All magic on Tomarev stems from one such realm known as The Tempest Sea a chaotic realm consisting mostly of a raw magical energy called mana. The only land found in this vast ocean of vibrant, almost electric blue liquid magic, is called The Isle Of Mana, and it is there that is home to the hero of our tale.
In the prehistoric times in the universe of Ados, there were mortal inhabitants of the land of Tomarev. One such inhabitant, was one of the first humans to find their way...or rather, one of the first humans who failed to do so. You see, Max was a thin, yet bright young human boy who had lived a very cut and dry life. His parents were rigid farm folk, who rose every day with the sun, and slept each day with the moon. When the rooster would crow, it was time for morning chores, and when the sun was at its zenith, Max was to go indoors and study. He loved to read and to learn, and keeping his schedule was very important to him and his family. He needed order in his life, for when things didn’t happen the way he expected, he would descend into a fit and his mother would swaddle him in a thick quilt and sing to him gently until he calmed. As he grew older, making friends was challenging for Max, because to go and play meant to deviate from his schedule, and he would go into a fit. Seeing him struggle, his parents instead spent some of their hard earned gold, for new books for Max to read. Not books to learn from (although you could say he did) since he learned often, but books to enjoy, books about fantastical stories of the dragons across the sea. At first, the stories scared Max, and he would have trouble falling asleep after reading them. This in-turn lead to fits, and his parents began to wonder what sort of life he would have as he grew even older.
After a while though, Max would speak excitedly instead of fearfully about the stories he read, and he asked all manner of questions about how the people in them were supposed to go about their lives while never knowing if a dragon would appear. His father once told him that surprises are a part of life, that they could be good or bad, and that many people handled surprises differently, and sometimes failed, or even died because of them. Max was understandably upset, but after thinking on it for many months, and absorbing the tales from the books, he asked his father to surprise him sometime so that he could learn how to handle it. He wanted a big surprise, something he had never done or known about. Max figured if there was a lot of surprise, there would be a lot to learn.
One day, his father woke him up before sunrise, and instantly Max knew it was the day for his surprise. Together, they said goodbye to Max’s mother, and set off towards a different village. Max asked if going to the village was the surprise, and said it wasn’t very big but he would do his best. His father said that wasn’t all, and Max began to worry. When they reached the coastal village, Max’s father revealed to him that he was going to take him out to sea to learn how to sail. Max was terrified, but ecstatic, and somehow managed to not go into a fit. All his stories were about the dragons across the sea, and all the while they prepared to launch their small sailboat, Max rambled on about all the ways he would handle seeing a dragon. For his father, it was a proud moment to know that his boy was ready to face life and all of it’s surprises, or so they thought.
Not more than two hours after setting off, Max had learned much from his father. He knew all the knots on the ship and how to tie them. He knew the names of all the parts of the vessel, where to find them, what they do, and at least one thing that could go wrong with them that he could fix. Together, the pair bonded as they had never been able to, and Max felt like he could take on even a dragon!
A short while longer though, and it wasn’t a dragon that found its way above their small ship, but a large storm that began to agitate the sea and cause waves much larger than their small vessel. Max took a breath and didn’t panic however. He had learned everything he needed to, how to help turn the ship around, how to steer so they didn’t get knocked over by a wave, despite his father’s obvious nervousness, Max was as calm as the sea had been not an hour earlier. Unfortunately, all their preparation was not enough for the lightning that struck the ship, knocking down their mast, and causing them to drift into a wave that capsized the small vessel.
One thing Max had not considered, was that he could not swim. Instead, he floated down into the blackness of the depths below. Some instinct began to swell within him, and he tried his best to swim, though he did not know which way was up or down. Before long, everything faded into to blackness.
Max woke himself by coughing, though to his surprise no water came out. He had washed up on a white sand beach, and all around him the ocean now appeared more spectacular than he could have imagined. The water was a vibrant blue, and didn’t move in waves like he had known before. Instead there were swirls, some waves would wash towards the beach and then sharply turn away. He wrung his hands nervously, and began to rock back and forth. He desperately crawled up the beach, his body trembling more and more with each foot he crawled. He didn’t realize his eyes were closed until he opened them to find vibrant blue-green grass clutched tightly in his hands, and he collapsed into a fit, one he though he would never escape from.
