Long ago, in a
distant land, in a world lost in the endless void, there was a war
between the forces of darkness and the forces of light.
Okay, not
quite a war, but more akin to a one-sided conflict between one being,
the king of the monsters, and the heroes of light.
But as in all
things that have anything to do with fairy tales and flights of
fancy, the heroes won out and order was restored, happiness reigned
supreme and fluffy duckies and bunnies raced across their respective
meadows, (an odd feat considering the bunnies weren't altogether good
at swimming and duckies were horrific at running,)
and everybody
lived cliched line from every fairy tale fantasy ending ever
contrived.
That, WOULD be
how the tale ended.
Yes, there was
a battle...yes there was a great conflict that raged for…..at least
twelve or so minutes, but the conflict didn't end in the favor of
duckies, bunnies and puppy dogs, nor were there warm retellings by
the hearth with your little baby on your lap afterward, only a
grim...cold….cruel realization as the monster king stood there,
tasting his bitter victory over the forces of light.
A victory so
one sided that he could scarce believe it himself.
Yes, the story
of the heroes is just a myth, a lie.
The heroes of
light fell in battle and the lord of the monsters didn't even know
what to make of his victory, he just stood there, dumbfounded, trying
to make sense of it all, even as he held a familiar ruby pendant in
his hand, one taken from the body of the final hero to fall.
The monster
king then planted his weapon in the dirt and proceeded to declare his
victory with a mute gaze of respect to those who had offered him
their meager resistance, putting the pendant on and vowing a vow that
is known only to him.
And they lived
happily ever af…..wait, hold on.
You, yes you,
the person reading this wall of garbage, did I narrate that
correctly? The monster king just stopped trying? The next line i'm
being made to read is that tired cliché line “they lived happily
ever after” tell me it isn't so! I was certain that this was going
to be a dark, grim tale of evil proving victorious!!
well...clearly
we're missing some context.
Alright, so
for the record I would like to formally introduce myself, I am wiess,
your narrator, just imagine me in patrick stewart's tones if you
want, or better yet sean connery, yes! Sean connery will be
excellent!
I'm sort of
your obligatory fourth wall breaking sense of flow disruption, I have
something to do with the story in the same way a mickey mouse face
flying across the screen to interrupt one scene of a cartoon and
transition to the next would.
I'm your
friend, guide, and of course sole source of irritation on this silly
little journey you'll be making through the book.
So pay me no
heed, i'll only make this story harder to stomach (goodness knows
i've already had my fill.)
so yes, they
lived happily ever after, the monster king vanished with nary a trace
and the four heroes, well designed chaps clearly belonging to every
final fantasy trope ever, were declared dead and buried somewhere
other than the battlefield where they were struck down in no less
than four hits by the monster king.
From
there...details get a little fuzzy...no I mean I can't read this, the
ink is faded! (who wrote this?…….libreoffice you say? Why is my
copy penned with ink on a scroll?,…..really? That's stupid!!
goddammit get me the….oh come on what do you mean the book's
writing itself? You had one job anna! One job!!….well I don't care
what your excuses are i'm trying to narrate and you're telling me the
manuscript doesn't even have a source?…..did he even build this
world? Oh he's making it up as he goes along eh? F@#$ing perfect…..)
ahem! Sorry about that, it appears the author is being a loon and
just writing as he goes along...i'm sure he'll edit this novel as he
makes it up….maybe….I swear how hard can it be to spell crat? No,
cit. Cut? NO!! THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL FELINE!! C-A-T gods dammit
all to the hells we're never going to hear the end of this!! expect
garbage reviews by the end of the day! Why even now i'm sure the
person who purchased this is going to close it on this line and give
it one eidolon out of ten!
What's that
anna? (what do you mean “star” system? They don't have an eidolon
system? But eidolons are so convenient, you have a tiny eidolon who
stands there on the edges of the book, bound by the reviewer to
repeat what the
reviewers have been saying and- what do you mean they don't have
magic in that world? Well….that's just stupid. How do they cook
without magic? Really? Manually? Like barbaria- oh….oh those poor
dears….)
ahem, so you
don't have magic then? How very inconvenient that must be. Forgive
me, it was pretentious of me to just assume you were aware of magic
in the universe...how very profound.
Well, since
i've bored you with my piss poor narrations, let's get on with the
story.
This story is
called “ultimate illusion”
it's a cheap
final fantasy knockoff, hey don't give me that look, I don't write
this, I narrate it. Like i'm doing now….in...text….
OH GOD WHAT
HAVE I BECOME?!?!?!?!(anna!! get the shotgun!! I must end it all no-
what do you mean morik borrowed it? Morik the rogue? Truly? But I
need it- ...*sigh* fine.)
let me
doublecheck the title just to be sure I- oh, that's not the title at
all!
Huh...it's
actually
Legends
From The Void
Well,
that certainly isn't an ominous, pretentious and vague title now is
it?
Right,
I'm wiess, your fourth wall narrator who sounds like patrick stewart
or sean connery depending on your preference, and this Is going to be
a bizarre adventure.
Don't
worry, I won't be here TOO frequently.
…...no
really!
Chapter
1
it's...a
chapter….like any other.
..uh….
So,
let me refresh your memory before we get into this chapter, I'm sort
of cross with the author who clearly doesn't write according to
society's rules or standards.
