[MAJOR SPOILERS!]
Let’s travel back in time, shall we?
Four books ago, we lived in a world where dices couldn’t help anyone fight dragons, dragons, and humans didn’t have any shared mental linking and the word ‘beacon’ didn’t require capitalization and wasn’t the group name for three dragons.
Oh well, here we are, and it’s all because of a dare.
Book 1 – The Search for Synergy
The first book introduced us to the magical world in which The Talisman Series is set. The world has a bit of history that you might need a revision on, so let’s do a short history lesson from the author Brett Salter himself.
Long ago, before mankind held any power, the Earth was quite different. It was a dark and evil realm. Inhabiting the shadows were several races of creatures that were known as the Darkbrands. These malevolent brutes were united under the rule of a cruel and despicable warlord known as The Tyrant King.
At the same time, living in the mountains, was a resilient race of beings, the Dens of the Dragons. The First, the original dragon lord, was the leader of the Dragon Dens. The Tyrant King wanted to destroy the dragons because they offered harmony to the chaos of the world. The First possessed much of the same ambition and sought domination as well. His desire was to eradicate the Darkbrands and to claim the entire realm for himself. Under the guise of a peace treaty, a ritual was created to unite the two wicked lords’ hearts thus giving the possibility of control to ONE leader. You see, all dragons, even The First, are born with incomplete hearts. No dragon could ever reach his full potential unless bonded with another entity, but the Tyrant King did not know this. The Tyrant King and The First could not wait to gain control over the other and become the solitary ruler of Earth.
During the ritual, a strange and beautiful thing happened. The evil that was in The First’s heart was released. As The First’s new heart became pure with the magic, The Tyrant King’s heart became ever darker. In the next few years, he put his plan to enslave the dragons into motion. But the power of The First was too great. He and his dragons destroyed much of The Tyrant King’s army. Since The First and The Tyrant King shared the same heart, the dragon realized he could not kill his bound brother. The First knew he would need to detain The Tyrant King, so he banished him and his minions to The Void a realm created from the evil that left The First’s heart.
As peace and goodness flourished in the world, the race of man began to rise. In the early years, the dragons fought many wars against the evil that slips into our world from The Void. It wasn’t until the time of King Arthur that the Great Synergy was revived, and men and dragons found that together they could protect the realm of Earth. But men were not as pure of heart as dragons, and as time lengthened the distance from Arthur and his knights, men became distrustful of dragons. Not willing to fight against this race they grew to love, the dragons simply used their innate magic and disappeared. That was until the evil of The Void began to leak in earnest into our world again.
We were also introduced to the two teenagers who would be the protagonists of the series. Rome Lockheed may seem like an ordinary 13-year-old, and even he thought that of himself. He is a fire dragon from the Den of Volcana. Julian Rider, his sworn brother, is a Synergist Knight from The House of Rider. We meet Mr Jones, who leads a double life of local librarian and a wizard who will train these two boys. They are destined to save the world against monsters called Darkbrands who are invading from an alternate dimension.
They are limited in their powers currently. Rome is new to this world, and his dragon skin and Julian is stuck with a dice that generates paper clips and frying pans. They manage to seal a portal, but they need to get better fast if they hope to save the world.
While performing good deeds, they manage to attract attention from a mysterious figure hiding in the shadows. However, that’s for another book. For now, they are travelling to England in search of more portals to close and allies to befriend.
Book 2 – Riders of Fire and Ice
They do find allies but unexpected ones.
First, we have Camela Rider, a rebel against her father’s teaching, just like her older-brother Julian. She had a dragon of her own, an Ice Dragon named Krysta. This ally is falling for Rome very quickly.
Two more allies are great but wait, there’s one more. The mystery shadow turns out to be Mrs Case, the boys’ principal. She was a student of Mr Jones’ predecessor and has wind Talisman, Fujin’s Teardrop.
This book is also when Nocturns start possessing people. Zhangal the Wraith-sickle possesses Mrs Case. Luckily, the team takes it out of her and throws the Nocturn back into the void.
While the team was busy closing a portal, Mr Jones was chatting with strangers on the Internet. He even made a pal, Beacon.
Book 3 – Windy City Ruins
The boys go to New York with Mrs Case to meet Beacon, who they discover to be the group name of wind dragons Stratus, Skye and Marin. These new allies tell them that portals are appearing fast, and the monsters are trying to find Talismans. In other words, the allies have targets on their backs.
They return to Atlanta soon after. While continuing their mission to close another portal, they find more allies in Clay Andreas and Jericho Rider. Yes, you read it right, Rider, as in House of Rider. He is Camela and Julian’s cousin. The name Clay sounds familiar too, doesn’t it? He’s Rome’s friend from school in the first book. In this book, they are now Synergist Knight Jericho Rider, another rebel of the House of Rider and Clay Andreas, an Earth dragon.
They close a portal, and what else, oh right, love is in the air for Rome. There is also the issue of our protagonists losing their powers.
Book 4 – The Battle for Verdana
This book was quite interesting in its finding of new objects and allies.
The Den of Verdana finds our boys and a member, Moon Orchid, made a deal with the boys to exchange some concealment spells for the location of a possible Talisman. This Den gets attacked right after, and the brave boys protect them.
Later, the boys reunited with their allies, and they all went to The Gobi Desert in search of Arthur’s buried treasure.
The team finds the Fire Talisman, but Julian kind of breaks it. Then an attack takes place upon our team, but they survive. The boys got their powers back thanks to the Fire Talisman with upgrades.
Do you want to hear something cool? After the boys got their powers back, a small lizard magically appeared. Brett hasn’t told us what that’s about, but he has a new book coming out soon. He is sure to solve that mystery but add a couple more too.