Post by LittleRock on Jul 11, 2005 16:21:44 GMT -5
Down deep in the bowels of the planet Cordem, the thing that once seemed correct was all going terribly wrong! A world where humans didn't mater and orcs and goblins and larkz ruled -
Chapter 1: Zimphade
Dark and dreary was the time. Once this land of darkness was a beautiful paradise where all creatures where equal and could live in peace. The orcs and the goblins and even the larkz were all peaceful once, once a long time ago, before the Evil Derivon. The evil wizard; no one knows for sure how he was created, or even why, but they do know that his body is that of an orc, and his head is like that of dragon.
In legends, he was described as a 50ft tall beast with hot breath that would steam through the nose and could scorch the skin. Always carrying a staff in his right hand that gave him power over all. But, as some say, on the other side of the planet, Rivion, he is just legend that someone created to scare children. A bed time story. But for myself and people on the Zimphade side of the planet, this hard cruel, terrifying legend, was more than just a bed time story, but reality and a way of life.
My name is Ozran, only but a normal human, once a slave to the orcs and other such creatures. Yet I have been taught in the ways of Faldor the Great wizard. As a slave boy I was made to be a thief by the larkz. Every day I would return to them and give them what I had stolen. I first met Faldor when I was trying to steal tibtots (a small form money) from him. For the first time in my life, I was caught stealing. I don’t remember a lot, but I do remember his eyes. Dark emerald that glowed aged his gray beard. I remember the way he looked at me when he grabbed my wrist. A kind old fellow kind of look, like “why are you doing that”.
He being a strong man, I was compelled to stay. Seeing me in my ragged state he showed compassion towards me. Telling him of my awful way of living, he knew my only way out was the way of the wizards. He would come to me secretly, under the cover of night. He would come to me in my room, like a sparkle of gold dust, glimmering in the noon sun. There I would be taught all about the ways of the wizard... even their magic. So there I learned, and now I am 23.
Tomorrow will be my birthday and the celebration of the first full use of my escape from Defon, one of the original slave camps, when Derivon first stared to rule the planet.
~~~~~~
My battered worn out robes were dragging across the dirt, although I never saw the ground any other way, it didn‘t seem as though was meant to be... like, something else should be there. I sat down, exhausted from the long treacherous walk down to the well. I stretched my legs and drank a sip of water.
This not-so-simple task of water fetching in the land of Zimphade is one no ordinary man could bare. But I am no ordinary man, I am a full-blooded elf... one of the few remaining in Cordem. I have never seen one of my own kind, for they are in hiding, and if an elf is in hiding... you will never find him.
I am an orphan and live with the humans, the slaves of the evil wizard, in hiding. I was found inside a hole in a tree (something I have never seen since) by a young woman named Seryni. She took me in and cared for me as if I was her own, when I was three years of age, in mortal years, Seryni bore a child, a boy, Arknas, my best friend. Because of my lineage, I matured, physically, slower than the other children I knew, so when I was ten years, I looked still a baby. When I was in my tweens: my mother bore another child, but she died during the birth. I felt as though I would never be whole... as if there was a hole in my heart. I was never the same happy fun loving child I once was.
My baby sister also had difficulties, when she was but two years of age, she died of an unknown illness. The illness was incurable. I knew it was magic, an evil magic. More people started getting sick after those two terrible deaths of my family, many people died, the clerics could not cure the illness, nor did they know the cause. I made a vow to never let anything happen to anyone I loved, foremost my brother. But I broke my vow, when my brother was forty, he caught it, the mild magicians in our camp could let him live for a few years, but sooner or later he would die.
That is why I am here, my name is Damon, I am now fifty and traveling to the camp Defon, being an elf and the only one who could travel out of the camp, to search for Faldor, the great wizard, to cure my brother of the illness that took the lives of my loved ones.
~~~~~~
The hot sun beat down on Ozran's rough skin. The crisp, cool air, that had once filled his lungs, slowly became warm. Only the buzzing of rock beetles could be heard over the gusts of wind that flicked the dust. The morning clouds had already cleared, and the high noon sun approached the top of the sky.
