The Rokkaia Chronicles Read online

  The Rokkaia

  Chronicles

  By

  Rhys Thomas

  Copyright © 2019 Rhys Thomas

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by an electronic or mechanical means – except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews – without the written permission from the publisher.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental and no intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2019 Rhys Thomas

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by @excharny

  Dedication

  To stupidly wonderful family.

  To my mother for always believing in me and putting up with my fantastical nonsense.

  To my baby brother.

  Contents

  The Rokkaia

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Interlude: Jonathan Marcs

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Interlude: Deep One

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Interlude: Zharrol Armsbane

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Interlude: Niflane Bella’agieve

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Interlude: Sal’re’al

  Chapter One

  The constant throbbing hum of the lava bath woke my miserable self-up. It was an annoying reminder of its damned presence. With a yawn and a stretch; my mind still reeling from the past day’s events, I sat up.

  Beside me and spaced a few feet away laid a bath of molten fire, the mix swirling and popping fiery boils that swelled and oozed. I stared entranced at the churning lava as it moved clockwise in circles as if it was about to go down the drain. The soft sound of the bubbles constantly bursting lulled me to close my eyes, as I thought about my old friend Wyatt Rosen.

  It was hard to put into the context, the constant presence he’d been at the back of my mind as a child growing up till one day his presence just simply vanished. I mean that in the literal term as well. He really had been inside my head so to speak. Then fifteen years later after his disappearance, his presence just reinserted itself. Making the pieces of my being fit like a completed jigsaw puzzle.

  I had almost doubted myself when I felt it, I had forgotten all about him, almost believing him to be some form of a childhood imaginary friend, except he was more like a voice at the back of my mind.

  Yet, that very bath of lava beside me had swallowed my friend. Absorbing him like a sponge does water. Oh, the bastard had willing bathed in the bath of lava.

  Strange fucker, but I suppose that’s what happens when you’re a parallel of the other.

  He had been completely compliant in the act. It just still unnerved me, and I worried if I would have to bathe as well soon. I was broken from my worrisome thoughts when the door of my current residence slid open.

  An exceedingly gorgeous red head flowed through the entrance with an unnerving grace, as she literally glided across the floor. Her crimson red hair curled upwards seeming to ignore the laws of gravity as writhed above her like bunches of entranced snakes.

  She wore a cream coloured body suit which ran vertically with red lines from her shoulders to stomach and from there to her bare feet.

  The suit also extenuated all of her curvy goodness and made her look like some badass sexy super hero. The frown she was wearing on her full red lips split into a smile at the sight of my wakeful form and I have her my most charming smile.

  The silken navy sheet that covered me fell from my torso and pooled around my waist keeping my modesty in proper concealment. The graceful woman came over beside me; then gave me an affectionate embrace.

  Her red silken curls flowing down to rest gently against my shoulder.

  It still shocked me at how touchy-feely she was, and she certainly touched without hesitancy, as her hands mischievously slid down the muscles of my back to firmly grip my ass.

  I tensed and gently as I could, shifted so that she had extract herself from falling on me. The bed itself was actually solid stone, indented slightly with my likeness like a mold, but it was remarkably comfortable. The goddess of a woman straightened and adjusted her suit giving me a warm yet flirtatious smile which I happily returned.

  I would’ve easily bedded the lush and lusty goddess, if not for the things her and her father had been spewing the last couple of days.

  “How are you feeling this morning, my love?” She asked in a voice close to musical that it wasn’t down right annoying.

  Her epithet for me felt as if we had somehow skipped the whole dating-please -meet-my-parents-fiancé thing and gone on to full blown marriage of the soul.

  “I’m feeling better,” I replied, though truthfully, I felt like utter shit. I had reunited with a friend I had thought to be a delusion—exchanged some words, shook hands—then watched him as he calmly sunk into a bath of lava without even so much as a scream. I swallowed down whatever emotion was making its way up my throat, I had already spent several hours cursing these so called and thoughtful gods and their idiotic ‘ideas and plan’s.’ I couldn’t for the life of me curse out Marisa Thal’lor Rokkaia though, the woman in front of me.

  “Where’s your father?” I asked, “I would’ve thought he’d cast me out by now.” Marisa reached over smoothed back my dark hair, “he’ll be waiting for you. For when you’re ready at the observation platform,” her hand moved lower and cupped face in her smooth yet powerful palm.

  She smiled mischievously and brought her face closer to mine, our lips inches from each other, her breath warmth and gentle against my own as we gazed into one another eyes.

  My misty grey blues meeting her orange rings that seemed almost predatory. She had a smell to her that was like a mixture of the cool high-altitudes and wood ash. She just smirked and withdrew and blinked as my eyes tracked her own.

  She moved away as I stood and uncaring for my nakedness I strolled towards the left side of my temporary quarters; where a mirror was embedded in the white wall.

