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ForeSender Resolve: A Fantasy Action Adventure (The ForeSender Chronicles Book 5), page 1
ForeSender Resolve
ForeSender Chronicles Book 5
Adrian Murphy
Copyright © 2023 by Adrian Murphy
All rights reserved
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7779222-8-3
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7779222-9-0
This edition February 2023
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Website: adrianmurphybooks.com
Series Description
The ForeSender Chronicles
A dragon-shifter sleuth with a mystery to solve. Invaders from the stars. Billions of lives on the line...
Galindra still mourns her mother’s mysterious disappearance and yearns to discover the truth. She leads a team of interstellar investigators tasked with probing into the brutal kidnapping of a king’s brother. It seems like a straightforward case until sinister forces conspire to stop her... permanently.
After a chance encounter with travelers from an unknown planet called Earth wielding advanced weapons and strange technology, Galindra wonders if they are friend or foe. As dangers multiply, she resolves to find her missing mom, rescue the prince, solve a murder, defeat an invasion from space, and save entire worlds from doom.
All while watching her back for a homicidal witch bent on blood—hers.
The ForeSender Chronicles is a clean (no sex or heavy swearing) futuristic fantasy adventure series with galaxy-spanning action, ferocious mythical creatures, devious plots, betrayals, and a mother and daughter’s struggle to reunite despite desperate odds. For readers who enjoy their fantasy laced with hi-tech.
Author Adrian Murphy invites you to enter the spellbinding world of Galindra, the dragon-shifter intergalactic sleuth, today.
Series available at Amazon
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Contents
1. Formless realm
2. Elemental joining
3. Corporeal harm
4. Rough welcome
5. Fled
6. Repercussions
7. Return to Calistra
8. Regrets
9. Siege
10. On leave
11. Claws and blades
12. Defenses breached
13. Bio-zone
14. Temporary refuge
15. Mortal danger
16. Missing
17. Graveyard robber
18. Through the eyes of a cat
19. Blue fire
20. Skills
21. Redcoats
22. Bayonets
23. Sniper
24. Blame
25. Nanites
26. Mysterious adept
27. Dark-robed figure
28. Sisterhood
29. Survivors
30. Massacre
31. Suspicions
32. Compromised
33. Emergency shaft
34. Destiny awaits
35. Compulsion
36. Rescue
37. Emerging abilities
38. Thwarted
39. Pursued
40. Bait
41. Reception committee
42. Rat trap
43. Distraction
44. Reunion
45. Friendly fire
46. Sacrifice
47. Dragon squad
48. Purification
49. Assignments
50. Fresh challenges
51. Apprentice
52. Bittersweet embrace
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
Thank You & Please Rate
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Free Prequel Short Story
More Books by the Author
About the Author
1
Formless realm
Colors, more startling than a rainbow after a summer rain shower, streamed past Galindra’s eyes and swirled around her head.
She looked down and gasped. The floor of the portal chamber in Havenwood’s Palace of Golden Boughs was nowhere to be seen. Instead, multi-hued streaks of brilliant iridescence sailed by beneath, alongside, and above her, disappearing into the far distance.
On impulse, she reached out a hand to grasp onto a solid surface. There was none. Yet, her footing was firm despite the lack of a visible support.
A curse caught her attention, and she turned. Valeth stood a few feet away, wearing a bemused expression. Galindra rushed to her and the pair embraced. “I thought I almost lost you again, Mother.”
Valeth stroked Galindra’s hair as the edges of her lips curled in a soft smile. “No, daughter-mine. We are together still. It would be heartbreaking indeed to be parted so soon after only just reuniting.” A grim look chased the joy from her face. “But it seems we have a new peril to contend with. What is the last thing you remember?”
Galindra stepped back and cocked her head, her eyes going wide as recollection flooded in. “The troll mage’s dark spell! It reemerged and sought to gain power over us. I heard its foul words in my mind.”
She ducked as an especially intense band of shimmering color flashed past her head. “We, along with Melnik, were in the portal chamber at the Palace of Golden Boughs, in Havenwood. We were on the verge of bringing the portal back under control and preventing it from exploding after the Dane-entity used the gateway to journey to Earth.”
Valeth wore a distant expression, gazing into their surroundings. She rubbed a hand against her cheek, her demeanor pensive. “Yes, I too experienced the incantation’s vitriolic pronouncement inside my head. I suspect it is responsible for our present dilemma.”
“Where are we?”
Valeth paused before replying as a warm breeze ruffled her hair. “Stories are told of the existence of this place. I was never certain I believed them until now.” She bent, tapping the invisible, yet firm, ground, then straightened. “Unless this is a bizarre, shared hallucination, I’d hazard a guess we are between dimensions, in the formless realm.”
