Espara part.09

     Feathered serpent with the head of an eagle, four dragonfly wings covered in feathers, tail feathers like tentacles swaying beneath it as a giant golden halo of arcane magic floats above it. The golden eyed gargantuan being whose presence dwarfs mountains floats in a fathomless blurring void as standing/floating before its might is the giant whit owl Garudan and the fiery goat/boar man Eckraick.

 

  “My children,” speaks the massive creature, “Why…why do I feel the sting of sorcery upon Espara once more? Why do I feel the pain of loss, the loss of faith through you to me, the pain of loss of your creations born from my timeless grace?”

 

  “Speak not!” commands the being with a golden flash from its eyes, “I will know all that you know.”

 

  Garudan and Eckraick wince.

 

  “Fools!” roars the being, its voice rippling the blurry world, “Are you so blinded by your own divinity not to recognize her? It is she? She who challenged me, she who would have killed me long ago for her own ends if not for the intervention of the Dimension Police! You have for a decade now allowed this sorceress to run rampant on Espara! Espara of all worlds to allow something like this to be rampant on! Do you not remember why I instructed you to banish magic from this world? Why I had you create the balance? My foolish children, look at your blind folly and arrogance, she ransacked hell, she has slaughtered your angels as easily as a mortal may slaughter fish in a bucket! Yet it is not until now, now that your precious witches are being converted to sorcery in mass, now that magic is revived and the ancient spirits of Espara being stirred that you come to me?...no…I brought you here didn’t I my children? Why? Because I can feel the pain of sorcery being reborn on Espara, the pain of the ancient spirits clawing at me, to reclaim their once domain, look around you, a blur, a blur that should be less than a blur, none existence, it should be none existence! I created you for a purpose! Fulfill it!”

 

  In this moment Eckraick is returned to hell, and Garudan to heaven, their ancient memories confused, were they not eternal? Were they not the first? How is it then that now they remember a before eternity, how is it then that they remember both creating Espara and yet being born upon it? How is a father existent above them?

 

    ******

 

   War is hell, for all the power Rhulan possesses she is still only one person, she cannot be at every battle in a war that threatens to involve the entire world. It has become a war of total dominance, neither side willing to allow the other to even exist; each accusing the other of wrong doings both ideological and historical. Rhulan’s presence not even required, she was merely the binding agent, that initial burst of courage the southern islands needed to oppose the church and band to together. Her witches, each may control an army of monsters, were only five groups. The five witches a bit sociopathic and hard to control, which does not help the fact that monsters are hard to control. Where as a mortal man may become unhinged in war and commit atrocities, a monster is like an attack dog, they guard, they attack, they are given a scent or a sight as a cue, they have no morals to guide them or question. They must be controlled, and the five able to do so on the battle field are themselves unstable. A sixth witch would be added, one willing to surrender her humanity to become an immortal monster herself to control the beasts, Mary of Garigland. Guard dogs essentially, Garigland becoming a strong hold for refugees and resources. Magic weapons for killing the angels that assist the church are not easily mass-produced, especially as only one person in all the world knows how, granted over the years more will be taught how, it is a trying thing and reliance on magic and monsters dwindles in this war. Any battle in which one side calls upon such things the other will call upon their own supernatural forces; the threat of divine, demonic, or elemental powers one would think would be enough to end all the conflicts, but this is a war that has been brewing steeped in repressed cultures and ideology.

 

   Years go by, Rhulan trains her daughter, as well as Migdra, and of course Mary in various uses of magic, the creation of mystical items, summoning and controlling monsters. Mary becomes the Sixth Great Witch, the Green Queen of Garigland, a reason merely for church forces to avoid those islands or try and cut off passage to them. Migdra and Rhudra gain the most, closest to Rhulan’s heart and one of Rhulan’s blood. Migdra gains greater dignity, becoming renowned as a leader in the years that pass, praised mostly by the Hayzore as by origin and description she fits an ancient prophesy of a savior. Rhulan has granted her immortality, at the cost of ever having another child, for the immortality Rhulan can grant is either that of a monster that births/creates lesser monsters and can turn others, or else become fully immortal yet loses the ability to produce children of any kind. Rhudra by birth is immortal, like Rhulan before her, in her teenage years becoming renowned herself as a god like sorceress, and the idle of men and women across the southern hemisphere.

 

      *******

 

     [It is written in the Holy Book, in the New Age gospels that the Holy One, creator of Espara tasked with this purpose by the omnipotent benevolence above him, did ascend to another plane to seek out aid by six powers.]

 

  In truth the feathered serpent entity that bestowed life upon Garudan and Eckraick, the manufacturer of the balance of good and evil that tormented mankind with its redundancy and wholly unnecessary presence in the realm of human kind did in fact seek out assistance, calling forth a circular portal to speak with a group, a group that had sent seven warrior centuries before to assist this being when it called for assistance before. The Dimension Police, another higher than thou force in work in existence that has the manifesto of protecting the multiverse and keeping powerful sentient forces from crossing dimensions for their own purposes, at least not those not sanctioned by the Dimension Police and the Multiversal Society.

 

   What passes between the entity and the police is a long and boring conversation that accumulates simply as a complaint that the entity, Rhulan, that the Dimension Police had supposedly imprisoned for all time has returned, and not only that, but there are signs that the being had influence on Espara while imprisoned, whose prison even shows signs that she would have escaped in due course even without outside assistance. The Dimension Police thusly informed this being that the prison was only meant to be a temporary measure, one that would have changed the entity into something they could handle properly. Although in short order they would find this was mistaken, the prison had been disintegrating far more rapidly than anticipated, clawed at from within, and would have emerged as a terror of destruction upon Espara before they had planned to appear and become the heroes; not that they informed this holy abomination of such plans.

 

   While before seven had been sent to directly confront Rhulan in battle, and had used the Eldritch Seal only after their higher ups ordered it, this time six are chosen to go, with new orders, a new plan, one which the supposedly holy entity is to take a major part in.

 

   They are a diverse group from many different realities, powerful heroes from each, they are.

 

   Suranaka: A young Japanese man looking member with an odd style of long red hair spikes, a denim jacket over a black shirt, denim jeans, and tennis shoes.

 

  Ambilia: a woman sorceress in pink corsets and mini-shirt with elbow length gloves, a pink bristled riding room, pink witch hat, and a wand with a pink jewel; luckily on Espara this look and “witch” are not connected.

 

  Horand: A mountain of a man with giant fists and power over the earth element.

 

  Vorace: A man in white and black space age body armor wielding Twin Solar Swords, and a blaster.

 

  Egono: A humanoid dog like creature in black armor and an energy blade battle axe.

 

  And

 

  Borant: A south western USA styled cowboy cyborg with a thing for fancy guns.

 

  The plan is in motion, sent via six different pods to six different points on the planet Espara, each carrying with them a kind of transmitter they descend to Espara. On six isolated and spread around the world island they plant their transmitters before each hones in on the signal of their targets and teleports away, leaving the odd pen prick shaped objects behind, each morphing to resemble some random inconspicuous natural object in their varied environments.