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Chronicles of the Magus

LanceWright
7
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The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
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Synopsis
The main character is a terminally ill patient who has spent most of his life confined to a hospital bed, trapped in a frail body His frail body kept alive only by the machines that were supporting him, each day hearing the same melody of the constant beeping of machinery. Every day was the same repetitive cycle of agony that felt endless, up until the moment his life and body finally gave out. But just as he thought it all over, he awakens again, but not in the sickly body he once knew, but as Lord Amadeus of Magus, a count. Reincarnated into a world close to that of the medieval age, where magic and fantasy monsters exist, he must navigate a life he has never lived, facing court politics, battles for power, and all kinds of challenges, all while seizing the chance to truly live for the first time, read as he tries to live his life to the fullest whilst navigating the world of intrigue and plots.
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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: New Beginning

Beep. Beep.

That damned beeping.

My world has been this hospital bed. These sterile white walls. This ceiling was lit by artificial lights that never seemed to switch off. I have spent my entire life trapped here, forced to breathe through this goddamned respirator shoved down my mouth, my frail body kept alive only by these machines.

I hate it all. Especially that damned beeping that never ends. It has replaced time itself. Instead of the ticking of a clock marking the seconds, it's this goddamned, unending beep echoing throughout the entire day. Night, morning, afternoon, noon it doesn't ever stop. 

The sun does not measure my days. this unending melody does.

"Dear, don't worry. Mother's here."

"You'll be fine I just know…"

The woman gripped my hand tightly like I might vanish if her fingers loosen even slightly. Her hands trembled as she wrapped her hand around mine.

The words she spoke didn't feel like they were meant for me. They sound like something she's trying to convince herself of, a fragile truth she repeats in her head because she's terrified to face reality.

Tears stream down her face, warm drops falling onto my skin. 

But I just don't understand it at all…

I've spent my whole life trapped in this god damned hospital bed. So why is it so terrible that I might finally be free of it? 

Why do they wish so desperately to keep me alive?

Why?

Why?

My only wish… was to see the world beyond these damned walls with my own eyes, if only for a single fleeting moment.

"Son…" My father cried out, as he tightly held my other hand. 

I stared at the two weeping couples unable to understand why they would wish for me to continue living through this misery.

I don't understand it at all…

"C—ca-n't i-it ju—st en–d alr-ead-y?" I muttered in a hoarse, half-dead tone, my words coming through the speaking valve tube connected to my throat.

Both their faces and bodies froze. They looked shocked, protested and told not to give up and keep pushing through… 

26 days later.

"NOO!!" The woman cried again and so did the man, at this point it felt like endless repetition of the same scenarios, the same words worded differently, with the same outcomes.

But this time it was different. I felt my already weakened body grow weaker and weaker until the feeling in my body disappeared.

My vision darkened as the sounds of the beep grew louder and louder until they eventually phased out.

Bee—

It was deathly silent until something felt like it was pulling me, and then that's when I awoken.

My chest felt normal, and my lungs gasped, and for the first time in thirty years I felt… weight. A body. 

My body to be exact.

I tried to move, and I could. My fingers twitched. My legs trembled, I felt strength and movement in all parts of my body.

"Good morning my lord."

I blinked, as bright sunlight poured into my eyes from the window nearby.

I looked down.

My hands were rough, and larger than I remembered, my robes were a deep blue, embroidered with intricate golden threads.

The soft silk brushed against my skin, real fabric, warm, comfortable and not thoses hospital sheets. Not that same gown I'd worn for years. No IV lines. No tubes connected to my skin or body. That tube inside my nose that connected to my stomach was gone.

This wasn't me, this body was without a shadow of a doubt not mine.

The cold machinery, especially that unending beeping. The sterile air I had breathed for decades.

All of it waa gone.

For the first time in my life, there was no sound of machines reminding me of my misery, that feeling of hopelessness and despair, all of it gone.

Only silence, and sunlight warm light.

The woman in front of me stared at me curiously, wondering what I was doing.

The woman bowed wearing what appeared to be a maid outfit. "Um… my lord breakfast is ready."

My mind reeled back. I tried to speak, but a different voice came out, a clear and commanding one. I didn't recognize it, but somehow I felt it as if it was mine.

"What?"

My eyes darted to a mirror that hanged in the corner of the room.

