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Varen6398 -> (DF) Varen-Everyone has a dark side (10/25/2011 4:49:55)
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Chapter 1
The sun rose high above the horizon that day. Great billowing clouds broke and the sun shone through the darkness, illuminating the great town. Little wooden houses lay sprawled across the land, and the people woke up to the luminous light of Lore. A grand stone tower, its magnificence matching its size, stood stark over the town, taking its stand on a rocky outcrop that reached out into the deep waters of Falconreach bay. A large granite eagle stretched its wings over the tower, unyielding to the breeze of the sea. Its piercing eyes gazed warily over the town below and its untiring head refused to move to face away from the bright rising sun. The town’s people started to slowly fill the streets. The town of Falconreach awoke.
A man lay on his side, his dark cropped hair faced away from the window and his tanned face towards it. His muscular arms hung over the bright orange bed sheets and his dark brown eyes opened up to the sight of his curtains. He craned his neck towards the open window, and watched the sun rise on the horizon. He remembered that the night before he had watched the moon, its ghostly light intriguing him. He always had an interest in the astronomy, its explanations of the universe giving him a sense of uselessness. He liked the feeling of it because it reminded him that the universe didn’t revolve around him, a lesson that he had often forgot. He sighed, letting out a breath of warm air. His tired eyes blinked and his head pulsed from the blood running from his head to his body. He looked at his bed sheet.
‘Orange. Why did I choose orange?’ He couldn't remember why, so he stopped thinking about it. He sat up straight rubbing his sleepy eyes and opening his mouth widely to yawn. He stretched his arms out instinctively, his eyes squeezing shut as his mouth stretched open. As he closed his mouth, he remembered that his window was open. He turned his head, and grasped his hand around the window’s handle, quickly shutting it to get rid of the cold sea air. He quickly shut the curtains so he could get changed and remembered all too quickly that his curtains were also orange. His thoughts about the colour orange returned almost immediately.
‘What was I thinking when I got these curtains?’ He swung his legs out of the bed. He wearily looked at his cupboard, his body stil refusing to wake up. He walked over to the oak wardrobe, his legs dragging along the ground like an injured soldier, opened the door of his expensive furniture, and sifted through his various belongings. Most of it was armour pieces, forged from the highest quality metal and coloured a deep shade of grey. Its grey colour meant that during the night it was easy to hide. He carried on searching through his pieces of armour and clothing and stopped when he finally found a thick and dirty cloth shirt. It smelt a bit like wet mud and grass, but he didn’t care. As a soldier of Falconreach he had faced much worse smells and odours, and seen much worse than horrible-looking shirts. He quickly pulled the smelly top over his head and onto his body before closing the solid doors of his wardrobe. He turned and began kneeling so he could get to the bottom draw of his small, rather boring cupboard. He opened it up, and found a pair of long, black trousers. He pulled them on quickly, accidentally putting them on backwards, and then turned them the right way round. He turned his head to the right, causing it to make a large cracking sound. He had been told by his doctor to not do it, but his doctor was killed well over a year ago in an undead invasion.
He heard a knock at the door. His head swivelled quickly, turning to the door on the opposite side of the house. He turned back, quickly picking up a pair of shoes, with the name ‘Varen’ written across the insides in some sort of silver ink. He pulled on some large, dark greaves that covered most of the front of his lower leg before fitting another onto his other leg. He swiftly moved towards the door and, in one swift move, he opened the door and jumped back to his wardrobe. He began to strap a breastplate on; he had found it lying in one of his larger cupboard draws. The cuirass had the word ‘Varen’ scrawled across the inside with irremovable magic ink. A small, squeaky voice floated over from the door.
“Varen are you alright? You seem a bit busy...” The voice trailed off, ending with neither a statement nor a question. Despite this, the man replied, retorting quickly to the comment.
