Cornelian

From Justice Force

The origin of the Man of flames that is Cornelian

Chapter 1: Desination striga

Kevin pressed the button on his intercom, “Sally, Can you please inform all members of the striga expedition that we should be leaving in twenty minutes, thanks” “will do Kevin” sally answered. Kevin locked his desk draw and headed down to the awaiting transport, boarding the mini bus Kevin took the seat behind the driver and pulled out the inventory list to double check they had everything loaded, after a few moments Kevin was joined by the other members in his team, Kevin looked around and stood up. “ok people listen up, we have had surveillance pictures back of the volcano the reports have now been confirmed the council are indeed using the crater has a base of operations, this however shouldn’t cause us any problem as our entry point is far outside the crater itself on the north face, and as we will be going under the volcano itself we shouldn’t have any trouble from council members, remember the Circle operated out of these caverns for many years before the heroes of paragon put an end to the operation on striga, any questions?” Kevin looked around the minibus at his six man team everyone’s face showed concern and maybe worry but no one said anything, “ok lets go then” the minibus pulled out of the magi headquarters and headed for Independence port where they were going to meet the ferry that would take them to striga island. The ferry was not very busy as striga had become a bit of a forgotten land since the trouble with the council and warriors had made many people move out, businesses could no longer use striga as a port due to the taxes imposed by the family and the attacks from council members. Pulling into the harbour the ferry bumped to a halt, Kevin and his team drove the short distance to the base of the volcano, “ok we walk from here” the team unloaded the equipment and started off up the volcano to the north side. In the distance they could see flashes of light and the sound of gun fire as heroes battled against the council in an attempt to regain striga for the people, it wasn’t long before they had reached the access point, a gap in the cliff face no larger than a standard door, a brownish green mist seemed to escape from the hole with a whispering sound, the team entered the tunnels and headed for the caverns.

Chapter 2 :- Forgotten temples

After a little while the team emerged into a large open carven, in the centre of this stood a crumbling wreck that obviously used to be a temple of some kind, on the walls of the of the temple hung the tattered banners of the Circle or thorns, each banner had a symbol on that represented the elements, earth, wind, water and fire, the team entered the temple and set down the equipment, “ set up the radio over there in the corner andy” Kevin pointed at the far corner of the room, “the detection equipment should be set here in the middle” Steve headed for the middle of the room and started setting up his equipment, “everyone else you know what we need, the stones should be here somewhere start looking for signs”, the team split up and searched the temple for the signs that would point them to the four stones of power, ancient readings had told of the great stones, the circle of thorns had managed to harness the magical properties of these stones somehow, this was the reason Kevin and his team where here, they had been asked to hunt down and find these stones of power before the circle of thorns could use them. The stones had been lost decades ago when the heroes of paragon first started fighting the circle, after many years of searching the magi had discovered the location of the temple of the elements, it was in this temple that Kevin and his team now stood.

Chapter 3 :- The discovery

“hey Kevin I think I have found something” Tina shouted with a tone of excitement “ Kevin rushed over to her position, taking the screen from her hands Kevin waved the reader head over the ground in front of them, an image appeared on the screen, it looked like a scroll was buried under a marker stone. Brushing the dirt away Kevin revealed a large marker stone carved with the rune marking of the Circle of Thorns, strange green liquid seemed to circulate around the runes even after all these years, “Simon what do you make of this” Kevin asked, Simon knelt down a took a close look at the markings, “This is some kind of verse” Simon said “similar to those curses found in ancient Egypt on the mummies tombs, this one seems to be saying something about the breaker of the seal and the fusion of the stones, it doesn’t read like a curse. More like a prophecy.” Kevin placed a steel bar in the centre of the stone and picked up his hammer, “curse or prophecy it has to be opened” Kevin said the he raised his arm and brought his hammer down on top of the pole with a few heavy blows, with sharp crack the stone split and broke into tiny pieces, wisps of green mist seemed to jump from every rune marking the mist circled around Kevin for a second before disappearing, pulling the broken parts of the stone away Kevin reached in to the hole and pulled out a scroll, carefully unrolling the scroll Kevin laid it on the table in the centre of the temple, “it says something about the three stones powers in alignment will empower the bearer with the energies of the earth, it goes on the to say explain how the three stones of power are to be layout out around the key stone, hmmm key stone this is a new twist we have never heard of, we must find the stones maybe they will tell us where or what this key stone is”

