Stones of Rhiadon

Stones of Rhiadon: Chapter 1 - Exploration

A/N: Hello, this is Sir Searon, or Craig Price. Together James Swinney and I are currently at work on a new novel together. This joint novel between two fantasy writers is going to be a blast, and I am honored that James has agreed to do this with me. Joint writing can be hard, which is why we spent a lot of time discussing what we wanted to do with it, including the characters, storyplot, and while we'll both add in our own twists, we still have the same main story plot, which also makes it fun to take on after each other and continue writing. Sometimes when two writers switch off it turns into more of a humor story which James and I have talked about staying away from, I'm sure we'll still incooperate standard humor in it. 

I hope all of you enjoy, and James and I would both appreciate votes & comments if you see fit, I have posted this first chapter and we'll await Sir James to get his second chapter up. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned! 

Chapter 1:

 "Exploration"

By Craig A. Price

“It’s something us elves are born with. They speak to us in our minds.”

            The only sound worse than hard rain storming a hard wood deck was that of it splashing into the water on all four sides of it. A young man sat in the center of a medium ship alone and without cover. The house that was on top the ship hard been torn off by a great storm. Months of travel but there was no sign of life but the trautious Sea.

            Noraes sat cold and wet on the stormy night with barely a ship left. He had given up on trying to navigate and decided to consume in his fate. Wrapped in a black blanket feeling shivering chills down his spine he sat. Lightning came down and shook the vessel causing him to only grab the blanket tighter around him.

            Hours went by with hardly a sound able to penetrate the rain and thunder surrounding him. He kept his eyes closed and lost himself in his mind thinking of anything to keep his mind off the sounds. All that entered the blackness was memories of his brother. It had been months since he had seen him and he did miss him. Yet he knew he was happy when he left. Noraes didn’t know what to do with his life anymore he decided to travel.

            After months of relentless traveling he grew bored and decided to head out into the ocean. He heard of islands to explore but after the first storm he became lost at sea and there wasn’t anything but the land of Calthoria known of being explored. So he didn’t think he had any chance but he still kept his rations that weren’t torn away from the storms to try and survive as long as he could. Still it had been weeks since he had anything to eat living only living off of water.

            Finally the rain let up but the clouds and darkness did not. The concept of time was beyond reorganization.  After several more hours of sitting in pitch black the sun finally rose. The light cascaded across the ocean blaring through the clouds and letting heat warm the deck of the ship. Noraes finally let go of the blanket letting it cascade down his shoulders as he smiled at the sunrise.

            Then something surprising revealed itself over the horizon that nearly made Noraes’ jaw drop. There was a tree is the distance but he couldn’t see the land that it was attached to. Anything that could bring an end to the tiring sea made Noraes ecstatic. He searched around pulling a piece of the deck up on his ship looking at the last of his food. It was being saved for a rainy day and it hadn’t been as stormy as last night for a while. There was a small piece of bread that was large enough to fit in his hand. It was all that he needed to survive until reaching land.

            As he looked to his feet he noticed the water pouring in soaking almost an inch into his ship. He quickly grabbed a steel bucket by his side and began swishing water out trying to keep it afloat enough to make it. The storm really had done some damage to the ship with small holes throughout the top of it. Still even as he was scooping the water out preventing the inevitable destruction of his ship he continue to smile. He knew that land wasn’t far off.