Dhayaa Anbajagane's Blog

Hi everyone!

It’s been forever since I posted here, and forever since I updated you guys on what I was up to. So here I go! I’ve been writing up a new series in the background for a while now, and after nearly a year in production, it’s finally ready to be put out there

The Eternal: Infinity

There are two kinds of evil in this world.
Evil that you can kill, and evil that kills you.

I’ve ended this man’s life before. I’ve already plunged my sword through his heart, but it wasn’t enough.

And now he’s here to return the favor.

My name is Zoran Diablo, and it would be an understatement to say I feel uneasy right now. A man I killed has risen from the lands of the dead, and this time, he will do everything he needs to end my life. I am not strong enough to resist him, and yet, I must. I am all that remains between a future filled with peace, and one bathed in blood.

A big battle is coming, but I will not be the winner. For there is only one way to stop evil that won’t die. Enslave it.

 CHAPTER ONE

 

“WATCH OUT!”

A massive ball of dark fire sunk into the stone streets, cratering the surface with a hundred, minute fissures. Black lightning exploded out an instant later, shredding the houses around it like they were made of paper. The shock wave crushed through the structures, turning what were once homes into pieces of meaningless rubble on the dusty ground.

Multiple piles of burning debris sat before me, and the flames consumed them whole.

I thrust my hand forward. “Vapireo Giola!”

A water twister surged out of the ground, picking up the loose debris and trapping it within its flow. I brought my arm down a second later, breaking the attack. The rubble fell back, no longer consumed by the dark fires.

A few pieces of stray debris came flying out of the twister, and crashed into what was left of the houses, breaking through their roofs and smashing through their walls. I winced at the sound of the collapsing houses.

“Great job, you idiot,” Nyx sighed, his snarky voice clear in my mind.

Well, I was trying to put out the fire okay?

“Yeah, and you managed to take out the few houses the attack didn’t.”

A sharp whistling entered the air and I glanced up. Another ball of dark fire came flying through the sky. Damn it. I shot forward toward it.

Suddenly, an elf jumped into the sky, and shot through the fire. The flaming ball of darkness shattered, exploding in the air, and dissipating in less than a second. A smoke cloud descended down to the ground, and spread around a ten-yard radius.

“Freya!” I rushed forward.

A young woman coughed as she emerged out of the smoke cloud, with her jet-black broadsword at her side. Her red-skinned body was bruised in multiple spots, and her tunic and pants were torn in a few places. The wind blew past her, and her black hair flowed along with it, with the sole silver streak reflecting the orange rays of the setting sun.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine, Zoran.” She glanced at the fallen homes around us, with her eyes of blood-red staring at them in utter disappointment. “That’s the fourth of those flame attacks they’ve launched at us,” she muttered. “And the fourth of those attacks we’ve been unable to contain.”

“I know.” I grit my teeth. “We’re going to have to launch an assault on them.”

“That is close to impossible. You and I are the only ones capable of handling the enemy right now.”

“Acnologia too.”

“Well, yeah, but he’s not here is he?” she said. “We’re the only ones who can take on the enemy right now. Everyone else is merely manpower at this point. We can depend on them to handle the village defense mechanisms and nothing else.”

I sighed. “Which is why I said we’d let them defend and attack the enemy ourselves.”

A battle cry came from one of the broken streets to the right, and two of my Knights ran out toward us. Behind them was a long line of enemy Knights—all of them clad in black armor and all of them charging in.

The men of the Dark Alliance.

A few more of my Knights ran out of an adjacent street, and more battle cries came out from behind them. My fists clenched. They’ve taken over that path as well.

I looked at Freya. “Can you block that street?”

She nodded. “Get this over with in five minutes,” she said. “And don’t hold back. The houses can be rebuilt if they’re broken. The land can’t be taken back if we lose it.”

I grinned. “I’m aware.”

The enemy rushed towards me. There were about a hundred Knights, and on a quick use of my Analyze skill I could tell that they were all around Level 300.

Easy pickings.

“Asgionis, Peliosia!” I yelled out, using my Chain Casting skill to render multiple spells at once. I buffed my agility twice, and now stood within a dark flame—the same shade as the fire that bombed the village.

I shot forward, and slid my weapon out. The blade of midnight black—Dawnbreaker—swung out as I brought it to my side, with a purple, glowing jewel studded where the sword met the hilt.

“You could just use one of your spells and finish this off you know,” Nyx said.

I gripped the sword hilt tight. “But this is more fun.”

The army of enemy Knights charged right up to me. And I returned the favor in kind. I hunched down, with my knees bent, and exhaled. One second I was fifty yards away, and the next I was right in the middle of their formation, with my blade half-sunk into the closest man.

I swirled around, swinging my sword with ease. The blade passed through metal and flesh, cutting into the enemy like they were butter on a hot day. Strikes came my way as well, but they didn’t bother me. Even the attacks that managed to get me didn’t do enough damage. My health regeneration recovered it all back in an instant.

This was a one-sided battle.

And everyone knew that.

Twenty seconds passed since my first strike and zero Knights stood on the street. Red and black coated the stone as the dead men laid collapsed on the surface, bloodied, and robbed of their breath.

 

DING!

 

Congratulations! You have defeated Dark Knight Squadron (Lv. 403)! Reward: Spear of the Dark Knight (x10). Reward: Sword of the Dark Knight. (x7). Reward: Staff of the Dark Mage (x10).

 

Wait, there were mages in that group? I blinked.

“I guess you just killed them off without noticing,” Nyx said. “How surprising.”

I rolled my eyes. Tone it down with the sarcasm, would you?

Screaming sounded from the street adjacent to me, and the sounds of clashing metal echoed from it a moment later. I rushed up to the houses separating us, and jumped onto the roof.

I looked ahead and then grinned. Freya is at it again.

The demon-elf surged through the streets, with her massive broadsword crushing into multiple Knights as she charged through their ranks. The Dark Knights all fell to the floor, some dead and other unconscious. Freya, however, was not as stubborn as I was. She was willing to use her spells as well.

With only twenty or so Knights left she put her hand into the air, and her lips moved. A twister of wind burst out from the center of the enemy ranks. It widened to occupy the streets, and collected every Knight standing and every Knight fallen.

She cut off the attack a second later, and the men rained from the skies, dropping to the floor with a characteristic thud of metal meeting stone.

Not a single one of them could have survived that. I gazed at the sea of still forms.

Nyx sighed. “Why can’t you be like her and actually use your powers in a battle like this?”

A high-pitched whistle sunk into the air. Two balls of dark flames flew through the sky, ready to crush into the buildings around me.

Not this time. I put my hand up toward it, focusing all of my energy into my palms and feeling the moisture around me. “Tritus Oceanus!” I yelled.

A massive blast of swirling water surged out of my hands. The attack struck into the balls of fire, but the projectiles moved through—slower now, but burning nonetheless.

“Zoran! Cut it off!” Freya yelled, and I immediately obliged, breaking the spell.

The flaming blobs dropped down onto us, but the elf intervened quickly, just as she had before. She jumped up, meeting the first one in the sky and sinking her broadsword right through it. The flaming ball exploded immediately, sending fire through the air. The second one came down fast, just as Freya dropped back to the floor.

And I took over from there.

I jumped up, before she could even flinch, and swung Dawnbreaker hard at the sphere of dark fire. The blade pierced through its rocky center and slashed it open. The thing exploded, and pushed me back as I returned to the ground. I slid as I hit the streets, and went ten yards before friction brought me to a stop.

I rubbed the dust off my cheek. “That’s two we took down.”

“Okay, you were right.” Freya walked up to me. “We need to take the fight to the enemy forces. We can’t be battling at our home base right now.”

I grinned. “Glad to have you on board with that idea.”

“Everyone is protected, right?”

I nodded. “They’re all taking shelter right now.”

We charged down the third street on our left, the one where the enemy forces were most concentrated. The street had many Dark Knights in it, with my own Knights pushing them back as best they could.

Two men stood at the front of the forces and held back the enemy, like a log of wood would an army of dogs.

“That analogy makes no sense,” Nyx said.

Shut up.

We shot to the exchange, and I gripped my sword, ready to attack.

