The Birth of a Phoenix - Chapter One: Homecoming

This is a science fantasy story. I still haven't worked out the details of the socio-economic infrastructure and stuff like that, and it's meant mainly to serve as an expository of the setting and central characters..

Chapter One:

Homecoming

Time is inconsistent for me whenever I travel, so I cannot mark these Chronicle with dates. My companions and I have traveled the world, traveled the stars, and have now finally breached the wall of Time itself. Only by recording our deeds can I preserve our memory in the events of the Cosmic Dawn.

Mine was an atypical life from the get go, and I was usually away from friends and family since an early age. At the twelve, I ran to join a troupe of street circus performers. My parents thought this was a bad idea, but I desisted and joined anyhow. My brother Desmond was of a wandering disposition as well, although we seldom met in person, even then. For whatever reason, fate or chance, we ended up in careers involving espionage, stealth, and thievery.

I had several childhood friends, but at the age of seventeen many of use went our separate ways. We had, however, resolved to see one another sometime again, but that would not be until many years later.

Many changes happened to me those eight years after I graduated as a Journeyman from my Thieves' Guild, up until the day I attained my master's certificate at the age of twenty-five, and established a Guild of mine own. Till then I'd been mostly an acrobat, travelling the Western Mainland of the planet Syte, the super-continent known as Daemonland. Restangil, the World River, divided the Western and Eastern hemispheres respectively.

My mentor, Dyne Firesong, taught me incrementally in the arts of astramancy to hone alongside with my stealth and dexterity. The arts of spell, or magicka—astramancy as it was called by initiates—came to me easily enough, especially for one of my race, being Catfolk. Nonetheless I never took a liking to raw spells, but instead preferred the practice of employing talismans and lodestones to work my magic; rather than the meddlesome practice of memorizing from spells books and scrolls.

I have gray fur and silver hair, shoulder length. My eyes are almond shaped and hazel green. My face is heartshaped and I have broad shoulders and an athletic physique. My ears are those of a cat, perky; and I have a fluffy gray striped tail, like that of a snow leopard. My race, the Catfolk—although the more human-esque variant of us sometimes go by the names of neko, or nekojin-- are very influential in interstellar affairs, but we suffer much stigma and prejudice here on my homeworld, the planet Syte.

It was the five hundredth and fiftieth year of the fourth era of the planet Syte when I graduated from my Thieves' Guild and became a wandering journeyman, and it would be the five hundredth and fifty-eighth year when I started my own guild. In those eight years, I'd done many things, including the joining of a mercenary platoon as light infantry. My friends and I had agreed on a homecoming at the town of Brier Rose Reach, which was in the province of Sol, a rather seasonally hot region.

Getting involved in dishonest work has its tail end of bad, unlucky karma. You know you deserve it in the end, and the short end gains you make are delivered with negative repercussions too. Money gets to people, and it's the devil's domain.

I got tired of all the subterfuge. It was odd how different I was from my brother Desmond. Desmond didn't mind the stealing but hated the killing that went with fighting in war. I, on the other hand, found myself more comfortable with the mercenary life than the life of a freelance thief. In battle I would wear light armor and wield complex weapons, like the greatsword and the katana and partisan and halberd. I became somewhat of a weapon's master in my adventuring.

My younger brother and I would travel in carnival troupes occasionally, and I usually let him do most of the stealing, as it required a lot of patience, the likes of which I only moderately took to well. Sometimes I would dig my nose into grimories and enhance my knowledge of astramancy during the duration when we rode in the carriage. My weapon of choice was the Rifting staff, even in my early days as an adventurer. My younger brother Desmond preferred a pair of daggers.

I was returning to Brier Rose Reach from a month of mercenary life, and a whole list of job acquisitions from various client from all over Daemonland. The letters I carried to my temporary home at Brier Rose Reach described quantities of disasters that needed fixing, and I had made a name of myself on the battlefield and with the Fighter's Guild, which I began spending more time with than the Thieves Guild, despite stealth being my initial profession.

Life in the Fighter's Guild was more to my liking, and I dwelled in it deeply from ages twenty to twenty-two, before switching over a year to the Mage's Guild and some national Knightly Orders. By age twenty four I had the aspiration of starting a guild of my own, and within six months I did just that; we called it the Ninja's guild, or the Shadowknife's guild. This was the guild I became headmaster of in the first month of my twenty-fifth year.

