An Unlikely Source

Kyjus sat upon the bed his back resting against the headboard, his covers pulled up, so they rested around his waistline. He gently lifted the book from its resting place. Glancing at the cover he read again aloud the title, "Trapped within the Eerikye". He then glanced at the rest of the cover. This book was written by W. D. Pavlacek

He had never heard of the author he thought to himself but if Weemus recommended the book, then it must be what he needed as he truly trusted his newly found gnomish friend.

He opened the cover of the book. Its cover and pages dusty from the length of time it sat dormant on the bookshelves, within the confines of the little cottage.

The book started with a journey back from Desmonia explaining the purpose of the journey as one to find some sort of solace for their people. It was help they were looking for, from what the book did not yet reveal. From the title the reader might be safe to assume it was from the Eerikye but so far, the book was being written with an air of mystery.

Kyjus was skimming the book more than reading it, until he came upon a passage that drew his gaze upon it.

"I gathered with my brother in the darkness of the dank and musty cave conversing with him about the events of the last few days. We were relying on our size and stealth to get us through the catacombs within the mountain.

Saddened we were, about the events that transpired in Desmonia.

Unexpected it wasn't the council's decision to abandon my people. I guess abandon may be too harsh of a word but the news of their refusal to help, hit us with the weight of abandonment.

We had figured from the start the council would decline to help us. Our problems were not for the council to wrestle as the Eerikye people were not of sovereign faction and this meant that they did not fall under the realm of the watchful eye of the Minlavian council. We feared the worst for our people as we exited the other side of the cavern, on the following day.

We decided to go see our old friend Syrus before we headed for home perhaps, he could offer us some advice upon this matter"

The reader paused could this author be talking about the Syrus he knew. He thought for a second and decided it had to almost definitely be the Syrus he knew. The signs were all there in that Syrus lived near Scorched Earth; he had one of the only gateways from Desmonia. He would have to talk to Syrus about this tomorrow; it had just become obvious that Syrus may know the author.

The passage lost his interest after Syrus was not home, so the young mage continued to skim through the pages of the book. It talked of the two young figures scouring the countryside dodging the bird creatures at every turn watching as one tribe, the Black Lotus Clan, continued to amass in power by absorbing key members of other clans with little to no retaliation. In several instances they observed the Black Lotus clan totally abolishing other smaller clans and assimilating all members that did not protest and destroying any members that did.

The book went into detail of how the authors followed the birdmen for many months before they made their way back to their homeland in a southern portion of Scorched Earth. The books story again caught the eye of its reader:

"We cautiously ascended up the hill toward our village now regretting our decision to leave our home in search of a region far less industrious.

For you see it is nearly every gnomes dream to create from metal and mineral but for most of us in the village that fire had either long burned out or was never there to begin with.

It's odd that I thought of this as I ascended the hill, odd too that I thought that the knowledge of engineering and blacksmithing, those skills that we essentially abandoned when we left our home, would have been the very thing that could have helped us thrive in our new home.

Looking to my brother and he too me we could tell instantly we each had the same thought, we smiled to each other briefly and continued our ascent knowing too well what lay ahead of us"

The mention of the author or the subject of the author having a brother did not go unnoticed by Kyjus. He was; however, too curious about some of the passages he may have missed. How could they know what awaits them Kyjus thought to himself, what did I miss in the pages before he pondered to himself and without a second thought, he turned a few pages before the entry that he had just read.

So, for now he put the thought about their being brothers on the back burners as he skimmed back a few pages reading them now in the hopes of finding some glimmer of reasoning to the page he read previously:

"We had been gone from our home for far too long and we have missed much in our trials over the last months. We have missed the smell of Ms. Pimpenells early morning bread as the scent would waft throughout the village proper. We missed the smell of the clothes that had just been washed and hung on the line, the smell of fresh detergent evident as the scent meandered its way through the town's square.

