There are things a mortal man should never attempt.

Stealing fire from the sun? That ranks near the top of the list.

And yet… I did it.

I had no choice.

For there was a time, long before Camelot, before even the oldest legends were written, when magic itself was dying.

The world grew cold. The skies dimmed. The last embers of enchantment flickered, on the verge of vanishing forever.

So I did what no sane man would do.

I climbed beyond the heavens, reached into the burning heart of the sun… and stole its fire.

And the universe has never forgiven me for it.

The Day Magic Began to Die

Magic has never been a guarantee.

It is not a thing of permanence, not a force that exists because it must.

It is a fire, and like all fires, it can burn out.

And once, long ago, it nearly did.

It started with a whisper in the wind, a soft hum that sorcerers across the world began to notice.

A fading.
A thinning.
A quiet unraveling of the very essence of enchantment.

At first, the changes were subtle.

Spells faltered.
Potions lost their potency.
Sacred relics, once brimming with power, became nothing more than cold stone and metal.

Then the real horror began.

The wizards of the world—myself included—felt our connection to the Arcane Weave weaken.

And soon after, some lost it entirely.

Vanishing like embers in a dying flame.

One by one, the great sorcerers of the age faded into oblivion, as if they had never existed at all.

And I knew…

If I did not act, I would be next.

The Impossible Quest

The answers did not lie in books.

Nor in ancient ruins, nor in the whispers of the fae.

Magic itself was not merely vanishing.

It was being drained.

I sought out the Oracle of Kal’Zirath, a being older than the stars, who lived in the void between worlds.

“Why is magic dying?” I asked.

The Oracle’s many eyes blinked in sorrow.

“Because the Sun is forgetting.”

I frowned. “Forgetting what?”

“That it once gifted fire to the world.”

A terrible realization dawned on me.

Magic was not dying on its own.

It was being taken back.

The Sun—the great cosmic force that had once breathed life into the Arcane Weave—was withdrawing its gift.

And if I wanted to stop it…

I would have to steal it back.

The Climb Beyond the Heavens

Mortal men do not walk into the sun.

To touch its flames is to be unmade, to be reduced to nothingness in an instant.

But I have never been just a mortal man.

I climbed a path that should not have existed, a staircase of woven light that spiraled into the stars, shifting with every step, leading me beyond the edge of the sky itself.

Above me, the Sun loomed—a burning god, a living inferno of ancient power.

It was not a place.

It was a being.

And it was waiting for me.

The Guardians of the Solar Fire

As I approached, they emerged.

The Solar Sentinels.

Beings of pure flame, forged from the first fires of creation, their forms shifting between humanoid and monstrous, their eyes burning with the heat of ten thousand stars.

“No further, Merlin,” one of them thundered.

“You seek what cannot be taken.”

I raised my staff.

“Magic belongs to the world.”

“Magic was a gift,” another Sentinel hissed. “And the gift has been revoked.“

I had no time to argue.

The firestorm came first—a maelstrom of living flame, curling toward me with the force of an exploding sun.

I threw up a barrier, a shield woven from the last remnants of fading magic.

It held.

Barely.

And that was when I realized…

If I failed, this would not be just the end of my quest.

It would be the end of all sorcery.

The Theft of the Sun’s Fire

I reached into the heart of the inferno.

My skin blistered.
My bones screamed.
My very soul caught fire.

But I did not stop.

The Sun’s core pulsed before me—a sphere of raw, untamed fire, the very essence of magic itself.

I spoke the first spell ever written, a word of power so ancient that even the gods had forgotten it.

And then—

I took it.

I stole fire from the Sun.

And the universe shook.

The Sun’s Wrath

A roar split the cosmos, deep and endless, as the Sun itself awoke to my crime.

The Sentinels shrieked, fading into nothingness as the stolen fire left their grasp.

The celestial bridge beneath me began to shatter, the very sky trembling.

“You have doomed yourself, Merlin,” the Sun whispered.

“This fire cannot be held by mortal hands.”

I could already feel it.

The stolen flame… it was burning me from the inside.

Tearing at my essence.

I had won…

But only for a moment.

Because the Sun was right.

No mortal could hold its fire.

And if I did not act soon, it would consume me whole.

And so, I made one final decision.

The Fire That Could Not Be Contained

I had stolen fire from the Sun.

And now, it was trying to burn me from within.

The raw, searing heat coursed through my veins like liquid lightning, threatening to consume my very soul.

I staggered across the crumbling celestial bridge, watching as the sky itself fractured around me.

The Sun was furious.

The very fabric of reality shuddered under its wrath.

“No mortal can hold the fire of creation, Merlin.”

The Sun’s voice boomed through the heavens, not as a sound, but as a force.

A weight pressing against my bones, my mind, my very existence.

