Dual Fate - Prologue and Chapter 1
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Posted by Valen - 827 views
Prologue
Gather round, Gather round, and listen to my tale. A great story is to be told, of adventures so bold! I’ll bring you far and wide amongst the land of Tamriel, following the adventures of great warriors, sneaky thieves, and powerful mages! We’ll fight terrible creatures, and pit our adventurers against nasty villains!
Our adventure starts in 1E 369, in the Province of Valenwood, in the city of Falinesti. Here lives a pair of Bosmer twins, named Falindir and Aradiel Springvine. The brother and sister were strangely inseparable, and have lived through thick and thin, but are soon about to experience an adventure that will change their life for good, or for worse…
Falindir and Aradiel lived a very normal Bosmer life. His family, like many others, was a strict follower of the Green Pact. The two had a sister named Thyrawen. Their father was a member of the Bosmeri army, as an archer like many others in his city. The mention of their mother is a sad topic, for she died shortly after giving birth to Thyrawen.
Their father was often gone, but still managed to spend time with his children. He would often put Thyrawen to sleep, and then take Aradiel and Falindir out to hunt, or train.
But enough of the boring details, let’s get to the real story!
Chapter 1
A Falling Out
One early morning Falindir awoke to the sounds of war horns. Bolting from his, Falindir grabbed his bow, and gathered him and his sisters into the cellar under their house.
“Stay here!” said Falindir to his sisters, “You’ll be safe. I’m going to go check out what’s going on, and I’ll be right back okay?”
“Daddy says we aren’t supposed to leave when something bad is happening Falindir! You’re breaking the rules,” shouted Thyrawen.
Aradiel looked to Thyrawen, “It’s okay Thyra… Falindir is coming right back,” she said as she held her tightly, and then looking towards Falindir said, “Go! I’ll protect Thyrawen. See what you can do out there.”
“Thank you Aradiel. I’ll come back. Okay Thyra?” said Falindir.
Aradiel, grabbed Falindir’s ankle, glared up at him and said, “Hey. Actually come back okay?”
Falindir nodded, and then rushed out the door, only to see smoke rising from outside the giant tree of a city. As he approached the guard barracks the war horns only got louder and louder. He heard the sounds of catapults, until he got close enough to hear the real problem. It was High King Borgas and his army of Nords. They finally decided to invade, after getting fed up with the Camoran Dynasty.
Although Falindir was not fully fit to be a part of the army yet, his skills with a bow were unmatched at his age. A rushing soldier found Falindir wandering and mistook him for a fellow soldier.
“What are you doing waiting around?! Take these and get out there!” He said, as he shoved a suit of leather and bone armor, as well as a military grade bone bow into Falindir’s arms.
Falindir wanted to be a soldier, so he didn’t pass up this opportunity to get out there and shoot at least a couple Nords down. He quickly put on his armor, grabbed a nearby quiver, and ran out onto the battlefield, where an intense battle of bone crushing and steel smashing had already begun. He joined into a small row of archers who were near the frontlines of the fight, and begun to shoot.
“One…. Two…. Three…,” Falindir counted as he shot down Nords.
Falindir’s fun quickly ended, when he looked up to see High King Borgas himself approaching Falinesti with a vast army of iron – clad Nords. These Nords were different though. They were a cut above the rest, each standing above 6 feet, with immense strength – enough to defeat a couple of frost trolls and 3 grizzly bears simultaneously – with their fists. Borgas was no weakling himself either. He was very fit for a king, and stood above everyone else, sword and shield in hand, ready to unleash an unruly amount of rage upon the city, and everyone in it.
This battle was clearly unwinnable by the Bosmer of Falinesti, so Falindir turned around to run, but was met with a strange sight.
The army that was gathering behind him was completely gone. Bows, swords, and shields scattered the ground.
“What the hell?” Falindir exclaimed, “They were just here! Where could they possibly have fled to?” Falindir asked confusedly.
The Nord army approached ever faster, so Falindir ran. As he approached a small ledge, he watched as the small force he was previously joined in was slaughtered in a manner of minutes. Blood was spread amongst the battle field, and gigantic Nords, walked on Bosmer bodies. Falindir ran back into the city in search of any more people, but he heard and saw nothing. The city was seemingly dead. But then he heard it. He heard the screaming, moaning, and then a devastating roar. Like the sound of a thousand angry lions. The roar emanated through the branches of the city, and bounced off its walls.
There was a period of silence, interrupted by the yelling and screaming of Nords, until finally High King Borgas spoke up. His voice emanated and boomed like a terrifying war horn.