Ozran sat up from beneath his heavy fur blanket and looked around. He layed his arms around his muscular legs. He wiped the moist dew from his cold, wet face, and then stood up to stretch. Looking down at the pile of ashes where yesterdays fire had once been, he felt a strang feeling in his stomach, it was time to eat!
Ozran was a man with a large blond beard that hanged down to his mid-chest, and had a tall firm stature. His hair was blond and his eyes were like the dark blue sea, never ending, always something deeper to see.
Removing his small leather pouch, he took out just a pinch of a red powdery substance, and threw it into the cold ashes. Immediately, a loud bang screamed through the wasteland, and a full blazed fire appears, just as good and just as new as the night before. Ozran chuckled as he remembers his first memories with Faldor. This small trick was the first lesson Faldor taught him. The first time he tried it, he almost caught his bed on fire.
Sitting himself by the fire, he quickly pulled out a knife, fork, and a plate from inside a bag he wore like a soldier. He started digging in the dirt for something.
"Now where did it go?" he mumbled to his self. "Ah...here it is," He reached down and pulls up from under the ground what appears to be a full skeleton of a fish. Using the same method as the fire, Ozran transformed the bare fish bones into a full, flesh, live fish. He quickly cooked it over the open fire, and ate it to ease his hunger pains.
After satisfying his appetite, Ozran pulled out a braid of lushes golden hair. Although dirty and weathered over the years, it's gold radiance still could bee seen.
It was his mothers hair. He obtained it just after his mother had died. A terrible tragedy, when an ugly orc, drunken on beckly, came out and tried to have his way with here, but as a child, she was taught to defend her self... so she did. The orc, being drunken and deranged, was at a disadvantage, and so she killed him. Realizing what she had done, she ran back to here small slave home. Unfortunately, there where witnesses and so they sought her life and eventually killed both her and her husband that tried so courageously to protect her. Ozran, just being a boy, could do nothing but hide in a shadowy corner as he watched both his mother and father be butchered to death.
Ozran clenched his hand to a fist, tightly around the little braid. He closes his eyes tightly, as a single tear rolled down his cheek. He opened his eyes and looked into the light gray sky.
"Only if we had have been born in Rivion, Only if!" He says. Even then, as a child, he swore revenge on his parents death. Now all this happened before he met Faldor. Ever since then, every year after that, he has always been at his mother and fathers grave site in Defon, on his birthday, for it was on his birthday, that his mother and father were brutally murdered.
This was his first year away from Defon and he has never missed a year. A moment or two of silence went by before he wiped his tears away. Defon was just south of Merdok canyon and a half a days journey away. He would have to sneak in by night, if he was going to have any chance of escaping with his freedom.
Ozran quickly packed his things and headed east to Defon. There was a quicker trail south of his secret location, but he couldn't risk being seen or caught, because any runaway man that was caught was ether killed or sold back into slavery. He took the long way around the Merdok Canyon to the east and then south to Defon.
~~~~~~
"It can’t be much further..".Damon thought to himself as he dragged his feet, he had been heading south now for a week and was exhausted. "How foolish I was to think I could do this... I am only a child. No!" He corrected himself, "I must do it. For my brother... for... mother."
Damon found a large rock and sat behind it, taking hide from the blaring sun. It was a very hot day, which was not good since there he had no water, and the only way to get water was to find a well.
"Why can’t there be an easier way to get water?" He thought to himself. He looked around from where he sat, not wanting to stand up and have the suns hot rays burning his already scorched skin. He looked southward and saw a large black cloud off in the distance. It must be Defon, It looked only a half a day way. He heard stories about there, it never rained because the Evil wizard did not let it. That’s why we have wells. He surely was evil.
The cloud seemed as though it was mad, that it needed to release the water it had been holding for so many years. When Derivon first took over and stopped the rain, all the plants died, as so did most of the elves. He succeeded in killing them only because they were unaware of his presence. He had taken the elves and there magic, one by one, before he was strong enough to kill the rest, and show himself to Zimphade.
