Ikythyk led us though his house and through the back door that led to a rising spiral staircase. At the top of the tower, we stood in front of a wooden desk as he rummaged thorough his things looking for something specific.

He exclaimed his normal “huzzah!” as he pulled a few rolls of parchment from a wooden chest. He spread the long pieces of parchment and flipped through them, until he found the one that he wanted and put it on top. When Leo and I gathered closer and saw it was a map of the land.

“This is Levitztown.” He pointed to a small black dot just outside of a green shaded area. “You’ll want to be heading to Starreacher Tower.”

He pointed to a thumb-sized splotch on the other side of the map.

“It is there that you can offer the star back to the sky. It’s a tower that’s said to have been built at the very beginning of the world. It allowed the First People to communicate with the Maker, but it was destroyed in a great war long, long ago.”

He pressed his pointer and middle fingers on the map by the Levitztown marker and made a walking motion. When he lifted his fingers there was a faint golden trail leading from the town dot to a place a little off with brown rocks.

“That’s Giant’s Crossing.” Ikythyk said. “That’ll be the first place you want to head. Huzzah! It’s a dreadful place. Have you any weapons other than your knife?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

We shook our heads.

“Huzzah! Some gifts I’ll bestow upon you today!” He said as he bounced the room.

He soon presented us with weapons. For me he gave me a sword in a sheath; when I pulled it out I saw it was beginning to rust. To Leo he gave a wooden bow, a quiver, and twenty-five arrows.

“These are the best weapons in my arsenal.” He exclaimed proudly.

It shocked us when he made straw mannequins appear of out nowhere. He gave us a brief training on our newly acquired weapons. The weight of the sword was not so different from some of the tools I used at the cottage, but still took some getting used to.

Leo was just about as natural with the bow as you could be, especially for never using one before. He shot each mannequin right in the chest; he didn’t miss a single shot.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “When did you get so good?”

“I’m not sure,” he laughed. “It just felt natural to me.”

“Let that ruffian find us again and he’ll be in trouble.”

I playfully punched Leo’s arm.

From that time on we shared two meals with Ikythyk, practiced the weapons some more, swapped stories, and rested when the day came to an end. Ikythyk woke us up at dawn saying that it was time to get a move on. He had gave us some food and water. We thanked him multiple time and with one last “huzzah!” he sent us on our way.