A Darker Shade of Sorcery - - (leveled readers .txt) 📗

Airship for a cruise through multiple worlds, whilst Commander Agalala offers a star-sea sojourn on her space ship too.”

“So freaking weird,” Jed chuckled, shaking his head.

Several over-excited screams carried across the fields. Evan turned to see a group of hysterical girls surrounding a smiling Arch-Realmer boy.

“He’s returned, he’s returned,” one girl screeched at the top of her lungs.

“What’s the fuss?” Evan asked.

“It’s Eric Adara,” said Elijah. “The chosen one.”

“Chosen one,” Jed scoffed, “that’s pretty lame mate.”

“It’s what everyone calls him,” said Elijah, “he did save Earth when he was only five years-old, although by accident. But since becoming a Realmer he’s saved four more realms from destruction, so I guess he really is the chosen one.”

Evan looked at Adara’s crowd of fan-girls, trying to get autographs, or just trying to hug him.

“After Adara defeated the legendary Dread Lord Zelphur, people said he’s the one destined to wipe out demonkind entirely,” said Emillia.

“That’s good then.” Jed smirked. “We won’t have to do anything.”

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A dozen badges were pinned upon Adara’s tunic, in the shape of orc’s or dragon’s heads.”

“And the badges?” Evan asked.

“Given to Venators after certain missions,” said Elijah. “For example, a dragon badge is for ten successful missions.”

“It isn’t necessary to wear them,” Xavier said, “only if you want to show off.”

They overheard Adara as he and his entourage passed by.

“Yeah,” Adara held up a hand lazily, “it wasn’t hard, just killed a couple hundred Onlekks, standard fare. I had to save my companions lives several times. But you can’t blame them, they weren’t born with the incredible talent I was.”

“Sounds like an arrogant idiot to me,” said Brooke.

“That’s an understatement.” Xavier grinned.

“But he is gorgeous though,” said Emillia, watching Adara walk by.

Eventually, the conversation returned back to the demon from last night.

“Whoa! So Tarensen reckons someone on the inside let that thing in?” Jed asked after Evan filled him in.

“No, they can’t have, none of the Masters would do that. I wouldn’t think any Venators would even know how,” Elijah said.

Evan quickly deduced that Elijah was very knowledgeable about all the goings-on in Veneseron, especially the gossip.

“But who would betray Veneseron?” Brooke asked.

“It's one of the Masters or Arch-Realmers,” said Emillia, “maybe someone in the city?”

“No way,” Elijah objected. “We were told in my Archives session that Dark-Venators have pretended to be part of Veneseron as double agents. Twenty years ago,

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a couple of Mid-Realmers turned out to be loyal to Velkarath. They stole loads of our mission plans and everything. Have there been any new recruits lately that look shifty? One of them could be letting the demons in. Velkarath could be behind all of this.”

“Brooke's a new recruit,” Xavier chuckled, “she looks shifty. Maybe it's her.

Evan's new as well, maybe he's setting demons on himself, it's the new way to self-harm.”

“Or pick up babes.” Jed’s eyes lit up as the idea occurred to him, “they love danger.”

“Why would Dark-Venators want Evan?” Emi asked.

“Why would Dread Lords?” Elijah shrugged. “I've heard Dark-Realmers sometimes capture Venators when they're on missions and force us to join them, maybe that's why.”

“I don't think it's anyone we know,” Evan broke in. “Who’d want to set a demon on me anyway.”

Jed muttered, “If Sintian can set gargoyles on us, who says he wouldn’t set demons as well?”

“No way. I admit he’s pretty warped, but not that far,” Evan said.

Surely Sintian wouldn’t go against everything Veneseron stood for and ally himself with demons. Besides, the name Kurrlan kept reverberating through his mind.

But could Sintian secretly serve this Kurrlan?

“Who’s Sintian?”

Brooke’s question went unanswered as the boy himself appeared, sauntering across the field towards one of the castles.

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“Speak of the devil,” Jed grunted, jumping to his feet and bristling. “OI! Yeah you, you ugly lout.” Jed strode down the hill towards him. “Was once not enough for you, eh?”

“Jed,” Evan warned, following behind.

“What're you talking about?” Sintian’s tone dripped with contempt.

“Don’t play the idiot, you may look like one with all that curly hair and jewellery, but I know you’re an evil little-”

“Jed, stop,” Evan interrupted as the group gathered around.

Sintian sneered and started to walk away but Jed grabbed his arm. “The demon last night, I think you let it in. I think you serve them.”

Sintian ripped his arm away. His darkly handsome face contorting to an extremely dangerous mask.

“Serve who?” his words were ice cold and deathly quiet.

“I dunno’ the Dread Lords, or maybe those Dark-Venators…”

Sintian leaped at Jed, tackling him to the ground.

“Dark-Venators killed my parents!” Sintian roared, his fist smashing into Jed’s face.

Evan threw himself at Sintian, grabbing him by the shoulders and trying to pull him off as nearby Venators rushed over.

With one hand Sintian continued to punch Jed whilst the other squeezed like a vice around his neck, all magic forgotten.

“Never ever say that again!” Sintian howled as Elijah, Zeke and Brooke all helped Evan pull the unstable boy away.

