Valhalla: The Story of the First Sage

"Yet the legion remains, unbreaking and unrelenting."
This page discusses content that is, for the time being, no longer in active development. It also contains heavy spoilers.
Valhalla: The Story of the First Sage (often shortened to Valhalla or V:TSotFS) is a dual-plot novel made by game designer Cactusleaf36 with major assistance from director The_WellDoneLemon. It serves as an introduction to the Story of Sages franchise, as it introduces many important aspects of the series such as magic, The Overworld, Archamine, and Tritium. As such, it is a prequel to each of the Story of Sages games, taking place in the year 1642. As of writing (6/4/2024), the novel's development has been put on hold due to several reasons, such as:
* The novel's writing style being too bland.
* Not meeting the author's quality standards.
* Several punctuational oversights.
* A lack of interesting events and dialogue.
* A lack of professionalism and proper world-building.
* Issues with plot armor.
* Loss of motivation for the project.
* And, most importantly, the fact that it was too inefficient to constantly update the novel to match the lore of the games.
Do keep in mind that some, if not most of these issues are primarily relevant to the novel's main storyline.
== Characters ==
=== The Doctor ===
The Doctor is a vigilant and enduring hero who wears a leather plague doctor mask, a fedora, a hood, leather gloves, boots, a blazer, and long pants; all of which are black. He is also described as having pale skin, long, dirty blonde hair, and navy blue eyes. Born and raised in Scaroff, he shows some levels of clumsiness, but has a decently high pain tolerance and can survive most injuries fairly well, having been gashed open by a halberd at some point in Chapter 4. He is also shown to mature at basic survival, but can be cowardly, poor with resource management, and prone to strain.
Throughout the novel, more is revealed about The Doctor's life, where the reader eventually learns that his resilience is due to him being a type of Sage known as a Guardian Sage, as characterized by his eye color.
=== Jester ===
Jester is a tall, red-haired woman who wears numerous belts and black, short-sleeved clothes; namely a crop top and medium-length shorts. She is one of several Arachnid-folk encountered throughout the novel. She is very knowledgeable and caring in secret but often comes off as cold or quick-witted.
=== Yort ===
An intelligent Darktopus with a love for food and magic. However, he is still a wild animal, and is therefore prone to aggression or cowardice.
=== The Stitched One ===
The Stitched One is a mysterious traveling merchant who's always equipped with a long, navy blue cloak, a massive bag of wares, a wallet, a sickle, an oil lantern, and a large, circular mask made of ivory that features two raindrop-shaped eyes and a stitched mouth. Having ran Staples & Stitches for 7 years and known Coatyl for 4 years, he is quite greedy, yet is often a saving grace to keep The Doctor from going insane; usually showing up when it's least expected. His whole business revolves around Ectoplasmic Yen, a more valuable form of Praqra that, when enough is amassed, has the power to raise the dead.
=== Coatyl ===
A green DragonBorne who aids The Doctor in learning about dark arts, as well as hinting about him being a Sage. He's friendly and knowledgeable, but is very stingy with his possessions. Coatyl also manages Dark Omen, a magic store dedicated to dark arts and necromancy. Coatyl is overall quite generous as well, as he provides a place for The Doctor to sleep in Chapter 5, some tea to lift his morale, and a brief summary of how Christianity was outlawed in The Overworld. Lastly, Coatyl is dating The Stitched One, another shop manager. In exchange for offering some of his wares to The Doctor for free, he asks them to deliver a bouquet of snapdragons to his lover.
== Plot (Prologue-Chapter 1) ==
The plot of Valhalla: The Story of the First Sage begins with The Doctor, the novel's main protagonist, waking up in a Karthan graveyard where he slowly returns to his feet, only his memories are foggy to the point where he doesn't even remember his own name. Unbeknownst to The Doctor, in that same graveyard is his own gravestone, which implies that not only was he exhumed by someone, but he was also presumed dead or even buried alive. The Doctor quickly learns that a global conflict, named the Black-Blooded War, is occurring outside of Karthot, which is currently serving as a refuge for civilians. As night begins to fall on his first day in the wilderness, The Doctor seeks shelter in a rickety inn, where he finds a tarantula in his room. As The Doctor begins to fall asleep, the tarantula uses magic to revert to a human being, whose name is eventually revealed to be Jester. It's here that a Darktopus that The Doctor encountered the previous day steals some of The Doctor's breakfast, who is eventually named Yort and kept as a pet by The Doctor.
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