Magic Stars (Universe on Fire Book 3), page 22
Hestia saw many nod their heads, agreeing with him. Hestia could see the others’ moods, could see that Boluvar, the fool, was convincing them to his side. He didn’t understand, none of them did. They knew the truth, sure, but more in the abstract, as something that they had heard had happened. They knew that the three new ones had refused, but they didn’t understand, not really, and Boluvar was an idiot who wouldn’t be able to see until it was too late.
And then he noticed her, and she saw his hand rise to point at her. “And there she is, Hestia! The one who allowed this fool to go free, instead of reining him in, educating him in the proper ways!”
“Boluvar,” Hestia said, “you do not understand half the things you are spouting.”
“This is your mess, Hestia, but since you are obviously not willing to clean it up, we will! This has gone long enough. That rogue and his other two friends need to be brought to heel—he has shown complete disregard for our obvious wisdom, and as such, we will teach him by force!” Boluvar yelled out, and the others cheered. She looked at them, and pitied them.
“Don’t do this, Boluvar. You don’t want to antagonize him, trust me on this,” Hestia warned.
“Antagonize him? We are the Titans! It saddens me to see you fallen so far, Hestia. You used to be one of the greats, but your age has obviously made you weak, for you to allow such an insignificant gnat to defy you. What should we care about a whelp who doesn’t even understand the most basic of rules? He is the one who interferes with Chaos and Order, who tempts them, and even after they slapped him down, still he has the arrogance to call us cowards! Well, if he will not come and learn peacefully, we will bring him with force. Even if we have to start a war!”
The cheering exploded as the others roared their approval. It was moments like this that she hated the fact that the Titans were so set in their ways, but breaking the habits of something that had worked for time beyond counting was hard, and she understood that.
She looked at Boluvar and shook her head. “This will not go the way you think it will, Boluvar. I warned you and all the rest of you here. I told you to leave him to me.” She glared at Boluvar, pointing her finger at him. “Yet you couldn’t help yourself, now could you? You just had to go and make an ass of yourself, make him think that he was right about everything that he thinks about us. You have destroyed a thousand years of my work in a day.”
“It is your mistake to let him do as he wills while you try to convince him with words. You should have forced him!”
I tried, you fool. She shook her head sadly. “He is strong, Boluvar, as I am sure you know. The last time you met with him you couldn’t touch him, and I hear that this latest time hadn’t gone all that much better for you.”
“And that is why we must act. He has power, but does not know restraint. We are many, and together we can overpower him.”
“Boluvar, trust me, I beg of you, do not start a war, not with him. We will not win it.”
“We are the Titans!” Boluvar roared. “We are eternal! You think that we can be brought low by a whelp, when not even Chaos and Order could eradicate us? I see that you have completely lost your mind, Hestia. He will either bend to our will or we will go to war and take from him everything that he holds dear.”
Hestia looked at the others and knew that he had them, that they would follow him no matter what she said. “The last war he fought ended with the total death of a universe, along with all life in it. I was there, when he first encountered Chaos and Order, when he struck at them. They struck back at him, struck him down, but he did not cower. He is not afraid.”
She looked around the grand hall. “If you fight a war against him, he will have no mercy. He will do exactly as he promises to do and at end of a bloody war you will find yourselves exactly where he put you the first time: down on the ground, looking up at him.”
She turned around as soon as she had finished and walked out of the hall. The Titans had once been a grand order of guides and teachers, those who held the wisdom of the ages. Now…now, they were tyrants. They were all that she had ever known, however, and despite what she told them, she wanted to find another way. The Heart of the Mountain was too powerful for them to handle, a truth they refused to entertain, but she knew that he was the key to ending the threat that the Chaos and Order posed to them all. If she could only convince him to share the secret of his power, then together they could defeat their ancient enemy—but for now, she had to mitigate the damage that Boluvar would cause.
She split the space in front of her and stepped through to her own universe. There she could think, and try to find a way to bring the Heart of the Mountain to their side.
It was their only hope.
Thank you for reading!
Many of you already know this, but this is for the people who are not aware. All of my books take place inside a shared multiverse, and some characters crossover from series to series. But it is not required for you to read all the series in order to understand what is happening, each series has its own set of characters and storyline which is contained inside of that series. The multiverse stuff is mostly background and side stories, and I will always explain everything that is relevant in every series, so you will never feel like you are missing out. Reading the other series might give you some insight into the characters that appear across different series, but it will not give you all the answers as every series takes place at a different point in time, with thousands of years and sometimes more in between the events. Every series is also a different genre, and while the overall rules of the multiverse are the same, each series has its own feel, and you should not feel the need to read something in a genre that you don’t enjoy! Don’t worry, everything will always be explained where necessary and you will not miss out on anything!
