Zardien – Lightning’s Fire, Light’s Roar Ch. 6
Summary: The legend of the Counterstones
Archival Note from The Jewel Riders Archive: This story is presented as it was originally published on Stormy’s “Avalon” fan site in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It is presented for archival purposes and for the enjoyment of the Jewel Riders fandom. If you are the author of this story and wish to have it removed from the Jewel Riders Archive (or wish to share more!) please email us at archivist@jewelridersarchive.com. Happy Reading!
Warning: Any similarity between this and actual Jewel Riders material is insane. He could NEVER write this good! HA! Seriously, to save a lot of copywright stuff, all the Jewel Rider jazz is owned by that guy with an M name, and this is just a fan fic cause I wanted to make the series GOOD! Take THAT, Amazin’ Adventures! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Seriously, it’s finally here, after much pushing by my very pushy colleague, Tarichan, in honor of our very own Stormy’s 20th Birthday. Happy birthday, you ol’ geezer, you! Heheh. J It’s Chapter Six of my ongoing saga, which I have picked up again do to popular demand I didn’t even receive! Beware!
Author’s note: I considered redoing the first few chapters, but I sort of pay them as atribute to my earlier works. As one might note, I strive to improve, and it’s very unique to me to see how the writing evolves in form and style as I age. For one, I’m working on less petty description and more plot point description, albeit character depth which I still must have for my own sanity. So as a birthday present to Stormy, requested by Tarichan, I’m picking up right where I left off almost a year, maybe two years ago, can’t even remember now. And for Stormy’s PERSONAL enjoyment, I’m restoring Kilivirain all the way back to his young, vital, and demented self evil lil’’ self, and TOTALLY reviviing old ideas to restore the series to its more unihibited flavor. Somewhere along the line my ideas got carried off on secondary plots, but now I’m settling back to return to the MAIN plots. So, now Voral and Kilivirain (and for Stormy’s pleasure Krystal, for extra fun) will live once more, but sit back and relax, for before you can know Voral and Kilivirain, first you have to know the truly amazing story behind our deviant little baronet’s jewel…Enjoy, all.
The Lightning’s Fire, The Light’s Roar
CHAPTER SIX: The Legend of the Counterstones
By Zardien
Perhaps for you to truly understand the strangeness of Kilivirain’s bizarro jewel, the Counter Lightning Stone, dear reader, perhaps it is time for a lesson in oddity. WEIRD STUFF! WEEEIRD! Beware! ;P You see, ages ago, before the jewels of Avalon ever set around even the feet of Arthur or reached the hand of Merlin, the Ancients created a sort of watcher jewel for each normal jewel. The counterstones…
You see, back in the time of the warring gods, of famine and hatred, where mankind was merely ape and the cold of the frost giants waged battle with Nordic greats, such magic like the precious jewels destined for Avalon, jewels yet to even have been created, had to be protected and kept in check so that each would not have dominance of the other…
So some stupid half-goat god said, “HEY! Let’s make COUNTERSTONES to protect them!!!”
And as his drunken deific buddies barreled down their current tank of ambrosia, they smiled drly and replied, “KEEWWWWLLLL! *_*!!!!”
And so, the counterstones started. Cyclops and Titans worked long hours in the forge with the elder dwarven races to make these jewels, ignoring the fact that the author just stole ideas from Greek mythology AND J.R.R. Tolkien.
(Author’s note: A rather HYPER Tari was the inspiration for that one :P)
But of course, there were problems with the counterstones…
You see, the stones, while being the protectorate stones of each of the sacred jewels of Avalon, each took on the personality (a.k.a. powers) of the jewel it protected. A sort of bizarro power jewel of the main jewels with different coloration. But the powers were perverted somewhat. For instance, the blue moon jewel counterstone gained fire powers. So it became a reddish jewel known as the Counter Moon Jewel. And the list goes on.
You see, the counterstones were semi-sentient; essences of long-perished ancient elder deities, even older and more powerful than the more current ancient gods, forged into crystals. And unfortunately, most ancient astral beings the before the gods weren’t so very nice. In fact, they were downright NOT NICE! But the drunken gods who made them didn’t know this. Not a very good thing.
And so, for eons, the counterstones were kept in secret pocket dimensions, watching slowly over the jewels while they were kept by the gods. But then the day came that the Druid priests arose. It began as a secret pact between two beings: the bizarre cloaked druid known only as Raimanon, and Mandelon, a sole-surving fire god from a very obscure, long-dead and forgotten pantheon of a long-dead small remote tribe that was not even Celtic-related. These two names were the only ones remembered from the conflict, but by the time of Jewel Riders, most written records of such beings were destroyed and the few who know it still dismiss it as fictional balderdash.
