His golden armour gleamed in the purple light from the glowing God in the sky as it pierced through the trees, the light of the Eversfar bathed him, cleansed him and washed him out from within. He was so exhausted now, but he had to keep going and to keep fighting on. He needed to do it, not for selfish reasons but as it was simply the way of life in this harsh plane of existence, he did it for those he loved, he needed to do it for those he loved, lest they be taken into the Darkfar.
The Knight of the Hovel, as he was known, walked on through the deep jungle, a jungle infested with green little critters… nothing that were too bothersome, although they could be sneaky little things indeed, he thought to himself as he quickly raised his big gold-plated shield as then a spear suddenly embedded itself deeply within it, he then crouched in the direction it came from and slowly moved forward, breathing heavily.
He reached the edge of the brush from where it had come, holding his sword tightly within the left hand, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. The sword was absurd in of itself, indeed it was, such a thing should have been impossible to wield given its sheer size, a large green jewel sat within the center of the pommel, it glowed faintly and gave him a familiar warmth, it never got old that warmth, even after centuries of combat, but Goldsmith was hungry, he could feel it.
He pushed into the brush, letting the sword guide him towards the poor little being… oh dear, it really didn’t stand a chance against him, but all the same they always tried feeble attempts to kill him in the most adorable little ways. Suddenly though, he was struck with the most peculiar sound he had ever heard, emanating from within the brush he was slowly pushing into… was that… sobbing?
Now that is very odd indeed, he thought, he no longer needed his sword now, the pathetic little sobbing of the green critter revealed all. He came upon it within a small clearing of the brush, a place where some toadstools were pushing out of the ground, a few miniature flying humanoids were sitting on them, smiling and giggling as they always did – not much freaked this old Knight, but those little humanoids, who sat on toadstools all day and just laughed and laughed, always unsettled him, because it didn’t matter the circumstance, surrounded by blood or suffering, they’d still giggle and laugh as if all was well, now that just wasn’t right.
The Knight was standing now, the little green critter before him, looking tiny in-front of the gigantic being before it, the knight wearing his bulky gold armour and holding his massive shield and obnoxious sword, of which the green jewel was now glowing so brightly. The green critter continued to sob between its legs, just kill it already he thought. But something was stopping him, was it just the sheer oddity of the situation that was making him stay or was he perhaps beginning to feel something for once?
The Knight flicked up his visor to reveal a pair of round burning red eyes and he stood and observed the little critter as it kept on sobbing. Never before in the centuries he had been fighting out in these planes did he come across something like this, and he thought he’d seen it all now, what did this mean?
Eventually the sobs begun to calm as the knight just stared and the critter looked up, its face full of confusion, likely wondering why it had not yet been killed. “What in Eversfar’s name is wrong with you, critter?” asked the Knight of the Hovel in a sharp and cruel voice.
The creature shook at the knight’s voice and appeared to understand it as a question, “scared,” it replied, in its own language. The Knight of the Hovel, having been alive for so long now, had picked up most of the languages of the realm by this point.
The Knight, all the same, didn’t understand, wasn’t anyone scared here? Apart from him of course, his days of being scared were long over, well, he could hardly remember those days so many centuries ago, so much had happened, so much that had led him on to a path he’d never thought he’d take, and yet day after day it was practically the same bore.
The Knight was curious enough to switch into the critter’s language, although he hated its roughness and basic qualities, he needed to know more. “But none of your kind have cried before, never that I have seen and I have slain so many of you now, so many I have long lost count, but here you are sobbing, and surprising one that should no longer be surprised anymore.”
“Things change,” replied the critter, his voice shaky and wearisome, “some things take a very long time to change, but all the same they change eventually.”
The Knight could feel the sword burning in his left hand now, he found it hard to resist the urge to just end this pathetic little critter’s life, he didn’t understand what it was going on about anyway so why not just lop its head off right now and be done with it? The Knight for a moment lifted his sword up and looked upon the brightly glowing green jewel, within its reflection he could see many things, fighting, suffering, death, massive battles and major catastrophes, all things he and his sword had been through and seen conclude over the centuries, its sword enjoyed keeping all these terrible dark memories.
