Project Update My Stories and Cover Final

[Allan]

[url=https://servimg.com/view/16171325/4][/ur]
I will be posting my stories for Magazine #1 in this topic and My artist is done with the Cover and I have done the image Once everything is done I will finish the layout template and once that is done Everything will be ready.

I am writing the majority of the Fiction on this magazine The Feature story will be about a royal house of The Angel and be about 30,000 words long and I will also publish a 10,000 word story which is the cover story about the Lion paladin I will also write several more this week and I am devoting sat 5th though the 9th exclusivly on the magazine I want this done but It really depends on me I'm sorry I am so unorginaized but this will only be until I am not so swamped with other things in this project + life stuff

best wishes Allan

[Allan]

A Paladin Betrayed
He was called a false prophet, a liar, and a deceiver; but most of all they had called him a betrayer of Eros, most of all they had taken his divine powers away from him forever. They had striped the Paladin’s armor of the Pathsoul royal guard and his rank as the queen’s protector was also taken from him without remorse or pity. Only his sword remained he now possessed only the great divine sword gryphon-heart and nothing more. He was the Lion of the Prophecy of Valkar he was the one destined to overthrow the human monarchy; the monarchy he once served: He was the White Lion.
When he was named the prophet by the Leoran tribe council he was shocked to discover that he alone had been chosen to lead the overthrow of the human government of Coryn; they were even more shocked as he presented himself before them that he was in fact the Queen’s champion leader of the paladins of the order of the Pathsoul. Bran Siliar tried to deny his involvement with the Leoran rebels but he knew that once the king found out about this destiny (which he swiftly did) He threw Bran out of the castle and gave him three days to outrun the guard hunt or he would be slaughtered. I was the sunfall of day two.
Bran remembered his last moments in the ivory city and the alabaster palace of Coryn. He had watched his former friends look at him in scorn judging him with calculating eyes as if he were some kind of animal. They al had abandoned him, all of them thought he was the rebel leader, and convicted him with their gazes which were sharper than any razor and hot as any fire; they all sentenced him to a crime he did not commit. All except one: Princess Sanéra.
Princess Sanéra pleaded with the Leoran Arch-Paladin, her lover, who had gained the title of the Queen’s Champion not my race creed or noble birth but by sheer determination and honorable duty itself. Bran had done so much for Salorí and now they were just throwing him out to die; “I don’t want you to become like Darin I don’t want you to die on some holy crusade like him; he was my husband and I lost him to the war against the Darkspawn and I don’t want loose you too.”
“The twelve elements are waging a war, twelve nations; twelve races are in brutal conflict Sanéra I must defend my kingdom even if it will not defend me, I loved Darin he was like a brother to me you know that. Now I will avenge him and avenge the massacre of my people at the hands of the Darkspawn I must do this not only for my people but for my honor; I must do this to clear my name or I will be a fugitive forever. “
Sanéra knew that the war against the spawn hoards of the element of shadow was brutal and that the forces the element of light and the holy armies of Coryn needed a leader now. The Princess knew that the monarchy would be hunting him down and that his ‘prophetic nature’ was only a rather convenient excuse for his political opponents to hunt him down like the animal he was. But there were still good people in the monarchy of Coryn and still people on his side, “You can’t leave it to chance Bran we can work this out there is still time for an appeal and…”
Bran cut her off with a silent hand, he valued her friendship and loyalty but a paladin of the Ivory Throne was still a Paladin. Honor meant everything to him and his order, and if he had to suffer to uphold that honor he was more than willing to be wrongfully disgraced it was their way. She looked at him with sorrowful eyes which almost shed tears at the sight of his stubbornness and his wounded pride, “I must do this alone Sanéra I value your help and whatever aid you can offer me; but that won’t change anything. Arch-mage Naradon has set me up; he will stop at nothing to see my fall and my plan includes letting him get the better of me…for now.”