Galindra’s eyebrows arched, and she frowned at the shapeless colors crowding them on all sides. “The primeval land beyond a portal’s threshold? I had always deemed it to be a myth.”
“It would seem not.” Valeth took a few tentative steps forward. “I often wondered what became of our essence when portaling. Now, it seems, we know.”
“The transition from one location to another is usually instantaneous,” Galindra said. “If what you suggest is correct, then by what means have we landed here, I wonder?”
She peered at the gyrating kaleidoscope beneath her feet and continued in the silence that followed. “I suspect you are right. It must be the dark spell’s doing. The question is, does it seek to entomb us here forever?” She stroked a finger against the gem at the base of her throat. “And what happened to it after its unsuccessful attempt to gain sway over us?”
A muffled choking sound was her only response. Galindra whirled. Valeth’s head was bent, her mouth opening and closing, lips stretched wide in a startled rictus. She clutched at the crimson-tinged gem at her neck—its tint matching her hair—as a green haze enveloped the stone.
“Mother! What is—” A stinging spear of agony gripped Galindra’s chest, and she staggered backward. She felt tremendous pressure, as if a massive set of bellows strove to suck the very last breath from her lungs.
Cold, as biting as the frigid air atop the highest mountain peak, radiated from her foresense gem. She glanced down. The same sickly emerald-hued nimbus that embraced her mother’s jewel now clung to Galindra’s own throat and chest.
As she watched, the fume detached from around her body, and from Valeth’s. The mist like strands flowed toward each other and mingled, coalescing. An insubstantial form materialized, its substance composed of writhing gray-green smoke. Arms, legs, a torso, and a blocky head emerged, their gaseous outline fluctuating as ripples eddied across the figure.
Galindra sucked in a ragged breath. Realization hit her as she gaped at the apparition. The shape was familiar. It bore a close resemblance to Dorien, the troll mage who had cast the deadly incantation as her dying act.
Scarlet flame glimmered where the eyes would be, and the vapor swirled to reveal a mouth-like orifice. “You think my efforts to master you were unsuccessful? Guess again, ForeSender.” The voice rasp
It lifted a smoky arm and wiggled its fingers. “Only in this nebulous dimension may I gain a measure of corporeality, albeit without physical attributes. Now I can complete the mission my mistress gave me.” Its eyes flared a vivid red. “Your demise.”
Galindra not so much heard as felt the hate-filled words as they vibrated through the air. She flicked her gaze away from the phantasm, which stood between her and her mother.
Valeth ground her teeth, glaring at the spell’s spectral form. “What in all the Continuum’s spinning globes is this?” She peered closer, discerning the rough appearance of a tall, blocky being. “Or should I say who?”
“Dorien, the troll mage,” Galindra supplied. “Or rather, her death cast invocation, given a semblance of ethereal existence.”
“At least it is no longer in our heads.” Valeth touched her temple, eyeing the murky apparition. “Though I am not sure this is a vast improvement.”
Galindra gave a tight smile, a wary cast to her countenance. How long would the menacing hex be able to maintain the manifestation? Was it more vulnerable now that she could see and hear it outside herself, or had its powers multiplied?
The incantation flexed its shadowy arms again and gave a gravelly chuckle. “I have found my true form and am free to continue my creator’s purpose. Time for you both to suffer an excruciating demise.” Its head rotated to regard Valeth. Instead of turning back, its body revolved further on the same axis, performing a complete arc and fixing its baleful gaze on Galindra.
“Nothing spooky about that,” Valeth said, “though it’d be a colossal hit at Halloween.” Her fingers brushing her foresense gem. Twin fiery axes sprang to life in her hands.
Galindra did likewise, her dragon staff flaming in her grip.
“I’m impressed, daughter-mine. I have not seen your abilities at their fullest yet, though I would have preferred a more pleasant environment for such a demonstration.”
Galindra gave a slight bow, lightly stepping to one side, her gaze fixed on her eerie adversary. The dark spell’s head—or what she assumed was its head—swiveled to follow her movements. As yet, their enemy seemed content to bide its time, perhaps gathering itself for the confrontation to come. She squinted. Was the smoky silhouette a little more solid, its limbs less fog-like?
The breeze strengthened, a maelstrom of colors whirling faster around the trio. Galindra narrowed her eyes. Was it possible their surroundings were somehow responding to the hostility emanating from the incantation, and the fear, as well as resolve, she felt? She suspected her mother held a similar mixture of emotions. Were they influencing the vaporous dimension in which they found themselves?
“It is playing with us,” Valeth said, hefting her flame-robed axes, “like a cat with its prey.”
