 |
Introducing The Dreamspeaker and Reina, Vicereine of Kulnas
|
|
“This is a super-important update because we added a character page for one of the most super-important people in the whole LadyStar story! Her name is Reina and she knows everything about magic and fighting. Sometimes people think she’s not very nice but it’s because she doesn’t want any of us to get hurt. Her character page is really interesting and tells a lot about all the history of what happened in LadyStar before we got our treasures.”
|
 |
|
“You should see our new book! It’s called The Dreamspeaker! It’s the first book in the LadyStar story and it’s all about when I found a timepiece in Collins Park that had lots of jewels in it! It’s a webnovel and that means you can read all the chapters for free!”
|
 |
 |
“And don’t forget we have two webnovels. Descent into the Ivyreef Deeps is the first book in the Ajan Champions Series. In the story we’ve got all our powers and training, and so there’s a ton of battles and lots of action!”
|
|
“Not only do we have two webnovels, but we’ve got two webcomics too. Check Part One of Fury of the Venom Legion because our webcomics are about ripping it up.”
|
 |
|
“But that’s not the best part of this update. We’ve got a new page in our new Hall of Warriors, and it’s all about the genius on our team. She’s got an invincible shield and the power to make trees fight for her. She’s known as the Storyteller Warrior, and without her, it would be tougher for us to win when we have to fight. It’s the Ajan Warrior of the Forest.”
|
“There are many interesting lore updates on our comic site too. You can read about Jessica’s Sword Aria, or about Shannon’s Battle Raiments and Weapons, Chrysalis. the Vicereine Reina’s Elemental Dagger or my Magical Defenses called Shelter Blooms.”
“Or if you want to skip all the serious important stuff, you could just read about pizza or vampires in the Band Room.”
“See? We always gots the best updates because there’s always a zillion different things going on at our web sites. Don’t miss our next updates. The Ajan Champions Webnovels site updates every Wednesday and Saturday, ’cause now we got two books, and our webcomic which is called Jessica Hoshi and the Ajan Warriors updates on Monday and Thursday, and then on the other days we got Band Room updates and SupaGamepowa too. Ja minna!”
Marc Palatucci, Intern
In my family, there is a story that has been told and retold countless times over the past few decades. It involves my grandfather Oscar. As the story goes, a young, robust Oscar climbs the ladder to the high dive at the local public swimming pool with a lit cigarette tucked firmly between his lips. Eventually he makes his way to the lofty platform, and approaches the edge. At this point he pauses, and with his hands at his sides, manipulates his mouth in such a way as to flip the still burning cigarette backwards, gripping the butt between his teeth, clenching his lips shut, and leaving the ember hovering precariously above his tongue.
He then leaps from the diving board, holding his breath along with the onlookers as he plummets, eventually plunging into the water below. Upon surfacing, he spins the cigarette back out of his mouth, and exhales a triumphant billow of smoke, to the delight and awe of the spectators. Now, as the years have passed, I cannot help but question the veracity of this story. Of course any tale that travels by word of mouth will develop certain idiosyncrasies with each telling, but even the facts of this account seem hard to believe. Nevertheless, I see it as an heirloom of sorts, and I tell it fondly, if incredulously.
Along with the family lore, another inheritance of mine is an avid love of words. During my childhood, dinner table conversation was rife with obscure vocabulary, lighthearted debates on grammar and usage, and inevitably the stories of how words and phrases came to be. These stories, or etymologies,
were always fanciful, and revealed to me the boundless level of imagination embedded in our language. With this sense of fascination about linguistic histories instilled in me from a young age, I was instantly curious when David Wilton’s book Word Myths landed on my desk. I was at once enthralled and repelled. You see, throughout my studies and conversations on linguistics, I had heard whispers here and there that certain of the etymological tales that had delighted me as a child were not entirely accurate. Now here was a book, a legitimate, well researched book, designed to discount those stories. The integrity of my childhood was at stake! Nonetheless, my curiosity prevailed, and I dove in. Much to my relief, the dear recollections from my youth were not corrupted or denatured. Rather, the book was teeming with captivating linguistic legends, with some of the substantiated anecdotes proving more whimsical than those that were fabricated. Alas, I could no longer believe in good conscience that Eskimos have a hundred words for snow, as I had been told, but all was not lost. It turns out some Eskimo languages do have many words for snow, in the same way English has many words for water (ocean, sound, brook, rivulet, cascade, and so on). Thus, there was some kernel of truth at the heart of the myth.
