I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and/or are having a wonderful holiday season. I am back and revved up from my little Holiday break and I am all ready to jump into the next writing exercise!
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Prompt: Your fantasy world is hidden within the real world. The story involves demonic possession. A spell is cast. The story includes a nomad. The story also includes mysterious symbols.
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Fantasy Plot Generator
Time Spent: 60 minutes
Word Count: 1800
Prompt: Your fantasy world is hidden within the real world. The story involves demonic possession. A spell is cast. The story includes a nomad. The story also includes mysterious symbols.
Bev Ticar limped through the edges of the desert, anxiously looking back at the sun that was well on its way to setting. He didn’t have much time to reach the point of conjunction, if he didn’t make it by nightfall then the work of months would be all for nothing. He leaned heavily on his weather worn walking stick, adjusted the heavy bag on his back, glanced down at the scrap of paper in his hand, and adjusted his direction a little further to the south and along the skirted around the first of the dunes that rose before him.
Bev had once been an eager adventurer, a fairly well-known anthropologist studying ancient ritual sites, who had always somewhat styled himself after Indiana Jones, until he found more than he was looking for. At one of those ritual sites, he found scratches in the stones that seemed to be some kind of writing unlike anything he had ever seen before. In studying them, he somehow found himself in another world. He could only remember snippets of what he had seen there, creatures beyond belief, magic, he was running for his life. When he had returned to our world, he had not come back alone.
He did not know what it was, although he had taken to calling it a ‘demon’ for lack of a more accurate description. He could not communicate with it, he could not sense its thought, and he was pretty sure that it could not communicate with or sense his thoughts. It was like a darkness, hiding at the edge of his mind, hiding from the sunlight. When the sun was gone, it was like some vast creature reared up and seized control of his body. He could not tell what the demon was doing, or why, or anything else, but when the sun led the demon to slumber, he had found himself in some strange places. He hoped desperately that he hadn’t harmed anyone during these moments, but his only clue that he hadn’t was that he had never been arrested or accused. The only clue he had was there were several tattoos on his body in the strange, scratched script that he had found at the site of his transportation. There was not enough there for anyone, and he had sought out some of the world’s finest linguists, to piece together what they actually said, and they seemed impossible to remove.
He had spent the last twenty years, wandering the world, looking for another such site that might return him to this strange world. He had visited countless sites, but had never found anything that had the strange writing or seemed to be any kind of portal. That had changed a few months ago when he had discovered an ancient map, and a short script of an ancient Egyptian engraving which referenced a small, strange shrine at the north edge of the Sahara Desert. Only one modern historian or anthropologist had ever been there. Based on the description from that professor from nearly a century previously, it did not seem to match any culture or group known to be practiced or living in the area. Two others had sought it but had, seemingly, gotten lost in the desert. Knowing his experience, if this was some kind of portal, then he had a guess what had really happened to them.
Beb looked forward from the top of a small dune, he saw in the distance, on a small rocky patch what appeared to be a small square that was a few dozen feet high. Bev looked with concern at the fact that the sun was not inches from the horizon and the world was going orange. He had to make it to the shrine before the sun set lest the Demon derail his plans by taking him off somewhere else. He hurried as fast as his poor knees could handle. He finally reached the small square, like a tiny mausoleum, with a door in its side.
The building appeared to be later, Egyptian, maybe early Greek, but on passing through the door, he saw that the shrine had been constructed around something far older. A small grotto with a short stair leading to it were on the far side of the door, and at the bottom was as mall rock chamber with worn stone pillars around the outside and on them, the strange writing.
Bev investigated the markings, making notes in his book, and tried to focus on what he was doing, but kept glancing at the now nearly disappearing sun sinking below the western horizon. He had minutes. At last, he found something, he touched the strange symbols in the right order based on his notes, it took a couple tries.
He could feel the demon waking up within him as he touched the last symbol and stepped to the center of the circle. He found himself, with a small jolt which dropped him to his knees, in plain of waiving, silver grass with the sun beginning to peak its way over the horizon ahead of him. There was a similar topography to the world he had left, but instead of sand it had this strange silvery grass with scattered clumps of trees.