The Knight could not even remember how he came across the sword, he came to realize suddenly, but then remembered he came to realize this often and he would soon forget again, who cares how he came across the sword? He looked at the critter again, who now was just staring down at the floor, emotionless, as if it had just given up all hope. The Knight could no longer hold back any longer, and so with one effortless sweep he lopped off its head, sending it careening off further into the jungle, where it promptly plopped into a small lake.
“Off to the Darkfar with you.”
The body oozed out a green slimy substance and it seemed as if the little flying humanoids on the surrounding toadstools begun cackling more harshly. The Knight moved upon the headless corpse and kneeled down, dropping his shield with a clunk and placing his right gauntleted hand onto the body, he sucked in the sprites from the kill and felt the familiar rush of energy fill him up again, he flipped down his visor, picked up his shield, yanked out the embedded spear with an inhuman strength and then on he went, on and on.
As he continued on, hunting for more little green critters, which he remembered were called goblins, but then remembered the reason why he called them little green critters in the first place, was because they were lowly beings who didn’t deserve to be called what they wanted to be called, or was that the reason? The Knight halted doubting his memories, and not for the first time, his memories more jumbled than ever, and he sighed.
It wasn’t long before a loud crack in the distance startled him from his thoughtful trance and snapped him back into reality, he quickly moved into a fighting stance towards the direction of the cracking sound, which sounded like something had traveled in through a portal, he knew that sound well, and many terrible and troublesome things had often come out of them, far more challenging than a mere green critter, such as firey hounds, huge lumbering humanoids, dark entities and more.
As he continued searching for whatever had just entered the area, he heard a light “boo!” within his right ear, causing him to quickly whirl around with savage ferocity, such force that a nearby tree keeled over, having been completely cut through by the sword from the blind swing.
“Wow,” said a figure cloaked in dark purple in the distance standing upon a large tree stump, “I think that performance is going to enter into my top ten of Springle Steel Startles,” said the figure mockingly.
Springle, the Knight, recognised the figure almost immediately. It was another of the centenarians, like himself, although one who chose to be particularly annoying and who was a wizard. “Why are you here, Dracomeer?”
“Well, it must be for a reason, right? Things are changing,” said Dracomeer in an excitable voice as he hopped off the tree stump.
Springle scoffed, “oh, don’t you start with that nonsense, already had to put up with it from a little green critter, crying at my boots that things were apparently changing.”
Dracomeer lowered down his hood, revealing black messy hair along with one heck of a moustache and beard. He looked almost curious, not that Springle had ever seen him curious before, he was hundreds of more years older than himself, could anything even make Dracomeer the Twisted curious anymore? Perhaps so.
“Well, what did the goblin say?” asked Dracomeer
Springle snorted at the word Goblin and then said, “well, not much to be honest with you, Dracomeer, not much that made any deal of sense anyway, so I lopped his head off. Things changing, yeah right, I’ve yet to see it.”
Dracomeer cackled, “you fool, the change is right before your eyes, the change is actually you itself. I see that sword still blinds you, and yet it’s the only reason you ended up becoming a centenarian, so that’s going to be an interesting predicament when it comes to it,” he said in a scheming fashion, “it still bothers me you are one, considering that it has only ever been us wizards. Do you still not remember where you even found it?”
“No,” said Springle through irritation, “I have told you many times, I can’t remember and I am never going to remember.”
Dracomeer stroked his moustache thoughtfully, “why not just drop the sword and be done with it? What’s the point for you to continue on like this? Springle Steel, the jester who became a knight, now isn’t that ironic, considering your best act was making fun of knights. Oh, I remember well those days of old, in a world that, yes, was harsh, but nothing like the harshness it possesses these days. Gosh you were bullied and beaten by the very knights you made fun of in those days, if only they had lived to see you now, they’d be torn to shreds by you, alas they are long dead from battle and natural old age.”
Springle didn’t care what Dracomeer thought, considering he remembered none of it. He just wanted him to go away and leave him alone, leave him to hunt for sprites and food to feed his family. He cannot let them be taken by the Darkfar, that can never happen.
