Chapter 1 - Back Story1
Many stories are started with a reference to the sun. In some stories, there are alternate universes that have multiple suns; in some, the characters in the story live in strange underground places where the sun never shines. Some stories begin with rain, some with thunder, some with fire, some with beautiful white clouds thrown across the sky. This particular story begins on a day where the sun was shining openly and hotly. There were rolling green hills surrounding the little indent in the earth where this part of the story takes place. Well, it isn’t really a part of the story, more of an explanation of why things are the way they are.2
Standing on the highest rolling hill in sight there were seven men, all alone. There was nothing else around for exactly 14 miles. If any of the seven men looked to the north, (which was the direction they were facing,) they would see a vast army, its numbers in the thousands. The army was made up of two distinguishable groups of people, each making up about half of the group as a whole. One of these groups of people was holding guns. The other half was made up of people with knives. A knife, obviously, is not a very good tool for open war. It’s a quiet tool, and subtle, and definitely fast, but knives can easily be overpowered by brute force. But these people were condemned to these tools. Their entire lives were spent training with them, their bodies and minds honed to the weapon, mind and arm and hilt and blade all becoming one disastrously powerful instrument of annihilation. It was the same for the other group, the ones with guns.3
A little more on the guns and knives, now.4
The guns weren’t just one type of gun. The people with guns were allowed to choose what kind of gun they were most interested in. One might’ve had a small pistol with another had a huge, unwieldy machine gun. It was all based on the person. The daggers were the same, other than the obvious fact that they were daggers, which strips away a large part of the people’s freedom of choice. A man or woman may choose the length of the blade with some boundaries (not so big it was a sword but no so small it was a toothpick). They may have also chosen the shape of the hilt and blade, down to the smallest detail. They may have chosen to have two daggers or one, (most go with two), and the sheath was open to customization also. 5
These people weren’t condemned by not being able to choose which type of weapon they wanted. They were allowed to think about what they would be best at. Not everyone in this world was forced to belong to a class, which is a good thing, but a classless person is a weak person. With your body and mind not being finely tuned to a weapon, it makes you a prime target for a person with more training. A classless person in this world was frowned upon as a heathen. 6
The average age for an individual to begin to pursue their art was around the age of puberty. You were allowed to choose it at whatever age you pleased. After you’d chosen, it was considered stupid to change your mind. Not impossible, but definitely unhealthy, making your new class slightly unbalanced, depending on the level of training you had undergone in your first class. I really don’t know much about the class processes, mostly just about the story surrounding them.7
There were four classes…8
There were swords, which were for people that prefer up close and personal combat. Most people who joined that class were strong.9
There were the knives, which were for people that were agile and fast, both in thought and in physical structure.10
There were the guns, which were for people that were fast, smart, steady, and had good eyesight and technical abilities.11
Lastly, the staffs. A strange, sort of unknown class, the people in this class were said to be the most powerful, but of course this was widely debated. It was a strange fighting style which was very hard to describe, and was favored by people with a complex mind.12
The people with knives and the people with guns just didn’t exist. The reason for this was strange but simple: All classes respect their fellow classes. It was a silent truce that had been honored since the first people began to separate themselves based on their choice of weapon. There were fights of course, and small group skirmishes. These were over simple things. War was unheard of, for the most part. Until the knives and the guns finally decided to band together, which was by the pure coincidence of the two class-masters being very old friends, there was no agreement among the classes. But, because of the friendship, the two classes forged a shaky alliance. They assisted each other in all ways, appearing as brothers to each other. Little did the other classes know, they were preparing for war.13
A huge army was assembled and marched on the city of Lu Varga, the main city of the swords and the dwelling place of the class-master of swords, Sylus Vargas. There were no clear motives for the sending the army, other than the obvious reason, which was to start a conflict. Two classes joined together would be powerful beyond imagination in this world. The swords caught wind of it because of a few good-natured knives and guns and they sent out their best fighters, not even beginning to understand the magnitude of the army marching towards them.14