“Where are you, you pitiful worms?! Come out and play! ,” boomed Borgas. His voice could be heard from miles, and for a few seconds, after the echo of his tone, there was nothing. But then Falindir heard something again. And soon, those Nords would be experiencing it. Like booming thunder, the sound of thousands of hooves, tentacles, paws, and feet could be heard from the trees.
Falindir in complete shock stepped back and said silently to himself, “It’s… The Wild Hunt…”
The Wild Hunt, if you don’t already know is a power granted to the Bosmer who honor the forest god of the Bosmer, Y’ffre and his Green Pact. It is a strange gathering used only in dire situations, where all Bosmer may permanently turn into literally unstoppable creatures, all constantly changing. Some can take a gaseous form, uncontainable, except by magic. Others are said to be able to take the form of water itself. But most are take the form of some kind of strange beast.
Waves and waves of massive and grotesque creatures burst from the trees, with incomprehensible speed and strength. Composed of more than one form, every beast was different from another. One with a massive jaw, or one with terrifyingly long legs, they were inconsistent, and very dangerous. Each beats savageness comparable to that of the entirety of the Nord army below.
Falindir ran as fast as his legs would let him, but the wave of creatures was gaining faster and faster behind him. Though the beasts were after the Nord army, they would stop at nothing even if that meant trampling over anyone in their path.
It took Falindir everything he could to finally reach a safe place without getting stomped on by a wave of unstoppable beasts – his home.
He quickly slid inside, and slammed the door behind him yelling in search of his sisters or anyone else who may have wandered in. He ran to the trap door in his floor which led to the cellar, where his sisters would be hiding. He searched for them as best he could, and finally found them huddled in a corner, Thyrawen crying uncontrollably to the sound of the passing beasts above.
“Thank Y’ffre you two are alright.” Falindir said as he embraced his sisters.
“I could say the same for you Falindir!” exclaimed Aradiel, still holding Thyrawen, who was too deep into crying to say anything back. “What is happening up there?”
Falindir sat next to Aradiel and whispered to her, to avoid giving Thyrawen any more reason to cry.
“High King Borgas has attacked, and our armies have resorted to using the Wild Hunt, to defeat his forces… I don’t think father is coming back from this one…”
Falindir held onto his sisters, while hearing the sound of a ferocious battle between man and beast thunder overhead. But the Nords had no chance. The cries of the men being torn apart limb from limb could be heard from miles away.
After a while, the cries of the Nords died out, and all that could be heard was the roaring of the beasts. Thyrawen ran out of grasp of Aradiel, and out of the cellar.
“Thyrawen, no!” Aradiel cried, running after her.
“Yay! We won! The dumb Nords are dead! Yay!” Thyrawen cheered, and she continued running out of the house and into the street.
Falindir ran up into the house and cried out to his sister, “Thyrawen! Come back here! You’ll-,” But by then, he was too late. A beast snatched up Thyrawen, and well. Let’s just say, she isn’t going to be seen again…
“NOOO! THYRA!!” screamed Aradiel and Falindir in unison.
The beast that had just finished off Thyrawen heard the screams of the twins and jolted its head toward them. It was a gigantic creature, with the hind legs of a goat, and the body of a tiger. Its mouth gaping wide and full of large needle like teeth, dripping with some kind of oozing toxin. It’s scorpion like tail twitching back and forth. The beast started to move toward the twins, slowly approaching them, bones stuck in its teeth, and blood dripping from its mangy fur. It let out a roar, before starting a sprint toward the brother and sister.
“Here goes nothing,” exclaimed Aradiel as she grabbed her father’s spare bow and fired a rapid stream of arrows into the beast. Falindir quickly joined her, but no amount of arrows fired into the creature was going to stop it.
“Brace your self Ara!,” yelled Falindir as he grabbed Aradiel, and jumped out of the houses window, many stories high into the great migrating tree of Falinesti. As they fell, Falindir and Aradiel caught a vine attached to one of the many branches of Falinesti.
As they slid down, they weren’t without trouble. The roar of the massive creature boomed through the trees, and soon, the monster too, leaped from the window and onto a massive branch, where it would begin to chase down the twins. They slid, and jumped from limb to limb, before they were stopped on a thin branch. They had nowhere to jump. The creature leaped after them, but Aradiel was clever and pushed Falindir off the tree limb, grabbing his hand, and then quickly grabbing a small branch below them. The beast hit the branch they were previously on, and the monster’s weight made the branch dwindle and crack. With one final roar, they tree limb snapped, and the monster fell to its death.
But, of course it didn’t stop there for the twins. The branch they were holding onto, was thin, and could not support their weight either, so it too, snapped, and the two fell. Luckily, they managed to break their fall, with a few more branches, and leaves on the way. They finally hit the ground of the forest, Aradiel knocked unconscious, and Falindir too tired to move, eventually passed out.