The Lightning Scroll

Ch3, Pt I: Chaos

(4E 201)

Jo'navir's vision gradually returned to him through the fading white light.

He found himself in a forest with flourishing trees all around him and towering mountains in the distance. The long grass was blowing in sync with the wind and an elk could be seen prancing through it, splitting a new path in its wake.

"Dexpa!?" he called out. "He must be nearby," he thought.

Suddenly, a massive, winged beast began to soar across the sky above head. Jo'navir quickly found some cover behind a large rock to stay out of sight. The beast let out an echoing roar that shook the bushes around him. "What is that thing?" Jo'navir whispered to himself.

After waiting for it to pass, Jo'navir finally peeked from out of the rock and noticed a trail of smoke floating above the town the creature came from. Jo'navir made a dash toward the direction of the smoke, thinking there's a chance his brother could be there.

The village's walls were torn to pieces and coated in flames. The dirt below was littered with corpses. Some were impaled or ripped apart, while others were burnt to a crisp.

"Dexpa!" Jo'navir shouted. He inspected every corpse he passed to make sure it wasn't his brother.

In a courtyard, he saw a man in blue armor who lay dead with his wrists tied behind his back. His head sat several feet in front of him on the other side of a small stone block, as blood continued to leak from it onto the dirt below.

"What happened here?" Jo'navir asked aloud.

He ran inside and found a living person wearing the same blue armor. The man pulled out his sword ready to attack Jo'navir but stopped himself after looking his clothes up and down.

"Listen kid, you need to get out of h—" the man began to say, but he was interrupted by a sword slicing through one part of his neck and out the other. His body parts hit the floor with a thud, revealing his slayer, a man in brown leather armor.

Jo'navir stepped back and reached for his sword, but nothing was there to reach. "Oh no," he mumbled to himself, remembering that he dropped his sword in the ruins when Za'vanir was slain.

The man was breathing heavily, proud of his kill. He also looked Jo'navir up and down to determine if he was a threat before sheathing his weapon. "You should listen to him. You're not safe here kid." He left the room, running back to the way he came.

Jo'navir glanced at the floor where the blue armored warrior now lay dead. He took up the warrior's armor and steel sword and equipped himself with them, cutting a hole for his tail to fit through. "This should do," he said as he shook the armor into a comfortable position on his body. As the armor shuffled around, he could hear metal clanging together in the pockets. He pulled the item out of the pockets revealing a handful of gold coins. "What are these?"

Soon, he found himself in a rocky den full of webs and eggs. He attempted to sneak past, but an egg cracked beneath his new fur boots alerting a horde of spiders that descended from the ceiling above.

Jo'navir jumped back from the terrifying sight but managed to slay a few of them before becoming quickly outnumbered. He slipped past the horde and delved further into the cave. Before he could rest, though, he discovered another unfamiliar creature, three times his size and covered in brown fur. It twitched, which made Jo'navir flinch, but he soon noticed the creature was in a deep sleep.

"Okay good," he whispered to himself, sneaking past the monster. He arrived at a crack of light at the end of the cave. "Finally."

He made it back into the open world. He noticed now that the trees and grass were nothing like the ones in the swamp. The scene was beautiful, but also unreal to Jo'navir. There were footsteps engraved in the dirt below him. They seemed to follow the naturally carved dirt trail heading down the mountain. He followed them.