• Story of a Hero

    This is a story of a boy, a young man I should say. It all starts in a dark forest with blade at the ready, ignorant of the fate that awaits him beyond these cold iron gates. He pushes the gate open to see what awaits him, and there, a few feet ahead of him he sees his brother, fighting to the death against a necromancer. As his brother swings his mighty blade at the man in the robes of deathly black, the man steps back quickly and puts out his hand and casts a blazing fireball at my brother.

    My brother was too slow to dodge the inferno of the fireball, in the middle of his powerful swing going at the strange man; he had cut into the searing heat of the fireball. The fireball exploded on impact of the cold steel of the short sword and killed him instantly. I looked at my brother’s burnt up corpse and look at the man in the robes. The man says, “Do you know this poor unlucky fellow?” I look over at him and nod slowly and say quietly “That was my brother”.

    The man nods and looks at the burnt up corpse and puts his hand out swiftly and mumbles some random words, as I am watching him do this I see my brother get up slowly. I was overjoyed to see my brother getting up, but I noticed it wasn’t my brother; it was a mindless slave of the necromancer now. The man said “I am Corthus The Necromancer, I hope you and your brother have fun trying to kill each other” as he said that he started to laugh to himself and disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

    I look at my undead brother. As I pull out my long sword, I say “Brother, it’s me, don’t do this. Fight it… Fight it brother!” but he had run at me with his sword up and ready to fight. I blocked it and I looked into his cold, dead eyes, and parried his sword off to the left, I took a step back and put up my shield quickly.

    He kept slashing at my wooden shield, and then I acted back without thinking, I bashed him back with the shield making him stumble backwards and I just swung the sword with all my might and cut his head off his shoulders. I think to myself, “I am sorry brother, it was the only way, I know a person shouldn’t die twice but I had to put you to rest.”

    I look at the head that has fallen to the ground, to make sure this doesn’t happen again, I stomped on his head until it smashed into itself. I put my sword back into my belt ,and run back to the village crying but as I run back to the village I see a black smoke rising from the village ahead, my home.



    I started to run as fast as I can but I kept falling over. I finally made it back to the village after falling many times, but when I make it back to the village I see nothing but bodies littering the earth and buildings on fire and falling apart.

    That young man I told you about before is me….. Leo Ixen. I have nowhere to go and nothing to eat. But I decided to go into the ruins of my village to find anything that I could use to survive till I made it to another village. I looked around where the stores used to be, I had found a leather bag that I could strap on my back, a sword, a steel shield, some food that would last me a week or so, some water skins, bed roll and some full plate armor you see on that royal knights that ride past the village. My father was a royal knight this might be his retired suit, I am going to put it on now.

    Now that that is done, time to see what where the next village is. Now I am out on the dirt road going through the woods that hopefully leads to the next village. On the way, I encountered a goblin; it started to run at me. I pulled out the sword I found in the ruins and I swung at the goblin, the goblin moved out of the way of the long sword and punched me in the side. Thank god for armor, I took another swing at the goblin, success, but when I hit the goblin it had screamed something awful and then caught on fire and fell down died. I looked at the burnt up goblin corpse that has fallen on the ground before me.

    A few hours later I finally made it a village, nice that this one wasn’t on fire. I walked in to the village and a few minutes later I noticed that the villagers were staring at me and on raised his short sword to me in respect. I was so confused then I remember I was wearing royal knight armor.

    I kept my mouth shut and asked him if there was a place I could rest, the villager said at the Heavy Lid Tavern there was beds to rest in on the second floor. I walked to the tavern it was easy to find, so many drunken men dancing and singing outside, I walked into the tavern and it got all quiet. I looked around and walked up to the barkeep and asked if I could buy a room to rent for the night, the barkeep said “normally I would ask you to pay ten copper pieces but since you’re a royal knight you can have the room for free” I looked in my back and I pulled out one silver piece and gave it to the barkeep and I asked “would this be enough” and he replied “Yeah, one silver piece costs 10 copper pieces so you can head up to your room, have a good night sir.


    I say my thanks as I walk up stairs to my room to rest for the night. When I head up to my room I drop my bag and decide to look inside it for anything was that was in there before I threw my stuff in. I looked in I found twenty silver pieces, a dagger and a book of the laws. I put it all back into the bag and laid down and thought “I will kill Corthus even if I die trying”. I took off my armor, I noticed I had a bruise where the goblin punched me, oh well then I tried to fell asleep.
    Next Morning, I woke up to the sound of a bar fight. I thought to myself “that must be normal around here”. I put my armor back on and I walked out of the tavern and kept going on my way. Then a man had stopped me and asked where I was going, I replied I don’t know really the next village I guess. A man walked up to me and he had dark blue skin red eyes and long white hair. The man introduced himself to me “hello I am Geth, I am heading over to the next village as well, the path is dangerous to go alone can I go with you?” I looked at him and said “sure why not, let’s head out.” We started going out on the dirt road and after a few hours it was getting harder to walk and it was getting darker outside.

