• The lost age of man and magic
    Chapter 1

    21XX the world was on the verge of war; Sergeant Leon Wright was leading a squad of 3 V-22 Osprey each manned by a 4 person fire team. a voice crackled over the radio “Sergeant bad weather ahead. Should we reroute to avoid?”
    “No we have no time to waste we must complete our mission as quickly as possible”.
    Their mission was of a time sensitive matter and of great importance. They had to safely transport a VIP back to the United States; if they failed it could very well be the beginning of world war 3.
    It wasn’t long before the storm was in full force with winds blowing and lightning flashing about. The wind blew the aircraft’s around as they attempted to fly through the storm.
    “Sergeant I am not sure how much more the osprey can handle!” The voice of the pilot shattered over the radio. “We have to push on! If we don’t complete our mission on time it could have disastrous consequences!”
    Just as Leon had finished talking the storm had suddenly gotten worse. As he looked out at the storm he saw what looked like a swirling vortex of colorful lights and they were heading straight for it.
    “Sergeant should we change our course?” came ringing out of the radio from the pilot of one of the osprey however Leon was stunned by the unnatural phenomenon and was unable to reply.
    “Sir what are your orders?” the pilot once again asked. Leon finally awoke from his trance however it was too late as they had gotten to close and were being pulled in. Everyone held on tightly to whatever they could as they knew there was nothing they could do.
    A few seconds had passed what to them felt like an eternity. Just then as suddenly as it had appeared the vortex vanished soon followed by the storm dying down leaving no trace of either the soldiers or the osprey they were riding in.
    “Hey brother Rylan I never seen stuff like this before how much you think we can get for it?” the osprey that Leon was riding in had crashed and was now being picked over by scavengers.
    “A lot Ryan, you know how much those scientist types will pay for unknown stuff such as these hehehe, now go check them bodies over there” he motioned to his brother pointing him at a group of bodies laying on the ground.
    “Hmm? S...ser...Brother what does this say?” Rylan went over to help his brother read the dog tags.
    “It says, ‘Sergeant Leon Wright” he read it with pride showing off in front of his brother. “Sergeant? Does that mean he’s a knight? We could get in big trouble for messing with them”
    Rylan was scared because any crime against the knights would be met with a severe punishment.
    “I have never seen knights wear cloths such as these, though” Rylan pointed out the camouflage outfits the bodies were wearing. As they were getting a closer look at the bodies, Leon started to regain consciousness and twitched.
    Noticing this startled them and they recoiled back. “This one’s alive brother Rylan.” as he said this, Leon stood up, his vision blurry, and his body weak, he stumbled as he stood up.
    “Dam! We can’t let anyone know what we are doing. We must take care of him Ryan.” Leon’s sight started to clear up just in time to doge Ryan’s attack.
    Leon quickly rubbed his eye and saw a sight he had only seen in pictures. What stood before him were two cat like creatures who had the shape of a human.
    They were both larger then you’re average human but one was much larger than the other.
    “The large one that just attacked me must be Ryan. Meaning the smaller one must be Rylan...”
    He thought this as he took out a gun from a holster under his jacket. It was a silver desert eagle that he carried as a side arm. He fired a warning shot at Ryan, hitting a tree and leaving a large hole in it.
    “Don’t move or I will make sure the next one won’t miss!” he shouted and motioned for Ryan to move over to his brother.
    “Now, you will answer my questions “he said without lowering his gun. “First of all, what the hell did you do to my plane and crew?” the brothers figured he was talking about the wreck
    “Hey were just scavengers man! We haven’t even taken anything yet, it was all like this when we got here!” Rylan tried telling Leon that they had not done anything, at least not yet.
    Though, Leon still didn’t believe them however, they did not seem to be lying. “Fine then, what are you, and where am I?” he never lowered his gun for fear they may try to attack him again.
    “You mean, you came to Feros without even knowing about the Kissa?” Leon was confused for he had never heard of either of them before.
    “Feros?” he said in confusion “Ya Feros, it’s on the continent of Elysion on Eden. You know the planet we all live on.” Rylan said this condescendingly. He figured this is something that should already be known.
    The brothers thought that he must be crazy because they were smack dab in the middle of Kissa territory and there was no way someone could have gotten to Feros without knowing the Kissa.