“Raffiel. Oris,” I yelled. “Switch!”

The two Knights fell back, and the rest of their forces moved to the side as well. I shot through, with Freya behind me, and cut into the enemy. These ones were a little weaker than the previous set I’d faced, but I took just as long getting through them all. My sword whirled around the bodies, and red splashed everywhere.

When I was finally done, every single enemy body laid collapsed in their own pools of blood. I stared at the sharp shade. I didn’t feel any kind of pain while seeing a scene like this.

Why can’t I empathize anymore?

“Wow.” Oris gazed at the scene before him. “You really let them have it.”

“I need you and Raffiel to man one of the cannons,” I said. “Can you do that?”

The Knight stared at me, and then nodded. “Are you taking on the enemy forces?”

“Yeah.”

“Zoran, time is running out,” Freya said. “The next wave of Knights will come soon.”

“Got it.” I jumped onto the rooftops, and ran to the edge of the village. The closer I got, the farther past the border I saw, and the more uneasy I turned. I’d had a little fun battling the enemy, but knowing how big the enemy forces actually were was nothing short of alarming.

Five thousand men stood beyond the village, keeping a good two-hundred-yard distance with its border. The enemy Knights were all filed into neat ranks, and there were all sorts of warriors in there – swordsmen, archers, mages and more.

Why are you people attacking us? My fists clenched.

Words echoed into the air and a large circle of black runes emerged, hovering above the center of the ranks. Twenty mages stood underneath it, chanting profusely as the circle turned brighter.

My shoulders tightened. A mass spell.

A flaming ball of darkness, just like the ones I’d seen before, surged out of the circle, and headed right for the village.

So that’s how they’ve been doing that. I tracked the projectile’s path with my eyes. Damn it, it’s going to fly over me. I took a step back.

A form whooshed past mine. “I got it.” Freya called out from behind.

I planted myself at the edge of the village, atop the roofs, and closed my eyes. I concentrated on my surroundings, feeling everything around me. I could visualize the enemy ahead in vivid detail. I quickly focused on their ranks, and noticed the stronger Knights that stood at strategic points within the formation.

I smiled, my eyes still closed, and focused hard, summoning my inner energy to my mind. I imagined it spread out, like a wave of water within a clear summer pond.

An explosion sounded above me. Freya had taken out the flaming ball. Hot winds swirled around for an instant, and disappeared in a heartbeat. My eyes opened, and I held my hand in the air, pointed at the enemy.

“Au Ferah!” I yelled.

My voice boomed, and a characteristic bell sound echoed a second later, out of nowhere. Silence rang through for a moment, and then the Knights quickly turned on each other. Battle cries were yelled out as two hundred of them went against the rest of their forces.

 

DING!

 

Congratulations! Your Mind Arts spell ‘Au Ferah: Mask Hypnosis’ has increased to Level 2! You will now be able to influence 250 beings at a max of Lv. 400. If you try to take control of enemies at a level higher than this, then the total number of enemies you can influence will fall.

 

DING

 

Congratulations! Your skill—Mind Arts—has increased to Level 4! You now have greater control over your mind waves, and know of better ways to use them. Mana regeneration increased by +3%. Intelligence increased by +5%. Wisdom increased by +6%.

 

I closed the screen and looked ahead of me, at the collapsing formation. If it was a fight of two hundred versus four thousand eight hundred, then it would be a pretty one-sided fight in favor of the large side. However, that was not the case. I’d focused and picked out the stronger ones in the bunch, each of them around Level 390ish.

Sure, there were Knights stronger than that as well, but it was clear to me that summoning more Knights was favored over summoning marginally stronger ones. Numbers always had the advantage.

The enemy Knights quickly dropped, falling prey to their own men. Most of the two hundred I’d taken control off had also quickly died off, but a good thirty of them remained, and still stood strong, taking down as many of the enemy men as they could before they fell. All in all, I’d managed to get rid of a thousand enemy Knights, and considering those numbers were a fifth of their forces, that had worked out pretty well.

I smiled. That was kind of an Evil Overlord move to pull, wasn’t it?

“Glad you’re actually realizing that now.”

I rolled my eyes. Thanks for the consolation.

“Fire away!” A voice yelled from behind me.

Oris was seated on a tower cannon protruding out of a rooftop. A massive boulder surged out of the canon mouth just as I turned to him. The projectile shot through the air and crashed into the enemy forces, rolling through bodies before coming to a stop.

Mechanical noises sounded at the edge of the village. More cannons made their way up from the rooftops, and now about ten of them stood right within the boundary, each manned by a Knight from my forces.

I grinned. That village upgrade was totally worth it.

“One more time. Fire!” Oris yelled, and everyone else followed his lead. A plethora of boulders blasted into the sky, and crashed through the enemy forces like before. More Knights went down this time, falling to the brute strength of the attacks.

The boulders, though, didn’t do as much damage to the enemy as my Mind Arts skill had done. I’d say about another five hundred or six hundred men had gone down, but definitely no more than that.

So we still had three thousand people to deal with.

And that was a lot of people.

The enemy ranks were coming towards the village now. Ugh. I thought we’d be able to get rid of them before this happened.

“I was worried about this.” Freya stood beside me.

“I know.”

“What do we do?”

“I’m casting a spell,” I said. “Stand back.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she stepped back anyway. The Knights jumped off their cannons and stepped back, as if even they had realized it was time to go.

“You’ve got the stage, Diablo,” Nyx chuckled.

I grinned. Let’s do this.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. There were a good thirty seconds left before the enemy made it all the way into the village, and I only needed half of that time.

I lifted my hand into the air, and counted down in my mind as I built up my concentration.

My eyes shot open. “Qeteria!” I yelled.

The ground between the forces shook, and the tremors turned into an earthquake in a mere instance. The men collapsed to the floor, and their formations fell apart.

However, the worst was yet to come.

The ground opened, with a large fissure tearing through the ground. Flames of red fire burned within, and rose into the air, enticing death to anyone that touched them.

The enemy men spilled over as the tremors pushed them down, and fell into the flames. Screams echoed through the air as man after man sunk into my fiery trap, burning to ashes before their yells even finished echoing through the air.

“You’re definitely doing justice to this Evil Overlord image of yours,” Nyx said.

I rolled my eyes. Really? I’m just getting the job done.

A wave of pressure passed across me, and I froze. My eyes darted to the sky. What was that?

Dark clouds collected over the enemy, and swirled in an odd pattern, like a spiral, but a chaotic one.

I frowned. A Weather Spell?

A bolt of black lightning struck down, and right into the fissure I’d made. The flames within the crevice all turned black, and rose high into the air, spilling onto the ground. A screeching noise sounded and the fissure closed itself, long before it was supposed to, and long before I had wanted.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

“Well, well,” a voice chuckled.

A bolt of lightning struck again, right in front of the entire enemy force, and a black flame emerged from the impact point, rising high into the air. It molded itself, and slowly formed a humanoid shape.

“Hello, Diablo,” he laughed.

“You.” My voice shook, and I stepped back. “You’re not supposed to be here. How…”

“It’s wonderful to see you too. Did you miss me?”

Panic flowed through me as my mind processed what I was seeing. This wasn’t just any annoying flame of darkness. It was the most annoying flame of darkness.

The Dark Lord had returned.

 

***

Hi there!

Double posting today! It’s the 31st of May, the end of the Month, and I have a new book out!

The Eternal: Dragonborn is the second book in my bestselling World of Ga’em series. The book builds on the events from The Eternal: Awakening and sort of functions as an extension of that book. All the important characters from my first book return, with a few notable additions of some new characters as well. The book is available on Amazon as of a few hours ago and is also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. So if you have Amazon’s KU program you get to read it for free! Anyway, here’s the blurb for the book, I hope you like it!

 

“Screams echo through the darkness.

Silence masks the secrets within

It has begun; conflict between factions, war between friends. Death and darkness will spread terror across the lands.

And here I am, trapped in the middle of it all.

My name is Zoran Diablo, and misfortune is toying with my life yet again. Three months have passed since I discovered who I really was, and in that time, weird things have happened. The monsters of the dark have grown stronger, more daring, and more organized. Towns have gone up in flames and cities have been razed to the ground. People are scared. They’re confused, clueless about why this is happening. I know exactly what’s going on, and yet it does me no good.

