Coming along with an update on this story now, didn't like how it turned out so I re-wrote it again (it's like the 4th time I've done it now. >_<) Well for something to turn out good a lot of editing is needed I suppose.
Chapter 1: Awakening.
“Darkness…, Why is it all dark? Am I sleeping?”
I flick my eyes open and look straight into a wall of ice.
“Ice...Wait what?, Who am I?”
To a surprise when I try to recall my memories I can’t find anything there, it’s all empty almost as if someone had pushed a “reset on life button”.
I should probably check my surroundings first and who knows, maybe I’ll find something out.
Looking upwards I come to realize that I’m laying in the bottom of an ice crack. I heave myself up to scan the area around me while trying to find out where I am. It appears I’m in some kind of cavern...
Why would I be in an cavern?
I haven’t got a clue, Was it normal to me? Did I just pass out here? So many questions with no answers to.
I look around a bit more and it seems like there are some sort of ruins in the distance. It might cause my memory wake up so I should probably head over there.
As I walk closer to the ruins I spot a sign in front of me, not being able to see what is says I walk up to it. The text is barely visible but the letters seem to spell the word Calindor.
The moment I read the name out my head starts hurting and I begin to see vivid images of a lively town and people running about.
Are these my memories? It feels like a rather surreal situation to me.
“For what reason is my memory gone?”
“I wish that at the very least I knew my own name.”
I walk closer to the ruins desperately hoping that I will remember something. Nothing happens though but It seems that something appears to be rustling around among the ruins. I spot a creature that’s standing on two legs while having two small front arms at the front of the body. It has a rather short but thick tail and a rounded head. Long sharp claws hang at the front arms and some kind of fin-like spikes on the head and at the top of it’s back.
All of a sudden it tilts its head and looks straight at me, the fear of being attacked by such a dangerous creature grasps me and as quickly as I can I try to hide from it behind a stone pillar that looks like it belonged to a major house. It doesn’t look like it would attack me though, it’s eyes are still. It just stands there watching me, making me nervous. I let out a sigh of relief when it runs out of the cave. I’m safe for now. Why didn’t it attack me though? Perhaps it wasn’t hungry? I don’t really know, I’m just happy to be alive.
I rise up from my hiding place and search through the ruins for anything not broken. A little bit east of the pillar there seems to be some sort of stone tower standing tall amongst the rubble.
I walk up to it and I see a wooden sign hanging out from the stones above an empty doorway. There is a picture of some books on it, maybe it’s been a library then? Perhaps it holds information on this place? I better go check it out, the only answer lies inside I suppose.
Immediately after the doorway there are some stairs going upwards and the door that I couldn’t find lies in shambles on the stairs, as if it was broken by some great force. There isn’t any kind of lightsource in this tower either because when I glance inside it’s just pitch black. Luckily for me there is light coming from the entrance of the cave and it looks like there are windows on the tower so I should at least be able to see something, maybe there is a door blocking the light. I go through the doorway and up the stairs and my assumption turned out to be correct, there was a door. I open it and I find myself standing in room that is filled with stone tablets rowed up along shelves on the walls. There is also a bunch of them lying on the floor, some are stacked up nicely while others are completely broken into many pieces. I pick up one of the tablets that are on the top of a stack, it seems like I know the language since I recognize all the characters.
It reads: “History of Calindor Part 1 written by Cosh Delmar”
“Due to an accident striking our city we are forced to move quickly before the jotuns can find us. Going into the jungle seems suicidal so the elders have made up this crazy plan that we should move out in the tundra instead. To me both things seems stupid either we freeze to death or we all get consumed. The scouts that were sent out a month ago just returned, only five of them still alive though. I know that we have to act fast but we can’t do anything at the moment and the illusion will only hold for one more week. Why did the mages have to experiment in the tower for? They are of no use to us if they die off.”