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“Get your filthy hands off me,” Sintian spat, struggling in their grasp. When they didn’t relent, sorcery surged and everyone touching Sintian was flung back by a force of air.

Evan hit the ground hard but rolled to his feet immediately, moving to restrain Sintian again. He was spared the trouble as Sintian suddenly fell to the ground, where he remained motionless.

Tarensen stood feet away, his silver eyes smouldering. His hand remained outstretched as he bound Sintian with cords of air. He directed his fierce glare on Jed as he struggled to his feet.

“That was a very foolish accusation. No Realmer aided the demon, understand?”

Jed nodded quickly.

“Violence between Venators is not tolerated here.” Tarensen addressed them all,

“you will be punished most severely if this happens again.”

With that last warning he raised the still figure of Sintian into the air and entered the castle, the frozen body suspended before him.

“What a freak,” Elijah exclaimed, staring after Sintian.

Evan couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy for Sintian. Sure, he was a nasty individual, but Evan knew what it was like to live without a family.

Brooke went to Jed who was trying to stem the blood gushing from his nose.

“Here, let me.” She touched his nose and began a healing spell.

“I reckon I just made things worse mate,” Jed said.

“Yeah I think you did,” Xavier put in.

“How was I supposed to know about his parents though?” Jed complained, to no one in particular.

“Do you think he’ll try and get you again?” Brooke asked.

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“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Elijah. “You can be sure Tarensen will tell him under no circumstances to retaliate.”

“I don’t think a psycho like that will listen to anyone though,” Jed said.

“He and his brother have been raised here since they were children. Sintian’s different to those of us raised on Earth,” said Elijah.

The crowd around them were muttering not only about Jed but Evan too, probably still discussing last night. Evan noticed with a jolt that Cera was amongst the crowd and she was walking straight towards them.

“Emi, what happened?” she asked.

“Sintian lost it again, attacked Jed.” Emillia pointed Jed out.

“This isn’t the first time either,” said Xavier. “There’s been other… occurrences, where he’s gone off on one.”

“Looks like we made enemies with the wrong guy.” Jed chuckled shakily.

Evan nodded, before locking eyes with Cera.

“You’re Evan Umbra right?” she asked, smiling shyly.

His stomach lurched. “Yeah that’s me,” he said, thankful he hadn’t stammered.

“I heard about last night, are you okay?” Cera came to stand beside him.

“Yeah fine…was a bit of shock when it happened is all.” Even as he spoke, he knew it sounded lame. A demon attacking me is just a bit of a shock?

“And today this.” Cera gestured to the departing crowd. “Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad the demon didn't eat you alive.” She giggled.

Evan grinned back, for that small moment his troubles forgotten .

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Chapter 11- Sword Taste

“Settle down Venators,” Gettelung boomed as he entered the Archives.

“Xavier, get off that table. Pay attention Vladimir. Yuki and Cece, put those Holobook’s away.”

Brooke and the other Novices stopped chatting and took their seats. She chuckled as Blake and his cousin Seth ogled over the magazine Jed had found, which had portraits of sexy vampires and valkyries. Jed hastily shoved it under his desk before Gettelung saw.

“Now,” Gettelung addressed them. “Today, we’ll be learning about realm hopping.

You’ll all be going on missions once you've advanced up the ranks, and you'll need to be prepared for the many dangers.”

“Yeah, demons.” Jed grinned at her and Evan.

“It's not just demons that can harm you,” said Gettelung. “There are worlds with no oxygen, worlds with no gravity, and even worlds where you think you're in a forest when actually you're on top of a giant's head. Confusing realms exist which have no logic whatsoever. One realm I visited felt like I was walking on a marshmallow. On another, my shoes stuck to the ground like it was made out of sticky toffee, and one realm altered me and my companions’ speech so we sang everything we said in an extremely high falsetto.”

“Awesome,” Xavier whooped.

“Oh no,” said Emillia, “I can't sing.”

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Gettelung continued, “The process of using portals to travel between worlds is called Realming, but Realm hopping is when you portal between worlds one after the other rapidly. This often occurs on missions when tracking down a moving target.

In the briefs before every mission, we have information about whatever world you'll be travelling to. But in the case of realm hopping, you'll need to be prepared for anything. I remember Tyrell's first mission, he and Bane Madagant ended up hopping between nearly twenty worlds, including one which made them turn temporarily into jelly.”

“Think I'd prefer realm hopping to battling hordes of monsters,” said Jed.

They finished off the training by reading, or rather watching, holographic books showing examples of other realms. The miniature 3-D images floated above the book pages, looking real enough to touch.

Afterwards, everyone else set off for fire training whilst Brooke and Emi had weaponry. She and Emi were the only Serene class Venators out of their friends, so their training schedules were similar.

Today was Brooke’s first day weapon training. Two weeks ago, she'd begun the physical side to training alongside the magical, beginning with daily exhausting laps around the Fortress. She’d always been athletic, in school she’d been on the soccer and track teams, but that was nothing compared to the Venators here.

Emillia led the way, she was babbling about the last episode of ‘Wizard’s Wives’, a reality TV show she liked, but Brooke was distracted by the lurid posters on the castle walls. She’d seen some of the posters before, but never stopped to read them properly. The biggest poster was bright pink with large gold writing. It read:

Remember- The 3 main things magic