Basically
in ancient times a monster king invaded, he sent out hordes of
monsters, demons, etc, etc, and the heroes defeated them all.
He
came onto the field and the heroes died very, very quickly, it wasn't
a contest.
Then
something about one of their articles, some ruby pendant, caught his
attention and he vanished, never to return, his little invasion
just….stopped for no reason.
Now
just as people had in say...lords of shadow 2 (which is just okay by
castlevania standards) the good guys just assumed that because the
evil lord had vanished mysteriously that the heroes had won, but
because I wanted to ruin that plot point for you I pointed it out.
I
can be evil like that.
So
that's ancient history...let's say….5000 years ago.
From
this point onward I will remain silent and let the actual writer's
writing tell you what's what, whenever I'm speaking it's in bold
italics, indicating that somebody far more important than the writer,
me, is about to interject and ruin that element of the story for you.
I'm
evil like that.
so...where
were we? Ah yes, 5000 years later the opening cliché comes forth, a
random typical somewhat handsome male character...likely a farmer or
an orphan with a “super secret- hey….what the hell is that?
Wiess the wizard looked up
from the scroll that he'd been reading just in time to see a figure
clad in black armor riding toward him, his cape billowing out behind
him as he bore down on the poor foolish wizard whose mind was
currently engaged elsewhere, likely interfering with the cosmos and
reality as we know it.
The armored figure neared poor
befuddled wiess, who not mere moments ago was in his study reading a
story that chronicled his own world's ancient history, and now here
he was, in a sun dappled green forest that radiated with all the
colors of spring, most notably greens and the golds and whites of
flowers, apple trees in particular, their sun soaked white hues
practically punctuating the forests all around with a radiant splash
of white every ten feet.
Wiess, being a satyr wizard,
was not one to overlook his heritage and how biased humans could be
to his kind, and as the hellish black knight neared him he had the
presence of mind to dive to the side, dropping the divine scroll as
he went and causing it to vanished from view.
“Oh that is bullshit!”
wiess roared in his dignified voice that could have belonged to a
famous thespian from another, distant world, and he crawled over to
the spot the scroll had vanished, already sensing that his connection
to the other planes was fading, as was his memory of them.
Now wiess was entirely lost,
and unable to place what he'd been doing not mere moments ago, but
then the scroll reappeared, back in its tube and rolled up, and wiess
was reminded that someone else, someone powerful who held his fates
and the fates of all in his hands, was calling the shots.
With a sigh wiess turned to
face the black knight, smoothing his long silvery hair as he
considered the individual, briefly reaching up to check his curling
ram horns, his face scrunched up in concern, for he was certain the
warrior's imposing axe had grazed one.
“Name yourself villain.”
the knight growled, pointing his weapon at the wizard who was far
more important than he seemed.
“I surrender!” wiess
cried, falling to the ground.
“spare my miserable wizardly
life, I beg!!”
the knight dropped his guard,
and though wiess would have taken that opportunity to strike the fool
dead with his immense magical powers, a flash from the scroll, a
warning, reminded him that he'd been thinking about just such a
fellow, someone important who could save the world.
Of course, he'd been expecting
a perfect tool, but this knight, this hulking, imposing knight whose
face was invisible behind his Y shaped visor, whose body practically
exuded darkness in oozing curls of a dense black mist, whose horse
had clearly been demented from birth, for its bloodshot eyes glowed
behind its own ebony visor, did not fit such a bill!
“do you now?” he asked, hopping off the horse and slowly approaching, massive axe in hand, and what an axe!!
it was a thick, jagged thing that looked to be more of a flag than an axe, for the blade itself ran halfway down one side of the thick brown wooden pole, the wood so ancient that the cracks on it were like fissures to hell itself.
“do you now?” he asked, hopping off the horse and slowly approaching, massive axe in hand, and what an axe!!
it was a thick, jagged thing that looked to be more of a flag than an axe, for the blade itself ran halfway down one side of the thick brown wooden pole, the wood so ancient that the cracks on it were like fissures to hell itself.
The edges of the blade were
monstrous and jagged, like the horizon of a distant mountain but
sharpened to a silver polish which was a contrast to the dull,
bloodstained metal of the weapon's head.
“I do! I do indeed!” wiess
cried.
The warrior lifted the axe,
readying a killing stroke and wiess, understanding the futility of
his course, bowed his head and awaited death none too eagerly.
Yet the blade did not fall.
“so you do….forgive me,
wizards can be a tricky lot.” the knight explained, leaning on the
weapon he'd now had planted into the ground.
“come, i'll take you to the
castle and make it up to you, unless of course you've someplace else
you need to be?”
wiess considered the offer, then looked to the scroll, which gave no protests that he could tell, then, with a sigh, he nodded.
wiess considered the offer, then looked to the scroll, which gave no protests that he could tell, then, with a sigh, he nodded.
“your offer is indeed
gracious, I seem to have been transported to this...location...where
am I?”
“ah, you are in Lahl, the
land of the four kings.”
Ignoring the obvious reference
to another four kings who were not on the wizard's “most favorites”
list he readily accepted the ride to the castle of the first king,
king Lee Cthadahan, the famous poet king, where he would surely find
rest enough to get his bearings.
Assuming of course, that the
scroll he carried at his side permitted such a brief respite.
