“What kind of information are you looking for, exactly?” I ask him.
“I have a plan, which may well be our only real chance of defeating Arraka for good,” Tyrath says. “I’ve been discussing it with the elite wizard troops since yesterday, after I first warned the high council that this place might be targeted by Arraka soon. Given that you are from the future, I would like to know if you’ve ever heard of such a plan being used in your past, and if it was successful. In short, there is a large mountain, not far from this area, which we could use to—”
“I’m gonna stop you right there, Tyrath,” Arraka says. “First of all, the good news is that in our past, you did use this plan on me, and you did manage to successfully trap me in that mountain for a few thousand years. Now, the bad news is that I may have… accidentally told the Arraka in your world all about your plan, which means that you may as well scrap the idea entirely, because it’s completely useless, now.”
“You did what?!” Tyrath shouts loudly, as the magma from his scales erupts like a volcano.
Before Arraka gets a chance to answer him, a white light suddenly fills our entire area, and once again, we are transported back to our own world, which is apparently still frozen in time. As we’re all looking at the forest around us, the God of Time materializes himself out of thin air once more, floating a few dozen feet above the ground, in front of us.
“I’m afraid that we’ll have to continue this ritual some other time,” the God of Time says, “since I’ve already reached my limit for how much energy I can gather from a single group. Do not worry, you will have the opportunity to continue this trial from where you left off, as soon as the time weaver will be sent to give you the prophecy again. I would like to say that you’ve all performed much better than I expected. You have my sincerest congratulations.”
“Hah!” Arraka says. “I told you losers that you gave him exactly what he—”
“And your performance was the greatest of them all, Arraka,” the God of Time interrupts her.
“What did you… just say?” Arraka asks.
“I wouldn’t even have dared to imagine that you would contribute to my ritual out of your own free will,” the God of Time says. “However, your feeling of pure dread at the thought of being completely erased from existence by the Magium was exactly what I needed for my ritual to be a complete success! I will be looking forward to what you will have in store for me, in the trials to come.”
“You son of a—” Arraka starts to say, but she is cut off by the God of Time.
“Now, before I depart, I will ask you all to kneel before me one last time,” the God of Time says.
My friends and I exchange a few looks, but in the end, we all choose to stand our ground. Seeing that none of us are planning to kneel, Melindra starts slowly massaging her forehead, with her eyes closed, out of frustration. Since she knows that no matter what she does, the result will be the same, she decides to stand her ground as well, this time around.
“Have it your way, then,” the God of Time says, as a powerful force pushes all of us except the revenant to the ground, in a horizontal position, and then he begins to slowly squash us, with the same magical force.
As I am being pushed against the soil, I start getting flashbacks of my first ritual, and of my parents begging me to save them, while I just stood there and watched, with the pitchfork in my hands. A sudden feeling of rage takes hold of me, and for the whole duration of the god’s spell, a single thought goes through my head, over and over.
‘I will make him pay.’
‘I will make him pay.’
‘I will make him pay.’
While we were still being pressed against the ground, the revenant’s eyes suddenly became bright yellow again, and she slowly started walking away from us, while gazing into the distance, with an empty look in her eyes.
“It looks like our time is up,” the God of Time says. “I will be seeing you all again, soon. Make sure not to get killed in the meantime. Your future contributions to my ritual are highly anticipated.”
Almost as soon as the god is done talking, he and the revenant simply disappear, and the world unfreezes itself, making it look almost as if nothing had happened. Now that there is no longer a force pushing us against the ground, we all get up and we dust ourselves off calmly, without saying anything. Not even a few seconds later, I hear the revenant’s voice, coming from the transceiver in my pocket.
“What happened after I was gone?” the revenant says, in a low voice. “Did the God of Time pay you any more visits while the time was frozen?”
“No,” I say. “From our point of view, it’s only been a few seconds since you left. What about you? Do you remember anything after you walked away from here?”
“It’s mostly just one big blur,” the revenant says. “I remember that the people I visited right after you were Azarius and his pupil, but I don’t know what happened after that.”
