Contents
The Rascor Plains
Copyright
Great Soul Ranks
Power Sets
The Story So Far
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Interlude - The White Queen
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Interlude - Praximar
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Interlude - Moira
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Interlude - Dameon
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Interlude - Leonis
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Thank you! Please read!
The Rascor Plains
Book 2 of
THE IMMORTAL GREAT SOULS
By
Phil Tucker
THE RASCOR PLAINS
BOOK TWO OF THE IMMORTAL GREAT SOULS SERIES
Copyright © 2023 by Phil Tucker. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without expressed permission of the author.
The Great Soul Ranks & Corresponding Mana Type
Imperator | Noumenon
Crimson Earl | Diamond
Charnel Duke | Ruby
Blood Baron | Sapphire
Pyre Lord | Emerald
Dread Blaze | Gold
Flame Vault | Silver
Tomb Spark | Bronze
Emberling | Iron
Cinder | Copper
Char | Coal
Power Sets at end of Book 1
Scorio:
Emberling: Can cover his body in durable black scales, grow horns, and grow lethal white-hot talons.
Tomb Spark: Manifests an aura of crude command that can cow others.
Naomi:
Emberling: Can transform into the Nightmare Lady form, gaunt, terrifying, and with a wicked tail.
Lianshi:
Emberling: Can become completely invulnerable for a short span of seconds.
Leonis:
Emberling: Can summon Nezzar, a great black stone club of immense power and durability.
Jova:
Emberling: The more injured she becomes, the more immune to damage she becomes.
Tomb Spark: Manifests an aura that terrifies those who see her.
Juniper:
Emberling: Her punches leave behind fields of light that move with her foes, blinding them.
Zala:
Emberling: Can unleash butterflies that settle on her target, forcing them to return to their natural human form.
The Story So Far
Scorio awoke with three others within an extended trial he later discovered was called the Gauntlet; he died within, and awoke again inside the Academy. Having lost all his prior memories, he there learned that he was a Great Soul, destined to die and be reborn forever so as to wage war in deepest Hell. But more, he alone in his class was a Red Lister, and thus was thrown through the Final Door by Chancellor Praximar to die.
Instead, with the aid of other Red Listers, amongst whom was a woman named Nissa, he escaped into the city of Bastion, which proved to be wrapped around the inside of a cylinder around a great burning wire whose slow pulses of light mimicked day and night. This city was buried in the plains of Hell like a vast well, where it had existed for almost a millennia.
Furious and bitter, Scorio haunted the Ruins—a growing part of the city that was being consumed by a mysterious rot—and convinced another outcast, Naomi (known as the Nightmare Lady), to train him. Under her tutelage he arose from a mere Char to a Cinder, discovering his Heart and the source of his power. He reconnected with two of his companions from his original run in The Gauntlet—Leonis and Lianshi—and together they trained in the long abandoned Old Gauntlet. In doing so, however, they drew the attention of a fallen Imperator, Imogen the Woe, who nearly destroyed the city before Scorio was able to help a second Imperator, Sol the Just, drive her away.
With Sol’s blessing, Scorio and Naomi were reinstated into the Academy, and there he sought the patronage of House Chimera. For a few weeks, all was bliss, but then Chancellor Praximar discovered Scorio’s criminal activities while banished and sought to blackmail him into performing terribly during the final Gauntlet Run. Scorio refused and confessed his crimes to Chimera, who withdrew their offer of patronage and Scorio’s hopes of mending his Heart.
For his desperate attempts to wrest every advantage and catch up with his Academy cohort had fractured and weakened the source of his power. With Chimera’s promised healing withdrawn, he instead turned to a fiendish Imperial Ghost Toad he’d met in the ruins—Nox—and negotiated with it so that the fiend would help him ascend to the next tier of power.
Submerged in Nox’s imperial gel bath and employing his Delightful Secret Marinating Technique, Scorio broke through to Emberling. Defying the odds, he and his friends entered the end-of-year Gauntlet Run, only for Scorio to release his bitterness and anger when he was about to be defeated and ascend to Tomb Spark. With his new powers he managed to penetrate deepest into the Gauntlet, and shocked Praximar and the whole Academy by defeating the vaunted Jova Spike and coming in first out of his entire class.
Praximar, humiliated and furious, praised Scorio before all and sundry and offered him House patronage; Scorio refused, having gleaned from his own lost past that he couldn’t trust anyone or any institution, and chose to leave the Academy altogether. Worse, Jova Spike followed his example, further humiliating Praximar.
At the end of the novel Scorio, Lianshi, the Nightmare Lady (Naomi), and Leonis all resolved to leave the Academy in search of the truth, a quest in which they were joined by Jova Spike and her two roommates, Juniper and Zala.
With the city of Bastion nearing open revolt due to a failed prophecy that promised the conquest of the Pit, and with Praximar and all of House Hydra furious with them, Scorio and his friends resolved to quest deeper into Hell in order to learn the truth behind the nefarious “Herdsmen” and discover just how much of what they’d been told was a lie.
Chapter 1
“We need to go.” Leonis was tense, his sack of belongings tossed over one broad shoulder. “We’ve taken too long already.”
It was Lianshi who lingered. She bit her lower lip as she cast a final look about their Academy suite: the dining table strewn with scrolls and tomes, the cushioned study corner, the ferns that obscured the azure pool in which they had spent so many evenings debating, laughing, scheming, relaxing.
“I’m sorry. It all feels so abrupt. Unreal. We’re never coming back.” She smiled helplessly at where they waited for her by the door. “I—yes. I’m ready.”
Scorio wanted to hug her tight. She was leaving all this because of him. Hurling herself into an uncertain and dangerous future at his behest.