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Dragoon Kingdom, Ann's Intro Chapter
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I am Ann and right now I'm on vacation. Vacation from what? Vacation from being other people. Normally, in the 'when I'm not on vacation' sense, I live out billions of lives, each at the same time and on the same world as a dozen or more lives that I've already lived and when I die I simply return to my own body and add the memories of that life to a total life experience that is already older than the civilisations of man. Of course those times when I allow myself to stay in my original body in that quaint and fairly un-magical reality on the tiny blue orb that I laughingly refer to as the 'Enormous And Round Terran Homeworld', known more commonly by the acronym EARTH, are short because unlike these 'false' worlds I have enemies in my home reality who could conceivably end me beyond my capability to reincarnate.
So normally I will stay less than the time it takes for time to exist and create myself a new body, a single cell in a single uterus out in a world somewhere, and because of the way I view time somewhen too. I could reincarnate a thousand years before my previous birth or a millennia after my most recent death. Gender is usually random and species is usually selected to match the womb I chose to be born from, so a male Tyrannosaurus is not beyond the realms of possibility for my next life even. But usually I bind my memories so that each new life really is a new life, I learn things from scratch no matter my species, be it space engineering as a human boy in the year fifty-nine thousand and twenty nine or just the feeling of the wind in my branches as a genderless tree on the prehistoric plain.
What makes this life different to almost every other one I've lived thus far is that I am currently in possession of every memory I have ever experienced and all I'm really doing lying still and relaxing as my subconscious assimilates them all into a coherent catalogue of my past. My current body wasn't born like many others, I simply caused it to exist somewhere and inhabited it.
You may think hiding like I do from my real enemies is cowardly ... frankly you are right, my side have already lost the war, even if I am the 'legendary' four sphere oracle and the most accomplished mage on our side, the war has been finished for centuries and we lost, all that is left now is the winners picking off our leftovers.
What war? The ascension war, the war to decide whether the world moved toward magic or technology, the war to have the sleepers – those unaware of the truth of magic – believe in our own version of it only, thus making every other magic fail. You see magic is governed by belief, the more people worldwide believe in the possibility of a particular magic the easier it is to work that magic, but long ago – four hundred years in real world time perhaps – a new, young magic surfaced, it was a magic of artifice, of devices and repeatable methods. This magic made life easier for the peasants, something that the warring wizard-kings of the time never tried to do, and it was soon followed by massive support from the common populace. That was about the time that the practitioners of this magic got together and thought, why not make our magic the only magic? Why not be the ruling class of this world?
So they started a campaign, denying publicly that the old magics existed while showing off their latest miracles for healing sick cows and getting more wheat out of each field. The old magics, the shamans and the witches and the wizards and the summoners and the holy priests and even the might monks of the orient, realised that we needed to band together to force people to realise that our magics still existed, because with fewer people believing that our magic worked and more thinking it was just some trick to keep us in power suddenly the old spells stopped working, witches found that they could no longer brew a storm in their kettles, sorcerers' carpets began to fall from the air and priests could no longer call down the might of an archangel to smite heretics. By the time we realised we needed to work together against such a threat it was too late.
So alchemy became chemistry, and artifice became engineering, their magic became 'science' while ours became a myth. Only the mightiest of the old mages, we oracles and a few of the archmages, who can work their way past the disbelief and enforce our will on reality along with a few young mages, new awakened to the power and full of new ways of casting old spells that the masses aren't sure exist or not remain in the world outside the bastion of science – popular media aids us, biting it's master's hand, by firing the imagination of everyone who sees the latest action flick or off the wall comedy. Hong Kong action flicks make people wonder if a man really can dodge a bullet and time manipulations become a little easier, a romantic comedy features a scene making fun of the male lead with some 'aphrodisiacs' and making a love potion no longer requires you to bust a gut twiting reality into the right shape.
But we are still weak and it is much easier to face my enemies in these worlds, where every village has a black mage to fight off powerful monsters and a white mage the care for the sick and not one person thinks it's impossible or even disbelieves, when an overlord appears, apparently from nowhere, and demolishes towns with rains of fire. Out here, where everyone simply shrugs and thinks, oh, another new and strange magical power, I can still create life from nothing, live eating nothing but raw magic each day and bend time and space like a complicated four dimensional pretzel.