There is no stopping it anymore. It’s too late. The moon will rise high, and darkness will flood the skies. Evil will rule the night, and death will seize its prize.”

 

GRAB YOUR COPY NOW!

Hi there!

After about a week and a half of lugging around online forums and watching youtube videos, I’ve finally put up my very own website! I’ve got to say I’m really happy with what it’s resulted in, especially since I had to everything by myself. The bugs and issues will probably start to show up a few days after I leave this thing to run on its own, but nevertheless, I’m really excited that I’ve got this all set up now. Previously I had a Wix site, and then a Squarespace one. Both those platforms allow for a very hands-on experience with not ay coding experience required. It was really neat to use something like that back then but now that I’m growing as an author I realized I need a more robust set-up for myself. Hence the shift to a WordPress website.

Anyway, I know a lot of authors usually put off doing something like this mainly because it’s a pain to figure out all the logistics for every little piece that goes into creating a website. (I know because I was the exactly the same). There’s hosting, domain, platform, theme and so on So for all those out there that are currently in the same kind of mindset I was in before, I’ll be writing up a blog post on the whole process I took to get this website to where it is right now. I’ll try to get screen captures for each section as well because those are what I found most helpful. Stay tuned!

When Taylor awoke she saw Q staring into space, a wide grin on his face. She yawned, “What happened?” she asked.

He turned to her, his grin becoming even wider, “We’re here,” he said.

“What?” she sat up, her mind immediately rebooting into alert mode. A large haze of white lay a few hundred miles away from them, its glowing light mystical and mesmerizing.

Taylor spoke into the comm system. “Control, this is the Endeavor,” she said but static was the only thing that answered back.

“Control? This is the Endeavor,” she said once more.

And again, only static replied.

“We must have been cut off,” Q said.

“The anomaly,” Taylor’s eyes widened, her mind realizing it was the one causing all this.

He nodded. “It’s blocking all communications,” he said. “The good news though is that that means the first probe Burke sent might actually be somewhere around here.”

“We can’t worry about that now,” she said. “We should send in the second probe.”

Q smiled, “Already done,” he said.

“What?” she asked, all confused. “How long have I

been asleep?”

“How am I supposed to know? I fell asleep even before you did.”

“Are we monitoring the probe?”

“I sent it down a few minutes ago,” he said. “We should get data soon.”

“Hopefully,” she said.

But hope was clearly not enough. Ten minutes later they still hadn’t gotten a single bit of data from the probe. Something was clearly wrong.

“We better pull back for now,” Taylor said.

“Not just yet,” Q said. “We have one more option left.”

“What?”

A glow of white light emerged around Q. “I’m heading out there,” he said.

“WHAT?” she asked. “There is no way I’m letting you do that!”

“There’s something I haven’t told you, Taylor,” he smiled. “I’ve been lying to you all along.”

Q’s entire body flickered and disappeared. Taylor’s eyes went wide as her mind exploded with confusion.

What in the world just happened?! she tensed.

“Relax, silly,” Q’s amused voice came in through the comm system.

“WHERE ARE YOU?!” she yelled back.

“Ouch,” he said. “You clearly didn’t like what I did.”

“That was a hologram wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty easy to create temporary images with  

my Elementa of Light,” he said. “What you saw was basically a very realistic hologram. If you’d actually tried touching him your hand would have just passed through.”

“First of all, wow, that’s cool. Second of all, I need you to get back to the deck,” she said. “Now.”

“Well, to be honest, I’m not exactly on the ship.”

Anxiety spread through Taylor. “Q,” she said. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m heading towards the anomaly,” he said.

Okay, okay, she thought. Calm down now. Calm down. Don’t yell at him.

She took in a deep breath. “ARE YOU CRAZY, YOU IDIOT?”

“Now do you see why it’s easier to lie?” he chuckled. “Oh and don’t worry, I’m wearing my battle armor as well. So I’m not in just an energy suit.”

“Get back to the ship, Q. We don’t know even know what that anomaly is.”

“Look,” his voice turned serious. “I felt the anomaly even when we were back on Zygrade. I felt a wave of energy right before the sky turned red, a wave of energy that felt familiar. Almost too familiar. I need to confirm what it actually is.”

“Oh my god,” Taylor’s eyes widened. “It’s him isn’t it?” she whispered softly.

There was a long pause. “I’m not sure,” Q said. “There’s a good chance it is.”

“But we took him out so long ago,” she said.

“Which just makes this all the more weird,” he said.

A deep humming came through the comm link.

“Q?” Taylor asked. “What’s that noise? Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s the anomaly,” he said. “I’ll transferring my video feed to you now.”

The dashboard’s largest screen turned on and played a live feed. Taylor could see nothing but a screen of white. Raw energy was coursing through the very space around Q. But deeper within it all, far off into the distance, she could see something pulsate, sending a humming vibration through everything around it.

Q chuckled. “It’s amazing isn’t-”

Everything suddenly turned black and the feed shut off.

“Q?!” Taylor panicked. “Q!”

No reply. No response. Nothing.

She looked through the ship’s windshield, straight at the anomaly. Its colors were slowly creeping from pure white to spatial black. She could even feel its hums became more violent with every moment that passed.

“No,” Taylor gasped, realizing what was going on. “Q, you need to get out of there now!” she yelled into the comm link, hoping he would somehow hear her. “That anomaly is going to blow up, and even you can’t survive that!”

The anomaly shrank for a moment.

And then it exploded.

“Q!” she screamed. Her mind froze, her heart stopped, her body collapsed into her chair.

Taylor glanced lifelessly at the blast that surged towards her, annihilating everything in its path. She still had time to turn the Endeavor around. She still had a chance to escape. She still had a chance to live.

It doesn’t matter, she thought. Nothing matters. She sank into her chair, her eyes empty, her mind and body broken by just one thought.

Q was gone.

***

“What do you mean the probe didn’t come back?” Taylor asked, her tone showing she was really worried.

“We lost all contact with it when it was a few hundred miles from the anomaly,” Burke said.

“Were its communications cut off, or was the whole probe destroyed?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “There’s no concrete data for me to go with. So far the only data I have is regarding the intensity and range of the signal, which seems quite impressive to be honest. It isn’t exactly a powerful signal, but it just seems abnormal.”

“We’ll go take a look at it,” Q said.

Carlos sighed. “Burke, I specifically told you not to make this seem interesting.”

“Oh,” he smiled sheepishly. “Sorry?”

Carlos looked at Q, “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “And before you say anything, Taylor, you’re not going either.”

“What? Why?!” both of them protested.

“You’re both sorcerers now,” Carlos said sternly. “You’re high profile warriors not for just Aliea but for a vast majority of almost everyone else.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Q complained

“Easy for you to say. You won’t be the one who’ll have

to release a statement saying ‘Sorcerer and Sorceress mysteriously disappear’ or ‘Sorcerer and Sorceress injured severely.”

“We won’t disappear,” Q said.

“Or die,” Taylor added.

“I’m pretty sure that’s how all bad ideas start,” Burke said, adjusting his goggles back onto his head.

Taylor smiled, “I sure don’t want to be hearing about bad ideas from a guy who exploded his baking soda volcano.”

“I make perfectly fine baking soda volcanos!” he complained.

Carlos tapped the table with his fingers. “One more unnecessary comment or joke and I’ll have all three of you leave the council room.”

“Well, technically, I’m not even in the council room because-” Burke stopped when Carlos glared at him. “Sorry,” he said meekly.

“Thank you,” Carlos turned back to Q and Taylor. “You both are sorcerers. We can’t afford to send you out.”

“Carlos,” Taylor said. “If this anomaly is deadly enough that even two sorcerers can’t survive it, don’t you think it would have done more than shut down a force field?”

Carlos sighed. His fingers tapped the table impatiently. Taylor could tell he knew she was right, but she could also tell that he really didn’t want to admit it.

“We’ll be back even before you know it,” Q said.

“It may actually prove helpful, Carlos,” Burke said. “We  

have a second probe ready for launch, but it will be much more beneficial if we have a manned mission backing it up.”