“No, I’ll be ready soon. I just need to get this blasted armour on...” This time Varen’s voice faded off into the distant reaches of sound as he struggled to fit on a pair of pauldrons onto his arms. He hopped around a bit, before finally fitting them on. He walked over to the door before fighting with his armour any more.
Standing at the door was a most unusual creature. It was a shade of red, crimson to be exact, but the insides of its very large ears were yellow. It was a rather small creature, its ears being the thing that gave it its height, much like a giraffe to its neck. It was no taller than two foot, including its ears. It carried a staff (to Varen it was a stick, but to the creature itself it was a staff) that was quite simple, a single smooth stick with a little rope attached around the end; a small leaf was attached to the top, that moved in the gentle breeze outside. Its head was small, no bigger than the size of one’s fist, and plonked onto it was a small, shiny black nose, and two deep and sparkling eyes. To a Lorian, this creature was known as a moglin. The name of this particular moglin was Twilly, a name known throughout Lore as one of the greatest moglin healers of all time.
“Twilly my friend, how are you? It’s been a long time since you have come here! What could I do for you?” The little moglin had to stand back and look up to see Varen. Varen, who decided to help the moglin, kneeled down to him so he could look Varen in the face without straining himself. Twilly began answering to Varen’s questions, his voice echoing down the hall of Varen’s house.
“Well someone is coming in to town today that I need to meet up with.” Varen nodded. He knew that if Twilly needed to meet up with someone, then the person must be important. He quickly realised that Twilly hadn’t finished.
“The only problem with that is that I need to take care of some of the people in the hospital. Would you mind helping me, by meeting up with him?” Twilly finished casually. Varen thought about it quickly. He had no plans today, and there didn’t seem to be any problems that needed immediate handling. He nodded to Twilly.
“Of course I’ll help. Just tell me who the person is or what they look like and I am good to go.” Twilly smiled from ear to ear.
“Yays! I will draw a picture of him for you! The Guardians say that I am great at drawing!” Varen nodded acceptingly. A picture would be better for the job than any description that he gave. Varen stood up, and ran into his room to look for some paper, or a piece of useless parchment. He quickly found a useless parchment in his Important Letter Cabinet and ran over to Twilly to give it to him. After handing the letter over, he jumped around looking for a pencil. After much searching he finally found one. He swiftly gave it to Twilly to draw. He had tried to be as fast as possible, in case the person passed through Falconreach without him or Twilly noticing. Varen pulled up a seat as Twilly drew. In the moglin’s hand, the pencil seemed to be the size of a sword. Varen watched Twilly scribble for about five minutes before the moglin finally declared the drawing was finished. Varen took a look at it and almost choked. The drawing was terrible. It was in fact so terrible, that it didn’t even look human. The only definable feature of the drawing was a small yellow circle with a small triangular piece taken out of it. Varen decided to expand on it, so he knew what he was looking for.
“So Twilly, what is this...badge he is wearing?”Twilly smiled gleefully.
“That is a Pactogram silly! Everyone knows about it! It is the symbol of the Pactagonal Knights of Oaklore. That is where the person is coming from!” Varen nodded understandingly. As long as he knew something about the person, and where they were coming from he was fine. He smiled at Twilly, handing back the drawing.
“Ok, I will just get ready and head out to the West entrance. I’ll bring him to you when he arrives.” Twilly smiled broadly, and headed out of the wooden door. Varen turned around, and headed back towards his wardrobe. At the bottom of it, was a small draw. It was about a metre and a half long, perhaps a little longer. In Varen’s mind it seemed a little...off. He had had a bad feeling about a lot of things, but this was one of the worst. He couldn’t help to feel as if there was something ghostly about the draw.
‘Then again, most things in Lore are haunted these days. The inn really needs clearing out of those ghosts!’ Varen thought to himself.
