It was warm summer morning when Yzer arrived edge of the village. Light shone upon his face and he could feel the warmth. The light accentuated the walls of the village and made them look more impressive than they actually were. The wooden walls went up and around the entire village with only one big gate at the front of it.
"Halt who goes there?!" Yzer heard from the top of the watchtower left of the gate where he was standing.
Yzer dropped his bag. "I'm an adventurer who goes by the name of Yzer. I heard rumours that this village has a wolf problem and has a quest to get rid of them."
"And I'm Rolly his best friend and fellow traveller." Rolly yelled from under Yzer his cap.
The face of the guard who was standing in the tower quickly turned red. "I, I have to believe a shrimpy kid like you and a talking turtle are going to complete our quest" he sputtered out while laughing.
"Yes you are." Yzer replied with a smile on his face. Not being bothered by the guard at all. He got this type of reaction quite often. Even though Yzer was a tad small for his age he knew beter.
The guard while still laughing sputtered: "Ha okay, okay, open up the gates boys. This kid and a talking turtle are going to complete our quest!" He almost choked from laughing so hard.
The wooden gates slowly creaked open revealing the village that was hidden behind the safety of the walls.
Yzer picked up his bag and throw it over his shoulder. He brushed a lock of his long white hair out of his face. He gave his eyes time to take in the village, the walls, the blacksmith, the butchershop and many more.
"You okay buddy?" asked Rolly.
"Yeah I'm fine, they will soon enough see that I'm not just some kid when I finish this quest. Those wolves are going to run with their tails between their legs."
"That would be a different TAIL to tell to that guard!" Rolly replied with a smile on his turtle face.
Yzer laughed "You always know what to say to cheer me up Rolly".
As the duo entered the village they could feel the gazes of the villagers fixated on them. I was used to this kind of treatment. I look far different from the average villager in the kingdom. I have a very light skin almost as white as snow with hair to match. My eyes are a deep silver colour, which isn't a very common one either. Animals for some reason always like me and I like them too. People on the other hand are a different story.
Because I look different from the people in the kingdom, they tend to stare and gossip. People are usually afraid by my appearance but never show it to my face. Never on my travels have I ever met people who looked like me. It makes me feel like a foreigner who travelled to a distant land eventhough I was born and raised here.
Yzer with Rolly snuggly under his cap walked through the village straight to the church of light. People kept staring, only when my eyes met theirs they would quickly avert their gaze. I like to think its because i'm carrying a turtle on my head, but sadly I know better.
"Hey Yzer, I know I already asked a couple of times but I keep forgetting. Where are we going again?" Rolly asked with his head still popped out from under Yzer his cap.
"We are going to the church of light" I said while sighing clearly.
"A church of what now?" Rolly asked with a curious voice.
"Come on Rolly we have been there before, but I’m going to tell you one more time. Every village has a church of light which is dedicated to the goddes of creation Aurora. Who always looks upon us as the sun. Therefore her emblem is a bright yellow sun. She protects the people from the demons during the day. But at night Newa reigns supreme, the god of death, destruction and demons. He can only look at us from the veil of night. That is why his emblem is the moon. Therefore demons can only come out at night.
During the last great demon war king Amarth and my master, master Doman. Defeated the demon army and their leader, the Arch-demon Warage. Ending the twelve years of darkness in which Aurora was being held captive by Newa. Now Aurora and Newa have a truce in which Aurora reigns twelve hours Newa reigns twelve hours. Even though Newa rules for twelve hours there haven't been a big demon attack in years. Most times there are just a bunch of mischievous imps who steal some cattle.
But there are some mysterious human cults who try to bring back the darkness and let Newa rule supreme once again. Thining they can be turned into demons. But there hasn't been a high level demon sighting since Master Doman and King Amarth killed Warage sixteen years ago.
During the war mages would go to the Church to seek guidance or ask for blessings for Aurora. But now the church of light functions both as a place of worship and as a place where quest are given to adventurers. Adventures go from church to church who provide them with lodging, cheap food and a reward if they complete the quest.
Also the priest and priestesses can use simple healing magic but are all very educated about the world. They have too, because they have to give adventures the best information about all kinds of quest".
With a big sigh I finish my monologue to Rolly. I think it is already the fourth time I told him al of this.
"So this church of light is probably the BRIGHEST place in this village" Rolly said while already cracking up over his own pun. "Get it? Get it? They worship the sun which is bright and light and there are a lot of BRIGHT people".
"You knew what the church of light was, didn't you Rolly? You just wanted a wind up for that pun."
"Yeah I did." Rolly admitted with a sheepish face from laughing. "Man I should get my own comedy show at an inn, I'm hilarious" still being impressed over the pun he made which took him three days to think of.
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After a 5 minute walk Yzer and Rolly arrived at the quest board in front of the church of light. There were several quests hung up on that board. A farmer who needed help chasing away some giant bugs ranked F on dangerousness . The local smith wanted to get some rare ores for a magic sword he was smiting ranked D on dangerousness and the priest of light wanted an escort to cleanse a sacred pond in the forest that was polluted , ranked F on dangerousness. But in the middle of the board there was the one quest that was ranked C. It is rated the fifth most dangerous quest that exist on quest boards. They go from safe F to very dangerous AA and extremely dangerous AAA.
On the quest poster the following was written: "Our peaceful town of Bendur has had people kidnapped during the night. Wolves will sneak into the town and take away our villagers. We are desperate for a heroic adventurer that saves us from this menace. The one that saves us will be rewarded one hundred pieces of silver, a feast in your name and our eternal gratitude!"
"Look Rolly, if we can complete this one we will get one hundred silver pieces!" I said while pointing at the B rank quest.