Carlos remained silent for a few moments. “Fine,” he finally mumbled. “Just get the data and come back as soon as you can.”

Taylor smiled, “We’ll be back before you even know it.”

***

Q sympathized with his brother. He knew exactly what Carlos was worried about. All his anxiety was basically because of the different power classes that were commonly used.

The major two classes were the warriors and the mages. The difference between the two was the amount of life energy each one possessed. Life energy was this inert energy, or power, that each person was born with. Its usefulness lay in the fact that it could be used to manipulate different kinds of objects and give birth to something called Wave-skills. Each wave-skill pertained to a certain Elementa, like the Elementa of Wind, or the Elementa of Fire.

The Warrior class was born with low life energy, which meant that at the most they could only use very basic wave skills from any one Elementa.

Mages, on the the other hand, had very high levels of life energy and could pull of complex wave skills in two

completely different Elementa. People very rarely entered the Mage class though. Only a handful of mages actually existed.

Q was neither a Warrior nor a Mage. He was a Sorcerer, a class that was much more advanced than any other. He had such great power that he could manipulate an array of Elementa, including the hardest Elementa there was - the Elementa of Light. Taylor was actually a Sorcerer too - well technically, she was a Sorceress - and she manipulated the Elementa of Darkness.

Q and Taylor had both been successful on all of their missions. Together they had become a team even the most powerful military factions looked to when they were in trouble.

It was quite obvious why Carlos wouldn’t want to take any risks with the two of them. Q completely understood his brother’s actions, but that didn’t mean he endorsed them. To be honest, he felt like Carlos was slowly infringing on his freedom. This Sorcerer thing had turned him and Taylor into some sort of space celebrities, and that meant they weren’t allowed to do things that they would have done before.

“Well, that went quite well didn’t it?” Taylor chuckled as the door to the council room closed behind them.

“I guess,” Q said, “How exactly do we get to the anomaly though?”

“Weren’t you listening?” she playfully jabbed his

shoulder. “Kai has a ship all ready for us. Burke said he’ll have the probe loaded onto it before we get there.”

“Cool,” he smiled. It was always satisfying to see how quickly people could work. They had just finished talking to Carlos a few moments ago, and their mission was just a few minutes away from launch.

The thought of the launch energized Q. His nerves felt invigorated, and his mind was racing away. His body screamed out in excitement. This was the first time in a while that he was going on a mission this interesting.

He couldn’t wait.

***

Taylor made her way into the spacecraft’s main deck. It was a small silver-grey room, made for just two pilots. Two chairs stood towards the front of the room, right behind the dashboard filled with controls and dials. A large glass panel was installed above the dashboard - their only way of looking at anything outside the ship.

“This spacecraft looks good,” Q said as he entered the deck. “Kai did a great job.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “This is probably like the hundredth ship he’s made completely from scratch.”

“Well, he does really like custom builds.”

“By the way, what did he name this ship?”

The comm system turned on, “Spacecraft Endeavor, this is Control,” a voice popped through. “Perform your

maintenance check.”

“Roger that,” Taylor said and hurriedly took her seat on the pilot’s chair. Q sat beside her and helped check the ship’s controls.

Spacecraft Endeavor huh? Taylor thought. Kai was usually quite bad at coming up with ship names, highlighted by the fact that Aliea’s two most powerful custom-built warships were called ‘Ice-cream’ and ‘Cookie’.

“Everything seems fine, Control,” Q said.

“Same here,” she said. “All systems are in perfect condition.”

“Roger, Endeavor. You are clear for take-off,” the voice said. “Oh, and Kai wanted us to tell you not to scratch the ship.”

Taylor couldn’t help but smile, “Understood,” she said.

“He’s such an idiot,” Q chuckled.

Taylor calmed her mind and grasped the controls. She steadied her hands and started the ship’s engines. A loud hum resonated through the metal walls. She pulled back on the controls and the ship surged off the ground.

“And we have lift-off!” she grinned.

The trip off Zygrade and into space was actually less troublesome than Taylor imagined. But that was mainly because the force field had turned off.

Usually, the control center had to specifically shut down certain sections of the force field to open up a

small path for a ship to travel through. That didn’t take too long, but there was still a difference between waiting around for a few seconds, and surging straight off the ground and into space.

Soon darkness and points of light occupied Taylor’s vision. She couldn’t help thinking about her home planet, Earth. It had been months since she had permanently moved off of it, which apparently meant it was the perfect time to sit and reminisce about it. Her mind eased her into feeling sleepy and she soon gave into it. She worked the Endeavor’s controls and turned on the autopilot system.

Q had fallen asleep already, and lay calmly in the chair beside her. Taylor looked at him. She longed to look into those silver-grey eyes of his, to get lost within their mystic shade. Her hand reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. She touched his face, the warmth from his skin embracing hers.

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, “Goodnight, Q,” she smiled.

Taylor lay her head on the dashboard, her heart quivering with every passing moment. But even with all the excitement, her mind drugged her with drowsiness. The infinite stars around her all turned deep black as she closed her eyes and gave into her mind’s will to sleep.

***

Q lay on the cold, grassy field. A mild dampness moistened his skin, but he lay there nonetheless, his body still, his hands behind his head. His eyes stared into the endless night, at the bright stars that were sprinkled through the darkness, as though they were a galactic decoration on the Universe’s infinite canvas.

He felt like he could forget about everything around him if he just lay like this. His mind couldn’t even sense the presence of the mighty skyscrapers all around him. His patch of nature made him feel like he was no longer at Aliea Academy. All he could feel was the fresh midnight field, and the ever glowing stars. Nothing else. 

“You seem to be having quite the time,” a girl’s face moved into his vision. She smiled, her electric-blue eyes shining warmly.

He smiled back, “Hi, Taylor.”

She lay herself down and snuggled up next to him, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm over his chest. Q’s face flushed deep red, but he lay still, cozying up in her softness.

“They’re beautiful aren’t they?” Taylor asked, her face just a warm breath away from his.

Not as beautiful as you are, he thought, but the words never came out his mouth. He glanced at her, at the moon-silver earrings glistening against her elven-white

skin, at her golden-blonde hair glow in the gentle moonlight.

“What?” she asked, an embarrassed smile on her face. 

“Nothing,” he smiled and turned back to his favorite jewels in the sky. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been able to just relax like this and watch the stars. It seemed like it had been forever. He smiled, realizing that Aliea Academy had changed him so much as a person.

“Q,” Taylor began. “I was-”

Q felt a wave of energy pass right through him. It was quite faint, but it was far too abnormal for him to not notice. The stars flickered for a moment, and their brilliant white light turned a shade of blood red. The dark night sky changed color, shifting from its infinite black and white, to a chaotic red.

“What the hell is that?” Taylor jumped onto her feet, and looked around at the sky.

Q sat up, his thoughts racing in every direction possible. The black sky now had a glow of red, as though a transparent wall of red light had blocked off the entire Academy from the sky.

Oh my god, his eyes widened, realizing what was going on.

“It’s down,” Taylor whispered.

“How in the world is that possible?” he asked quietly, unable to fathom what was going on.

“We need to get to the Demon Riser right now,” she

said, her voice anxious.

Q nodded. He focused his mind, concentrating on the ocean of energy that rested inside him. He channeled it into his body and into the air around him. A glow of white covered him almost as though he were wearing a suit made out of moonlight. He looked at Taylor, and saw a similar glow around her, only hers was not moonlight white, but night-sky dark.

The two of them jumped off the ground, lifting into the air and shooting through the night.

Q glanced around him, at the tall dark skyscrapers that rose high into the sky. A massive structure in the horizon caught his attention, a tower that was easily ten times higher than every other skyscraper below them. A line of bright, neon red glowed from tower’s base and ended in a massive circle at the top.

The Demon Riser, he thought. It was Aliea’s main command center, the place that housed the most important operations the Academy undertook.

“Q, look,” Taylor pointed to the sky, her voice turning anxious once again.

He glanced up, and felt a sense of chaos once again. The red had disappeared from the stars, and the sky had returned to the black and white that Q knew it to be.

Taylor bit her lip. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Q mumbled, a certain unease growing within him.

