Chapter 1

When Kallan Marnordir survived his seventh harsh winter, his father took faith in the idea that he might be able to take pride in his weak and secret child. Kallan Marnordir Senior was a blacksmith and he had no use of his son on the job. He therefor decided to seek the help of someone to mentor him, but who? Who would accept to tutor a boy as clumsy as Kallan? Marnodir Senior ventured trough the land in search of a good mentor for the son he almost forgot about. He watched as the doors of his friends and neighbors closed one by one in front of them.

The morning the adventure of Kallan begun, his father who failed to find someone to teach him, brought Kallan at the far end of the village in a small forest where the Wizard of the Four Valleys was known to live. Kallan was placed in the care of the old wizard who, in exchange of a silver coin per week, would teach him « how to become someone ». Every dawn, Kallan presented himself at his new master’s home spent the day with him and left at sun down. The old wizard taught him all about the art of wizarding. Task after task, during seven years Kallan learned how to « become someone ». The young boy went trough a lot of trouble to make a place for himself in this world. Hence, he did not understand when his teacher and his father made it clear to him that now that he was a man it was time for him to build a home and fine someplace else to practice his own art.

Some say Kallan Marnordir was banished from his hometown after stealing a chicken. Other pretend that affected by the disorders of the Empire and naturally predisposed to rebellion, he fled to conspire in some city slum of Juzil, foundation of what will later on be named the Alliance of Marnordir. In the end, of this period we know almost nothing.

Be that as it may, during seven years, we did not hear about the little Kallan Marnordir. His parents even began to forget that they had had a son. Than, during a stormy night, Kallan came back home. It was the year 707 after the Four Continents conquest of Emperor Mar Saya. The young man celebrated his twenty first year and had nothing left of the clumsy boy he once had been. Kallan had grown taller and stronger. He now looked like the lowland warriors who where so appealing to girls. Kallan Marnordir had « become someone » and someone highly respected. He stayed some time with his family and left again for the city of Cartaam on the land of Juzil. During his stay, he made an extraordinary discovery: he found a way to confine the essence of things and humans in small parchment pieces. These small parchments where going to change the world of Moonga forever.

These small cards – commonly known as Spells – enclosed the essence of what had been imprinted in them. It was a difficult meticulous and difficult task and Kallan took several years to master the right formula.

In order to create the spell, Kallan had to live as one with the entities he was to capture the essence of, sometimes for more than several years. To create the « Power of River Saya » and the « River Saya Dragon » Spell, Kallan lived by the river and sometimes in it during eleven months to study the river and it’s inhabitants. Once he uncovered all the secrets of river Saya, Kallan was completely instilled of all of its essences.

Than, thanks to a special enchantment only Kallan mastered, he managed to transfer the essence impregnated on him onto the cards. It took him eleven months to create the cards « Power of River Saya » and « River Saya Dragon ». All in all he was lucky he managed to draw two different essences during this time period; ordinarily he could only create one card after an impregnation cycle of almost two years. Conscious of the labor all of this would imply, Kallan Marnordir decided it was time to share his knowledge. Seven wizards had the honor of being tutored by the greatest magician The Grand Story ever knew. They where named: The Seven Insiders… Marnordir taught them the art of impregnation and how to create the cards. Than he decided to entrust a community of copyist from The Quartz Caves of Juzil the mission of copying the cards. Marnordir enchanted the copyists so only they could copy the cards.

Seven years passed…

At the age of twenty-eight years old Marnordir combined a precious number of spells. In concord with the Seven Insiders, he judged it preferable to split these Spells. He thought such great power parted between such few persons could become dangerous. He decided, after endless debate, to foster the country of Juzil, known to welcome, since ever, the opponents of the Empire. For the very first time in his life, Marnordir acted against the Empire.

Progressively, the inhabitants of Juzil realized the invaluable protection the cards brought them. Their condition got better so that they soon managed to ward the empire of Sayosia off their borders. Discarded of the domination of the empire, the people united by the power of the cards, stood up for themselves and declared their independence.

The emperor Daryen, who always had a few spies on a mission, (just in case) soon realized a rebellion was on its way. Rumor had it that peasants managed to overcome the invincible warriors of Sayosia with the help of magic cards. «How dare they!! He screamed to his counsellors, I let them reproduce at their will, and this is what I get in return!! My dad was right, dogs only learn at the blow of a stick!»

The Empire immediately sent masses of warriors to beat to death, with a stick of course, as much card holders they could catch. Strong and confident the sayosiens emissaries, whom nobody had been able to fight off, were slaughtered on the land of Juzil. Weeping his cutting defeat, the emperor retreated his troupes to the capital to take stock and prepare for a second attack.
The emperor officially declared that every being in possession of a Spell would immediately be executed; He thought that would discourage people of getting the Spells. He was terribly wrong. The nearby territories of Armanor and Dizulmar stunned by the outcome of this battle, joined Juzil to form an alliance against the Empire. The population of these two territories had been highly impressed by the speed with which the inhabitants of Juzil had countered the offensive of Sayosia. Shortly after, they also declared their independence.

Meanwhile, The emperor multiplied, in vain, campaigns against the ever-increasing numbers of cardholders. His repeated failures promptly damaged the image of the Empire and revealed the faces of unsuspected enemies.

Daryen soon recognized that his army wasn’t considerable enough against these powerful Spells. As a result, he interrupted his attacks against the Alliance of Marnordir.

Using tricks, the emperor convicted two Insiders to join the ranks of the Empire. From this time on, only five of the seven Insiders were left. Daryen soon would hold his own Spells.

This is how, the longest most cunning wars the land of Moonga ever knew, begins: The war for the power of Spells.