LIGHTNOVELONLINE A Storyteller and His Magical Stories
"Long ago in a time long forgotten by all but those who thirst for knowledge, there existed two mighty empires..." The Storyteller pushed his right hand forward and the green glow around it intensified before shooting green sparkles forward which assembled into a giant glowing map in the center of the room. Everyone in town was familiar with the shape of the continent, which looked like batter poured into a pan and unevenly spread, but no one was familiar with the two powers that divided the map unevenly between each other. Even those sitting close to the map, who could read the names of the two powers, found them to be utterly alien. And after a close examination of the map, they found some differences between the continent on the map and the ones on a map of today!
The Storyteller continued on, his hands glowing a multitude of colors. With a wave the map changed to a realistic depiction of all the races of the world. Humans, dwarves, elves, lizardmen, and even the myriad kinds of beastmen walked around the room. The children giggled and tried to touch the magical depictions, but their hands went right through in a puff of sparkles. The Storyteller smiled a little under his hood and continued his tale.
"The Great Empire of Unitas or 'Unity' in today's tongue, was an empire based on merit, the worth of one's work you could say. An empire where commoners such as yourselves could rise to important positions based on the contributions you made to the empire. A peasant who managed to increase the yield of his crops by twofold or more could find himself in a position of power over the other farmers. A merchant who managed to open up a new trade route could find himself a minor noble. Everyone contributed to this great power in their own way." The Storyteller paused and took a long sip of his drink, coughing a little as he did so. Then he waved his left hand, which was glowing red and had little wisps of fire floating off of it. The illusion of the myriad races was changed and the room grew faintly hotter as a group of heavily armed humans pointed swords forward behind a group of all the non-human races who were wearing stranger collars. They were battling with the Unitas Empire on a grassy field.
"On the other side of the continent, we have the other great empire, they simply called themselves, 'Dominion.'" The Storyteller paused and had a small fit of coughs. Myrna rushed over to him but he waved her off at the last second. "Dominion was a human-centric empire, meaning that humans absolutely ruled this empire and all others were seen as inferior and unfit to lead. Elves, Dwarves, and all other non-humans were relegated to little more than slaves. The most one could hope for was to be an overseer over their own kind." The Storyteller waved his hands again and the images slowly changed to many different battles. " For centuries these two great powers fought with each other, even in times of peace they still had skirmishes, each seeking to dominate the other. Perhaps eventually one of them might have broken the stalemate, but such were not the plans fate had in store. It only took a cunning man and a daring plot to bring both empire to their knees."
The image changed once again to an older man with sharp green eyes and silver hair. He had a slender build, but you could tell it wasn't due to malnourishment, his body looked strong and fit. He wore fancy clothes of a merchant in a high position. Everyone in this room recognized this man. "Yes, all of you should be able to recognize Laurent of Ravensholm. The man single-handedly responsible for the creation of the Mercantile Kingdom of Dinus." The image in the room changed again to the map, but this time there was a third power and in the bottom right was a burgeoning slice of land starting to push it's way into the Dominion. "This is where historians argue about what happened, this was after all an intense period of conflict that shook and changed the very foundations of this land."
The map changed again and now there were exactly four kingdoms spread across the four corners of the land. Everyone finally recognized the map, it was the same one posted everywhere in the world. The Storyteller shook as he coughed again, he took a long drink out of his mug and then wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "This is the land you know, Leoras. And here are the kingdoms of today..." Each one highlighted in turn when he spoke about them. The Holy Empire of Liberated Peoples in the top left of the continent, it had a similar symbol to the old Empire of Unity that everyone just learned about. A fist emblazoned with a halo above it. It also had more landmass in its borders than the other three kingdoms. In the top right was a sword and shield with a ring wrapped around both, the Knighthood of Saint Brune. Despite the name, it is a kingdom ruled by a royal family of humans, a land where non-humans may only ascend to lower positions in society and one wrong step lands you as a slave.
In the bottom left was the Mercantile Kingdom of Dinus and the Storyteller paused the magic when it highlighted this kingdom in particular. The map zoomed in on the kingdom until it took up all the space in the image. The symbol of a golden crown encrusted with red rubies was the official emblem of this particular kingdom. Simple, but powerful in its message. "Allow me to explain, the plot of a man so cunning it split the two empires into four kingdoms. Though by this point in history, Laurent has long passed, his mark remains. The creation of the first known mercenary..."