"And a feast!" Rolly added while drool was already dripping from his mouth.
"Rolly! Grosh you're drooling all over my head!" while whipping off the turtle drool from my forehead.
"Sorry, but it's been a while since we had a proper meal you know"
"I know Rolly but let’s get inside and register this quest on our name. We also have to ask the priests some questions maybe they know more about these wolves."
I walked around the quest board and up the wooden stairs leading to the entrance of the church of light. Like any church of light it has a big wooden door with a hole at the top. It is cut in a way that when Aurora is at her highest point in the sky, the light will shrine brightly upon the shrines inside the church of light.
I push gently upon one side of the two sided door. The door smoothly opened, it was well maintained. Inside the church there was a shrine in the middle of the room. Around it were benches that had a curve to them. There were four benches on the inner ring. Eight around the outer ring and another eight around the outmost ring. If someone was looking upon it from the top it would resemble the image of Aurora, the sun.
There are some priest and priestesses around in the church. Some clearly doing chores other almost hidden behind a mountain of books. The head priestess was on her knees in front the shrine which was in the middle of the room. The head priest or priestess is always easy to spot. They always have a gold coloured cloak wrapped around their shoulders while the other priests and priestesses have different colours depending on what they do in the church.
The shrine consisted of a globe which had golden rays all around. It was sitting on a golden rod that was standing upright into a dome of earth. There were several different kinds of plant growing from that soil. Underneath the dome of earth and plants was a brass ring which had water overflowing from it. The water fell into the bottom part of the shrine in which the water was collected. To this day I still don't know how they pull that off, I always thought they just used magic but it isn't.
Coming in closer I could hear the priestess mumbling some words in an ancient language I did not understand. I decided to approach the priestess slowly while keeping my distance. I certainly did not want to interrupt her prayer.
"Come forth Yzer and Rolly," she said whilst still sitting on her knees.
"Wait, what…. How do you know Rolly's and my name."
"Yeah and without even turning around or anything." Rolly added surprised.
"Like you Yzer, I also practise….. how should I put it….. alternative forms of magic besides healing". "I can sense Aura and magical power, it tells me a lot about people and if we can trust them." The priestess whispered just loud enough for Rolly and me to hear.
"That awesome! What do you know about me and Rolly then?" I asked. I always had a thing for every type of magic. I don't know why but I just like all kinds of magic.
"I know enough..." the priestess replied while slowly standing up. Now looking at me and Rolly directly. I swallowed, I didn't expect the priestess to be this beautiful. She had pale pinkish skin, with ebony hair that would make even the darkest night look pale. Her lips were the same kind of pink similar to the outside of dragon fruit.
"You are here for the wolf quest, are you not?" the head priestess said with a soft and cooling voice.
"Yes we are, that why we wanted a priest to write us up for the quest. But first we need to know more before we can do anything."
"I see," the priestess added. "Are you sure you want to accept this quest Yzer. I can feel you’re strong, but are you strong enough for what fate has in store fore you?"
"Yes I'm sure." I said, I felt determined about my abilities. My training from master and the time I have travelled made me stronger then I was on that night ten years ago. "If I don't keep challenging myself, If I don't keep moving forward I can never achieve my goal."
"Very well, if that is your decision I shall respect that. But you should know that you are not the first to accept this quest. Another, a paladin, has gone before you but has not yet returned. This was three days ago. It only adds more mystery to this quest and made us raise the level from C to B."
"That doesn’t matter, together me and Rolly will defeat those wolves."
"And save that paladin while Yzer and I are at it, because face it that paladin maybe PADDELING in some trouble right now".
I laughed like usual but the priestess raised up her left eyebrow unusually high. She approached me and whispered in my ear "Does that turtle always makes terrible badly timed puns?".
I use my sleeve to dry the tears on my face "Yeah, yeah he does."
And so we went around town asking questing about the attacks. I questioned witnesses who all described the wolves the same way. Big black wolves with fangs like knives and sweeping tails that looked like burning fire deprived of light. It could be exaggerated I thought. People tend to make stuff up about an traumatizing event even if they don't want to. They will paint of the attacks of more monstrous than they actually are, I reckoned.
The townspeople were also more scared because the wolves only came during the full moon. When Newa is at his strongest. That is three days from now.
The villagers were so anxious because they would close the gates one hour before sun down. They would also check the walls for holes or gaps but so far have not discover anything. The villagers started to believe that either someone from the inside was bringing the wolves in or that there are some dark powers involved.
The head priestess gave us one last warning before he left. She said that when the wolves attack she could feel an dark presence surrounding the wolves. She could not determine what it was or where it came from. She only knew that it was dark and powerful.
Her abilities were not strong enough to know the exact location of this darkness. The only thing she could do was ring the bells of the church of light when the wolves had entered the village and help the villagers take shelter inside of the church.
When she told me this I knew I had to say something to ease tension here. "Well priestess you won't have to ring those bells anymore, because I will defeat those wolves before you close the gates on the day of the full moon." I gave her a big smile while saying that.
We walked through the town gates just before they closed. The head priestess standing there waving us goodbye.
I do not know if his magic or aura is strong enough to defeat those beast. But this boy, he has something that makes me want to believe him. The head priestess turned around and returned to her church. "May Aurora shine her light upon you two young ones during the hours of Newa" she said softly while closing the church doors.
A bit further down the road nearing the forest edge Rolly jokingly said "Man, Yzer you almost sounded cool back there".
"Ah shaddup Rolly" I said while I pulled my cap lower to cover Rolly under it. "Together we will save that village, we promised".
"That's right Yzer, let's do this". We walked into the forest near the village during which Rolly popped up back from under my cap.