They began to descend just as they reached the Demon Riser, and landed right in front of the front door. Q heard voices from the people around him, hushed whispers no doubt, about the two people who had just flown down from the sky.

Q put on a smile and politely nodded at them before heading into the tower. He and Taylor took the elevator up to the topmost floor. It took no more than a few seconds for the double-door to slide open, revealing to them the only door that existed on the entire floor.

Q and Taylor made their way out the elevator. A red laser extended from the top of the door and shone onto them. It stopped as quickly as it had started, ending in a characteristic beep.

“Welcome Sorcerer Q and Sorceress Taylor,” a mechanical female voice said.

The door automatically slid open and they walked in. The room that served as Aliea’s main council room looked exactly like what it was meant to be. The walls were a dark-grey, almost black. A large table was placed in the center, its shade slightly darker than the walls. A row of chairs lined up on the longer side, and a single larger chair sat on either of the shorter sides. A line of light blue light shone on the edge of the table, giving it that futuristic look.

The larger chair on the far side of the table turned around. Aliea’s Commander sat in it, a brown-haired man with serious look on his face. “That was fast,” he

said. “The two of you were outside?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Q nodded. “The fields.”

He sighed, “Well, I guess you saw the red sky then?” he asked and gestured them to take the seats next to him.

“Carlos,” Taylor said as she sat down. “Is it what I think it is?”

“Well, if you thought that the red sky was caused by the force field shutting down then yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.”

Q twiddled his thumbs, nervous that the situation he had thought of was actually true.

Aliea Academy was a military center on the distant planet Zygrade. Now being a military center, and a really good one at that, Aliea was under constant threat. The force field was its best line of defense. It was a dome-shaped wall of pure energy that cut off everything within it from everything else. No one could really see the field since it was transparent. But when abruptly shut down, the field’s energy would change to an unstable red color, thus coating the entire sky red.

“But we saw the sky change back to normal,” Taylor said.

Oh yeah, Q had almost forgotten the second transition that had happened.

“That’s because I asked Burke to set up a mass hologram,” Carlos said. “We’re projecting a normal night sky over the red one. We didn’t want the whole

Academy to panic after looking at a red sky. Burke was quite quick to set it up I have to say.”

“It wouldn’t be Burke if he wasn’t quick,” Q smiled.

Burke was this insanely talented researcher that Q had met before on one of his previous missions. Currently, he was Aliea’s lead researcher, which basically meant he was the head of everything that was science or technology. The guy was so into making new things that he sometimes spent days researching in his lab without food and sleep.

Wait a minute, a sudden, unrelated thought popped into Q’s head. He turned to Carlos, “A force field shouldn’t be too hard to reboot, especially since we’ve got an abundance of spare parts,” he said. “It’s odd that you would choose to display a hologram rather than actually fix the field.”

Carlos sighed, “You know, sometimes I hate the fact that you’re my little brother,” he chuckled and Q smiled in return.

“Wait, so what are you saying?” Taylor asked, a look of concern on her face.

“The force field hasn’t only been shut down,” Q said. “It’s been tampered with.”

She turned to Carlos, desperately searching for the answer.

“I really hate it when you know about things before I want you to,” Carlos sighed, and turned to Taylor. “But yes, the force field has in fact been tampered with.”

Taylor froze. “I didn’t even know that was possible,” she said quietly, completely shocked,

“We found an unidentified signal quite close to our planet,” Carlos said. “You know what? I’ll just let Burke do the explaining,” he said.

A section of the wall behind Carlos opened up and a large screen emerged. It turned on, displaying another brown-haired man, only this one looked quite clumsy.

“Hi guys,” Burke waved at them, his coat slipping on his shoulders, his lab goggles slanted, his hair completely ruffled up.

“Did you just explode or something?” Q chuckled.

“Haha, very funny,” Burke said sarcastically. “This is my new look,” he grinned. “I call it ‘The Scientist’.”

“Well, you look like your baking soda volcano just blew up.”

“Guys?” Taylor glared. “The force field is down. Do you seriously think this is the time to be joking around?”

“No, ma’am,” both of them said sheepishly.

“Now Burke,” Carlos said. “Explain the situation to them. Properly.”

“It’s quite simple to be honest,” he said. “A few minutes ago Aliea’s scanners picked up a faint signal, and quite an abnormal one to be honest. At first it seemed like the signal was caused by a malfunctioning scanner. But just moments later, the signal spiked into high radiation levels, and the force field seemed to shut down immediately in response to that.”

“A space anomaly,” Q mumbled.

Taylor turned to Carlos, her face concerned, “It’s like the anomaly from last time?” she asked.

He shook his head, “We cross checked the data,” he said. “This one seems very different from that.”

“To be honest,” Burke said. “We don’t have all the data though.”

“Did our scanners actually malfunction then?” Q asked.

“To get more specific data we need to be closer to the source.”

“Well, you should have sent out a probe then.”

“I did,” Burke looked right at Q. “But it didn’t come back.”

***

 

If you're looking for a new Sci-Fi Thriller to read, then look no further! Here's the blurb and the first three chapters from EcQuest, the fourth book in the Quest Saga.

How deadly are the phantoms of the past?

The Dark Knights were the Universe's peacekeepers, the most powerful military faction in existence.
But all things change.

When Aliea Academy receives a mysterious request from the Empress of the Dark Knights herself, Space Cadet Q realizes that something serious is going on. Armed with nothing but the knowledge that the Dark Knights need their help, Q and his crew journey to the Dark Knights' home planet, Drakon. Battling past deadly threats and mysterious attacks, they discover a world scarier than their darkest nightmares, a world where pain and death seem inevitable. Will they be able to survive?

With great power come greater demons.

Thrilling, breath-taking and emotional, EcQuest explores the volatile nature of the mind in a world ruled by fear and terror.