“I love you as well Bran, I love you so much, but I can’t let Naradon use you and throw you away, he will kill you I’m certain. You have been a threat to him in the Darkspawn War and you have always been a threat to him; he heats Leorans and wants to see them all suffer. For the good of your own people and your own self I beg you to reconsider with this ‘plan’ of yours.”
“But I must!” Bran fired back holding the princesses weak body shaking in fear for her lover and said staining his mane with fiery oaths of revenge. “I must to this for my people I must bring to light that the Arch-mage has framed me it will be him who will lose his exalted place in the kingdom not I. Naradon has always tried to eradicate my kind from behind the throne like the coward he is. I will flee and do my best of my ability to escape the hunt and then I will appeal to the Sovereignty for aid perhaps they can bring some authority to the nation-state of Coryn.”
“The Sovereignty will not help us, even if they are superior to any lord or king in this entire region; the grand experiment that was the Sovereignty of nations has failed, we have not seen any aid from the parent state to help us defeat the Darkspwan. They are all corrupt there Xion is still wounded and bleeding from the Usurper conflict with Prince Hadrian and the super-nation as a whole is beset by minor wars all around the 10,000 nations. I fear you will not receive a warm welcome but I wish you luck, I love you Bran…”
“I love you to my love, we will be united again either in life or in death, goodbye my Princess and farewell; just know that if I don’t succeed in this I will not come back, or I will be dead.” Bran kissed the woman on the forehead and headed out of the ivory palace to revive his punishment for a crime he did not commit but to all who heard the rumors would commit. There was no justice left in the world, as he went on the balcony to present his dishonor to the nation he looked up at the sun at Eros himself and prayed that he would live long enough to see Sanéra one last time.
The paladin ran, he ran on foot through up though the icy foot hills of the mountains of Taran the snow was falling in that high elevation and the lion didn’t worry about his soft paw-like tracks in the snow mixed with the blood of the wound he had received from an incarnum rifle to the shoulder. The wound was bleeding badly but he did not stop.
He could have healed the gaping burn wound in his shoulder caused by the magical purple lightning bolt but the first thing they had done to them was strip him of is divine paladin magic and his very lifelink and connection to Eros. Oh how Bran would have loved to re-forge his lifelink with the god of the sun and light then he could eradicate the huntsmen in a single blast of divine energy and make them pay for the dishonor the possessed against the god they both served. But it was done and it was over, he would have to rekindle his magic once again and he swore he would; but that was for another day.
Yet as frustrating and agonizing as the incarnum wound had become he knew something like this was going to happen yet he went to magically castrated in essence and plain language willingly. He had went to be dishonored and disgraced of his own free will to be gentled by the arch mage who oh so hated him and the rest of Leoran kind. The lion had been stripped bare and striped of every connection to Eros he had ever known. Now he was being hunted by the same paladins he had helped train.
Bran felt like an animal racing away from a pack of wolves his breath was hot panting and greedily sucking in large gusts of cold mountain air, the snow storm was everywhere and he looked like an Senorian icetiger climbing up the face of the rocky and snow encrusted mountains. He knew that they would find him, he knew that he could not out run him but he also knew that they underestimated him, they thought because of his gentling and without his divine powers he would an easy opponent. But they were wrong, they had not seen the fury of a cornered Leoran and then they would truly think he was a beast.
In the distance the white lion could hear the faint rumbling of hooves ride haphazardly yet swiftly and full of dark purpose up the rocky snowy face of the mountain of Taran, they were getting closer too close. They rode in a full company Bran heard five well trained and well disciplined paladins of the order he once lead. They would not stop, they would never surrender, and they would never listen to reason; that foul Arch-mage Naradon had made quite sure of that. They thought he was a traitor and would fight to the death.