“Alright,” I say. “Are you going to keep your transceiver channel closed from now on, too?”
“Yes,” the revenant says. “I am still being closely monitored, and I don’t want to appear more suspicious than I already am. If there’s ever anything urgent, I will call you from my end. Take care.”
“You too,” I say, and then the revenant closes her channel once again.
“I… think we should all take a small break, so we can clear our minds a little,” Daren says, with a very tired look on his face. “Shall we all meet back here in twenty minutes?”
“Yeah,” Hadrik says. “I could use a break right about now.”
As everyone goes to find a place where they can be alone, for a while, Daren goes to sit on a tree stump, and begins to sharpen his blade, in order to make himself look busy.
“So…” I say, as I approach Daren. “What exactly are you planning to do after this ‘break’?”
“What do you mean?” Daren says, as he continues to sharpen his sword, without looking at me. “After the break, we’ll continue to march towards Ollendor, like before. Isn’t this what we set out to do, when we left Thilias?”
“Of course,” I say. “But you know very well that this is not what I meant. When I asked what you were planning to do, I was thinking more in the long-term. I was talking about the God of Time, and the upcoming rituals he’s threatened us with. What are you planning to do about those?”
“I don’t know, Barry,” Daren tells me, as he stops sharpening his sword and looks me in the eye. “You tell me. Because I’m not really seeing an obvious way out of this. The way I see it, all we can do is prepare ourselves the best we can for the next rituals, and hope that we can pass them, like we passed our last trials.”
“Well, I was thinking that we could find a more… permanent solution to our problem,” I say.
“Like what?” Daren says. “Kill the God of Time? Barry, be reasonable. We’re talking about a literal god, here. We were having trouble even against a sage, not so long ago. What would you expect us to do against a god? We are nowhere near powerful enough to challenge him.”
“That’s funny,” I say, “because you’re nowhere near as powerful as Eiden either, and yet you kept challenging him again and again, every time we’ve met.”
“That’s different!” Daren says. “Despite his power, Eiden is still a mage. We’ve all fought mages before. Some of them are more powerful than others, but you still have a general idea of what to expect when fighting one. But to challenge a god?… Barry, neither you nor I have even the slightest bit of experience in dealing with something like this.”
“Then maybe we should ask someone who does,” I say.
Before Daren gets to say anything else, I start walking towards Illuna, who was apparently having a discussion with Arraka. As I get closer to them, the two of them interrupt their conversation, waiting to see what I want.
“Arraka, I have a question to ask of you,” I say, with a very serious tone in my voice.
“Uh, sure…” Arra
ka says. “Fire away.”
“How do you kill a god?” I ask her, calmly.
There is a short pause, after I ask my question, during which neither of us says anything.
“You want me to tell you how you can kill a god?…” Arraka says, as she seems to still be recovering from the shock of what I’ve just asked her.
She waits for a few more seconds, to try and figure out if I’m joking or not, and when she finally understands that I’m being serious, she starts to laugh.
She laughs, and she laughs, as loud as she can, with all three of her voices, and it doesn’t look like she’s planning to stop anytime soon. However, I am not upset. This isn’t one of her usual, mocking laughs. This laughter is one of excitement. She is enjoying this.
Arraka’s laugh manages to grab the attention of everyone in the area, and they’re now all looking at us, curiously. I pay them no mind, and I keep waiting patiently for Arraka to stop laughing. When she finally falls silent, she waits for a few more seconds, and then she gives me her answer.
“Barry, my boy…” Arraka says. “I thought you’d never ask!”
--- End of second book ---
Afterword
Thank you for reading.
The third book of this series (which should have around 6-7 books in total) is estimated to be released sometime in the first half of 2020. Just like the first two books, the third e-book will cost 3.5 dollars, and it will also be available for free on Kindle Unlimited. The reason why writing these books takes long is because the original story is written as interactive fiction, with multiple paths, so the total word count is in fact bigger than what you see in this version of the book.
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.
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. If you visit the subreddit, be warned that it may contain untagged spoilers of content beyond the second book, since the game version of book 3 will be uploaded chapter by chapter, as I write them.
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]
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