The War Must Go On ~ Book 1: Gemaris Island

First, A Prologue

Book 1: Gemaris Island

First, A Prologue

There were once twelve islands that sat in the ocean in a sort of zig-zag shape. They were close enough to each other that a sea-gazer could see the adjacent islands dangling above the horizon in the distance. However, they were far enough away from each other that it would take a few days to travel from island to island by ship. Furthermore, there were gigantic, merciless sea monsters in the depths of the sea, so traveling was extremely dangerous. Unless, of course, the people of the Twelve Islands could find a different way to travel.

One option was to figure out a way to fly from island to island. After all, the skies seemed peaceful and safe, especially when you only saw them from the ground. But the citizens of the Twelve Islands found no easy, cheap, or practical way to transport people to other islands through flight. Even though there were wizards and sorcerers and magic elves on many different islands, not one person could discover a safe way to fly with control.

So the other option was to travel underground. In other words, dig all the way past the ocean floor and forge tunnels connecting to every island. This was even more impossible than flying over the vast ocean, because it would require years and years of digging. So the only other option was to go through the ocean, which required either avoiding or destroying the sea monsters. But there was no way that was going to happen, for the sea monsters had magic too, and it was more powerful than the magic of any wizard or sorcerer.

Finally, a lonely wizard named Amien who was actually quite lazy, accidentally discovered a brilliant way to travel when he mixed a few specific ingredients together while experimenting. He had just finished dumping some animal parts, magic plants, and liquid cloud formula into his cauldron. Then Amien accidentally dropped one of his tiny, unique obsidian earrings into the milky, sky blue liquid and he instinctively reached his hand in after it. Every sane wizard knows not to emerge anything you care about into an unknown potion, but Amien's instinct obviously cared more about his earring than his arm. And in this moment, Amien happened to listen to his instinct before his reason.

The wizard felt his fingers wrap around the tiny earring in the cold, murky fluid, but what he then saw sticking out of the liquid frightened him greatly.

Amien saw his own fist, which had emerged from the liquid next to the rest of his arm. But he hadn't stuck his arm back out. It was as if his fist was no longer connected to his arm.

The magician screamed and jumped back in fright, which caused his fist to retract as he pulled his arm out of the cauldron. Amien was relieved to see that his fist was still connected to his arm, and it was also completely dry.

After pacing back and forth for forty-five minutes, puzzled and frightened, the wizard suddenly had a brilliant idea. He poured some of the concoction into a smaller cauldron and placed that cauldron in a different room in his house. Then, Amien grabbed an ink pen and dropped it into the small cauldron. But to his disappointment, the pen disappeared into the liquid for only a second before bouncing back out of Amien's small cauldron again and into his hand. Amien gasped in disbelief. He thought for sure that the pen would come out of the large cauldron in the other room. Irritated, Amien dropped the pen into the pot again. And again. And again. It still kept bouncing back into his hand. Finally, in a fit of rage, Amien slammed the pen into the cauldron with all his might, groaning loudly in frustration.

But the pen did not pop back out of the cauldron.

Amien rushed back to the room with the large cauldron and saw on the wooden floor next to it, his dark blue ink pen.

"It worked!" Amien shouted aloud to no one.

Amien realized that the pen had kept bouncing back up out of the liquid because when it had come out of the other cauldron, it had gone from falling down to falling up. But nothing can fall up, so the pen just fell back down again into the liquid and then back up in Amien's hand. This would be due to something called "gravity," but Amien was no scientist and forgot to account for gravity. Amien tested his theory by dropping the pen into the cauldron once more and watching the pen bounce in and out of both cauldrons. He laughed until tears came out his midnight blue eyes. Midnight blue was his favorite color.