Varen opened up the large draw, pulling it out to its full length. ithin it lay a case of steel that was wrapped around with fine quality black leather. The box was made of two halves, one half on top and one on the bottom that were connected by two small, almost unnoticeable, hinges (which were made of expensive gold discovered only in the mines of The Sandsea). The two pieces of leather that wrapped around the separate pieces of the box were awesomely held onto the steel by some sort of glue. The leather wasn’t peeling at any of the corners; in fact it was held down superbly, the corners smooth and round opposed to the rough and badly made corners of some boxes that Varen had been shown by a tamed sneevil. The box had no handle as it was made to carry something heavy, and anything heavy should not be carried around with a single hand in case the handle breaks. Across the line where the two halves of the box connected, was a small lock made of the same metal as the hinges. The box was truly a wonderful piece, one that was top quality no matter how you looked at it however it was not the box that was jaw-dropping. It was the content that lay inside it that was worth much, much more.
Varen unlocked the basic lock; changing the numbers by scrolling them until he reached the number he was looking for. He eventually finished scrolling through the dials to create the final number (which was 6398) that allowed him to open the case. The inside was lined with great quality red velvet, and was shaped around the edges of a large broadsword.
The sword that it held was possibly the most valuable object in the house, even if Varen didn’t know it. It was a large (about one and a half metres) shadow coloured claymore with dark grey, almost black, flames shapes running up half of the length of the blade. Mysterious runes were engraved into the blade; they were obviously made while the blade was still hot from the forge, as they weren’t scratched on but deeply imprinted onto the blade’s surface. The runes didn’t actually impede the job of the sword; if anything they made the blade slightly lighter because some of the metal had been removed. The hilt was made of a strong, shadowed metal that looked like Varen’s armour. The hilt itself was shaped fairly simply, black prongs that lined up the blade before bending inwards thus causing the hilt to also be a great hook on enemy blades. The handle was wrapped in smooth tanned leather from the carcass of a dead darkness dragon. It was fixed on without any rough edges or large folds. One could say that the sword was perfectly made.
Varen took out the weapon before carefully laying it on the bed just behind him. This was his normal morning routine, something that he had sub-consciously learnt to do over a long time. He hauled on the rest of his armour, the pieces all made of the same dark metal. Whilst the metal was silver, like any other armour, it was much darker; it was the same colour as a shadow on a grey surface. However it still shone like any other armour, reflecting the light from the rising sun. Its deep grey shades matched well with his claymore; the blade was slightly darker though. Finally after almost an hour of hauling heavy hunks of metal onto his body, he picked up his weapon and set off to the Western Entrance of Falconreach.
By this point the town was already thriving with life: traders and merchants bartering with their wares, horses being tended to in the stables behind the inn and people doing nothing more than passing through the town. Falconreach was well known for its central location on the continent, making it a hub for trading. There was a phrase made by the traders that everyone had come to know and the phrase was ‘All Roads Lead to Falconreach’. It was an apt phrase as it described both the fact that it was a major trading town, and the fact that everyone visited the town at least once in their lives. Very few people ever told bad things about the town, causing even more people to flock to it. The Guardians even realised that ever since the merchants came up with the phrase, trade had gone up, the population had increased dramatically and tourists had begun to arrive in the thousands every hour.
Varen carried on heading down the main road, the road that lead directly from Willowshire in the east to Oaklore in the west. It was that road that had attracted the original founders of Falconreach. The town was originally a camp set up by merchants who sold wares to the many travellers that passed by. More and more merchants arrived, until buildings were finally erected on each side of the road. The town was built up as more and more traders arrived, causing the town to expand and grow. At some point The Guardians arrived and set up one of nine Guardian Tower’s there. This caused people to think of the town as a safe haven in times of war, and refugees from far away wars arrived. The town became the third largest on the continent, trailing behind Willowshire and Swordhaven, which was the capital of the realm.
