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Prompt: Your fantasy world is suspended in endless twilight. The story involves a war between the gods. There’s an impending disaster. The story includes a monk. The story also includes a book of wisdom.
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Fantasy Plot Generator
Time Spent: 60 minutes
Word Count: 1623
Prompt: Your fantasy world is suspended in endless twilight. The story involves a war between the gods. There’s an impending disaster. The story includes a monk. The story also includes a book of wisdom.
When the gods go to war, humanity is caught in the middle. On the Terra of Glavin, the Goddess of the Sun, Solana, and the Goddess of the Moon, Lunara, twin daughters of Cielon the Sky God and Homara the Earth Goddess, long ago fell into a feud over who would be supreme in the sky. The Council of the Gods, led by their parents, at first tried to mediate between them and then, finally, separated them. Thus, half of Glavin became the ‘Sun Lands’ and have the “Moon Lands’ with the boon of the gods allowing the light of the moon to permit crops to grow in the Moon Lands, and prevented everything from drying out and burning in the Sun Lands.
That was not enough for either of them. The twin Goddess forever planned and schemed against each other, seeking to get more followers and supporters on the Terra and to undermine the other. From there, the conflict spiraled. It began when Cetacia, Goddess of the Seas, threw her support behind Lunara. One by one, the Divinities of the Terra chose sides. In the end, even their parents, with Cielon choosing to support Lunara and Homara choosing Solana.
The war between the goods in their own Realm is rumored to have been long and bitter, before resuming its divided stalemate with each side looking for advantage over the others. The Mortal Realm trembled from the battle and the land and seas and sky, and everything else twisted and reshaped themselves. The mortal adherents of the various gods fought among themselves and made the devastation all the worse before a stalemate, with frequent squabbles and skirmishes, set in there too.
Once the stalemate set in, the Sun Lands were shrunken to the a beautiful oasis, surrounded by a vast desert. On the exact opposite side of the Terra, the Moon Lands were a wonderous island surrounded by treacherous seas. The rest of the Terra was in an endless twilight, with the sun ever just over the horizon to the West, and the moon just over the horizon to the east.
This stalemate had lasted for time out of mind, with the occasional conflict, dispute, or battle. People tended to just sort of get on with their lives. It was into this world that Thudreck Silverbeam had been born. His father, a elven warrior and follower of Solana and mother, a dwarf stone shaper and follower of Lunara, had been trapped for nearly a year in a small valley when a mudslide washed away the only way out. They were forced to work together to survive and when another mudslide a year later, they left the valley with their young son. The attempted to continue their relationship and find a quiet place to raise Thudreck, but with the strain between their two kingdoms growing more severe by the year, making war a distinct possibility, there were few places were both were welcomed.
After two and a half years of wandering around, war finally erupted between the Elven Kingdom of Bevanara and the Dwarven Alliance of Skon and Gnows. Called by their loyalties and oaths to the lands in which they were born, the left their son in the care of the Monastery of Veilon, where the Adherents of Mellond, the God of Peace and Fellowship, the only divinity that had never taken sides in the conflict and had helped negotiate and maintain the tenuous stalemate. The Monks were happy to accept care of their sons. Thudreck’s mother and father then went to a secluded glad just outside a nearby village. According to the villagers, the two of them embraced one last time and then, with some reluctance, fought. Neither of them survived.
Thudreck was raised in peace by the Monks. His tale was known to a few and they would occasionally come to the Monastery just to see him. He had been become strong in the Martial Arts the monks practiced, which specialized in disabling, disarming, and pacifying one’s attackers. From a young age, he also showed some natural ability in magecraft, and a wandering mage was recruited to teach Thudreck understanding and self-control in his gifts.
At the end of twenty years, Thudreck was on the short size, only just clearing five feet, but incredibly powerfully built, with a broad, power shoulders, thick arms and legs. He was also unusually light on his feet, often leaving no trace at all, even in things like snow and sand and being able to move with a quickness and agility that often surprised people.