“I woke up today and heard some amazing news, the mages had worked hard with coming up a way for us to live in the tundra by working all night and in the end they managed to create a stone that produces heat from cold. If all of us carry around one of them we are sure not to die from the cold. In other news a jotun was spotted today and it is unknown if there will be more. I really hope that we can move without any trouble.”
“Today is the day we move out, luckily there hasn’t been any movement from the jotuns yet and it looks like we are in the clear for now. I’m just as excited about this as I’m terrified, who knows what we will meet out there. Some people refused to leave their homes and while I can understand them a bit I do not wish to be eaten by the jotuns and I’d rather try to survive for as long as I can.”
Quite an interesting read but it feels all distant to me. It feels as if this all happened a long time ago. What even is a jotun? It sounds dangerous, I hope I’ll don’t have to meet one. I proceed to put down the tablet on the stack that I took it from but as soon as the tablet hit the rest everything crumbles and the stack turns into a pile of stone pieces.
“Well there goes any attempt of ever reading anything in there.”
I take a little stroll around the room but there are so many tablets that I don’t even know where to begin if I were searching for something. In the opposite of where I came from there is a spiral staircase leading upwards, maybe the more important tablets are hidden higher up?
Well the only way to know is to get up there. I walk up to the second floor and just as I’m able to see it i notice that the layout is very different to the first floor. Instead of having tablets lined up along the walls there is instead a huge stone located in the center while the walls have no shelves or tablets hanging on them. There is a huge window on the right wall so I can see much better in here than I could downstairs.
“Due to the size of the stone it probably holds big importance for this place, I wonder what it says.”
I hurry forth to the stone eager to see what information it could hold. It reads:
“In memory of Geos Feervo The Founder of Calindor.
By doing everything that he had power to he miraculously saved the people from true disaster. Had it not been for him everyone would have died by the hands of jotun long ago. May he forever lie here as a memory for what he did.”
“That wasn’t really what I hoped it would say, so here under this very stone lies the skeleton of a very old person. At least he has a fancy emblem on his grave. So where do I go from here?”
I then spot a tablet lying on the floor near the grave and next to it there is a pile of white dust.
I pick it up and it reads:
“Discovery of ancient artifact during mining operations”
“Seems a bit more interesting than the grave I’d have to say.”
It continues:”During the normal mining operations one of the mining walls suddenly collapsed but it also opened up a hole that at first glance seemed empty but upon closer inspection there lay what appeared to be an ancient helmet in one of the edges.”
“Do you want to know how to make a good stew out of Taraneis and fish? Just follow this easy recipe.”
“What. Someone has written over the old text just to fit in some sort of recipe...Just as I finally thought that I would be able to find out what happened here. This is just sad.”
Suddenly I feel something slam against the floor, I quickly look up from the tablet and I see that one of the stones in the roof have fallen down, it is then followed by two more. Then the whole tower starts shaking. It strikes me; The whole tower is about to collapse, me walking in here when there has been no maintenance or people here for a long time probably broke it’s foundation or something. I don’t know but I have to get out of here as fast as I can.
I rush towards the staircase and then down it, I can see the light from the outside through the open door. As fast as I can manage I run over the first floor with it’s piles of tablets everywhere all the same as I attempt to dodge the falling stones. As soon as I reach the first staircase I hear a loud slam behind me, the grave must have fallen. I arrive at the icy ground moments later and as I look behind me I see the library’s death shakes and then the entire thing becomes a massive pile of rubble.
“May you have a better rest now that you have a larger and maybe better grave.”
“I just turned his resting place into a pile of rubble so the least I can do is to pay him some respect.”
“Since this place doesn’t seem to hold any information left for me I can only venture out of here to find what I need, I still have to find out who I am afterall.”
While walking out of the cave I realise that I must have been asleep for a very long time since everyone is gone and even the buildings were made into piles of rubble during the time I slept. I mean how can I not waken up from the sound of things collapsing?
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted as I hear a voice calling to me from behind : “You sure took some time on you Vizcer, you even changed your appearance somehow.”