The Wolf of Calamity - Book 1 - Prologue (Patreon)

The first chapter - this chapter - will be public for anyone to see, but any others will be for patrons only.

I will be occasionally posting chapters for this story on my patreon as I write them until it eventually goes to Royal Road. This is mostly for feedback, but it's also because I don't have the time to make another commitment right now, but I also want to write this story pretty badly. So this is what I am doing instead of starting it on RR yet.

I hope you enjoy!

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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 7

The Monarch’s Palace

“You are to be executed for your crimes against nature, former Magister Lazarus Azger,” the commander of the Monarch’s Royal Guard declares as he breaks down the former magister’s front door.

Lazarus looks up from his most recent experiment with shock as the commander walks in with several members of the Royal Guard.

“What?! But I am so close to perfecting it! I just need one more year!” he shouts in anguish as the Royal Guards begin tearing apart everything within his home.

The commander draws his sword and calmly says, “Your experiments go against the laws of nature and threaten to bring about another era of Chaos, and the Monarch does not wish for this to happen.”

Madness flares in the former magister’s eyes as he backs up and says, “You will regret this, commander! And so will your precious Monarch!”

The commander’s eyes open wide in shock as Lazarus raises his hands and opens a portal to the Chaotic Plane.

“No! Stop him! If he is allowed to escape into the Chaotic Plane, then we may never find him again!” the commander shouts as he charges towards the former magister.

“I swear this on my name, commander, that I will create the perfect monster! One that is strong enough to overthrow the Monarch, Tiamat!”

With this one last shout, Lazarus Azger retreats through the portal into the Chaotic Plane before it closes behind him.

“Damn it!” the commander shouts, showing emotion for the first time since entering the magister’s home. “Send people to the Chaotic Plane! Find that bastard before he brings about another era of Chaos!”

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Chaotic Plane

Lazarus looks around the frozen taiga he now finds himself in before turning around and waving his hand through the heavily falling snow.

Little orbs of arcane magic fly out of his hand before constructing a large cabin made out of wood right in the middle of the frozen taiga. The cabin itself is surrounded by several spruce trees and appears to be only one story at a glance.

The former magister takes a moment to admire his handiwork before turning away from the cabin.

He then closes his eyes and mutters a chaotic garble of words under his breath, causing a purple pulse of energy to radiate from him into the surrounding area.

After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly opens his eyes and begins walking towards the south for a few kilometers until he stops in front of a den of direwolves.

A maniacal smile emerges on the man’s face as the two-meter-long direwolves all become instantly wary of him while backing up towards the opposite end of the den with several pups hiding behind them.

“My new test subjects!” Lazarus says while rubbing his hands together in glee.

The direwolves all begin whimpering in fear as he raises his hand and levitates all of them into the air before starting back towards his new cabin with over two dozen direwolves in tow.

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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 8

Chaotic Plane

“Damn it! Not again!” Lazarus shouts as his eighth direwolf test subject dies before it can complete the experiment.

Lazarus turns to the serum and mutters, “What could be wrong with it… Could it be the dosage? Or could I have put in too much elven blood?”

Seven pained whimpers suddenly raise from the other set of direwolves, drawing Lazarus’ attention away from the failed set.

A maniacal glee shines in Lazarus’ eyes as he rushes over to the seven direwolves strapped to the metal tables.

“Interesting! So, it wasn’t my serum that was the issue, but it was the age of the test subject!” Lazarus speaks out loud as he watches the newfound intelligence in the seven direwolf pups’ eyes.

“In that case, it’s pointless to waste my time on any more adults if the serum will only work on the newborns,” Lazarus says before waving his hand towards the remaining adult direwolves, making them implode within their cages.

Lazarus focuses on the pups as he mutters, “Now that they have had the serum, I should move on to giving them a stronger constitution to handle the rest of my experiments.”

He then turns and manifests a large box in front of him.

The box opens with a wave of his hand to reveal ten different hearts of several different powerful species.

“Which means I will have to completely replace their hearts and rebuild their constitution from scratch through their blood,” Lazarus says before turning back to the direwolf pups. “But before that, I am going to have to run some experiments to see which hearts would work best.”

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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 9

Chaotic Plane

“Finally! A success!” Lazarus shouts as he looks at the two direwolf pups in front of him.

One of the pups has a strange green glow to its body underneath its black fur, while the other pup’s fur has entirely changed color to white.