By that time I had also secured a position with the Amagiri, the elite combat military branch assigned directly to the World State, and authorized with the hunting of unusual monsters. Although I'd but spent a season's time in the Amagiri, I took the duty very seriously.

Indeed one of the letters ascribed to me was from my Instructor at the 73rd branch of the Amagiri from which I worked in. This was at the forefront of my attention as I rode home.

Around the same time, Desmond and I left the Thieve's guild of our vicinity to go freelance. One of the requests I had was from a mage who wanted me to procure a very arcane artifact from the ghost town Nicklebridge, but I'd get to that later. My first loyalty was to the Amagiri. The petty squablings of the Thieve's Guild had grated on me, and so I had since my early twenties had turned my attention to more military branches.

One of my closest friends in the Amagiri was a gladiator named Faulke Marshal. We'd grown up together to some extent, both loosely following different paths and yet keeping in touch. He was not with me on this specific task, although I had teamed with him on more than one occasion.

It was the five hundredth and fiftieth year of the fourth era of the planet Syte when I graduated from my Thieves' Guild and became a wandering journeyman, and it would be the five hundredth and fifty-eighth year when I started my own guild. In those eight years, I'd done many things, including the joining of a mercenary platoon as light infantry. My friends and I had agreed on a homecoming at the town of Brier Rose Reach, which was in the province of Sol, a rather seasonally hot region.

Getting involved in dishonest work has its tail end of bad, unlucky karma. You know you deserve it in the end, and the short end gains you make are delivered with negative repercussions too. Money gets to people, and it's the devil's domain.

I got tired of all the subterfuge. It was odd how different I was from my brother Desmond. Desmond didn't mind the stealing but hated the killing that went with fighting in war. I, on the other hand, found myself more comfortable with the mercenary life than the life of a freelance thief. In battle I would wear light armor and wield complex weapons, like the greatsword and the katana and partisan and halberd. I became somewhat of a weapon's master in my adventuring.

My younger brother and I would travel in carnival troupes occasionally, and I usually let him do most of the stealing, as it required a lot of patience, the likes of which I only moderately took to well. Sometimes I would dig my nose into grimories and enhance my knowledge of astramancy during the duration when we rode in the carriage. My weapon of choice was the Rifting staff, even in my early days as an adventurer. My younger brother Desmond preferred a pair of daggers.

I was returning to Brier Rose Reach from a month of mercenary life, and a whole list of job acquisitions from various client from all over Daemonland. The letters I carried to my temporary home at Brier Rose Reach described quantities of disasters that needed fixing, and I had made a name of myself on the battlefield and with the Fighter's Guild, which I began spending more time with than the Thieves Guild, despite stealth being my initial profession.

Life in the Fighter's Guild was more to my liking, and I dwelled in it deeply from ages twenty to twenty-two, before switching over a year to the Mage's Guild and some national Knightly Orders. By age twenty four I had the aspiration of starting a guild of my own, and within six months I did just that; we called it the Ninja's guild, or the Shadowknife's guild. This was the guild I became headmaster of in the first month of my twenty-fifth year.

By that time I had also secured a position with the Amagiri, the elite combat military branch assigned directly to the World State, and authorized with the hunting of unusual monsters. Although I'd but spent a season's time in the Amagiri, I took the duty very seriously.

Indeed one of the letters ascribed to me was from my Instructor at the 73rd branch of the Amagiri from which I worked in. This was at the forefront of my attention as I rode home.

Around the same time, Desmond and I left the Thieve's guild of our vicinity to go freelance. One of the requests I had was from a mage who wanted me to procure a very arcane artifact from the ghost town Nicklebridge, but I'd get to that later. My first loyalty was to the Amagiri. The petty squablings of the Thieve's Guild had grated on me, and so I had since my early twenties had turned my attention to more military branches.

One of my closest friends in the Amagiri was a gladiator named Faulke Marshal. We'd grown up together to some extent, both loosely following different paths and yet keeping in touch. He was not with me on this specific task, although I had teamed with him on more than one occasion