About Basilisk Tales Book 1: Dark Descent
by Riane Lasair
45 pages
/ 18000 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-499-1, 1-60370-499-X
Available file types - html. lit, pdf, prc
The two worlds, Aergra above and Undernegra below, have always looked at each other with distrust. Now they find that they share a common enemy, determined to destroy them both. Vee is an Undernegran empath, avoided and feared by Upperworlders. He must use his gifts to assist the Upperworlder team of scientists and security personnel sent to open negotiations between the two civilizations and deal with this problem of a mutual enemy.
Brand is the leader of the Upperworlder team, sent to share his knowledge of the scientist bent on destroying both peoples. What Vee and Brand didn't know was that a bond would grow between the two of them, an emotional one that would both help and hinder the investigation. Can Vee overcome his more and more powerful visions of the enemy and help Brand save their worlds?
Sample
Prologue
Over fifty levels of tunnels, cross sections and hidey-holes spread through the heavy rock under the foundation of the newer city-state of Aergra. The under-dwellers named their city below the city Undernegra. When those above, in Aergra, found little use for someone, they were cast out and left to fend for themselves. That was when the outcasts found a safe haven in Undernegra. After centuries of evolution, those below evolved, changed and adapted to their underground world, making them, in some ways, better than those above.
They had no fear of storms or fires that those above dealt with, but at the same time, they had the technology, sometimes stolen or adapted. Still, it was their minds that thought up ways to use it, to make their lives better and secure. In some ways, they thought themselves superior than those above, but at the same time shied away from them, keeping below ground.
Because of their lives now, their eyes couldn’t withstand the brightness of being above ground. Many felt it was their right as living beings to be able to go above and prove their worth to the Upper-worlders, but their own scientists believed that to do so would sign their own death warrants.
This story is just one of many of the inhabitants of Undernegra.