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First Sorcerer
Synopsis
Jeff Lawing is a lead programmer for Singularity Online, the world's most advanced fully immersive virtual reality game. He joins the beta testing for the game, knowing that the game's AIs long ago took control of the program, and that he has no clue what he might find.
Jeff takes the name Aranos in the game and becomes an aleen, a fay/elf hybrid. He chooses the sorcerer class, a spellcasting class that has to manually craft their spells rather than learning them or gaining them by levels, and discovers that he is the only one of his kind in the game. He also meets Veronica, his AI guide in the game.
He spawns into the world of Ka, a world that has undergone a terrible cataclysm called the Feast of Virnal. During the Feast, the gods of Light were locked away from the world, and creatures of Darkness ran free in the lands of Light, destroying and ravaging freely. The Feast is over, but the kingdoms of Light are few, scattered, and weak, barely clinging to existence and surrounded by deadly Blightlands.
He enters Ka near the elven Stronghold of Eredain only to find that the elves are unfriendly to Travelers, what the natives of Ka call players. The previous Alpha testers apparently ran rampant over the natives, and now Travelers have a bad reputation. Golloron, elder of Eredain, sends Aranos to the Travelers' Trials, a series of deadly tests that only a Traveler could complete. When Aranos completes each test, he encounters the memories of Lythienne, the Last Sorceress, who trains him how to be a sorcerer. He completes the tests and exits the Trials through an Arcane Door, a magical transport system. Inside, he's assaulted by Darkness that tries to take over his body but manages to drive it out, gaining immunity to mental control and domination in the process.
He finds himself in the fallen city of Haerobel, a withered and dessicated ruin of an elven city filled with Corruption and inhabited only by undead. Entering the city, he faces its guardian, a giant flaming skeleton, and in battling it, he discovers how to combine his Stamina and Mana into one energy, giving him a new skill called Arcane Archery. Using his Master Tracking skill, a gift from Lythienne's memories, he discovers a living elf in the city, a warrior named Geltheriel who has been starved, abused both physically and mentally, and filled with Corruption. He frees her and leads her to food and her lost weapons, including her family heirloom sword that she feared lost forever. In return for his saving her life and returning the weapon, she swears an oath to serve him and becomes his Oathbound Follower.
Together, the pair fight their way to the top of the city, seeking the exit. At the city's peak, they encounter the city's master, who is none other than Lythienne herself. The Sorceress, afraid that the Feast would destroy all her learning and knowledge, created a powerful but flawed memory stone to hold her knowledge. The stone sucked her memories from her, and a student carried them to Eredain to place them in the Traveler's Trials before falling to the Feast. Left with great power but no memory of how to use it, Lythienne summoned a dark spirit to instruct her, and at its urging, she performed a ritual that sucked the lives and souls from everyone in the city, shielding it from the armies of Darkness and turning the elves within into undead. Lythienne spent the centuries becoming slowly more Corrupted as she sought her lost memory stone and has gone insane. Aranos gives her back her memories, but when she and her vampiric minion try to kill Geltheriel, he unleashes an Ascended spell against them. This spell transcends the normal bounds of magic, and the weakened Sorceress and her spirit familiar are both killed, freeing Haerobel from the Darkness.
Aranos and Geltheriel return to Eredain through a second Arcane Door but find that the city is hostile to them. A strange elf has been stirring discontent against them, and when Golloron moves to intervene, the stranger summons creatures of darkness to attack Geltheriel, Golloron, and Aranos. They defeat the creatures, and the elf changes form, revealing himself to be the one who assaulted Geltheriel in Haerobel. She kills him in return, and upon death, his body shifts into that of a female elf before fading - the elf is a Traveler, one of the first from the Alpha testing, something that should be impossible. Aranos is left wondering how the Traveler, a woman named Lily, could be in the game still, as the Alpha test is long over.
