Dreams of the Quill

by Flak

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Murkwater, 40,000 A.R. A young man clad in tattered clothes wandered down a side alley. Wondering if the prophecy would be correct and whether Sapphirius would be at the broken down subway, he made his way to the station. The man’s name was Gem, and he was an expert thief and mercenary. The Murky Underground was another Mist hideaway for thieves and rogues, a place that not even Imperial soldiers went. The rest of the continents and several other worlds were controlled by the Imperium, an empire ruled by the Emperor Phalkon. Phalkon was the descendant of Bane, creator of the multiverse, and Namor, supreme god of Atlantis. He was a righteous leader and ruled his vast empire well. Gem didn’t believe in the Imperium, and didn’t trust its officers. As he approached the subway, he heard the usual din of bars and conspiracies being made. He approached the wall nearest the bar and saw, to his utter amazement, Lucas O. Fenix, one of his most esteemed spies, dealing with Capt. Lazarus of the Imperial Brigade and a pilot, whom he did not recognize. Approaching the table cautiously, the thief sat down near Fenix and asked in an undertone, " Who are these men? Why are you dealing with them?"

" Ah, cousin! Gentlemen, meet my cousin, Gem. I must go speak to him. He just got in from Esthin."

" Good day, Sir Gem. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Nathan Lazarus, and this is Edge Bishop, my pilot. Are you going to be staying at the inn here?" Gem answered no. Fenix then led Gem from the bar to the outside.

" From now on you stay hidden, fool, and as for your questions, I'll answer them some other time. I have business." And with this, he reentered the bar, completely ignoring the thief. Lowering his scarf, Gem smiled thinly. Whatever was happening to his friends, it was influenced by the new Chaos hordes. Then he remembered the pilot’s name. Edge! Was he possibly descended from… no, it was better not to rehearse the past of another world. For now he needed to find Sapphirius. What he didn’t know was that his doppleganger was ethereal, and had watched the recent scene from a wall, and now slid into the bar and out onto the terrace. He was like Gem in looks but just a bit taller. The few things he didn’t have that Gem had were the claw, the power dirks, and the at ease attitude. The shadow smelled the night air, and then left back for the inn. Gem, knowing by insight that this was Sapphirius, followed, not knowing that this is what the shadow wanted. Back inside, Fenix was talking with the Imperium soldiers.

" So you want me to see Phalkon?" he asked.

" Emperor Phalkon, and don’t forget, call him ‘your highness’, or he shall have your head, and throw you to the Hordes of Chaos," corrected the Captain.

" And why should I call him ‘your highness’?" asked Lucas. It was the wrong question. Lazarus lept across the table to Fenix with a large, oversized power sword in his hand.

" I’ll tell you why…" started he.

" Sir! I just found these!" the pilot, Bishop, had in his hand several small crystals.

" Gem must have dropped them!" Lazarus gritted his teeth and said to Fenix grimly, " Well, well, well, your cousin has something that interests me most. Tell me what these are, or I shall declare your ‘cousin’ an imposter and enemy of the Empire." Fenix hesitated, then bowed his head resignedly. At that crucial moment, Sapphirius entered, and everyone thought it was Gem, besides Fenix. Lazarus immediately withdrew his shining sword and greeted the doppleganger with warmth.

"Sir Gem, I presume. My friend found these on the ground. I wonder, what are they?"

" These?" asked Sapphirius, with triumph in his eyes. Inwardly he knew they were more than just crystals. However, he said calmly, " They are just some Estherian Ice Crystals I was going to sell here for some tender. I would like to have them back, please, Captain, sir."

" Edge, a light please," said Lazarus. The pilot handed over a laser pointer with which the captain inspected the crystals. " Wow!" he sighed in awe as the laser fell on the center of the largest crystal. Then the next, then the next, each crystal, gaping at each one.

" Am I free to go to the Emperor?" asked Fenix.

" Yes, go, go," said Lazarus distractedly. Fenix got up, paid the bartender, and left for the veranda he had left Gem on. But Gem was nowhere to be found. Lucas knew one thing: the appearance that had saved him was not Gem, Gem’s belongings were at stake, and if his insight served him at all, so was Gem. He left up the road towards the Murkwater town hall, a huge building where the lord of the region dwelt with a comitee of ambassadors.

Meanwhile, back at the subway, Bishop was looking at the crystals as well with great interest.

" Ya know, Sir, I used to be a jewler. But never before have I seen a set of crystals so clear, so smooth, so perfectly the same and even. These will get a lot of money." Sapphirius acknowledged with a warm smile.