Bringing us back to where we started.15
I hope I’ve made it clear the importance of having a class. It was sometimes punished for using a different weapon without ceremonially changing your class first. Sometimes it was punished severely, such as a lost hand or eye. A classed person stripped of their weapon was like taking away a man’s own beating heart. It would be like becoming a hollow shell of what you were.16
Like becoming nothing.17
The swords had stopped at exactly 14 miles to wait for the army for the simple reason of geographical ingenuity. This world was strikingly similar to Earth, in more ways than one. (Lu Varga is in about the same spot as Las Vegas on Earth.) Because of the curvature of our planet, you can’t see anything over 13 miles away in any direction on a flat surface. After the rolling hills, most of the land was just flat grass and scattered trees, so the swords stopped at 14 so the knives and guns wouldn’t be able to use any sort of magnification device to see that their city walls were being prepared for war. Cannons were prepared, spikes mounted on the tops of the tall gray wall, things of that sort. When the swords went to war, it was probably easily visible.18
So two armies met but only one existed, in the terms of the people of this planet. The non-existent one was the first to speak.19
“You’ll be killed, swords,” said a gun loudly over the mumblings of the massed army. “You know that.”20
One of the swords replied in an equally loud but more conviction-filled voice, “Better to die as a class than as a shred of what you were born as, you traitorous bastards.”21
These words went straight to the hearts of the newly assembled army. They shuffled their feet and the mutterings dwindled.22
“We’ll give you a chance to join us, even though you won’t take it,” said the same gun.23
One of the swords, a particularly large man, snorted.24
“Be our end in death, in health, in slavery or in freedom,” he yelled, “this is our fight. You boys lost it the moment you decided to exchange your knives and guns for nothing.”25
The landscape paused.26
“So be it, sword.”27
The fight began.28
A man from the non-existent side screamed “Knives down! Fire!” and that is exactly what the army did. All of the knives – dressed in black and green – fell flat on their stomachs with a clattering of sheaths and light armor. Around seven hundred assorted weapons were pointed at the swords.29
The swords responded easily and smartly. They pulled their blades from their sheaths – all of them were of the same type, because they were a special team similar to the Secret Service – and stabbed them into the ground with as much force as they could muster, which was a considerable amount. Upon hitting the ground they grew to twice their natural size with the clicking sounds of mechanics, becoming more like a shield than a sword. The gunners fired their firearms (the sound of seven hundred different types and styles of guns going off is quite amazing, and deafening besides) but their did not do much damage at all. One particularly large and ridiculous looking behemoth of a rocket-launcher put a rather large dent in the man who had spoken second’s blade (most aimed at him, and he enjoyed it immensely) but that was all. They continued shooting, the gun’s sounds drowning out the sword’s laughs. The swords finally realized that the army was not going to let up, and pulled their swords of the ground with a shout from one of them. They began to walk towards the non-existent army. Their fingers were exposed, so inevitably a few lost their fingers, but why should they care? They were walking towards their deaths, and they didn’t care about a thing in the world. If anything, they ENJOYED the pain. It was invigorating.30
The guns realized what was happening and lessoned their barrage. They alerted the knives, which sprang into action like crouched lions. They leaped at the swords in a flurry of black and green, looking like specters shimmering across the landscape. Everything was choked with smoke from the gunshots. The swords saw them and shortened their blade widths to normal size with a hand motion known only to them and the sword-makers. In a clash of blazing steel, a war that would go on to change the face of the entire world was ignited. A gust of wind blew gently across the grass, as if the very earth itself was letting out an exasperated sigh for the plight of mankind. The true army fought against the army of nothing, with heavy blades hacking with measured force and small blades tearing at half-exposed flesh. One by one the heroes fell, their names made famous for all of eternity. There were no cheers of victory from the victors. No songs sung. Not even a smile. There would be no real victory until the end of the war, if the end ever came.31
Many of the assembled army knew in their hearts that it wouldn’t.32
Chapter 2 – Monster Hunter33
