Dream-
This is based on the most interesting dream I’ve ever had. It still manages to mostly be happy even through almost all my friends and family being enslaved(pretty much the whole human race actually), one dying for trying to resist and accomplishing nothing, the slow descent into madness of my one other friend who was accepted into the new society, and my own death much later. Yay.
In [dream], a race of graceful, humanoid reptiles gifted with magic called Sylians come to modern day earth and conquer the world, enslaving most of the population and destroying every government in a matter of minutes. This [Book/Videogame] is not about resisting them. That would be impossible. This book is about one of the select few who are accepted into their society, and what he accomplishes.
The protagonist, that’s me of course, was spared from slavery along with a few others because the Sylians arrival had changed something in them. They could use magic.
Magic was the Sylian equivalent of sentiency, to them other humans were nothing more than smart, disobedient animals, and because their religion holds that the gods granted magic, and we were the only sentient race ever known not to have magic, we were also seen as cursed by the gods.
All humans are technically capable of magic, but our use of it has been blocked, by what we don’t know. All of our magic is “locked” in our minds to start with, but being near an instance of magic is enough to “unlock” a very small portion of the population, and there is one person, a friend before the Coming, who has the ability to “unlock” a human’s mind and even grant the Sylian greater use of their powers. The ability is called Breaking, and David Stewart becomes worshipped as a living god (literally) for it, as nothing like it had ever been known. The demands of his position, and my own interests, mean we don’t talk often before long.
David may well have been the reason three people in our group of friends had magic. The other friend was Allen Beck. But Allen is nearly inconsequential to the story because he refused to see humanity was beat and tried to start a resistance, then died before he freed a single slave.
When we are accepted into their society, we are assigned a sort of guide who helps us find our way in the new world, someone well versed in Sylian culture, lore, and magic theory. With their help, we came to understand the unusual structure of Sylian society quite quickly, and lost most of our hatred for them as we gain understanding, although we could never agree with them. We were human after all.
The lizard-men are called Sylians and are not in any way evil. Their home became unlivable over thousands and thousands of years as the pure-magic creatures with whom they co-existed died, and the untamed magic they contained was released, magic pollution if you will. It got to the point where no chemical life form could survive long, and the Sylians came here.
Sylians don’t really have a form of government per se, but they get things done. Power isn’t really valued among the Sylians, and because magic brings with it the leisure required to do so, especially when they have slaves, most Sylians spend most of their time in study of what they love. This sort of atmosphere is bad for the more traditional governments they used to have, because the public is always well informed about everything.
There was no real popular opinion except on the most basic things, and when the people inevitably disagreed with the current government about something, they would revolt. Eventually it got to the point where there were several revolutions going on constantly, and that in itself became their government. Different political “parties” all acting for what they believed was right without regard to the rest of the population, who they’d given up on. More and more of the warring “parties” appeared, and soon they became an accepted part of life.
Then they started to leave the political field. Associations similar to Unions began to set up, looking after the interests of the people who had a certain interest or occupation. Out of necessity, the conflicts started to become friendlier, and soon it was rare for anyone to die when there was a Clan conflict except in certain necessarily violent “Clans”. Now, nearly everyone was in a Clan, and there were millions, some with only a few members.
As David’s friend, I had a lot of influence, and I already had a lot of magic- magic is quantitative in this- so I create my own Clan, which, in the fashion of most modern Clans, had no set purpose, but consisted of those who feel that my ideals are similar enough to theirs that they could hope to do good by swearing themselves to my allegiance.
Back there I said that magic is quantitative, now let me elaborate on the nature of magic according to me. Everyone is born with a different amount of magic, as you grow it simply comes into existence. Magic cannot be used up; you simply tire from using it. Magic can be transferred from one being to another without any energy loss, which is why it has become the sort of “currency” for the Sylians, they operate off a barter system but magic is almost invariably what someone is giving to get something.