“Your family doesn’t exist anymore, when will you ever realize that? Just reason for a single moment, your family aren’t centenarians, so how could they still be alive?” asked Dracomeer wisely.
Springle didn’t answer as he had heard this talk numerous times from Dracomeer and none of it ever made sense to him. Whenever he went back to the Royal Capital his family were always there, and as far as he was concerned that was good enough. He pushed it out of his mind.
Dracomeer sighed, “I bet you don’t even remember, truly, why you hate the goblins, do you?”
“It’s hard to remember so much when you’ve lived so long, but I know there’s a very good reason why. And as such I shall keep killing them for their sustenance, both for me and my family,” spat Springle angrily.
Dracomeer gave a hysterical laugh, “Oh, if you only realized that if your family were still alive then you hating the Goblins would not be a truth, there’s a very good reason you hate them, and I bet it is one of the reasons why you got to where you got to. Out of sheer hatred, that was so strong, strong enough to make you want to keep living, but you’ve been getting your revenge for such a long time now that you’ve even forgotten what that revenge is for.”
Springle didn’t like when Dracomeer talked like this, it made his head hurt, because none of it made any sense, and it was too much to try and make any kind of sense from it, “I haven’t got time for anymore of this bore, I am going to continue hunting now and then head home, to my family,” he finished loudly on the last part.
“You can’t escape what’s going to be happening,” said Dracomeer, “I’m just trying to make realization easier for you, we will meet again soon.”
And with that there was another echoing crack and he was gone. Wizards sure were odd folk, Springle had always thought, just straight up ignoring usual laws of procedure, bouncing around here and there and just being general nonsensical folk all round. Although that was his interpretation of Dracomeer, he had seen other wizards of course, but never spoken with them, and most seemed to not like him and acted like he didn’t exist of which Springle was perfectly content with. He didn’t know why Dracomeer took such an aggravating level of interest in him.
But whatever, he’d soon forget all this silliness, but he also knew that Dracomeer would be back to annoy him again at some point, but he didn’t care as soon he’d also forget that Dracomeer would be back soon and as such he’d not anticipate it or remember him until he did return.
After killing about two dozen more green critters, or was it five dozen? He headed home, it was a long trek through the Jungle lands towards the Royal Capital District, which was the main center of the Kingdom, and the largest settlement found on the mainland. Springle lived in a small dishellved hovel, his namesake, on the outskirts of the settlement, his hovel was once right on the edge of this settlement among farmland used for the city, but over the many centuries the farmland had been pushed much further out and the city had expanded to enclose his small hovel, now dwarfed by larger hovels and markets, Springle did miss the quieter atmosphere at times, but he had started to forget about that more and more now.
He walked through the muddy streets towards his hovel and entered and he saw his wife and his two sons and also his little daughter, all sat around the old dining room table within the main room of the hovel. They as always were anticipating his return with food, water and most importantly, sprites. Seeing them always filled him with a comforting warmth.
Springle first, as always, went into the family sleeping quarters to remove his armour and put his sword and shield away, his armour and shield were hung up neatly on the wall, but his sword, well he could not have that on show, too dangerous and also important to hide it away from possible enemies who sought it and thieves who may break in and try and steal it, and so after cleaning his sword off, he plucked up an old floorboard and hid it under the room as always.
Springle was a very large man, as one may have guessed, he was so tall he almost touched the ceiling of the hovel and he had to bend down to make it through most doorways, he was also very big-built with large muscles, his long brown hair often remained neat despite never doing anything with it, but his face had an odd paleness to it compared to the rest of his skin, and those eyes were something else.
Springle went around lighting the hovel’s candles, since his wife never seemed to do it anymore, they all just remained at the table waiting for nourishment, which he was fine with. Everything was going just as it usually did, but soon the oddities would begin again. As he was preparing dinner in his pantry a familiar voice drifted from out the main room, “Oh, Pringle, you lonesome man,” it said.
Springle frowned, immediately recognizing the voice as Dracomeer’s.
Thank you for reading! I don’t know where this is going to end up or whether it will ever reach a conclusion at all, but for now I am planning to release a new part each Tuesday, and see what happens with it.