The Fate Of A Xerux

by DiscordantKire

Prologue

Prologue
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When you looked upon the apartment, you wouldn't think anything of it at all. Standard, Grey, Lifeless. These words seemed to define this place down to a meaningless spec of dust upon the floor. It seemed to be all so very normal.. in fact.. a bit too normal. It never changed, it was always clean, There was always food, and if you looked more than once upon this place, you would see the furniture never moved, not even in the slightest detail. If you were to look upon this small apartment in the complex, you would almost find it hauntingly normal. It was not vacant, yet there were no signs of life at all.

It sometimes made Deus chuckle.

Deus wasn't concerned about people finding out, why should he be? Normal people are dense.. and rather pointless in all aspects really. Why would he bother with them at all? They were such basic creatures who had no purpose. They were truly better off simply leaving and leaving Deus undisturbed.Their presence was nothing more than a nuance to him after all. Deus was by no means an advanced practitioner in.. the 'arts', but he knew enough to fool people so utterly simple as to be blind to the truths of the very world around them. The Glamour was barely enough to fool a mediocre practitioner after all!

That was simply how it was in Deus's mind. Pitiful creatures. They were whom he was forced to call his 'own kind'.

Simple simple humans... he felt nothing but disdain to even be of the same race as them.. it was shameful. His master from all that time ago had told him that the being that was man, was and is superior, and that he should be proud to be of the flesh of man. In Truth, Deus only felt disgust toward the race of men. They were lazy, easily broken, easy to manipulate by brute force alone, and while highly adaptable, also highly inefficient. He has suggested countless numbers of times that research be done into human transmutation, but the high sorcerers seemed to think him nothing more than a young and mad fool. He was nothing but fool hardy Xerux after all. At least thats what they all told him.

There are several paragons of the 'arts'. manipulation, natural, physical, ethereal, elemental, One could spend a a lengthy amount of time naming the different fields. There were also specific paths within them. Deus was in particular had quite the affinity to Manipulation based sorcery; that is, the kind of arcane influence that works around bending something into behaving differently than was 'natural'. Making water flow upwards, manipulation of the mind, influencing the cycle of a tree's growth, these were some of the things that Manipulation based Sorcery did with ease.

Deus's pride and joy however... was in making new things. Forcing a inanimate object to behave as a lifeform, even though it clearly was not. Making something unique out of something... boring. It was all Deus Stood for. Making something no one other than himself had thought of, something no one could do better than he. Most importantly... it not being BORING. Deus loved to have fun. Deus was not well liked because of his 'taste' in fun. Some thought he went too far with his 'jokes' and creations. Deus thought he had not gone nearly far enough. It was merely a small fraction of what Deus really wanted to do. Deus true desire was merely to be accepted as who he truly was. Alas it never did seem to go that way. The other Sorcerers scoffed at him for his foolish 'delusions of grandeur' as they called it, they thought his fun was nothing but irrational nonsense... it sometimes almost made him want to make them see things his way.

That’s when the voices came.

The voices changed everything. They told Deus about glorious creations that made normalcy look like a grand failure. Deus was shown marvelous things that dwarfed anything even the Arch-Mages had come up with. Reality manipulation, Mind influence, Control over the very forces of nature themselves!!! All the others within the Sorcerer society told him it was madness, such forces 'should not be controlled', 'it was not our place to do so'. 'Such forces should only be controlled by the gods, and even they show restraint in the control of such vast entities. They were all fools though. To Deus, they were just getting in the way of true and real progress! He did have to wonder though... those voices which had given him everything, taught him so much, so much that he had never heard before.. what were they?

[iWe are what you are. We are what you could have always been.... Deus... But that's not right... that name isnt who you REALLY are is it? Why do you run from what you were meant to be? Why do you reject fate? Why call yourself by a name that bears no meaning? Why do you hide from us?

“Us?”

Deus woke on his couch after lackluster night of sleep. He rarely had a nice period of sleep or waking recent days. Deus yawned as he considered what needed to be done for the day. First and foremost, he thought, he needed to complete the calculations in order to finish his great project. The "Gate". That was his priority, nothing else was really all that important in comparison to that. The Gate was all he had ever wanted. It lead somewhere he very much wanted to go. Where? Anywhere but were he was now. But the best part, oh the best part of it is he would finally be rid of what irked him most. By going through, and leaving the rules of this horrid place, he would leave behind what he hated more than anything.

“My Humanity.”

This wasn't about the Arch-Mages or about proving himself to the other sorcerers that he was not as foolish and wrong as they all assumed. No, this was a far greater Goal. To do as no other Sorcerer before had done. He was going to transcend his pitiful body at long last, the gate would ensure that when next he would look upon a mirror, he would finally be able to see something which he did not hate. The gate would bring him to his utopia, even if for others it could quite possibly be a land of nightmares. He would leave this pitiful body, and reform as... as... well...

"I probably should consider that... I haven't considered any of the possibilities, the vast outliers, if i would even be sentient.. there are many things to consider, most of all If the gate will even function as I have hypothesized."

It will work fine... you have been working for months upon end... enough waiting, enough caution... It is almost complete Deus. We are so close... for so long have you have been trapped; for so long have you sought to escape this dreadful plane to avoid this abyss of meager form and mind! I tell you Deus that the time is Close, and should be hastened as much as possible.

The voice that spoke from within was his own... right? Why would he not trust... himself.

Very very soon, it was going to be done. The only thing he needed left to finish the puzzle was the spark. The Final push to bring the Energies of the Gate to Life, and utilize its power. He had no means by which to ignite the portal himself, he was not powerful enough for that he knew, but if he could find another source... one he could use as fuel for the spell...

He held his head up thoughtfully as he considered the parcel which he had ordered months ago to be delivered to his residence. That would contain the final piece of the puzzle, and then finally, finally.. he would be free.

But will you be truly free? Or gone from this prison only to find a new one?

Author's Note:

First Chapter is now UP For everyone to come and see, All please please PLEASE comment on this and tell me your honest opinion. DO NOT SUGARCOAT IT. That is bad for my already massive ego :D Let me know what you think, what i could do better etc, and most importantly have fun guys!

EDIT: This is not the original chapter, I just got done re-editing the chapter to be less monotonous because of request to make it more... well more correct really. Let me know still if you like it, if you dont like it, why or why not, all in the comments or even in the likes/dislikes. I would much rather recieve a hundred Dislikes than be told i have a great story when its not true. Im writing both for myself as a writer and hopefully to entertain you guys, so please let me know what irks you about my writing, and let me know what i can do to make it better. Until then, c ya later!

Comments

[Kolwynia]

You have some interesting world-building going on here. I found it a little hard to identify with Deus right away, since I'm still not sure what kind of person he is (or if he's likeable), and you kind of throw the reader into the deep end as far as your world goes, not giving too much explanation of the Mages and whatnot. (I know that part is hard to do, because you don't want the entire first chapter to be exposition that explains how your world works to the reader.)

You haven't gotten to the ponies yet, which makes it hard for me to judge that aspect of the story.

Overall, I liked the creativity on display in your intro, but since it's really just the very beginning of the tale, we don't get too much of an idea about what shape the story is going to take, and only a sketch of the kind of person your protagonist is.

The writing itself is good (though there are a few grammatical errors scattered here and there). You are able to set a scene and get into your main character's head.