Galindra angled the head of her staff toward their ghostly opponent. “I am no one’s prey. Enough. Let us see if this thing can be beaten.”
She uttered a raucous battle cry and charged, thrusting her fiery weapon in front of her. Smoke twirled, the fleshless body seeming to lose coherence at the touch of the dragon fire. Galindra slashed left and right, her lips curled in a snarl.
It was like striking at mist. As she passed through the spectral shape, bone-chilling cold caused her teeth to chatter, and she stumbled, falling to her knees.
A smoky arm lashed out—green shards sparkling along its edge—and slammed into Galindra, sending her tumbling across the invisible surface with a scream of agony.
“No!” Valeth roared, raising an ax. She sent it spinning at the invocation’s form, only for it to hurtle through with no apparent impact, the murky body reforming in its wake. She cursed, lifting her hand. The ax vanished, reappearing a heartbeat later in her grasp.
Galindra pushed to her feet, catching her mother’s eye and giving a quick nod to show that she was unharmed. Her hands were empty, the dragon staff having disappeared when she hit the invisible ground.
“I thought ForeSenders were more formidable than this.” The utterance was accompanied by a guttural laugh, ghostly green fire glimmering in the incantation’s wispy orifice, as its red eyes glared at Galindra.
Its outline expanded, growing taller and wider, vapors writhing along its shifting contours. “Ah, the delights of assuming a measure of substance. I draw strength from this unseen dimension.” Its eyes narrowed to slits, scarlet fire leaching from beneath shadowy lids.
The breeze intensified, sending ripples flitting across the murky body. “As much as I know my mistress would have delighted in seeing you both suffer, it’s time to end this.”
Galindra braced her feet and went to shout a warning. The words died on her lips as the dark spell’s arms abruptly lengthened, one hand wrapping itself around her throat, the other doing the same to Valeth before either could react.
Each uttered a strangled moan, struggling for breath, as gray smoke tinged with a myriad of minuscule green and white lightning bursts billowed about their heads.
Galindra clamped her mouth shut and clawed at her neck. Her knees threatened to sag as a chill more bitter than at the tallest mountain peak invaded her body and began to squeeze the very life essence from her.
2
Elemental joining
Tears blinded Galindra as she groped at the fume encasing her head. Her hands clutched at empty air, and she jerked back as a miniature lightning bolt singed her palm.
We must find a way to inflict harm on this ethereal adversary, came a desperate thought in her mind. Yet it is not susceptible to physical weapons, and I cannot even grasp hold of it. Her mother, frustration tinging her tone. This cold is more severe than the airless vacuum of deep space. My teeth begin to clatter...
Galindra stumbled, batting at the haze that clung to her, the chill sending shivers writhing up and down her spine. Mine too, she sent. She drew in a ragged breath, noticing that the iridescent streams of color were racing past, their pace quickening, as if the formless dimension itself was aware of the life and death struggle taking place in its domain.
Lips parted, jaw clenched, Galindra blinked away moisture and dropped to one knee. She rested her hand against the intangible surface to steady herself. Heat seeped from the unseen floor, vibrant orange and red hues dancing across her fingers. She let her other hand fall, and more warmth wafted up her arms.
The ground, she sent. Somehow, this realm is counteracting the incantation’s murderous efforts; whether or not intentionally, I do not know.
She lifted her head to see Valeth slip to her knees and rest her hands on the floor, too. That helps, came the words in Galindra’s mind, but it is not enough. It has slowed but not stopped the spread of the invocation’s remorseless assault. We are running out of time. If only our weapons could make a dent in the spell’s insubstantial form.
Perhaps they don’t need to.
What do you mean, daughter-mine? Are you now given to riddles when facing a gruesome death? If so, my mind is too addled to puzzle it out.
Galindra smiled despite herself and let her breathing slow. Our fiery armaments are useless, yes?
We’ve established that, came her mother’s terse reply. Do you have another suggestion? This reunion of ours is turning out to be less than the joyful occasion I envisaged.
Galindra could almost hear Valeth’s teeth clack against each other. She focused her senses as she felt her chest constrict, iron-hard barbs of frigid agony tightening around her.
Elemental energy fuels the portal, just as it does the incantation and the Dane-entity, Galindra sent. Likewise, that is how this nebulous realm sustains its existence. It’s how the invocation could assume its shadowy shape here and not anywhere else.
Where are you going with this? Her mother’s response was strained, the effort to resist the magical onslaught evident even in her thoughts. Galindra recognized the same urgency. They hadn’t much time left.
Our avatars, she sent. They also are composed of spectral energy. The troll mage’s spell is thriving in this amorphous environment. They may, too.