Lazarus looks at the two direwolf pups’ bodies and studies their insides through detection magic before frowning.

“Wait a second… There seems to be-”

Before he can finish, one of the pups suddenly begins convulsing as it attempts to yowl in pain through its muzzle before it begins to turn into a green goo.

Meanwhile, the other pup becomes stiller and stiller as its body begins to slowly turn into ice.

Lazarus slams his hands into the metal tables and shatters them as he shouts, “Damn it! Those hearts weren’t at all compatible with the direwolves after all!”

Three of the five direwolf pups locked up in the cage across the room from him move to the back of the cage out of fear while the other two stay at the front as they watch on with interest.

A few seconds pass as Lazarus mutters to himself before he looks up and sees the two pups staring at him.

“What’s this? Are these two already intelligent enough to understand me?” he asks before walking over to the cage, only for the two direwolves to slowly start backing up to join the others.

He rubs his chin as he thinks, ‘These two appear to be advancing faster than the rest in intelligence. Perhaps I should try experimenting on them next.’

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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 10

Chaotic Plane

Lazarus sighs with regret as both of the special pups appear to grow sluggish, as if they are about to die.

Before he can get upset, though, strange things begin to happen within both of their bodies.

The female pup begins to turn an almost clear blue, as if she was made out of water, meanwhile the male pup’s veins begin to glow a molten red, as if it had molten lava running through its veins.

“They were a success?” Lazarus mutters in confusion before jumping up and shouting, “They were a success!”

Both pups begin moving against their restraints as they regain consciousness and open their eyes to look at the room with a gleam of intelligence.

Lazarus’ eyes widen in surprise as he thinks, ‘Did they both become even more intelligent after the experiment?’

He then frees the two pups from their restraints and levitates them over to himself before he asks, “Would you two like to learn the written language of the natural plane?”

‘Since they can’t exactly speak and all, it might benefit them to learn the language later on,’ he thinks to himself. ‘If they survive, of course.’

Both of the direwolves nod their heads and yip in agreement.

“Great! Then I will begin teaching you in between experiments!” Lazarus says with a note of finality.

‘A future Monarch should be literate after all,’ he thinks to himself with a smile before turning to the other three direwolves and saying, “Now, on to you three!”

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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 12

Chaotic Plane

“Well, that’s unfortunate, but I already have these two pups,” Lazarus states with a frown before turning to the two direwolves. “Although, I guess they aren’t really pups anymore considering how much they have grown.”

He waves his hand before an open box appears in the air next to him holding four eyeballs with golden pupils.

“Let’s see if the eyeballs will work with the wolf with the magma lord heart first,” he mutters while looking at the male direwolf with magma flowing through his veins.

Lazarus squats in front of the male with a smile as he stares into the direwolf’s lovely new golden eyes.

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“Astounding! The fae eyes work perfectly in him!” Lazarus exclaims with excitement before turning to the female direwolf and saying, “That being the case, it should work for her as well!”

He gets up from his squat and begins walking over towards the female direwolf as he thinks, ‘It’s a shame that there isn’t more than one of that part, otherwise I could make a second ultimate weapon!’

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“Or not,” he mutters as he watches the eyes of the female direwolf grow cold before they dissolve into water as the direwolf dies.

Lazarus studies her corpse for several minutes before he finally mutters, “I guess the fae eyes didn’t mix well with the undine heart…”

“Well,” he says has he gets up and turns to the male direwolf, “I still have you left!”

The direwolf continues watching him with a wary look mixed with a hint of curiosity as he stands in the middle of the cage.

“I am not so sure about these next parts, but if they do end up killing you, then I can always just get another batch of test subjects,” Lazarus says without a hint of pity before turning away and muttering, “Although it would be rather difficult to get the parts again.”

Unknown to Lazarus, a cold look glosses over the direwolf’s golden eyes as he glares into Lazarus’ back with hatred.

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Year 1395 After Chaos
Month 14

Chaotic Plane

“I can’t believe it was actually a success for all of your claws!” Lazarus exclaims as the wolf lays still on the metal table whilst occasionally twitching in pain from the procedures.

Lazarus leans down and looks at the wolf’s paws while it is still strapped to the table as he mutters, “To think, there is now a single wolf with the claws of a wraith, the eyes of a fae, and the heart of a magma lord.”

