A short story based in the world of sammii, the RP site in my siggy.


Chronicles of Sammii

A shadow leapt across the landscape, devouring anything that got in its way. It consumed animals, humans, trees and even the mighty landscape itself. The sun has set. Essana pulled her pack further up her back and continued, beneath her feet the ground grew steadily softer and the grass disappeared under a fine layer of sand. This was officially the edge of the desert, a chill racked her body. Despite being hot during the day the desert was also equally as chilly at night times. Now as not a good time to be travelling here but she had no other choice. The trees and plants had long since thinned out and only an occasional patch of grass was visible or a small, withered tree. Such is the desolation of this, the very edge of this barren, colossal terrain.
She shook her voluminous fair hair out her dark hazel eyes to rid clouds of flies that threatened to devour her very presence. She would be quite pretty really, if her face wasn’t often distorted with the pains she went through and inflicted. She was of a thin, slender shape and had long hair down to about her back, her brown eyes shone with intelligence and cunning. She wore brown leather shirt and a cotton pair of trousers, each covered with light chainmail for travelling, as was often required of her. Her weapons were a rapier, a bow and several wicked daggers in her pack and boots. Despite her line of work this was all she had to protect her from the enemies she would soon commit herself to killing, or perhaps the opposite...
Here ends Rudanika… and here starts Sammii. The country of Sammii had no claims to the desert, nor had the provisions to protect it. It was more of a neutral zone although Rudanika wasn’t foolish enough to get in another skirmish about it. Sure enough the tracks ended here, as she suspected. The person she was following must have known the desert would hide his tracks, luckily enough she knew where he was going. Magic would suffice from now on, she reached into her pack and pulled out a smooth oval shaped stone, it seemed to glow from somewhere within. She pointed it at the ground and the tracks appeared to her. Foolish Knight, she thought smugly, never mess with one of us. With a smirk she replaced the stone and continued forward.
The Stone she carried was dangerous, very dangerous and was rare through out the whole world, in fact it was probably unique. Over the centuries alchemists turned sorcerers had created these stones able of holding energy, and then blessed them for eternity with a certain property. Even alone this meant little, but if trained in the mind a warrior can release the stone’s power and, if trained with patience can even direct and manipulate the powers within. Although the yields varied often with the stone, user and positioning of certain stars can make them stronger or weaker. Thinking of this, Essana sat down and began taking some things out from her pack.
Daphnomancy is a difficult branch of divination, although Knights of Rudanika are trained in most types of it, she began carefully unpacking what she needed, a bright red stone similar to the last one but a different colour. A Laurel branch and several dull coloured stones were removed afterwards. Daphnomancy is a hard task indeed, the concept and idea is simple enough but the state of mind is what really makes it difficult. Even then you may be unlucky and the Gods may be busy, too busy to watch over all the mere ants and creations of their proud Kingdoms. She stood up and gathered together dead branches and leaves from around the desolate area and placed them in a pile, she carefully placed the stone in a circle around the branches before picking up the bright red stone. Eyes closed in concentration, the stone was pointed towards the pile of branches and they burst into a burning mass. Essana’s eyes hurt from the smoke but that didn’t matter right now, she cast the branch into the fire, “Is this the right way to go?” The branch crackled and sparked amidst the flame causing more pain to her eyes. “Am I to trust her?” The branch crackled again causing another wave of heat to pass over her. She smirked apparently pleased and repacked her bag and left the fire to burn out.
After an hours hard walking she lost the footsteps with magic and sat down frustrated to have a drink. It wasn’t the end of the world, if magic didn’t work then divination must be able to. She sat and thought long and hard about how to re-trace his footsteps. It was only then she remembered one of the simplest methods and laughed at being so naive, her master taught her it and she had discarded it. Only now it would help her succeed! Pulling an arrow out of her quiver she threw it twenty feet in the air and it span round pointing towards a large dune and fell down to the ground snapping on a rock. Win some lose some… and for her this was most certainly a win. Belomancy had helped her find the position of her target. All his tricks had proved for naught as his time slowly crept away and death sidled in closer.
The dune was a mere league away and she sprinted the rest of the way, ignoring the protests of exhaustion from her muscles. She reached the dune and began plodding up it with a much reduced speed. After ten painstaking minutes she reached the top. There was an abandoned camp with remains of a fire, footsteps and where he had slept. A fluttering noise rustled behind her and she drew her rapier and through it without thinking, it caught in a cactus and quivered for a few seconds before halting. Enraged by the near miss of her enemy she stormed over to remove her sword, there was a piece of parchment stuck between the sword and plant like steel with anvil and hammer. Slowly she pulled it off and then read it, most of the words were faded and the text strange although she managed to understand without too much difficulty, what was left of it.

