The Stone-bearer

Prologue

Most people would find a ping pong ball sized gem lodged on their wrist to be one of the coolest and weirdest things one could imagine. But to the ancient clans of Hermitia, that thing was a sign of trouble for their entire world. You would think that a world of sorcerers would stand a chance against this so called danger but the Nemesis of the Stone was feared by all alike nevertheless. The wielder of the gem rose to the ranks of a hero right from birth; a Hero who would save their world from the dangers that were to rise. It was not every day that a hero was born with a gem that glowed when the danger that threatened their entire world was near. The last time it happened was about a million years ago. A great hero- Zovotac was just 27 when he defeated the mountain lord Chesmartez in an epic battle that was recorded in the historic texts of the Valtic Priests. The birth of this hero was always foreseeable- the heavens seemed to welcome the great arrival of both the hero and the inevitable looming dangers with an inexplicably loud crack of thunder and pouring rain. So it was not very surprising that the Mellocks were in for a frenzy when young Emily was about to give birth. And so a lot of horrified looks from everyone around welcomed a terribly confused Alley Mellock, who immediately let out her very first bawl.

Chapter 1

Now being the Stone-bearer you would think life would be a breeze; respected and honored by everyone around and whatnot; but I seriously beg to differ. Middle school crowd isn't exactly what you call the "revering kind"- yeah thats right!- even sorcerers have to go through an extremely lovely education system designed to model us into good little sorcerers and sorceresses or so they say. So far the only thing that school's done for me is make me wonder why in the name of Gods was I ever chosen for this gig.

"Oh her? Yeah she's the "Chosen One"; yeah right!- lucky if she gets picked first for dueling team!" Avoiding snickers and comments is an art that I have come to master through my years here at this place- The Hermitian School of Sorcery or you could call it HSS or as I call it my worst nightmare.

Woah! A school of magic- how interesting -but hold your horses. What is taught to students here are handpicked by the Bureau of Sorcerers to be the lamest stuff you could ever imagine. Any kind of violent spells or anything interesting were forbidden and could land you in a cell with fire breathing dragons. The only fun part of school were the dueling sessions; there too we could only stun and trick. Protection of homes from worter-bug infestation was the closest we got to any sort of action!

All the damage control and cool action stuff was limited to the Council of Elders. You'd be surprised at how intimidating a group of old dudes with years of training in sorcery could be. All the cool jobs were under the Council- be it monster hunting, Spellchemy, Magic control or Monster taming you had to be handpicked by the Council. But they really couldn't allow any sort of training in school. They had their hands full with minotaurs, giants, necromancers, rogue sorcerers and a whole bunch of other whatnots so a bunch of underage delinquents running around with enough magic to kill each other is the last thing that this world needed right now.

Just because some random guy conquered a ghastly mountain devil or something doesn't mean that a scrawny teen was ready for that level of a threat. At least not yet- Geez gimme a break! Well, thats what I thought. And let's just say the universe loves proving me wrong.

It seemed just like any other day at school. I had just gotten out of alchemy class when the gem began to glow. It didn't last long - Thank the Gods! Yet panic surged inside me and made a nasty feeling in my gut. Right now people were cool with the doom that threatened their world and all being practically years away in the future but trust me if they found out that it was soon to happen they would go mad- especially since their only chance of survival was in the hands of a mere 15 year old! Yeah I've got a funny little world of procrastinating sorcerers.