1-1

“Are you sure?” Q asked. He sat inside the council room, his hands raking through his black hair. His stormy-gray eyes looked at his brother, who sat at the head of the large table.
“Why would I joke about this?” Carlos asked. “The Dark Knight Empress specifically asked for our help.”
“It just doesn’t seem likely,” Taylor said from opposite him. She spoke calmly but Q noticed her body language said otherwise. She nervously twirled her curly golden locks around her finger, then kept rubbing her palms together until her glowing white skin blushed with red.
Yup, she’s definitely nervous, Q thought.
“The Dark Knights have much better resources than we do,” she said. “They’re not the Universe’s strongest military organization for no reason. I don’t understand why they would ask for our aid.”
“Well, the Empress actually requested a healer, not a fighter,” Carlos said.
“Wait, what?” Q asked.
“That just makes it even weirder,” Taylor stared at Carlos, her electric blue eyes completely confused.
Carlos put his hands up in defense, “I’m just as clueless as you are,” he said. “The Empress sent me a message, and that was it. She didn’t even tell me why she needed a healer.”
“Are you even sure it’s her?” Q asked. He doubted if this request was the real deal. An enemy force could just as easily have faked the message.
Carlos sighed, “Fine,” he looked up the ceiling. “Replay feed.”
“Replaying feed,” a feminine voice came from the speakers around the room.
A hologram emerged over the table. A face of a young girl stared through, her dark eyes sending shivers through Q’s spine.
“High Commander Carlos,” she said, her voice cold and harsh. “I am sending this message in hope that you will comply with my favor. The Dark Knights require a high-class healer. We have no one but Aliea Academy to turn to in this time of need. I hope you will honor our alliance and acknowledge our request. Thank you.”
The hologram cut off.
“Wow,” Q said. “You weren’t kidding about her abruptness.”
Taylor became a little more nervous than she had been a few minutes ago. The video had riled her up a lot. “The Dark Knights have great healers of their own,” she mumbled.
“Precisely,” Carlos said. “That means she needs a healer better than the ones she can call upon.”
Taylor bit her lip, “Could be,” she said.
Q rapped his fingers on the table, “So we’re sending Trisha over to them?” he asked.
“Actually, Chris volunteered for it instead,” Carlos said.
Aliea had two big name healers - Trisha and Christina, or ‘Chris’ for short. Between the two, Trisha was acknowledged to be the better one, which was why picking Chris instead was quite a surprise.
“Wait,” Taylor said. “What do you mean Chris volunteered for the mission?”
“I spoke to Trisha and Chris earlier,” Carlos said. “Their abilities are very similar so both of them are viable candidates for this mission. Between the two though, Chris was really determined to be a part of this mission. Trisha made things easier by assuring Chris she could handle things on her own. So yeah, we’re sending Chris as our healer.”
“Wait a second,” Taylor said. “The Dark Knights need a healer, not a fighter. Why did you call me and Q for this then?”
Carlos paused for a second, “Well, I don’t think it’s agreeable to send her alone,” he said.
Q grasped what his brother was getting at, “You want us to accompany her there?” he asked.
He nodded, “I’d like to be on the safer side of things. This mission to the Dark Knight’s home world might not exactly be danger-free.”
“I really don’t know,” Taylor hesitated. “Can’t Q take her alone?”
“I understand I’m putting you in a situation, Taylor,” he said. “But I think it would be very beneficial if we had our own Dark Knight on the mission.”
Q nodded, “I guess he does have a point.”
Taylor thought for a while, as silence descended into the room. She finally drew herself up and lightly pounded a fist on the table. “Fine, I’ll do it. When do we leave?”
“We have a transport ship ready to go,” Carlos said. “Chris has probably boarded it already. You leave as soon as you’re ready.”
Q was taken aback at how quickly things were moving. But on second thought, all this haste made sense considering the mission was for the Dark Knights. The Dark Knights were like the Universe’s peacekeepers. They were a mercenary organization whose sole purpose was to keep a check on everything in the Universe. If they wanted help then it made sense to assist them as quickly as possible.
“I guess we’ll leave now then,” Taylor said. She turned to Q. “You have your suit on you?”
He smiled and held up his wrist, which had a black-and-red bead bracelet wrapped around it.
“Good,” she nodded.
Carlos got up, “I’ll show you to the ship,” he said.
They walked out of the room, and took the elevator down. The doors slid open with a bing, and revealed a nearly empty lobby. A receptionist rested at the table to their right, her head cradled in her arms. Carlos walked ahead and led them out of the building.
The streets were a little noisy with the chatter of people waking up. The first few rays of dim light bathed the ground. They walked a distance through the cold morning air before they reached an open field. A vast lawn of green grass spread out before Q. His eyes picked out the silver among all the greenery.
“Is that the ship?” he asked.
Carlos nodded, “She’s nothing fancy. Just a regular transport ship, but she can hold her own in battle if it comes to that,” he said. “Kai fixed it up with a special set of blasters.”
“He always goes a step further than necessary,” Taylor laughed.
They walked up to the ship. Just as Carlos had said, it was nothing fancy. It had a cuboidal
body with rounded edges and the front face tapered off into a rounded nose. It wasn’t the prettiest ship Q had seen, but it seemed more than sturdy enough for the mission.
I wonder why we couldn’t get a better ship though, Q thought. They could have provided one of those massive battle cruisers.
“Smaller ships attract less danger,” Taylor said as though she had just read his mind.
“Oh,” he said meekly, and quietly followed them up the ship’s stairs.
There were thirty passenger seats inside the ship, aligned in a rows of three, running along the center. At the very last row were a boy and girl deep in conversation. The boy was Asian, and had dark black eyes. The girl had chocolate shaded skin, and even darker curly hair. The boy was holding onto her hand, and she was smiling at him, her cheeks flushing red.
“These two again,” Carlos chuckled. He walked a little nearer and coughed. The two of them jumped around and faced everyone.
“Hello, you two,” Carlos said, an innocent smile on his face.
“Good Morning, High Commander,” they said.
“Kai, I trust the preparations are complete?”
He nodded, “All done. I had a team work things out in under an hour. The engine is at maximum capacity, and the ship has been tricked out with a full set of weaponry. This ship is basically a mini battle cruiser.”
Carlos turned to Q and Taylor, “Then I believe you’re ready for take-off,” he said.
“We’ll update you once we reach the Dark Knights,” Taylor said.
Carlos nodded and turned to the girl, “Chris, Trisha asked you to contact her if you have any problems,” he said.
“Will do,” she said, her voice monotone and cold.
Q watched as Kai and his brother walked out of the ship. The hatch door hissed as it slid closed, blocking his view of the fresh field. He and Taylor walked into the cockpit, while Chris remained in the passenger area.
Only a single seat had been built into the cockpit, and in front of it was a large dashboard with buttons, knobs, and dials. Taylor took the pilot’s chair, her hands working like clockwork, and in moments, the ship was in deep space.
The cockpit is much larger than I expected, Q thought.
What he found especially weird about the ship was that it didn’t have any glass viewscreen. Instead there was just a solid wall of metal. Their only view of the outside came from the holographic image right above the dashboard.
Q asked Taylor and learned this set up apparently gave the ship more stability, since a glass viewscreen was much weaker than a solid metal cover. And since transport ships sometimes carried very precious cargo, it made sense to use any method possible to increase their defenses.
“I’m heading into hyperspace now,” Taylor said, her hands working through the controls at super speed.
“Do we have to?” Q sighed. He hated hyperspace jumps. They always made him feel like he had been punched in the gut.
“Well, the Dark Knight’s home base is on Drakon, which is about five billion light years from here. Without jumping into hyperspace we’ll never be able to get there.”
He sighed again, “Fine. I’ll go seat myself as well,” he said and ran back to the passengers’ area.
Why does hyperspace have to be so darn useful? he thought. Hyperspace was an alternative dimension that existed parallel to the Universe. It was a warped version of space, so travelling one billionth of an inch in hyperspace was like travelling a thousand miles in the regular Universe. Using hyperspace, the trip to Drakon, which should have taken at least five billion years, would actually take maybe a day at most. Crazy, wasn’t it?
Q walked into the passenger area and found Chris in one of the seats.
“Hello, Q,” she said.
“Hey Chris,” he sat himself down next to her. “Listen, Taylor’s going to put the ship into hyperspace. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”
“Oh okay,” she drew her seat belts across her chest in an X-shape, and secured herself to her seat. Q did the same for himself.
The ship’s P.A. system blared, “Ahem. This is your captain speaking,” Taylor said. “I hope you’ve both secured yourselves. We’re entering hyperspace in three...two...one...NOW!”
A hard jerk shook the ship, and Q felt the seat push into his spine. Every inch of his body quivered as the ship jumped into the alternate realm. The jerking stopped just as quickly as it had started, and everything became silent once more.
The P.A. system spoke again, “This is your captain speaking. Just wanted to tell you I’m still alive, and that we’ve jumped into hyperspace.”
Q smiled. Of course, the hyperspace jump had given him a metaphorical punch to the gut, but his mind couldn’t think about anything but the mission. They were on their way to Drakon, on their way to meet the Dark Knights.
He couldn’t wait.

 1-2

Taylor switched the ship’s controls to autopilot and walked back to the passenger area. She had already been dead tired last night, and Carlos waking her up at three in the morning for an emergency meeting hadn’t made her feel any better.
“The hyperspace jump went smoother than I thought,” Q said from his seat, a grin on his face.
“You’re welcome,” Taylor chuckled and plopped herself down in the seat next to him.
“Didn’t Carlos say the route to Drakon was dangerous?” Chris asked. “Can autopilot handle it if something goes wrong?”
“Carlos said the mission was dangerous. The route to Drakon should be fine,” she paused for a few moments. “I think.”
Chris stared at Taylor for a second, “You think?”
“Well, aren’t you a bundle of confidence,” Q chuckled.
Taylor punched him the arm, “Idiot.”
“I’m really tired,” Chris stood up. “I’ll go catch a few winks. Let me know when anything comes up,” she said and walked to the seats behind them.
If this were the first time she was meeting Chris, Taylor would have felt something was wrong, but since she had known her for a long time now she knew it was commonplace to see Chris act a little socially awkward every now and then. The only person she opened up to was Kai, and it was pretty obvious why. Taylor wouldn’t be surprised if she found those two by some lake, holding hands under a full moon.
My romantic scenarios are so cliched, she chuckled.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Q interrupted her thoughts. “How are you handling all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it can’t be easy going back to the Dark Knights can it?”
Her expressions changed. Ugh. Why did he have to bring that up? she thought.
She knew exactly what Q was implying. She wasn’t exactly fond of the Dark Knights’ headquarters, the Palace of Darkness. All the memories she had of the place were not things she wanted to remember. Ever. In fact she would have had all those memories wiped away if there were some safe way to do so. Unfortunately for her, there wasn’t.
“I really don’t know what’s going to happen,” she sighed. “The last time I faced the Dark Knights it was on Dryke, that sub-territory I visited. I haven’t been to the Palace of Darkness since forever.”
“What about the Dark Knight Empress, Andrea?” he asked. “You know her?”
Taylor bit her lip, “Gosh, you’re asking a lot of intrusive questions,” she said.
Q was taken aback, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize-”
Taylor immediately regretted saying that. “I’m kidding,” she laughed, trying hard to cover up. “And to answer your question, yeah, I do know the Empress.”
“So can we count on a warm greeting when she sees you, or is she going to open fire?”
Taylor fell silent.
“Hey?” Q asked.
She glanced at the wall, wishing there were some sort of window for her to look into at the dark emptiness of space.
“Are things not okay between you and the Empress?” he asked.
She sighed, “I wish I knew.”

