Ice Village: Preface

[Tessar]

I realized that a lot of things have gone unsaid in my chapters, and that I needed to write this to save myself a lot of trouble in trying to fit things into chapters that would be better said in a preface. This will clear some things up in future chapters, and will also give you more to ponder right now.


Some stories begin with ‘Once upon a time…’

I cannot say ‘Once upon a time…’ because this is my time. Or at least it was, and although a new generation has been born that will have no memory of what has passed, I can still hope to preserve history inside this small tome.

Long ago, thousands of years before my part of the story started, the lands were known to be a roughly round area of earth, surrounded on all sides by the sea. In the middle of these lands was a fair garden, kept by the Power Wielders, and protected by the Ancient Ones.

I’m not really sure when it happened, and I doubt many people are, but a great force of Darkness came. It came from across the sea and worked its way in, wriggling like a worm towards the middle of an apple and leaving a diseased trail behind it. The Power Wielders knew nothing of battle, and the Ancient Ones alone could not repel the forces that pressed against them. The garden, whatever name it might have gone by, was lost forever. There, in that once fair place, the Darkness took up residence and began to spread.

Then the Power Wielders learned to fight, and they turned their talents against the Darkness, bludgeoning it back towards the forsaken garden, which had now become a desert and waste land. It was like a fairy-tale, and many people who had not yet been touched by the evil didn’t believe in it until the Ancient Ones disappeared. Where they went is unknown, but many died, and many could no longer bare to live in lands so tainted.

The garden was given a new name: The Core Lands.

Many times throughout history the forces of Darkness tried to spread, but they were always pushed back and sealed into the Core Lands with items and barriers of the Power.

And now it comes to my time… The time when I met a man named Danlor Avindar and stepped outside of my small village… But then that is, as they say, history. History that I have recorded here for you as best as I can.

I hope that through these writings at least some will not forget us, and what we did. But if in a hundred years no one remembers the names except as part of a dry history lesson… then it makes little difference in the end. We did what we had to, and we did it so that no one else would have to care again.

May the Blessings of the Ancient Ones protect you.

`~`Mariel De’vanon.`~`

[Lief Erikson]

Well written, Tessar, and thanks for posting it!

[Arat-Falathion]

Indeed nice Kind of Drizzt Do'Urden style telling, which I am really fond of, and which lets the reader grow a deeper relationship with the specific character, in my opinion