Community Short Story and Writing Prompts

[Edema Rue she/her]

Ok so this song (Poison, Annapantsu) came onto my playlist and I got inspiration, I’m going to write and I’ll try to post it tomorrow but I want to see what everyone else comes up with, so…write!

[TheFrugalWizard he/him]

On 3/26/2024 at 12:19 PM, TheRavenHasLanded said:

Ok, i got a question: should i leave this as is or write his return?

  Reveal hidden contents

1200 years aog (supposed to be ago but its funny so im keeping it) there was a small fishing town down inside the Valley. The people of the Valley were enormously strong, so much so that they could nearly throw mountains. They were called the Vallians. Among the great and powerful Vallians, there lived a human professor. He had spent the last 20 years among the Vallians, learning their culture and language. However, on this particular morning, the Vallians could not move. Frantic, the professor searches his book for their physiology, and the page was ripped out! Resigning himself to be the last man to see such great and powerful people, he walks into the Vallian Square. There stood three of the oldest Vallians, holding themselves up by holding onto the sturdy oaks nearby. The professor cried out, shocked. Then one of the Vallians spoke. “Fish for the Great Fish. It will be stronger than many a mountain, but you have persistence, and we believe you can wear it down, unlike countless others of our people.”
The professor kneeled before the Vallians. “This quest shall be done.” The old, but still strong Vallians smiled. “Go” and the man stood, tears to his eyes. He turns around, and begins his long journey.
It took him many months, traversing deserts that would have dried any normal man to the bone. But he pushed on. He swam through the great rivers, beating down the current as he swam, and sprinted through the rainforests, its greenery brushing his skin lightly, its poison working through him. He was bitten, blocked, and beaten, but he pushed on. Finally, after 3 years he reached the great ocean. On the shore, there was a large boat, one that could only carry a Vallian. Standing on the boat was a skeleton, who allowed him passage on. And so, the first trial had begun.
The skeleton lurched forwards, but collapses into small pieces. Horrified, the professor jumps forwards, beginning the painstaking process of putting the skeleton back together. With care belying his looks, he assembles each piece back in perfection. His memory served him well, as he remembered their bone structure exactly like he had recorded it on his missing page. The skeleton nodded its thanks, then with speed ran to the wheel and began to turn it. With a cacophony of creaks and wood protests, the boat leaves the dock.
    Now, of course, the man was mentally tired. But a challenge comes quickly, in the form of gloomy stormclouds on the horizon. Terrified, the professor held onto something and began the eternal wait from calm to storm.
    The first wave was a shock. It slammed into the boat with incredible force, and despite the boat being in horrid condition, it survived. Wave after wave shook the boat as the professor screamed in vain, spitting water from his mouth several times. Then, there was a final, enormous wave to go over. The professor stared up the monolith, knowing he would die. They flew up the wave, gravity seeming to shift from the bottom to the back, then through the top. He held on with massive strength as the boat stalled in the air, then fell. The professor was calm as he crashed into the ocean, water going up his nose and battered by the boat’s wreckage. He moved up, his head bursting forth out of the water to breathe in air. He had forgotten how nice it was to breathe it. At the very edges of his vision, he could see an island, quietly floating with gentle waves.
He stroked through the water, his arms burning with each stoke as he moved. The salt mixed with his wounds, stinging him as he moved. He swam for nearly an hour before getting to the small island. On it, there was a large wooden hut, and a willow-oak tree hybrid. The hut released a gust of cold air as it was opened, revealing a quaint little workshop, with fishline strings along with a dulled whittling knife and a large sturdy table with hundreds upon thousands of nicks, scrapes and gashes. In the corner, he found a whetstone in good condition that he could use. With a worksman’s precision, he sharpens the whittling knife just as the Vallians had taught, the edge soon becoming keen with sharp. Its former state lay on the whetstone. He explored further, looking for an axe to cut down the tree. He had no fishing rod, so he began to make his own, as was customary for those who had made it this far.
The monotonous sounds of an axe slamming into the trunk finally gave way into a loud thud as the behemoth tree fell. With careful precision, he cut away the outer bark, then begins the painstaking process of whittling the tree. Before he began, he glanced at the ground, noticing a single small seed. He re-planted the seed, then scraped away at the flexible wood, its strips curling up and around. He cut the tree several times, for future attempts at fishing, as he was practical enough to realize that this challenge could prove more difficult. A great eagle circled above, waiting for him to fail and take the dead body off the island for its young. The professor did not notice, and forged on.
Days later, he had a rod. He had sweat dripping down every inch of him. He attached a line to the rod, put some bait on, and began to fish. The rod broke as soon as the line hit the water, shattering in every grain of the wood. With a sigh, he retreated, beginning the process over again. 
    Two rods later, it didn’t shatter. With glee, he took a boat he found and went out, passing far into the distance, the only sounds being the swish of paddles through water. When he had gone far enough, he set out his rod, beginning the long wait for his catch. Several days passed, his mind spinning with grand returns, holding the fish above his head for all to see. The line dipped into the water and became taut. The boat lurched forward as the fish began to pull away, but the rod held. The professor frantically grabbed at it before it flew away. 
    His hands grasped the rod just as it unhooked. Immediately, he went under the waves. The cold shocked him, but he held onto his rod. The fish swam at breakneck speeds. He continued to hold. The fish darted up, breaching the surface of the water, allowing the professor a brief moment of air, then slammed back into the water. The fish swam deeper. His ears began to pop. Still, he held. Soon, he began to lose his air as it was used up. He slipped in and out of consciousness, holding on by sheer force of will. Knowing that his life hangs in the balance, he thought back to his time with the Vallians, desperate to find something, anything, that would allow him to succeed and keep his life.
    In the deep recesses of his mind, he remembered a story he heard from one of the elder Vallians, whom was a great warrior before his retirement. The story was a simple one, about fish. He grasped at it, frantic for its information. The one tidbit he pulled away, he knew, would save him. The elder had said, “In order to win, you must do at least one of these things: Outlast, outsmart, or outmaneuver. Only then can you win a battle crucial to the war.” With greatened resolve, he let the breath that he so fiercely held go. The bubbles drifted up. So did the Fish. They floated up, his ears popping and his lungs burning. The Fish struggled mightily, but he had been outlasted and outsmarted. The Fish accepted his fate, rising to the top of the water, as the professor let his grip slacken on the rod, and just as he reached the surface, he breathed in and finally submitted to the darkness threatening to overcome him. 
    He woke with a start, the Fish floating along with him. The fish had attached itself to a boat and took him to the dock where he had once started. The fish waited patiently, waiting to die. The professor took pity and took a scale. He asked the Fish, “I need to heal the Vallians of a strange affliction. I was told to hunt you, but I respect your strength and power, so I will not. Can you help me?” With that, the Fish looked up and spoke with a powerful baritone voice. “Take my scales, numbering them to 40, and bring the scales back to the Vallians. There they shall heal, and your burden will be lightened small one,” and the Fish waited while the professor took off the scales with reverence. After taking the 40 scales, he stood back and let the Fish flee, to live another day.