    Leon was confused and unsure of what to think as he had never heard of or seen anything like this being possible; short of fantasy or science fiction.
    Taking advantage of Leon’s confusion Ryan grabbed a part of the osprey and used it as a shield for the two brothers to escape. Leon fired off two shots at them, but hit the metal piece that they used as a shield instead.
    He decided not to try to fallow them, and instead, took some time to search the wreckage. He expected to find some sort of electrical damage from the storm however, he found none.
    He found scratches, and bumps from the crash, and there was also damage from a source he could not identify. After looking over the wreckage and taking out anything that might be of help, he found little other than some emergency provisions.
    It was as if it had already been picked over, though the two from before seemed to not have done it. Afterwards, he buried his dead crew mates and sat down on a nearby rock to think things over.
    “My crew is dead, the other two ospreys are missing unknown if alive or dead and I am in a strange land I have never heard of before...”
    He was unsure of what to do because his allies were either dead or missing, and his radio was broken. So, he had no chance of trying to get in contact with them. On top of that, he was unable to complete his mission, meaning; the start of world war 3 was very likely.
    He then remembered something he had heard, “The Garden of Eden...could it be?” stories tell of a place called Eden named in the bible as the Garden of Eden. It is supposed to be the birth place of the human race.
    One telling is from the bible telling of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve the very first humans that came to be, and how they were cast out of the Garden of Eden.
    Nobody knows for sure how humans came to be or were they came from however there are a large number of people who believe that the garden of Eden is real, not located on Earth, and that Earth is not the first place to be inhabited by humans.
    “Well, thinking too much is not going to help me much.” Leon stood up and grabbed the emergency provisions he had found. There was not much and he could not find any weapons other than his side arm and his knife.
    He also did not recognize any of the plants around, they looked normal for the most part but many were colored differently than he had remembered. So his only chance was to find someone who could help before he ran out of supplies. “I met some people earlier, maybe there are more nearby...preferably someone a bit nicer...and human”. He left the sight of the crash and hoped he could find some help before his supplies ran out. He had traveled for half of a day when he came across a village.
    It was surrounded by trees and the buildings were made of wood and looked very old. at first it seemed normal however at closer look it was filled with creatures like the ones he had ran into before, the ones called Kissa.
    He was unsure what to expect so he readied himself for combat but did not want to fight if he could avoid it. He made sure to hide his gun and knife to avoid the possibility of scaring anyone
    “The last thing I need is someone to attack me out of fear” he mumbled to himself. When he walked into town he felt uneasy because a lot of the people were carrying weapons on them, mainly swords and axes.
    Everyone was also staring at him because they have never seen the kind of cloths he was wearing before. The Kissa who were walking around were either wearing heavy metal armor or lighter leather armor.
    The more he looked around at them the more they looked like they were straight out of a fantasy book. He had no money on him and had no idea where he was other then what he had learned from the two people he had first met. He saw an old lady who was gardening and started talking to her. She was wearing a red tunic that went down to her feet.
    “Hey you mind if I ask a question? Why is everyone carrying around weapons?”. The old lady looked back at him with a kind smile.
    “You must have come a long way” she was referring to him sticking out like a sore thumb.
    “We are having the Festival of Vekrid dear stranger. We are a warrior people you see so with us being in a time of peace a lot of our young people get restless. We have celebrating and a lot of fun and eating. And if you choose to battle you can sign up to fight and if you are good enough to win you may even win some gold if you are good enough. Makes things more interesting” she said this last part with a chuckle.
    Leon being broke wanted to find out more about the fights. “So where do I go to sign up for a battle?” he asked the old lady. “Right over there in the tavern” she pointed to the largest building there.
    “Our festival may be small compared to the ones held in the bigger towns or the capital city Kota, however I hope you have plenty of fun” she smiled and went back to her gardening.
    Leon was hoping to be able to fight someone weak so he could buy some provisions like food and possibly some new cloths to try to blend in, if nothing else stuck out much.
    When he got into the tavern he found where people were signing up and walked over to the sign up table. “Looking to sign up for a fight eh?” the old Kissa at the table said. I would suggest against it, us Kissa are more formidable then we look” he swelled with pride as he said this.