Raimanon was a very wicked priest of the forest; a self-serving miscreant of a man who only chose the path of the druid for power. But Raimanon was also very intelligent and resourceful. It was known that he and he alone knew the location of the Legendary Magics of Mahira, which if contained in objects could steal the souls of creatures and be used to transform into them. Most gods would have given their very right to live for such a power.
Mandelon had a very strange past, indeed. It is said that when it was his pantheon’s turn to pass on, he didn’t wish to do so. So the Judges of the Ages, watchers of the universe, gave him two choices. He could join his pantheon in a remote dimension and fade from this plane of existance to live out his immortality in paradise…or, he would have to be de-molecularized. Mandelon refused because he loved his godly power so, and to this day had been fleeing from the Judges. He became a wandering hate-monger; he existed on the very fact of finding new ways to cause chaos and disrupt the balance of nature.
So these two hooked up in some unknown way, and formulated a very nasty scheme. Raimanon wanted power, and Mandelon wanted to destroy the Judges so he would never have to fade away or die. So they decided to use the one thing the gods had NOT thought as a threat to their existance…the counterstones.
You see, under the right control, the counterstones could virtually make anyone invincible. They were designed by the greatest; perhaps too well. The counterstones could not only protect, but control the jewels. The essences inside had no love-loss for the forces o good, and longed for vengeance on their captors.
Using his powers to trap a satyr’s soul inside his staff, Raimanon masqueraded as the very half-goat god who came up with the ideas for the counterstones. One by one, he gathered them up in secret along with the precius jewels of Avalon as Mandelon distracted the pantheons with mayhem of his own; ravaging the countryside and other evil-doer things.
Summoning elder rituals, Raimanon created the Magicks needed to bring out the true nature of the evil essences within the counterstones. He siphoned the power of the forest that would one day be known as the Travel Trees to reach into the great beyond, bringing back demonic forces to enpower the essences and intensify their power. Unfortunately, he sneezed during one of the last incantations, and two of his jewels, a counterstone which had not yet been empowered evily and the jewel it protected, and they were lost. At a lack for time to recover them, Raimanon ignored it and continued to recite the rest of the ritual.
Finally, it had happened. By the time the gods had figured out what happened, it was too late. The jewels now had minds of their own, and started causing chaos around the globe. Forests burned, waters dried, deserts frozen and mountains moved. The entire earth was starting to succumb to the forces of the cursed counterstone jewels, floating by with the jewels they controlled and combining their powers to create utter mayhem. The gods were unable to stop the constant destruction, and the counterstone jewels were starting to creep up upon their very dwellings. Things looked very bleak for young Mother Earth. Raimanon realized the powers he had released were now out of even his control, and things had gone too far.
But the Judges of the Ages crept down upon the nurturing planet, and brought down the forces of Astral Justice to rain upon the counterstones. Even the powers of the counterstones could not match the power of pure cosmical judgement, and were soon consumed in a losing battle. At the end, the counterstones were downed and the evils inside them quelched, and the jewels that they controlled given back to their rightful owners, the pantheons.
As for the counterstones in the battle, they were ordered by the Judges to be destroyed in black flames, ensuring their entire annhiliation. It was also ruled that no magic jewel, stone or counterstone, could never be made again, and that any god who tried would be de-molecularized on sight. But that was not enough. They wanted vengeance on the perpetrators of the incident, for so it would show an example of what would happen to anyone who would mess with the forces of nature again like that.
Mandelon fleed to to the place Raimanon said he would meet him, by a mountain, but the fire god unluckily found the Judges of the Ages sitting there waiting for him. Raimanon was no where to be found. The druid had sold him out to the Judges in exchange for his own life, pleading HE was the brains behind it all, and the Judges already pursuing Mandelon had no trouble believing it. Raimanon seemed to disappear after that, taking the secret of the powers of soul-stealing and transformation with him…
The fate of Mandelon was beyond horrid. The Judges smiled as they looked at him, saying only this:
“You, who wished immortality on this plain, shall NOW receive it. For hear us, wretched demon, not even worthy of our words, you shall be forced to live on earth trapped in an avatar body. You will only be able to exist by possessing the bodies of mortals, and when each body dies out you must possess another or perish yourself. Your powers will be semi-retained, and you will also gain any of the abilities of the person you may possess, male or female. But all senses and emotions will be lost to you; you will fell nothing physically or mentally, EVER again. A spectral prescence forever trying to grasp on life and never being able to, till the end of time and beyond. Enjoy your wish, fool.”
And with that, Mandelon was cursed.
Thus ends the tale of the counterstones. Or does it? Did I fail to mention those two jewels, that stone and the counterstone lost in the ritual were never destroyed because they were never found? Hmm…
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