The reflection was not the sickly, bedridden man I remembered. Slick long brown hair, sharp white eyes, and the body of someone who had never known disease.

And yet… inside me, the memories of being trapped in a bed, surrounded by machines, of muffled cries, of longing for freedom… it was still all in me.

I think I smiled, something I could never do.

A thought I had as it all happened: "Reincarnation? no… body possession?"

The room around me was quite luxurious, but more than that the feeling of being a caged man disappeared.

"My lord are you alright?"

"You. What is my name, and who am I?" I asked, speaking as one would to someone of lower rank.

I wasn't stupid. She had called me a lord. If that was who this body belonged to, then I would need to act the part, at least until I understood what had happened to me.

The servant looked at me confused, but started saying my name.

"My lord you are Count Amadeus of House Magus?"

"Right. Bring the breakfast to my room." 

"Understood once my lord." the servant bowed before heading out my room, closing the doors gently as she left.

I stared at the mirror reflection staring at the young man in the reflection no less than twenty years old.

My mind raced. This young man… a lord? He looked no older than twenty, and this Lord Amadeus of House Magus… this name. I had never heard it before, not in all the mounds of historical books I had read while I was bedridden for reading was all I could do at that time.

The Magus was also not a house I recognized so either this house was insignificant that it wasn't recorded in history or something else entirely.

I left the thinking behind and tried to get off my bed. It would be better to learn about this place firsthand. But as I tried to get off the bed, I immediately fell.

"Fuck…" I groaned. Yet even as I fell, I felt like I had the strength to get back up, and so I did.

As I got to my feet, I noticed the tall wooden-framed window across the room. An urge arose in me, to open it.

Slowly, I walked toward it, my heartbeat quickening with every step.

When I reached it, I wrapped my hand around the handle tightly. My heart beated so fast I could hear it in my ears.

I pushed the shutters open.

The window swung wide, and wind rushed in, striking my face the instant I opened it.

I opened it my eyes and laid eyes upon the vast city surrounded by walls, tears streamed down my face, that view was the most beautiful view I've seen in my life I had expected the outside world be many things and beautiful was one of them but this completely dwarfed how I thought it would actually look.

It was chilly, but also warm at the same time, and the breeze… it wasn't like the mechanical flow of the ventilation systems. It felt alive, as if it held the world itself within it, carrying the faint, indescribable scent of life inside of it.

Below stretched a city, the houses mostly made with wood or stone and thatch roofs. The roofs were uneven, giving them a medieval feel.

Besides the houses were some forty-foot towers rising here and there, banners hanging from their sides, each marked with a sigil that I couldn't make out from this distance.

The city was enclosed by thick walls, with massive guard towers, watching over every corner of the city.

And beyond the eastern wall, I saw it.

A river.

It cut through the land in a silver arc, sunlight glinting off its surface like scattered shards of glass. The water flowed steadily downstream, and even from here, I couldn't see its end. The stream curved around the city, as if the settlement had been built in reverence to it. From this height, it seemed the city was cradled and protected, encircled completely by the shimmering river.

From up here, activity spread across the city. Merchants pulled carts along the cobbled streets, guards patrolled in pairs, their armor glinting in the sunlight, and smoke curled from chimneys. Groups of people conversed, shouting across the lanes.

It looked chaotic, yet alive.

Above the city, another set of walls encircled the place where I lived. From this height, I could see guards pacing the ramparts, and a sturdy gateway blocked entry into what I assumed was my home, keeping it safe.

My chest tightened, and more tears slid down my face.

"So beautiful…" I muttered, staring at the city below.

All my life had been ceilings. Machines. The rhythm of controlled breathing, and that unending beeping of marking seconds that felt like years. I had imagined the outside world in fragments stitched together from books, stories.

But imagination had limits, but clearly reality did not.

The sky itself looked bigger here. Wider. Deeper. It wasn't just blue like I read. It was layered with drifting clouds that cast moving shadows over the city. The river reflected it all, like a second world flowing beneath the first.

For a moment, I forgot I was in someone else's body.

I forgot the memories that had been in me, I had forgotten the feeling of what despair was.

I just stood there and breathed in the view in front of me.

I breathed in slowly but as I did a shout echoed from below. I leaned forward slightly looking down, gripping the stone slab as I looked at who it was.