Memoir of Llyris mordane

Amani was once a frontier of warring tribes: picturesque in a "fire-and-blood" sort of way, but hardly a beacon of peace or prosperity. That changed when the Company arrived.

The Company—one of countless corporate expeditions sent forth by the Empire to "civilize" the wilds, which, in practical terms, meant pillaging them with ruthless efficiency. Their psyops ran so deep that Amani became an extension of the Empire without ever realizing it. Not that it happened bloodlessly, of course. A few thousand eggs (and skulls) cracked along the way, but what's conquest without a little carnage?

With their coffers overflowing and their blades still slick, the Company returned as heroes—or as opportunists, depending on who you asked. The Emperor, ever a patron of efficient brutality, saw only dedication. And so, as a token of imperial gratitude, the company received two gifts, dominion over Amani—a land they had already stolen, and a title befitting their new rank.

It was this title that changed the destiny of their descendants.

You see, the Empire doesn't just rule with steel and fire—oh no, that would be far too simple. No, its real power lies in something much sharper: control. Not of armies, but of knowledge. The secrets of mysticism, the highest truths of the arcane, the techniques that separate gods from insects—all of it locked behind gilded doors, doled out like table scraps to the worthy. Or the well-connected.

In its infinite generosity, the Empire graciously gifted the world access to the mystic arts. Watered down, of course. Pre-chewed. Just enough to keep the masses dreaming, but never quite reaching. And through this meticulous gatekeeping, society took shape like a grand, perfectly balanced pyramid.

At the top? The royal family—our gods. Our so called sacred teacher, 

Below them, the aristocracy—given a taste of true power but kept on a tight leash. If they wanted the next step, the knowledge of ascension and the horrors that came with it, they had to earn it. Either by sheer, blinding talent (a rarity) or by proving themselves very useful to the Empire.

And below them? Well… let's just say the chances of reaching the twelfth circle from the gutter are about as good as seducing a celestial dragon with a pocket full of copper and a charming smile.

But for the Company? Ah, the Company got lucky. A single imperial decree turned merchants into nobles, traders into lords. Overnight, six families found themselves among the aristocracy, rubbing shoulders with the old bloodlines.

And among them?

The Mordanes. My family.

The first among equals—if you asked us.

Why, you ask?

One word.

Influence.

You see, while others obediently walked the Imperial Mystic Path—content to sip from the world's mana like dutiful children—the Mordanes turned away. We chose something else. Something older. Something primal .

Where the Imperials wove spells from the mana gifted by the land—air, earth, water, and the sacred breath of the world—we took our power from the cracks in reality itself.

Chaos Mana.

It is not gentle. It does not nurture life, nor does it wait to be tamed. It is primeval, raw and boundless, an ocean of unformed power that howls through the void between all things. It is the mana of paradox, of shattered possibilities and frenzied rebirth. And it does not want to be wielded.

Most who attempt to shape it are devoured, mind and body reduced to gibbering ruin. Their souls burned out like candle wicks caught in a storm. Because Chaos Mana does not flow through pathways like the world's mana does—it erupts. It refuses form, resists control. To harness it is not to cast spells but to wrestle with something that does not wish to be held.

And yet, the Mordanes did.

Four generations ago, one of my ancestors—brilliant, reckless, and entirely too ambitious—stared into the abyss of Chaos Mana and, rather than recoiling in terror like any sane being, stepped forward. What he found in that screaming void should have unmade him. Instead, he learned to whisper back.

And with that, we created something the Empire could never control. Though not without trying, 

The Chaos path.

A new school of thought, a different path entirely. One where power was not granted by the world, but seized from the abyss. A path where the mordane are leading the charge. And the empire didn't like that.

The Imperials call us heretics, abominations, blasphemers against the natural order.

Then we rewrote the order.

They sneered at our Chaos Mana, at the Warp Class, at the sacrifices it demanded. Right up until we did what their precious Imperial Mystics never could—we bound magic to machinery. We forged Mystictek. 

The world had long known enchantment, of course—runes scrawled on armor, trinkets infused with minor spells. But true integration? The fusion of the arcane and the industrial? That was impossible. World Mana rejected technology, refused to bind with gears and circuits, flickering out like a candle in a storm.

Chaos Mana, though? It did not reject. It consumed. It twisted and reformed, embedding itself in steel, in circuitry, in the very foundations of industry.

What separated Mystictek from standard enchantments was simple: accessibility.

Enchanted items carried their own mana, their power locked behind an invisible wall—if you lacked the right attunement, the right lineage, the right gift, they remained useless trinkets in your hands. A sword that would not burn. A ring that would not ward. A door forever locked to those without the key.

