Cursed By Moon | Vol 1

0 | Prologue

A thousand Elven students of the Saldori Institute knelt before the marble statue of the Patron Goddess Harmonia, quietly reciting the Rites of Order whilst her tilted halo orbited her. Harmonia's wings framed her the draping of her gown whilst she carried the burden of a sword in her right hand and a tablet in the other. She appeared equally uninterested in both, looking towards the sky, permanently transfixed on something beyond their understanding. Their voices intertwined and trembled upon the air, amplifying against one another as the sound echoed against the high ceiling.

Somewhere It had been stated that the guidance of the Goddess could be heard within the haunting melody of the Rites, but Roan couldn't remember a time when he'd ever been touched with her grace, nor had he felt the effects of her protection. No doubt his peers were seeking her guidance but they'd only be concerned about themselves and the goings on in the Three Towers, little thought would be wasted on what had been lost to the entirety of Varian.

The Rebellion's seizure of power was fresh but they had done very little to plug the vacuum of power that they had unintentionally ushered in. To his knowledge, things in the Second Tower, the city of Ylale, ran as they usually did except now they were constantly patrolled by Amalgam forces whose presence was felt at every gathering where there were more than five Elves in attendance.

Absolutely nothing was off limits.

They'd been stuck in the limbo of Marshall Law as soon as the fires were out and the bodies were removed from the streets. The white stone of their floating city never did look quite the same again and there were concerns that the plant life may have developed a taste for blood after drowning in a river's worth of it.

Roan stared into the empty eyes of the statue, unblinking, a perfect reflection of the goddesses' stone-like expression. He'd made up his mind a long time ago, when hed been scrounging around the slums for scraps, but recent events renewed his resolve. He'd never pray to her, not when chaos stalked around his every corner and she remained idle.

The three primordial forces that the Elven people of Varian have pledged themselves to were the cornerstone of their advanced society. Years of studying the algorithm of the universe had given them access to these energies and the ways in which they express themselves.

The Factions of Time, Space and Mind, the energies and the miracles that they perform, were not Magic, for magic was the true embodiment of Chaos, and they'd left those abilities behind in the old world that saw ruin from the same thing. The vow their fleeing ancestors had taken persisted but they failed to foresee the consequences of their actions, priding themselves on their long lasting lives and their even longer memories. However, even with their shorter life spans, the Amalgam proved on the first day of rebellion that their collective memory was a tool that was far greater.

These had been their lands but generations of being pushed out and neglect had dwindled their numbers and hindered them as a people.

The illusion of harmony was brought on by the invention of the Varabox, born from the study of Resonance, leading to the creation of the Three Towers known as Xian, Ylale and Zidane. It allowed their cities to float above the treacherous jungle environment of Eden, offering protection from the megafauna known as Makhar; a word translated from the old tongue meaning man-eater. Beyond the Three Towers, the Mothership, her squad of aircraft carriers, and the network of underground Colonies, existed the seemingly endless expanse of the Outerplanes.

The Angel Kin lived to the west surrounded by the impenetrable mountain range of Eden's Landing. Contact was limited between their nations due to their varying attitudes towards the use of magic, nevertheless, they remained amicable as both sides understood a war would end in mutual destruction.

Roan's ears caught the approaching disturbance before his eyes spotted the Drake, a small wingless kind of Dragon with four clawed paws and a long tail, run through the crowd until the Valsari, dark assassins, forged from shadows and the corpses of the dead, cornered the Drake at the feet of Harmonia's statue.

It snapped at the reanimated monsters as the Amalgam officers hiding in the wings of the wide arching room moved to assist in the extermination, blocking off all potential exits whilst using their sonic blasting weapons to further disorientate the dragon.

The students covered their sensitive ears to block out the recoil of their weapons.

Perhaps he should have felt more disturbed with how the erasure of the dragon was prioritised over protecting civilians from harm but it was to be expected. Violence, as he knew it, was a sentient behaviour and not a cultural reaction.

And for better or worse, conflict had a way of uniting a nation against a common enemy.

A Valsari warrior burst into a cloud of evaporating smoke, reappearing some seconds later in the sky, falling gracefully like an avenging angel as loose wrappings and bandages flailed behind, plunging a dark blade into the skull of the Drake.

Roan flinched at the cracking of the skull once it connected with the ground, jaw muscles flexing as he grinded his teeth. The blood of the creature clung to the weapon as the shadow warrior pulled it free, adding a fresh coat of black. Roan shuddered at the bits of brain matter that the sword pulled when being dragged out, a diamond tear rolling down his cheek as he trembled violently.

Roan gaze returned to the statue after another was taken, the fourteenth, feeling it again like a stab into exposed flesh.

The Valsari disappeared just as quickly as they arrived, leaving the Amalgam to haphazardly cover the body with a scrap of tarp that was used during the reconstruction of the destroyed bell tower. The black cover did not hide the foot of the person as it turned from Drake to Elf, so Roan saw the red scales turn into dark skin and a paw twist into a hand.

They were reaching out but helping was not something Roan was capable of, not when the price for his own safety was so steep. He supposed that made him just as much a hypocrite, like the goddess, frozen with blood at his feet.

Varian's hidden truth lay with the fourth faction, not entirely Elf or Amalgam but both.

The Elves had purged this world of chaos for some time, and as such they were rewarded tenfold with shifting entities who embodied the greatest symbol of magic across the Nine Realms, with sons and daughters who could and often did go mad with the power of a dragon.

Chaos Walkers they were once called.

Draven they are now.