Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-25744472-20160704002445/@comment-4783583-20170913002703

 Chapter 1 No Ringing of Bells 



The boy panted. The moment had come. His moment. For years he watched the comings and goings of the guards, learned their routines and schedules. And he knew this was the day. The one day, he could risk it, could do it. He knew for certain it was within his reach. The previous six weeks he had spent all of his free time going over his plans checking up on parts of the path he would take. He took his knapsack from its hiding place. It was filled with stale biscuits and slightly molded bread, but he didn’t care. The moment he was free he would be eating like the foremen. Now he sneaked past the others he knew exactly where to set down his feet as to not wake the slumber of any of the other boys. Near the exit was the guard sleeping after having drunk to much just like he had done two years ago when he was also assigned this shift. Instead of heading down directly he went the other way to the ledge which the boys dared each other to jump to. He never participated in their games, not wanting them or the guards to know how good he was at them. From the ledge it was a small jump into the pigsty underneath, the smell could attract the guards he knew. But it wasn’t the guards  he was worried about. Since it was the hounds he needed to outrun.



Covered in filth he made his way out of the animal enclosure, where he knew today there wouldn’t be any guards. The autumn feast was coming you see. Only the Boss, his foremen, their families and close acquaintances were invited off course and none of their pristine food would make it to the guards. But the guards didn’t care, the coming autumn feast for them was just an excuse to drink and drink they did. Last year there had been rumours of war, so there was increased security but this year the hegemony ruled supreme once again. No more enemies in the east since it joined the Hegemon, no more enemies in the south they all starved to death, no more enemies in the west the floods made sure of that and the north, well the north is still free, free and divided no army is coming from there anytime soon. The guards celebrate this among other things the used as excuse to toast and drink to. He didn’t care, it was fortuitous to him since the other guard guarding their hollow always had one eye open, even when he slept.



He waited for a nearby guard to stop vomiting before crawling any further. While looking at the vomit he saw some apple in it, this guard obviously had saved some money to buy fruit. What a shame he ruined it by vomiting it back up, he thought. If he had money he would never waste it. But whom was he kidding, he barely had any possessions let alone any money. He ran across the field were the guards made them exercise on once a day before serving lunch. A carrot slice, some sludge which they tried to pass off as soup and a mug of bitter tasting water that was their daily lunch, while the guards had bread with cheese and parpertine and the foremen had ham and eggs. He couldn’t even imagine what the Boss ate, only time they ever got to eat cheese was when it had gone bad already. But that didn’t matter anymore, that the next two weeks were easier when it came to their workload thanks to the autumn feast didn’t matter either. The others were looking quite forward to it. But not him ever since he tried to escape out of the mines a second time, the foreman had it out for him. The first time he was convinced he made it out and had tasted freedom only to find a group of guards playing a secret card game, they left him off with a warning, not wanting to get into trouble themselves. But the second time they had send search parties out to find him as they were bound to do if anyone went missing since corpses weren’t allowed to stay in the mines everybody knew this. The reason for the rule however was long forgotten. When they finally caught him, he was in for a world of hurt. The scars on his back itched and burned, when he thought about it, like there was some magic spell upon them. Even so they could not persuade him or deter his persistence. They only made him give up on escaping through the mines. That day he started planning his way out of the camp and the compound it was a part off.



Having made his way across the exercise field, he now ran the three miles to the first gate he had to cross. Luckily there was a long forgotten hole in the gate and he was through it coming to the big garrison town which now was empty. Normally there would be guards here, however unnecessary it might seem but today the foremen didn’t mind there not being any guards in the town believing there was protection magic on it anyway, which would alert them of any unsanctioned entries. He tested this theory by getting one of the other boys to challenge their frontboy. Everybody wanted to be frontboy you see, since it was the only way for a slave boy to become one of the guards. This is what made all the frontboys be very mean and very though and very reckless. They would all eagerly accept stupid challenges to prove themselves worthy to the others and the childpicker. Now the childpicker was an individual which each year chose 10 of the most attractive boys to leave the camp and go live somewhere else on the compound where they were to become house servants to the elite guards and foremen. Or so they were told since they were never seen again once taken. He made sure he was never picked by cutting off part of his nose, scraping his knees and knocking out a couple of teeth. Small sacrifices really for a chance of escape. He also disobeyed orders, making sure he would never be picked to be frontboy, but then disobeying orders came naturally to him. Having crossed the garrison town safely he now came to the second fence and this was the hard one. It was here all the bell towers were located and it was here that the guards weren’t drunk and had the hounds ready. Yet he didn’t need to pass the fence, no he had found an ancient tunnel hiding in a latrine, it took you right through the fence to a pool of shit, but if you knew it was there you could jump over it and he did. Now he needed to go all the way back to the other end of the compound even though the main gate was really close from this pool of shit. Yet he could not risk it the main gate of the little mining compound was the most heavily guarded of them all, no he had to walk all the way to the back. Here there was a forest and shelter to hide from the guards, shelter that was useless if he had hounds on his tail. The walk to the back of the compound was long and uneventful it took nearly two hours and he had never before made the full trip. From the highest mine he could look towards the forest and while dreaming of running through the tree he saw it a spot were the trees had swallowed the fence. A place were a small and agile boy could climb up and over it without touching the magic barrier laid upon it.



