Book Of Stories Round 1 Part 1

Once upon a time there existed a banshee named Agatha. She served the town of Cannis for over a century, until one day the town abruptly decided to leave. Unable to follow, she was rescued from oblivion by a being named Mudd. He offered her a chance to leave the town in order to save The Book Of Stories, a tome tied to the destiny of every world in reality. Passing out of Cannis for the first time in her memory, Agatha set out for wondrous new horizons and incredible challenges.

"Is there nothing here but sand?" Agatha cried out in exasperation as she completed her search of the fallen ruin. The merciless sun beat down overhead, bringing no sweat to her ghostly brow but making her body pale and unclear even to her own eyes.
Since her arrival, she had searched for many hours by the pace of her own world's clock. At first she had thought that she'd emerged on some vast beach, but had quickly concluded that it was what travellers passing through Cannis had called a 'desert'. These places were supposed to be hard for humans to live in and even harder to navigate.
She had searched relentlessly for any sign of life, but the first feature she had located was the building in which she now floated. The roof was gone and half of the walls had caved inward. She could not guess at how long the place had been abandoned, but there was no sign of possessions to indicate any recent occupation.
With a tired sigh, she sat down and curled her good arm around her remaining leg. She was still a few inches above the floor, but the barrier between her and the ground was solid enough to rest upon. She listened carefully in the stillness, but there was no sound to be heard except the hiss of sand moving in the faint breeze.
Her defeated rest gave her time to think and she smiled as an idea formed. If she could not find other people, perhaps she could cause them to find her. Amidst such quiet, her voice might carry a very long way. Agatha began to sing, the gentle luring melody that worked such magic upon the minds of those that heard it. She grew louder, her inhuman voice echoing far across the dunes and bidding all who heard to answer its call.

For a long time nothing happened. Then the flash of sunlight on metal caught her eye and she saw movement in the distance. As the disturbance grew closer she saw that there were two figures. A man in black was racing across the desert, paced by some kind of warrior with metal armour all over his body. Agatha stopped singing and drifted into the shadow of the walls to await their arrival. They would not be able to see her until the sun fell below the horizon, but she could watch and follow them until then.  

Jerek stumbled to a halt at the edge of the ruins, scarlet-faced and gasping for breath. Garner came to a stop beside him, no breath coming from his mouth at all. Yet he too looked tired, his gaze drifting dizzily as the sun sizzled upon his armour.
"It... stopped..." Jerek struggled to listen over the sound of his own panting.
"It was right here!" Garner began peering around the fallen masonry in a desperate search. "It was so beautiful..."
"Utterly beautiful..." Jerek agreed readily. He frowned, the foreign sensation of agreeing with Garner breaking through his train of thought. "A little... too beautiful... almost Enchanting..."
Garner broke off his search and straightened in alarm. "We did get rather carried away, did we not? I think that if you hadn't followed... I might have abandoned you to find it!"
"If only I'd worked harder on my counter-magic... I might have been rid of you," Jerek lamented bitterly as his breathing settled down. "Or my wits!" He slapped his own forehead in annoyance. "Well, I suppose it proves that we aren't entirely alone in this wasteland. I think I'll need a rest before we go looking for whatever it is, though."
"At least there is shade here," Garner led the way into the building. As he approached the wall where Agatha watched he started in alarm and drew his sword. "And something else too!"
"A shade of another kind," Jerek chuckled as he followed Garner's gaze. "I think we've found our siren."   
  
