Chapter 1: Summoned: Book 1 – An Accidental Adventure Prologue i

Songs have often been sung of battles Great and Small. Of the Villains and Heroes. Those who won versus those who have lost. In many of these bardic tales a person can find almost any example of humanities challenges. There are very few battles through that can encompass every aspect of humanities challenges as one all inclusive tale. This was one such battle, one of the great spun tales to pass down through the ages. To be told verbally in writing or broadcast on one of the few Tri-D stations still recording on station would not do it the full justice that was required of such a story.

In this battle the Legendary Generals of Humanities last stand were gathered. They had finally baited one of the Scourges from beyond the Void that had wrecked devastation upon the civilizations of the planet known to the local inhabitants as Sandax. Which is also, loosely translated their term for earth or ground. Each of these scourges had claimed great swaths of land covering much of the main continent of Sandax. The Fell Beings they were fighting was an unholy melding of flesh and technology bred of chaotic energies found beyond the Void of Matter and Space. In their Stupidity this particular evolution of humanoids had discovered a way to look into the missing space of matter and energy. Into a place of the Void. Past the equivalency of the Holography of the Universe that they knew as material beings. In that place, the end of all and the Abyss of Time there Demons lay. Beings that had prior to this event had only leaked into the humanoids subconscious and the worst of their nightmares. This scouting had allowed the Demons to piggyback through the rift and to inhabit the flesh and neural matrix known as the physical body thus ejecting the prior inhabiting spiritual matrix.

The experiments of this began as a type of Anti-Matter research. Something to solve the energy crisis of the planet. The opponents, and truthfully many of the proponents, of this technology proclaimed that only annihilation would occur. For many of the survivors this would have been an infinitely more preferable outcome to what ended up actually happening. Which was Demonic Possession and a War so vast that it literally remade the surface of the planet they called home.

While all of this was going on the people found that Technology, and in some cases even physics were not functioning as they should. That the very constants that they had worked for ages to discover and understand had been stood up on its collective head. In some pockets of land electronics of any type would not function. Other locations it was chemical combustion. Some places photons lost their wave form and only maintained their particle nature. Regardless of which aspect it became difficult for any side to maintain not only a standing army but also the civilization necessary to support it. This gave an incredible advantage to the Demonic Forces initially. Until one of the disciples of the first Scientist to discover this altered dimensional activity learned to merge technologies and energies together to enhance a being. These first Technomancers as they came to be known became the populaces last hope as they would take Volunteers and give them powers or enhancements that would allow them to fight the Demons form the Void on their own terms. Even if it did have the result of making these people more or perhaps completely different than their base race.

In response to this rose the great Demon Lords. The Strongest of which could now pull new Demons from the void at their need or their want. That was when the forces of civilization knew they were well and truly ‘Screwed’. Luckily for them, through the ranks of the ‘Created’ and the ‘Enhance’ came a few score of the Great Generals after centuries of warfare. Individuals able to take on all but the Greatest of the Demon Lords. Out of these Great Generals came a dozen Legendary Champions. Strong enough to hold their own against the those most powerful of enemies. They were Strong, Fast, Capable, Forceful, Mighty, Powerful, Charismatic, and more. Everything that was needed to be a Paragon of those remaining peoples with the will to survive. They were here in what could be considered the Eleventh Hour of that Era’s need. Each had reached deep into the well of Energy they drew from going from a figurative beacon of light into a Literal Shining Start. Each of their lights corresponding to the aspect that they drew upon, be it love or anger, longing or grief, joy or excitement. The power of their primary emotions allowed the connection that even showed strong in the physical realm around these Champions leaving trails of power in their wake. As their Brilliance doing battle against the Darkness that was swallowing their planet.

That was happening today. In the streets and buildings of one of the great Megalopolis’s. A great city, now destroyed. A testament to the peoples of this planet. The Denizens and citizens of this city watched, or the smarter of them ran, as Godly beings did battle above and below. Seeking what shelter they could as the multiple forces of many armies took the field causing their own death and dismemberment. Even if it was just an echo of their leaders grand show.

On the field could be found every disciple of fighter. The soldiers, runners, pounders, engineers, slingers and slammers. The seers and the Summoners. Rangers and scouts running force recon and sniping. Every type of being imaginable had taken the to the field. Yet they still were an afterthought against the Demons that seemed to rule the land. Demons such as Braashend the Reshaper, a grotesque multi-limbed monstrosity that seemed to be an amalgam of far too many creatures. Or Crens the Temptress who was as beautiful as she was terrifying, and her champion of light who had fallen from grace Mule Enstrand the Turned. Who was once a great Champion himself but tempted to the Void and in his weakness had taken up her torch.