    I turned to Geth and asked “if we should rest now or keep going till it’s really dark out” Geth had replied “we should sleep now”. I kept asking him what he does for a living, he simply replied “I’m a hunter and I’m damn good with a bow” I said “alright, that’s all I wanted to know “I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed up and watched around if anything was going to attack us, hours passed on and something was going to come near but it ran any, maybe a deer. I could see the sun peeking out of the darkness ahead so I got Geth up and ready to continue on to the village.

    We started walking for a while and after a few minutes a imp ran cross the road and Geth had pulled out his bow and shot it before it had a chance to even see us, I looked over at Geth and said “remind me to never get on your bad side” Geth chuckles a little and says “alight, the imp is dead and that’s our meal for today”. Geth had stuff to make fire and we cooked the imp to eat it, surprisingly it tasted really good. I thanked Geth for the food and we headed out on our merry way.

    We had made it to the village in a couple hours; there was a sign before you entered the village it read “Moonshire” I turn and look at Geth “looks like a nice place to be, I am going to keep going from here your welcome to join me on my quest.” He looked at me funny and said “you’re a royal knight don’t you need to protect the kingdom, but why are you so far away from the kingdom” I said long story I will tell you if you decide to join me on my quest.”

    It was a few hours till Geth Decided to join me on my quest, we sat in the tavern and I explained everything that has happened, Geth said “that this wasn’t the first time the necromancers attacked randomly and they did it a couple weeks ago to a village not far from here.” I told him “that we should go there then in the morning to see what we can find out from the survivors”. All the light from Geth’s had gone away as he put his head down and said “if they were alive, sure… There all undead now, I think we should stay away from there”.




    I turn to order a drink for Geth and I whip back around to look at him and say “we should kill the undead so they can’t hurt anyone else, and put their souls and bodies to rest. He decides to drink the ale I had ordered for him, it’s funny to see the ale dribble out of the corner of his mouth. I get up and walk over to the barkeep and ask for two rooms and put two gold pieces down. I turn to Geth and say loudly “Time to rest, I bought you a room.” I walk up stairs and turn a right to go to hall were the rooms are located, as I turn I see a man getting mugged right there.

    I start to jog over there and Geth follows, I grab the mugger and pull him off the poor person and I try to pin him to the wall but I had some difficulty’s keeping the mugger settled down and I decided to punch him a few times the mugger fell down unconscious. I turn my around enough to see Geth walked back to the stairs I yell “tell the barkeep to get the town soldiers, and let’s get to bed now.” That night I couldn’t get to sleep I was thinking about the mugging, and how it was like my home village, being burned to the ground that day, after an hour or so I drifted to sleep.

    I woke up later that night, I had a nightmare… it was the night were the village was burned to the ground it kept playing in my head over and over. I gave up on sleeping that night, a few hours of sleep is good I decided to read the book of laws in my bag in till morning. Geth had gotten out of bed really early, must be a hunter thing. We packed up our things and headed out to the path that would take us to the burnt village.

    As we walked down the path it seemed everything was normal, until a man jumped out of a tree and in front of us. The man was about my height and his hair was short brown curly hair and he had pointed ears, He was clearly a half elf. His sword was drawn and ready, and Geth had his bow pointed at the man. I stepped in and introduced myself, “Hello there I am Leo and who might you be?” The man said “I am Donon I am the ranger of this part of the wood and the path what are you doing here” I simply replied “ I am here to clear the next town of the undead so it can be rebuilt, would you like to join us?” Donon smiled and said “I would love to join you slaughter the undead in the burnt town of Adenwood.” Geth had put his bow down and the arrow back in to quiver strapped to his back.

    After meeting Donon, as we walked the dirt road we could see the remains of the burnt town and a horde of undead walking around mindlessly bumping in to each other. We all walked closer the town; the smell of rotting flesh was in the air. The trio pulled out there weapons and continued closer in till Geth noticed an Elven Sorceress fighting the undead with another elven.