Yet when he got there he was dismayed, all the bottom branches were cut as if fate itself was working against him or if one of the foreman knew his thoughts. Then he saw a barrel, it would make noise but he didn’t care he rolled the barrel which made an awful sound being filled with horseshoes as he expected but he had to do it. Having come so far there was no turning back. He set the barrel against the tree reached out, jumped and caught the branch. He hoisted himself up and started climbing. The climb was long and the branches fierce, some broke his skin and others just broke off. Then he made it, the beaten moon was still high in the sky so he had still enough time to make it as far away as he could as he crossed the branches of the tree from one to the next until making it all away across the fence, then he climbed down and touched the moss, if he didn’t know it was poisonous he could have kissed it. But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. No the woods stretched on for miles as far as they eye could see. Some believed elves still lived in the woods, but he knew better all he was likely to encounter was a wayward troll. Trolls he could handle they were stupid anyways, it was the Frognesians and the Sind he was afraid of. He severely doubted the existence of Elves, Birdman, Centurions, Giants and Wizards. They all seemed to fanciful to him, but Frognesians he had seen and the Sind everybody was afraid off and trolls were mocked by everyone so he knew them to be real for sure.



Then the was the forest itself which was said to be haunted. But he did not believe in ghosts and spooks either. He had seen way to many people die in the mines and none ever came back from the death to haunt them, nor did he in his unauthorized wanderings and explorations ever encounter anything supernatural or ghostly. No Ghosts, Poltergeists, Spirits, Spooks, Wraiths, Banshees or Souls all did not exist, he knew this for sure. That is why he had to escape, he was convinced there were no Gods or any afterlife. One is all anyone got. And he would not waste it any longer by being a slave. The foremen be damned, the Boss be damned, the clergy be damned, the pontiff be damned and the Hegemon be damned he was going to be free. Now the forest was a big and scary place, filled with thousands of wolves and their half breed offspring, hundreds of flesh eating bird and ten fairy colonies if rumours were to be believed. But he did not believe in rumours, wolves he had heard and wounds from the flesh eating birds he had seen on guards whom strayed too far from the compound, but for the fairies there was no evidence. Even so he was wary about their possible existence, knowing that if they are real they would undoubtedly prey on him. He was a solitary traveller in the forest after all and this was their forest if they actually exist.



He made his way through the thick threes whose branches very each vying for supremacy over the others. He knew he had to make some meters or otherwise the guards would quickly find him the next day. No he had to go away far enough, far enough so that the guards would give up the chase. Ahead of him was a small path this would allow him to run for a while until the forest grew thick again and he had to climb and stumble through the trees. This he did noticing that the forest seemed to be unusually quiet. More quiet then it should have been and he did not like it. Yet he felt there was some sort of force compelling him to go onwards guiding his hands and feet, showing him the way through the trees. He could see the forest more clearly then he should have, it still being night. An eerie feeling crept up on him and still he continued also feeling that maybe there might be such a thing as fate, there might be a power watching over him. However far-fetched that might seem to his sensible mind. After two hours he got to a forest clearing and he saw the withered remains of several farms and an ancient road laid down by those whom preceded the hegemony. The stone of the road had cracked and the forest was swallowing it, yet he felt compelled to follow it. Believing that this was a road out of the forest. A road to the world beyond the mining camp and the bigger compound it was a part of. A road to freedom and a chance towards happiness.