For a moment Agatha was silent before their gaze, unable to believe what she was seeing. "How is it that you can see me?" she asked at last. "I have always been invisible to humans until the sun sets!" The unexpected change ought to have filled her with joy, but the way that the black-clad man was regarding her unnerved her somewhat. It reminded her of the way Cannis' most learned man looked when he was cutting up frogs to see how they worked.
"I was taught by the greatest Sorceress in the entire world," he answered proudly as if the statement explained everything. "And my captor here doesn't count as human..."
The armoured man glared but said nothing. Agatha drifted closer, her curiosity aroused by the suggestion the yet again she was facing someone who was neither human nor ghost. "Not human? Then what are you?"
"Come no closer!" the armoured man raised his sword toward her. Agatha permitted herself a sinister chuckle and continued moving. She always felt most confident when putting on a display and a little more respect wouldn't go amiss.
"That sword is no threat to me!" She moved to pass through the blade. "For I..."
She stopped with a gasp. The blade's tip pressed solidly against her chest, her weightless and intangible body halting under the pressure. "I beg to differ," the knight said coldly, pressing the tip a little deeper into her stomach.
Agatha screamed. The forgotten sensation of hostile touch awoke a primal panic within her, fear melting the flesh from her bones as she assumed a banshee's true face. The stumps of her missing limbs ached as if stirred by memory at the feel of the sharp point. The knight took the shock-wave from her howl full in the chest, the hit tossing him twenty feet backward in a huge plume of billowing sand.
The other man stumbled backward, his arms flailing in oddly ordered patterns and a stream of unfamiliar obscenities coming from his mouth. Satisfied that the warrior must at least have been stunned by the impact, Agatha drifted toward his prisoner. Part of her wanted to apologise for the accidental outburst, but a little terror would probably quell the man's raving more quickly.
The waving hands came together in a strange burst of light and a gout of flame leapt out of them toward her. The magical fire caught in Agatha's dress and licked at her drifting hair, terrible heat flooding over her cold form. Agatha wailed, the undirected shrieks tossing up a small sandstorm around her. Turning about she fled blindly straight into the largest wall of the ruin.
The flames went out like a snuffed candle as she plunged into the airless centre of the solid stone. After a few seconds of panic Agatha realized that she had not been damaged. From outside she heard rapid thuds from two sets of running feet – somehow the knight was already recovered. Pleased in spite of her fear that she hadn't killed him, Agatha drew herself entirely inside the wall. Hopefully it would conceal her from beings of flesh.

"That could have gone better," Garner admitted after they had completed an uneventful circuit of the ruin. "Do you think beings like that are common in this world?"
"Perhaps," Jerek shrugged. "If this place really is in danger of destruction I suppose a large number of ghosts wouldn't be surprising. Then again, if that creature has been luring travellers into her lair for a while it would explain why no-one wants to live nearby. Even nomads would probably give it a wide berth."
"If we really are inside a book, you'd have thought that the Lady could have sent us to a more useful page." Garner looked back at the ruin. "That stone ring looks like the well, but it's full of sand almost to ground level. If we don't find some water soon, the barrier truly will be our only option."
"The only one where I stay human, anyway," Jerek nodded and took a small sip from his drooping waterskin. "I think I can go on for now after all."

Agatha listened to the fading footfalls as the pair moved away. Their conversation had been strange, but there was no doubt – these beings were not native to the book she had entered. The clear fact that they were dangerous made her sorely tempted to let them leave, but if no one else came she would face Disappearance anyway. Summoning up all the courage she could muster, Agatha rose directly out of the top of the wall.
"I believe that we have a common concern," she announced as formally as she could.  


"So you're not a native after all," Jerek commented as the trio trekked across the desert several hours later. Of the two men, the 'prisoner' had proven to be the most personable and willing to talk. There was still an edge to him that Agatha disliked and he certainly showed no sign of repentance for whatever crime he had committed. Unfortunately, correction would have to wait for as long as she needed his cooperation. She hoped that this wasn't too selfish.
"No," She shook her head. "I've only been here for less than a day. I've been trying to find the locals, but I don't think there are any other people for miles around."
"We're here." Garner pointed to the air ahead of them. After they had made peace, he had allowed her to lay her hand upon the sword and she had experienced the miracle of touch once again. The metal was filled with the sun's heat, rough and worn with a careful coating of oil. As he had sheathed it he had smiled in what seemed to be an act of remembrance.
The desert seemed like a featureless plain, but the sight before them was a lesson in the complex nature of any landscape. The grainy shifting sand abruptly became a single flat sheet of dull yellow, the dunes replaced by a slightly waving floor. The air shimmered like a heat haze, yet the cloudless blue sky above held no real glow of sunlight.
"We found this shortly after we arrived," Garner explained. "It seems like some form of barrier. If we pass through it we might be able to get to somewhere else."
"Unfortunately, there is another possibility," Jerek added darkly. "The Lady told us that our world was in danger of being 'unwritten from existence' and that the source of the problem was here. If that's true this part of the world might already be unwritten - and walking inside could erase us too."
Agatha stared into the strange half-real air. Looking at this warped landscape was like staring straight into Disappearance itself. Yet she could not survive alone and her new companions would not last forever in the desert around them.
"We have to bring meaning to this place," she murmured more to herself than the others. Forcing herself not to doubt, she moved forward and passed into the mysterious area. After a couple of seconds, Garner and Jerek followed.