Things would have been bad enough with only these three Great Demon Lords. However the absolute worst of them had shown itself and tipped the balance towards destruction and corruption.

Xentul the Devourer had taken the field.

A creature that was not truly on any side but its own. More of a force of entropy than anything else. Its horde of biomechanical Ravagers followed. Each having a tendency to absorb the remains of the fallen to turn their cadavers or technology into yet more Ravagers. The Generals had timed this battle on the intelligence that Crens and Xentul were both on the other side of the continent. That they would only be going after Braashend. Yet somehow the others had shown up. Turning a potential conquest that was much needed into a route that the Legendary Generals had been giving their lives one after another to make sure that the greatest number of civilians had a chance to retreat.

The only enemy of humanity to not take the field seemed to be Alasan Soreno. The First Summoner. The originator of the Contract with the Void. The first individual who had discovered a pathway to the Energies Beyond the Heat Death of the Universe. The engage interaction with beings or alien sentience’s outside of what mortals could contemplate without going completely insane. No one had encountered the Infamous Summoner in over an age. There were rumors of course. Such as his finally crossing over into the Void himself or becoming a mindless Ravager in his attempts to blend Oblivion to his own will. Perhaps he had been lost during a titanic battle such as the current location had become on the other side of the continent just barely twenty cycles past. To the other Four Demon Lords this was no great matter that the Great Summoner was gone.

One of the several Legendary Champions of Humanity was already down. His energies sucked clean by the battle and his flesh sundered. Two other champions were attempting to hold of Braashend. While a third valiantly tried to save what she could of the downed Champion.

Below and beside all this was an old man. His robes and equipment marking him as some type of advanced technomancer or perhaps even a summoner. One of the rare individuals with training in affecting the quantum field and the Void energies from which the Demons gained their abilities. Utilizing patterns, forms, sounds, techniques, and gadgets they are able to do this. Their enhancements not only worn but also built into them with modified organs as well as technological mishmashes that conventional wisdom stated would not and could not work. Yet they did. Gears made of advanced clockworks, pressure vacuoles, digital touch screens, transister circuitry, DNA Computer control runs, molecular circuits, holo interface tech, and even analogue datastrip operations systems.

The forces around him seemed to ignore him as he wove through the chaos bred of the battle around. Whenever the forces of either side managed to get close he would wend his way around the debris or wander under a fallen pass or seemingly step into nothingness. His intense concentration on his task obvious on his grizzled old features. White, whispy, almost featherlike hair stood on end and moved in the breeze with his movements. He bore no facial hair, but it was more of a natural hairlessness rather than shaving if one was to look closely. Thin, almost non-existent eyebrows above slate gray deep set eyes completed his craggy face. He carried a wood and metal staff that was entwinned by various wires and a couple control interface panels near the main rubber handgrip. At the base of the staff was a brass bulb and opposite on the top was a jagged assembly of metal. The old man moved to kneel over a fallen form of an elfin looking man. The body was brutalized and torn in half. The poor mans expression a grotesque mask of fear and apprehension that was a testament to his final moments.

“Not the best material to work with here.” He said to no one in particular, his aged face wrinkled in disgust at the sight. “Not like there will be many good candidates left at this rate.” He chuckled quietly to himself at his own sardonic tone.

A sound made him look up from his inspection of the dead man. A clicking rock on metal clatter. The Old Man flicked his free hand in an odd manner that could not be performed by someone with all their knuckles in their normal socketed order. With a mutter his eyes glowed as if backlit by an electric diode. He then stepped up and backwards into a fold of nothingness leaving only the battle chattel on the ground.

Through the location where the old man had been standing a tall being moved. Flesh that may once have been handsome, now twisted into a grotesque horror of its own insatiable hunger. Sallow and pallid skin that could once have held a healthy tan now stretched and sagged. Here and there as the flesh had failed materials of all sorts had been used to repair the creature. Be it circuitry, hydraulics, servomotors, flesh of other creatures, or even gearworks. Whatever it could take it had in the living not-death that had to constantly feed or deteriorate even further. One eye had been replaced by an old styled camera lens with some extra electronics the other was a rheumy white within a decaying putrid yellow orb. The left hands flesh stretched taughtly over bones and metal struts that had been stuck inside haphazardly. A great rotting cloak of various patchwork skins covered much of the rest of its body and the creatures right arm. As it moved an observer would be able to make out bits and parts that fit together in no discernable fashion on its horrid body. A whirring and clicking of broken parts could be heard as it shambled along. Not like a well oiled machine but rather like some form of insectile automaton that was broken and still attempting to function even with its damaged parts.

