| Some time ago I wrote a story called "The Greatest Magic." It was about forty pages long and it was the very first of my original stories where I at one point drew the characters in anime style. All the characters were furries and the story set in a medieval kingdom called Liare-ya. The main character was a snow leopard named Jules who becomes the king's court sorcerer after the old one, an iguana named Pelion dies. Jules develops his magical talents, falls in love with the fox princess, Embera, and ends up saving the entire kingdom of Liare'ya from an evil force, the arrival of which was foretold by an old prophecy. I liked the story so much that I eventually went to the trouble to write out a full musical score for the story, as if it were a film. I put up the music on an old music program I had and printed out the sheet music and made a music book from a binder, complete with illustrations on the front and back covers as well as on the inside. Then I hooked up a midi device between the computer and my keyboard and used it to record a fully orchestrated version of my music onto a cassette tape. In quality t sounded a lot like music from an RPG video game; I couldn't have more than one instrument playing at once, so I had to be really creative with the sounds I used. Somehow they got made into midis, rather by accident. But it was fun listening to midis of my own music. Perhaps one day I'll rewrite the story and redraw the characters for anyone who's interested in this old original. ;) But for now, here are a few of the midis from The Greatest Magic soundtrack. I've put up several of them, but there are at least eleven more, so if you'd like to hear them, please email me or sign my guestbook saying so-- doing so would make me very happy! :D They are all very short; I think they're all under two minutes long. The pieces are placed in somewhat chronological order of the scenes they accompany. |
| THE GATE--- Our hero, Jules, stares through the tall gates of the city he lives in, longing for freedom from the boring, restrictive life he leads as a lowly peasant... |
| THE TOLL OF THE BELL--- The long tones at the beginning signal the bells ringing throughout the city to bring its citizenry to the palace, where the king makes the announcement of his impending need of a new sorcerer. (Pelion is still alive, but death is imminent) |
| AT FIRST SIGHT--- After Jules is accepted as Pelion's magic student and Liare'ya's future court sorcerer, Jules enters the palace for the first time... and meets Princess Embera for the first time. However, Jules is quickly rushed off to begin his magic training... |
| THE FIRST DISCOVERY--- Jules has decided that it's his duty to at least try to save his kingdom. He begins studying magic to the point of exhausting himself physically and mentally-- as a payoff he adds years of training to his ability in just a couple of weeks. This BGM accompanies his first accomplishments. |
| THE DEATH--- Jules has long since been introduced to the world of magic. He is long from having the abilities of the sorcerer he is meant to be, but Pelion's impending death gets in the way of his learning. Jules, along with the King, Queen and Princess stay with Pelion until his death... then immediately afterward, the King and Queen become possessed by some unknown force and attack Jules and Embera, who escape from the castle. They escape from the city, despite the efforts of the citizenry of Liare-ya (also possessed) to kill them. |
| THE BALCONY--- A romantic scene between Jules and Embera, set, of course, on one of the balconies of Liare-ya palace. Jules reveals his lack of confidence in his abilities, and Embera conforts him. |
| THE JOURNEY--- After escaping from the city, Jules and Embera meet up with a friendly, clumsy dragon (I forget his name). He recalls having a book that contains the prophecy foretelling the coming of the recent disaster. He decides to help them out by giving them a ride to his cave home. Unfortunately, it's through a lightning storm! |
| FEW HAVE LIVED--- After finding the aforementioned tome, Jules learns that this event is a curse that plagues Liare-ya-- evil spirits that were sent to an underworld dimension manage to ressurrect themselves into the bodies of the sovereign and citizenry of Liare-ya in hopes of turning the kingdom into a place of evil and darkness. He reads that every court sorcerer must eventually deal with this curse once in his carreer as sorcerer, whether they're just starting out or have been practicing magic for decades. He also learns that while every time the spirits have visited his world they have been driven back, he reads that very few sorcerers have ever survived the ensuing battle and the process of sending them back. He goes into a deep depression-- somehow Embera and his dragon friend pull him out of it, eventually, with the help of... |
| Wow. I'll have to put up some of the BGMs inbetween the last and this event. Jules, Embera and their dragon friend journey back to a completely evl-saturated Liare-ya and break into the palace. Jules makes an attempt to "exorcize" the possessed king... but fails... He and Embera are captured (the dragon never entered the castle, so he's free). Embera is put in a dungeon and Jules is trapped inside a black forcefield that, through illusions of sound and sight, draws on his worst fears and converts them to energy for the evil spirits to feed upon. Fortunately, Jules pulls himself out of despair and breaks out... he rescues Embera and with renewed courage, and after a lengthy battle defeats the spirit possessing the King, sending the evil spirits back where they came from. |
| FINALE--- Default happy ending time! The King transforms back into his original form, along with the people of Liare-ya... the black clouds lift, the sun comes out, and everything is happy again. The King has summonned the citizens of Liare-ya to the palace court to acredit the kingdom's new savior. Jules even sees the spirit of his old friend Pelion watching the festivities. And how could a story like this possibly be complete without a romantic kiss between the hero and heroine? Yep, it's all good. ;) |
| If you'd like to hear or read more, please contact me-- one request is all it takes to get more music up here... if I get a few requests for the actual story, I just might go to the trouble of typing it up again (maybe even revising it!) and putting it up here. Ja! |