Seeing nothing useful around, and with his demon returning to its slumber, Bev Ticar made his way to the nearest group of trees. The trees were mighty, broad, and soared far higher than any tree he had ever seen before. They had trunks that were a rather teal blue and had grand canopies of all many of orange shades. He could have sworn there was nothing in the first clumps of trees, until he crossed the stones which served as the barrier and saw a grand feast and celebration with countless creatures. He had to ask three people, the first two looking like Bev had just started drooling from idiocy and did not answer before he was told that their Queen wished to speak with him, and they had been sent to bring him in.
Bev allowed himself to be led to the center of the grove, to a tall, wood carved throne showing a variety and styles, and the feeling of dread could only build in Bev’s mind. On the throne was a tall, several feet higher than the average, woman dressed in a flowing dress of pale green, covered with all many of flowers, some real and some clearly artificial. The Queen had a long, regal face, and piercing golden eyes, arching eyebrows, and thick, black hair pouring down her back.
“Hmm,” said the Queen. “I did not expect to see you back here, Bev Ticar. What brings you back to my court?”
Bev fell to his knees, “Oh great Queen, I come to beg you to remove this demon from me and give me peace.”
The woman arched her brow even higher and said in a deep, but soothing voice, “A demon human child? What means you by demon? We have creatures aplenty in this realm of mine, but none that go by that name.
Bev took a deep breath and launched into a description of his experiences since their last meeting.
“Hmm,” mused the Queen, “I see that someone has been busy and did not like the boon I granted you.”
Bev shook his head, “I can remember nothing from that time period, other than I was apparently in your world for nearly three months?”
The Queen nodded, “I appreciate your honesty, Bev Ticar. Now, it is the autumnal solstice in our world, and we are having a feast to celebrate, so I am willing to grant you the additional boon of removing the vile creature that joined you in your world.”
The Queen rose and stalked toward them. She appeared even taller standing up than she was in her thrown. She advanced several paces before leaning down and staring into his own, pale green eyes. Bev was barely aware that the Queen was chanting something, or that two other people were holding her upright as the creature within he writhed to escape its punishment.
Like the pop of a wine cork, the creature popped free of him, and he sank to his knees. The Queen snatched the black whisp as it was hovering above them, seemingly trying to figure out who was best to go to next.
She snarled at the creature in her hands, “back to the shadows with you, and tell you leader that we are happy to allow them their own corner of our world, but not every creature who wanders into our secluded city is theirs for the taking.”
The whisp seemed to bob up and down in agreement and sped off into the distance. The Queen turned on Bev, “You did well in coming back here, and freeing yourself from the shadow creature that latched on during your last visit. Now, you must leave. I shall have one of my subjects lead you back. Do not seek me or this realm out again. You might find me not so polite or inclined if you do. This is not a world for humans.
With that, and without waiting for a reply, the Queen resumed her seat on the throne, turning toward several others whose chairs were close, and began chatting away. A satyr and a dryad, as far as he could tell, escorted him back to the convergence point. The sun was, again, starting to set in the west when they arrived. With practiced hand, the appropriately glyphs were selected by his escort, and he was pushed, not unkindly, into the circle.
Bev staggered out of the small shrine and saw the sun beginning to rise in the east and I jumped for joy both at returning back home, and because I could no longer feel the dark presence within me. I took a moment to bury the scraps of maps and instructions and his notes in the desert sands. No one needed to find this place or risk traveling to the desert but many a young studier of humanity and its history, and it was best she make it as hard as possible. Call it a parallel world, a world of magic, the fae, or whatever else you might want to, but it really was no place for a human. Happy to see that the strange tattoos were gone, and feeling unafraid for the first time in some years, Bev adjusted the backpack one more time, and walked back out of the desert.
I had fun writing this one, playing a little with Fae worlds and the supernatural. Hope you enjoyed my writing prompt of the day. Please leave your comments, feedback down below. Check out my socials, books, and YouTube linked below and follow me there too.
Hope you enjoyed and that you are having a wonderful day and get to do, or experience, something creative.
– Jon
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