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This is my entry into the contest Steem Monsters Common Card Fantasy Story Contest! // Week 9 held by @steemmonsters
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Svoke was abandoned in the forest when she was a young child of seven. Her parents couldn't handle the weight of carrying for a fourth, sickly child with the low wages they were receiving from the Lord. Besides being unable to bear with the constant screaming Svoke was in because of the burning pain within her, they thought it would be better for her to be eaten by the ravenous wild beasts than to suffer a slow and agonizing starvation.
The parents left Svoke on the branches of a small coniferous tree, hoping that a cougar would be passing by soon. The parents left with tears in their eyes and a heavy heart.
Night came. The cold set in. The night creatures stirred. Eyes lit by the full moon's light flashed and disappeared in one area before flashing again in another area like a strobe light going on and off. Svoke's screaming became a low whimper as the onset of hypothermia accompanied by hunger, thirst, and drowsiness continued to take its toll on the strong-willed child. Death was but only an hour away.
Even at a young age, she had always held to the thought that she was already dead so the night forest is not something that could terrify her like the normal folk of her village. She then caught the eyes of a cougar. This creature's special ability was to reveal itself only when it was sinking its teeth into the victim's throat. It meant to come out of hiding. It wanted to be seen.
For the first time since she had contracted the debilitating bacterial infection, a calmness swept over her as the cougar made it's steady approach up the tree to the limb she was placed on. From its mouth, it drops mushrooms at her feet and nudged them closer with its black nose before backing off, sitting and staring, waiting for her to do what the animal commanded of her. Eat flashed across her mind.
She ate all that was given to her.
Because of the pureness of her heart, the night forest (the plants and the animals) spoke to her in the hours that followed, training her for what she was to become - a Divine Healer. Within hours, the sickness that had persistently been draining her life essence had been cured by her hands with her energy she got from connecting with heaven and earth.
She no longer saw only the separateness in things but also saw that something cannot exist without nothing and nothing cannot exist without something; therefore, the connection was complete. Life and death were hers to control.
With morning's grand rising, she returned to her village, to her parents. At first, her parents were dreadfully afraid of what they believed to be a living undead that had come to finish them off for the immoral act they had committed. Svoke explained to them what had happened in the forest. The parents broke down in tears and begged for her forgiveness. It was granted. Svoke understood and relieved them of their heavy hearts.
The lord caught wind of Svoke's healing abilities when the people of her village began praising Svoke openly for her miraculous healing abilities. Svoke's family was moved into the huge castle of the Lords and well taken care of from that day forth. Svoke began training with the other kids of whom the Lord had gathered from around the countryside. A war was coming.
Svoke (divine healer), Blayde (ranger), Markus (paladin), Ekur (rogue), and Alcander (warrior) were sitting at the large, round table, waiting for the Lord to arrive. They were reminiscing about the days they spent exploring the enchanted caves a few months back. Markus had almost lost his life. If it wasn't for Svoke's superior healing abilities, gangrene would have taken him into the next life or the leg would have had to come off. Markus would not allow the latter to happen.
The doors leading to the dining area burst open. A frantic man rushes in, hitting one of the server's trays of food out of his hand and onto the floor. Catching his breath, the man shouts, "They have taken over the town!" He falls to his knees in front of the table. "Civilians are getting slaughtered and the Lord ... he has been captured from the field along with the army by some way of powerful sorcery." His eyes fall to the floor in a sign of resignation.
"Who has taken the Lord?" Svoke asks.
"And what type of force are the civilians getting slaughtered by?" asks Alcander.
Without looking up, the man answers both questions with one name. "Morrigan, the cultist." The team looks at each other in the eyes.
Morrigan had been excommunicated many years before and had not been seen or heard from in the years leading up until now. "Morrigan sent me here to tell you one thing, Svoke. Give the ring and you can live. Any other choice leads to your death. He also said to tell you that he is in the forest."
"We are all dead if he gets his hands on the Dark Band," she replies. "He will raise the most powerful undead army this world has yet to see."
"He is already raping our lands with the cursed dead he has now," the man cries.
"No time for us to sit around waiting for dinner," Alcander says. "Time to get the Lord back and keep the ring safe."
With these words, the five headed out the door and down into the villages.
Combining their magical strength, Svoke and Markus cast the spell 'Harm Undead,' which worked for Alcander as he fought the undead up close and personal, swinging his ax with precise precision from head to head. Blayde and Ekur kept him from getting ambushed from behind with arrows to the heads. The undead were dropping like flies. It all seemed to be too easy.
The villagers ran about in all sorts of directions. Fear coursed through their veins. Svoke regained the villager's conscious attention when she cast 'Dispel Fear.' The villagers looked around wondering what they were going to do. "Villagers," Svoke said, "pick up anything that you can harm the undead with and help us eliminate these foul creatures. Make sure you target their heads."