In case that you do want to check the other books out, here is the chronological order of the multiverse:
Rise of the Empire (space opera, sci fi with fantasy elements in the second half of the series)
Chaos and Order trilogy (coming soon! This trilogy will have the multiverse stuff as the main storyline and will set the stage for the background conflict)
Universe on Fire (sci fi-fantasy)
Eternal Path (mix of eastern and western fantasy)
Tower of Power (LitRPG, fantasy)
You are of course not required to read them in chronological order to understand things. The multiverse threads are mostly background in every series so far, but the characters that are crossing over do originate in a few of these series, and you might learn more about their origins. That’s it! Thanks for reading!
If you liked this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Honest reviews of my books help greatly by bringing them to the attention of new readers. I would be grateful if you could spend a few minutes writing a short review (a few words is fine) on Amazon.
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Tower of Power Book 1 – Guild Master
Tower of Power Book 1 – Guild Master
CHAPTER ONE
Morgan Newton looked around in confusion, not really understanding what had happened. One moment he was crossing the street on his way to class at the community college, and the next thing he remembered was being here, wherever here was. Looking around, he noticed that he appeared to be in some kind of a cave, or a tunnel of sorts. The walls around him were gray and made out of a smoky, mist-like substance. He reached out with his hand to touch one of the walls and his fingers sank into it just a bit before encountering a solid wall. The mist curled around his hand and he jerked it away, feeling a coldness that cut to the bone. Morgan looked around again. Behind him there was only darkness, and somehow he could tell that the darkness was a wall, one that he couldn’t pass through. In front of him, however, stretched a tunnel, and out in the distance he could see a bright light.
Morgan covered his face with his hands and shook his head as he remembered what had happened. He had been on his way to class, hurrying along and thinking about the raid he had scheduled with his guild in the MMORPG The Braves that very night. The Guild was attempting its seventh run against the latest expansion’s last raid boss, hoping to finally take him down after almost three months of trying. They were a semi-hardcore guild, but a core of the guild was a group of pretty intense players set on getting every boss before the next raid came out. He had been running the strategy they devised for the boss through his head all week. It was probably why he had been so absent minded, and why he hadn’t seen the red pickup truck until it was too late.
“Crap, I’m dead, aren’t I? My guild mates are going to kill me,” Morgan said out loud, and immediately chuckled at his own expense. It wasn’t like he could be any deader, but it did tell a lot about him that the first thing that popped into his head as he realized that he was dead was concern for his guild. The Braves had been a large part of his life; all of his friends played it, and he spent almost all of his free time on the computer playing it as well.
Tanya. He suddenly remembered the hot brunette from his world history class and that he had made plans with her for tomorrow evening. God damn it, Morgan cursed inwardly. The two of them weren’t precisely dating but they were getting there. Plenty a man had tried to get sweet Tanya to call them their boyfriend, and he was fairly certain that he would be one of the few to have that privilege. I bet that Hank will jump in before my body even gets cold. He shook his head. The two of them had been vying for her attentions for the better part of the semester. And seeing as he hated that jackass, Morgan had been really looking forward to rubbing his victory in Hank’s face. It was ironic in a way that he had ended up dead because he had been too consumed with a video game just as he was about to get somewhere with a girl. Not that he hadn’t had any girlfriends before, but Tanya… Well, it didn’t matter now anyway. His mom had always told him that he should stop staring in that damned monitor so much.
“Fuck me sideways,” he breathed out. It figured that he should die on the day of his twenty-second birthday.
“Sorry, I don’t do requests.”
Morgan jumped at the unexpected voice. A small and completely undignified squeak escaped his mouth as he turned around and looked straight into a man leaning on the wall, mist curling away from him, as if it was afraid to touch him. The man chuckled at Morgan’s response.
“Who the fuck are you?” Morgan asked, trying to gather his wits. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but if he hadn’t been dead already, he just might’ve had a heart attack from that.
The man tsked. “That isn’t really a nice way to speak to strangers, now is it? I’m sure that you were raised better than that—but considering the circumstances, I will let it slide. ”
Morgan gulped nervously, which in itself was completely bonkers. I am dead. How in the hell can I still do that? As the man spoke, Morgan had a chance to take a look at him. The man was of an average height, average looks, short hair, with light skin which was perhaps just a bit tanned, but it was hard to tell in this light. He wore strange clothes, unlike anything he had ever seen before; it kind of looked like he was wearing a wetsuit with a long, dark coat over it.
The man clapped his hands and pushed off the wall. “Now, I don’t have a lot of time, so we should really get this started. First, you are dead.”
“Yeah, I kinda figured that one out already, Sherlock.” Morgan cringed inwardly as he realized what he had said. He could’ve kicked himself for being so stupid. God, I really can’t keep my mouth shut sometimes.
“Har, har, har. A wiseass. Of course you had to be a wiseass.” The man rolled his eyes and stepped closer. Morgan fought the instinct to take a step back and instead stayed his ground, trying to project the image of calm confidence as his sensei always told him to do if he ever got cornered with no way out. Not that Morgan thought that it was going to do him any good; one look into the man’s eyes told him that he knew everything there was to know about Morgan. There was a weight behind that gaze, an eternity.
“Where are we?” Morgan asked.
