First Edition Copyright © 2022 by Stanley L. Garland Jr.
Second Edition Copyright © 2025 Stanley L. Garland Jr.
All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Prologue
The continent of Esteria, a beautiful and immense land, has a history soaked in blood. In the early age, the goddess Astra created ten races to enjoy her majestic creation. All of her creations could use magic. For hundreds of years the races lived in harmony, enjoying Astra's presence.
Humans were blessed with double the amount of land as the other races, and double the amount of time spent with Astra. In the year 350, the demon race, led by the vicious warlord, Helion, launched an attack on Esteria. His brute strength and charisma persuaded several other races to join force against the humans, whom he saw as Astra's favorite creation, with the aim of extinguishing them all.
Astra withdrew from her creation to protect herself, for she saw no possibility of dissuading the warlord. However, she bestowed four human champions with angelic weapons to halt Helion's conquest across Esteria. These humans became the heroes of old who would slay Helion and create a new and peaceful Esteria.
Helion was defeated but at the cost of a million innocent souls. Astra wept for the loss of her creation. Earthquakes ravaged the land, separating all the different races as her tears flooded the lands and changed them into oceans. Esteria was broken into continents, and only a fraction of it remained the original Esteria. The demons were banished to far and uncharted territories for their many crimes against Astra, territories where the heroes of old created a magical seal to bind them. The Goddess sent four minor deities, one in each of the four kingdoms, to observe from afar and keep watch, in case the demon race should rise again.
Astra was the source of magic for her creation. Since her departure magic can be inherited, learned, gifted, or obtained. All magic comes from the World Tree Elysium, located on an island in the middle of the Sela Ocean. It is a reminder of Astra's love for her people. No one who has sought the tree has ever returned.
Each child at the age of ten participates in an awakening ceremony to determine if the spirit of Astra will awaken their magical potential. A covenant is made to use magic for the enrichment of the world. Those who choose the path of wickedness will receive the Mark of Damnation from the Church of Astra, which will strip them of their magical powers.
After Helion's defeat, over three hundred years of peace passed until the untimely assassination of King Leo the First of the Northern Kingdom in the year 800 AS (after separation from Astra). His assassination became the catalyst of the Second Great War of Esteria, which lasted for twenty years. Since the end of the war, some nations have fared better than others.
Esteria has been at peace for twenty years. Yet even now, there are those in the shadows plotting its downfall.