===============(Scrolls of Serenia Productions presents)================= -When Gods have fallen- -and heroes are gods- -When hopes are drowned- -then only the legends remain- $$$$ .s&$$$&s. .s&$$$&s. .s&$$$&s. $$$$$$&s. $$$$$$&s. .s&$$$&s. $$$$ Dark $$$$^$$$$ $$$$^$$$$ $$$$^$$$$ $$$$^$$$$ $$$$^$$$$ $$$$^$$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$.$$$$ $$$$ $$$$.$$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ .s&$$$$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$$$$$' $$$$ $$$$$$$$' $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$^$$$' $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$.a$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$.$$$$ $$$$.$$$$ $$$$.$$$$ $$$$.$$$$ $$$$ $$$$ $$$$.$$$$ $$$$ .$$$ `$$$$$$$' `$$$$$$$' `$$$$$$$' `$$$$$$$' $$$$ LFiN $$$$$$$$' `$$$$$$$' -The stories of Serenia in the Second Age- ®ôõ¯ T . o . C -:-:- Dark Legends #1 -:-:- "Pehr Jrago" i ù:ù eternity 1 ù:ù Into the Mist 2 ù:ù Lost memories ®ôõ¯ -=[ONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONE]=- Pehr Jrago -=[ONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONEoneONE]=- eternity I've been on this earth, Serenia, for what seems like an eternity. I'm sick of it. The pain, the suffering, well, sometimes that's fun, but otherwise life is dull, boring. I used to be so many things, now I'm just a dying legend. Hopefully I'll die one of these days, when the makers are done with me and it is their will so to do. Only a short couple hundred years ago, this earth encountered a great evil, and the strands of the balance itself were thrust out of position by the battle that proceeded. The world that was left is not like the Serenia that was. It is no longer serene, and now evil things inhabit wherever they can. I had used to be prosperous in my encounters, well known and respected, as well as feared. I remember when I was first pulled into the Quest in a strange turn of events brought on by one of my closest companions, and then, once we had came to the end of our quest, we had crossed paths with some supposed demigod who claimed himself Neim. My companion, a bold yet intelligent man I hold in high esteem named T‰lk, had at that point told me that he had to handle this situation on his own. He told me that my part in his quest was done, and that it was time we said our goodbye's and that he'd see me, "on the other side". I began to leave and then realized I couldn't. I turned to go back and found T‰lk in swords duel with the evil Neim; a magical barrier over Serenia which had been created by Neim prevented the use of strong magical forces that those like Neim would use forced them into combat. Sparing details, Neim was not destroyed but imprisoned in a far backwater type of place, I'm not sure. T‰lk also is gone, I have no idea where he's been, during the battle both he and Neim just `poofed' and that was the last I've seen of him. After the Quest, I tried once more to settle down and have a life, which led me to a wife and son. I told my wife nothing of my immortality, for she would grievingly condemn me and deem me mad. We lived in my old city of Andrion, and one day, while I had been out in the marketplace, a band of brigands, whose first leader I had slain during the early stages of the Quest, killed my wife and stole away with my son. Since he was born, I had wondered if my son would inherit my immortality, or would he just be normal. Nevertheless, nothing could exceed my rage when I returned from the marketplace to find my wife hanging from the beams. For months upon years I searched far and wide for the brigands who took my son. They had broken up and spread across the land, thus I had to hunt them down one by one and slay them by hand. I eventually found all of them, but they could give me no information on the whereabouts of my son. I hope my son is still alive, and for some reason I think he is. I soon will be venturing out once more to search for my son, for I have, as the makers would have it, an eternity... ®ôõ¯ into the mistúchapter1 In the light mist of a summer midday, a lone cloaked figure walks along a dirt road. The figure seems to be in no certain rush yet he keeps his pace, never slowing or stopping, relentless. Then, unexpectedly, he turns and looks in the opposite direction down the road. His cloak, covering his head and face is dark and wonderously clean despite the cloud of dust that englufs the area. Although the darkness that this cloak dons is not merely that of the cloth, but that of another, more mysterious source. The lone figure stands, fixed on his sight down the road, and then looks up into the sky, and then at the ground before his feet. His body language gives off nothing of his feelings, yet he turns and returns to his original walk along the dirt road. Then, in the distance, the sound of horses and men, maybe even warriors, strikes the old man as he looks frantically back down the road and then once again into the sky. He knows nothing else but to continue his wandering trek along the dirt road. Far along the road behind the old man an aura of smoke appears and from that emerged a pack of large men laced in royal arms. The man fails to notice the appearance of the men and continues down the road in a faster pace than before. The old man gets nowhere before the men overtake him. The men ride up and stop in front of him, blocking his path and forcing him to, if nothing else, stop. The old man did, in fact, stop and he kept his head low, saying nothing. The men seemed taken back by the silence of this man in the presence of royalty, or atleast thats what they claimed themselves to be. Something about this man got to them, they thought, something that reached into the back-ally shadows of their souls, and some of them wondered how long this charade was going to last. Even the leader of the men, the largest and apparently strongest seemed shaken by the brute force by which they had been somehow gripped. "You there!" the leader shouted, "What is your business? Where are you going?" The man stood silent for what seemed to the men for an eternity. The leader repeated himself, "YOU there! State your business or to the dungeons with you!" The man slowly moved his head back and forth, showing his motion only by the small movement of the cloak hood. Finally he said in a deep, evil voice, "Where is this place?" The warriors were somewhat taken back by the firm defiancy of the man, for who was he to challenge their might and power? But