Even for Agatha, passage through the dead still air was a disconcerting experience. For the others, the soundless fall of their feet on completely unyielding ground was even stranger and the lack of any shadows nagged at their sense of direction.
After a few paces however the ground began to change. Cobbles appeared and the scents of food and dung seeped into the stirring air. With a shocking suddenness they stepped into a world of sights and noises – coming just as much from behind as any other direction.
The sun still burned in the cloudless sky, but tall flat-roofed buildings offered shade to the people who bustled around them. Their skin was much darker than that of anyone Agatha had ever seen. The wide area around them was filled with stalls, those behind them shouting a relentless sales patter about their wares.
"I think we've found our locals," Jerek smiled appreciatively as he gazed around. "They don't look too concerned about the end of the world, do they?"
Garner frowned. "If this is a market, there isn't much food on offer. More beggars than there should be too."
"True," Jerek mused as he took a second look. "I'm surprised you noticed."
"I was governing men before you were even born," Garner snorted. "We should start asking questions around here."    
Jerek nodded. "I think I can get a few answers. I can't say that having you looming over my shoulder will help, though. We should split up and each search in our own way… if that's all right?"
Garner pondered the suggestion, practicality and suspicion warring in his mind. "We will meet back here in one hour. If you don't come back -"
"You'll hunt me down like a dog and kill me," Jerek finished testily. "I know. Well then, let's go."
"I don't think that they can see me," Agatha waved her arm in front of a passing man with no result. "But I'll see what I can find out by listening."
Garner nodded. "If you get into trouble, just yell. I'm sure that we'll hear you..."


Salim's life story was not an unusual one in Nessia. Born into a poor family, his mother had died in a fever epidemic just a few years after bearing him. His father had struggled to make an honest living as a guard, before being killed in one of the sieges that came upon the city when men far away decided they could not agree. Too old for a place in the orphanages, he had lost out in the fierce battle for work as the big farms collapsed under years of drought. So he lived on the streets, begging from the small number of rich or caring whilst keeping an eye out for the chance to steal without losing a hand.
A likely mark was passing his spot, dressed like no-one he had ever seen. He was wearing metal armour from his head to his toes, heavier and bulkier than anything the guards wore. The uncovered metal shone blindingly in the sun and Salim wondered how the man was not already cooked within it. He must be a foreigner - and a rich one if he could afford so much steel.
"Spare a coin for the hungry?" He called out just before the man would have to pass near him. The stranger turned as if he had been looking for a beggar rather than looking to avoid one. His face looked deathly pale beneath his raised visor.
"Certainly!" The man extended his arm, keeping his loaded belt far away from Salim with a caution surprising in such a carelessly out of place individual. He dropped a large coin into the beggar's palm and Salim's eyes widened as he saw not copper but gold. He had bitten the edge to check the coin before he even remembered to stammer his thanks.
The man nodded, but made no move to depart. "Why is there so much poverty here?"
"Not enough rain," Salim answered, surprised that anyone could come to Nessia without knowing. "We've had droughts for so many years now it's all we can do to scrape by."
"Have there been any other changes? Things… Disappearing?" The man seemed uncertain how to communicate his question.
"No sir." Salim frowned in puzzlement. "The usual number of thefts, if that's want you mean. If you want something obtained for you I might be able to help…"
The foreigner snorted good-naturedly. "You remind me of Keron… No, thank you." He began to walk away then looked back. "You don't know anything about an important book, do you?"
"I can't read sir." The man gave an apologetic acknowledgement and walked on.