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My name is Gabriel. I know I just said I am Ann, that is absolutely true, but right now and in this body my name is Gabriel. I chose this body because I wanted something I low maintenance so I could just sit back and concentrate on organising all these centuries of memories. I rather think I chose well – I am currently a Tailring, a species of Felynn or humanoid cat demon, my fur is warm even during snow storms but can be flattened down to be cool even in the tropics, it really is perfect comfort-wise. Food-wise it isn't a problem either since it has a lot of the nature of a cat in it, needing only a little food to survive and being quite happy to eat a wide variety of things. I could have been any type of Felynn for those attributes of course, the common Nekomata or the elite Bastet, I really just liked the Beautiful green fur.
The problem is that I have chosen to be an eight- hundred year old Felynn, as a creature with a normal lifespan of several thousand years, I've managed to drop myself right in the middle of puberty. Being an all female race closely related to 'normal' humanoid demons Felynn usually mate with male demons or humans, but being demons and possessing wicked sharp claws they ... I suppose that should be 'we' ... like to indulge in blood play, so when a Felynn does mate with a demon it tends to be a rather S and M affair, while a Felynn mating with a human is commonly called rape and murder, a lot of men take in the physical shapeliness of the Felynn races and our exotic cat features such as the ears and tail and think they might like to dally with one of us one day, very few are foolish enough to try but those who survive it usually develop a taste for our wild style.
But to me that is just more of a problem, with memories of full lives from many species flooding my brain my hormones pick out every memory of sex they possibly can. Having lived as gay, straight and bi members of both genders of dozens of races fills one's head with memories of many past conquests and right now every tree or rock reminds me of something that has a chance of sending me off on a wild fantasy that usually culminates in having a male of some race, at least they're always humanoid (even the occasional demons), between my thighs and digging my claws into his back as I approach climax, licking small drops of blood from his chest left over by our foreplay.
It's been damn distracting but it's almost done. Once my memories have been dealt with I think I might seek out a house of negotiable affection with workers who might submit to this body's unique tastes. Or I may go seek out the ruler of this land in Bevelle, they say he is quite powerful and that his closest vassals are all much more powerful than ordinary humans, surely there must be one of them who would enjoy the chance to lay down with a Felynn, perhaps even a few who could survive the experience and be trained to perform on demand ... NO! I stomped on that thought, that was the hormones talking. I only need the itch scratched once and my mind should come back under my control properly, once I'm sated that should be all I need for a few years even, my self control is fairly strong and there are more important things to think about.
More important things, like this overlord. They say he is powerful and some describe his abilities as though he were a true mage, some of the things the people claim he can do are archmage level, only slightly less than the power of a single oracle. If the stories are true about how long it took him to go from normal person to his current power then he could even go beyond that and become the oracle for the five spheres complimenting mine.
There are ten spheres of magic – Life is one of my specialties, you should be able to guess what this type of magic does.
Prime – magic that works with the fundamental energies of magic, creating mana sources, destroying magic, and stoping things from existing are the simplest of its powers.
Correspondence – the magic of space, bending distance, teleportation and making two things exist in the same space are initiate, disciple and master level skills of this magic respectively.
Time – an oracle of this sphere isn't restricted to slowing time or simply moving back and forward in it, an oracle of time is capable of viewing time as having a left and right and an up and down as well and moving through those.
Spirit – the magic that allows one to travel to different planes of existence and meet the beings that dwell there, what really happens when a priest calls down a seraph or a wizard calls on a dragon ... at least on earth where there are no native dragons.
Forces – the magic governing light and sound and lightning and fire. As well as more scientific forces like electricity, kinetic energy and gravity. Even the most esoteric such as magnetism or the strong and weak nuclear forces.
Matter – the third magic of the physical world, every thing that isn't alive or a type of energy is controlled by a master of this sphere.
Mind – telepathic attacks and mind reading all the way upscale to completely severing the mind from the body and taking it out for a walk on it's own.
Entropy – the magic of fate and chance, order and decay. A volatile and unstable path at best.
Death – not simply the opposite of life but also that of matter and force as well, raising the dead and talking to ghosts, armies of zombies if that is your thing certainly, but also non-matter (not anti-matter but solids that seem to be pure shadow or liquids that are pure darkness) and dead energies too, ectoplasm and the reverberations of consumed souls through the nether realms.
