10 Minute Tales

Jul 10 - War of the Six Realms

"It's funny, you know." the mage muttered, glancing through one of the many tomes he had gotten out. "There's a massive war raging throughout the entire world, and humans don't have a clue about it."

"Wait, really?" the student asked, his attention returning to the mage. He had let his gaze wander, absorbing the hundreds of books and tomes that dotted the shelves on the walls. "A war?"

"Yep, the various elements all want to be the top dog."

"Elements? You mean Earth, Air, Fire...?"

"Pah! There's plenty more than four, sonny boy. I get to about eighteen."

"Eighteen?!" the student stammered, stunned. There were so many different branches of magic? How did people get to study so many at once? "S-so what, they're in a war?"

"Yup. The forces of nature aren't stupid, though, they realise they'd need help. Some of them buddy up with other elements."

"Okay, like our kingdoms allying with others?"

"Pretty much - in fact, that's why we call them the Elemental Kingdoms. There's six to worry about as far as we're concerned."

"Well, what are they?"

"Patience, lad, I'm getting to 'em." the mage huffed, scratching his beard. "First, you need to know what'll happen if they get out of balance in the broad spectrum of things."

"..." he waited quietly, having learnt his lesson.

"Right, you're listening. Good. Well, I'm sure you can guess that an element getting out of hand in the grand scheme would probably end this world as we know it, probably warp this world and push it into the offending elemental plane."

"Right... so, what can we do to help the balance out?"

"Use magic, obviously. The elements respond to our wills, but only so far. If we want to truly keep them balanced, we need to learn how to balance them all."

"So, um, you mentioned the six kingdoms?"

"Right, right. Sheesh, so impatient... okay, listen up. The first realm is Sha, concerning itself with the elements of contagion, shadow and death. Their plane is one massive bog, with horrific creatures designed to kill you not through strength, but through illness and time. You find yourself in Sha, you find yourself dead not in seconds, but in months. It ain't pleasant."

"I can imagine..." the student shuddered, nodding in understanding. "Which is the second?"

"We're running out of time already, I won't be able to teach you many more. Well, second up is Vol, the elemental plane of mountains, inferno and war."

"War?"

"Yeah, I'm talking about dragons, wyverns, raptors, so on. Creatures of war, the ones capable of bringing cities down alone, ones you'd need heroes to take down."

"And that's... that's an elemental plane of its own?"

"Yup. Another one you don't want to find yourself in. It's nothing but volcanoes, sulphur and death. Still don't recommend going there."

"R-right... one more?"

"Well, fine, I guess we can talk about Sto. It's the elemental plane of rivers, wind and lightning. Nothing but a massive flood, rolling seas and titanic storms."

"Rivers? What, water? I thought it was associated with life?"

"Yeah, you're not wrong there, but that's only in small amounts. You can drink a cup of water, you can't drink the ocean."

"P-point." The student nodded, trying to focus on remembering these three planes. Had he only learnt of half of them? They seemed simple enough, but he knew there would be so much more to learn of even these three. He sighed quietly. This was going to be tougher than he had expected.