 

I think it's fine, but whatever you want to do.

[TheFrugalWizard he/him]

Hello all! Sorry about the double post.

Anyway, I am submitting the following story to a competition at my local library for creative writing. It's due next Sunday, so please give me feedback if you have any! Will also be posting this on my profile. Also - title is tenative, I am taking suggestions.

Spoiler

Where Honor goes to Die

TheFrugalWizard

 

— Prelude —

 

I doubt anyone will ever read this. I doubt there’s even a planet out there with life intelligent enough to understand this. I’m not sure why I even bothered to transmit this at all.

If you are reading this, then I ask you one thing. If there was one choice  you could make to preserve the honor of Racrial, I ask that you remember us. Remember how we laugh, how we cry, how we love. Remember how we fight. How we stand. How we fall. Remember How we lead, how we serve. How we lie and how we show honor. We may be dead, but we are not forgotten. We will not truly die until the last words of the last book crumble to dust. Because we, the Calligraphers, we are words. We exist in every glyph that you scrawl, every key that you type and every sentence you form. In every letter, you honor our memory. A memory of a people who were once great. 

Without further ado, I present the history of the last days of the planet Racrial according to me, a lonely bodyguard. I hope you learn something.

 

— 1 —

 

It all started when god died. Or maybe he just abandoned all of us. Perhaps there was no god to begin with. Whatever the reason, most historians (including only me, as far as I know) believe that this event took place on the twenty-fifth day of Sol.

I was in the throne room, talking with Frisin, the king. We were discussing the politics of Tellorim. The queen there had been especially infuriating recently. She refused to agree to any peaceful terms with Frisia, instead insisting on war. Frisin was on the verge of snapping when a servant burst through the door. 

“Sir!” he wheezed, he doubled over, panting for breath. “Your—your majesty—” He seemed to be in a hurry to tell the king some very important news. I tensed.

“What is it, man?” Frisin snapped, standing up.

“Your majesty, the calligraphers, they’ve—they’ve started attacking people.”

Frisin stood, shocked for several moments before replying. “What did you just say?” he asked. He appeared completely baffled. Why were the calligraphers attacking? The calligraphers were the priests of Frisia.

“The calligraphers, sir. I just saw one, he was—” he shivered. He had clearly just run from something quite… traumatic. “—he was killing people. With these black tendrils.”

A scream that bespoke pure terror echoed in the outside hallway. The man wasn’t lying. The threat was confirmed. I leapt into action immediately.

“Get the emergency team,” I ordered the servant. “Tell them to get the king out through the back exit. Then get out with anyone you find along the way.” He nodded and left.

“But Kalick, what about you?” asked the king. 

I picked up my old Peron. The weight of the long, pole-shaped weapon felt familiar in my hands. “Someone’s got to hold them off.”

“But you’ll be killed!”

“That’s a risk I’m going to have to take.” I gave Frisin a salute. “If I don’t make it out, sir—”

“Don’t say that. You’ll be fine.”

“I will see you soon then, sir.”

“Soon.” His guards soon arrived and towed him towards the back hallway. 

Mere moments after he’d left, the door banged open again. But it wasn’t a servant this time. It was a face I recognized.

“Tor?”

My old friend smiled. Not a nice smile, a smile for an old friend. That was a smile that said, “you’re never leaving alive.” Well, I’d see about that.

“Kalick. Look at you!” said Tor as he strode into the room. “You sure are living the life. The fanciest Peron. The nicest armor. The cushiest job. Why couldn’t I be a bodyguard?” 

Several more Calligraphers were coming up from behind him, but he held them back. Black tendrils of shadow pooled at their feet.

“You know why, Tor.”

“Yes. Because you’re too much of a goody-two shoes to make any of the rest of us look good at all.” I was silent. “Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. Now, which way did the king go?” After I refused to answer, he growled and stepped forward. I saw a red light gleaming in his eyes. Darkness pooled around his feet. He looked like death himself, coming for my soul. “Kalick. Tell us where he went and you won’t die. You’re still one of us.”

I looked him right in those smoldering red eyes and raised my Peron. “You won’t have him.”

He growled. “Fine. You can die then. Just like everyone else on this god forsaken planet.”

“Gladly.” I ran towards him, the point of my Peron at the head of my charge. He laughed and several of the tendrils of shadow rose to knock away my blow. I swung the butt of the Peron, adorned with deadly spikes at his chest. He grunted at the blow, but it drew no blood. Glyphs! Was he invincible? I didn’t matter, I supposed. I just needed to buy time.