Sorcerer Ascendant
Synopsis
Aranos and Geltheriel meet with Golloron, the elder of Eredain, to get a quest to cleanse Geltheriel of her Corruption. The elder tasks them with restoring the Arcane Doors, which once linked all the lands of Light but have now fallen into Darkness. This seems an impossible request, but Aranos accepts it and is given the quest to travel to the fallen city of Antas to visit the vault there, the greatest repository of knowledge in the world before the Feast.
Aranos and Geltheriel explore Eredain to begin preparing for this. Geltheriel introduces Aranos to her Uncle Durnal, who has a large library of skill books that can be used to quickly learn a new skill. Aranos discovers that with his Instinctive Meditation skill, he can actually enter the memories embedded in a skill book and train a skill at a vastly accelerated rate. He learns the skills Enchanting and Runecrafting and combines them into a new skill, High Enchatnment.
At the House of the Sickle, home of the Druids, they pick up a quest to redeem more lands and restore creatures lost to the Blight. They also gain a new companion, the Druid Rhys, who wishes to join them to combat the Darkness directly.
After he learns how to use the basic elements to fuel his spells, Aranos seeks membership and training in the House of Stars, the elven spellcasting guild, but when he's locked in the training room against his well, he discovers how to disjoin magical spells in order to escape. When he's once again attacked during training and lashes back at his attacker, he's challenged to a Wizard's Duel by Gorrid, scion of House Exxidor. He neither accepts nor refuses the Duel, holding it in abeyance.
Aranos goes to the House of the Moon to send a message to Phil, his best friend in real life, who's playing a human warrior in the game. He learns how to travel in dreams to pass along his message, but inside the Dreamscape, he's trapped by Morx, the dark god of nightmares. Aranos creates a new Ascended spell to escape and returns to Eredain safely. There, he discovers that an elven elder was slain the night before, and he and Geltheriel go to the House of Blades, headquarters of the elven guards, to investigate. The gaurds suspect him of killing the elder at first, but once he convinces them of his innocence, they give him a quest to find the true culprit. He also gains the services of a guard lieutenant named Saphielle, who joins his party.
Back in the House of Stars, Aranos is ambushed by Gorrid and a hidden Wizard. He incapacitates his attackers and takes them to Master Dirue, a master of the House with whom he's friendly, for judgment. She banishes Gorrid from the House of Stars in punishment.
Aranos and Saphielle investigate the deaths of what are now four elders in total, and he discovers that each elf was killed using void magic, then had their minds drained. He suspects that someone found Lythienne's flawed memory crystal and was using it to steal the knowledge of the elders.
The new party goes hunting together in the Blightlands around Eredain, and there, they slaughter a pack of wolflike amaroks. A single pup remains, and Geltheriel wishes to kill it, but Aranos unleashes an Ascended spell that cleanses Corruption from the area and turns the amarok pup into a fenrin, a celestial wolf. He bonds with the pup and names her Silma, meaning "starlight". He also meets Lily, the Traveler who'd caused trouble in Eredain, inside the Dreamscape. She tells him that she's working with Morx now. He drives her off, but he's sure she'll be back.
Jeff logs out of the game for a day and meets with Phil. There, he discovers that the skills he's mastered in the game have carried into his real life.
Back in the game, Aranos and his party go hunting together, but on their return, they're attacked by a group of twenty Travelers led by an elven Elder, Keryth of Exxidor, Gorrid's father, who Aranos realizes is the one killing the elders and stealing their memories. They defeat the Travelers, but Keryth reveals that after Gorrid's humiliation, the father magically enslaved his son using slave brands and did the same to Dirue in retribution. He challenges Aranos to a duel that Aranos refuses until Keryth shows that he's captured Geltheriel and that he'll use the slave brands on her next. In a rage, Aranos unleashes the same Ascended spell he used against Lythienne and drive off the elven elder. He then dispels the brands on Dirue, freeing her, but doing so leaves him too weak to do anything but execute Gorrid.