Damon did not know how he still lived. He did know that there were others though. Other elves such as himself. He wanted to see them, to talk them, and find out how he survived. He knew there were others, not because anyone told him, but he could feel them. When Derivon took their magic, they still had there senses that were not magic. like advanced hearing, sight, and immortality. But, maybe that wasn’t magic, maybe that was just something that’s just there, maybe they were magic. Is an elf a magical... creature?
Damon stopped day-dreaming, he knew he should be going. He stood up, his legs were asleep, the hot suns rays were stinging the back of his neck. I need to find a well, he thought there should be one at the next camp. So he focused hard due south to see the closest slave camp, he squinted his eyes, the only camp was Defon, his destination. So he set off.
He walked for hours, it was getting dark. The elf felt tired and weary, his legs felt like jelly underneath his small body. He knew Defon wasn’t much further, he could see it still, only a few miles away, but he wanted to rest. He wished he back at his camp with his brother, who...
Then he stopped, he saw something, or someone. His elven eyes could see in the dark, he used to play games in the dark with other kids in camp, and always win. He figured it was human, it’s stature and the way it walked is not like an orc. He didn’t feel any danger coming from him, but he was still cautious. He actually really wanted to speak to someone, he felt very lonely this past week. Knowing he wasn’t dangerous, Damon started running toward the man.
“You there!”, Damon yelled to the stanger. The man stopped walking, and looked around to try to find where the voice came from. Damon, getting closer, slowed until he came into a stop about ten feet from the man.
"Who... who are you?" the man asked in a almost frightened tone.
"My name is Damon," He said, frieghted by the mans appearance. "I'm from the camp Drojin. I'm headed to Defon, looking for the magician Faldor. Could you tell me where to find him?"
"First, what are you, and why are you looking for Faldor"
"I am an elf, and I am looking for Faldor for help. An illness is killing the people of Drojin, and now my brother has caught it and will soon die. please help me."
"So you are an Elf, I thought I was only seen... wait," Ozran paused for a second in deep though, "You said and illness was killing the people of Drojin."
"Wow, your quick." Damon stopped himself, he shouldn't let his smart-alek tongue (or whatever mother called it) take a hold of him like that. "Sorry, Yes they are. And I need the help of a wizard to cure it, it's not a regular illness, it's magic and I think only magic can stop it."
"A magical illness" he said, stroking his beard once or twice. "Yes yes, I now remember something my master magician, Faldor the Great once said to me, he said: 'Ozran my lad, someday in this retched land, you will journey on a quest for good, and when that time comes, you will meet someone that wishes knowledge from you, do what he says and all will be well.'"
"Faldor's your master?"
"Yes, Faldor is my master, but the only way to reach him is much too dangerous."
"But, you've been there before, your his apprentice."
"Yes, of course, but there is a slight problem."
"And that is...."
"Well you see, Faldor is livening secretly in a cave that only myself and Faldor’s dearest friends know about, but the problem is, it is protected by a dragon. The only way I got past it before, is that Faldor told when I should meet him, and called off the dragon right before he expected me."
"Can't you talk to him, like, telepathically or something and let him know your coming?"
"The only way to get passed the dragon is to tame him using magic. Someone will have to get Faldor’s attention, then he will tame the dragon for us."
“Who would be crazy enough to do that?"
“Well..." Ozran looked at Damon with a smirk on his face, "I’m not in search of Faldor"
Damon was taken aback by the man's comment,"But I thought you would help me."
"Help is different than do, but then again, it is to save some...Elves is it?"
"Elves... no. I live with the humans. I'm an orphan. And, no, help is not different from do. And if you don't want to help, and my quest fails, I'll know who's fault it was that all the people at my camp die. "
"Humans huh...? I bet they were slaves, like me. Well I guess today is you lucky day, besides, I have nothing better to do now I’m..."Ozran paused for a second. "No, no today is not your lucky day, but tomorrow will be. So hurry I will tell you about myself on the way."
Damon didn't really care for the man's life story, but... "So you'll help me?"
"Yes I will help you, and I will even go inside the cave, but first we go to Defon to my mothers and fathers grave. I have never missed a year, and I never intend to!"
