The History of Power

Chapter One
The Beginning

“Do you honestly expect to become a knight, with this small amount of skill that you’re showing me?” a man asked his twelve year old son. They were in an abandoned barn a few miles from their house, and the son was having trouble slicing through the center of the target with his katana. The son was wearing a torn traveling cloak and some light clothing, it was the middle of a boiling summer, and anything more would have been too much. “Now get up and try it again, Karis.”

The boy stood up and got the sword back into position. The katana was a little to large from him, and he was having difficulty holding it in position, even with both hands. “I’m trying father, but I don’t think I can do it ” he said, placing the large sword back on the ground.

“If you don’t practice you’ll never get better. I showed you how to do it,” he gestured to the target that he had split in half, “Now it’s your turn to show me that you have what it takes to enter the knights academy someday.”

“Alright, I’ll try one more time,” Karis said, then mumbled under his breath, “I can do it with my eyes open, what does it matter if I can't do it with them closed?” He lifted the sword again, and shut his eyes.

“Feel the movements of the air, sense where your opponent is by using their own movements against them,” Karis’ father said, and pulled a lever. The target began moving back and forth. Karis stood absolutely still, then, he felt a small movement, and struck. He opened his eyes, and saw the target split straight through the center. “Very good, now we’ll move onto something that’s a little less predictable.”

. . .

Meanwhile, several miles away in the tower of a dark sorcerer, a young girl went through a different form of training, “You worthless piece of garbage ” the sorcerer shouted, striking the eleven year old girl. The tower was dark and quiet, the sounds of the girl’s near silent sobs the only noise echoing through the large tower. “You are not even worth of your name girl  You can’t even do anything more complicated then the simplest of spells ”

The sorcerer was tall, nearly seven feet, and was far skinnier than the average man. He was bald and wore a sweeping cape with large expensive clothing. His right middle finger was decorated by a large ornate ring, with an ancient insignia inscribed on the gem. He lifted his cane and struck her again, this time hard enough to knock her down. The girl was wearing small simple robes, and her green eyes still sparkled, even with the large bruise on her cheek.

“I’m... sorry, Master Velci,” she sobbed.

“Mersicri was one of the most powerful sorceresses this world, or any other, had ever seen. You are not worth to be mentioned in the same sentence as her, nevermind share her name ” he grabbed Mersi by the top of her robes, and picked her up, “You are not worth wasting my time with.” He tossed her out the front door of the tower. “You are not to enter this tower again, until you’ve gained a power that earns my respect.” he said, and slammed the heavy wooden door, leaving Mersi to cry in the rain.

. . .

     2 Years Later

Karis was walking home from practicing in the forest. His father had crafted him his own Katana, which he bore on his back. It was winter, so he was wearing heavy clothes. He stopped for a moment, and saw an odd footprint on the ground. “I guess I can practice my tracking skills for a little while,” he muttered to himself. His father had taught him that the first, and most important, step of tracking, was figuring out what exactly it was that you were tracking.

The footprint wasn’t clawed, so it probably wasn’t one of the many predators that lived in the woods. “That’s too easy,” he said, “It’s just a boar.” That was when he noticed another pair of tracks. One was a set of heavy boot tracks, the other appeared to have been made by a large serpent. “Probably a Naga, and their companion.” Karis began following the tracks for a time. After a time, he got bored and sat down next to the tracks. The light snow that had been falling, had changed into a full blown blizzard, and Karis could barely see the tracks, or his hands.

“I should probably head home,” Karis said, and stood up. He was trying to figure out which direction his home was in, when he slipped. In the blizzard Karis couldn’t see just how close to the edge of the bluff he had wandered, and he fell off.

Just as Karis was thinking he was going to die, he heard a loud commanding voice echo over the cliff, “Puppet Strings ” Five beams of energy shot over the edge of the bluff and wrapped around Karis’ limbs and torso, and pulled him up. All Karis could see of his savior in the blizzard was a tall man in black armor walking back into the woods.
Karis quickly ran in the direction of his house. About an hour afterward he found his home, completely engulfed in flames.


. . .

Mersi was in a small town, and was curled up for warmth in front of an alley. People were passing back and forth in front of her, and she had long since learned that people tended to ignore what they didn’t want to see. That is, until a man stopped and said, “You poor girl.”

Mersi, who wasn’t used to people talking to her, raised her arms in front of her face in fear and said, “Please don’t hurt me! ”

The man shook his head and said, “You poor girl. Come one, you can come home with me and get a warm meal.” Mersi, somewhat mistrusting of the man, looked him over. He was dressed in a large heavy coat, and was wearing on his left ring finger, and a ring on his right ring finger. One was obviously a wedding ring, the other was an old one, that had the same design on it as Velci’s, only the color and symbol were different.

“A... alright,” Mersi replied, taking the man’s hand, and they began walking away, toward her new home.