I felt a sharp pain in my back. I swung around, knocking aside a solid tendril of darkness that had been attacking me. It disintegrated at a swing from my Peron. I made a jab at his face which was easily parried. Glyphs! There was no way I could beat him. I fingered the small piece of parchment at my belt. Before I could think better of it, I threw it at  the ground in front of  Tor. It activated, sending a blast of white light in a massive explosion. I had positioned myself carefully, and was hurled out of the window on the other side of the throne room. Perfect. The last thing I saw before blacking out was the magnificent golden palace of Frisia with ugly black curls of smoke billowing up from the windows.

 

— 2 —

 

I sat in an empty temple. This temple, once a metropolis of life and worship, was now a tomb of the religion it once was.. The last priest of Calligraphism, I couldn’t be sure how soon I would be killed. Or worse. It was my faith that preserved the last memories of my god. 

I dipped my quill into the inkwell on the ground by me. I sat cross-legged on the dirty sandstone floor of the temple, a large piece of parchment and a bottle of ink in front of me. Then I began to draw. My quill moved across the paper in fluid motions, drawing the glyphs that I was so familiar with. Death, the skull that represented the fallen. Stone, to give structure to my tribute. And the final glyph, the one that was the core of every calligraphy. Order, to bring it together and form the spell into what I wanted it to be. 

As the final part of the ritual, I walked to the center of the temple, where a circular basin of Felk shimmered with a golden light. Despite its glow, the watery substance was as clear as a pane of glass. 

I blessed the calligraphy and placed the parchment into the pool. It drifted to the center of the Felk, then the rune I had drawn began to glow. White light spilled from the lines of ink like sunlight pouring through a stained glass window. I watched with solemn eyes as the paper shattered, bursting into a million pieces of golden light. Before the shards of light reached the pool, they began to form into the image of a man drawing in midair, his gaze intent and his quill furious. The light finally coalesced into a model of stone. The figure stood atop an altar that had the words “For the Fallen” engraved upon it. Below the words were the names of all who had once served in the temple.

I bowed my head and offered a silent prayer up to Yi. I finished by saying, “I honor all of those who have served here. You may have been taken by chaos, but you will not be forgotten.”

Somber, I walked out of the temple. I wandered over to the king’s tent. I knocked on the wooden post outside. 

“Frisin?”

“Kalick, is that you?” came his voice from the tent. “Come in.”

I pushed into the tent. He was pouring over a map of the world. 

“What are you doing?”

“Kalick, look at this,” he said. He was pointing to a large scribble on the map. “Kalick, we can’t outrun them,” he said. I was silent.

Tor had been pursuing us ever since the fiasco at the palace. We’d been on the run for over a week. The group - a small one - included me, the king, a few bodyguards, and Kalad, my apprentice. In the last few days, however, Tor had been catching up with us rather quickly. I knew, deep down, that there would be a confrontation. I wasn’t so thrilled to be faced with it.

“Right here,” the king said, motioning to the map, “is where I’m projecting him to catch us to meet.” He was pointing at a small city on the border of the kingdom. I’d never heard of it before.

“There’s no way we can outrun him?”I asked. It was a frail hope.

“Not by much.” We were both silent. Thinking of that day brought an air of solemnity with it. I broke the silence.

“Sir, as your bodyguard, I feel it is my duty to ensure your safety and protection at all times. We should keep moving and try to stay ahead of Tor for as long as we can.”

“Kalick—”

“Sir, please just humor me.”

“Okay.”

 

A few hours later, our camp was packed up and we were on our way. To where, I had no idea. We were running. Running from something that was so unspeakable, unthinkable, that it made me tremble in fear and weep with sorrow.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Tor. He’d been my friend ever since… well, ever since I can remember. We’d apprenticed together, played together, worked together. But then… Well I got offered a position as the king’s bodyguards, and he didn’t. That had driven a wedge between us. No longer did we go out drinking together or spend time with each other. We’d still wave at each other and chat, but it could never again be like it once had been. He was jealous. 

Tor was still ambitious. In fact, if I remembered correctly, he’d been the High Calligrapher when everything had gone down. The church leader would have had quite a bit of power and no small wage, but nothing so grand as my prestigious position. And that had led to their further drifting. Eventually, there was only a sense of formality and obligation between the two of us. Our old friendship was no more.

And now… Well, now he had turned into that. That thing. I shivered just thinking about it. When we’d fought, I’d sensed a force behind his movements. Not deliberate, but driving. Tor was driven by chaos. Pure, raw, lust for destruction and power. He was connected to nothing but his passion for pandemonium. 

As I marched, a heavy pack on my shoulders, I felt a salty tear trickle down my face. I realized something, then. I loved Tor. Yes, he’d become evil. Yes, he’d taken control of the other Calligraphists. But I still loved him. Where was the Tor who made me laugh? Where was the bookworm who couldn’t keep his nose out of a book? The indoor-bound child who had to be dragged by his toes to get him outside?

The memories flooded me and I couldn’t hold them in. I fell back from the group. I sat down on the barren ground, and buried my face in my hands. Then I started weeping. I cried for the man who used to be so close to me. I sobbed for the person that had been taken over by the evil force of chaos. I grieved for the child who had grown into the monster he was today. Where was my friend? Where was the person that had helped me through the most trying of hard times? In those tears, I felt the truth. The hard, cold, mean truth. Tor was gone. He was dead already. In his place was a monster, bent on seeing the world burn. And I was the only one who could stop it.

 

— Interlude —

Four months ago

Tor was a normal person. At least, he used to be normal. It wasn’t too long ago that he’d been the leader of the church, a perfectly normal position. Recently, however, he’d become less normal. Ever since god died, Tor had been forced to make some very not normal choices.

