agency set up to control magicians who use their powers malevolently.
I won't go into too much detail, but here is the first chapter which is to introduce the reader to the main antagonist and the protagonist's mentor.
Some of you may have seen it first time I posted it but it got locked due to me not having contributed to the forums much at the time. I have double checked with The Judge that I can now post a thread in Critiques.
Any contribution will be appreciated,
Ste
*****
Chapter 1
The Theft
There it was.
The prize.
Her prize.
Legend and myth surrounded it. Few people had ever laid eyes on it. Even fewer lived to tell the tale. The mysteries it held would soon be revealed to the one who had searched for decades to possess it. Thirteen had hidden it well, or so she had thought. She had desired this moment since the battles begun, when she caught and tortured the last living person to have seen it and understood its true meaning. She had expected it to be hidden in one of the most secure and secret places in Britain.
The room was a giant metal cave. Big enough to be an aircraft hangar, with corrugated sheet metal on the walls and ceiling. In the middle of the room was a metal cabinet, it was too dark for her to see what colour it was and she didn’t really care. It had a huge combination lock that would have been a nightmare for most people had they spent most of their adult lives searching for this hiding place. Not for her though, she could destroy the lock in seconds.
The trail that led her here had long gone cold and each wrong turn made her no wiser about the secrets it held. She had battled and destroyed some of the fiercest of her kind in her search and she only got closer to her goal by eliminating each from her list of possible hiding places. It was inconceivable, unbelievable and downright arrogant that Thirteen had thought to hide it here. The proverbial needle in a haystack was more like an iron bar in a hay bale. That she, the greatest and most feared of her kind had been fooled by such a simple ploy made her blood boil.
“Enough!” she muttered, musing that the self derision could wait until she had what she had come for. It was hard for her to believe that it held the powers that were touted about it. She hoped that she hadn’t been fed more lies, or there would be hell to pay.
She had seen some of the most valuable items in the U.K. on her way to this room, but money was worth nothing to her. If money was what she had desired, she would have been in the Bank of England, it would have been easier than the quest that she was close to completing now. She had no real use for money; it was too easy for her and her kind to acquire. That which she desired most was power. The power to rule over her kind with a rod of iron, to bring them out of hiding, to stand and fight humankind for the earth that she believed her kind should be in control of. The current authorities had her kind hiding, protecting the ordinary humans from knowing about them.
The hiding place, the previously unknown epicentre of her universe, was the British Library. This was the building where the country’s most precious books were kept. Never for one second had she thought that the agency entrusted with its protection would have hidden The Book of Truth here. It was too obvious. It was also too much of a tourist attraction for them to believe here was a good place to hide it. It was so ironic that she would have burst into laughter if she wasn’t seething and shaking with rage at her own foolishness.
The superficial part of the building, the bit the tourists got to see, was a little over thirty years old, but the underneath was centuries old. It was used during the war to protect all of the countries valuable books and possibly the valuable people. She had heard the legends surrounding this underground network of chambers, but had believed none of it. The frustration welled up inside her, but this time it was useful as she channelled it all into the door to the vault and before long there was nothing but a stream of glowing liquid metal, seeping from the vault in a red hot puddle.
She picked out the book careful, gentler than she had ever touched anything. She could feel a tingling from her fingers that went right to her heart. That was when she sensed movement in the corner of the room. Drawing her attention away from her thoughts and the object that was in her hands, she turned to look.
She gasped with shock.
“A...A...Albert,” she stammered.
Her hand grabbed over her should, feeling the top of a huge slash across her back that looked like she had been cut in half and roughly pushed back together. The merciful Albert had given her that wound to incapacitate her and prevent further deaths to his Defensores and to leave her with a constant reminder of why she should give up her chase for the book. He naively thought that this close call would lead to a truce, to her giving up arms, so to speak. He had always liked to see good in people, but some people had no goodness to see. She hated his patronising views of the world, almost as much as she hated him.
“Good evening Muriel, cat got your tongue?” He let out a low, almost growling chuckle.
“I bet you weren’t expecting me to spoil your acquisition. How many years have you been searching for The Book Of Truth?”
“Almost fifty years” she said, spitting out the word fifty as if it was poisonous.
“So it must be” he said. “How time flies when you are having fun.”
Muriel scowled, letting a deep growl rip across her chest.
Albert continued.
“I am afraid the last time we met you made a promise to me to give up your search for it and to not trouble me again. I however, keep my promises and follow through with my threats”
Muriel was in a low crouch now, almost feline in her stance, a tigress about to pounce on her prey. Her lips were pulled back into a snarl, showing teeth that were perfect and sharp; they caught whatever light was in the dim room, showing her monstrous grin.
“You fool! I made a mistake the last time we met; you should have finished me off then. I was never going to give up this hunt and now that I have it I will be more powerful than you, director!” She said the last word with a callousness that had been burning inside her for too long.
She sprung, flying at least twenty feet into the air before pushing her arms out wildly, shooting from her palms a red beam, brighter than the sun, towards Albert. He reacted with a blue light emanating from his palms, catching the ball and rolling with it. Albert spun and let the ball shoot off back towards Muriel who dodged it, letting out a laugh and the whole room filled with thick black smoke.
When the smoke cleared, Albert was left standing alone, with nothing but a vault missing its door.