It must be found…as we suspected one of the five…if your counterpart is to find it before you take you have permission to…may the Gods be with you.

It was signed by a name, Davus… Essana recognised the name and realised with a jolt this was from the leader of the Sammii army. This was very serious indeed, she may be excommunicated by her people if she were to return without the stone. All of a sudden this was no longer a game to her. It was real.

Without even a brake she was off like a shot, she quickly picked up the stranger’s footsteps but she couldn’t catch him that day, or the next, or even the week to come. As the sand storms hit along with fatigue and dehydration. Essana began to lose pace, the days became nights in much longer a time, the nights were long also and she often had uneasy sleeps during this time. Kill or be killed, it was a rather pointless circle, then she woke up and the thrill of the hunt overwhelmed this feeling. Soon shrubbery started to dot about the landscape, the land grew harder and more stable for her running. After a short area of plains a forest surrounded her in the darkness growing very dense, so dense and dark that the fire a little away was clearly visible, she drew her bow and arrow at a distance, picked her favourite arrows and knocked them and shot them in close succession. She heard a shout of pain and a whinny of fear from a horse and rushed forward to the location of the fire, he was gone. The horse was on the ground with an arrow in its side and she scooped her remaining arrows that missed off the ground and replaced them in her quiver. He had left a trail of blood from his wound,
Well, well…you are making this too easy for me.

Already quite a distance away the Knight of Sammii was struggling, he had removed the arrow from his side and was now dripping copious amounts of blood along the ground. He knew this area, there was a village nearby, he was heading there. Maybe there he can get help to kill his tracker and heal his wound, he ran as fast as he could while holding his shoulder where he had been shot, a person in the distance was walking towards him apparently unaware of the Knight. When the child, for that’s what he was, noticed the Knight he stopped until the Knight walked up to him. He was about twelve and his clothes were covered in mud and torn, he had a friendly open face that held an admirable amount of innocence.
“Child, where do you live and what ye be called?”
“In the village over the hill, why do you wish to buy something? Oh, my name is Carsaib.”
“Listen…I am wounded, I may not live long.”
The child’s eyes were full of worry and confusion now, what did this man want from him? He pulled out a stone, similar to Essana’s. It was larger, smoother and better on the eye. It had several indentations as if it fitted in somewhere and it had real power emanating from it.
“You must take this to you village, and then send it to the King. The fates of our lives rely upon this and this alone okay?”
The child nodded in confirmation of his story and stood in awe of the stone’s unnatural glow and it made the Carsaib’s face have an unusual glint to it, as if he was a hero of lore forever caught within a portrait or a sculpture.
With no reaction the man spoke again, “Tell your parents and the head of your village, just go and-” Another arrow thudded into his back and he fell eagle spread on his back as the arrow snapped beneath his weight.
In a flash the boy was away like a rabbit eluding an eagle, scrambling over the hill, the shouts, the blood then into his house and up the stairs. He took all the shortcuts he knew here instinctively as if the flight for his life made him all the quicker to think as the adrenaline rushed through him. All these events were a flash to him, if he were to look back in twenty years that’s all he would recall, his fight for his life was over. He had the stone, it would be there in the morning, telling his parents now would only make him re-live the experience, the Knights sacrifice was worth it as within a matter of days the King’s army would be here to pick up the stone. A soft bed fell beneath him like a cloud in heaven, stained clothes, knifes in the dark, broken hearts and evil’s glee. They had the stone, Essana was in the forest before anyone arrived at the scene, as a scream let out a sense of accomplishment overwhelmed Essana making her pleased at this result. The innocence of youth has died, the bravery of good has failed and evil had triumphed again. For this is real life, not tales, not fables, bravery is foolishness while the cunning of Essana has prevailed. As evil does.

That is very good, Glenwing. I like it.

what the rest of you think?

That story is really good i love the detail. Its a story that really should be continued.
I think you've out done yourself on this one lol.