their leader, having a sudden sense of caution instilled in him, answered his question warily, and his battalion was taken even more aback by this. "You are in the Kingdom of Pehr Jrago, ruled by th-" As the leader of the men continued on with his lecture on the past and present details of his mighty kingdom, the cloaked man turned and departed. The leader, obviously content with himself, finally finished his speech and looked down from his hand-waving and over-bearing to find the old man gone. "Hmph." The leader thought to himself, "downright disrespectful..." The warriors, though, sat there, dumbfounded, appalled at his outright disrespect. Though they wanted to tear this man apart all night and behead him in the morning, they didn't. They couldn't explain it; any other time they wouldn't hesitate in such an action, but now, they just couldn't, and they were terrified at themselves for it. They looked back and forth between each other at each other, blank-faced while the leader merely sat there on his horse staring at the back of the old man as he drifted off down the road and eventually disappeared into the noon-day traffic of commoners. Then the smaller of the warriors dared to break the silence, saying, "Jor." The other warriors, including the leader, turned to look at the smaller warrior, and then, once again, they looked at each other and fell silent, this time easing into their saddles, content with that conclusion. ®ôõ¯ Lost memoriesúPart1 In a dimly-lit forest, where the light is cut off high above in the canopies of the trees, faint footsteps can be heard. As short time passes, the steps become louder and more persistent. They are footsteps with purpose, strong, foregoing, unstopable. More time passes and finally a claim to the footsteps is made. A warrior clad in arms of a fallen kingdom appears out of the darkness and continues running. The man ducks into a bush and sits completely still, disappearing from sight. Then, once again, sounds can be heard from a distance. This time, though, they are not footsteps; they are horses and men shouting. The warrior looked back in the direction of the horses, straining to get a good look. "Damn." he muttered to himself. He hopped out of the bush and continued, faster in his plight. He wondered what was going on; why he was being chased by warriors, who he was, where he was, and much else because he remembers nothing of his past. He looks around as he runs, and flashes of the past remind of -- something ... that he can't remember. "DAMN." That's been happening to him often lately. He runs, and eventually the warriors on their horses burst through the brush only paces behind. He swings his head around, looking at the phalanx, then swerves his head back around. "Ah! What is that, out there?" He thinks aloud. It was a clearing, with a large building, like a fort, in it. As he drew nearer he could see that it was a fort, and as he reached the clearing, he called out to the gatemaster, who immediately recognized him and ordered the gate dropped. Once the gate had been dropped, fighters wearing grey arms emerged and charged past the lone warrior and toward the phalanx that had been persuing. Their leader stopped and turned to the warrior saying, "What have you done this time, Endrek, to get yourself into this mess? Outnumbered by brigands and running? Are you feeling alright? Hmm?" He looked deep into Endrek's eyes for what seemed like hours, and he was then brough back into reality by the clanging of weapons only footsteps before him. "Endrek, you never run from a fight, are you all right?" The leader said, looking at the blank stare of Endrek. "This is not good..." The leader said, half to himself and half to Endrek. The leader rushed he and his companion into the fort and left the fray to his men. Once they were inside the fort, he brought the lone warrior into the small tavern. The two warriors sat down and the leader continued, "Do you know who I am?" Endrek looked at him unknowingly, head tilted and blank stare complete. "Hmph. It is as I thought -- Listen to me, I am Keshon, do you know who you are?" Keshon said, looking intently at Endrek. "Endrek?" "Yes. I will try to explain this to you plainly; for some strange reason, a reason which you won't tell even to me, there are instances when your memory goes blank and for a period of days to weeks, even months. It eventually comes back, however, but I suggest that you do no more travelling this day." "But I must be somewhere." "Where? Do you even know where you are now?" "uhm," Endrek said, looking around the grungy, darkly-lit tavern, "no." "This is a fort in Sahr Padia, the southern forest region of Pehr Jrago," Keshon said while pulling out a map and showing it to Endrek, "we are here, see? You're lucky you found our fort before the brigands took you for hostage. Many people would pay good money to see you hanged in their town squares. By the way, Endrek, how long have you been like this? I mean, the running from the brigands and all?" "From what I can recall, I'd say just about the entirety of the day..." "Then I suggest you rest for the night, regain your strength and you and I both will set out upon the morrow. Can your quest be prolonged for yet another day?" said Keshon in a half-sarchastic tone. "ah, I suppose so." Even though Endrek had lost his memory, he hadn't lost many of his natural abilities: wit, speech, theory and the like. So that night Endrek joined Keshon for the night, and the next day they proceeded out into the forest. They got no farther than a few paces when Keshon stopped, looking out in all directions, and said to Endrek, "So, revive any of your lost memory yet? Do we know where we're going?" Endrek also looked out in all directions, seeing nothing of importance, and said to Keshon, "no, if I've remembered anything, it hasn't come back to me yet. Although I think I had planned to go North," extending his arm and pointing. "Ah, so North it is," Keshon said in a somewhat cheerful mood, or atleast a cheerful mood as far as the leader of a battalion could be, "I hope we find what we're looking for soon, I'm already getting hungry..." ®ôõ¯ The Miscellaneous Ä×Ä asskey by Lord Finesse (LFiN.sOs) Ä×Ä edited by Lord Finesse and LathSpell Ä×Ä all stories by Lord Finesse and LathSpell Ä×Ä oh, and btw, the symbol Ä¿ ³ " ®ôõ¯ "<ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ stands for "Pehr Jrago" -so none of you people ask me no more... .sS$$Ss.eof.sS$$Ss. ``"üýü"'‰”Ÿ`"üýü"''