The Old Man had known this creature.

Xentul the Devourer.

It stopped over the body and craned its head to one side. Not to different from a reptile or avian attempting to understand what it was looking at. Its artificial eye lens whirled around in its socket before popping open to allow an undamaged humanlike eye to extend on a servo arm and gaze closer at the deceased creature below it. As soon as it gained a proper vantage point Xentul stopped dead. All noise from it ceased, not a movement nor any sound for several heartbeats as The Devourer became as still as a statue. An instant later with an economy of motion that would have given a robotic servant a good run Xentul reached down and squeezed the right arm of the man off at the elbo with a sickening sound of crunching bones and squelching flesh. Once the partial limb was wretched free the being shrugged back its cloack some and moved its right arm into sight. The end of the arm looked like a hybrid prosthetic and flesh limb that had been run over by a boulder then left to rot in the sun. From the elbow joint down The Devourer allowed the material to slough off onto the ground next to the body. Then it took the dismembered arm and stuck the pulped joint onto the wreckage on the end of the part still attached. A grey sickly goop seeped out of its flesh and onto the fresh meat. This material joined the two dissimilar organisms enough to be connected. Even if only just so.

Xentul flexed its new hand clumsily a couple times. Apparently satisfied it gave what could only be interpreted as a contemptuous wave with its mangled left hand as it walked bast the battle offal. Once the Demon Lord disappeared out of view of the deceased and its own dropped body part the remaining gearworks in the limb began to sluggishly attempt to twitch and move to the body near it.

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The Old Man stepped back into existence as if stepping in from another room. “Damn, I had hoped he was still engaged…” He said to himself absent mindedly as he looked down at the revolting limb piece, “Oh no you don’t!”

His staff began to buzz from within. A series of commands were tapped into the mechanical keypad on the staff. After which the chaotic design of prongs on the top of the staff began to flare with a red and purple fire. He pointed the projection at the arm fragment and torched it with the arcane looking flame thrower until it was nothing more than a slag of material melting into the earth below it.

“I am pretty sure that this fallen hero does not wish to walk once more as a Ravager.” He stated as he began to incinerate the body before he moved in a different direction than what Xentul had gone.

Once past the ashen remains of the fallen being the Old Summoners path more often than not brought him in contact with those already slaughtered or destroyed. Every now and then he was forced to fade into the InBetween like before to avoid detection as the battle or forces from either side came tromping through. It also was not only the Demonic forces from the Void and their legions that he was avoiding, but also the forces of the fallen civilizations that he wished to evade. He knew what would happen if those forces of humanities gone past would do if they discovered he was more than the simple Technomancer that he pretended to many to be. After all though it had been many years since Alansan Soreno had created the First Summoning Event the term was still forever tainted in the view of the various civilizations. Alienating all who had felt the inexplicable call of the path of the Summoner. As such he did his absolute best to avoid everyone and everything as he went about his tasks.

Eventually he came upon the fallen body of one of the Great Generals. As he moved slowly to her side he watched another champion nearby engage the still moving Xentul.

“Stupid… you should retreat.” He said towards the Champion under his breath even as he knew that the exemplary fighter could not hear him.

He kept part of his attention on the two embattled beings in case their battle came near. The Demon Lord had manifested a great fell sword made of a fearful melding of ruined metals and still living flesh. Its counterpart was matched by an extremely fit man with braided hair wielding a long sword made of light created seemingly in his own hands. The Old Man saw that the two of them appeared to be moving roughly away from him and as such he put his attention closer to the woman on the ground.

“There may yet be time.”

The tall fair skinned woman was not breathing. A grievous wound in her gut that opened her up from right hip all the way up through the left portion of her ribcage. Internal organs and bones on display to the exposed air around them. Her vibrant hair was plastered with blood and a stark contrast as her skin drained of color. He placed a circular device on her chest above the right breast. Its copper and iron works would seem to be strangely complementary to the Emerald metallic style markings on her body. Once in place the disc shot out four appendages at the compass points around its surface. They turned downward and sunk into the pliant flesh with very little blood flow from the puncture points. After he was satisfied with it the Old Man concentrated and his eyes began to glow as if backlit once again. The clockworks on the device started to spin up, their whirring intensified and lessened as if to the beat of a heart. With every cog styled heartbeat her body became more and more translucent until she faded entirely from view.

Once done the Old Man stood up and looked over at the battle which seemed to once more be drifting his way. “Damnation. I hope I can retrieve at least another few before they are too desecrated beyond recovery.”

With that said he once more stepped backwards into the InBetween. Once there the combatants rampaged through the space he had occupied never knowing that he had been there.

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End Prologue i

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