Intern'al Struggles: Legends of Steve the Wizard Episode 5

By Brett P. S.

Love birds are in the air and Alestra falls back to its heavenly beating desert of a land, but Steve’s wedding cuts short with a message from the outlying Sojourns. The god Havok, the being they had defeated, now consumes the world with an unsavory voracity. Steve must resurrect the technologies of his time and journey to the roots of his former world to pin the final nail on Havok’s coffin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brett P. S.
• Release date: Oct 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463088654

Brett P. S.

Brett Sawyer (1986), born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, is an indie author who writes short stories & novellas, from science fiction to heroes. He graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 2015 with a Bachelor’s in education and currently teaches game design at Lake Land College.Short Change arrived at retailers in November of 2014, the start of a hero series where ordinary people gained powers over oddly specific domains, following the story of a shorter than average hero who can telekinetically manipulate small units of currency.Short Change is free on “smashwords.com/profile/view/BrettPS” and Barnes & Noble along with other samples and short fiction.Brett’s popular releases in science fiction include “Dark Station” and “Tales from the Colony: An Interstellar Saga.” Dark Station is a deep space thriller set aboard an abandoned orbital science station where Ben Gebbley and his crew secretly investigate the disappearance of the original staff before others come to claim the lost assets.

Book preview

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

EPILOGUE

Prologue

Hell Bound

Speculo’s Lair, Southern Dead Lands

Fifty years ago …

Screams echoed in the darkness.  Distant cries to forlorn friends as a devilish grin occupied the breadth of Derek’s senses.  He choked on the moldy air, felt as the wisps of Aura fluttered gently across his shoulders as the necrotic entity outstretched one silver, pot marked, flesh riddled hand.  An index curled to greet him and deep inside his heart, Derek Summers knew.  He just … he just knew.

Come now, child, the being bellowed, hand outstretched to greet him.

In the back of his mind, Derek resisted the calling, though his body spoke otherwise.  Aura, the transcendent magic energy of this grand Alestra, pulled him so.  Alestra, a dying light left hollowed and shriveling in the wake of a tempest to end all storms.  Annihilation brought on by the hubris of his world had all but stricken Humanity from the natural record. 

He stood in silence, lips widening, alone in a chasm of crystal.  Distant cries grew further by the passing seconds as the Dread Lich Speculo’s eternal gaze ensnared the poor young man who but one year ago lived in a studio apartment. He gazed into those reddened eyes, saw the mixing of blood and Dark Aura, a sheen that pierced him like steel.

Don’t be shy.  Embrace your fate.

Derek had thought he was special, a sunflower in a swamp.  He knew it.  Deep inside, he knew there was something, a meaning to his revival but … alas.  Time waits for no man.  He’d played his cards, bested his squabbles and in the end it came to this.  The power of Aura ten lifetimes in volume enveloped him, compelled the boy to approach.

Get your hands away from him, you monster!

That was … Gravitas.  Gravitas!  Derek twisted his neck, flexed his muscles until they hurt.  No use.  Self-awareness was not nearly enough to spite the Dread Lich.  Power fought power, a language wholly separate from the mind and its intricacies.  Aura eluded his grasp.  The magic of Alestra slipped through his fingers as the darkness took hold.

Derek felt himself slipping into deepness.  Special.  Chosen.  Mighty.  Derek smiled.  A rosy warmth washed over his cheeks.  What kind of man might he have been if he’d unearthed the legends of old?  Shattered timelines, forgotten history and the mechanisms of life eternal in this dwindling flame upon scorched earth.

This was no way to end his story, no valiant epilogue, songs or speeches.  Silence.  Grim absolution.  Oblivion.  Derek shut his eyes as the Lich devoured his flesh piece by shredded piece in a ripping of fluids from muscle and bone that choked his heart long before he felt the more than tightening pain. 

Derek Summers, the first Human to have ever risen from the graves of the past, died.

A deep pool descended beneath him.  Swirling, blackness.  A churning surge consumed his senses and a beacon of shimmering majesty loomed in the background of a greater, immediate sensation.

He suspected for a time that this was the process of dying, attributed it to lingering synapses firing in the withered husk of what remained in his stead.  Derek had never died before so he wasn’t one to question, though minutes and hours soon shed light on his misplaced attributions.  That he could think at all was surprising, though his thoughts proved muddied at best. Perceiving anything of substance was out of the question. 

Derek flexed empty limbs in futility, unable to swim against the maelstrom current that surrounded him.  He encircled a distance he could not fathom for a time he could not measure through burning days and chilled nights of screaming without voice and crying without tears. 

What remained of the young man reviled his curse for sunrise after lonely sunrise until the day he managed a faint wriggle of incorporeal volume.  He fought and kicked and screamed with each ounce of his newfound spirit, gesturing toward the beacon deep underground he’d felt since the Dread Lich Speculo had claimed his body, but nary his soul.

The light enveloped him, delivered both warmth and coolness to his formless, ethereal body.  Alestra, shining light of the reborn world.  He knew it!  Blessed be the souls of all men!  Havok be damned, he knew it from the start!  Deep beneath scorched earth, amidst the ruined necropolis of bygone days, Derek latched onto the fruit of the world and drank of a nectar eternal. 

Shapeless tears he’d shed, formless fires in the night.  With this divine essence, he might accomplish … anything he desired.  Derek paused, pulling back from his suckling.  In time.  Yes, only in time, if he put his mind to it.  First comes form.  Then, comes the fire.

Chapter 1

Wedding to Remember

Central Courtyard, Avalon Sojourn

The final drifting snowflakes of a would-be cataclysm fell gently across a grassy knoll in a courtyard fit for a king.  Beautiful gold, white and magenta flowers dotted a lush green landscape within the heart of Avalon.  An audience of onlookers watched a wedding of epic level heroes through packed streets and open windows.  Heights of once barren old concrete buildings caked with dirt and vines now stood full, packed with residents and a populous from across the Sojourns of Alestra. 

Steve blushed.  He hadn’t actually done anything, come to think of it, nothing of substance at least.  A drop of Aura from his fingertips, mechanisms and formulae he scarcely understood.  He took no part in Forta’s rooftop