<p class="MsoNoSpacing">The night grew darker and so did the forest. So dark he no longer could see the road ahead and for the first time, his hope seemed to leave him. Then he saw a light, fearing it might be fairies he slowly crept towards it. But as he got closer he saw it was candlelight and in front of him now there was a rundown cabin. Could it belong to some kind of forest witch? Even if it did he did not care, he needed a place to sleep and there it was right in front of him, so forest witch or forest snitch. He would go there but somehow he was unable to move. Was it fear or was it something else, some kind of protection spell perhaps. He set one foot in front of the other and then again and again and before he knew it he was slowly creeping towards the little cabin, which he knew and hoped was most likely empty and abandoned years ago.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">There he was right in front of the door, should he knock, shout or just go inside. Then a breeze caught him in the back and the door creaked open which startled him. No amount of wind should be able to blow open a door this way. But he didn’t care anymore, he was going to inside and inside he went. Now the cabin was quiet even though the wind should be making it creak, but no creaks were to be heard nor any sound or anything was there it was completely silent. So silent in fact that it seemed that the outside world had no effect on it, like a bubble surrounded it, cutting it off from the world.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">The boy sat down and took of all his clothes, then he went to a door which held behind it a strange water device he had never seen before. Yet he knew instinctively how to use it. Then when he was done he found a fresh towel which he was sure hadn’t been there before. For a split second he thought about fairies and their traps but somehow this place felt right and when he entered the main room again, it didn’t seem so rundown anymore, nor all that dusty. Almost like somebody cleaned and tidied up the place while he was watering himself.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">He got dressed again and for some reason even his clothes looked cleaner. Which made him worry about the hounds for a second but then sleep overwhelmed him and as soon as he lay down he fell asleep. His dreams were full of visions of strange places, strange beings and strange landscapes and even stranger objects. Then he woke up to the chirping of birds and when he look up he saw a birds nest in the corner of the roof which he was sure wasn’t there before just like there was the sound of a bird but no bird then when he got up from the bed the sound stopped. This should have been spooky but he felt rested and at ease. He walked to the birds nest expecting it to be empty but as he got near he noticed there were two chicken eggs in the nest. Chicken eggs, not chirping bird eggs but actual chicken eggs like the foremen ate. He took them cracked them open on a pan which also seemed to appear to him and he cooked and ate them along with the carrot slice he saved from yesterdays lunch.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">Then he gathered his things and stood up, looking around he found some helpful things lying around in the cabin which he took with him also then as he was about to leave he heard something fall in the other room. He went in to find a book had fallen of the shelve yet there was nothing to make it fall. He looked at the shiny letters and really wanted to know what they stood for. But slaves didn’t need to be able to read more than a few words like: Danger, Keep Out, Caution and Punishment Room. But the two words on the cover of this book had none of those words and included letters he had never seen before. He looked at the first page of the book and it had more words he didn’t know and even stranger letters. He then looked through it and he found it amazing that one thing could contain so many words. And he rarely saw any he recognized. Then he looked at the other books on the shelve but dismissing them he took this book with him. Feeling it was special.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">As he was about to leave the cabin one vision of the previous night ran clearly through his head. He was on an open field of green which stretched as far as the eyes could see and in the distant were green rolling hills that went on beyond the horizon and he knew this land was not part of the hegemony. Then he saw the sea stretch on endlessly beyond it and land and beaches way beyond it. Then he was back in the field and a voice spoke out of the blue and for a while he could only marvel at the divine beauty of it then he began to listen and it said: “-stars wielded out of it and formed orbs besides them and those orbs gave birth to life and life gave birth to gods. Once upon a time there were no gods all that existed was life and their immortalized heroes, cultural figures and deified cult leaders. Life itself was the one that gave rise to the notion of totally fictitious beings. So once Gods did not exist except within the imaginations of the various peoples. But then people got to powerful and greedy. Being ever waylaid from the best of their inner natures by foolish and arrogant thinking and many desired to surpass themselves and most important to overcome death. Then those came into being that could make this a reality that could allow themselves and others to overcome death and even make others into Gods. These were the Godmakers and they had powers and knowledge beyond those of all regular humans. Knowledge and powers they passed on to their ancestors until the other humans. Angry and fearful hunted them down and then there were no more Godmakers and the world became more ruined then it ever was before. And now in cruel irony only another Godmaker can make things right again. If he survives long enough that is, that is why we have helped you out at the start of your long journey since you are, now that you are free, one of the Godmakers.” The voice stopped but the vision continued he saw white cliffs beyond a stormy sea and he knew that was where he had to go first. Then the vision stopped and he walked out of the cabin and left it behind then he saw a bed of moss and saw in a flicker his old self laying down on the moss in the cold of night. He thought about the camp and the bells and the hounds and the guards and he wondered if they were coming for him already.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">He walked for eight hours and then another vision came to him a vision of a strange army walking towards the compound he just escaped. They were dressed in green as to mask their approach and golden symbols were sown onto their coat. And as soon as they got near enough they released a folly of arrows upon the guards and for some reason the bells did not toll, not for his escape nor for this strange army that had come out of nowhere. Then he saw his fellow slaves being freed and catered off by the green army and he saw a man with a golden helmet dressed in red and purple and inside the mines the Boss and his foremen and guards were running away towards a secret exit. The compound had fallen and green banners now hung from the battlements. Then the vision faded and he knew it to be true and he was overjoyed, now all he had to worry about was getting out of the forest.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">He stopped in another ruined settlement and found some fruit to eat. Fruit never did he expect to be eating it so freely and so soon but there were apples and oranges growing in the settlement even if they had no right to be there, let alone stand be thriving so well in the wilderness. He filled his knapsack with as much of it as it could stand to hold, removing all the moldy bread from it. He then went on following roads whenever he saw them until they would eventually stop, then night came and he felt tired once again and this time he did lay down on a bed of moss. Then he woke up suddenly to the howling of wolves and suddenly the sense of danger that had not been within him since the morning returned in full. Suddenly aware of his rugged scrawniness and the fact he had no weapons to defend himself he ran and ran and ran. Then he fell and got up and made a crack at which point he noticed a fire as if from a torch. Thinking his vision was a lie and the torch must belong to one of the guard he turned to run away. But something grabbed him and he screamed, then his world went black.

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<p class="MsoNoSpacing">So how did you like it?