And perhaps the thing we missed most of all was old Mr. Peebles distillery with adjacent tavern and inn. The taste of a freshly made batch of gnomish brew would surely quench the thirst and heighten the senses. At least that's what old Mr. Peebles used to say.

All these things we have missed, my brother and I, but our purpose for being absent was that of great urgency and importance, however.

Our council had charged us with discovering the happenings of the Eerikye, as their recent actions have thrown onto us many questions.

Questions, for which, the answers could not be postulated without additional data.

Although my peoples lust for tinkering had long ago dispersed their lust for logic and knowledge was still as keen as ever. The council was distressed over the recent happenings of the inner sanctum of Scorched Earth. It was for these reasons we were sent to investigate.

What we found was most disturbing, the amassing of one clan absorbing any from other clans they felt necessary and destroying those that contested their reign.

It was then that we had decided the news of the gathering of the Black Lotus Clan must be brought to the council's attention.

And from this decision to relay the information brought about the order to travel to Desmonia. Unfortunately for my people the council's ruling was not to help my folks so we returned and after a brief stay in our village we were once again sent out into the Eerikye wasteland to find out what we could about them.

Months we had spent on the open tundra, nearly being captured on several occasions; but we were sent on this mission, my brother and I, because we have the heart of the ranger and the mind of a priest.

We could be seen when needed but most importantly we could vanish when the time called for it and for those six months on the tundra the time had called for it quite often.

We had a definite sense of what they were after, the chief of the Black Lotus tribe was under some sort of powerful spell. From what we could gather and from the descriptive acts we had overheard him perform; for no man or beast could have accomplished such feats.

This was also the opinion of many of the shaman that Chief Macaw Featherhold commanded.

These birdmen once noble were being controlled by the evil Chieftain and would most likely jump at the chance of escape. The problem is that none of them had the strength nor the will to fight their chieftain.

Collectively some of the shamans gathered to discuss the possibility of overthrowing Cheiftain Macaw. The vocal shaman of the bunch, elder Greymane Windfury, led many of these discussions; unfortunately, about a month ago he disappeared.

The chieftain called him a deserter, but Greymane spoke too openly at times of his disagreement with Chief Macaw and the other elders suspected that he was secretly eliminated.

The disappearance of Greymane quickly ceased all conversations and secret meetings with the purpose of acting against the chief and thus our opportunity to learn more of his irrational behavior had been vanquished.

It was not long after, that we lost the Black Lotus clan. Gone if by some sort of dark magic, all traces of them vanished.

Nearly a week had gone by and with no contact in sight we had learned little of their whereabouts but what we did surmise did not please us.

The signs pointed toward Teresah (Tair_eh_saw) and Arsa Minor, two of the largest cities located in the southwestern part of Scorched Earth.

Never did the birdmen venture this far but the good people of both cities should be safe; well defended would there position be and outnumbering the birdmen more than ten to one they did.

Had Chieftain Macaw's desire to control this planet so overwhelmed his thoughts that his mind had driven him past the point of sanity?

My brother and I could only hope because if it had not the alternative would be far worse for us.

Our pace increased over the next few days as caution gave way to the overwhelming need to confirm our suspicions.

The days and nights were a blur that week but as we neared the Ellstein river we hoped our goal would soon be in sight. We continued going south following the river toward our intended destination. We intentionally kept our journey heading south and to the west.

This was partly due to the fact that we felt this the less likely course of being exposed to the Eerikye but more to the point was that fact that once we hit the Ellstein river we know our course lay to the south. If we had went straight south to the Galopagese river then there was a chance of guessing either east or west and being wrong in our choice.

For obvious reasons the days of backtracking did not appeal to us.

Once we found the city of Teresah we shuttled a ferry across the river to the outskirts of town. Seeing it in all of its glory left little doubt in our minds that the Eerikye circumvented the town most likely on purpose, but had they continued south or had their direction changed altogether.

We suspected the former and not the latter.

It was another day and a half of travel, at a pace that had led us to near exhaustion before we began to enter what we considered to be familiar country.