I had seconds before I burned away completely.

I needed a way to contain the fire.

And there was only one way.

The Creation of the First Vessel

Magic, in its purest form, is chaos.

It is energy unshaped, untamed, a storm without direction.

And now, it lived inside me.

But magic—even fire stolen from the gods—could be bound.

If only for a time.

I raised my free hand, tracing symbols in the air, shaping a spell of containment.

Not to extinguish the fire.

Not to give it back.

But to trap it.

The spell pulled at the world itself, weaving together the oldest elements—sky, stone, and spirit.

And from those forces, I forged the first Vessel.

A sphere of crystalline glass, infused with the very fabric of time itself, meant to hold the flame without letting it consume the world.

With the last of my strength, I forced the stolen fire into the Vessel—

And the moment it left my body, I collapsed.

The Fall Back to Earth

The celestial bridge shattered beneath me, no longer holding me aloft.

I plummeted.

Through the atmosphere, through the veil between the mortal and the divine, falling toward the world below like a dying comet.

The only thing that kept me alive was the Vessel clutched in my hand, the fire within still burning, but contained.

The world below rushed toward me.

And then—

I crashed.

The Wound in the Earth

I woke in a crater.

A massive scar upon the land, where nothing remained but charred soil and broken sky.

The very place I had landed was now cursed, unable to grow life again for a thousand years.

And at the center of that ruin…

Lay the Vessel.

Still intact.

Still glowing with the stolen fire.

But before I could rise—before I could even take a breath—

I felt them.

The Hunters of the Sun.

And they had come for me.

The Sun’s Judgment

They descended from the sky, their forms half-light, half-shadow, cloaked in the radiance of the cosmos.

Not gods.

Not mortals.

But something in between.

“You have stolen what was never meant to be touched.”

Their leader’s voice burned through my mind, sharp as a blade.

“You have taken what belongs to the Sun.”

“And now, Merlin… you will answer for it.”

I struggled to my feet, my body still weak, broken from the fall.

“Magic was dying,” I rasped. “I did what had to be done.”

“You have doomed yourself,” one of the Hunters hissed. “No man steals from the Sun and lives.”

“Then you will have to kill me,” I said, gripping my staff, summoning the last remnants of my power.

Because I was not going to give it back.

Not yet.

Not until I knew the world was safe.

Not until I knew magic would survive.

And so, the battle began.

The Battle for the Stolen Fire

The Hunters moved like lightning, their weapons forged from pure sunfire, each strike burning through the air with a heat that could turn mountains to dust.

I fought like a man who had nothing left to lose.

My spells twisted the sky into storms, my staff carved paths through fire itself, my magic burning brighter than it ever had before.

But I was weak.

And the Hunters…

They were endless.

Each time I struck one down, another took its place, their presence as inevitable as the sunrise.

Until, at last, I fell to one knee.

Breathing ragged.

Body broken.

The Vessel still glowing in my grasp.

The leader of the Hunters loomed over me.

“You cannot win, Merlin.”

“You are a man. And men do not defy the Sun.”

And then, the final blow fell.

The Fire’s Choice

I expected death.

I expected pain.

But what I did not expect…

Was for the fire itself to intervene.

The Vessel shattered in my hand, its power spilling out, unraveling like golden smoke.

For a moment, I thought it was returning to the Sun.

That all my struggle had been for nothing.

But then—

The fire spoke.

Not in words.

Not in sound.

But in understanding.

“I was stolen once before.”

“Not by you.”

“But by those who would claim me as theirs alone.”

The Hunters hesitated.

The leader’s eyes widened.

“What are you saying?” he whispered.

The fire burned brighter, filling the world with impossible light.

“Magic was never meant to belong to one force alone.”

“Not to the Sun.”

“Not to the gods.”

“It is meant to burn in many hands.”

And then—

The fire chose.

It left the heavens.

It poured into the world.

Into the rivers.
Into the trees.
Into the wind.
Into the very bones of the earth.

Magic was free again.

The Hunters let out a terrible cry, realizing they had lost.

And one by one…

They vanished.

Defeated not by battle, but by the will of the fire itself.

The Sun’s Final Words

The sky was silent.

The Sun—now whole, but changed—watched from above, its heat no longer as cruel, no longer as distant.

It did not punish me.

It did not thank me.

It simply whispered one thing before turning away.

“You have changed the world, Merlin.”

“For better… or for worse.”

And then it was gone.

The fire was no longer the Sun’s alone.

It was part of the world now.

Part of us.

And that, traveler, is the truth behind all magic.

Not a gift from gods.

Not a relic of some long-lost age.

But a stolen fire—one that was never meant to be controlled.

And if ever you hear the Sun whisper your name in the dead of night…

Remember.

Some debts are never truly paid.