The horses came and the fallen paladin stood still in the blizzard on top of the snow caped mountain. They all circled him with their horses making sure he could not escape and they had surrounded and trapped like the animal they were fooled into believing he was. The five of them dismounted from their black steeds and their jet black armor was even more black in the hailstorm of the pure white blizzard all around them. They wore their visors down so Bran could not tell who they might be or who had volunteered to track their former leader down and slay him.
Bran knew he had to do something as they dismounted and drew magical divine blessed swords reserved for smiting demons and the infernal creatures of the world. Now he was like a lich or a vampire lord an evil creature that needed to be destroyed o ho w lost and deceived they were. They had on their Breastplates the sun symbol of Eros and he knew then that the sun god was against him. He was stripped of his powers and now he had no magic; even if he pleaded to the moment of his death Eros would still betray him.
Bran thought as they drew closer in the five man circle the blades of their swords forming an inverted cross against their black visors, that only Valkor the god of the Leorans would hear him now. Wait that was it! His divine paladin magic had been striped and his connection to Eros destroyed but that did not limit him from calling on another god, any god that was willing to hear his plea. It might work he may have some magical abilities if he prayed to the Leoran deity. Valkor lend me your strength.
Yes! The white furred lion thought to himself, he felt the charge of divine magic flowing through his body, he would only have one shot at this and he had better make it count. If this didn’t work and Valkor denied him he was as good as dead. But he felt it he felt the magic surging within him. It was incredible he felt like he had been blessed by all the arch-clerics in Coryn at once! There was no time the huntsman in front of him was about to stab him for a clean kill. And just at that moment re regained his magical powers.
The Leoran blasted the huntsman in front of him with a ball of green fire taken from mother earth and the ancestral pool of incarnum that flowed endlessly though his homeland of Sanora. The green ball of pure magical energy blasted the black knight in front of him with a tremendous power like he had never seen before killing the one it hit and scattering the others back to their black steeds. The blast was like the sonic boom of a airship going mach speed and then Bran knew that Valkor had heard his plea.
“But that is impossible Bran you were striped of your connection to Eros; you were dishonored and you betrayed the sun god you cannot perform magic!” the four of the paladins that were still left crowded uneasily around the former Arch-Paladin and one who could destroy them all easily with a single blow. He almost laughed but it became an intimidating snarl as he looked at the frightened knights who he had once known as children. He had trained them and knighted them himself, he once called them brothers and friends; but now he was a traitor and now he had no friends.
“I follow a different god now coward, and this is a god a vengeance and divine justice. You four whom I have know all of your lives from the time you were but children and squires will know the wrath of Valkar and in your dying breath you will see your god Eros betray you in death as he betrayed me. Now die!” The Leoran lunged at them with blinding speed growling a terrible roar of a battle cry and ready to destroy them all.
His fury was unmatched never before had Bran felt so much power and rage surge though him, he slew the huntsmen one by one with razor sharp claws tainted by green incarnum fire. He decimated each one of them as they tried to put up a defense and as they tried to use the power of Eros to protect them from death at the hands of the berserk beast. Soon though rage and carnal animal strength he had defeated them and he had finally know what it was like to be a true Leoran and in that moment he felt like he really was the White Lion of Prophecy.
His former friends defeated and dying the white lion of the prophecy of Valkar knew that Eros had abandoned him and that it was now time for him to be a different kind of Paladin a paladin for his people and his god, “Thank you Valkar.” And with the prayers of a new god, his people’s god, fresh on his lips the white lion faded into the snow and blizzard and headed to the lands of his own people.

