The Crests of Power and How They Were Discovered
This is a story...a story of something that was supposed to be forgotten and left alone. The place is Bucksport/Verona Maine, Hancock County. Anyone who is sensitive to the so called supernatural will feel something off when in the town. The truth about it is something not really well known. In fact there were 2 high school students that grew up there that discovered it. When I say discovered I mean to say that they were young kids who tried to research about what exactly was off when they discovered it. Now I will get to the story shortly but to all you reading I will need to provide some extra info. You see these two weren't ordinary sensitive people, one was and is one of the foremost experts on sealing techniques and practices, the other, myself, was hardly above ordinary except for an unrealistic resistance to psionic (mind) abilities.
The two were fairly good friends and happend upon eachother while conducting field research. They thought what they had found was just a natural energy dampening field that someone had put up, the truth was so much deeper. Here is the story of two young people whose lives were forever changed by their curiosity. If only we had left things alone, maybe, just maybe it would be different and we could be happier.
It all started one fall day, the weather was nice and cool, we weren't really in any rush as long years of searching on both our ends hadn't really turned anything up, until that day. On that day we were heading to my place for some gaming when we both stumbled upon it, a crack, incredibely small, but it was there. In that crack was a sealing array of the likes never seen before, immediately we both knew we had caught a break so we took notes and went our seperate ways to spread the information to find out what it was. Several months later we met up with folders of reference notes that were all but useless, the seal was more advanced than anything that existed and all we could find out was that it was supposed to destroy someones mind just before opening and had no limit on numbers.
So with us being young, stupid, cocky, etc. we discussed our plan of action, we would combine our strengths to open the seal up to look inside. It wasn't an instantaneous rip it open kind of deal, we progressed slowly as we were at least smart enough to check for hidden failsafe(s), taking a month to unravel enough to look inside all the while making sure that I would be able to handle the strain. When we finally got to the point where we were able to look inside, we were both pulled inside a dark room. We couldn't see, hear, or feel eachother, almost like we were in seperate rooms. We were both presented with a sight before us, we both saw five floating crests in the air, each representing an element and split in half. Upon seeing them, we both felt caution as something isn't quite right about the setting and elation at discovering what we had been searching for. After we looked at it for a few minutes we found ourselves back outside and exhausted. So after a brief meeting about what each of us saw in the room and quickly the excitement and adrenaline rush was over and we realized we were exhausted so we trudged on home to rest.
We never really discussed it after that, choosing to rest and recover our energy for a short while. The problem was we were both feeling drawn to it, our dreams and almost every waking moment was plagued with thoughts of going back. We soon met again to compile what we saw both agreeing that the five crest elements were star (or light), water, fire, electricity, and earth. While discussing this I realized I had felt something stronger and darker behind those crests although when I brought it up my friend said he hadn't noticed anything so I shrugged it off. Soon we were driven to open the seal again, this time we decided to open it further so we could study it. So for the next 2 months we balanced school, research, and time spent working on safely opening the seal in an attempt to not release anything that may have been hidden.
Before looking in again we both agreed that it was in our best interest to study the crests more, and we immediately set out to do so. So we pooled our sources together and quickly found a local lich information dealer who had copied a stone from his masters study. It turns out it was from an ancient source that was made when time was still new and just getting settled that these crests were old for one thing, possibly even as old as time itself. Once we felt we had opened it enough were we could just look inside this time we were again drawn into the room. This time we could see eachother but we each couldn't hear or sense the other, this caused more confusion for us. "Why cant I hear or sense him?" is what we thought. After we got kinda settled for lack of better term, we started studying them, knowledge of them being fed into our minds like it was an old thought that makes you go "Ohhh yeaaaahhhhhh". We 'remembered' that they all presented different benefits if we were to 'take' them. Water provided psionic abilities and increased understanding of seals, fire provided a strength increase and a reduced healing time, electricity provided general knowledge and an increase in technological comprehension, finally earth provided knowledge of plants and psychology. After we each took mental notes of two crests each we were again removed from the seal drained of energy. We talked after exiting, comparing our knowledge to see if we had both had the same experience and to make sure that we hadn't just been imagining things. Then we again took a break, this time for four months since the drain was worse, finals were coming up, and I was going to Orland for the summer.