" I’ve been thinking, it is late. You were planning to cash these in to get money to pay for a bed, yes? I suppose you don’t have any legal Mist currency if you are just in from Esthin? No, you don’t. You can’t stay here, and it is dangerous out on the streets of Murkwater at this time for you thieves and the like. The Imperial Brigade is out, hunting for rogues. No, better, Gem Fenix, if you are truly good Lucas’s cousin," said Lazarus in an undertone, " that you sell me the crystals. In return, you will get good money, and my friend here, Edge, will get you to a better inn safely. In the morning I would like to meet you here and talk."

" I–" started Sapphirius, afraid that his ruse wasn’t working.

" Let us arrange a price, shall we?" asked Lazarus. He had to get the crystals to the Emperor.

" No. I will not sell them to you. Give them back."

" Then I will comment on how strange these truly are. If you look carefully at each one, you will see each core is different, like here, you can see a golden bird in flight, or here, a burning flame, or a barren tree, or a plain, rising and falling under the pressure of an earthquake, no doubt. I might ask why you have these, or how you got them, Gem, but I won’t. I don’t want to buy them either. I will escort you to the Emperor. Then you will explain, and if you don’t, we shall take them by force and cast you to the Hordes of Chaos. Will you come? Or not?"

" I will not!" exclaimed Sapphirius, who hated the Imperium even more than Gem, possibly as much as the Chaos Hordes themselves hated the Imperium, and wanted nothing to do with Phalkon.

" Yes, you will."

" No! You can’t abduct a thief! The Hordes of Chaos are everywhere, and are protecting Lord Bolthar, lord of this joint, and his minions. Begone!"

" When he says come, you better come," said Bishop.

" No. I refuse." At this Lazarus, revealing his sword, lept towards Sapphirius and pinned him against the table. The sword went right through the doppleganger, but no blood was spilled. The shadow smiled, then slid through the table, and out the wall onto the side alley. He needed to finish off Fenix next. Lazarus was dazed.

" No way man!" he yelled, unbelieving.

" Could you please keep it down?" asked the bartender. Lazarus’s statement had been a very loud one indeed.

" He must have been able to turn ethereal at will," said Bishop.

" If he was ethereal, he couldn’t have held things. Find the crystals. He must have dropped them again!"

" Think real, sir. Gem isn’t able to turn ethereal. That wasn’t Gem."

" Ahhh, but now you’re thinking of thief Gem? Sly Lucas, hiding from us a criminal. Hehehe… well, you are skyrocketing today, right on the ball, Edge. But Gem could’ve warped out of the world as I stabbed him."

" Sir, he stood there with a grin for about a minute after you stabbed him. I saw him slowly slide into the table."

" True, true. But he looks like Gem. Gem doesn’t have a twin brother, does he?"

" He might have been a doppleganger!"

" We must get these to the Emperor. Edge, contact my troops. We will need an escort if we are to get to Phalkon tonight. The roads are dangerous, even for us. The Emperor is now at the secret fortress outside of the Lake of Leviathan, no? Yes, he is. Ah, my troop. Here you are. Get ready. We are moving on now to the Spire Fortress across the border."

As the troop readied themselves for the long trek, a yell came. A few bounty hunters started, a thief slipped into the shadows, and a strange procession strode calmly towards the door to the thief lord’s private quarters. Several bounty hunters with a strange array of guns and daggers escorted three soldiers, Imperial Brigade members, and one struggling Lucas Fenix. They threw down the barkeeper and trampled chairs, cooly destroying all in their path. Lazarus recognized the captives from his command, and ordered his men to stop the captors. As his men started to move, Lazarus felt every gun in the room point towards his men and himself.

" These men were trying to capture a fellow thief. We simply stopped them. Perhaps you would like to pay the ransom now?" asked a young assassin in the shadows. The man was of dark hair and darker even complexion, his skin black as jet, his eyes a gleaming yellow-gold, as of those of cats. In fact, if it weren’t for the bright eyes, no one would have seen him, they would have seen nought but shadows.

" Don’t believe them! They–" Lucas was cut off by a sharp slap to the mouth.

" Friends, friends-" started Lazarus defensively.

" That’s not so. Have you not heard? Chaos has declared war on the Empire. The only future of friends is…DESTRUCTION!" yelled one of the henchmen. Lazarus noticed the thieves and rogues around him loading their weapons. It looked grim. Just then, when all seemed lost, a thief strode in from the hq.

" New orders. We are abandonning now. Search the thief Lucas. He has what the boss wants as ransom. If not, search the captain. Once we have the ransom, these fools are to go back to the Empire’s secret base. Yes, Lazarus, I have your secret files. Pity, really… it is sooo over for the Empire…"

" You! I know you! Imposter! You got away once, but I’ll get you now! You aren’t Gem! And you won’t have the crystals! Tell me where Gem is, or I will have you put in political prison for life! It’s a privelege granted to captains. Hand’im over! Fenix too!" yelled Lazarus, leaping straight towards the speaker, Sapphirius. Having but one thing to shield himself form the onslaught, the doppleganger slid backwards through the assassin who had spoken earlier, flashed, became solid, and hurled the unfortunate man towards Lazarus’ sword.