[Allan]

The Shadow Returns Part 1
The Child of the troubles
The eight year old boy named Sword stood on the edge of the tower of the great tower of Ballora contemplating whether he should kill himself. The child who was no bigger than a man’s waist looked down at the ants of the commoners, doing their daily business that fueled the commerce and trade of the city of Xion, as if he were a god. As if he was not so small. The long raven haired, and almost bone white skinned, boy stood on the black marble stones on the edge of the great mage’s tower knowing that today he would die.
The black stone seemed like an infernal abyss that was ready to consume him and take him into endless blackness. There was no god, Duke Sword knew, he was taught that since he was very young this was a secret truth only held by the elite of the house of the wolf and the Sovereign Knights that policed the city and kept the people from rebelling. God was just propaganda for the weak minded rabble; there would be no one on the other side to great him; not even his mother.
He was taught to look down on the commoners by his father the Duke of the Stag just like he was doing now. He was taught that service and death to the Monarchy was the highest achievement a person could give for the empire. That death only came from the point of a sword and self-serving suicide was cowardly and only suitable for traitors to the empire. Duke Sword was taught since he was a little boy that fear was a weakness; his father made that abundantly clear. His purpose was written in stone: he would succeed as Lord Marshal, his destiny was already decided, and that was a destiny he could not live with.
He could not live with one single fact: he would be forever a ruler of house of the Stag, a father of the next generation of heirs and a strong duke until his father died and he could take the throne. He was forever bound to this one purpose: he was taught to be ambitious, to be bloodthirsty and that weakness was death; he was taught women were just playthings and to play with females even to listen to the women talk about what it was really like to be female was a sin. And that was what he truly wanted Sword, duke of the House of the Stag wanted nothing than to be Duchess the House of the Stag .
That was why he was on the ledge on the second highest tower of the city that day: he wanted to die because he could not bear the thought of being male one more day; he wanted freedom. He wanted freedom the pain and suffering caused by the life laid out for him as if he were a doll on a puppet string. He just wanted his mother back.
She had been so sweet and kind, so gentle and serene; so calm and noble. His mother was so unlike his father he was cruel, vindictive and beat him for crying or anything else really that he didn’t approve of. He missed his mother so much; every day without her seemed like an eternal torture. Sword wanted to be his mother, he wanted to have beautiful hair and makeup tainted eyes he knew that that was an impossible dream and when he grew up he would inevitably become as cruel and power hungry as his father, the only alternative was death.
But he would never have those things, he would be groomed to take the throne and be tainted by more of the his father’s lies and eventually he would go off to war and wage battles against nations and be forced to fight the Sovereignty’s enemies and do battle with its foes. And then he would become a Duke of the house of the Wolf he would create and eventually all of the life, that single feminine spark inside of him would be snuffed out before it could turn into a flame in his mind.
He didn’t care what his father wanted him to be, and would never be that person; he was an individual and he knew he could decide the course of his own life. It was just a feeling noting more, just a feeling of wrongness, a feeling that something deep inside of him yearned to be the opposite gender he could not explain the feeling but it was like a small flame still burning and growing more strong every passing day. But that was not what his father wanted for him, his father thought he was weak, that the kingdom he had created would crumble down with Sword as a leader.
The weak link in my grand design…
That was what his father called him, the weak link that broke the chain of his dynasty. “At least your grandchildren may be the strong son I never had.” That was what his father said to him regularly as if he was not good enough to be his son. As if his lack of musicality was somehow an embarrassment and a stain of his father’s flawless reputation as being a ‘strong man’ but that in Sword’s mind was only his weakness he wanted a little version of himself to nurture and mold into his own image. He would rather have his ‘ideal Duke’ or have him die before his son became an androgynous half-man. And Sword was more than willing to accommodate him.
He was about to jump and deep inside he knew his father was lying: God did exist and there was a place men’s souls went to when they died; he would do it only to see his mother once more. If only at one time in his life he could not be himself, then he would be free in death and his spirit would be unhindered by mortal form and he could be anything he wished to be.
“Long way to fall…” A voice from behind the eight year old called softly on the tower wall sounding like a half-mysterious half-concerned uncle or a one of his many tutors. In fact as the black haired black-tunic clad boy turned around he found that it was one of his tutors; it was Professor Garin his teacher in the magical arts. Although he was very young only 35 he still held a seat on the outer-council of mages and was extremely talented in the arcane arts.
“But it is a pleasant view don’t you think Sword?” Garin picked the boy off the ledge and placed him firmly on the ground, “There we go my young lad now we are on more solid ground, come your father had been waiting for you.” His tutor led him by the hand in the direction of the elevator in the center of the roof level of the great tower in Golden City of Xion. He didn’t seem to realize that Sword had intended to jump off, he only thought he was just being reckless at play, “What were you doing up there my lad?”
“Nothing, I was just looking down at all the people I guess. Professor, why does father teach me to look down on them?” Garin blonde haired face suddenly became a mixture of both sadness and anger at the eight-year-old’s dark statement that all to exemplified the extreme division between the commoners and the monarchy. The nation was almost at the point of anarchy, and almost at the point of both a revolution from within the upper kingdom and civil war from the lower kingdom. And still Duke Blade Ottoman still taught his son to be a virtual miniature dictator.