The villagers did just as she had commanded. Stepping on and over the people whose mangled corpses littered the ground, they grabbed pitchforks, knives, daggers, glass bottles, torches, anything they could get their hands on.
"Take out the left side of the building," Markus commanded to the villagers. "We will cast spells to keep you from harm." As if the villagers had always been trained to fight, they overtook the left side with devastating force.
The right side had been cleared out by Blayde, Ekur, and Alcander. They expected it to be more of a fight.
After the left and the right sides has been cleared out, everyone converged on the undead left in the middle of their parameter.
Svoke turns to Blayde, "You, Markus, Ekur - stay here with the villagers and make sure the town is clear. After doing that, get everyone inside the castle walls and stand guard. If the castle falls, there will be nothing to come home to. Alcander and I will go into the forest to see where we can find Morrigan." With that being said, Svoke and Alcander disappear from sight when they entered the forest's treeline.
It wasn't long before Svoke and Blayde found the Lord. He was hanging from a rope upside down from a tree's limb. His hands were tied behind his back and a bag covered his face. Svoke could sense he was in critical condition. He needed medical attention immediately.
"Walk straight into the trap, heh Svoke." It was the voice of Morrigan coming to her in the wind through the trees. "You always were an arrogant little bitch."
She would have to hold off healing the lord, even a little at the moment. Morrigan used many tricks to get what he wanted when he was a student at the school. She couldn't take the chance of being blindsided while her focus was on the Lord.
A high pitched laughing sound whips through the air. Undead come up from the ground, surrounding Svoke and Alcander. Alcander takes out heads in front of him as he makes his way to the cliff, sending twenty undead over the cliff side. Svoke uses her dagger against the undead's head in quick succession. Rotating and twisting through the small hoard with lightning speed, they dropped dead to the ground almost in unison.
"Svoke! Do you remember that spell that no one was allowed to learn? You should. You were the one who told the Lord I was doing the research - after YOU stuck your nose in my business."
He couldn't have learned that. He didn't have all of the pieces to complete the spell. They were not in the library. Svoke thought. Just as she completed the thought, she hears a loud shill from behind her along with the cracking of bones. She whirls around. Her face shows horror as she watches Alcander's body being twisted against his will. Another snap in the legs brought the warrior down to his knees. He would have yelled out in pain if it wasn't for his throat being constricted by the force of his throat muscles constricting his air flow. His face goes from a bright red to a deep purple within a matter of seconds.
To her horror, she was frozen in place and her own voice was silent. She couldn't cast the one spell she knew that would save both of them without her voice.
"Didn't think I could learn it, 'Blood Bending,' on my own, did you, Svoke?" Morrigan stepped out from behind a waterfall that was fifty feet away. He dances as he makes his way over to Svoke. "Oh," he says when he is in front of her, faking a sad face, "can't use your spells to break free? How FUCKING sad! Since you missed the first showing of me puppeteering your pitful Lord plus an army, please, allow me to show you what I have achieved in the years since our last parting."
He turns his attention back to Alcander; forcing Svoke to watch by keeping her eyes open and her head looking at her friend. Alcander shriveled up into a little ball, each bone cracking into smaller and smaller pieces within his body. When Morrigan let him go, his gelatin-glob like body slimmed down the hillside.
"Now. About the ring." He turns back to face Svoke. "You look like you want to say something. I will allow that."
"Felan - tast - stenc - heran - seon."
"Magical enchantments don...," four of Morrigan's main senses went offline. He could only feel his light armor pressing up against his body, and his heart beating, pumping blood to keep it circulating throughout his body. Two seconds later, he could taste again. His brain registered the damp air surrounding the place. He wanted a drink of water. Another two seconds pass and then his sense of smell was working. He could smell death all around him. The smell almost made him double over and vomit. Two seconds later he could hear again. He heard the agile paws lightly moving across the ground. His sight was the last sense to come back online. He recalled at that moment what Svoke had told him about the cougar, "If it wanted you to see it, you would."
The cougar sunk its teeth into Morrigan's neck before he could regain control of himself and the situation. With one swift motion, the cougar ripped Morrigan's throat from his body and spat it out onto the forest floor. Morrigan's eyes turn a deep red as he collapses to the ground.
Svoke returned with the lord and was able to bring him back to full health. For this, she was given a garden and command over a new generation of warriors and healers to train. In the daytime, she would teach the young ones about the life of the plants and the soil. She taught them to listen with the senses beyond the basic five. A sign hung over the garden's entrance, which read "It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war."
It took many years of rebuilding to get back the things they had lost when Morrigan had almost completely destroyed the placed.
Svoke ended the night as she had done for the past years, put the kids to bed. This is one of the joys brought to her in her aging years. She enjoyed the challenges of teaching and preparing the younger generations for the battles they would inevitably face in the world at large.
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@mctiller twenty-four hour short story - You gotta be quick to get this one posted in time. He posts the contest on Sunday (usually) and ends it about 48 hours later. This contest has a 2000 word limit.
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