That night, Shadowborn creatures attack Eredain, and betrayal at the city's walls allows them to enter. At the same time, Travelers attack the home of Saphielle's parents, where Dirue is being sheltered. Aranos goes to defend her, but the Travelers turn on the elves and join him in the city's defense. They give him enough information to deduce that Keryth is using the knowledge he'd taken from the elders to try and enslave the Tree-heart, the center of Eredain that's linked to everyone in the city. Aranos confronts Keryth, and the two duel above the Tree-heart in full view of the entire city. Aranos wins the duel and frees the partially enslaved Tree-heart by using his Ascended spell to redeem it and the entire city, dying in the process. He's declared a hero of the city and given a patent of nobility granting him the lands and titles once held by House Exxidor, which is cast down.
In the final scene, Lily torments a powerful Summoner in their dreams to gain instruction in magic and reveals that she's been doing so for some time. David Newsome, CEO of Neodyne, speaks to his virtual assistant, revealing his interest in Aranos. Golloron is speaking to a bound captive, telling them that he orchestrated Keryth's betrayal, intending to rescue the city from the elder's attempt to enslave it and thus make the elves even more beholden to him. Aranos foiled that plan, and Golloron says that he will now make the Sorcerer pay, using the unnamed captive as a pawn.
Lord Sorcerer
Synopsis
Aranos, now Lord Evenshade, is faced with two tasks. The first is to build his new Noble House, which many of the Travelers who'd aided him defeating Keryth have joined. He arranges for the Travelers to be given quests to serve Eredain and sets his house up to perform quests for other houses in return for money and favor. He discovers a skill called Soulmending that lets him affect the souls of the deceased, drawing power from them, and finishes his preparations to leave the city. Arranging everything with his majordomo Lorsan, he then sets out to complete his second task: to penetrate the Vault of Antas.
Aranos and his party leave on the High Road, the enchanted road connecting the elven and human lands. At the same time, his best friend Phil leading his own party consisting of himself, an Archer named Longfellow, a Rogue named McBane, and a Shaman healer named Meridian, leave the human city of Stoneleague to meet Aranos at Antas.
Unbeknownst to Phil, his former party members Martina and Hector, a Ranger and a Warrior, join up with a Summoner named Liam and his Assassin companion to follow the other party to Antas. Martina hopes to loot Antas before Aranos, and perhaps even to kill the Sorcerer for the prestige and glory that would bring her. As she travels, though, she and Hector become wary of Liam, who seems to be holding back a great deal of his power.
Aranos and his party travel the High Road and find it overrun by the Shadowborn, especially at night. During the journey, Aranos discovers how to use his direct manipulation of mana to create advanced metals. He also unlocks the secret to enhanced Soul mana, which opens up the possibility of discovering more enhanced aspects.
As they travel, Aranos and Sapphielle grow closer, and he finds himself romantically attracted to her.
Aranos' and Phil's parties join up outside Antas, finding the area around the city overrun by undead. They take a guard tower, and Aranos Redeems it to serve as a base for the group. Aranos learns how to use his Soulmending skill to permanently kill undead, and he and Rhys join their spells to raise a special redeemed tree called oilarie that damages Shadowborn. The party begins making plans to enter Antas, seeking a secret entrance, but the tower is attacked by a powerful army of undead backed by a creature that drains life from all around it. Aranos defeats the creature but is left weakened; when the leader of the undead army tries to attack him, Saphielle comes to his rescue and defeats the creature in single combat. She is badly wounded, though, and falls unconscious after.
Meanwhile, Martina and Hector, who no longer trust Liam, follow him through a hidden tunnel into the city - but not before sending a message to Phil warning him about the tunnel and Liam. Liam ambushes them, and they awaken bound to altars in the temple of Virnal in the city, with necrotic energy draining their lives. Liam reveals himself to be Lily. They send another message to Phil to let him know what's happening.