It was Dalter's knob, a small rise of hills that led toward the flatlands that would lead to our village.

We cautiously ascended up the hill toward our village now regretting our decision to leave our…"

Kyjus recognized this as part of the passage that he had already read so he gleamed through the next bit of text until he came to the point at which he had stopped earlier. The story now made more sense and suspecting this book was more than a mere story he became concerned for the two brothers and what they were about to discover.

"Looking to my brother and he too me we could tell instantly we each had the same thought, we smiled to each other briefly and continued our ascent knowing too well what lay ahead of us.

It was not a smile of pleasure or passion, but one wrought of fear, not of the being scared kind but that of the being afraid of what we were about to discover.

We ascended the final hill and now walked upon the flatlands that led to our small village. In the distance we could see buildings that had been burned beyond the point that they could be recognized.

As we got closer, we could make out the corpses of our kin that lay burned or cut to pieces. Not a soul could be found alive in our quick search of the town.

I looked to my brother his look back to me was as hopeless as mine to him. Sadness caught me then a grief that gripped me so hard with the loss of my kin. This coupled with the exhaustion of my trip lent itself to my only course of action.

I fell to my knees then and I wept. I wept for the loss of my friends and loved ones taken from me on that day.

Looking at my brother I could see his actions mimicked mine, the pain etched upon his face brought about more emotions that were buried within me; these emotions erupted like that of an active volcano.

I sat there not knowing my next steps and not caring, I wept for those that I had lost, and I found solace in the tears that would fall.

For how long I did this I did not know."

That ended that chapter of the book. Kyjus lifted his head from the book a tear fell gently from his cheek onto the pages of the book.

He was saddened for the depth of pain these two gnomes must have felt, imagine losing all those that were dear to you in one fell swoop of fate.

He was sad for them. However, anger now welled up inside him replacing the grief that he had felt only moments earlier. It was an anger toward those that caused these gnomes and their friends harm. It was an anger wrought of the devastation caused toward those who were not deserving of it and lastly it was an anger that could only be removed by revenge.

Kyjus tired from the long day was now reenergized by the feelings that flowed through him. He was determined now as he turned the page and continued on in the book.

"There was no point to our existence over those next couple of days; we were like two souls trying to cross the river Styx.

Tears would no longer come to us, replaced they were by a vacant stare. A pair of moping Moctoits we were until my brother found something that made both our hearts skip a beat.

There were tracks heading out of the village off unto the southeast. These were gnome tracks. They were tracks of our kin. It seemed logical that the enemy would have been spotted prior to them entering the village.

It too made sense that some, the younger of the men most likely, would have sacrificed their lives so that others would have a chance to survive.

Why did we not think of this before?"

The book went on to talk about how the two gnomes followed the tracks for days. It went on to discuss how these gnomes travelled day and night, barely pausing to sleep, they had not found their family and friends yet but the tracks were getting fresher.

Even though they had not yet found there friends they were smiling for they noticed one thing and that was the tracks of their friends were the only tracks they saw heading in this direction. So that meant they were not followed at least directly.

It all made sense to Kyjus as he leafed through the pages engrossed in the tale spun by the tiny authors. It was almost a month after they had left the village before they found the rest of their kin.

Most of them starving as there were no hunters to help put food on the table. They survived mostly on bugs and berries and any fruits they could uncover. Luckily for the village these two brothers were both skilled hunters. One more so then the other but compared to those trying to hunt for the village prior to their arrival the both of them would have considered to be highly skilled.

The book went on to briefly describe the brother's antics over the upcoming weeks. All of this was interesting to Kyjus, but it was not helping him learn anything about the Eerikye.

He skimmed faster leaping through the pages of the thick book. He found out the brothers took the surviving members of the village, a mere fifty-seven gnomes back to Syrus' cottage. He discovered that most of the surviving gnomes were women or the elderly of the village.

