Jason Elliott
Husband, Father, Aspiring author. The world doesn’t need more books. It needs more stories.
Jason Elliott
Husband, Father, Aspiring author. The world doesn’t need more books. It needs more stories.
Husband, Father, Aspiring author. The world doesn’t need more books. It needs more stories.
Husband, Father, Aspiring author. The world doesn’t need more books. It needs more stories.
This world is built upon myths and legends, and those who remember their wisdom may still share it with those who will listen. What follows is a brief recounting of several of those legends, and a brief history of the nation in which the majority of this story’s events take place.
In the ancient days, there were six golden cities; bastions of human civilization in a world of vast wilderness. It is remembered as a time where great magics and technical wonders were cultivated. But the hubris of mankind undermined their sensibilities, and they allowed the most evil of spirits to deceive them. These spirits took physical form as men themselves, desiring to work in the shadows, until their influence grew to a point that they walked openly in their evil power. They assailed the minds of powerful men and caused great turmoil among them. They became known as the Lords of Desolation, and their true names were Ruin, Wrath, Blight, and Oblivion. Mankind began to delve deeper and deeper into discovery and innovation, but the spirits encouraged men against one another, and out of the fires of creation came terrible weapons of war. Only too late were the spirits’ true identities revealed. One by one, the great cities would fall into darkness, leaving their survivors and refugees to stand alone as the tides of evil swept across the lands. It was in that perilous time that many heroes would rise up, and their great deeds would dare to challenge the dark, and their legends would long be remembered.
One such hero challenged Oblivion himself to a duel, though, in the end, it cost him his life. It’s said the hero’s stare was so intense that it caused even Oblivion to flinch when he fired his shot. The enemy’s bullet went wide-right, while the hero’s round hit Oblivion’s right cheek, and severed his flesh from mouth to ear. Never before had the spirit been struck, for he always had the faster hand, and cupping his wounded cheek, stared in disbelief at the hero, who stood seemingly unharmed. Oblivion fled the scene, with trails of foul blood staining the ground as he ran. The hero watched his enemy fade away into the distance - before collapsing upon the ground. The stray round from Oblivion’s gun had indeed missed its mark, but ricocheted off a buried stone, and struck the hero in his heel. Worse still, the bullets were said to have been tipped with a deadly toxin. Thus, the hero died, and was brought into the mountains to be buried in a cave, where, so the legend says, a magical spring began to flow that could heal those who were wounded.
After the time of the great heroes, the forces of darkness had been suitably forced back. The Lords of Desolation could not be found, and some began to think they had gone back into the abyss from where they came. Mankind began to rebuild. Eventually, the nation, to which the Dannings belong, would be established and declared the seventh golden city, and named “Rebirth” in their own language. Soon, populations swelled and expanded back into the world. Centuries of relative peace would pass, and it seemed all was well. However, events would transpire that, to the keen eye, betrayed sinister agendas at work, whose aim was to tear down mankind’s final hope against the forces of desolation.
Warren’s experience growing up in a military family taught him the value of discipline and order. When he joined his local militia, he quickly became a standout recruit. When he came of age, he joined the military academy and graduated as the second most-decorated officer in his class. What followed was a remarkable career, before the Quiet Revolution saw a purge among the military ranks. Fleeing the chaos, and later settling on The Old Homestead with his family, he proved his discipline to Cain, his employer, and quickly gained his favor. The ranch became greatly successful, and Cain came to see Warren as a surrogate son. As an extension of his personal discipline, Warren was shown to be fiercely loyal and faithful to his family, country, and his employer. Throughout his military service, he had gotten into several altercations with those who sought to dishonor servicemen, which further added to his reputation among his superiors as a model soldier. When interacting with his family, his love was never doubted, though he had to be reminded often by his wife Evelyn to be more verbally expressive. His love later extended to his employer, Cain, whom he came to regard as a father-figure, and would defend his land with the same ferocity as he had his military honor. No one worked harder, or longer, than Warren. It was joked by Cain at a certain point, that he “must’ve been made out of a stuff as hard as the granite hills” surrounding the Old Homestead. In the years during the family’s stay at the ranch, however, as his children grew up, he would often hold them to his own very high standards, and reprimand them should they waiver in their work. His harshness came from his desire to protect his family, though at times, his actions caused his children to run off, getting themselves into trouble on more than one occasion.
He got up to stand - his stiff muscles locking his joints into place, as they had done a million times before - and his form shifted into near-perfect military posture. He was a stone wall of a man. But this wall had suffered serious blows, and his attempts at fortifications had, over time, become inefficient, and tiny cracks in the foundation had begun to show. The sparks from the dying campfire flickered like starlight in his piercing blue eyes. For a long moment, he stood, as the gentle night breeze wisped at the exposed locks of brown hair poking beneath his wide-brimmed hat.
It has been fifteen years since the Quiet Revolution sent Warren Danning and his family into hiding. Escaping the chaos, the Dannings found refuge as hired hands on the ranch of Cain, a grey-haired and eccentric, former slave. In the wild lands of the Outer Territories, the family has had to learn the arts of bushcraft quickly to adapt and survive. When an old friend of Warren’s arrives one night, blood-soaked and bearing strange wounds, the family is suddenly thrust into an astounding reality of old magics, powerful relics, and enigmatic creatures. But the revelation that an ancient evil has returned, brings perilous implications for the Dannings, and the world. Love and courage drive the Danning family, as they face impossible odds, to stop the rising tide of a mystical civil war that threatens to plunge the world into darkness and ruin.