  “How long do I have till he’ll force me to make a decision?” I questioned and began to marvel at the changes my body had gone through since yesterday, several white scars were enflamed across my torso and beneath my right arm. Feral teeth marks on my shoulder from where the Fodraca – as they called it – decided to chomp down continuously like some fucking demented Pac-man.

  I traced them as she replied, “you have till this evening, no less,” I stared at her in bewilderment too stun for words. “You have to understand my love. That the process had already begun before you even arrived, you were dying, and Wyatt Rosen gave what little he had left willingly. You are Ra’als ‘heir,’” she made air quotations and smiled slightly. “There’s no escaping that now so either you accept it willingly or you’ll be forced into the role,” she said with some finality that I didn’t quite feel.

  Yes, I was thankful for what Wyatt had done for me, but the man had just been reunited with his wife Vanessa who was still within the facility somewhere. The thing that really tickled my panicked bones was fact that they expected me to just accept and what? Jump in a vat of molten lava?

  Because according to their loony brochure the elements within the bath will unlocked some sort of pathway I’d always had and allow me
harness of the forces of a supreme-god, blah, blah, blah.

  “Where are my clothes?” I asked, and Marisa pointed to a side table I hadn’t seen beside my stone slab of a bed previously.

  “What the hell are these?” Holding up the array of yellow, white and dark blue cloth’s, there were other’s colours in the pile as well.

  For a moment I wondered if I was meant to dress like some sort of Roman councillor, instead Marisa just rolled her eyes and removed the cloth from my hands.

  She moved around waist, cinching the cloth tight and eventually after what felt like forever, she unfolded the majority of the tied cloth and it fell to my lower half in some form of ankle length skirt that left my right leg exposed from the knee down.

  “Okay... Thanks for the skirt?” I mumbled feeling rather breezy between my legs, and in need of an actual wash that didn’t result in me bathing in fire. Marisa laughed a soft beautiful tune and caressed the muscles on my chest.

  I had been insistent on fitness the last few years after a rather horrific childhood filled to the brim in abuse and bullying.

  But now my physique had never felt so, tight and lean, I could feel every minute flex in my arms, stomach, chest, back and legs.

  The goddess that was flushed against me could feel it also, “it’s called a Hurio battle dress from one of the many worlds in Ra’als domain. The Hurio wear these during their celebratory feasts thrown for their slain brethren,” she paused and looked away dubiously as she added, “which they eat during the banquet.”

  “Oh,” was all I could mumble, and we stood there in silence for moment. Clearing my throat and mind away from the thought of people eating one another. “Is Vanessa still here? because I liked to see her. It may help, move things along,” I lied and knew she knew as well.

  Seeing Vanessa was more about confronting the strange sense of guilt I had. Marisa knew this because we were apparently soul-bound to one another, always had been from the hints I could gleam out of the goddess.

  “Yes, she’ll be leaving to join your friend soon, so we better go now. Then after, you will see Ra’al,” she said sternly, and I nodded. I knew there was no way to escape this so I might as well just accept it. We moved at an eager pace from my room, once outside the door slid easily shut behind us and turned to see a blank wall instead of door, not a seam was present within the wall.

  I shrugged feeling as if I was drowning in the strangeness of this place. We walk through a litany of endless corridors, a halo of light silently rotated and hovering gently above us. We moved for what almost seemed like forever and I was anxious to leave this claustrophobic facility behind.

  Eventually our corridor traveling ceased to be and the passage widened out into a grand cathedral like chamber. It was 100-feet in diameter, the walls and ceiling where decorated in a myriad of multi-coloured glass panes covering the entirety of the grand room.

  A series of doors each labelled in identifiers were strewn across each side of the chamber and I had the sneaky suspicion that each door let somewhere that wasn’t even remotely close by.

  Standing by such a door was a pretty blonde woman, like my old friend she was much younger than she looked and could see her expression go through a variety of changes at the sight of me. Vanessa gave us a small friendly wave as we drew closer and for a moment she shimmered as her presence flickered into an ephemeral like state. Then the door beside her opened. Vanessa looked from it to me and smiled sadly.

  “Wait-” It tried to call after her, a soft swirling blue light painted her fading form and a moment later she was gone in a flash, and the door was closing. We paused before the door and I sighed.

  What could I’ve said? I could’ve asked her if Wyatt ever spoke of me, or why he thought my life was worth sacrificing his own for. But, in all honesty I wanted to apologise, even if my meagre words were just inadequate.

  How could anything I of said convey my gratitude. The sign on the door marked it as Dreamland.

  “Is it real?” I asked Marisa and swallowed. “Where she’s gone, where she believes he is… Their daughter…” I shook my head, feeling fuzzy and looking down at the goddess pressed against my side. Without looking up she shrugged her slender shoulders, hair writhing above her head like dancing coils of fire.