This is my first effort at writing something of a decent length. It is planned to be a trilogy about a young magician who finds out he has magic in him when going for an interview to join the army. He gets recruited by a government agency set up to control magicians who use their powers malevolently.
I won't go into too much detail, but here is the first chapter which is to introduce the reader to the main antagonist and the protagonist's mentor.
Some of you may have seen it first time I posted it but it got locked due to me not having contributed to the forums much at the time. I have double checked with The Judge that I can now post a thread in Critiques.
Any contribution will be appreciated,
Ste
*****
Chapter 1
The Theft
There it was.
The prize.
Her prize.
Legend and myth surrounded it. Few people had ever laid eyes on it. Even fewer lived to tell the tale. The mysteries it held would soon be revealed to the one who had searched for decades to possess it. Thirteen had hidden it well, or so she had thought. She had desired this moment since the battles begun, when she caught and tortured the last living person to have seen it and understood its true meaning. She had expected it to be hidden in one of the most secure and secret places in Britain.
The room was a giant metal cave. Big enough to be an aircraft hangar, with corrugated sheet metal on the walls and ceiling. In the middle of the room was a metal cabinet, it was too dark for her to see what colour it was and she didn’t really care. It had a huge combination lock that would have been a nightmare for most people had they spent most of their adult lives searching for this hiding place. Not for her though, she could destroy the lock in seconds.
The trail that led her here had long gone cold and each wrong turn made her no wiser about the secrets it held. She had battled and destroyed some of the fiercest of her kind in her search and she only got closer to her goal by eliminating each from her list of possible hiding places. It was inconceivable, unbelievable and downright arrogant that Thirteen had thought to hide it here. The proverbial needle in a haystack was more like an iron bar in a hay bale. That she, the greatest and most feared of her kind had been fooled by such a simple ploy made her blood boil.
“Enough!” she muttered, musing that the self derision could wait until she had what she had come for. It was hard for her to believe that it held the powers that were touted about it. She hoped that she hadn’t been fed more lies, or there would be hell to pay.
She had seen some of the most valuable items in the U.K. on her way to this room, but money was worth nothing to her. If money was what she had desired, she would have been in the Bank of England, it would have been easier than the quest that she was close to completing now. She had no real use for money; it was too easy for her and her kind to acquire. That which she desired most was power. The power to rule over her kind with a rod of iron, to bring them out of hiding, to stand and fight humankind for the earth that she believed her kind should be in control of. The current authorities had her kind hiding, protecting the ordinary humans from knowing about them.
The hiding place, the previously unknown epicentre of her universe, was the British Library. This was the building where the country’s most precious books were kept. Never for one second had she thought that the agency entrusted with its protection would have hidden The Book of Truth here. It was too obvious. It was also too much of a tourist attraction for them to believe here was a good place to hide it. It was so ironic that she would have burst into laughter if she wasn’t seething and shaking with rage at her own foolishness.
The superficial part of the building, the bit the tourists got to see, was a little over thirty years old, but the underneath was centuries old. It was used during the war to protect all of the countries valuable books and possibly the valuable people. She had heard the legends surrounding this underground network of chambers, but had believed none of it. The frustration welled up inside her, but this time it was useful as she channelled it all into the door to the vault and before long there was nothing but a stream of glowing liquid metal, seeping from the vault in a red hot puddle.
She picked out the book careful, gentler than she had ever touched anything. She could feel a tingling from her fingers that went right to her heart. That was when she sensed movement in the corner of the room. Drawing her attention away from her thoughts and the object that was in her hands, she turned to look.
She gasped with shock.
“A...A...Albert,” she stammered.
Her hand grabbed over her should, feeling the top of a huge slash across her back that looked like she had been cut in half and roughly pushed back together. The merciful Albert had given her that wound to incapacitate her and prevent further deaths to his Defensores and to leave her with a constant reminder of why she should give up her chase for the book. He naively thought that this close call would lead to a truce, to her giving up arms, so to speak. He had always liked to see good in people, but some people had no goodness to see. She hated his patronising views of the world, almost as much as she hated him.
“Good evening Muriel, cat got your tongue?” He let out a low, almost growling chuckle.
“I bet you weren’t expecting me to spoil your acquisition. How many years have you been searching for The Book Of Truth?”
“Almost fifty years” she said, spitting out the word fifty as if it was poisonous.
“So it must be” he said. “How time flies when you are having fun.”
Muriel scowled, letting a deep growl rip across her chest.
Albert continued.
“I am afraid the last time we met you made a promise to me to give up your search for it and to not trouble me again. I however, keep my promises and follow through with my threats”
Muriel was in a low crouch now, almost feline in her stance, a tigress about to pounce on her prey. Her lips were pulled back into a snarl, showing teeth that were perfect and sharp; they caught whatever light was in the dim room, showing her monstrous grin.
“You fool! I made a mistake the last time we met; you should have finished me off then. I was never going to give up this hunt and now that I have it I will be more powerful than you, director!” She said the last word with a callousness that had been burning inside her for too long.
She sprung, flying at least twenty feet into the air before pushing her arms out wildly, shooting from her palms a red beam, brighter than the sun, towards Albert. He reacted with a blue light emanating from his palms, catching the ball and rolling with it. Albert spun and let the ball shoot off back towards Muriel who dodged it, letting out a laugh and the whole room filled with thick black smoke.
When the smoke cleared, Albert was left standing alone, with nothing but a vault missing its door.
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