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Game of Destiny, Book I: Willow

J Seab


Game of Destiny

  Book I: Willow

  Book One of the Oddment Quest

  A Life-Spirit Journey

  by

  J. Seab

  Copyright 2014 J. Seab

  v3: a few bugs & numerous minor text mods

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Reflections

  Prelude – Denrel’s Fear

  Chapter 1 – Swiik Strands

  Chapter 2 – Swiik’s Message

  Chapter 3 – Everam Joins

  Chapter 4 – Fillip Flops

  Chapter 5 – Fillip and the Quiver

  Chapter 6 – Opening the Oddment

  Chapter 7 – Paddling the Dolfina Isles

  Chapter 8 – Art Points the Way

  Chapter 9 – Everam Searches North

  Chapter 10 – Orc Attack!

  Chapter 11 – Willow is Stranded

  Chapter 12 – Fleeing Death

  Chapter 13 – Stormy Complications

  Chapter 14 – Rogue Attack!

  Chapter 15 – Fillip Preens and Russel Plots

  Chapter 16 – Fillip’s Search for Truth

  Chapter 17 – Everam’s Search for Truth

  Chapter 18 – Marcus Ends the Game

  END Book I

  Map: Known Lands of Etus

  Reflections

  In the days before, material held dominion over the lands.

  Thus was the land shaped by wind, water, and fire.

  But this was not enough,

  And so there was life.

  Life spread without intent, reshaping that which was before.

  But this was not enough,

  And so there was intelligence.

  Intelligence shaped intent, bringing forth order and purpose.

  But this was not enough,

  And so there was Spirit.

  Spirit shaped order and purpose into value.

  —Sofya, Reflections: 1:3

  Prelude

  —————————

  ANUM 4100 PA

  —————————

  Excerpt from The Treatise of the Eleven Tribes

  The Eleven Tribes are known throughout the country of Etus as Caps because of the hardened mushroom caps they wear when topside that completely shield their heads when exposed to even the dim light during morning and evening trading hours. The two small eyeholes and speaking slot generate a mystery about the Caps that has stirred much speculation among the communities of Etus.

  The facts are much more mundane.

  They live most of their lives deep underground within the extensive caverns of the Chain Mountains. This has given them diminutive bodies with large, light-sensitive eyes and protuberant ears that serve them well in their echoing dens lit primarily by the soft glow of a variety of phosphorescent fungi.

  —Phant Raborn, Historian

  For a Cap, Denrel stood an impressive 160 centimeters tall, towering by almost a head over the small group gathered around him in the near darkness of the underground chamber, his voice echoing faintly from tunnels stretching into the unseen distance. His height was emphasized by long, sinewy limbs that seemed to creak as he waved them excitedly about like winter-whitened branches buffeted in a storm.

  “I say, they were five, and they carried long, straight knives, long as this,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “And they snuck through the trees like a fox after a rodent.”

  “What’s a fox?” asked a young Cap.

  “Fox, a small, red, furry animal, like a cat,” Denrel responded.

  “Wait you, young one,” stated another Cap wearing the Three-Stripe sash of the Council of Pastors across her chest. “To what did these five sneak?”

  “Nay I know, Pastor,” Denrel said, chafing at the scratch of the topside robe’s rough fabric hanging across his narrow frame. He longed to remove the offending garment and soak in the bathing pool to help calm his agitated nerves. “I dared not join the sneak in fear of being discovered. They had the look of the fox about them,” he reiterated, “and I feared I had the smell of prey.”

  “What happened after?”

  “I scrunched small behind a bush and they snuck on by. Still I stayed. Then I heard it.” His arms quieted at his sides. He took a long breath, shuddering. “A high-scream it was,” he said, throwing up his arms.

  The Three-Stripe Pastor fell back, startled, “A high-scream?” she asked, signing the spiral of unity over her heart.

  “None other it could be but the wail of a soul shorn in violence.”

  A murmur spread through the group. The Pastor raised her palm for silence. “What then after? Did you seek this high-scream?”

  “Nay,” Denrel confessed. “Still I feared the smell of prey. And little could I do, as I cannot perform the proper protocols.”

  “Aye, there is truth in this.” The Pastor’s eyes swept the group standing quietly within the dimly lit chamber. “Then we must now perform the protocol of absolution for the unknown soul wrenched from this plane.”

  They knelt, crossing their wrists before them, heads bowed in supplication.

  “We beseech you, bright glory of all, master of all, maker of all,” intoned the Pastor. “Assuage the soul that now wanders in torment, wrenched from his body in violence, cast into Between to suffer the sins of others.”

  “All things in harmony,” they recited.

  “Awaken our spirits to the cries of anguish that ripple into our lands from deeds of lust, hate, and lie so that we may fully share the benevolence of the twilight-of-oneness formed from the warmth of your light and the comfort of your darkness.”

  “All things in balance.”

  “In all these things we beseech you, OneGod, the god of all ever before and ever after, with love in our hearts and compassion in our minds.”

  “So be it,” they concluded.

  “Let us now pause a moment,” the Pastor said, lifting her head, “from the thoughts and deeds of the day so that we may dowse the disharmony brought forth into our plane of life, the sour notes of strife that break lives and beget suffering among all people. Let us pull this disharmony close to our hearts, feel the ugliness of its sin, the corruption it brings our community of spirit, and the pain it inflicts onto OneGod.”

  Quiet settled over the small group. Muted echoes of voice and activity drifted in from the dimly lit tunnels surrounding them. They knelt within a small chamber, bathed by the soft, greenish glow of luminescent mushrooms potted within chiseled cavities low along the walls.

  Denrel easily slipped into a state of deep contemplation, pushing aside the unease that gripped him. Sight, sound, and the rough press of stone against his knees faded. He called to the beauty-of-oneness that underlay the all. Slowly, he sensed its pulse grow stronger within his awareness, a pulse that beat without sound and without form. He also sensed an irregularity in the beat, a tremor that gave a ragged edge to its purity. He reached out to that impurity, drew it closer to him, and saw the rawness and discord of it. He brought it into himself, wishing only to smooth the roughness of it, to restore it to the beauty-of-oneness.

  Suddenly his mouth and nose filled with foulness, the reek plunging into his heart, squeezing the breath from him, constricting his heart in pain.

  He struggled, tried to push it away, tried to recapture the beauty-of-oneness. But the pain overwhelmed him and the beauty he sought was torn from him by an encroaching vision of great beasts hurtling through the caverns of his home, slashing and maiming all who stood within their path with long, sharp claws that protruded from their forelegs.

  The blood of the fallen gathered into slick pools that smelled of the taint of the beasts
. He turned and raced away from the devastation, his heart thundering, but a fetid breath, huffing against the back of his neck, followed quickly.

  He stumbled and skidded to the ground. Before he could scramble back to his feet, a noisome mass crashed onto his back. He heard a scream just before the blackness consumed him.