  We walked on and I became distracted by the strangest outside the windows above. A lash of fire uncoiled lowly through space above us.

  Did I mention that this place Ra’als sanctum was in space? I wasn’t sure on the scale or grandness of the station we were in and I wasn’t eager to find out either. I still felt like the situation was greatly out of my control, a field of energy rippled over the glass, which on further thought was most definitely not glass.

  A small tremor moved through the floor and felt my hold on Marisa arm tighten. She squeezed me hand reassuringly, “it’s absolutely fine. I imagine Ra’al is just making changes to the celestials and preparations for summoning your ‘embrace’ ceremony.”

  I felt my eyebrow climb as we walked leisurely, “celestials? You mean like gods, Higher beings and all that?” I asked and she shrugged which caused some of her floating red hair to tickle against my neck making me shiver.

  “They’re like… Simulacra? Or constructs, which Ra’al and the other’s created as a form of worship within their domains. The people within the domains emit an energy, either through prayer or magic. That same power from their faith and other energies fuels the simulacra which in turn fuels Ra’als power.”

  “So, they’re what? like robots?” I asked doubly, trying to understand.

  She shook her head, and with something like a sorrowful sigh, “no. They’re living entities, higher beings like you said, they have power of their own, but beyond that they are no more physical than a breeze in space. Their essence is connected to Ra’als and he allows only a small measure of presence, like in the form of a talking face in the fire.”

  So Ra’al made these celestials as a way to govern the populations or in his case the livestock of his domains. They in turn—the population that is—would attribute certain miracles or magical feats to their gods – the celestials. Who then provides that energy formed prayer - or some such nonsense – to Ra’al.

  I was about to ask more when we came to the entrance of the observation deck-thingy. The wall-door slid soundlessly open and Marisa extracted herself from me and bounded into the room and over to her father. They looked nothing alike and I couldn’t help but notice the spike in my mind, like a build-up of pressure going off in the back of my mind.

  When I concentrated on the odd little feeling, I realised it was coming from Marisa and it was resentment and hostility, directed at Ra’al.

  I blinked and shook away the thoughts and approached carefully. He was an older man but lacked any of the lines seen with age. The only signs being his white hair and slight creases at the corner of his eyes. He looked remarkably average for a supposed, all powerful being. His eyes like Marisa’s were different that regular eye colour, his were completely gold lacking pupil or sclera.

  “Ah, Jon. Welcome again. Please do come in,” he greeted me warmly.

  Nodding I walked over to stand a cautious distance from the man-thing as I studied him.

  “I’ve come to discuss the offer you made me,” I told him. He nodded at my words and gestured to the side of the room, where a couch and two deep armchairs were situated in a rough half-circle. I sat down as Marisa took the other armchair next to me while Ra’al sat at the centre of the couch opposite.

  He leaned forward and started to address my concerns, “just so we’re clear, I will not force you. You see the fact that you’re the heir of my power is a new development and from the research I’ve done, you have shown to be somewhat of an anomaly yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

  “Your existence is very like Marisa’s own; you simply came to exist on. You appeared outside an orphanage in Howls Bay. A quaint little town whose variety of jobs revolved around f
ishing and trap making. The orphanage you appeared at was called Albert’s Trusts, the headmistress Francine Taper took you in and four months later you were adopted by Peter and Marian Marcs.” He paused then and watched me carefully as he said his next words. “You lived with them for eight years till their unfortunate deaths. From there you were rehoused through several different homes and foster families, where you were eventually subjected to a disgusting amount of physical abuse and witnessed some unspeakable acts.” He finished so fucking matter-of-factly that I trembled with an intense surge of anger, wondering why he even thought to bring that up.

  I wondered where he was going with this, as he summed my entire pitiful existence down into a paragraph. I dug my fingers into the arms of the chair, “I know,” I told him. “I have the fucking scars to remind me,” the words seethed up from my stomach in a growl.

  He nodded casually, as if we were discussing the weather – which pissed me off even more - and carried on, “you emit a similar signature to Marisa, but we only found you so easily because of your friend, Wyatt Rosen. From there we followed that connection you and he shared and found you as a child.” Leaning back, he paused and blinked at me.

  It was the first time I’d seen him do that this entire time since I greeted him.

  “You’ve been the heir to my power since your younger years.” He told me, and I creased my brow in confusion. Out the corner of my eye I notice Marisa hadn’t been follow our conversation at all; just staring off into the distance uninterested in our conversation no doubt. I couldn’t blame her; the old man was luring this conversation somewhere.

  “Okay so why…” I fumbled for the words. “…Bring me here now?” I asked him calmly, my anger having slowly receded.

  “That’s just it. We couldn’t call you sooner, we had to cut the connection between you and Wyatt; a connection I must say that shouldn’t even be possible,” he explained and I steepled my fingers before me and focused on the far wall as I thought.