Salim bounded joyfully towards the marketplace with his fist clenched against his chest. The coin was an easily lost treasure and the sooner it was turned into food and smaller coins the better.
"Any help for an old man?" A voice addressed him from the shade beneath a small staircase. Salim hesitated reluctantly. The figure before him was thin and frail, with a stick often used by the blind to find their way. His blank eyes were a powerful reminder that there was always someone worse off than yourself, Salim thought.
"I have come into a bit of good fortune," he glanced around to make sure no greedy ears were listening. "I need to go and split it at the vendors, but I'll come back and give you a bit of food if you need it."
"A large sum, eh?" The man sat up a little straighter. "And a kind heart to go with it. I think I'd like to make you an offer, if you'd care to hear it?"   
Salim glanced around again and moved cautiously into the shade. "A full belly is a hard offer to beat, old man. What can you give?"
"What about a full belly for everyone?" The man smiled. From his hand he slipped a sturdy ring of plain brass. "This ring bears a powerful old magic. Rub all around it four times and rain will come, whatever else might be expected. Such power could make a man very rich around here – and it's yours for only one gold piece!"
Salim frowned suspiciously. The ring certainly didn't look like much. "If that's true, why haven't you used it? You could have spared us years of hardship!"
"Because of the danger that comes from using it wrong!" The man leaned closer earnestly. "Before you use the ring you must turn to the four corners of the earth and check the sky. If there is even one small cloud, you must not use it! Otherwise a terrible storm will be loosed that will destroy more than it could ever help."
"I cannot see the sky," he added sadly, "so I cannot use it alone. If I confide in others, they might just kill me and steal it. In the wrong hands, this thing could make a tyrant truly terrible! I have waited a long time for the right hands to come by," he reached out and took hold of Salim's hand, "But I believe that my wait is over."
Salim took a deep breath. The gold coin was worth weeks of food - yet after it was spent, he would be back to where he had been this morning. The ring offered a new life, one that would bring riches for as long as he lived. If the old man was lying, however, he would have traded gold for brass. It was a severe gamble – but Salim had always rather liked gambling.
"You've got a deal!" He pressed the coin into the old man's hands and took the ring from him. The man bit the coin appreciatively as Salim hastened away, looking for a stairway that would place him above the buildings with his heart hammering in his chest.

Agatha waited uneasily for the others to return. When Garner appeared, he had an easy stride but a dejected expression on his face. Jerek, however, looked spooked – if he had not been so blasé about her own appearance she would have said that he had seen a ghost.
"Nothing unusual," Garner sighed. "Most of the people around here just want to sell their wares and the street boy I asked hadn't even heard of anything sinister going on."
"There is something out of place." Agatha fiddled with her hair, trying to put what she had seen into words. "Everyone I watched looked normal, but after a while I noticed that no-one moved. The stall-holders and beggars have their patches to keep of course, but no-one left their place at all. I don't think I even saw anyone go to the toilet," she added uncomfortably.
"It goes deeper than that," Jerek spoke fearfully. "Everyone I spoke to was normal when you asked about their own present business – but no-one could answer a single question about anything else. At first I thought they were rude or scared to talk with outsiders, but then I checked the magic fields. It's hard to describe, but they are only partly separate from the terrain around them." He looked around at the bustling market. "I don't think that anyone here is truly real."
"The beggar I spoke to didn't seem like that," Garner looked in disbelief at the living, breathing people surrounding them. "He answered questions on a range of matters without any problem."
"Then he may be unique," Jerek answered. "We should get a look at him."

Salim reached the top of the city wall and looked around. The guards posted there took little notice of him. Below him the city spread out, a maze of winding alleys and tall buildings. Beyond the wall the land bore only small patches of green, the rest baked dry in sand.
Taking his compass points from the sun, Salim faced each in turn. As usual, the blue sky was unbroken by any cloud. Placing a fingertip upon the ring he now wore, Salim carefully traced a path all the way around it. He felt nothing, but repeated the act three more times just as the old man had said.
For a few seconds nothing happened and Salim's heart began to sink in his chest. Then he noticed a line of white cloud appearing on the horizon. With remarkable speed the clouds rolled forward across the sky, easily outpacing the gentle breeze. The soldiers on the wall began to take notice as the eastern sky darkened. As the clouds covered the sun, the burning warmth of the day fell away in an instant.
With a soft rush of sound that came from everywhere at once, rain began to fall. The guards cheered in amazement and shouts of joy rose from the city streets. Salim spread his arms and let the building rainfall soak him. The wonder of the magic mixed with the thrill of victory and possibilities and he had never felt more alive.
As he descended the stairs, he noticed something else. A foreign man in dark clothes was standing a short distance away. Unlike everyone else in the city, he was paying no attention to the weather. Instead he was watching Salim with an intense gaze. Pretending not to see, Salim darted down the nearest side street and broke into a run.