Power Awakens

Jaac bent down at the side of the stream and cut another sod of earth from the bank. He looked over his shoulder and shouted to Tem to bring the last mud sod down to the highly engineered dam that Tem and he had been working on for just over two hours. The stream, only one pace wide, wound its way around old Farney’s field and was just over half a league from Tem’s house.

Jaac and Tem at sixteen were no longer children, however, on this warm summer’s day they took great pleasure in erecting the most magnificent dam that had ever been built. Having put in the last sod of earth onto their dam, Tem and Jaac sat back on the dry mossy grass to watch the water slowly build up.

Lying back on the grass Jaac turned to Tem saying “Well at least Old Farney should have plenty of water for his Oxen, this dam should be massive when its finished.”

“Yeh, you’d think he’d be happy with what we’ve done here, but he’s such a miserable old man, he’ll never appreciate it, but it is a pretty cool dam,” replied Tem.

The water was building up faster than both boys anticipated and in the space of what seemed like a few minutes, there was a rapidly expanding swathe of water behind the dam. As the water reached over ten paces across Tem turned to Jaac “Oops, it’s getting pretty big. Should we pull the plug and move one of those sods?” With a giggle Jaac replied “No, let’s see how big it gets.”

Just then, they heard the deep bark of Farney’s Oxen dogs. These dogs were highly intelligent and stood ten hands high at the shoulder, they were ferocious but loyal and reacted instantly to the command of their master. Quite rare in the northern region of Bruk, the Oxen dogs would normally be a sight to sit back and marvel at, however, this was not a normal situation, as Jaac and Tem were on Farney’s land. Reacting as one, both boys sprung to their feet like twin uncoiling Jackoboxes, adrenaline pumping through their veins as a panic like state kicked in.

“Come on, quickly, burst the dam!!” shouted Tem as Jaac ran down and kicked the top mud sod. At first nothing happened, the sod stubbornly refused to move, Jaac kicked it a second time and then slowly, ponderously, the sod graciously glided out of the dam just as the water rose to the level of the top mudded block sod and began putting pressure on the whole dam. The water, now almost one pace deep and twelve across was putting a lot of pressure on the thin wall of mud. As the first couple of mud sods slipped from the top of the dam, a subtle bulging movement from the centre sods appeared to ripple across the whole thin mud wall. All of a sudden there was a loud whooshing noise as the whole sodden mud dam burst wide open. A small tidal wave of dirty dark muddy water burst onto the almost dry stream and bubbled and gurgled slowly down the winding streambed. With a grin, both boys ran from the stream towards the safety of Tem’s house. Although they hadn’t caused any damage, well, not any real damage, they didn’t want to hang around to see if Old Farney would set his dogs on them.

As they reached the wall of Tem’s family vegetable patch they sat down to catch their breath.

“That was a close one,” said Tem.

“Yeah, do you reckon Old Farney would have set his dogs on us” Jaac chuckled also catching his breath. “If he did, I think we could have taken them?”

“What would you fight them with, your shiny forehead?” laughed Tem getting to his feet and grinning.

“No, I’d use your bushy hair,” replied Jaac as he made a grab for Tem’s ankles. Nimbly, Tem dodged out of the way, “Lets go and get Mort and Ainy, see if they can give us a better fight this time, it‘ll be our Naming Day soon and then we won‘t have any time to mess around.”

With a serious tone Jaac pondered “Wonder what I’ll be chosen for, hope its the Warrior Guild, I don’t fancy none of that Construction or Merchant business.”

“Yeh, I want the Warrior Guild too, just like me Da. I miss him, he’s not been home for a long time now” Tem continued “Come on and lets go.”

As they walked to Ainy’s house the sun began to settle into early dusk, a yellowy tint reflected off cotton white clouds, and seemed to refract off the rough cobbles that made up the main road to Bowltown. Jaac ambled along automatically placing one foot in front of the other unconsciously avoiding the many potholes that could twist an ankle, Naming Day he thought, the first day of summer fall, what was going to happen to us boys then?

The world of Cromus only had two seasons in one planetary ellipse around its huge yellow sun, a hot dry summer and a cold frigid winter. The presence of the four moons keeps the seasons pretty well balanced across the whole face of Cromus. The year divided into four sectors of ten weeks, summer rise, summer fall, winter rise and winter fall, a whole year just forty weeks in length.

Naming day always took place twice a year in Bruk on Midsummers day the first day of summer fall and Midwinters day the first day of winter fall in the child’s sixteenth year depending on their birth date. The summer days seemed to stretch on and on in a sunny haze of time spent out doors, the sun only setting for a few hours each night. On the other hand winter dragged forever, as the temperatures dropped so low that you couldn’t expose your skin to the outside air for more than a few minutes. The sun only lighting the sky for a few hours each day, winter was generally spent indoors by the light of the fire.

He hoped there would be a new Storyteller here for Naming Day, he remembered the last Storyteller he had seen at his cousins Naming Day three years ago. Jaac had been fascinated with the Storyteller and his knowledge of the world they lived in. Bowltown, the storyteller had said, was the largest town in the Kingdom of Bruk and probably the largest town on the Continent of Rodina.