In the end the rest of the village ended up going back to their city of origin (Calrenthia), adopting the life they had left a long time ago. They were not as happy with their location perhaps, but they took solace in the fact that they were now safe from the evil Eerikye.

Through his reading Kyjus had discovered that the authors were not among the Gnomes that went back to Calrenthia. It did not take him turning too many pages to figure out why this was so. The Gnomes felt the need for revenge for the crimes committed against their culture and those that dwelt within.

The following pages talked about the Gnome brothers once again following many of the clans of the Eerikye. About how for the most part the concentration of evil, if you will, centered around one tribe the Black Lotus clan.

To be more precise in the matter you could further state that the evil seemed to center around one being. This evil contained itself in the person of Chieftain Macaw Featherhold.

The book then discussed the months the two brothers, or (Gnomes in Arms) the book often referred to them as, spent on the tundra trying to get close to the Chieftain. Their attempts were to no avail. The Black Lotus clan seemed to grow under Macaw's reign and none of this growth benefited the other inhabitants of Scorched Earth. As the clan grew and became stronger, the plans of Chief Macaw seemed to become more diabolical in nature.

In the end the two brave Gnomes, the unlikely heroes if you will got captured by the Eerikye. Kyjus decided once again that these passages may be worth reading so he backed up a few pages and commenced his reading at what he felt was an appropriate spot.

"The birdmen's activity had become increasingly concerning over the past few months. The shaman of the group seemed to have become more agitated and the cohesiveness of the unit in general was lacking.

The Chieftains desire for local domination seemed to increase exponentially with every day that went by. The Black Lotus clan grew with every clan that it dissimilated or with every Eerikye that migrated to them on their own.

It seemed the latter occurred less and less frequently as the news of their heretic leader spread throughout the countryside.

It was the Chief that was the key to bringing down the Black Lotus clan and it was with him that their mission's success would ride.

One evening we noticed the Black Lotus clan's activities becoming more celebratory in nature and we decided to investigate.

Groups of shamans were in full ceremonial garb as they chanted around the fire pit staged within the camp proper. They still appeared to be a formidable force in spite of the disappearance of elder Greymane Windfury

The perimeter of guards posted that night seemed to be much larger than normal so there was no chance of getting a sneak peek at what was going on or about what the birdmen were planning.

The following morning the birdmen picked up camp and headed in a north easterly direction out of scorched earth. While the Eerikye were migratory peoples they seldom left the sanctuary of their true home.

In fact, we could only think of one such occurrence prior to this and that was when they attacked our village.

With the direction they were heading out of their home within the scorched earth there was little doubt as to where they were headed. The only settlement of any consequence in that direction was the Scorched Earth Science Facility.

This could not be a good sign. There were only about one hundred people in that outpost and most of those were scientist.

There were of course a handful of guards, maybe twenty or so and while it is true, they carried far more advanced weapons they would be hard pressed to fend off several thousand of the birdmen creatures that were soon to be at their doorstep.

We continued to follow the Black Lotus clan. It was about a day or two out from the outpost when my brother had the unsettlingly feeling that we were being watched.

Since my brother is no stranger to the ways of nature and the outdoors I always listened to his concerns.

He requested that I stay hidden behind a nearby rock. It was conveniently next to a Blackrock Tree so the low hanging leaves (more like needles than any real leaves) and branches made for a convenient disguise. It was bit prickly for my taste of course but if it kept me out of the way of what my brother was trying to accomplish then so be it.

I watched as my brother entered a small open copse of land some fifty or so feet from my current position.

He bent down touching the earth and picking up a few of the Blackrock needles that had fallen from the nesting place upon the trees.

I then heard him make some sort of noise. I knew immediately, he was calling to one of the nearby woodland creatures, to what one exactly I could never tell.

Moments later I had my answer as a squirrel meandered down from his resting place up in a nearby tree.

My brother's ability to communicate with woodland creatures always astounded me; probably much the same way my ability to heal with herbs and spells astounded him.