Tor observed the woman chained to his wall with as much sorrow as curiosity. He could sense the power within her, the power that flowed through her veins. She was the key to all of his troubles. At the same time… it was a person. Chained to his wall. 

The power he sensed, it was the power that was in every human. Over the last couple of months, his research had led him to believe that god, or at least some otherworldly being, had died to maintain that every human had that lifeforce.

Every planet has a natural power, an energy that can only be accessed by divinity. The being known as god had been feeding off this energy, using it to sustain his existence. This god’s only motive was not to just live, however. He was driven to create. Or more specifically, to give meaning and purpose to his creations. Unfortunately, the only way to do this was to sacrifice some of that primal power of the planet and give it to humans.

Tor’s research had found that god had done just that. In order to give humans a soul, he’d imbued them with a tiny shard of divinity. Each human has that, and everything that has been created by humans has that. 

Tor was trying to find a way to extract that power. He needed it. For… for Kara. Oh, glyphs, how could he go on without Kara?

He walked up to the woman, Tears were forming in his eyes. He felt the grip of the knife in his hands. His arms - indeed, all of him - were trembling. Was he really planning to kill a person? What was wrong with him?

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. Hope, longing, and fear battled for dominance in her eyes. Glyphs, what was he thinking?

He had to do this. For Kara.

He closed his eyes. 

“This is for you.” He raised the knife, slitting the woman’s throat. He had to think about why he was doing what he was doing, or it wouldn’t work. He was doing it for the power.

Warm blood trickled down his hand. He opened his eyes.

At first, nothing happened. Tor was rather disappointed. But before he reached the wall to hang his knife back up, he noticed something. Black tendrils, seemingly formed from shadow, forced their way out of he body. They made their way across the chamber and into the knife that Tor held. From there, the power sept into Tor himself. 

He felt a giddy feeling of a massive increase in power. As he did, he almost felt like some of his meaning left him. Some of his sanity, of his ability to understand purpose, slipped away from him. But it didn’t matter. It was a small amount - perhaps he’d been hallucinating. 

And the power, it felt strange. Dirty. It was as if the shard of divinity imbued in that woman had somehow been corrupted by him. He felt as if he should be disgusted at what he’d done, but he had next to no emotion. 

Tor shivered. He’d have to be careful with this, otherwise it could go very wrong very quickly.

 

— 3 —

 

Here I was. I had finally come to my deathbed.

I stood in the tower of the Manor in Terelime. Each city had a manor, similar to a palace, but it housed the city’s Noble Lord instead of a king. Terelime was built on a hill surrounded by desert. 

Black cracks, like veins, twisted from Tor’s forces and stopped at the city walls. Beyond the veins was darkness. A massive, incomprehensible darkness that flashed with twisting shadows and chaotic forms. It bespoke terror, destruction, and most terrifying of all, the death of the last of the Calligraphers.

Over the last couple of days, I’d done some thinking. Going through my memories of the disaster and of the ancient prophecies. They’d foretold of an event such as this. Pure chaos descending upon the last civilization. I’d just never thought I’d be a part of it.

I sighed and made my way down the staircase. Surly Tor would attack any day. It was anyone’s guess when. 

Downstairs, I found Frisin at a table surrounded by advisers, including Bedimar, the Noble Lord of this city. 

“Ah, Kalack!” the king said. “Great to see you!”

I gave a weak smile. “I’m not feeling too great. Tor is camped outside, ready to attack. It’s only a matter of time.”

He frowned. “Kalack, come over here. We’ve got a plan.”

“What?” I asked. A plan? Surely nothing could repel Tor and his forces of chaos. Still, I sat down beside Frisin. “A plan?”

“Yes!” said Bedimar enthusiastically “We’re planning to make a stand. Right here. Right now. We’ll stop Tor and crush his armies.”

I was silent. The plan was a desperate one. One that had no chance of success. In fact, it wasn’t really a plan at all. It was a final stand, a last display of what Racrial had to offer. It was all that remained of our honor.

“We’ll draft all the men in Terelime,” Bedimar continued, “and use them in our last defense of the city.”

“It’s not going to work. You’re dooming these men,” I said. Someone had to say it. Might as well have been me.

He took a deep breath. “They’d be doomed anyway. Better that they die fighting.” 

I nodded. Better to die fighting beside your fellows then alone and afraid. Better to know you had accomplished something - regardless of how small - than seeing your family die in front of you and knowing you couldn’t do a thing about it.

“Then let’s go die.”

 

— 4 —

 

I looked out over a sea of people. Nearly a thousand men were gathered in the town square. Looking at them, I lost the last shreds of hope that we could win. Many of the men had no equipment whatsoever, and only a fraction had full sets of armor. This battle was no longer about trying to win. It was about preserving our honor.

I stepped up onto the podium. For whatever reason, I had been chosen to speak to the army before the battle. I’d used the Calligraphies of Loud Speech and Charisma on myself, meaning that my words would be louder and my speech would be more powerful.

“People of Terelime,” I said. The men quieted, looking up at me. “None of you are looking forward to what must happen next. I understand that.” Quiet murmurs of agreement rose from the crowd. “But you are the last of us. The men who stand here, ready to fight. You are the last people who will fight on this entire planet. Our high priest has become evil. Instead of preaching of order and meaning, he ensues chaos and destruction. He has come here today to wipe you all out. Make no mistake, he intends to kill you and your families with no emotion or care for your lives. I’ve seen him. I’ve talked with him. He will not compromise. 

“So, the time has come for us to make a stand. We, the people of Terelime will not be forgotten. We may be killed, we may be trampled to the ground. But we will stand on that stone out there and we will defy. We will show that universe that it can throw every tool it has against us. It can turn our friends, our neighbors, and our lovers into demons. It can tear us into pieces and scatter those pieces to the wind. But it can not take our honor. 