    Geth ran in to the town not thinking and blinded with love for the elven woman, shooting arrows left and right at the undead, then the rest of us ran in to the pit of death and decay slashing and shooting. I yell “there’s to many undead get those two out of there now!!” Geth ignored me and kept shooting at the undead, and clearing a path for the two eleven people to move out and to us the sorceress kept shooting small blazing fireballs from the tips of her skinny fingers and the other elven was male and was running to us and he had two curved back daggers in his hands, slashing at the undead as he ran past them. Donon was moving back slowly but kept fighting the undead that started to crowd him.

    We circled up and let the undead pour down on us, kept slashing and hacking at the mindless undead in till they all had died. Geth turned to the sorceress and asked “who are you?” she replied with a soft and quiet voice “I am Takarah, the sorceress of what I used to call Adenwood and the rouge is my brother Renki” After she had said that said had looked at the ashes of her home.

    Geth replied “Sorry to hear about that Takarah, I am Geth, I am just a ranger. Geth noticed Rensi looked little like his sister he was shorter with black hair with eyes the color of ice, his sister Takarah had long black hair that went down to her back with green eyes.
    We walked back in to the woods before the burnt down village carefully, after Geth and Donon checked Takarah and Renki if they injured. They had no fatal injuries, only a couple scratches and bruises. I ask Rensi “do you know where the next village is?” Rensi was curt with his reply “Walk through this burnt up ash pit to the dirt road on the other side” I reply “thank you Renki, your welcome to come with us to the next village” Rensi walks over to his sister and starts talking to her.

    Renki looks at us over his shoulder and goes back to whispering to Takarah, Renki says “should we go with them, we have no home now.” Takarah replies with a quick turn and walks over to us and says “Me and my bother would be honored to come with you to the next village.” We started on what’s left of the path out of the village, Renki heard something behind us and spun around and looked, it was an undead dragging its self to get us. Takarah looked at it and walked up to it and casted blazing hands and toasted the undead. It was a remarkable sight to see the magnificent flames roll off the ground and surround the undead roasting its rotting flesh.

    After that we started walking on the burnt up path to the wood line, when we made it to the wood line we saw some kind of robed reptile laying down on the side of the path. It looked injured, I walked to it the small reptilian humanoid and all the sudden it had breathed a cold breath at me I fell backwards and all the sudden I felt cold really cold.

    The small thing said I am a kobold, and leave me alone and keep going on your way. I looked up and said “but I don’t know how to get to town, can you bring me to the nearest town?” After a few hours of walking though the trails, there was a fork in the road, I look around and ask “which way we should go” Renki said “we should go off to the right.” It seemed that we all agreed with Renki, so we went to the right after a few hours we noticed the path is starting to be consumed by the forest, the roots making the trails bumpy and dangerous for horses and hard for people to walk on.

    I didn’t say anything about Renki’s decision, but I am sure the others were thinking the same thing I was…..We are lost. Then all of the sudden Geth started yelling at Renki “You fool you got us lost what do you have to say about yourself. I interrupted before Renki could reply “it’s not his fault its all of ours we all agreed to go this way when Renki suggested it, so be quiet and keep going it’s starting to get dark.” We started back on our way after a little while Geth and Renki started it up again but keeping to themselves.

    It was getting really dark, but the moon was full and bright, so there was enough light to keep going, with that light the moon provided, we kept going but we kept hearing things behind us, like howling but not quite a wolf or a coyote, but something much bigger and heavier. We all drew our weapons out and kept going ready to fight at a moment’s notice, I was terrified, I kept seeing things from the corner of my eye, things running through the forest watching us, I thought it was my mind playing with me so I kept it to myself and kept going on moonlit pathway .

    Renki started looking around wildly, and then ran in to the woods, I thought, “did he see something we didn’t?” After he ran off in to the woods his sister trailed him but as fast but keeping up, she finally caught up to Renki. Renki was on the forest floor bleeding out with a large bite mark on his right arm and left leg and scratches all over his chest and face, next to him was his two daggers covered in blood and fur. Takarah leaned over Renki’s blood body, she placed her bony fingers on his neck to look for a pulse, after a few minutes of crying to herself she noticed a small pulse almost unnoticeable.

    Renki was somewhat awake, he was trying to grab one of his daggers. Geth walked up to the dagger he was trying to grab and slid the dagger in to the seethe on Renki’s hip, then Geth did the same thing to the other dagger, but something was carved in to the bloody steel of his dagger, it was writing in common rune, it said “You are now one of us”.Geth walked up to Takarah and handed her the dagger and ask “did this dagger already have this writing on it and if it did can you explain what it says” Takarah replied “No, there was nothing on his daggers he always kept them sharpened and cleaned so even if there was it would have been buffed out, and I can’t read rune sorry Geth” Geth slid the dagger in to his bag and pulled out a smaller dagger and placed it in Renki’s other seethe.