Varen took out the weapon before carefully laying it on the bed just behind him. This was his normal morning routine, something that he had sub-consciously learnt to do over a long time. He hauled on the rest of his armour, the pieces all made of the same dark metal. Whilst the metal was silver, like any other armour, it was much darker; it was the same colour as a shadow on a grey surface. However it still shone like any other armour, reflecting the light from the rising sun. Its deep grey shades matched well with his claymore; the blade was slightly darker though. Finally after almost an hour of hauling heavy hunks of metal onto his body, he picked up his weapon and set off to the Western Entrance of Falconreach.
By this point the town was already thriving with life: traders and merchants bartering with their wares, horses being tended to in the stables behind the inn and people doing nothing more than passing through the town. Falconreach was well known for its central location on the continent, making it a hub for trading. There was a phrase made by the traders that everyone had come to know and the phrase was ‘All Roads Lead to Falconreach’. It was an apt phrase as it described both the fact that it was a major trading town, and the fact that everyone visited the town at least once in their lives. Very few people ever told bad things about the town, causing even more people to flock to it. The Guardians even realised that ever since the merchants came up with the phrase, trade had gone up, the population had increased dramatically and tourists had begun to arrive in the thousands every hour.
Varen carried on heading down the main road, the road that lead directly from Willowshire in the east to Oaklore in the west. It was that road that had attracted the original founders of Falconreach. The town was originally a camp set up by merchants who sold wares to the many travellers that passed by. More and more merchants arrived, until buildings were finally erected on each side of the road. The town was built up as more and more traders arrived, causing the town to expand and grow. At some point The Guardians arrived and set up one of nine Guardian Tower’s there. This caused people to think of the town as a safe haven in times of war, and refugees from far away wars arrived. The town became the third largest on the continent, trailing behind Willowshire and Swordhaven, which was the capital of the realm.
Varen continued west, passing through the warm sun that shone down onto the main road. There were several kids walking around the area talking, and a few younger children running after a poor and scared cat. He could smell the aroma of baked bread wafting from the house behind the inn, and he saw a woman tanning some leather from the hide of a strange green creature known as a Boveox. As he continued towards the small raised land outside of the town, he noticed some merchants coming up behind him. They wore exotic clothes that were coloured blue and they wore long pieces of, what seemed to be, some sort of glowing cloth. Varen suspected that they were from the East, probably from the realm of desert lead by the pharaoh Sek-Duat. Sek-Duat’s family had been ruling the desert for over ten generations, and they lived illustriously in their pyramid in the centre of The Sandsea. Varen had heard rumours of how the rulers were growing more and more tyrannical each passing generation, and that the people were on the verge of rebellion. Of course, Varen knew it wasn’t his problem. He was a hero of Falconreach, not of The Sandsea.
Varen soon reached the inner defences of the city. The inner defences were no more than a basic man-made rampart. It was no taller than two fully grown men, but the outer side of the hill was lined with pointed wooden stakes. If anyone tried to climb up the outside, it was certain that they would be injured if they managed to get through. The rampart slanted downward when it reached the side of the road, leaving a single way to get through the rampart. The rampart slid upwards on the other side of the road, blocking the other side off from invaders. People poured through the gap, feeding through much like water going down the drain. The gap was where the people fed through, but it wasn’t clogged up with moving bodies. The gap was wide, even with all the people passing through; there was probably enough room to squeeze a carriage through the gap.
Varen decided to take up his look-out point on top of the rampart, as it let him overlook the people entering the town without causing any congestion. He watched over the motley crowd for the rest of the morning. Most of the people were normal: traders, merchants even a couple of sailors came into the town, hoping to go out to other towns via boats from Falconreach Bay. The weirdest people that came past were a pair of bandits that had no weapons, wore clothes rather than armour and called themselves ‘The Midnight Bandits’. The two Guardians that stood watch at the entrance laughed at their idiocy and let them into the town as they were no threat to anyone. After that nothing eventful happened. Varen was almost about to leave to find himself some lunch, when a man came running up from around some trees, yelling. Varen couldn’t hear any discernible language at first, but soon after he began to hear the words that the man was screaming.
