Apega: A Story by OfficerSting

[OfficerSting]

First and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone who gave advice to me on my "How do you write beginnings?" thread. Anyway, I'd like to introduce you to my work in progress, Apega. I will post the first few chapters little by little, starting with this, the prologue. Constructive criticism is appreciated greatly. There are, however, some warnings I must issue:

1. This is a fantasy fiction story, so there is magic and a made-up religion, though the latter of the two will not feature prominently in what I will be posting.
2. There will be violence, though it's no worse than a typical fight scene.
3. There MAY be mild language.

Anyway, without further delay, I present to you my story.
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"And so there I was, surrounded by ten Blips," I began, making a complete and utter fool out of myself. It was noon and I was standing on the edge of the fountain in Xaivier square, as dozens upon dozens of listeners were there dumbstruck by my tale. "Each Blip was armed with a gun or a knife, or had their argyk activated, but I didn't give the hoodlums a chance to use them when they got hit square in the face with a wave of argyk!" I said, digging myself in deeper. The crowd cheered, so I continued to put on my egocentric show. "When they were all down I whipped out my Jupiter 5 and started shooting, before I even had to reload, over half of them were tranquilized!" I continued. The crowd only cheered louder. "It was then, though, that one of the miscreants snuck up on me, and hit me over the head, and before I knew it, I was on the ground." The crowd went silent. "Soon, all four remaining Blips were surrounding me, their hands practically glowing with argyk, so I used my argyk to rip a big chunk of cobblestone right out of the ground and I swung it across their heads as I lie there." The crowd cheered louder than they had up until that point.

After about fifteen minutes of questions and answers, the crowd had cleared out, save for one woman, around twenty-one years old. "Hello sir," she began, "Are you Lucas Cavalier?" Now, I didn't want to disappoint such a beautiful woman, so I, being the idiot that I am, decided to put on another show. "Why, yes kind lady," I said, not anticipating what she'd do next. Suddenly, a big hulking brute of a man came around from the corner of the bakery behind me, and I suddenly got a feeling that I didn't exactly like where this was going. "We need you to come with us right away, my good man," she said. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I-" I didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, however, because the man behind me tackled me. As I lay there on the ground, having my hands and feet bound, the woman came up to me and smiled. "Did you honestly think we'd give you a say in this?"

I'm getting ahead of myself, however. My name is Lucas Cavalier, and mine is a tale of noble knights of gun, magic, and argyk and their fight against Blips, revolutionaries, madmen, monsters, and dragons. It is a tale of magic trains that travel beyond Karmelex, clockwork humans, and flying ships.

Oh, and there's a ring involved. No, it is not a magic ring, nor is it a piece of cleverly disguised technology, nor was it handed down through twelve generations of Parpian kings. It was ordinary. Boring. And yet, it changed Karmelex. Allow me, if you will, to regale you with my story.