" I am very sorry, but Gem is no longer with us…" cackled Sapphirius.

Being hot was so uncommon in Mist that people had long forgotten about such things as t-shirts. Almost everyone that had money had warm clothes. In Estheria, no one was ever even warm. Estheria was a land of cold beauty, of ice crystals and freezing winds.

It never snowed, but the ground was always covered in a thick blanket of rich snow. Estheria was the one-time only child of Koll, and by that, the only country on the continent. But that was far beyond recall. It had been accompanied by three other countries for over 50,000 years, and the fact that these countries were practically the opposite of Estheria was never even brought up. One country had huge swamps of boiling lava, another had eternal rainfall, and the other was an inhospitable mountainous region of desert. The lava country, when entered from the nearest Estherian city, was like entering a new world. The lava swamps were the hot Springs of Aura, and the country was known as Aura, though its real name was Arathoral. The rain country was known as Esthar, as it was an extention of Estheria. It was the only other country that the humans of Estheria inhabited. Esthar was the most hospitable of the three. It had been under water since the beginning of Terra. The other region was unnamed and uninhabited. Monsters lurked there unchallenged and invaded Estheria every so often. The army of the Imperium was strong, and repelled each sucsessvive attack. But it is of Estheria itself that we must visit, for at this moment, a renowned scientist named Joe Dresden was having a conversation with a particular Empress Kaeli. It is winter 40,000, and Estheria is frozen hard as ever. We join our subjects in a lab, underground in the capital city Esthin.

" Do you know why I am here?" asked Kaeli.

" No clue. Why, your highness? Why have you come?"

" The Chaos Hordes have declared war on us, Dresden. I need you to come up with a solution to the war. A way to win, to postpone, to end it. The Emperor himself has charged me to bring you the order."

" Normally His Highness sends a soldier, or that adopted son of his, Nathan Lazarus."

" OUR adopted son. Captain Lazarus," her eyes shone with pride.

" Of course. I will carry out the orders. I too strive for peace, though not many remember it. But while you are here, may I ask what is going on at the palace?"

" Our son is doing well. But our daughter Rydia, the pain. She keeps talking about this guy Gem. A thief. She adores him! And him a thief, and her a princess…It isn’t fit, I tell you. But what I don’t get is: Gem is banned from Mist, and is supposedly here in Esthin. Rydia says that he is in Mist."

" When Chaos declared war on us, Gem’s ban was lifted by his protection from Chaos. He left the day war was declared. I’m not saying that the thieves are against us, just taking advantage of the war," said Dresden quickly.

" What are you getting at?" asked Kaeli.

" I fixed up his gear before he left." Dresden flinched as Kaeli descended upon him.

" Not against us? You! They are with the enemy, and abhorr the Empire. The thieves are not with us in this! And yet," she mused, " This Gem… he is so mysterious… he may yet choose sides in the conflict."

" Mysterious indeed. I know what you mean… he has an air of the heroes of old, but to us, he is just a thief…"

" Just a thief!" Kaeli decided.

" As you say, your highness," said Dresden.

" But another affair of interest- this new thief is with Lord Bolthar. My spies say that he is exactly like Gem, to the eyes, and Gem’s eyes, well, you have had experience with the eye-scanner that blew up while detecting Gem? I myself have seen him, and I thought that he was Gem, but then he slid through a wall. Gem isn’t ethereal, is he? If you could look into that, I would appreciate it."

" You know my fees, your highness," answered Dresden.

" Also, as I boarded my transport to come here, my son left for a place I think you have heard of, the Misty Underground. He left with his pilot, some wannabe hero. He said something about meeting a thief named Lucas O. Fenix. Do you know him?"

" I can look into that too…"

" He said something about recruiting spies from enemy lines… What interests me is Lucas’s last name… Fenix. If you spell it normally, you get Phoenix, and you use the ‘F’ from his spelling on my husband, you get Falkon. Falkon is the oldest spelling of the second most holy bird. Falcon is the newest. Switch the first letters from these names and you get quite plainly, the two oldest lines of royalty… Falkon from Lord Julian Falco, a lord of people from the time of the Phoenix. Phoenix, nickname of the demi-human fox that guarded the Phoenix… And it might just be that with this gathering, the Phoenix may very likely rise once more…"

Kaeli, Empress of Mist, did not know about Gem’s origin, or her ’son’s’ true origin, but her prediction may very well become the balance between life and death, loyalty and betrayal, and two very different men: Emperor Lucas Phalkon, and thief Lucas Fenix…

Outside, in the icy whiteness, it started raining…

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Chapter Select Chapter One: The Thieves’ Outfit Chapter Two: Joint Forces Chapter Three: The Shatter of the Crystals

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