“Somebody help! The great serpent is attacking Arborvale Bridge! Help!” The man was clearly in distress, and was probably not lying. Varen jumped into action, unsheathed his sword and jumped over the stakes in front of him; jumping over them was no small feat. He had briefly thought that he was going to get himself stabbed, but then he passed over them unharmed.
The Arborvale Bridge was the vital connection point between Swordhaven and Oaklore in the west, to Falconreach and the towns of the east. If it was disrupted, then there was little chance of Falconreach receiving enough trade and support to survive, which in turn meant that the realm of King Alteon would diminish. If the Great Serpent, that had been recently attacking fishing boats, destroyed the bridge then there would be no easy way for Falconreach to survive.
The Arborvale Bridge was no more than a mile away. If Varen was quick, he would make it to the bridge before anything bad happened. He ran at full pelt, his heavy armour reducing his running capabilities significantly. He began to hear screams of horrified civilians in the distance. He briefly wondered whether he was too late, but his mind decided to keep him running to save the lives of the innocent’s. As he reached the bridge, he realised that he was too late. As he halted himself from running onto the bridge, a large serpent head crashed through the wood, letting out a blood-curdling roar. Water gushed down from its flailing head. Its green-blue scales mirrored the colour of the water of Falconreach bay, and the rain that fell from it reflected the midday sun brightly. Its head was at least three meters long, and its gazing eyes were at least half a meter long each, but the head was extended by another meter by the two long and webbed fins that reached out from the back of its head like outstretched claws. Its long neck was smooth, but green clumps of algae latched onto it and long cuts ran down across it viciously. Varen had stopped just in time, halting metres from the bridge. He heard people on the other side of the bridge screaming, and behind him was a cacophony of shouts. The serpent’s head waved from side to side, water flying from it in great globs.
Varen knew that the serpent had to be killed, or at least distracted so it wouldn’t kill any civilians. Varen’s mind ran through the hundreds of possibilities that were not impractical; he couldn’t think of one. The only one that seemed like it would not get him killed, and not let the beast kill civilians, was stupid.
‘But it’s not like it can hurt me from there, can it?’
Varen took a quick look behind him to make sure no one would stop him, took in a deep breath and ran straight at the serpents back. It felt like an eternity to him, flying high over the water towards the creature that had been terrorising the locals. But eternity wasn’t enough, as he soon found himself smashing into the gargantuan body of the serpent. He swiftly pulled out his sword, and stuck it deep into the flesh of the great horror. He felt its body convulse, and was glad when it seemed to just ignore him.
‘I was right! It can’t hurt me from its bac-‘His mind froze in his head as he realised the mistake he had just made. He looked downwards to see the grinning mouths of two more serpent heads emerging from the water. They were identical to the first head, but smaller: their heads were no more than two meters long each. Their rowing boat shaped eyes gazed upon Varen menacingly, and their sharp teeth began to gnash and gnaw. The creature he had jumped onto wasn’t a sea serpent. It was a hydra; a multi-headed sea-monster that ate whales whole and grew to the size of a castle. The two mini-heads began to move closer towards him, their horrifying green eyes staring straight into Varen. They approached cautiously at first, but as they realised their prey was unable to fight back they began to speed up. The jaws of death were almost enclosed around Varen. He was unable to fight back. He was unable to escape. There was no hope.
Varen was about to give up, and simply fall into the mouth of the hydra’s head, but it had stopped just in front of him. Its mouth was agape, and Varen could see all the way to the back of its throat. It made a strange gurgling sound, similar to that of a squealing pig about to be butchered. The jaws didn’t close around him; in fact they seemed to recede. Varen realised that there was total silence around him, and he quickly realised that something had just severely harmed the hydra head. The mouth drew away from him, and crashed with a loud crunch onto the Falconreach side of the bridge. Varen looked down at it, and saw that a large arrow had gone straight into one of its eyes and, it seemed to have, wedged itself into the inside of the head. The head was quite clearly dead. Varen tried to look round the thick neck that he was hanging off to see the person who had shot the arrow; unfortunately enough, he couldn’t see round the neck whilst hanging onto it.
