“Hello, my name is Charlie Manchot, and I’m going to talk about my favorite story. The Hero Knight is about a knight who has to fight a really big, bad, and powerful villain in order to save the day. In the beginning, the knight is all alone. He travels around his kingdom and talks to different lords and ladies for jobs. The jobs they give him are usually about fighting evil monsters that like to hurt or even eat people!
One day, he becomes so famous, the king himself calls him! When he gets to the king’s castle, the king gives him a job. Instead of fighting monsters, his job is to fight an evil cult of wizards! A cult is when a bunch of people believe the same thing because one person told them to. You know, like school.
Anyway… the cult used blood magic to hurt people around them and they wanted to destroy everything!
At first, the knight wanted to run to the cult and fight them by himself, but the king said that he hired other people to help him too. When they appeared, the knight knew them! They were people who he met and worked with before, and they all thought they were good friends with him. The knight didn’t really care about them though, and ran off to fight the cult by himself.
But the cult was too strong since they all worked together, and they defeated the knight! It was really scary here, but he was rescued by the other people the king hired! They got mad at him and said that the cult was too strong to fight alone, so the king hired all of them. The knight felt bad and said sorry, and the others nursed him back to health.
The next time they fought the cult, they did it together and were able to defeat them! It was a really amazing battle, with magic, swords, and arrows hitting bad guys! In the end, the knight and his friends were able to defeat the cult and saved the day!
But what I really like about this story is that there is a moral to it and I learned a lot from it. The moral of the story is that no matter how strong you are, there are some things that are too difficult to do alone. You need friends to help you sometimes, and there is nothing wrong with that.”
-Book Report by Charlie Manchot, age eight, student of the Shostran Royal Academy
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Terror, suffering, rage! Sheer anger flowed through the [Juvenile Dungeon Hound]’s mind as he screamed to the ceiling, filling the cavern with his voice. The emotion defined his entire existence, and the action was his mark. His name was Howl.
Howl ran to each of his brethren, the other hounds who were gathered around, beseeching them to follow him on his quest of vengeance. They didn’t seem very interested. Rather, they were more invested in filling their bellies with whatever smaller bugs they could find. They licked their lips at the massive swarm of spiders that passed by, but after seeing a few overeager brethren charge into them for a quick meal, they quickly realized that it was a foolhardy endeavor.
Even Howl had a front row seat to the carnage, and he himself paled at what happened to the trio that found themselves facing off against the arachnids.
It was funny. Those three hounds jumped in for nothing more than a fast meal and were perfectly fine with making a break for it after they got a quick taste of [Dungeon Spider]. And even after one of them transformed mid-fight into an adult, an imposing figure that resembled Howl’s parents, they were still taken down and killed all too quickly.
So Howl couldn’t really blame the others for hesitating. But he could blame them for their utter refusal, and their utter lack of interest in avenging their parents.
So the [Juvenile Dungeon Hound] was on his own. A frontal assault was definitely out of the question, but maybe there would be a means of attack that wouldn’t end his crusade early?
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As the swarm of spiders turned around and began to leave the area, Howl slowly followed behind them. He made sure to keep enough space that none of them could sense him, but still stayed close enough to keep them in his sights. It didn’t take long before he could make out their destination.
A brilliant white and wispy fortress stood in the far corner of the cavern, an imposing structure that stretched towards the ceiling with its height and how it used the back wall for support. Howl waited as he watched the swarm head back to their apparent home. As they reached an outer ring of rocks, the swarm suddenly began to slow down and climb over and under some kind of invisible divider that hung horizontally in the air.
As soon as everyone had passed through, Click made their way closer to the spot, and soon saw exactly what was going on. String. Or webbing, some kind of thin and almost invisible material stretched from one rock to the next, and followed a chain that both went up to the ceiling and forwards towards the fortress.
What is it for? Howl asked themselves as they carefully pawed it.
As soon as he did, some of the spiders in the back jumped in alarm. A series of signals went out across the tribe and soon enough, several of the arachnids came out to investigate.
An alarm! Howl had no concept as to what an alarm really was, but he understood that this alerted the spiders to anything outside. Either that, or it could have simply been a magical spider summoning button, but the [Juvenile Dungeon Hound] didn’t think the spiders were that dumb or magical themselves. They had to have been intelligent in order to have killed his parents.
Howl was ready to rush into the fortress and enact vengeance right that instant, but one thing stopped him. Or rather, one swarm of things stopped him. The army of spiders was still there, and even though they were likely tired from their recent bouts against Howl’s brethren, the hound knew that the biggest of the group could have killed him on their own. So, there was only one option.
Wait.
In the meantime, Howl hunted for food in the form of insects, and even a few armored beetles that began to appear. There wasn’t much meat on them, but there was a strange sensation that came with hunting the armored insects that felt very pleasant. That felt like it was making him stronger.
[Dungeon experience bonus obtained!]
[Level up!]
Howl didn’t understand the slew of numbers that followed it, but he understood that they were bigger than they were before, and that meant he was getting stronger. Size is strength. But he was still not strong enough to take on the spiders.
Well, the larger ones.
The first opportunity came only a little while later, when a small contingent of spiders, nowhere near the size of the attack party from earlier, came out of the fortress and went towards the [Dungeon Hound]’s part of the cave.
Howl followed along patiently. He didn’t attack them immediately, as they had some of the larger spiders walking alongside them, but they soon stopped and started doing something… strange. They began weaving.
That wasn’t exactly a strange thing for a spider to do, but what they were weaving was. A thick cord of string came down from the ceiling, and branches of silk extending from the stalagmites and stalactites were used to anchor it in place. Soon enough, it took shape. Before Howl was a miniature fortress that hung off the ground.
And then a miracle occurred.
The largest spiders, as well as the leader, went back to the main fortress. And they left behind over a dozen smaller spiders! All for the easy pickings!
Howl bounded over several rocks and even used a stalagmite as a foundation to catapult him into the air and…
He fell.
He was still incredibly far away from the basket of webs, and even after trying more paths along the rocks, the [Juvenile Dungeon Hound] wasn’t able to reach his prize.
He tried a few more times, but eventually gave up. Dejected, Howl slowly walked away.
As he passed by the main fortress, he was met by another miracle.
The largest spiders were leaving, and the leader with them as well!
Maybe there would be a chance at revenge yet?