“Today, I invite you to die. I don’t deny that you will fall on that battlefield. But you will not die cowards. You will die with fire in your hearts and honor on your sleeve. So, in the name of everything that is honorable, everything that is true, I call you to war. For everyone that has been lost, and for those who will be lost. Will you join me?”

A massive cheer rose from the crowd. I was quite surprised, honestly. But the men cheered their approval and my spirit rose. If nothing else, I’d done something for these men. I’d given them the will to fight. And we’d need everything we could get in the fight ahead.

 

An hour later, I stood facing the darkness. Chaos swirled in there, a mad force of indiscriminate destruction. And here I was, one man, with a ragtag band of men who’d never seen combat in their lives trying to fight it.

I was on the verge of calling out for Tor when he strode from the blackness, wearing a robe made of shadow. His eyes were an electric red that glowed with a chaotic energy.

“Kalak. What do you think you’re doing?” said my old friend. His voice was laced with an energetic frenzy that made him seem quite insane.

“Tor. You took everything from me. From this world. I intend to see you be given justice.”

He laughed. The man had the nerve to laugh. “Kalack, I never expected you to understand me. You never understood me. Ever since we were boys…”

“Face me.”

“What?”

“Man to man. Friend to friend. Face me.”

Tor looked rather amused at this statement. “You really think you could destroy me?”

“Too scared, Tor? Too afraid to kill me?”

At the words, something almost seemed to leap from him. A terrible, ferocious monster that clawed to get out.”Fine. I’ll face you. And I’ll kill you.”

I quickly took hold of my Peron. The spear-like weapon felt familiar and comfortable to me. Tor summoned his own one, a black pole of metal forming out of cracking energy. I rushed him. 

The duel felt familiar to me. How many hours had I spent dueling back at home? I didn’t know. But something about it felt primally right. I fought with precise, practiced movements. Not Tor. He fought with the power of chaos behind him. His attacks were powerful, wide, and erratic. I grunted, blocking a swing. This was going to be tough. 

We fought like that for almost five minutes, me making precise movements that countered his chaotic one. It was clear that I was ahead. Finally, I managed to plant the point of the peron in his left arm. To my utter shock, he didn’t bleed. Upon contact, he evaporated. He disintegrated into black smoke. I stood there, so shocked that I didn’t notice the blackness. Tor was re-emerging, no sign of a wound. What? And behind him was… an army. A vast army of chaotic souls that danced around wildly, cackling and screeching. 

“Tor, why must you do this?” I screamed. Tor looked at me, sorrow in his eyes. His army of demons rushed up behind him. And the last thing I saw was my old friend turning away, unable to face me as I died. 

Then everything went black.

 

Edited April 6 by TheFrugalWizard
proofreading stuff

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

On 4/7/2024 at 1:54 AM, TheFrugalWizard said:

Hello all! Sorry about the double post.

Anyway, I am submitting the following story to a competition at my local library for creative writing. It's due next Sunday, so please give me feedback if you have any! Will also be posting this on my profile. Also - title is tenative, I am taking suggestions.

  Hide contents

Where Honor goes to Die

TheFrugalWizard

 

— Prelude —

 

I doubt anyone will ever read this. I doubt there’s even a planet out there with life intelligent enough to understand this. I’m not sure why I even bothered to transmit this at all.

If you are reading this, then I ask you one thing. If there was one choice  you could make to preserve the honor of Racrial, I ask that you remember us. Remember how we laugh, how we cry, how we love. Remember how we fight. How we stand. How we fall. Remember How we lead, how we serve. How we lie and how we show honor. We may be dead, but we are not forgotten. We will not truly die until the last words of the last book crumble to dust. Because we, the Calligraphers, we are words. We exist in every glyph that you scrawl, every key that you type and every sentence you form. In every letter, you honor our memory. A memory of a people who were once great. 

Without further ado, I present the history of the last days of the planet Racrial according to me, a lonely bodyguard. I hope you learn something.

 

— 1 —

 

It all started when god died. Or maybe he just abandoned all of us. Perhaps there was no god to begin with. Whatever the reason, most historians (including only me, as far as I know) believe that this event took place on the twenty-fifth day of Sol.

I was in the throne room, talking with Frisin, the king. We were discussing the politics of Tellorim. The queen there had been especially infuriating recently. She refused to agree to any peaceful terms with Frisia, instead insisting on war. Frisin was on the verge of snapping when a servant burst through the door. 

“Sir!” he wheezed, he doubled over, panting for breath. “Your—your majesty—” He seemed to be in a hurry to tell the king some very important news. I tensed.

“What is it, man?” Frisin snapped, standing up.

“Your majesty, the calligraphers, they’ve—they’ve started attacking people.”

Frisin stood, shocked for several moments before replying. “What did you just say?” he asked. He appeared completely baffled. Why were the calligraphers attacking? The calligraphers were the priests of Frisia.

“The calligraphers, sir. I just saw one, he was—” he shivered. He had clearly just run from something quite… traumatic. “—he was killing people. With these black tendrils.”

A scream that bespoke pure terror echoed in the outside hallway. The man wasn’t lying. The threat was confirmed. I leapt into action immediately.

“Get the emergency team,” I ordered the servant. “Tell them to get the king out through the back exit. Then get out with anyone you find along the way.” He nodded and left.

“But Kalick, what about you?” asked the king. 

I picked up my old Peron. The weight of the long, pole-shaped weapon felt familiar in my hands. “Someone’s got to hold them off.”

“But you’ll be killed!”

“That’s a risk I’m going to have to take.” I gave Frisin a salute. “If I don’t make it out, sir—”

“Don’t say that. You’ll be fine.”

“I will see you soon then, sir.”

