Set in the distant future, The Orbiter is a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid novel that explores the extremes of how emptiness and greed can destroy and corrupt a person.

This is only the first several pages of what I expect to be a VERY long term project.

Any questions? Contact me at jethomas513@gmail.com

PROLOGUE

     The Realm of Chius.

     Chius was once a large land of prosperity.  Rivers blessed the land they travelled across, bringing many types of aquatic creatures inland as well.  Forests developed and grew, varying in size, type, inhabitants, and climate. The Elders of Modern Humanity were born near once such river, and spread to the far expanses of the globe.  They developed rapidly, and soon began to explore the stars. Before they could get too far, war broke out. The world became polarized, divided into two. It had seemed that one of the two nations would rise above the other, and rule the world.

     Until The Orbiter came.

     The Orbiter was known as a celestial body that came near the world once a generation.  However, the peace and tranquility that Chius had been trying its best to cling to seemed to evaporate on one fateful day.  It was the day that The Orbiter was to come, and The Elders of Humanity had stopped their war to become united together and to observe The Orbiter, if only for a day.  The Orbiter came, but soon The Elders of Humanity noticed a small difference. The path that The Orbiter was travelling led right towards the world. Word of this spread fast, and soon every Elder Human knew what would happen.  They began to panic. This meant the end for themselves, and every generation after them. Many tried to flee into the stars above the world, but The Orbiter was upon them before any of The Elders of Humanity could successfully leave.  The Orbiter crashed into the world, and many Elder Humans perished.

     The crash of The Orbiter sent out a strange essence, reforming every living thing that had been surviving in the world.  Majik was embedded into the remaining animal souls, and fused into the essence of surviving plants. Majik, a weightless source of power, energy, and life, became what powered technology.  The Orbiter had killed off many, but gave a large gift to the few that remained.

     A small fraction of survivors of what had once been The Elders of Humanity became the Nomadic Eldritch.  The Nomadic Eldritch sought to preserve the remains of The Elders of Humanity, and went about helping whoever they could.  These people helped to build villages, peacefully solve conflict, and advance technology past any known landmark. Their diligent work to their cause helped keep some type of form of humanity alive for many years.

     Decades later, after many generations, an inventor, living on the edge of one of the more populous towns in the northeast, was hard at work.  He was searching for the one thing that would cause war if found out. Immortality. He had almost done it. Prisoners and criminals were the only people he was allowed to use as test subjects.  There began to see some promise early one morning, as he started his newest test. This test seemed to be working. The inventor tried to overcharge the test subjects’ life forces with Majik. Vitals of the test subjects were fine, and their bodies were accepting the steady stream of Majik into their bodies.

     Until things went wrong.

     A spark of Majik lept out from one of the test subjects’ bodies, causing the test subject to yell out in tremendous pain.  The inventor rushed to the test subject’s side, then quickly began to check their vitals. Sparks of Majik were always in very high concentration, causing pain to whoever touched the spark, or was even close to it.  It only hurt if there wasn’t enough room for that entity to hold any more Majik. The inventor had earlier forgotten to seal the container he had been using to store the Majik in his excitement. The Majik inside the container lept out to try to connect with the spark.  Concentrated Majik tends to try to find similar sources of Majik, as it did in this case. The container cracked, then subsequently broke, flooding the entire room with pure, powerful Majik. The raw energy of such a magical substance swiftly seeped into the inventor’s very soul.  The darkness of greed and selfishness kept deep inside him grabbed the Majik, then corrupted it. The inventor’s body wasn’t able to handle this sudden corruption, and him soul shattered.

     The pieces of his broken, fragmented soul took in Majik from the surrounding air, the test subjects, and from the container.  Each of the several dozens of fragments began to take a physical form. However, none of these fragments had any knowledge of what they had been before.  Each fragment left the others and travelled outside, then began to take the form of whatever it sensed nearest. Whether it was the tall, lumbering, stilt-like Y’Maru, or the graceful, nimble, flying Avoen, the pieces of the inventor’s soul did not care.  What was different about these new physical forms was that the fur, feathers, skin, and shells of these creatures were an ominous, opaque black, darker than even the night sky. Pieces of bone, parts of shell, talons, claws, and teeth became a dark gray. The eyes of these demented, deformed creatures changed to a glowing maroon, showing their hatred of the world, and their incomplete selves.  They had no soul, and they were abominations to the world. These Soulless Abominations, filled with anger, hatred, and emptiness, caused havoc and calamity in the surrounding woodland and mountains.