“Think of this as a place between life and death,” the man told him.
“Wait, if I am in between, can I go back?” Morgan asked hurriedly.
“Not a chance. Well… Okay, that isn’t really true. It is possible for a soul to go back, but not for you.” The man shrugged, almost as if he was saying sorry.
“What do you mean not possible for me?” Morgan took a step back. This guy is going to eat my soul for sure. Morgan tried to look around to find a way to escape, but the only path available to him was toward the light, and he wasn’t just yet prepared to go there.
“Oh, don’t be such a wimp. I’m not the reason you can’t go back to your old life. That is your fault. You lack the knowledge and power.”
“Well, I’ve never heard any credible story of someone coming back to life. Forgive me for not going out of my way to learn how to raise myself from the dead,” Morgan said—and then a thought came to his mind. “Wait, who are you? Are you God?” Morgan asked in a whisper.
The man tilted his head, seemingly amused. “Sure, from your point of view I might as well be God.”
One look at that grin and another thought occurred to Morgan. “Oh my god, you are the devil, aren’t you? I knew that I shouldn’t have stolen that piece of bubblegum when I was kid, but Marcus kept pressuring me. Please, it’s not my fault! He made me do it!” Morgan said as he took a step back, his eyes opened wide.
The man rolled his eyes. “I’m not the devil! Seriously, man, get a hold of yourself.”
Morgan straightened his posture and tried to compose himself by straightening his clothes. “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool… So you are God, then? Or an angel or something?” Morgan asked, relieved—he really didn’t want to go to hell. He knew that he would just hate the heat.
“If you mean to ask if am I the God… Well then, the answer is no. I don’t really know for certain if a god really exists. What I do know is that if you go over there toward the light, you will find out. I guess that I am technically a god, little g, but not really… It’s complicated. Also for the purpose of this meeting, you may call me Oxylus,” the man said with a grin.
Morgan blinked at that. Little g? Then he frowned at the name and the way the man said it. “Is that name supposed to be some kind of a reference or an inside joke?” Morgan asked. “Because if it is, I have no idea what it means.”
The man closed his eyes and covered his face. “Calm, calm… What do they teach these kids in schools these days…” The man muttered in his hands. Then he finally took a deep breath and looked at Morgan in a way that someone might look at a child. “It doesn’t matter. I just liked the name.”
Morgan narrowed his eyes. There was a glimmer of something in Oxylus’ eyes, but he had no idea what it meant. “Whatever you say, Oxy.”
Oxy narrowed his eyes at Morgan but then took another deep breath. Morgan felt something, and then glanced down the tunnel at the bright light. There was something there—something pulling him forward. It was almost as if he could hear a song somewhere in his head, promising things that he couldn’t really understand, as if they were just at the edge of his understanding.
Then he turned to Oxy as another thought occurred to him. “Wait, are you some kind of a ghost, a ferryman or something like that? Here to take me to the afterlife?” Morgan asked, turning back from the light.
Oxy grinned at him. “Nope, I’m not a ghost, seeing as I am not dead, unlike you. And I am not here to ferry you to the afterlife. If you want to see what is beyond, all you have to do is walk into the light. I am here to make you an offer before you decide to go through or the light pulls you in.”
Morgan glanced at the light nervously. “What kind of an offer?”
“A new life,” Oxy said with a glimmer in his eyes.
“You can bring me back from the dead?” Morgan asked, surprised, and then immediately felt fearful. He had played enough games to know all about zombies and other crap, and he did not plan on selling his soul or binding himself to some strange dude in a diving suit.
“Yup, I can give you a new life. And before you ask, I mean new life. I am not going to send you back to your little world and your old life.”
“Why not?” Morgan asked, just a bit crushed. Already he had started thinking about all the things he would change in his life if he got to go back.
“Because I gain nothing from you continuing your life on Earth. And let’s face it, you weren’t doing much with your life anyway.”
For a moment Morgan prepared to deny Oxy’s words, but he stopped himself. The strange god-but-not-god man in a wet suit was right. Morgan hadn’t really done much with his life. He had already repeated a year at college, and would probably drop out by the end of the year. Or rather would have dropped out, had I not died instead.
“What are you offering, then? And just so you know, I ain’t selling my soul to you, and this better not be some Sauron type of shit where you seduce me and then corrupt my soul!” Morgan told him in what he thought was a resolute tone of voice.
The man chuckled. “You have nothing to worry about. I don’t want your soul, nor do I want to corrupt and dominate it. All that I am offering is a new life on a new world, a new reality.”
“Uh… Say what again?”
“I want to give you a chance to start a new life on another world.”
Morgan blinked; that did sound appealing. Especially since he was, like, totally dead, and like totally not about to go into a strange singing light. No way in hell or heaven am I stepping through that shit.
“Why me?” Morgan asked dumbly, as he tried to figure out the answer to the same question. It wasn’t like Morgan was anything special; well, maybe to his grandma, who always said that he was her special little boy, but he was fairly certain that her opinion didn’t matter much to the not-God-dude.