“Soon.” His guards soon arrived and towed him towards the back hallway. 

Mere moments after he’d left, the door banged open again. But it wasn’t a servant this time. It was a face I recognized.

“Tor?”

My old friend smiled. Not a nice smile, a smile for an old friend. That was a smile that said, “you’re never leaving alive.” Well, I’d see about that.

“Kalick. Look at you!” said Tor as he strode into the room. “You sure are living the life. The fanciest Peron. The nicest armor. The cushiest job. Why couldn’t I be a bodyguard?” 

Several more Calligraphers were coming up from behind him, but he held them back. Black tendrils of shadow pooled at their feet.

“You know why, Tor.”

“Yes. Because you’re too much of a goody-two shoes to make any of the rest of us look good at all.” I was silent. “Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. Now, which way did the king go?” After I refused to answer, he growled and stepped forward. I saw a red light gleaming in his eyes. Darkness pooled around his feet. He looked like death himself, coming for my soul. “Kalick. Tell us where he went and you won’t die. You’re still one of us.”

I looked him right in those smoldering red eyes and raised my Peron. “You won’t have him.”

He growled. “Fine. You can die then. Just like everyone else on this god forsaken planet.”

“Gladly.” I ran towards him, the point of my Peron at the head of my charge. He laughed and several of the tendrils of shadow rose to knock away my blow. I swung the butt of the Peron, adorned with deadly spikes at his chest. He grunted at the blow, but it drew no blood. Glyphs! Was he invincible? I didn’t matter, I supposed. I just needed to buy time.

I felt a sharp pain in my back. I swung around, knocking aside a solid tendril of darkness that had been attacking me. It disintegrated at a swing from my Peron. I made a jab at his face which was easily parried. Glyphs! There was no way I could beat him. I fingered the small piece of parchment at my belt. Before I could think better of it, I threw it at  the ground in front of  Tor. It activated, sending a blast of white light in a massive explosion. I had positioned myself carefully, and was hurled out of the window on the other side of the throne room. Perfect. The last thing I saw before blacking out was the magnificent golden palace of Frisia with ugly black curls of smoke billowing up from the windows.

 

— 2 —

 

I sat in an empty temple. This temple, once a metropolis of life and worship, was now a tomb of the religion it once was.. The last priest of Calligraphism, I couldn’t be sure how soon I would be killed. Or worse. It was my faith that preserved the last memories of my god. 

I dipped my quill into the inkwell on the ground by me. I sat cross-legged on the dirty sandstone floor of the temple, a large piece of parchment and a bottle of ink in front of me. Then I began to draw. My quill moved across the paper in fluid motions, drawing the glyphs that I was so familiar with. Death, the skull that represented the fallen. Stone, to give structure to my tribute. And the final glyph, the one that was the core of every calligraphy. Order, to bring it together and form the spell into what I wanted it to be. 

As the final part of the ritual, I walked to the center of the temple, where a circular basin of Felk shimmered with a golden light. Despite its glow, the watery substance was as clear as a pane of glass. 

I blessed the calligraphy and placed the parchment into the pool. It drifted to the center of the Felk, then the rune I had drawn began to glow. White light spilled from the lines of ink like sunlight pouring through a stained glass window. I watched with solemn eyes as the paper shattered, bursting into a million pieces of golden light. Before the shards of light reached the pool, they began to form into the image of a man drawing in midair, his gaze intent and his quill furious. The light finally coalesced into a model of stone. The figure stood atop an altar that had the words “For the Fallen” engraved upon it. Below the words were the names of all who had once served in the temple.

I bowed my head and offered a silent prayer up to Yi. I finished by saying, “I honor all of those who have served here. You may have been taken by chaos, but you will not be forgotten.”

Somber, I walked out of the temple. I wandered over to the king’s tent. I knocked on the wooden post outside. 

“Frisin?”

“Kalick, is that you?” came his voice from the tent. “Come in.”

I pushed into the tent. He was pouring over a map of the world. 

“What are you doing?”

“Kalick, look at this,” he said. He was pointing to a large scribble on the map. “Kalick, we can’t outrun them,” he said. I was silent.

Tor had been pursuing us ever since the fiasco at the palace. We’d been on the run for over a week. The group - a small one - included me, the king, a few bodyguards, and Kalad, my apprentice. In the last few days, however, Tor had been catching up with us rather quickly. I knew, deep down, that there would be a confrontation. I wasn’t so thrilled to be faced with it.

“Right here,” the king said, motioning to the map, “is where I’m projecting him to catch us to meet.” He was pointing at a small city on the border of the kingdom. I’d never heard of it before.

“There’s no way we can outrun him?”I asked. It was a frail hope.

“Not by much.” We were both silent. Thinking of that day brought an air of solemnity with it. I broke the silence.

“Sir, as your bodyguard, I feel it is my duty to ensure your safety and protection at all times. We should keep moving and try to stay ahead of Tor for as long as we can.”

“Kalick—”

“Sir, please just humor me.”

“Okay.”

 

A few hours later, our camp was packed up and we were on our way. To where, I had no idea. We were running. Running from something that was so unspeakable, unthinkable, that it made me tremble in fear and weep with sorrow.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Tor. He’d been my friend ever since… well, ever since I can remember. We’d apprenticed together, played together, worked together. But then… Well I got offered a position as the king’s bodyguards, and he didn’t. That had driven a wedge between us. No longer did we go out drinking together or spend time with each other. We’d still wave at each other and chat, but it could never again be like it once had been. He was jealous. 

Tor was still ambitious. In fact, if I remembered correctly, he’d been the High Calligrapher when everything had gone down. The church leader would have had quite a bit of power and no small wage, but nothing so grand as my prestigious position. And that had led to their further drifting. Eventually, there was only a sense of formality and obligation between the two of us. Our old friendship was no more.