Both Damon and Ozran walked to Defon conversing of there plan to get passed the dragon on the way.
Chapter 1: Zimphade
Dark and dreary was the time. Once this land of darkness was a beautiful paradise where all creatures where equal and could live in peace. The orcs and the goblins and even the larkz were all peaceful once, once a long time ago, before the Evil Derivon. The evil wizard; no one knows for sure how he was created, or even why, but they do know that his body is that of an orc, and his head is like that of dragon.
In legends, he was described as a 50ft tall beast with hot breath that would steam through the nose and could scorch the skin. Always carrying a staff in his right hand that gave him power over all. But, as some say, on the other side of the planet, Rivion, he is just legend that someone created to scare children. A bed time story. But for myself and people on the Zimphade side of the planet, this hard cruel, terrifying legend, was more than just a bed time story, but reality and a way of life.
My name is Ozran, only but a normal human, once a slave to the orcs and other such creatures. Yet I have been taught in the ways of Faldor the Great wizard. As a slave boy I was made to be a thief by the larkz. Every day I would return to them and give them what I had stolen. I first met Faldor when I was trying to steal tibtots (a small form money) from him. For the first time in my life, I was caught stealing. I don’t remember a lot, but I do remember his eyes. Dark emerald that glowed aged his gray beard. I remember the way he looked at me when he grabbed my wrist. A kind old fellow kind of look, like “why are you doing that”.
He being a strong man, I was compelled to stay. Seeing me in my ragged state he showed compassion towards me. Telling him of my awful way of living, he knew my only way out was the way of the wizards. He would come to me secretly, under the cover of night. He would come to me in my room, like a sparkle of gold dust, glimmering in the noon sun. There I would be taught all about the ways of the wizard... even their magic. So there I learned, and now I am 23.
Tomorrow will be my birthday and the celebration of the first full use of my escape from Defon, one of the original slave camps, when Derivon first stared to rule the planet.
~~~~~~
My battered worn out robes were dragging across the dirt, although I never saw the ground any other way, it didn‘t seem as though was meant to be... like, something else should be there. I sat down, exhausted from the long treacherous walk down to the well. I stretched my legs and drank a sip of water.
This not-so-simple task of water fetching in the land of Zimphade is one no ordinary man could bare. But I am no ordinary man, I am a full-blooded elf... one of the few remaining in Cordem. I have never seen one of my own kind, for they are in hiding, and if an elf is in hiding... you will never find him.
I am an orphan and live with the humans, the slaves of the evil wizard, in hiding. I was found inside a hole in a tree (something I have never seen since) by a young woman named Seryni. She took me in and cared for me as if I was her own, when I was three years of age, in mortal years, Seryni bore a child, a boy, Arknas, my best friend. Because of my lineage, I matured, physically, slower than the other children I knew, so when I was ten years, I looked still a baby. When I was in my tweens: my mother bore another child, but she died during the birth. I felt as though I would never be whole... as if there was a hole in my heart. I was never the same happy fun loving child I once was.
My baby sister also had difficulties, when she was but two years of age, she died of an unknown illness. The illness was incurable. I knew it was magic, an evil magic. More people started getting sick after those two terrible deaths of my family, many people died, the clerics could not cure the illness, nor did they know the cause. I made a vow to never let anything happen to anyone I loved, foremost my brother. But I broke my vow, when my brother was forty, he caught it, the mild magicians in our camp could let him live for a few years, but sooner or later he would die.
That is why I am here, my name is Damon, I am now fifty and traveling to the camp Defon, being an elf and the only one who could travel out of the camp, to search for Faldor, the great wizard, to cure my brother of the illness that took the lives of my loved ones.
~~~~~~
The hot sun beat down on Ozran's rough skin. The crisp, cool air, that had once filled his lungs, slowly became warm. Only the buzzing of rock beetles could be heard over the gusts of wind that flicked the dust. The morning clouds had already cleared, and the high noon sun approached the top of the sky.