Mystictek changed that.

It did not require talent. Or training. Or bloodlines blessed by the gods.

It forced open the gates of the arcane, if only for a moment, and let even the most talentless wretch step through.

A man with no magic could soar through the skies.

A soldier with nothing but steel and fury could become a god of war.

And just like that, we went from heretics to pillars of the Empire.

Our temporal factories turned the economy on its head—goods that once took months to craft were churned out in days. Whole industries collapsed under our efficiency, only to be rebuilt beneath our control. Our illusion engines made training soldiers faster, deadlier, more efficient—where once it took a decade to raise a veteran, now it took months. And our spatial cores redefined warfare itself—instantaneous deployment, war machines that folded across battlefields, entire fleets stored in the palm of a hand.

The Emperor himself—so righteous in his condemnation of Chaos Mana—signed our contracts in his own blood.

Our Mystictek weapons became the standard of the Imperial Legions. Our factories dictated the tempo of war. Our research shaped the future of magic itself.

And yet, the Empire still whispers that we are dangerous. That our methods are unnatural. That our inventions do things they shouldn't.

The rumors are not wrong.

There are soldiers who hear whispers from their Mystictek blades—kill faster, kill better, kill forever.

There are factory workers who vanish between the gears, slipping into spaces that should not exist.

There are entire cities caught in time-loops, where the laborers toil forever, unaware they have lived this same day a thousand times over.

But we are too powerful to challenge outright.

Too essential to ignore.

After all, we didn't just keep the wheels of the Empire turning.

We built the damn machine.

We were the lifeblood of the empire's prosperity—or so my father liked to say

My father, Lloyd Mordane, was a man of staggering brilliance and bone-chilling restraint. He was the Empire's golden boy, the youngest eighth-circle mystic ever, a prodigy among prodigies. People whispered his name in the halls of power with the sort of reverence usually reserved for saints or really good vintages of wine. Some even dared to call him limitless—though only when the Empress wasn't listening. She had a habit of reminding people that "limitless" is just another way of saying "soon to be crushed under my boot."

But for all his brilliance, my father wasn't exactly the cuddly type. Nor the raging tyrant type, either. No, he was something far worse: callous. His cruelty didn't come in fiery outbursts or violent punishments. It wasn't what he did that defined him—it was what he chose not to do. He could level a city with a flick of his hand. He didn't. He could reduce his enemies to ash or drag the courts of power to their knees. He didn't.

 He once told me, "The cruelest master is the one who chooses not to punish but reminds you that they could." I suppose I should've thanked him for that nugget of wisdom, but instead, I spent my childhood wondering when the axe would fall.

And then there was my mother. Selen Luminara—Father's third wife and the most terrifyingly brilliant person I've ever met. She came from a land of endless sands and blistering skies, a place so far beyond the Empire's reach that it was practically a rumor. In her homeland, they called her a prodigy, but that word doesn't quite capture her essence. She wasn't just a genius. She was a force of nature wrapped in silk and scorn.

To call her beautiful would be like calling the ocean damp—it's true, but it misses the point entirely. Her beauty wasn't just in her face, though I've seen lesser men lose kingdoms for a chance to gaze at it. It was in her presence, her gravity. She didn't walk into rooms; she took them hostage. Everyone bent toward her like she had her own personal orbit. And, knowing my mother, she probably did.

Her arcane was no less terrifying. She was the first person to combine both chao mana and world mana. She described it as elegant. I saw it for what it was: terrifying. "You will be better than me," she told me once, her tone as unyielding as her gaze. "Or you will die trying. There is no third path." This, by the way, was her version of encouragement.

Between them, my parents made quite the pair. Father, the cold, calculating tactician; Mother, the fiery, unrelenting force of will. Together, they raised me—or rather, forged me—into what the world would come to know as "Calamity." A nickname I personally find slanderous, though I can't exactly deny I earned it.

Take the Farm infestation incident, bare in mind I was seven. Seven! I had heard the farmers whispering—ticks ruining the harvest, pests gnawing through the grain. Prices were going to skyrocket if things didn't get fixed soon. It was a problem, and being the helpful young noble I was, I took it upon myself to solve it.

And I did.

Albeit… a little too well.

One modified Mystictek pulse later, and the ticks were gone. So were the rats. The birds. And, well… the farm workers. Turns out, defining what constitutes a pest is a little more complicated than I had anticipated.

Father was not amused.

But hey—mistakes make the best teachers.

And I am nothing if not a very fast learner.