And now… Well, now he had turned into that. That thing. I shivered just thinking about it. When we’d fought, I’d sensed a force behind his movements. Not deliberate, but driving. Tor was driven by chaos. Pure, raw, lust for destruction and power. He was connected to nothing but his passion for pandemonium. 

As I marched, a heavy pack on my shoulders, I felt a salty tear trickle down my face. I realized something, then. I loved Tor. Yes, he’d become evil. Yes, he’d taken control of the other Calligraphists. But I still loved him. Where was the Tor who made me laugh? Where was the bookworm who couldn’t keep his nose out of a book? The indoor-bound child who had to be dragged by his toes to get him outside?

The memories flooded me and I couldn’t hold them in. I fell back from the group. I sat down on the barren ground, and buried my face in my hands. Then I started weeping. I cried for the man who used to be so close to me. I sobbed for the person that had been taken over by the evil force of chaos. I grieved for the child who had grown into the monster he was today. Where was my friend? Where was the person that had helped me through the most trying of hard times? In those tears, I felt the truth. The hard, cold, mean truth. Tor was gone. He was dead already. In his place was a monster, bent on seeing the world burn. And I was the only one who could stop it.

 

— Interlude —

Four months ago

Tor was a normal person. At least, he used to be normal. It wasn’t too long ago that he’d been the leader of the church, a perfectly normal position. Recently, however, he’d become less normal. Ever since god died, Tor had been forced to make some very not normal choices.

Tor observed the woman chained to his wall with as much sorrow as curiosity. He could sense the power within her, the power that flowed through her veins. She was the key to all of his troubles. At the same time… it was a person. Chained to his wall. 

The power he sensed, it was the power that was in every human. Over the last couple of months, his research had led him to believe that god, or at least some otherworldly being, had died to maintain that every human had that lifeforce.

Every planet has a natural power, an energy that can only be accessed by divinity. The being known as god had been feeding off this energy, using it to sustain his existence. This god’s only motive was not to just live, however. He was driven to create. Or more specifically, to give meaning and purpose to his creations. Unfortunately, the only way to do this was to sacrifice some of that primal power of the planet and give it to humans.

Tor’s research had found that god had done just that. In order to give humans a soul, he’d imbued them with a tiny shard of divinity. Each human has that, and everything that has been created by humans has that. 

Tor was trying to find a way to extract that power. He needed it. For… for Kara. Oh, glyphs, how could he go on without Kara?

He walked up to the woman, Tears were forming in his eyes. He felt the grip of the knife in his hands. His arms - indeed, all of him - were trembling. Was he really planning to kill a person? What was wrong with him?

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. Hope, longing, and fear battled for dominance in her eyes. Glyphs, what was he thinking?

He had to do this. For Kara.

He closed his eyes. 

“This is for you.” He raised the knife, slitting the woman’s throat. He had to think about why he was doing what he was doing, or it wouldn’t work. He was doing it for the power.

Warm blood trickled down his hand. He opened his eyes.

At first, nothing happened. Tor was rather disappointed. But before he reached the wall to hang his knife back up, he noticed something. Black tendrils, seemingly formed from shadow, forced their way out of he body. They made their way across the chamber and into the knife that Tor held. From there, the power sept into Tor himself. 

He felt a giddy feeling of a massive increase in power. As he did, he almost felt like some of his meaning left him. Some of his sanity, of his ability to understand purpose, slipped away from him. But it didn’t matter. It was a small amount - perhaps he’d been hallucinating. 

And the power, it felt strange. Dirty. It was as if the shard of divinity imbued in that woman had somehow been corrupted by him. He felt as if he should be disgusted at what he’d done, but he had next to no emotion. 

Tor shivered. He’d have to be careful with this, otherwise it could go very wrong very quickly.

 

— 3 —

 

Here I was. I had finally come to my deathbed.

I stood in the tower of the Manor in Terelime. Each city had a manor, similar to a palace, but it housed the city’s Noble Lord instead of a king. Terelime was built on a hill surrounded by desert. 

Black cracks, like veins, twisted from Tor’s forces and stopped at the city walls. Beyond the veins was darkness. A massive, incomprehensible darkness that flashed with twisting shadows and chaotic forms. It bespoke terror, destruction, and most terrifying of all, the death of the last of the Calligraphers.

Over the last couple of days, I’d done some thinking. Going through my memories of the disaster and of the ancient prophecies. They’d foretold of an event such as this. Pure chaos descending upon the last civilization. I’d just never thought I’d be a part of it.

I sighed and made my way down the staircase. Surly Tor would attack any day. It was anyone’s guess when. 

Downstairs, I found Frisin at a table surrounded by advisers, including Bedimar, the Noble Lord of this city. 

“Ah, Kalack!” the king said. “Great to see you!”

I gave a weak smile. “I’m not feeling too great. Tor is camped outside, ready to attack. It’s only a matter of time.”

He frowned. “Kalack, come over here. We’ve got a plan.”

“What?” I asked. A plan? Surely nothing could repel Tor and his forces of chaos. Still, I sat down beside Frisin. “A plan?”

“Yes!” said Bedimar enthusiastically “We’re planning to make a stand. Right here. Right now. We’ll stop Tor and crush his armies.”

I was silent. The plan was a desperate one. One that had no chance of success. In fact, it wasn’t really a plan at all. It was a final stand, a last display of what Racrial had to offer. It was all that remained of our honor.

“We’ll draft all the men in Terelime,” Bedimar continued, “and use them in our last defense of the city.”

“It’s not going to work. You’re dooming these men,” I said. Someone had to say it. Might as well have been me.

He took a deep breath. “They’d be doomed anyway. Better that they die fighting.” 