Of these I am known as an oracle of life, time, correspondence and prime. I am soon approaching the level of oracle in the sphere of entropy as well. I know for a fact that the universe will not allow me to hold that much power alone, the instant I achieve that final power, absolute mastery over half of all reality, another will rise to master of the entire other half, the seat of five sphere oracle will be filled by another who will act as a balance against my will, preventing me from destroying reality in a fit of rage. With his rise so meteoric this young overlord could very well be the one.
If he is ... yes, if I can have the other half of true power as my ally then retaking the Earth from my enemies will no longer be such an impossible dream. I wont have to live as these lesser creatures in these backwater realities any more. Overlord Kelvis is my ticket out and he is headed to Besaid to cure that disease that is wiping out that virus that a group of saboteurs planted on the island to undermine his rule.
For an oracle of life eradicating a virus is child's play, even someone as inexperienced as an adept of life could pull it off. But I doubt Kelvis can control the sphere of life well enough to do more than heal wounds, all the reports say huge power and no control after all. If I gave him a no fuss solution to his disease problem he would almost have to agree to my request to join the long list of his vassals, then I can get to the business of getting him on my side. Maybe I can even find a 'partner' to deal with the demonic urges.
To Besaid then.
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A/N: well here she is – Ann. ... not much more to say really. Like her? Daughter of ether signs off now :P Kel Note: These are some of the rankings and class names of different magical user, it was constructed by Daughter of Ether. If I were to rate Kel on this scale I'd say he's a Novice even with his bracelets. Although yes he can use some high forms of magic he doesn't really know how to conjure them himself his bracers do all of that for him. The most work Kel ever does when comes to magic is think it and aim it. Everything else is done by the bracers. Novice - the lowest possible knowledge of a sphere that can still be called magical, novice magic is typically the ability to sense someone using that type of magic or to sense the world in terms of that sphere. a novice of time for example will always know exactly what the real time is no matter how many time distortions are performed on her surroundings, a novice of corespondance would be capable of completely knowing her surroundings as exactly as any hyuuga (although not the people and object within those surroundings unless she also had novice level in life and matter) Initiate - a 'real' mage, here the mage begins to exsert real control over the sphere, even if it's only a little. an initiate of entropy could select the outcome of a simple random event (say a coin toss or dice roll, it gets harder the more possible results there are though and an initiate is typically not strong enough to influence anything with more than ten possible outcomes) or slightly shift someone's fated destiny, either for better or worse, but not by much (say changing the fate that one will die at twenty to the fate that one will ... prick her finger on spinning wheel and sleep for one hundred years until prince charming turns up). Disciple - the 'average' level for a new mage since all the masters and archmages were lost in the war, typically where mages start combining spheres together for complex effects, with the aid or prime the mage can now conver raw magical energy into their sphere of choice, summoning weapons from nothing is a standard for any mage who is a disciple of matter and an initiate of prime, a disciple of forces can take an existing force (only a simple one, not extremely potent ones yet like lightning or gravity) and convert it to another or change it's direction, the friction curse for example - where one takes all of the enemy's speed and turns it into heat, completely stopping the enemy's movement and engulfing them in flames, the faster the enemy was to start with the hotter the flames that result. Adept - the mage powers of legend, teleportation from corespondance adepts, time travel from adepts of time, toying with the fates of star crossed lovers and demolishing factories when a spanner drops into the wrong cogs from adepts of entropy Master - the absolutely godlike powers of yore, calling up angels and demons with the sphere of spirit, immortality through the life sphere, eternal undeath through the sphere of death, creation of magical wellsprings(haha 'savepionts' may be more appropriate for an ff universe) and permanently enchanted aretefacts through prime. Archmage - every possible imaginable power under the sphere of which you are an archmage. not just the normal 'every power you can imagine' but litterally anything that a human can think of and possibly understand with the limits of the human mind within the bounds of the sphere can be accomplished with enough efffort if you are this enlightened. Oracle - thing that are litterally beyond human comprehension, an oracle of corespondance moves in fifteen spatial dimensions, an oracle of time treats time not like a river in which one can go upstream and down but as a massive orb within which any direction of travel is possible, an oracle of life is beyond mere immortality or the creation of hommunculi, or any other power you might think of and an oracle of prime can change the fundamental narute of magic at a whim ... even if only for a short time