After we got back in school and settled, me into my junior year him in his senior, we decided to make one more trip in to study the star crest. When we had reopend the seal, we immediately felt something off as we were pulled inside. This time we were back to the way things had started, except this time the crests had awoken. We spent longer than usual this time trying to get by the influence and failing. As we felt control slipping we were both sent to different places, myself to a pitch black room with a faint glow in front of me and him into what seemed like water. We had been chosen, the seals split apart and half of the ones we were chosen by attached themselves to us. As soon as they had attatched themselves the pain began, our energy reserves were being inflated fast and hard. Almost as soon as it started it had stopped and then the battles began, you see since the crests were sentient they wanted their own body and had chosen us, so in a sense they attacked our minds. I had little trouble subduing my own crest, the crest of shadow, due to its nature which I will explain soon. Unfortunately my friend had a little more trouble with his crest as they had a standoff during which they slowly fused leaving my friend in control as the crest slowly lost its powers while being absorbed.
Upon completion of the absorptions we exited the place the way we normally do but this time was different. All the other crests had activated themselves completely and used their power to form bodies so they could escape with us. After we regrouped we tested out what had happend to us, we both learned of past lives, gods, goddesses, titans, and more. As for my crest, the crest of shadow, we found that its only forseeable ability is power, more power than the other crests hold by far and that it was supposed to draw upon the mind, slowly corrupting and addicting someone to the feel of the energy so their body will eventually give out on them. Later we found that my crest was especially good for 'breaking' things, laws of the universe, time/space, barriers, seals, and other types of prisons.
We found, as time went by, that the star crest is about time abilities, time sealing, attacks that activate for a certain length of time and traps. We learned about most mythology that isn't really myth as much as hidden fact, why the crests were sealed away and that all the other crests that had come with us had fled through realms and throughout the planet we live on. Now this was several years ago, and since then we have continued to grow into our new powers and states of mind. Well these years haven't been peaceful, far from it. It turns out that the crests were split apart to battle for dominance everytime their body gets destroyed and they get sealed away. None were supposed to be able to survive the psionic feedback of having a full crest inside them, and we weren't in the mood to tempt fate more than we already had.
We slowly drifted apart still keeping notes on anything new in our heads and we spent the next four months exploring our powers and different realms. Right before school was done I realized that I had to move down to Florida thanks to my parents who didn't like the cold. So I met with my friend for the last time in person and we both agreed that there was a reason not much data existed on the crests and that we should destroy all our notes to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. While we were finishing up throwing the last piece of paper on the fire we noticed it had turned black, not just the fire itself but the space around us as well. When we looked around we noticed symbols floating around, each symbol represented a crest and above our heads was the symbol for leader. Without being told we instinctively knew that we were to gather the other crests and either lock them away again or have a fight that will cause something worse than armageddon.
2 years later I had my first run in with another crest, the star crest for my friends side, as I went about attempting to get into college I saw her (yes her) more often and every time I did bad things were quick to follow. As anyone would, I quickly grew tired of her treating me like that so I decided to try to fight back by sealing her away, well due to shadow energy being unstable it isn't all that great for sealing and as such she had broken out in 15 minutes even more pissed off then before. Things continued for a while with her bringing bigger and stronger monsters to my area until I finally broke down and put in a call to my friend. Turns out he had already found all the crests for his side and had noticed the abnormal activity in the area but had figured it was my fault. After we talked for a while he sent his familiar spirit down to retrieve her so he could try to get her behaviour under control, oh how he underestimated her. She escaped a few months later and dropped off his radar again, when she reappeared to me, she had the alternate half of the shadow crest with her and forced us to merge. The power was overwhelming, I immediately put in a call to my friend while trying to burn as much energy as I could. As I was talking to him he sent his familiar down with dozens of sealers and forced my energy back slowly then put a lock on it that was stronger than Tartarus (titans) and the gates to Mount Olympus. To this day I remain in Florida, stuck in a tough position as I have to constantly monitor and direct local mages and slayers to the spots they are most needed.
This was my story, was it real? Why do you think that? I know there will be those of you who are unbelievers and will write this off as bogus or probly flame me for it. You can have your own opinion, I am not saying anything more about it. If any of this infringes on any copyrights I claim no responsibility but I also own the rights to this story along with my friend. I will take this down but only at his request. I do not claim to be an author, I don't claim to be an artist as I am neither, this was simply my story and its about time I told it. My thanks go out to my editors Sorin and Clover W. and of course my friend up in Maine, he may have dropped off my radar but he will always be considered a friend in my eyes.
P.S. To all you flamers and trolls out there that will try to mail me to get me to take this story down, good luck. I will want you to tell me my first name and his first and last name. Also you will tell me the name of the person I shared a position with on the chess team. All in all there are at most one or two people other than he and I that will have that information and be able to get it properly.