Chapter 4 :- The gathering

Kevin looked at the detection machine, “its time we switched this baby on and see what it can it do” flicking a switch Kevin powered up the detection device that stood in the centre of the room. Red lasers shot out in all directions and criss crossed the walls, scanning every feature of the surrounding temple, after a short while a red hologram image of the temple appeared hovering over the display tablet, the red lasers slowly changed colours going from red to green to blue and finally to white, with every colour change a different feature appear in the hologram, different layers of the scanner device, on the hologram Kevin could see three small yellow spots “yes there they are” he said as he pointed to the hologram, “it appears they are up on the walls, from the look of that they are behind those banners we saw” running outside he looked up at one of the banners, the symbol represented the earth, climbing the wall Kevin pulled the banner, the tattered material dropped to the ground in a heap as Kevin examined the wall behind it, one of the bricks stones that made up the wall was carved with rune inscriptions “this must be it” he thought to himself, the carefully picking at the brick he slowly removed the material holding it in place, the original builders of these temples knew nothing of modern cements so the bricks mortar came out quickly and easily just leaving the brick sitting in its hole, Kevin slowly pulled the brick out and put it in his bag, reaching into the hole he pulled out what looked like a black cloth bag he could feel something inside, he climbed back down and sat the bag on the floor, he carefully untied the bags cord and gently tipped the contents into his hand, it was an earth crystal, greyish white in colour and faceted like a cut diamond, Kevin smiled and put the crystal back into the bag, he proceeded to get the other stones that had appeared on the hologram image, after he had got the last one he placed all three stones in line on the table. “Are these them” he spoke out loud not really to anyone just to everyone “are these, the stones of power” in front of him laid three stones, the earth crystal, a water crystal which glimmered a translucent blue in the dim lights and a fire crystal that seemed to glow with a rich red light, it felt warm to the touch as Kevin picked it up and looked at it. “that looks like a fire stone” Steve said “maybe some Cornelian or some other fire stone” Kevin put the stones back in there bags, the team packed its equipment up and headed back to the labs to investigate the stone further and try to find some clues as to what the key stone could be, or more important where it could be.

Chapter 5 :- The stars know all

In his lab Kevin laid the three stones on his desk top and sat for a while just looking at them, he was entranced how the stones colours and textures seemed to move on there own, very slightly swirling and spinning changing colours as it went, the earth crystal flashed all colours of the spectrum and seemed to act like a prism focusing light and spreading the rays as a rainbow of colours on the desk top underneath, the water stone its translucent blue shimmering different shades and hues glittering as though it was infused with silver, the fire stone glowed deep reds and slowly changed through to soft orange, but what was the key stone, where was the key stone, the teamed had fund the three elemental stones earth, water and fire, but lacked the forth part of the puzzle, Kevin’s day dream state was soon interrupted by one of his colleges voices bussing over the intercom, “Kevin can you get down to the astrology labs rights away” Kevin quick stood up and made his way down through the corridors to the labs, inside Kevin could see steve waiting for him, meeting him in the door way Steve showed Kevin to a desk in the corner of the labs, on the table lay the three bricks that had been the cover stones for the stones of power, “I think I have it” he said excitedly “I think I may have the solution” Steve moved the three bricks so the lay next to each other, “notice the runes” he said, “we all assumed that the runes where just ritual markings, until I saw this” hw lifted a parchment up of the table and showed to Kevin, “these are ancient star charts if I’m not mistaken” Kevin said “indeed they are” Steve replied “now compare the positions of the stars in the Gemini constellation with those runes marked on the first brick.” Kevin studied the star chart and located Gemini the star constellations shown on the old parchment were slightly different from modern day charts but the keys stars still made up the base outline of the Gemini constellation, Kevin compared the star pattern with the rune on the first brick, the pattern matched exactly, Kevin looked at the other bricks, “that’s Libra and” “Aquarius” Steve interrupted, “but what has star constellations got to do with stones” Kevin asked a little confused “well we all no that the ancient circle took their magic form the earth and the stars using the natural energies of the stars and the earth to make their magic stronger, no one actually knows if it worked but they believed it did” Steve explained “the legend tells of four stones of power, since we knew that the circle took power from the earth we assumed that the stones would be earth based and thus found the clues that lead us to the three stones in the chamber, we uncovered three stones, fire, water and earth but we know there are four, the forth earth element wind or air, it seems more than a coincidence that the three bricks should be marked with the star constellations that make up the star signs normally referred to as the air signs, these three bricks must make up the forth stone the air stone, giving us all the elemental powers earth, water, fire and air”