Thudreck’s 23rd birthday passed with little fanfare. The Monks were kind enough to bake him a cake, and the evening was an enjoyable one with a few close friends while we did some puzzles together. His dreams that night were fitful and full of turmoil, that had more and more over the top ideas about taking back the small items that had been stolen from us.
Thudreck awoke in a cool sweat and saw the High Monk himself sitting on his bed, watching him. The older man advised that he had been visited by a dream the last few nights, and it was time to inform him of what this dream had told him. As the High Monk spoke, images and flashes from his own dreams and. . .somethng else that he could not quite recall.
The High Monk led him to a secluded room in the Monasteries inner sanctum, to their innermost library that only those full members of the order could access. Paying little heed to the warning of that which were posted about, he took Thudreck right in. Far at the back of the row and rows of books and papers and scrolls, somehow both chaotic and well organized. The High Monk returned a moment later with a small vase.
The sealed vase was beautifully painted, in minute details, of life under both sun and moon. A It was a delicate thing, and clearly very old, to the point were Thudreck was worried it would shatter in his strong hands.
The High Monk’s voice rasped, “this was left to us by Mellond, may his peace touch the world, long ago. High Monk after High Monk has kept knowledge of the vase’s existence, and the secret that when our dreams commanded us to and to take with us a Monk that was out of the ordinary. We know nothing more than that.”
Thudreck nodded at this information and said in his deep, but melodic voice, “what am I to do now.”
The High Monk coughed a little from all the strain. “Open the vase, would be my guess. I know nothing more.”
Thudreck examined the vase with care, before finally nothing some writing on the seal of the jar. “That is odd,” he remarked after studying it for a moment. “The characters are in Dwarvish Runes, but the language is Sylvan Elvish. I imagine I might be one of the few on this entire Terra that can read both.”
The High Monk nodded in understanding, but his face still had a frown of confusion. “What does it say.”
Thudreck read the words again and, almost chucked, “it says Smash. Who am I to argue with the will of Mellond.” With that, he smashed the vase, hard, on the table. There were a few small trinkets and offerings, or so as initial offers. but from the shattered piece of pottery, a swirling seemed to merge from the fragments, and after hovering in the air for a moment before rushing toward Thudreck and diving into his chest before anyone could try to do anything.
Thudreck was gripped by the most horribly pain in his life. It felt like someone was searing itself into his skin. He tore off his shirt, convinced it was about the catch fire from the heat, and saw that, burned perfectly into his torso, was the same symbol that was on the vase, and it seemed to glow. Marveling at a sense of power and strength within him, and connection to the raw-magical elements of creation, with a particular draw to both sun and moon.
The High Monk produced a thick bound tome and handed it to Thudreck, saying, “this is the Book of Lost Wisdoms. When the strife between Sun and Moon began, Mellond commanded our order write, and then guard, a compilation of the history of the world before its reshapping in the great war. It will be needed if you are to restore balance to this Terra.”
“My,” scoffed Thudreck with a laugh, “restore balance on the Terra?! Me?! How am I to do that.”
The High Monk put a kindly hand on his charge’s shoulder. “I know only that this book is meant to help you, and that the one for whom the vase was for must set out on this quest. I don’t know where, or how to start, but we will supply you as best we can. You will always have a home here.”
Thudreck stood up and bowed deeply and said, “I shall retire to my chambers and make what initial study of this Book of Lost Wisdoms as I can. I will leave as soon as I am able to piece together some clue on where to start. Thank you for all of your kindness.”
With that, the two men walked out of the inner library. How a mortal could end a stalemate between the gods, neither of them knew. Nor did they know what his newfound power was capable of. But perhaps out of the values instilled in him by the monks, and perhaps due to the sadness that the endless conflict had cost him his parents at such a young age, Thudreck was determined to try.
A longer writing exercise today, and another little snipped of a story set within the same Universe as my two published novels, and in which pretty much all of my fantasy stories and snippets are set. Another one that I might reference or even feature in another book or short story.
Hope you enjoyed and that you are having a wonderful day and get to do, or experience, something creative.
– Jon
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