Presenting: My latest work, my MTG fanfiction. Starring Jace Beleren. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. I did as much research as possible to make it as close to the real thing as I could.
Prologue
The City of Ravnica spans across the whole planet, a bustling metropolis with ten Guilds that each provides a necessary function in Ravnican society. The Guilds are as follows: the Azorius Senate, the lawmakers and judges as well as enforcers of the laws; the Boros Legion, currently led by the angel Aurelia, the Boros are the main military might of Ravnica and occasionally enforce their own militaristic judgement; the House Dimir, working in the shadows, there numbers consist of spies, rogues and other horrors, they do whatever they get paid for, gathering information until the time to strike is right; the Izzet League, brilliant, eccentric inventors with who put maybe just a little too much passion into their work, sometimes laying waste to entire city blocks; the Golgari Swarm, festering in the sewers, the Golgari revere the natural cycles of life and death, and use it to their advantage whilst dealing with Ravnica's dead ; the Gruul Clans, known by the rest of Ravnica as savages living in the untamed wilderness of Ravnica, they have been since divided but the largest clan is led by Borborygmos the Cyclops; the Orzhov Syndicate, who spread corruption and demand heavy payments, provide services and loans but always with strings attached, and death may not always be a sure way to remove your debt; the Cult of Rakdos, who riot all across Ravnica, spreading depravity and mayhem but also provide cheap labour, entertainment and minerals; the Selesnya Conclave, a vast interconnected community always looking for new members, believing the strength of the whole is greater than the individual, also protecting all life; and the Simic Combine, providing most of the medical functions throughout Ravnica, mostly regenerating or even improving lost limbs and protecting the marine life. Like cogs in a machine, each Guild contributes and stabilises society, without one, the balance is lost. But now, the leader of the Izzet, Niv-Mizzet the dracogenius, after his self-imposed exile, has discovered a maze that runs through all of the ten Guilds guildgates and at its source lies a power so great it will provide a means to rule over all Guilds. He proposes a challenge: each guild will send one champion to run the maze (while being slowed by the other Guild's attempts). The Planeswalker Jace Beleren, a mage who can travel across dimensions known as a Planeswalker, has heard of this and is suspicious of the power source and is trying to find a way to it first to see if it is safeā¦
Chapter 1
Jace Beleren looked at the magical representation of the Implicit Maze in front of him. The glowing blue lines that wove through all of Ravnica made sense but he knew that it could not be the route to take; he knew there were Maze Behemoths, large insect-like monsters that killed anything they touched, around halfway. Jace had started working in the Izzet guild because no other guild had technology sophisticated enough to help in his research. Also since the absence of Niv-Mizzet, Ral Zarek had owed Jace a favour and managed to get Jace his own tower to work in.
"Menthon, please reconfigure the scanner and inform me when it has finished calculating another route." said Jace to the wizened-looking Vedalken behind him.
"Yes, master Beleren." Replied Menthon in a bored tone, and he began tapping and twisting buttons and knobs on the table as Jace left the room.
Nice man, that Menthon. Even so, it's a pity that all Vedalken are like that. Even in the Izzet, they are still dull.
Menthon was a rare Vedalken; he had associated himself with the Izzet League. Though not technically a magewright, he was still shunned by the rest of his race who knew of him, though he didn't mind, he personally found working with the Izzet mages inspirational at times, but strenuous every other time. Granted, their experiments often laid waste to entire city blocks but the city of Ravnica spanned across the whole planet, and they pushed the very boundaries of magic, discovered amazing new concepts and Menthon wanted to be there to discover his own amazing discovery. What it was, he wasn't sure of but he knew that he wanted to. He knew his work with Jace Beleren on the Implicit Maze would make him well renowned Maybe something of his father still lingered in him, he thought. His father was an artificer of renown and often would try to take apart any mechanical device he found and see how it worked, until he opened a bronze bombshell and it exploded. A shatter of glass wrested him from his thoughts, and he followed the sound to investigate.
"Hello? Anyone there? Master Beleren, is that you?" called Menthon down the stairwell
His question was answered with another resounding crash from downstairs. As Menthon descended the twisting staircase to the lower chamber, he wondered whether another rival Izzet mage had loosed some imps into his sleeping chamber again. As Menthon rounded the final corner, there was a flash of black and then, another window breaking and finally, nothing.
Jace had left the building and was already out of earshot when the first window pane shattered. He was already on his way through the Izzet guildgate which led into Ravnica's tenth district, the largest in the city. Feeling infuriated by his lack of success, he took a stroll down Memory lane, a small side street that was rumoured to be home to many Dimir agents. As he walked down, a small grin came to his face; coincidental that the Memory Adept should be walking down memory lane when he can't remember something.
"No, I haven't forgotten, I'm just not looking in the right place." said Jace to himself, remembering his master's cryptic words of wisdom. As he turned out of Memory lane, he passed a group of unsavoury-looking goblins talking amongst themselves. This was the spot, thought Jace to himself; this was the first spot where I found the slabs of stone that told me of the Maze's existence. Maybe I should get another permit to excavate the area for more information. Bah, a stupid notion, the Azorius would ever let anyone actually do something. Jace was beginning to let his mind wander, and it wandered into the ever open minds of the goblins he walked past. What he heard was enough to make his blood run cold: "Lyzolda has agreed to the plan, we release the ragemutts into the tower soon, where that Izzet Vedalken is at. Hehehehe! This is going to be glorious! If only Lord Rakdos were here! I'm sure he would love to see an all-out guild war."
No, they wouldn't, Rakdos ragemutts? They must be out of- oh, right Rakdos. Jace, as calmly as he could muster, turned and walked back to the guildgate until he was out of the goblin's sight, then ran as fast as he could. As he got close to the tower, he looked up at the windows; two of them were smashed in.
Oh no, am I too late? Menthon, I hope you are still alive in there! Jace ran through the doorways and halls as fast as he could, without accidently knocking over some dangerous experiment in the process. Jace knew he was ignoring the first rule of Nivix: never run, lest you spill self-replicating congealment acid on yourself, but he didn't care right now. If the Rakdos were going to release ragemutts into his laboratory, he would certainly lose all his information regarding the Implicit Maze and would never find its true secret. Jace wasn't about to let that happen.