According to that Storyteller there were two cities, twelve towns and hundreds of villages in the Kingdom of Bruk. Their world Cromus had two Continents, although for the life of him, Jaac could not now remember what the other continent was called. Storytelling was another one of the possible guilds that you could be allocated to. As members of the Guild of Knowledge it was said that a Storyteller could never tell a lie. The instant they lie is the instant they die, a magical connection to the Storytellers brain causes a number of blood vessels to burst, Jaac didn‘t know how this worked but he believed it.

Even knowing they only told the truth, Jaac found it hard to believe some of what he had heard, Jaac had been sitting on the wall of a well outside the Three Hawks Inn, the Storyteller had been teaching some of the younger children about the geography of Cromus. He had told them that Bowltown with its population of twenty thousand was still only a fifth the size of Mank the second largest city, and this was less than half the size of the Capital City of the Kingdom of Bruk, Breem. Jaac had done some traveling with his Da, but he just couldn’t believe that there could be anything bigger than Bowltown. Jaac and his friends lived on the outskirts of Bowltown in a suburb called Westden, this was just under one hour away by horse to the centre but Westden was high on the rim of the huge bowl like hollow that Bowltown sat in, it was easy to understand the name of the town when you looked down on it from Westden, Jaac often thought that whoever named Bowltown just had no imagination, none whatsoever.

Storytellers were the keepers of knowledge and they often had other occupations that required them to learn, store and recall a great deal of lore. The main role of a Storyteller was to distribute this knowledge to the populace and to record new knowledge for future generations. Jaac remembered the Storyteller describing other worlds and continents, where populations of cities stretched into the millions.

This was hard to imagine, as Jaac had never been to another town or village as large as Bowltown, let alone a city. Most of the villages and towns were much smaller and some seemed quite backwards towards Bowltown. Jaac vaguely recalled the Storyteller saying that one-day on Cromus was normally twice as long as a day on these other planets, although to Jaac twenty hours was too short a day to fit in all he wanted to do with his friends. The storyteller had regaled them with stories of other worlds, facts like that a Human on Cromus weighed less on the other Nexii Worlds, Jaac often mused about this one, it just couldn’t be true could it, how could you be lighter on one planet than you were on another?

As they walked down the dirty cobbled road Jaac suddenly felt a very faint tingle in his head, an insubstantial itch, but right at the back of his head, a very slight high-pitched vibration, almost unnoticeable, but it was there all the same. He had felt this type of thing before, but he usually ignored it, often thinking that he had imagined it. This time however, it became more insistent. He let himself become more aware of it by relaxing his mind, something he had learned by trial and error when it had happened in the past. He relaxed and focused on the tingling, as he did this he realised that behind the tingle was a vague sensation of pictures, ideas, places, people and feelings, and … something else. Jaac slowly deliberated all this as he automatically put one foot in front of the other one, following Tem up the road as it turned up a hill towards Ainy’s house. As the sensations began to fade Jaac decided yet again that it was a daydream.

However, Jaac did dwell on one of the thoughts rolling through his mind, what would happen if any Guild Masters didn’t pick him, what would become of him then. He was still wondering about this when Tem nudged him in the ribs and said, “Hey, daydreamer, we’re here. Go on it’s your turn to knock on for Ainy, I’ll wait here” Tem slipped behind a tree as Jaac went to Ainy’s front door.

Jaac knocked once hoping that it was Ainy’s Mother and not his Father who answered. Ainy’s Mother always seemed to like him; she always gave him sweets and biscuits, which he didn’t get back at home. She sometimes seemed to treat him better than she treated Ainy. It was a good feeling to be fussed over. The door opened and Ainy answered, “Hi Jaac, what’s up?”

“Me and Tem were gonna go over to the Study Buildings and have another Necro Fight with you and Mort. Do you fancy it?” Jaac said grinning.

Ainy grinned back “Yea, I’ll just tell my Mam.” Jaac walked back to Tem and they both waited for Ainy to come out.

Ainy came out dressed all in black “Hello Tem, lets go, this time we’re gonna batter you. I’ll go get Mort, an we‘ll meet you in the yard at the Study Building, me and Mort versus you two Necro Belly Dancers”

“I’ll give you Necro Belly Dancers you short arse” replied Tem, “Me an Jaac are the fastest strongest Necro Warriors on the Whole of Rodina”

“We’ll see,” shouted Ainy as he ran to get Mort.

“Come on Tem, I’ll go and get changed into my black Necro Warrior Gi, I’ll see you at the yard”.

Tem and Jaac arrived at the yard a couple of minutes before Ainy and Mort, just as the sun dropped below the horizon. Dressed all in black they where difficult to see, with a Dai Katana each they looked for the best place to attack and then settled in to wait. The Dai Katana they held, were in fact just wooden sticks, however the boys treated them as if they were real swords, all the boys in the Kingdom of Bruk over twelve turns had some formal Martial training, so they knew how to handle them.