There are different forms of magic to do different things, and they are powered by separate energies, not just one type of “Mana” or something that works for all fields. The different types of magic are: Chemical, learning, life, alteration, illusion, and enchanting. I will now give a short synopsis of each, in order of value:
Chemical magic: The least valuable of the schools, chemical magic is only really suited to destroying, and is often called Destruction magic. Chemical magic manipulates particles are temperatures, it can speed up or slow down chemical reactions, which could be useful for a very wide range of things if it wasn’t so hard to control. When used in conjunction with advanced enchanting can be used for effects far beyond normal Chemical magic Precision is impossible with chemical magic. Masters of Chemical magic can even replicate the big bang to create matter and antimatter.
Illusion: The second least valuable type of magic, Illusionary magic changes perception and has limited control over some types of energy. Illusion is also useful for fighting pure magic beings, but there aren’t a whole lot of those on earth.
Enchanting: More valuable than Illusionary magic, less valuable than Alteration, Enchanting magic is directly in the middle of the scale. Enchanting grants new characteristics to a material, or strengthens ones already there. This is what I specialized in during the dream, making use of my vassals’ power over my own, just providing them with equippable victory.
Alteration- The second most valuable form of magic, Alteration magic allows the user to temporarily rewrite the rules of the universe to suit their own ends. Useful for obvious reasons, no one doesn’t benefit from having this.
Learning magic: The most valuable type of magic by far; it is an automatic use magic that aids the user’s mental abilities in every way. It is useful in every endeavor. It is still dependent on the users original abilities, you get smarter by percentages.
Life magic- The only magic that cannot be traded, little is known about it except that people with large amounts of it have plants grow more quickly around them. Life magic is a major plot point later in the story.
Because we were rich, neither of us needed a trade, but we each found our own fields which we studied. David specialized mainly on the nature of magic but had a well rounded education over all; while I specialized fairly heavily in Sylian culture and Enchanting magic, which humans are better at for a reason we do not yet know. Our ignorance caused a few incidents, but between the two of us, we soon got the hang of Sylian life. He did me the favour of increasing my magic potential, and I told him the intricacies of Sylian court and enchanted items for him.
This partnership was destined to crumble however, I began to become uneasy around him and he began to retreat into solitude as his personality slowly darkened. He had once told me that he felt like the soul of the person he was “breaking” touched his own when he performed it, and that it was like he could feel some of their filth rubbed onto his mind every time. But the feeling was addictive; he couldn’t stop, even as he watched himself fall deeper into madness.
The majority of my time spent in this new world was with my Clan, fighting for causes and training. One of my men was a member of the nobility, a bored individual who took a liking to me and offered his sword to the friend of the human God. He became my champion and friend, one of the main characters for the later part of the dream as the years go by.
A bunch of timeskips later, with only brief glimpses of the time in the middle (I’m thinking a montage would be awesome here…
, I had become a legend. My clan was incredibly strong, we fought for causes that reflected my own unusual human morals, and I was considered the greatest enchanter of all time. So I was pretty famous. And rich. I was only second to David in sheer amount of magic, and with those resources, what I had made the purpose of my life; figuring out the characteristics of the mysterious Life magic was almost in my grasp.
Eventually, I heard a rumour of a strange human woman wearing human bone armour raiding some town, and this intrigued me. When creatures with magic died, some kind of residue is left in their bones, when it comes into contact with magic; it has a very strange, almost entirely undocumented reaction that essentially curses the one who touched it with bad luck. I thought this trait might be in some way related to life magic’s mysteries, but had been unable to progress on it thus far. The woman had been a fairly renowned enchanter before, so there was a much better chance that she learned to somehow control or understand that power than it just being the whims of a madwoman. I decided to join the force sent to hunt her myself and see what I could learn.
My champion and I, accompanied by the best members of a local enforcement clan, search for and find the woman. She resists capture; using
Incomplete transcript of dream.
