The Accidental Archmage by Edmund Batara (read out loud books .TXT) 📕

“Funny, you don’t look like a troll.”

Oh shit, that was uncalled for, Tyler though. If she slaps me, I would have totally asked

for it. Even a bitch slap twice over would be deserved.

Eira didn’t do anything of that sort. She looked at Tyler, with pain and sorrow clearly

evident on her beautiful features. But she didn’t immediately answer. With a gesture,

two stone chairs came out of the ground, about a meter apart. The two took their

seats.

“Being a troll was but one of his forms. It is what most mortals expect and it is the form

they see. Though it does drive away mortals of an evil bent. There was a time his

preferred form was that of the Alfheimr. He loved music. In all its forms. While he was

the sound and music of this forest, I was its beauty and untamed soul.”

Tyler noticed she had started wringing her hands.

“He was older than me. I was a child in his presence. I idolized and loved him. But

while he had dealings with mortals, I was unsettled by your kind. So, I spent my time

among the creatures, trees, and plants of Fossegrim. Until I was given a strange artifact

by an ancient landvaetter who I saved from some poachers. It was not elven, human,

dwarven nor Jotunn. Nor could my brother identify it.”

Eira’s voice started to crack.

“Though he repeatedly advised me to let it be, my curiosity got the better of me. It was

something new for me. And after millennia of knowing the forest, all its nooks and

crannies, the temptation proved to be too much to resist. I went to the place where the

trinket was found and discovered a cleft which allowed entry into a hidden cavern. It

was full of strange and new things, a wonderland for a naïve lesser nature spirit.”

“Finally, I convinced my brother to come and visit the hidden cavern,” Eira continued,

“and after a period of exploring, he told me it was a temple of the Elder Ones.

Abandoned or ruined in ages past and finally covered by the upheavals of the land

arising from what my brother told me as the Divine Wars.”

“Elder Ones?” asked Tyler though he had heard of the term before from Loki.

“The pantheons are not the first powerful beings on this world or even in your world.

Your people do not even remember them which is for the best. To the Elder Ones, the

most powerful deities in this world are but saplings in the shadow of a great and

ancient tree. But they are secretive and have always hidden except when three of them

appeared and put a stop to the last Divine War.”

“And your brother?”

“Oh, I pestered him about the ruin we found and its incredibly ancient markings and

inscriptions, at least what’s left of them. It was nearly impossible to understand them

for they had no equivalent language in this world. Until Nakki discovered the key to

understanding it. It was music. And with extreme difficulty and expenditure of vast

amounts of magical energies, my brother's innate affinity with music finally revealed its

meaning.”

“Which was?”

“A path towards understanding the magic of the Elder Ones. Though only two tablets of

an unknown material remained legible, we found the first and second stepping stones

of Elder knowledge. But unlocking the content of the first part required a particular

form of energy. A transformation of the magical energy of this world. What we knew of it was it is similar to the energy created when a deity dies.”

Tyler didn’t know what to say at this point. The knowledge he was hearing was

invaluable. If true.

“For ages, my brother and I didn’t bother about the ruin and the knowledge within. It

was beyond us and we were happy here. And then the last Divine War happened. A

great battle was fought above what you now call the Great Tundra Waste. It was a

great forest then, full of life and living beings and other creatures, both magical and

mundane.”

“Isn’t that near Ymir’s Domain?”

“It wasn’t always known as his domain. The jotnar and their gods didn’t take part in the

war. Both Ymir and Surtr hid themselves and their minions in the darkest corners of

Adar. But one goddess fell down in Fossegrim. We tried to help her but she was already

dead when we reached her. She was Laverna, a goddess of the Romans.”

“Isn’t that suspiciously fortuitous?”

“Maybe. Or the magical energy which binds and flows through this world may be more

aware than we thought. If so, who are we to discern its mind, plans, and desires?”

“Let me guess. You used Laverna's energy to unlock the Elder puzzle,” Tyler concluded.

“That we did. And the knowledge was intoxicating even for a mere first step. In his

excitement, my brother tried to unlock the second tablet. His newly gained power and

knowledge made him overconfident.”

Tyler thought dangerously arrogant would be a better phrase. But he kept his mouth

shut.

“It was too early and his power proved too weak. The Elder Ones guarded their secrets

well. And he paid for the hasty error with his life. Nothing was left of him, except for a

shred of his essence. Much less than what you mortals call a ghost. Only a minute form

of energy which doesn’t have any consciousness. It remains there up to this time.”

“What has this got to do with me?”

“The power and knowledge I gained told me that there is a way to bring back my

brother. We are magical beings after all. But the knowledge unlocked through the first

tablet is not complete. Far from it. But it was enough to tell me that I need to ascend

and be a higher deity. When the power is enough, the energy to bring him back can

only be channeled through a mortal with no magical power in his bones. No innate magical power to hinder nor taint the magic so used. But the mortal must be an

Archmage. There has been no such being in Adar since the Great Migration. Much is still

not clear to me as to why the mortal must be such a mage. Only the teachings of the

Elder Ones can illuminate matters. If such teachings can still be found in the