I nodded. Better to die fighting beside your fellows then alone and afraid. Better to know you had accomplished something - regardless of how small - than seeing your family die in front of you and knowing you couldn’t do a thing about it.

“Then let’s go die.”

 

— 4 —

 

I looked out over a sea of people. Nearly a thousand men were gathered in the town square. Looking at them, I lost the last shreds of hope that we could win. Many of the men had no equipment whatsoever, and only a fraction had full sets of armor. This battle was no longer about trying to win. It was about preserving our honor.

I stepped up onto the podium. For whatever reason, I had been chosen to speak to the army before the battle. I’d used the Calligraphies of Loud Speech and Charisma on myself, meaning that my words would be louder and my speech would be more powerful.

“People of Terelime,” I said. The men quieted, looking up at me. “None of you are looking forward to what must happen next. I understand that.” Quiet murmurs of agreement rose from the crowd. “But you are the last of us. The men who stand here, ready to fight. You are the last people who will fight on this entire planet. Our high priest has become evil. Instead of preaching of order and meaning, he ensues chaos and destruction. He has come here today to wipe you all out. Make no mistake, he intends to kill you and your families with no emotion or care for your lives. I’ve seen him. I’ve talked with him. He will not compromise. 

“So, the time has come for us to make a stand. We, the people of Terelime will not be forgotten. We may be killed, we may be trampled to the ground. But we will stand on that stone out there and we will defy. We will show that universe that it can throw every tool it has against us. It can turn our friends, our neighbors, and our lovers into demons. It can tear us into pieces and scatter those pieces to the wind. But it can not take our honor. 

“Today, I invite you to die. I don’t deny that you will fall on that battlefield. But you will not die cowards. You will die with fire in your hearts and honor on your sleeve. So, in the name of everything that is honorable, everything that is true, I call you to war. For everyone that has been lost, and for those who will be lost. Will you join me?”

A massive cheer rose from the crowd. I was quite surprised, honestly. But the men cheered their approval and my spirit rose. If nothing else, I’d done something for these men. I’d given them the will to fight. And we’d need everything we could get in the fight ahead.

 

An hour later, I stood facing the darkness. Chaos swirled in there, a mad force of indiscriminate destruction. And here I was, one man, with a ragtag band of men who’d never seen combat in their lives trying to fight it.

I was on the verge of calling out for Tor when he strode from the blackness, wearing a robe made of shadow. His eyes were an electric red that glowed with a chaotic energy.

“Kalak. What do you think you’re doing?” said my old friend. His voice was laced with an energetic frenzy that made him seem quite insane.

“Tor. You took everything from me. From this world. I intend to see you be given justice.”

He laughed. The man had the nerve to laugh. “Kalack, I never expected you to understand me. You never understood me. Ever since we were boys…”

“Face me.”

“What?”

“Man to man. Friend to friend. Face me.”

Tor looked rather amused at this statement. “You really think you could destroy me?”

“Too scared, Tor? Too afraid to kill me?”

At the words, something almost seemed to leap from him. A terrible, ferocious monster that clawed to get out.”Fine. I’ll face you. And I’ll kill you.”

I quickly took hold of my Peron. The spear-like weapon felt familiar and comfortable to me. Tor summoned his own one, a black pole of metal forming out of cracking energy. I rushed him. 

The duel felt familiar to me. How many hours had I spent dueling back at home? I didn’t know. But something about it felt primally right. I fought with precise, practiced movements. Not Tor. He fought with the power of chaos behind him. His attacks were powerful, wide, and erratic. I grunted, blocking a swing. This was going to be tough. 

We fought like that for almost five minutes, me making precise movements that countered his chaotic one. It was clear that I was ahead. Finally, I managed to plant the point of the peron in his left arm. To my utter shock, he didn’t bleed. Upon contact, he evaporated. He disintegrated into black smoke. I stood there, so shocked that I didn’t notice the blackness. Tor was re-emerging, no sign of a wound. What? And behind him was… an army. A vast army of chaotic souls that danced around wildly, cackling and screeching. 

“Tor, why must you do this?” I screamed. Tor looked at me, sorrow in his eyes. His army of demons rushed up behind him. And the last thing I saw was my old friend turning away, unable to face me as I died. 

Then everything went black.

 

sorry i'm so late to read this! this combined with @Edema Rue's liz sceans makes me almost want to write a character who destroyed the world in order to protect it... *starts brainstorming how that can be combined with my current WIP...

[Kitkat0330 she/her]

On 3/15/2024 at 11:21 AM, The Stormfather said:

Here's a prompt : A volcano that is ruled by a chicken.

Seems like it'll make a very profound, insightful story.

The world would end. Humanity had to except it. There was nothing they could do to change Mike's mind. Mike would laugh at the prospect of mankind's impending demise- if he could that is. Unfortunately, he had lost his beak to a butcher's blade years before. Along with his head. But those were minor details. Soon, he would regain everything he had lost, and more. Mike felt the heat of the lava just to his right, and he kept to the left as he strut down the corridor.  He finally arrived at the room where the metal had been cooling. As Mike attached the new head to his severed neck, he was flooded with a sensation he hadn't experienced in a long time. Sight. He glorified in the sensation, before turning his mind to other matters. Now, Mike had everything. He could end humanity easily, and they wouldn't have a clue. He walked towards the screens he had constructed. The metal of his head scraped together as he tried to give an evil grin. Now, he could simply read  the CS (Chicken Scratch) without effort. He selected a point on his map for the first strike to happen. Naturally, he chose Fruita, Colorado. His original home. They wouldn't know what hit them. They would run around in confusion- almost like a chicken with its head chopped off. Thinking of the irony of that sentence, Mike threw back his head, and laughed. The horrible, mechanical sound vibrated throughout the volcano, foreshadowing the end of the world as we know it.