Ozran sat up from beneath his heavy fur blanket and looked around. He layed his arms around his muscular legs. He wiped the moist dew from his cold, wet face, and then stood up to stretch. Looking down at the pile of ashes where yesterdays fire had once been, he felt a strang feeling in his stomach, it was time to eat!
Ozran was a man with a large blond beard that hanged down to his mid-chest, and had a tall firm stature. His hair was blond and his eyes were like the dark blue sea, never ending, always something deeper to see.
Removing his small leather pouch, he took out just a pinch of a red powdery substance, and threw it into the cold ashes. Immediately, a loud bang screamed through the wasteland, and a full blazed fire appears, just as good and just as new as the night before. Ozran chuckled as he remembers his first memories with Faldor. This small trick was the first lesson Faldor taught him. The first time he tried it, he almost caught his bed on fire.
Sitting himself by the fire, he quickly pulled out a knife, fork, and a plate from inside a bag he wore like a soldier. He started digging in the dirt for something.
"Now where did it go?" he mumbled to his self. "Ah...here it is," He reached down and pulls up from under the ground what appears to be a full skeleton of a fish. Using the same method as the fire, Ozran transformed the bare fish bones into a full, flesh, live fish. He quickly cooked it over the open fire, and ate it to ease his hunger pains.
After satisfying his appetite, Ozran pulled out a braid of lushes golden hair. Although dirty and weathered over the years, it's gold radiance still could bee seen.
It was his mothers hair. He obtained it just after his mother had died. A terrible tragedy, when an ugly orc, drunken on beckly, came out and tried to have his way with here, but as a child, she was taught to defend her self... so she did. The orc, being drunken and deranged, was at a disadvantage, and so she killed him. Realizing what she had done, she ran back to here small slave home. Unfortunately, there where witnesses and so they sought her life and eventually killed both her and her husband that tried so courageously to protect her. Ozran, just being a boy, could do nothing but hide in a shadowy corner as he watched both his mother and father be butchered to death.
Ozran clenched his hand to a fist, tightly around the little braid. He closes his eyes tightly, as a single tear rolled down his cheek. He opened his eyes and looked into the light gray sky.
"Only if we had have been born in Rivion, Only if!" He says. Even then, as a child, he swore revenge on his parents death. Now all this happened before he met Faldor. Ever since then, every year after that, he has always been at his mother and fathers grave site in Defon, on his birthday, for it was on his birthday, that his mother and father were brutally murdered.
This was his first year away from Defon and he has never missed a year. A moment or two of silence went by before he wiped his tears away. Defon was just south of Merdok canyon and a half a days journey away. He would have to sneak in by night, if he was going to have any chance of escaping with his freedom.
Ozran quickly packed his things and headed east to Defon. There was a quicker trail south of his secret location, but he couldn't risk being seen or caught, because any runaway man that was caught was ether killed or sold back into slavery. He took the long way around the Merdok Canyon to the east and then south to Defon.
~~~~~~
"It can’t be much further..".Damon thought to himself as he dragged his feet, he had been heading south now for a week and was exhausted. "How foolish I was to think I could do this... I am only a child. No!" He corrected himself, "I must do it. For my brother... for... mother."
Damon found a large rock and sat behind it, taking hide from the blaring sun. It was a very hot day, which was not good since there he had no water, and the only way to get water was to find a well.
"Why can’t there be an easier way to get water?" He thought to himself. He looked around from where he sat, not wanting to stand up and have the suns hot rays burning his already scorched skin. He looked southward and saw a large black cloud off in the distance. It must be Defon, It looked only a half a day way. He heard stories about there, it never rained because the Evil wizard did not let it. That’s why we have wells. He surely was evil.
The cloud seemed as though it was mad, that it needed to release the water it had been holding for so many years. When Derivon first took over and stopped the rain, all the plants died, as so did most of the elves. He succeeded in killing them only because they were unaware of his presence. He had taken the elves and there magic, one by one, before he was strong enough to kill the rest, and show himself to Zimphade.