When Saphielle awakes, she and Aranos sleep together for the first time. Afterward, Phil tells him that Martina and Hector are trapped in the city. Sheltered beneath a barrier Aranos creates, the party infiltrates the city through a tunnel and tracks Lily to the temple. There, she and Aranos battle, and she allows Geltheriel to kill her, which triggers an evolution for her as she drains the life from all her summons. She embraces her Corruption and becomes an undead vampire, but when she does, Zoridos, the lord of Antas and an incredibly powerful lich-like creature, arrives and places her under his thrall. He tries to recruit Aranos, but Aranos triggers a hanging trap he'd built that destroys most of the undead and badly damages Lily and Zoridos, allowing the party to flee at the cost of his life. In the battle, Martina is killed as well, but since she dies in the middle of a ritual designed to make her an undead, she comes back as a daywalker, a half-undead hybrid. She and Hector convince Aranos to let them join his team.
Aranos discovers how to combine his stats with his mana pool, using the link of his extremely high Charisma. This forces an evolution on him, and he shifts from an aleen to a high arcane, a far more magically talented race.
The party works their way into the Library, confronting Lily there. She allows herself to be defeated, hoping they can free her from Zoridos' control. Inside the now-Redeemed Library, Aranos descends to the vault and meets the Vaultkeeper, an otherworldly guardian of the Vault. The Vaultkeeper tells Aranos that to enter the Vault, he'll have to face and defeat Zoridos.
To do so, Aranos splits the party into two teams. He sends one, led by Phil, to attack Zoridos directly, while he, Saphielle, and Silma sneak into the city's Tree-heart so he can try to Redeem it. Phil's party is holding its own when Rhys betrays them by killing Meridian. Rhys tells them they have no choice but to retreat, but Phil rallies them, unwittingly passing the final test to unlock the Paladin class. With his new abilities, Phil holds back Zoridos until the undead lord realizes what Aranos is doing and teleports to face the Sorcerer.
Aranos and Saphielle defeat the Tree-heart's guardian, but before Aranos can Redeem the Heart, Zoridos appears and attacks. The creature is far stronger than Aranos anticipated, and it's about to kill him when Saphielle intervenes, shielding him from its attack. She holds it for only moments before it shatters her defenses. Saphielle dies in Aranos' arms, and enraged, he uses a single-use item and casts an Ascended spell that boosts his power enormously, allowing him to Redeem the Heart. He finds tens of thousands of souls trapped within it, all the souls that died to give Zoridos the power to hold Antas, and he uses his Soulmending ability to grant them peace and free them. Saphielle's soul is the last he frees, sending her to her rest.
Aranos discovers Rhys' treachery and enters the elf's mind to find that Golloron had tampered with the Druid, forcing him to act against Aranos. He does his best to free his friend from Golloron's influence.
Aranos returns to the Vault to gain the information he needs to advance Geltheriel's quest, and when he finishes, he holds a funeral for Saphielle in which he and Rhys plant a special tree in her honor before Antas' Treehome. The tree is a mingling of Aranos and Saphielle, and as he creates it, he hears Saphielle's voice one last time before she vanishes from his life forever.
In the final scene, Aranos confront Golloron in the Dreamscape, and the elder admits that he and the other leaders of the cities of Light have been paying a tribute of lives and blood to the Darkness since the Feast in return for peace. The two battle and destroy one another, Aranos using his Dreamstriding abilities and Golloron with a deep power that Aranos doesn't recognize.
Primal Sorcerer
Synopsis
Aranos has freed Antas, but his Cleansing Quest takes him to the human city of Stoneleague to seek instruction in creating and maintaining portals. He uses illusion magic to make Rhys, Geltheriel, and himself look like humans and to conceal Martina's half-undead nature, and the party travels to Stoneleague by the High Road.
In Stoneleague, Aranos makes contact with Neela, a friend of Phil and Martina and a Wizard of the College of Wizardry. He teaches Neela how to train her stats and mana skills more effectively, and in return, she takes him to the Dean of the School of Air, her chosen school. Aranos displays some of his abilities for the Dean, who agrees to speak to the Dean of the School of Dimensional Magic to see if Aranos can receive the training he wants.
Aranos also meets Avalyn, a teenage student at the College who has been struggling to make her magic work and has become furstrated and bitter. She's unable to pass through a magical barrier that any other student can, and Aranos links her to it so that she can pass freely for several days. He suspects that he can help her further, but he leaves the College without getting the chance to speak with her.