He stares at the ominous looking claws before getting up and thinking, ‘But he isn’t complete. He is still missing the most important part.’

Lazarus snaps his fingers before the restraints on the wolf suddenly snap off before the wolf begins yowling in pain as he is lifted into the air by Lazarus’ magic before being placed back into the shadowsteel cage.

He then snaps his fingers again before an ominous black box appears in front of him.

The moment Lazarus opens the black box, waves of chaotic black and purple energy envelope the entire cabin, making the wolf freeze up in terror.

“The stomach of the Fallen Lord of Chaos, Fenrir!” Lazarus says while staring at the organ in awe.

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Year 1396 After Chaos
Month 5

Chaotic Plane

Wolf

I wake up in my cage after another round of testing to the sound of my torturer and teacher messing around with the terrifying piece of flesh again.

Ever since I can remember, my life has been nothing but painful tests and lessons, mixed in with several of what he calls ‘experiments.’

All in all, quoting from a book the man read to me once, my life is and has always been a living hell.

As for the man himself?

I have mixed feelings in regards to him.

If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be able to think like I am doing now to make me forget about the pain I am in.

On the other hand, he massacred my entire pack, and I wouldn’t be in said pain if it weren’t for him.

So, in the end, I both feel respect for him, and want to tear his throat out the moment I get a chance.

It’s too bad that he is too strong for me to do that.

A feeling of relief spreads through me as the pain suddenly goes away.

Then there are the times – like right now – when he takes some measure of pity on me and casts a spell to dull the pain.

My eyes begin to feel heavy again now that the pain is gone.

I glance towards the man one last time as he continues messing with the strange piece of flesh before going back to sleep again.

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Year 1396 After Chaos
Month 7

Chaotic Plane

Wolf

I am forcefully woken up as I feel the familiar restraints clamp around my mouth, neck, and legs.

No!

Not again!

I thought we were done with the experiments!

The man ignores my whimpers and begins to cut me open as pain engulfs my entire body.

Stop!

Please stop it!

A very familiar stuffy feeling mixes in with the pain as he uses whatever spell he has that stops me from dying while still forcing me to feel all of the pain.

I notice him reaching into me and pulling something out as an even more severe burst of pain radiates out of my entire body before he sticks something into a box and reaches into the box containing the terrifying piece of flesh.

Wait, what are you doing?!

Please stop it!

I try to thrash about, only for him to glare at me and cast a spell on me that completely freezes me in place.

Please don’t put that terrifying thing in me!

My whimpers of pain don’t make it past the muzzle covering my mouth as his hands reenter my body with the thing held in between them.

I push as hard as I possibly can against the spell holding me down, but I can’t even budge an inch before an even larger explosion of pain radiates through my body and everything in the room suddenly goes dark.

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My eyes slowly open again to see everything within the room thrown around everywhere.

What happened…

The memories of the experiment flood my mind before I realize that I am on the metal table without any restraints.

Huh?

I rise to my feet before looking around at the table and finding the restraints destroyed.

What happened after I blacked out?

A groan catches my attention from below the table.

When I approach the edge of the table and look down, I find the man laying down with a look of absolute glee and awe as he stares up at me from the floor while looking half dead.

What happened to him?

“My exp-p-periment w-was a s-success!” he manages to get out before coughing out a mouthful of blood.

Wait, does that mean that that terrifying thing is inside of me?!

I turn my head to look at my back but fail to find anything different before turning back to the man in confusion.

“Kill me b-before I d-die!” he asks me before weakly reaching for a piece of paper and adding, “Everyth-thing you need t-to know is written on this p-piece of paper.”

I jump down from the table before approaching the man with a brief glance at the paper.

He wants me to kill him?

That’s odd, but I have no problems with that.

It wasn’t like I was going to let him live anyways.

Right before I clamp my jaws around his throat, he manages to mutter one last sentence that confuses me, “The second era of Chaos shall c-commence as a new Lord of Chaos rises.”

I crush his throat in between my jaws before raising my head again.

It’s finally over.

Right as I am about to go look at the paper he mentioned, a strange flood of words and symbols appears in my vision.

What the…

I try to bat the words away with my paw to no avail before giving up and reading them.

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Awakening in progress…

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What is awake-

Before I can finish my thought, the words are replaced with a new set of words and symbols.

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Awakening Successful

Congratulations, you have now been awakened to the System!

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