Varen looked at the mini-hydra-head below him, and saw it gazing towards the defeated head in disbelief. At least to Varen it looked like disbelief. Were he on the Oaklore side of the bridge, he would have realised that there were about ten arrows sticking out the back of its head. The second mini-hydra-head collapsed down, dragging the main head down with it. Varen’s blade slipped out of the slimy hydra neck, and he felt himself crash onto solid ground. The large hydra head let out a screech of terror as it felt itself being dragged down by its dead companion. It collapsed down, dragging pieces of wood from the bridge with it. Finally, with an almighty splash, the creature retreated back into the depths of Falconreach Bay. Varen turned his body around just as the creature fell, and realised that he was lucky to be alive. Had his blade not been wedged into the neck of the hydra a little further, he may have still been hanging on as the creature collapsed into the murky depths.
He quickly patted himself down, checking that he could still feel all of his body to make sure he hadn’t harmed any of his nerves. He patted his left shoulder and winced in pain. There was no pierced skin, but it was clearly broken on the inside. He managed to pull himself to his feet, with only minor pain being inflicted on him. He looked over the bridge and saw a man wielding a bow. Varen shouted across the gaping chasm to the bowman.
“Did you just get that thing? On your own? Without any-“Varen fell back as the large-hydra head erupted from the water in front of him. He was sure that it would finish him off this time but as the great column of water collapsed, no hydra was visible. Varen looked down over his feet, and beheld the spectacle before him. The hydra’s last living head had got itself wedged into the gap it had previously smashed into the bridge. It seemed to have stabbed itself on the various pieces of protruding wood and stone, and now it was held in place by the remains of the arch that held the bridge together.
Varen pulled himself to his feet, and looked at the dead head. It seemed to have stabbed itself in the process of wedging itself into the bridge, causing murky green blood to run from its injured eyes. Varen looked at it unhappily.
‘How are we going to fix the bridge if it is like that?’ The thought occurred to him that hydra’s never lost their regeneration ability, even in death. If they just left it where it was, it could be used as a bridge and it wouldn’t decompose. Varen left that thought alone, and headed over to the man who had killed the hydra.
“You just killed that thing! How did you do that?” Varen stepped carefully over the hydra head. It seemed to be flat, like the previous bridge. He made sure not to slip off, slowly putting one foot in front of the other. The man stood in front of him, clear enough to see. He wore scaly silver armour that reflected the sunlight from the midday star. The shoulders were covered with armour that’s shape was similar to those of dragon wings. His chest was covered with a single plate, but his stomach was covered with a light-blue mail. He held no shield, but instead wielded his bow. Across his side lay a scabbard, a dark-red leather case. The sword that lay within was fairly simple, but the hilt was ornate, in the shape of a dragon head. Varen couldn’t see the blade, but it seemed a fair assumption that it was fairly simple.
The man himself had short blonde hair, more golden than anything else. His face was tanned; it was clear that he had been out in the sun for a while at some point. His eyes were a piercing blue, but they didn’t feel as if they were intruding. When Varen looked at his eyes, he had seen a fierceness of unprecedented scale, yet it didn’t seem intimidating. If anything it looked as if he was a king, majestic and powerful.
Varen would have asked more questions, but he was brought to a halt as he observed the man further. Stuck onto the breastplate of his armour was a small pactogram, yellow and bright. He looked up at the man, and stared. The man looked straight back with unfaltering eyes, and said three words. These three words were simple in sense but when he said it in his powerful voice, the earth seemed to be distant-a long forgotten realm of mortals and weakness. His voice boomed, despite being little more than a whisper.
“I am Drake.”
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