     The test subjects no longer had their souls, blown out from their bodies and taken by the soul of the inventor, beginning to shift and change.  All eight test subjects began to undergo a similar process as the shattered pieces of soul had. Their bodies kept a human shape, but their skin became the same, menacing black.  Their hair, fangs, teeth, and claws they grew; the same gray. Their eyes, like the pieces of soul, showed their hatred and emptiness through the same maroon color. They had become empty, then had been filled with rage.

     As these pieces of soul and former test subjects were forming and reshaping their physical vessels for this world, the largest fragment of soul began to do something different.  It was still in the destroyed and mangled lab. This fragment of the inventor’s soul knew its previous form the most, and decided to stay in that form. However, this piece of the soul did not fully know its physical form it had inhabited.  Nothing that consumed in darkness could ever fully go back to what it was. The inventor’s largest fragment of soul created the body it falsely remembered. Unlike the test subjects and other pieces of soul, the skin of the inventor became an ivory white.  His hair became golden in color, and his newly changed ruby red eyes stared both into and past whatever their gaze landed on. Wickedly sharp claws formed, and a pair of horns formed on his head. No longer could he ever be considered even close to being a human.  His greed and ambition for power brought themselves to his surface, both cursing and blessing his.

     He was now immortal, just like how he had originally wanted.  But that immortality came with a price. In exchange for living forever, he had lost his humanity, happiness, and emotion.  He felt nothing. His soul hungered for more Majik, and he did what felt natural to him. The inventor walked out through the shattered windows of the lab.  With each step that his bare feet took, he absorbed more Majik. Grass began to wither as he walked. Bushes and trees died after they were touched by him. Animals weakened and perished, becoming Soulless Abominations.  They then rose, bowed to their new ruler, then left to cause more destruction.

     The eight previous test subjects followed the inventor out of the lab, then began to cause destruction like the others.  Their abilities were far greater than the Soulless Abominations that surrounded them. They were the Eight Warriors of Calamity, once criminals, thieves, and scoundrels.  No longer human in regards to speed, strength, or endurance, these eight corrupted beings branched out, taking some of the Soulless Abominations with them in order to win more land for their Master, the inventor of the Soulless.

     The inventor smiled.  Before, such a sight would sicken him to his core.  Now, he reveled in the sight of such death, destruction, and loss.  With such a change to my physical form, he thought to herself, a change to my identity would be quite suiting.  Though he had been an inventor in his past life, he was still an inventor now. Now, he had become the creator of the Soulless Abominations, as well as the father of all chaos, destruction, and calamity.  He was the Soulless Inventor. A being of malice, anger, and total calamity.

     Within days, the surrounding land lost its life.  The Lifeless Plains of the northern mountains was turned into his personal kingdom of Soulless, lifeless land, and as it grew, the Soulless Inventor showed no signs of stopping his conquest.  He commanded the Soulless Abominations, and a fortress was erected in the center of the land that he controlled. Each of the Eight Warriors of Calamity claimed, then subsequently built their own smaller kingdom for themselves.  Many kingdoms, villages, towns, and people banded together to try to stop this ever-increasing threat. Armies were sent, fleets were deployed.

     Armies were massacred.  Fleets were annihilated.

     Until one fateful day, a knight dressed in charred, blackened armor came from the unexplored, southern isles.  They single handedly defeated the southward expansion of any of the Eight Warriors, and killed off any Soulless Abomination in their path.  Where the Soulless Inventor was able to destroy, this knight, The Defender of Chius, was able to create, rebuilding and recovering what the Soulless Inventor had caused to destroy.  They travelled up to the Soulless Inventor’s land and right into his fortress. After several weeks, the Soulless Abominations began to retreat.

     The Soulless Inventor had been defeated, but with no sign of the first defender of Chius.

     Years passed, and the villages around the area went back to relative normal.  But with the Soulless Abominations seeming to populate the outskirts of territories, elite soldiers were trained to keep the lands safe.  Keeping the honor of the First Defender in mind, these soldiers were named in their likeness. Defenders. Young, powerful, and brave, these soldiers were able to keep the Soulless Abominations at bay.  They helped to develop the Four Kingdoms, as well as the villages near these kingdoms.