It turned out the doubts I had feared about the fictitious etymologies were no more damaging than my doubts about the legend of my grandfather’s aquatic feat. The mere bounds of reality simply cannot detract from stories so great. With words and stories both, there are no fine lines or distinct boundaries of meaning. That is the very source of their wonder. Stories are not always intended to convey facts, but to stimulate the mind. Myths are invented to explain and describe the unfathomable and ineffable, swapping fact for metaphor. It is a debate of the scientist versus the poet, but my allegiance lies somewhere between the two. A day will come when I sit around the dinner table with children of my own, and I will most certainly let my imagination get the better of me. Yes, I will regale them with tales of their great grandfather’s high dive daredevilry, and I will probably cite some statistical hyperbole on Eskimo linguistics for good measure. I will not be lying to them, I will be entertaining them, enthusiastically so, and without pause, taking solace in the fact that the best stories are always, quite literally, incredible.
Free Webnovel Update!
|
“What’s up LadyStar fans? Ranko here. Goofy and the rest of the crowd are over at the band room updating like crazy so it’s up to me and Miss Shannon to give the heads up to all our comic readers. Chapter Three of our webnovel Descent into the Ivyreef Deeps is up and ready for action.”
|
 |
“Ranko and I have got quite a fight going with some nasty shrieks too. Descent into the Ivyreef Deeps is the first story in the Ajan Champions Series and it updates every Wednesday and Saturday. Our new story chapters are written for the web, so they’re quick reads, just like our comics. The Ajan Champions Series takes place after Jessica Hoshi and the Ajan Warriors. We’ve got all our powers and training, so you can expect a lot of action and battles!”
“That’s what we do best! If you need a break from all this adventure, come on over to the Band Room and see what the Goofball Express is cooking up. There’s always something going on around here, folks. See you on Saturday for the next update! We out!”
“Bye everyone!”
Prologue
The Kings Road to Thesia
he air took no notice of the foolishly brave villager as it drifted across the dusty gray hills. The morning was still and heavy with the soundless echoes of legend, like each day that had come before it since the Kingdom had fallen. His foot edged a ripped and tattered emblem still tenuously attached to its broken standard, strewn across the ground in defeat, a profound contrast to its once proud and ruthless meaning. Upon it was a vulture, its silver wings outstretched against a crest as gray as the abandoned battlefield it now memorialized. Perhaps its once great King still ruled. The marooned farmers of Thesia, first village on the Kings Road in the province of Kulnas, had no way to know.
Other than the heavy mist, his was the first presence to linger in this place since the battle, if it could be called by that name. He, like so many others, wished to understand what had occurred on that night so long ago, but only Ornas, despite the dire cautions of his fellows, dared set foot upon ground instead of road in Kulnas Forge.
Perhaps he was indeed foolish, driven by a youthful belief in his own invincibility to venture forth while others hurried through the land, glancing neither left nor right. Perhaps he could, despite the failures of so many others in the attempt, parlay foolishness into a destiny other than that of a tiller of soil.
The simple farmers of Thesia had believed that night would be their last under the stars. Families huddled in their hovels, dove under wagons and into granaries, and closed their eyes against what they never attempted to describe, fearing the very mention of what they had seen and heard would cause its return. The white fire in the skies was too horrible even for nightmares.
Ten regiments had been swept into history on that night. Under the banner of the King of Silver they had once threatened Kulnas itself, yet now their only legacy was an undiscovered tale of vengeance visited upon them by a being whose name was rarely even whispered, much less spoken. Even Ornas listened to that urgent advice. She was known as the Pure Defender of the Realm, yet many believed that she would bring destruction to any who stood before her. All but one legend were loath to speak the name LadyStar.
Will my name, Ornas wondered, be written into legend by my deeds upon this field this day? He stood only a few yards off the road, still apprehensive whatever his reckless courage. It was here that soldiers fought, he thought. Looking around he saw gray mists swirling over only slightly darker ground. The faded trees at the edges of the hilly fields leaned against the mist like rogues in an alleyway, their leafless limbs as sharp as daggers.
The air was cold. Those who knew Kulnas were accustomed to the chill of the morning. The trees and the road were his only companions, or so he hoped. Many of the villagers who still made their homes in Thesia believed this field was haunted: That any who stepped off the road here would face the same woman clad in ghostly white robes that had driven the Vulture Crest back. Stories of her victory had become part of their very culture, already cemented into the village’s traditions by the optimistic rhymes of their children, yet still careful to omit the name given her by legend.
Tales had reached many lands now that King Gaelen’s soldiers no longer obstructed the scribes of Isia, Chaer, Varcarel and Kulnas from their travels. Many wanted to know more about those legends, but only Ornas allowed his curiosity to carry him off the road and into the site of one of the most significant events in the entire recorded history of Aventar.
