“You are in no position to stop me, healer,” the revenant says. “I am not like your friend, who did not know how to control her powers. I only have to freeze time for a few hours, and from your point of view, it will be as if I’d teleported out of the city. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my master is waiting for me.”
She then starts walking slowly away from us again, without even bothering to look back, as if she doesn’t even consider us to be a threat. Daren’s hands are trembling as he looks towards the revenant, and he appears frozen in place. Even if he knows that it isn’t Rose, it must still be hard for him to bring himself to attack her.
“Oh, one more thing before I go,” the revenant says, as she stops and turns her head towards us. This time, the empty look in her eyes is replaced with one of regret. “Take care of the kids for me, will you? I don’t think that I’ll be coming back to that house anytime soon…”
“Stop!” Daren shouts.
He then rushes towards the revenant and tries to slash her with his sword, but she disappears without a trace before he could land a hit, and the only thing that his blade gets to cut is empty air.
As we all stand there in silence, a loud booming noise suddenly starts to echo all throughout the city. The sky above us then quickly gets filled with very large holographic screens, as people are slowly starting to open their windows in order to get a good look, even if they seem to be too scared to come anywhere near us.
It appears that all of the screens are displaying the same thing, which is to say a gnome with messy hair, wearing protection goggles and an oil-stained lab coat, who is currently fiddling with some wires in some kind of a workshop, while he’s humming a joyful tune. After a few more seconds of humming, the gnome suddenly looks towards us, takes off his goggles, and he glues his face to the screen.
“How peculiar,” the gnome says, as he backs away from the screen. “How very peculiar! I could swear that I’ve already connected these wires a million times before, but I’ve never seen the red light turn green until now! Well, no matter! Can everyone hear me?”
There is a pause in which we can hear a low murmur coming from the people watching the screens from their windows.
“Wait, what am I saying?” the gnome says. “This is a one way transmitter. Even if you answer me, I won’t be able to hear you. Okay, here’s what I’ll do. I’m gonna go ahead and read you this little speech I’ve got written here on my parchment, and if nobody can actually hear me, I’ll just read it again some other time. Now, where did I put that blasted parchment?”
The gnome disappears under the screen for about ten seconds, during which the murmur in the market place intensifies.
“Well, I could swear I had it around here, somewhere!” the gnome says, as he comes back from under the screen. “No matter, I’ll just improvise, then!”
The gnome clears his throat before he continues.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the gnome says. “Or should I just be saying gentlemen in this case? Since there aren’t any women mages? Gentlemen and gentlemen! Welcome, to the Magium tournament! I am Golmyck, the king of Thilias, and I have a public announcement to make. First of all, I would like to begin with an apology to all of the mages that have joined this tournament. When you first arrived on the continent, you were all told that you’d be receiving your objectives privately, but unfortunately, the device that was supposed to be relaying these messages to you broke shortly after your arrival. I have been trying to fix it ever since, but given that a whole week has already passed, I decided to use this old transmitter as a temporary solution, until I manage to get the original device to work properly. Normally, this transmission should be reaching all of the cities of Varathia and even some areas in the wilderness, but since I can’t guarantee that every single mage on the continent will be seeing this, I would like to ask you all to pass this information to your fellow participants who missed the announcement!”
The gnome clears his throat again.
“And now that the introductions are out of the way,” Golmyck says, “I believe it is finally time to give you all what you’ve been waiting for.”
The gnome grins.
“Your first objectives!” he says.
--- End of first book ---
PLEASE READ THE NEXT PAGE FOR INFO ABOUT THE SECOND BOOK.
Afterword
Thank you for reading.
The second book of the series is not yet finished at this time, (26 July 2017) but I’ve written the first six chapters of it, and they can be accessed in advance, in the interactive fiction version of this series.
Magium was first conceived as a digital Choose Your Own Adventure type book, in which you can take decisions for the protagonist, and change what happens in some of the scenes, as well as upgrade the stats from your stat device however you see fit. An example of such a change is the fact that you can prevent the death of Rose in the interactive book, if you have the right stats.
The interactive novel version of the series can be read for free (with advertising) from your mobile device, and it is available on Google Play and on the iOS App Store under the name of “Magium- Text adventure(CYOA)”. Once you reach the end of the first book in the text adventure, you can either proceed to the second book by paying 3 dollars (+VAT, if applicable), or you can unlock it for free by re-reading the book and exploring certain different paths.
Keep in mind, however, that the formatting in the text adventure will be a bit different than the one in this book. Given that the mobile version is more of a game than an actual book, I’ve taken a few more liberties with my writing style, such as using ALL CAPS and additional question marks/exclamation marks to represent shouting, having some of the characters who don’t always speak properly (including Barry, who is the narrator) use the expression “You and me” instead of “You and I”, and switching between past tense and present tense more often in the narration. The paragraph formatting is also different, as there will be empty lines between paragraphs, and no indentation at the first line of a paragraph. One other thing to note is that the interactive book does not have the option to change the font type and size, or to turn back pages.
If you would rather wait for the second book to be finished in regular book form, then the book will probably become available in the first half of 2018. It will most likely cost around 3.5 dollars (+VAT if applicable) for the e-book version and around 14 (+VAT if applicable) dollars for the paperback version. The e-book version will however also be available for free on Amazon for Kindle Unlimited.
Below, you can find the link to the subreddit for Magium (which is practically the official forum, where fans discuss about the story), the links to my social media, the link for the Magium text adventure, on Google Play and on iOS, and the mail address where you can contact me.
Oh, and if you liked the story, please don’t forget to recommend it to your friends and to leave a review on Amazon. Thanks again!
Google Play link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magiumgames.magium
App Store link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magium-text-adventure-cyoa/id1229498009
Discussion forum link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Magium/
Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/Magium-Games-1933559536878087/
Twitter link: https://twitter.com/Magium_games
Mail address: [email protected]
Magium: The Mage Tournament: Book 1 Page 36