***

A white light glowed around Taylor and shrouded her with its glare. It dimmed as moments passed, revealing couches, chairs and a television set. She was inside someone’s house.
A dream, she realized.
“Taylor?” a voice called out.
She turned around and saw a tall blond woman call out from the doorway, her ocean-blue eyes looking around affectionately.
“She’s hiding in the hall, dear,” a dark-haired man walked up to her. “She’s mad that you’re leaving, and I don’t think she’s changing her mood anytime soon.”
“Oh well,” the lady sighed. “I’ll see her in a week anyway.”
The man put his arm around her, “Are you sure you have to go?”
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “The Knights specifically asked for me. It’s tough to say no when I know they’re depending on me.”
“Fine,” he smiled and pecked her on the cheek. “Come back safe,” he said.
“I’m going to be fine,” she smiled. “You on other hand have to take care of a rogue five year old,” she laughed.
“I know,” he pretended to shiver. “I’ll get her some pizza and ice cream tonight. That should make up for everything.”
“I’ve got to go now,” the lady stepped back. A bracelet on her arm glowed white, and a suit of dark armor grew around her. An aura of pure black emanated from it, and the man inched away from her.
“Still can’t handle it huh?” she laughed.
“You have no clue how scary that is,” he complained.
“We can talk about it when I’m back,” she winked.
A purple portal opened up next to the lady and she jumped through it. The man’s eyes watched longingly as the circle of light closed, sending a gentle arc of wind through him.
Taylor’s eyes shot open. She gasped as she sat up. Her eyes blinked rapidly as she looked around the room. She was still inside the ship.
“Stupid dreams,” she muttered, her teeth clenched. She looked to her right and saw Q sleeping soundly, his head resting on her shoulder.
“Yeah, the thing about the Pokemon is….” he mumbled.
She smiled, “You idiot,” she ran her fingers through his hair. She gently lay his head back onto the seat, making sure he didn’t wake up, and then headed up to the pit.
Better check up on our course, she thought. It took her an instant to pull up the ship’s course details on the holographic screen. It had been almost half a day since they had started, and they had covered quite a fair distance.
“Hey there,” Chris walked into the pit.
Taylor swivelled around on her chair, “Couldn’t get any sleep?” she asked.
“Got plenty,” she said. “I’m just bored.”
“Oh,” Taylor said awkwardly. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond to something like that. Initiating simple chit chat wasn’t exactly Chris’ thing.
She’s changing bit by bit, Taylor smiled. She wondered if Kai was the reason for that as well.
“So I was wondering,” Chris leaned against the wall. “The Dark Knights are one of the strongest military groups right? So do they have lots of mages?” she asked.
All space cadets were split into two main classes - the warriors and the mages. The difference between the two was the amount of life energy they possessed. Life energy could be used to manipulate different kinds of objects and give birth to something called Wave-skills. Each wave-skill pertained to a certain Elementa, like the Elementa of Wind, or the Elementa of Fire.
Warriors were born with low life energy, which meant they could only use very basic wave skills from any one Elementa. Mages, on the other hand, had very high levels of life energy and could pull off complex wave skills in two completely different Elementa.
Q though, was actually a sorcerer, which meant he was a class above all mages. He had such great power he could manipulate any almost Elementa, including the hardest Elementa there was - the Elementa of Light.
“Taylor?” Chris asked. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry,” she said, realizing she had spaced out for a second. “I’m not really sure of how many mages the Dark Knights have since I haven’t met them in a long time. But frankly speaking, I don’t think they had any. They’ve always been more of a warrior type.”
“Wait, but you reached your NOVA form right?” she asked. “So doesn’t that make you a Mage?”
A NOVA form was something warriors permanently transformed into. It gave the warrior a much greater life energy, allowing them to nearly rival the mage class. The transformation itself was an extremely rare occurrence though.
It was believed to only happen to warriors who had a potential to carry more life energy than they were born with. The rules for setting off this transformation weren’t well known. So far all they knew was that it happened when a potential NOVA warrior underwent a massive psychological or emotional change.
“Well, when you think about it you’ve technically become a mage right?” Chris asked once again.
“I’m not really sure if me being a NOVA warrior counts as a mage,” Taylor smiled.
Her fists clenched. I can’t tell them, she thought.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to the piloting then,” Chris said and walked away.
There was actually not much piloting left to do, but Taylor knew the conversation would only get more awkward if it kept on going so she let it go.
The holographic screen showed her nothing but the empty depths of hyperspace. She stared through the hologram and tried to lose herself in the darkness.
It comforted her, made her calm, made her feel alive.
The darkness was her friend.
It was her home.