He walked slowly, making his way further off the road and further into the slowly swirling mist. To a more frightened eye, the wisps of fog might appear to be ghosts themselves: circling, fading, then reappearing in the corner of the eye only to vanish once again. To a more apprehensive ear, the sound of the wind might have been a faint cackling: a jeer or taunt to challenge a hapless fool’s search for nothing. Her eyes could be upon me right this moment, Ornas thought, turning quickly to look back in the direction of the now obscured road. His mind raced.
If the mist be a ghost, it surrounds me, he observed. Despite his practical way of thinking, the culture of superstition he had lived among his entire life in Thesia could not be ignored completely.
He turned forward once again and huge dark shape emerged from the mist. Ornas jumped back with a shout and gasped for air. It did not move. The young man remained, his hand clutching his chest, still breathing deeply and quickly as he slowly recovered from the shock. A blackened shape sat there in the now slightly bluish but yet darker mist. It was easily the size of a small dwelling with what appeared to be several columns lying flat across it. At its base were wheels, one to the right and one to the left, each with a diameter half Ornas’ height. His eyes widened. Perhaps I have found an engine of war!
Ornas was as excited by his discovery as he was frightened by its sudden appearance. Even to one unfamiliar with the mechanisms of battle, the huge device, whatever its former purpose, was as much a ghost as the imagined shapes in the mist. Ornas surmised it had once perhaps been constructed of wood, but now only a charred husk remained. He picked at the edge of one plank with his fingers, pulling a piece of the blackened remains of its outer wall free. It was exactly the same texture as burnt kindling. Ornas was amazed.
How many men, he supposed, must have manned this once fearsome war machine? How could it now be only a shadow of its former glory? What could have defeated them so utterly?
But defeated they were. So much so that only the machine remained. No man had stood to defend it. There was not one helm, nor even a shield or weapon upon the engine or the ground near it. There was nothing except its pulverized shell: abandoned, then destroyed by power beyond comprehension.
Even valor had been first to flee this engagement, Ornas thought. Yet, there was one oddity.
Underneath a small pile of rubble towards what Ornas surmised was the front of the machine he could see the edge of what he thought might be a thick metal chain. It was intriguing if only for the fact it was not burnt. Ornas knelt under the leaning planks and supports, reaching towards the chain. He could just reach it without crawling underneath the engine, and he slowly pulled it free. A length of tarnished links looped around his fingers, and pulled straight against his grip, apparently attached to something else still under the rubble. Ornas pulled harder and the entire pile of rubble moved as a heavy disc-shaped object emerged from underneath it.
Ornas gasped as he saw its color. There was an almost transparent light greenish-colored crystal disc attached to the chain. It slid along the ground as Ornas pulled it from underneath the war machine, then lifted it as he stood up. It dangled from the chain, slowly spinning in the chilled morning air. It was a perfect flawless crystal amulet nearly as wide as his shoe, and even Ornas could tell the chain was made of silver. It was as heavy as a large grain measuring stone, a treasure beyond his wildest imaginings. Surely now he would be as famous as the men who fought here!
The air took no notice of the foolishly brave villager as he hurried back towards the road.
Ernest Gary Gygax, co-creator of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games, passed away today at age 69. Mr. Gygax helped construct the tools with which countless worlds of adventure were built. Gaming, the web and our culture would not be the same without his influence. Many of us in the creative community, artists and writers alike, owe an enormous debt to what this man’s legacy inspired us to achieve.
The Ajan Warriors salute you, sir. Godspeed.
As we go back to my dream of Raven and the giant pears, we see Raven fly from one pear to another, checking on them as if he has a kinship with them. From the time the moon falls from the evening sky until the first light of dawn, he stays watchful and protective. He has surely and rightfully earned his title, "Keeper of the Orchard."
For Illustration Friday prompt, "Tales and Legends." Acrylic and Prismacolor pencils on bristol paper. ( from my archives)
Everything's fine. Seriously! Fine!
I'm very grateful for all of the emails and messages and incessant telephone calls (Mom)asking whether I was all right, because I am. I'm just going to be stuck at home for the next little while, as the result of an ongoing situation that is equal parts funny and gross (or, actually, now that I reflect, more gross than funny) that I can't talk about yet and maybe won't want to talk about ever, and I'm sorry to be so vague. But I'm fine! Really! No worries!
I got Barbara Kingsolver's new memoir about the year she and her family spent eating only food that was grown in their neighborhood or that they raised themselves.
I got the Amy Winehouse CD that all the kids are listening to.
I got the first season of "Lost" on DVD.
I got pirate tattoos on both of my hands, courtesy of the girl. I got organic Klondike bars and lemonade-flavored vitamin water.
Life is good. More soon.