Garin looked down at the innocence of the boy, at the childhood that was slipping away just like the innocence of every child in the Sovereignty of nations. It was a strange feeling as he looked into the Dukes eyes as if everything around them was suddenly changing and Sword the Duke of the Sovereignty was the poster boy and the archetype for the childlike wonder and imagination and beauty that was slowly being destroyed right in front of his eyes. Garin ruffled the black hair on the boy’s head, “Don’t worry about that Sword we just need to get you home.”
Garin lifted the boy up onto his shoulders and started to walk down the busy market streets after they had exited the tower of the mages. The streets were dirty and unsafe graffiti and propaganda was plastered on every free space on every wall, tavern, and public building. There were children walking home from school coughing avoiding whenever they could the constant patrols of the Sovereign guard as if they were little more than devils. There was no hope in the children’s eyes only pain and suffering; maybe even for the Duke in waiting named Sword.
There were riots on nearly every street and terrorism and anarchist legions swiftly gaining more and more members and slowly turning the police and the Sovereign guard from the poorest ghettos and claiming whole sections of the city as their own. Gang wars were everywhere as the guard withdrew and started to protect the richer and more well-to-do areas the police were few and thin giving way to vigilantes and all powerful criminal lords alike
The Sovereignty was in chaos, many said that there was a shadow covering the entire world, a shadow that once was and a shadow that was returning to fester evil in the hearts of the race of mankind. There was a darkness creeping over all of the world as Garin looked out at the evil that had taken the hearts and lives of every child in Xion. The once golden city was now fool’s gold. Even walking the streets in the palace district of Xion was more than dangerous as gang warfare and skirmishes between the anarchists and the guard began to heat up into pure chaos.
Garin took Sword on his back to the Sovereign palace in the heart of Xion, they walked through the chaos of the streets and ventured forth onto the steps of pure gold that made up the palace structure. Garin was always scared of the gleaming and glaring statures of Sovereigns long past that towered above the palace steps perhaps as noble and righteous as they were in life, now they were only a representation of a forgotten era of prosperity and peace. Now there was only death, wars, plagues, and riots in the streets, and there was not even enough bread to feed even rich families children the rest stole what they could or they starved.
There was no money anymore, no freedom, and no hope. The Freedom and the glory of the once great nation was imploding all around it from within; there were countless wars, countless struggles all over the ten thousand self-ruling nation-states and the senators and the corrupt wallowed high above the common starving men who had to go to poor houses because the monarchy squeezes every last piece of gold like single drops of blood from the nearly dry turnip. Soon there would not even bee food enough to feed a single child in Xion; but the elites still ate very, very well getting fat off greed and corruption itself and stealing bread from hungry children’s mouths and dinner plates.
Yet the elites did not care, they only stole from the poor and lined the purses of the people who funded their campaigns when they were supposed to be helping the commoners they only helped themselves. There was no justice in the world and no hope for these coughing and meandering orphans who wandered the streets in search of a good patch of dry ground to sleep on and a apple or two to steal every week. And this was in the richest district of the once great mega-city.
But it was a gradual process this decline of the Republic the nobles taxed and taxed, took more and more gold and gave nothing in return but empty promises and lame excuses. Everyone in this city was lucky to have a loaf of stale bread for the table every other day and the elites sat happily in their palace eating to their hearts delight literally stealing from the mouths of innocent children and worst of all stealing their entire futures.
They counted their taxes happily stealing from the entire world, and at the same time they wrote more legislation to tax the people even more. They were like mafia men and criminals who had suddenly gained omnipotent powers. They used the taxpayers money to enriched themselves and to line the pockets of those who served them. They were criminals who stole as they pleased, they were not breaking the laws they wrote to laws. They were kidnapping the treasury of an entire nation and all in all the elite bent the word to their very will and bathed in their own greed and lust for power.
In the end they were the most evil men alive, both calming to be ‘fixing the problems of the world’ while doing the exact opposite for their own benefit. They cared noting of the common people only caring about their taxes and their votes. They were liars and deceivers all, power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts absolutely. And they were corrupt even before they gained power. They were the Elite and they ruled all, everyone else just held up their own golden thrones made of lies and deceit. How wrong they were how wrong they were about the commoners all throughout history it the lowest beggar and peasant caused the mighty kings to fall.
They ate and drank merrily feasting and drinking on as much food as common ‘peasants’ ate in an entire year, they were all fat and grotesque rich with delights and pleasures when the rest of the world had none for themselves. Corruption was here, prosperity was gone, and the values and nobility of the human race was all put spent. There was little hope for the 10,000 nation states and they would all implode one by one if something was not done to save them.
As Sword and Garin looked at the nobles eating and drinking counting tax money and creating new taxes themselves the wizard knew there was little hope for the people of the Sovereignty, the Republic would fall it would crumble from within. And as the wolves and vultures began to swoop in to destroy the nation both finically and militarily as the armies gathered and the threats mounted he knew that the Republic would fall and in a way has already fallen. The Sovereignty had fallen into an age of darkness a dark cloud has blanketed the world and everyone in it and the shadow has returned…

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