Damon did not know how he still lived. He did know that there were others though. Other elves such as himself. He wanted to see them, to talk them, and find out how he survived. He knew there were others, not because anyone told him, but he could feel them. When Derivon took their magic, they still had there senses that were not magic. like advanced hearing, sight, and immortality. But, maybe that wasn’t magic, maybe that was just something that’s just there, maybe they were magic. Is an elf a magical... creature?
Damon stopped day-dreaming, he knew he should be going. He stood up, his legs were asleep, the hot suns rays were stinging the back of his neck. I need to find a well, he thought there should be one at the next camp. So he focused hard due south to see the closest slave camp, he squinted his eyes, the only camp was Defon, his destination. So he set off.
He walked for hours, it was getting dark. The elf felt tired and weary, his legs felt like jelly underneath his small body. He knew Defon wasn’t much further, he could see it still, only a few miles away, but he wanted to rest. He wished he back at his camp with his brother, who...
Then he stopped, he saw something, or someone. His elven eyes could see in the dark, he used to play games in the dark with other kids in camp, and always win. He figured it was human, it’s stature and the way it walked is not like an orc. He didn’t feel any danger coming from him, but he was still cautious. He actually really wanted to speak to someone, he felt very lonely this past week. Knowing he wasn’t dangerous, Damon started running toward the man.
“You there!”, Damon yelled to the stanger. The man stopped walking, and looked around to try to find where the voice came from. Damon, getting closer, slowed until he came into a stop about ten feet from the man.
"Who... who are you?" the man asked in a almost frightened tone.
"My name is Damon," He said, frieghted by the mans appearance. "I'm from the camp Drojin. I'm headed to Defon, looking for the magician Faldor. Could you tell me where to find him?"
"First, what are you, and why are you looking for Faldor"
"I am an elf, and I am looking for Faldor for help. An illness is killing the people of Drojin, and now my brother has caught it and will soon die. please help me."
"So you are an Elf, I thought I was only seen... wait," Ozran paused for a second in deep though, "You said and illness was killing the people of Drojin."
"Wow, your quick." Damon stopped himself, he shouldn't let his smart-alek tongue (or whatever mother called it) take a hold of him like that. "Sorry, Yes they are. And I need the help of a wizard to cure it, it's not a regular illness, it's magic and I think only magic can stop it."
"A magical illness" he said, stroking his beard once or twice. "Yes yes, I now remember something my master magician, Faldor the Great once said to me, he said: 'Ozran my lad, someday in this retched land, you will journey on a quest for good, and when that time comes, you will meet someone that wishes knowledge from you, do what he says and all will be well.'"
"Faldor's your master?"
"Yes, Faldor is my master, but the only way to reach him is much too dangerous."
"But, you've been there before, your his apprentice."
"Yes, of course, but there is a slight problem."
"And that is...."
"Well you see, Faldor is livening secretly in a cave that only myself and Faldor’s dearest friends know about, but the problem is, it is protected by a dragon. The only way I got past it before, is that Faldor told when I should meet him, and called off the dragon right before he expected me."
"Can't you talk to him, like, telepathically or something and let him know your coming?"
"The only way to get passed the dragon is to tame him using magic. Someone will have to get Faldor’s attention, then he will tame the dragon for us."
“Who would be crazy enough to do that?"
“Well..." Ozran looked at Damon with a smirk on his face, "I’m not in search of Faldor"
Damon was taken aback by the man's comment,"But I thought you would help me."
"Help is different than do, but then again, it is to save some...Elves is it?"
"Elves... no. I live with the humans. I'm an orphan. And, no, help is not different from do. And if you don't want to help, and my quest fails, I'll know who's fault it was that all the people at my camp die. "
"Humans huh...? I bet they were slaves, like me. Well I guess today is you lucky day, besides, I have nothing better to do now I’m..."Ozran paused for a second. "No, no today is not your lucky day, but tomorrow will be. So hurry I will tell you about myself on the way."
Damon didn't really care for the man's life story, but... "So you'll help me?"
"Yes I will help you, and I will even go inside the cave, but first we go to Defon to my mothers and fathers grave. I have never missed a year, and I never intend to!"
Both Damon and Ozran walked to Defon conversing of there plan to get passed the dragon on the way.