 1-3

Q woke up dazedly to an excited Taylor and nonchalant Chris.
“Wake up already!” Taylor said. “We’re going to be heading into re-entry soon.”
Q’s eyes shot open, his mind realizing what that meant. They were almost at Drakon. He jumped up onto his feet, stumbled a bit, and followed them to the pit. “How long was I asleep?” he rubbed his eyes and pushed himself through the cramped door.
“The whole ride actually,” Chris said. “We tried to wake you up but you seemed really tired.”
“You even slept through the exit hyperspace jump,” Taylor said, a look of disbelief on her face.
“Whoa,” he mumbled. Even he felt that was crazy. Either he had completely knocked himself out, or Taylor had just mastered the art of a smooth hyperspace jump. And he wasn’t really sure about Taylor.
“Are you okay though?” Taylor asked. “You slept continuously for nearly twenty hours.”
“Well, I feel fine,” he looked at his arms and legs. “I did play a lot of Super Mario last night. Maybe that’s what did it.”
“You and your video games,” she chuckled and turned back to the holographic screen.
Q turned his attention to the screen as well, and his eyes glistened in awe at the sight before him. A large flame-red star and a small ice-white one lay in orbit around a black region of space.
“A red giant and white dwarf,” he mumbled, recalling the name of the two iconic types of stars.
“That’s not all,” Taylor said and pointed to the space the two stars were orbiting around.
At first Q couldn’t tell what she was trying to tell him. And then he saw a bright flare of white shoot out. It lasted for less than a millisecond. Even half an eye blink and he would have missed it. His mind immediately grasped what he was looking at.
His lips curved into a grin, “A black hole,” he said.
Taylor nodded, “Drakon’s ultimate security system,” she said and pointed to a lone dark planet that orbited the region around both the stars. “There’s no way anyone but a highly experienced pilot can even get close to the planet without having the stars or the black hole suck them in.”
“Nature’s own protection system,” Chris said quietly.
“Yeah,” Taylor smiled. “Pretty cool huh?”
“I just have one problem,” Q said. “You said we need a highly experienced pilot. How are we going to land on Drakon then?”
She punched him in the arm, “I’m a highly experienced pilot you nitwit,” she glared at him.
“Um. Oh,” he said. “You can’t blame me for not thinking that. Whenever our ship was in a tight spot Kai was the one who got us out.”
“Of course, he’s way better than me,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t get us down onto Drakon. Now go sit down, and I’ll land this thing.”
It took another half hour for Taylor to completely land on Drakon. It should have taken much less time, but she accidentally overshot the ship on her first try, passing right by the planet instead of getting caught in its orbit. Luckily she didn’t mess up too much for them to get pulled in by any of the massive celestial bodies.
Q couldn’t help grinning in the situation. There was just so much irony between what Taylor had said and what she had done.
“Shut up,” she mumbled when she noticed the look on his face.
“It’s okay, Taylor,” he chuckled. “These things happen to everybody.”
A dark aura started to form around her, “One more word out of you and-”
“Yes ma’am!” Q saluted and stood still. Taylor could get really, really scary when she did that. He wondered if it was his inborn battle instinct speaking out whenever he saw the darkness and felt fear. Taylor’s Elementa of Darkness seemed like a direct contradiction to his rare Elementa of Light. Carlos said there wasn’t anything of that sort though, and he was usually right about such things.
Ten minutes later the ship had breached into Drakon’s atmosphere that was filled with nothing but dark storm clouds, and headed down to the surface. Q looked at the holographic screen and noticed the thick fog all around them. Sudden flashes of lightning lit up the ground below. Loud claps of thunder shook the ship with every wave of sound, and the downpour of rain played a musical orchestra with its water-on-metal sounds.
With each bolt of lightning Q gained enough light to scan more of the surface. A small oval-shaped city lay before them, and a towering castle stood at the very center. The castle had two pillars at either end, rising up about five hundred feet off the ground, and the central one rose to twice that height. They were all circular, starting off from a wide base and tapering off into a sharp point at the very top.
“That’s the Palace of Darkness,” Taylor said.
“Wow.” That was all that Q could say in the face of such a domineering structure. He could feel a sense of fear grasp him when he looked at the building. It was the same feeling he got when he saw Taylor surrounded by her signature dark aura.
Maybe everything related to the Dark Knights is supposed to cause fear, he thought.
The closer the ship got to the surface, the more Q could see of the city itself. The whole place was dark. The stone and metal buildings around the castle were all painted in colors that were only very subtly distinguishable from blackness of the night sky.
All of a sudden, a brilliant flash of lightning shot right at the holographic screen and the feed cut off. The ship’s lights died down and left them with darkness.
Q’s body moved involuntarily. He stretched out his hand and summoned his life energy. He imagined it flowing out of his fingers and collecting into a sphere above his palm. A small stream of light flowed out his fingertips, forming a spherical lamp in his hand and lighting up the cockpit.
The ship’s metal front split into two and slid away to reveal a glass viewscreen. Q was taken aback for a second because he had always thought transport ships had fronts made of solid metal. This ship though clearly had a viewscreen that lay hidden inside a thin gap in the metal.
Kai must have added a viewscreen, he realized. His mind refocused onto the matter at hand.
“What just happened?” Chris asked.
“Lightning bolt hit the ship,” Taylor cursed.
“What?” Q’s eyes widened. “Does that mean-”
“Yup, the engines are out.”
Q’s mind stayed calm, and he tried to think rationally without letting the fear get to him. A ship without an engine wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Frankly, it was much worse.
“How far up are we from the surface?” he asked.
“About a mile,” she said. “I’m putting us in a glide right now, but we’re still going to pick up too much speed to actually be able to land.”
Q turned to Chris, “You specialize in the Elementa of Wind right?” he asked. “Can you try to create an updraft below the ship and slow us down?”
She shook her head, “The storm surrounding us is too violent for me to use my Elementa properly. The air pressure around the ship is in a very delicate balance. Any external prodding might make it tip and the unstable pressure could create a twister.”
“This ship can’t handle a twister,” Taylor said.
“Exactly,” Chris replied.
“Okay here’s an idea,” Q said. “I can create energy suits for all of us with my Elementa of Light. We can use those to leave the ship and safely glide ourselves down to the ground.”
“The ship will land in the middle of the city if we abandon it. We can’t do that.”
“We could program it to land outside the city.”
“We’ve lost all controls after the lightning bolt hit,” Taylor said. “All systems are down. We can’t even contact anyone.”
“Well,” Q said. “There’s only one option left.”
“What?”
He pulled Taylor out of her seat and sat down, “I’m piloting now,” he said.
“What? But the systems are down.”
“I don’t need the systems,” he threw his hand into the air and focused, feeling every little bit of life energy inside him.
“Q, there’s only a little more than a thousand feet left to the surface.”
“Perfect,” he said. He felt his body become hotter, and his joints turn rigid. His life energy was overloading him.
All ready, he thought. He concentrated and let his energy out in one short instant. He felt it rush out of him like a river. But the air around them remained exactly the same; stormy and dark.
“Ummm, Q?” Taylor asked. “What are you doing?”
A massive tunnel of white formed around the ship and extended, connecting it directly to the central tower of the Palace of Darkness. 
“You made that with your Elementa of Light?”
Q nodded, “I’ve gotten pretty good at it now.”
The ship shook as the tunnel restricted its movement, forcing it to change course and follow the tunnel’s path instead,
Taylor immediately picked up on what the course change meant. “Oh my god,” she gasped. “We’re going to crash into the tower.”
Q nodded.
She looked at him, “Stop it. Now.”
“Too late.”
They were all thrown about as the ship crashed through the tower’s stone walls and halted with a screech. Q wasted no time in picking himself up and looking around at the damage. Surprisingly most of the craft had stood the crash. Only the hatch door had been completely ripped off.
Kai really outdid himself, he thought. There was no way a regular transport ship would have suffered that little damage from such a crash. Kai must have reinforced the entire ship’s body with high level tech.
Q walked out and stepped onto cold stone floors. He immediately heard a high-pitched noise ring through the air. Five knights in dark armor activated their laser blasters and closed in on him, a fear-instilling, dark aura sifting through the air around them, their weapons aimed right for his head.
He sighed, “Boy, I really didn’t think this through.”

***

Hi there!

It's been almost three months since I last posted here, and a TON of things have happened.

First of all, the first book in the Quest Saga, ConQuest, is now free so if you want to grab a copy you can get one here

Book Two, ZeQuest. has been released online as well. I ran a promo spree with this book, and it actually went pretty well I'd say. So far I've sold over a 100 copies of book two in less than a week. Big win!

I put Book three, AcQuest, up for pre order and so far I've got 50 people who've preordered it.

I'm currently working on a few marketing strategies, while redrafting AcQuest - which is going to be released by the 2nd week of December.

It's going to be a busy three months from now, but I' darn excited to get started on it!

And for all you Indie authors out there, I'll write out a blog post detailing how I launched ZeQuest. Hopefully it'll help you guys out :)

Cheers!

 

 

It's been SOOOO long since I posted something back here.
And boy did I miss it.

Well. My "Let's calm my writer's urge" period is finally coming to close.
Another three days and I'm going to be free to write 24 hours a day for the next two months probably.
Just thinking of it gives me the chills.

I've got two major series to push forward. One is the Quest Saga, and the other is a new one I haven't really worked much into yet.

I'm planning on finishing both of them before starting anything big.

I started my whole "Let's begin writing" thing yesterday, and so far I'm at around 5k words a day which is pretty good for me. Haven't felt druggy or tired so far, which is pretty good. I'll raise it higher and higher the next few days, and hopefully I can start my writing spree with a constant 10k-a-day plan.

I know I know. "I think you're being over enthusiastic about it"
Well I think so too. I can probably keep my productivity between 8k and 10k for max of a week or so. My best has been writing a 85k word novel in around 8 or 9 days. That's almost 10k a day, but it wasn't for too long.

The thing is I've held in so much writing that I'm really beginning to enjoy the prospect of writing.
And I don't mean just novels and books.
I've got plans to update this blog around four to five times a month.
A few articles will probably be science and tech stuff, the rest? I have noooo clue. I guess I'll have to find out for myself.

Marketing is another thing that was a huge problem for me last time. Well, I got three and a half months to think it over, and now I think I've pretty much settled on a really cool strategy.

So basically, I've got everything planned out. All that's left is to bring it to reality (An odd thing for a fiction writer to say huh? ;) )

Here's to a deluge of writing!

Cheers!