He heads to the Great Square and meets a leatherworker named Portia and sets up a deal with her to provide her with hides in return for her working with his House, and he travels to the Adventurers' Guild and takes a quest from the Guildmaster, Eagle-Eye Ryder, to track down a beast that destroyed some farming villages.
The quest leads Silma and him into the mountains north of the city, where he battles a draconic monster and kills it. He's confronted by a group of dwarves led by a Priestess who were also hunting the creature for its eggs. He makes a deal to let them harvest the monster in return for its head, half of what they take, and a single egg. He and Silma return to Stoneleague and turn in the quest in a single day, gaining him the right to take Guild-only quests without having to join the Guild.
He and Geltheriel take a walk together, where she tells him that his suppressed grief over Saphielle's death is causing his incredibly high Charisma to affect the people around him, including her. He promises to look for a solution. The pair are attacked by thieves, and Geltheriel kills several of them, allowing a few to escape so Aranos can track them to their hideout. McBane, Phil's Rogue friend, and his trainer Malcolm tell Aranos that the attack is strange, as thieves usually avoid dangerous-looking people. McBane gets a quest to look into the matter.
Aranos returns to the College and meets Avalyn once again. He tells her he knows that she's a Sorcerer, not a Wizard, and teaches her how to touch her mana and begin crafting her first spell. He agrees to help her as he can during his time in the city. He finds that Neela isn't available, and he returns to the Adventurers' Guild to meet his friends. They take a quest to investigate the disappearance of road patrols to the east, toward the city of Northmoor, while he and his team agree to investigate a group of monsters slaughtering caravans to the south, toward the city of Avendale. Aranos and his elven party head south and locate the creatures, finding that they're both intelligent and magic-using when they shouldn't be. Rhys realizes that they've been Awakened, an ancient Druidic practice lost to the Feast, and analyzes the creatures Aranos captures to learn as much as he can about the process. They discover a single cub in the creatures' den, and Aranos Redeems it into a leonal, a golden lion whose species went extinct during the Feast.
Back in the city, Aranos returns to the College, where he's told the Headmaster wants to see him. There, he discovers that he's caused some problems, first by teaching Neela, then by linking Avalyn to the barrier so she could pass through it. He finds out that the College has discovered his identity by mentally probing Neela against her will, and he reveals that the barrier uses Mind magic, something that is forbidden to be used on any Wizard in the College without permission - but not students. The Headmaster then asks him to take Avalyn with him to train her since the College can't do so, and Aranos agrees in return for whatever training he wishes - including learning about portals. The Headmaster also teaches Aranos about Primal mana, the powers associated with fundamental concepts of the universe like Death, Creation, and Order. Aranos learns about Domains, areas of Primal magic created by a powerful caster in which the caster can do practically anything related to their Domain without using SP - and the dangers of those Domains, including the fact that Primal mana gradually takes over the mind and will of its user, forcing them to act in its interests. Finally, Aranos meets with the Dean of Dimensional Magic and learns how to target portals, part of his Cleansing Quest.
Leaving the College, he's attacked by another group of thieves, but this time they first cancel out his magic, forcing him to defend himself with his staff. He captures one and lets McBane interrogate her. They discover that someone in the Thieves Guild is declaring war on the College and on Travelers, two things that will mean the Guild's destruction. McBane sets off to find out who this person is.
During logout, Aranos finds footage that shows Livia Tamarank - Lily in the real world - being executed. This happened while she was in the game against her will, trapping her in Singularity as Lily with no hope of logging out. When he returns to Ka, Aranos finds that a large force of urukkai have left the Citadel of Cendarta and are moving to occupy the High Roads toward Haerobel and Eredain. He instructs his House members to pass word in Eredain.