Chapter 6, :- The fusion

Steve looked at Kevin and waited for his response, Kevin’s eyed widened “ bring these bricks up to my lab we are going to see if your theory pans out” Steve and Kevin made there way back to Kevin’s lab where the three other stones lay in their case, Kevin laid the three bricks in the middle of a desk and went to get the three other stones, “you better get out and watch from the viewing gallery just in case” Kevin said, laying the stone around the bricks in the manner described in the scroll, Kevin laid the last stone down in the triangle around the bricks and stood back nothing seemed to happen, then a shaft of sunlight came through his open window and struck the earth stone a brightly coloured prism of light seemed to fill the whole room, then things started happening, the prism of light threw out in such away that the red fire stone sat directly in the path of the red spectrum of light the same for the water stone only that it sat in the blue spectrum, all three of the stone started to glow as they sat in the light cast on them, then a shaft of light streamed from each stone and pointed directly at a brick, the runes on the three bricks started to glow, giving of the same colours as the light that was hitting them, the whole room was filled with red, blue and white light erupting from each stone and being bounced around by each brick, Kevin felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he started feeling a bit dizzy, the lights seemed to pulse with a rhythmic beating that seemed to match his own heart beat, he started to feel hot and sweat ran down his back and his chest, suddenly his whole body went stiff and he became motionless as if paralysed, although he couldn’t move his body his mind and senses still operated perfectly, he could see, hear and feel everything that was happening, he noticed a slight green haze seemed to cover his whole body as if he had an aura of green light surrounding him. This green aura got heavier and thicker until it became a mist that swirled around his entire body like fog caught in the wind, the mist swirled around in a vortex then seemed to extend out like a arm reaching for something towards the bricks at the same time a shaft of light erupted upwards from each brick creating a pyramid of light in the centre of the table, on top of the pyramid seemed to be a large glowing ball of pure energy, the green mist surrounded the energy ball and fused with it, turning the bright glowing ball into a multicoloured sphere of reds, blues, greens and white, then all of sudden the ball seemed to exploded and an intense light filled the room , Steve and the other observers who had gathered covered their eyes from the binding blast, the explosion shattered the windows to Kevin’s lab and through glass high into the air as it streamed out into the sky, then as quickly as it had came the light faded, Kevin’s lifeless body dropped to the ground amongst the broken desks and over turned filing cabinets, Steve rushed down to the lab and opened the door, pushing the broken display cases to one side he rushed over to Kevin “Kevin are you ok” he asked, “slowly Kevin open his eyes, everything was a blurr, “I saw fire, I saw the earths energy, I saw it all”, he muttered before his eyes closed again and he passed out on the cold hard floor.

Chapter 7 :- The hero is born

In the hospital the doctors crowded around as one nurse switched on the scan tunnel, kevin’s body lay in the tunnel, wires and monitors attached his skin, “I have never seen anything like it” one doctor said as the scanning beams rotated around Kevin’s body “any normal man would be dead, he has an internal temperature higher than I have ever seen” “and just look at those energy readings they are nearly of the scale, its as thought has harnessed pure energy with in his muscle structure.” Kevins eyes flickered open, “he’s awake quick get him out of the tunnel” the doctors slide the bed back out of the tunnel, Kevin’s eyes hurt from the blinding light that he had been caught up in but other than that he felt well, in fact he felt better than well, he sat up on the bed, “whats happened where am I” then he remembered, the lab, the explosion, his visions, “I saw fire and energy swirling all around me, it was around me, above me, it fused with me, I can remember seeing the fire stone shatter into a thousand pieces, I can remember it hitting me and feeing it burn into my body” one of the doctors looked at the head of the department “show him then, he needs to know”, the head of department, lifted a scanned image and showed Kevin, the image showed a torso of a man, in the torso there were 6 dark spots surrounding is heart, “we believe those are fragments of the fire stone” the doctor explained, the Cornelian stone has fused with your body and seems to be giving you the power to control fire and your muscles are empowered with pure energy , we believe that in time you will learn to control this energy and manipulate it to give you great strength and power” “what are you saying” Kevin asked “ are you saying I am super powered” “Yes Kevin, you have all the attributes of many other people I have encounter, many of which have gone on to be great heroes of our city, I believe this to be your destiny as well, I believe paragon has just gained its newest hero” Kevin thought for a while a bit taken back as anyone would be, then standing up slowly he stood tall and proud, “A hero I shall be, I will learn to use my new strengths and protect the city of paragon from all who would see it fall, the fire stones have given me great power and strength and I shall use it to good and serve justice,” Kevin left the doctors and made his way to city hall, he placed his hero registration document on the desk in front of the clerk, “I would like to register my services as a hero of paragon” he said, the clerk picked up the form and read it through “this all seems in order, just one thing your name sir, heroes usually choose a new name to protect those who know them,” Kevin thought for a while, the fire stones had given him powers beyond his imagination it only seemed right he should use them as his name “my name shall be Cornelian “ he said proudly.