He awoke, coughing again, this time it felt as if dust were being expelled from his lungs and he found it difficult to breathe. He was alive, and awake, though he did not know for how long he slept. His lips were cracked and browned with dried blood. His eyes were crusty and his fingers and skin all salt-burnt and split open as well. Only instinct drove him, only water mattered now.
He did not trust the ocean water, he knew enough not to drink it, but he needed to crawl inland in hopes of finding anything. As he thought to move, he heard the rush of a wave, and was carried halfway across the island, unable to even flail or cry out. When the wave deposited him near a stony circle, it did not wash away, but merely sunk into the sand and stone. Max’s mind was awash in theories, questions, ideas, terror, but he needed water or he would surely die. There before him, across the stone, was a pool of the bluest water he had ever seen. He crawled, stumbling not once but many times before he came to the edge, let his neck loosen, and his head to plunge completely into the liquid.
He came to the realization quickly that it was not water, but it sustained him and so he drank, and drank, and drank until he felt better than he ever had. He pulled his head from the water, and noticed the droplets falling from his face did not cause the surface to ripple, and that he did not recognize his reflection. He had aged at least 60 years. He now noticed a long white, sun-bleached beard upon his chin, and thin tufts of similarly light hair atop his head. His face was wrinkled and he looked at his trembling hands, no longer cracked, but wrinkled as well. Had this been some trick? What was this water?
He curled up on the rocks, expected to have a fit, but after sitting for a few moments, he realized he wasn’t going to. Instead his mind raced with the possibilities, he had so many questions, and he needed to know. Now more than ever, he needed to know.
He tried to create a schedule for himself in his head, so he could keep track, but there was too much going on, too much chaos in his mind. He thought to find a stick to draw in the sand, though around the spring was rocks. There was a layer of sand in the rock, and thus he tried to write in the sand with his finger, and much to his surprise his writing came out glowing blue.
It couldn’t be, he thought to himself, and he threw his hand up towards the air and a flash of blue sparks shot from his fingertips. He fell back onto his bottom and clasped his hands to his head. “Magic!” He said aloud.
He thought of everything he could, from conjuring fire, to building a house for himself, to creating some more comfortable clothing for himself as well as a classic pointed hat as he had heard of in stories he was told as a child. He wasn’t a child any longer. He was a wizard. Not just any wizard, but the very first.
He spent the next century conjuring paper and tools and writing and learning all he could about all he could do. He taught himself to grow food, or summon it when he felt like it, and drank often from the spring. Each day he seemed to grow more and more powerful, and took to calling himself Xinaphomax, a fantasy alter-ego he had come up with as a child.
After a long long time, he began to wonder just where he was, and wondered if he could magically travel to other places, to see...perhaps his parents again. He was able to teleport across the realms back to his home village, where now nothing remained. He briefly wept, but had since abandoned his need for order and strict scheduling. For the past hundred years he had been doing what he felt like, when he felt like, and while it now made him sad, he was truly and assuredly, ready for anything.
He summoned forth a boat, and traveled across the sea to see if dragons did really exist in far lands like he had believed as a child. He did see them, flying high and distant, and was astounded. Even more so perhaps was how astounded he was when he saw one attacking an elvish town, just like in his stories. He gave himself the ability to fly and went to do battle with the dragon. He vanquished it, and the elves of the village asked him who he was, how he did what they could only call magic, and how they could ever repay him.
He asked that they learn from him, and understand that while chaos rules over all, to temper it with their own magic which he would teach them. He wrote a spellbook for them, but when they tried to speak the words, there was no effect. Xinaphomax knew right away it had to do with the spring he had drunk from, and told the elves to try the spells again every day until they worked.
He transported himself back to the island on the strange blue ocean, and spent a year writing and learning about the place before he finally realized. He declared the realm The Tempest Sea, and named the small bit of land for the power it held there, The Isle Of Mana. He decided he must stay to ensure that the spring would not be emptied, though he used some of his own power to create a channel between the spring, and the realm that the elves lived in, what we now know, to be Tomarev.
One year after being visited by Xinaphomax, after having at least one person attempt at least one spell from the book he left each day, it finally worked, and the first elf fired blue sparks from their fingertips.
The elves have passed the story down, though it seems he had also visited others in his year long trial to give magic to the denizens of Ados and everyone tells a slightly different story. The mortals of Ados know him as Xinaphomax, The First Mage, and revere him as the god of scholars, magic, and chaos.
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