Meanwhile, Lily has gained an Evolved class that lets her capture sapient creatures and make them her thralls. She uses this ability to gain a small army of monsters and urukkai, then begins attacking patrols from Stoneleague and Northmoor. She uses her Dream Haunting skill to invade the dreams of the commanders and rulers of those cities, torturing them for information about troop movements, defensive plans, and the like. The cities send out larger and larger groups to stop her, and she adds them to her army as slaves or undead as she marches on Northmoor. She uses her stolen knowledge to infiltrate the city through an escape tunnel, and her army attacks it from within. She uses a secret failsafe to shut down the palace's defenses and turns the city's general and head of its College of Wizardry into vampiric slaves, then deposes the city's queen. When the Travelers return from logout, she sacrifices them in an attempt to Corrupt the city's heart and gain control over it, but the Travelers respawn in Stoneleague instead of Northmoor once she kills them. This clues Aranos in to Lily's location and plans, and he tells Guildmaster Ryder that the city will need to march an army against Northmoor soon to retake it before Lily can Corrupt the heart.
Aranos and his party travel to the dwarven city of Skollheld Heill to gain blueprints for a portal arch in return for the eggs he gave them. The Priestess of the Heartstone, ruler of the city, agrees to let Aranos have the blueprints he wants in addition to several others and to get training in dwarven enchanting in return for allowing discontented dwarves to leave the Skollheld and travel to Antas. After learning dwarven smithing and enchanting, Aranos meets the Priestess' daughter, Mutroda, a dwarven woman who turned away from her traditional role as a Priestess and became a Dwarven Juggernaut. Mutroda asks to join Aranos' party, and he agrees.
The party returns to Antas, where Aranos builds a portal arch and uses his new enchanting skills to perfect the structure, making it capable of opening a permanent portal. His quest updates, requiring him to maintain an open portal for 24 hours, something that the Dean of Dimensional Magic and the House of Stars have both warned him against. He travels to Eredain and creates a second portal there, outside the city, restoring the lost tower of Danastor in the process. He enters Eredain to discover that Golloron has vanished, and the army hasn't been summoned to face the encroaching urukkai. He agrees to speak with Golloron as the Savior of Eredain to find out why he's been absent. Before he can, the elves of Eredain begin chanting his name, which causes Golloron to burst from hiding and attack Aranos. The elder's battle with Aranos in the Dreamscape caused him to unlock his Domain of Destruction, and the elf hasn't been able to regain control of the Domain. At last, the elf gives into his Domain and attacks Aranos and his party. When they prove too powerful for Golloron to defeat with regular magic, he unleashes his Domain against them. Before he can finish them, though, a Nightmare Beast begins to attack the city. Aranos learns that was why he was warned not to leave a portal open; doing so could allow it to be Corrupted and draw creatures of Darkness.
Golloron wants to flee the city, but Aranos convinces the elf to join forces to face the Nightmare Beast. Aranos takes command of Eredain's forces and leads them against the Beast but to no avail. Golloron faces it to give Aranos a chance, but the Beast kills the elder with a blast of Darkness, then tries to slaughter Geltheriel the same way.
Enraged, Aranos uses an Ascended spell against the Beast, but the spell fails, and Aranos unlocks not one but two Primal Domains, War and Redemption. He unleashes these against the Beast. He and the Beast are perfectly matched in power, but Avalyn distracts it with a spell, allowing Aranos to destroy it but dying in the process. As the Beast dies, he hears the Darkness declare war on him, a war that he welcomes. Mutroda brings him Avalyn's body, but the body vanishes from her arms, revealing that Avalyn is a Traveler - something else that shouldn't be possible.
Aranos and his party Redeem his Corrupted portal, but doing so causes him to be drawn into Morx' realm, where the dark god threatens to trap him forever. Aranos wounds the god with a blast of combined War and Redemption, burning his hand and arm, before Geltheriel rescues him, pulling him out of Morx' realm. He returns to Eredain and tells the elves that Golloron died a hero, and that they now have to prepare for war.
McBane tracks down the high-up person causing problems in the Guild and discovers that this person is trying to destroy the Guild from within. They call themselves the "Scarlet King" and send McBane to respawn.
Aranos tracks down Lily and tells her that he wants to find a way to give her what she wants: a true death. He asks Lily why Livia was chosen to be trapped in the game, but before she can answer, he's forcibly logged out.