    “Win or lose wouldn’t it be better to be able to say you had the courage to at least try instead of just turning tail and running?” Leon was trying to hide his fear because a lot of these people looked like they could break him in half with their pinky.
    “Heh I like you kid, though you don’t look like us you speak like a Kissa”. He grabbed a quill and pulled a piece of paper in front of him.
    “So what kind of fight should I sign you up for?” he pointed to a sign sitting next to him explaining the different kinds of fights. It listed all different kinds from single and team battles and specific rules limiting the type of armor and weapons you can use.
    Seeing as how Leon was alone and didn’t have anything that would be classified as a heavy weapon or armor he chose a single battle with limitations of light weapons and light armor. After he gave his name and battle type the Kissa wrote it down.
    “Ok the battles will begin in about fifteen minutes right outside of the tavern here” after hearing this Leon went out of the tavern and sat down in a chair right outside of the tavern to wait for the time the battles were to begin.
    There was a lot of people sitting and standing around doing nothing and a bunch of children who were running all about. The atmosphere was tense for the adults as they awaited the start of the battles and it felt like a fight could break out at any time. Off to the side Leon saw a group of three large male Kissa and it looked like they were harassing a young female.
    She had short pink hair and was wearing a revealing set of pink bikini armor, with thigh high boots. The armor made her fit in much more then Leon’s cloths did for him however she still stood out because of the color and style of her armor from the normal brown leather or silver armor the rest of the Kissa were wearing. He was about to try to help her when in the blink of an eye she took out the largest of the three. Soon fallowing was the other two. All three fell with little difficult and without her breaking a sweat.
    Seeing this made Leon nervous, he knew his fight wasn’t going to be an easy one but after seeing that he had no clue what to expect. She moved faster than humanly possible however with the Kissa not being human he had no clue what to expect of them.
    The battles had finally started and Leon watched in astonishment as they fiercely fought each other. The more he watched the more he dreaded his turn. Finally it was Leon’s turn. He walked nervously to the center and pulled out his knife readying himself to fight.
    “The fight will continue until one person either gives up or is unable to continue fighting!” the old Kissa from the sign up table was now acting as the referee. Another Kissa walked up and stood in front of Leon. He was about the same size as Leon and clad in brown leather armor that covered most but his arms.
    “In this next fight we have a newcomer to our festival, Leon! And his opponent the hunter Owen!” Owen drew his sword and readied to attack.
    “Here are the rewards on this match! Should Owen win he shall receive Leon’s knife valued by our blacksmith at a worth of two gold!. And feeling confident as ever Owen has wagered a whopping 20 gold! Think you might be a little to confidant there Owen?”
    “Heh he looks weak this shouldn’t take long. Besides I have a little surprise today im guaranteed to win!” he smirked making sure to let Leon know that he had no chance of winning.
    “Alright begin!” the old Kissa yelled with the noise of the crowed. Wasting no time Owen ran at Leon swinging his sword. Leon dodged just in time.
    Owen swung his sword again, Leon escaped a fatal wound however the sword still got a shallow cut in his side. He was able to use his knife to deflect the sword however the more Owen swung his sword the faster he started to move.
    “Hehe how do you like my Arma? saying this took his focus off of his sword for just long enough for Leon to knock the sword away and get some distance between them.
    Knowing he had no other choice e took out his gun from the holster under his jacket. He took aim at Owen, and with a loud bang he fired hitting him in his left shoulder. He seemed to be more in shock then in pain.
    “Damn you have one too?” the smile on Owens face was now gone. He once again moved to attack but this time his movements were smother and more thought out then they were before.
    He left little openings and Leon knew he was aiming to kill him so to survive he had to use his gun.
    “He’s fast but his speed won’t mean anything if I take out one of his legs” Leon thought this as he aimed for Owens legs and fired hitting him.
    “Yes!” he said expecting to see Owen go down however using his remaining good leg and the momentum he had built up he jumped into the air and fell right on top of Leon stabbing him in the left arm making him drop his knife.
    “You lose” Leon smiled as he said this and put his gun against Owens head. After seeing the damage the gun could do everyone knew the match was over. “Winner Leon!” yelled the referee as the crowd erupted in yells of applause and insults. That was the last thing Leon heard before he blacked out.