We were a good team I guess as he was good at keeping foes off of me and I was always good at making them pay for straying too far.

Moments later my brother returned, he said nothing but rather leaned up against the large rock.

Well, what did you find I asked rather annoyingly? We had been on the road for many months over the last year and my patience was as thin as Ms. Pimpenell's after Harvane (her husband) had been out all night and dared to come home reeking of the smell of Mr. Peebles special brew.

Dare I say there was many a day no bread was to be bought as she had spent all her energy berating him over his nighttime antics.

My brother, to his credit, was not rattled at my outburst but managed to turn to me and with a smile he said, relax my brother, Perinell will see who our guest is don't you worry about that."

He left it at that, so I made no further comment on the matter.

The minutes rolled by, and I wonder if my brother's sanity was at its end and mine too for that matter thinking that a squirrel was going to help us discern who our follower(s) were. Squirrels had notoriously short memories after all.

I was about to say something when I heard a rustle off to the far side near the thicket. My brother held up his hand as if to silence any comments.

A few seconds later the little squirrel came three feet into the clearing and stopped, sitting very still staring at my brother.

He again held up his hand in my direction and casually approached the tiny skittish creature. After moments of what I am guessing was conversation my brother reached into his pocket and held out, whatever he removed from his pocket, toward the tiny creature.

The squirrel took the object and darted off out into the trees.

My brother turned around and I must have had a questioning look on my face, so he explained, "buttered filberts and cashews. The creatures are never happy working for humans even rangers as they are skittish by nature and who can blame them, but they do so terribly love the payments," he said with a slight chuckle.

Well, what did you find out, I asked as patiently as I could.

He held up his hand as if to say not right now and he motioned for me to follow.

I knew my brother and could tell that he knew who the intruder(s) were, and he knew how to deal with them for if he did not he would have already divulged the entire upcoming scenario to me.

It was at this point that I surmised that our visitor(s) posed no serious threat. It was either that or my brother felt there was little hope for us so he thought it best not to tell me so that I might avoid the worry.

As I mentioned before my brother, and I had been on the road a long time, so it was becoming increasingly difficult to think on such matters.

Either way I guess I would be finding out soon. About a mile down the path, it opened into a small clearing. It was there that I figured my brother would lie in wait.

I was right on this assumption, as once we arrived at the clearing my brother placed his pack behind the large rock. He then sat on the opposite side of the clearing from which we had entered.

Casually he rested his back lying on the cold hard stone.

I looked at him as if to say you can't be serious, but he shrugged me off. It was at this point I knew our stranger posed no threat. It was also at this point that my curious nature had gotten the better of me.

I was now very eager for the arrival of our follower. I waited patiently for what seemed like hours before I heard the telltale signs that someone was coming.

Moments later a figure strode into view.

You take great risk pursing us so openly, wizard my brother said to the tall figure.

I would argue that my pursuit is not as open to anyone other than those with the keen senses of a ranger and its mage not wizard, little one, the solitary figure said in response.

My brother nodded his consent to the tall figures rebuttal as he strode toward the middle of the glade to meet our visitor.

Noted, my brother said as he extended his hand to shake that of the old mage.

Good to see you Syrus, he said.

And you to my little friend, and to your brother, he responded as he shook my brothers hand and nodded in my direction.

So why are you following us then, my brother asked.

I am not following you per se my friend, but I am hoping that you will lead me to my ultimate goal to find the Eerykie…"

Kyjus continued reading the following pages with less intensity but still wanting to absorb as much information that lay within.

The gnomes parlayed all they had learned from their following of the birdmen much of which confirmed the mages suspicions of trouble. In the end Syrus agreed to accompany his two friends, embarking on their journey of "inner fulfillment".

At this point Kyjus was exhausted. He desperately wanted to continue but it was well past midnight and dawn would be fast approaching. He knew from previous training experience that a tired mage was an ill prepared mage, so he closed the book and turned off the light.

Oddly enough visions of the princess filled his dreams.