The cold bit like a wolf. It hurt the boy; hurt him so bad it was almost paralyzing. His mouth was set in a grimace, his teeth chattering violently. He felt the cold, for it was impossible not to, but he didn’t mind it. Not at this moment, anyway. At this moment, every sense, every muscle, every mere cell of his body was focused entirely on the great beast before him. It was huge, resembling a rhinoceros from Earth, but with several extra horns on its face. It was not the first beast the boy had caught, not even the biggest. It was definitely the largest he had caught by himself, though, and was extremely important to him. He carried a long wooden bow, even though his ambition was to someday wield a sword. He wore a thick fur coat, but it didn’t do much to ease the ever-present numbing chill. His eye-goggles were pushed up on his forehead. He desired crystal clear vision. His semi-long brown hair was swept to the sides of his head, the tips frozen solid. He was completely ready to face this monster.34
He crept towards it slowly, his hands held high. In one he carried a dagger, in the other a cloth. The cloth was damp with a special type of immobilizing poison, created solely for entering the blood stream and paralyzing for a long period of time. The creature, called the Daxon, hand its main artery located right above is broad shoulder blades, so if you wanted the best and most paralytic effect, you would either have to creep up beside the beast and reach over it (which would be louder and would require long arms) or jump on top of it and mount it like a horse.35
Felion Relicos favored the second option much, much more.36
He slapped his hands onto the beast’s back and lifted himself up, performing an acrobatic vault onto the thing’s hard spine. The massive hulk of an animal looked up quickly from its meal of frosted leaves and gave a loud, bellowing roar. It was at a loss of what to do and took several clumsy steps before finally figuring out that there was something on its back. Felion switched the dagger in his hand into a stabbing position with a practiced maneuver and jabbed the thing into the beast with perfect accuracy, not too hard, not too soft, and the creature went down instantly. Its knees buckled beneath it and it fell to the snow-covered ground with a crashing and satisfying sound. Felion slid off the beast with a huge sense of accomplishment and relief washing over him. It was the greatest prize that any of his age-group could boast. He didn’t plan on killing the thing. Oh no, he planned on selling it. There were circuses and the like that bought them for large prices.37
Not bad for a boy of 14.38
As a monster hunter, his responsibility was to protect his village from beasts that sometimes caused problems. Most of his companions were classed. Well, at least as classed as you could be after the scattering of the classes, an event that happened shortly after the aforementioned battle. There wasn’t much for him to do, other than hunt and trap monsters in his free time. It was a great way to make money while at the same time earning a reputation. He couldn’t become a sword until he travelled with his uncle to the city of Eversnow (and a better-named city there never was). He also was not allowed to kill any of the creatures he captured freelance, only to sell alive. He also had to create his own equipment, but Felion was a smart boy in every sense of the word. He excelled in all of his meager studies, and had more ambition than the average monster hunter. He dreamt of becoming a sword in the Jade Army, the elite team of swords that answered directly to the master of swords, Sylus Vargas. He laughed when he thought of it, thinking it sounded like some faerie-tale from his books. He was more correct in that assumption then he understood.39
He was a good hunter, sometimes talking prey for a full week before catching them. He was also skilled in creating equipment such as poisons and traps. He had around fourteen large monsters under his best, with ranks of smaller ones, including animals the size of grown deer. He would be able to hunt monsters after he completed his training in Eversnow. He would then be moved to Evermoss, the sister city, to receive his monster hunter’s badge, and hopefully, his initiation into the sword class.40
His Uncle was an old, burnt out monster hunter. He was fond of getting drunk and having sexual urges towards the boy, which Felion was beginning to notice more and more. He wanted to leave the house and move in with some kind of instructor, and his trips to Eversnow were the only ways he could hope to search for one. His father and mother had allegedly died on a hunting trip when Felion was just a baby, but he had never had the courage to ask about it. He didn’t treat the boy good or bad, just with a sort of emotionless indifference.41
Felion was scared of him and did not love him. He admired that his Uncle, mostly, kept him guarded from the effects of his drunken behavior, but he hated having no attention. Hell, he didn’t even know the man’s name. He was Uncle.42
The town Felion lived in was despairingly small. It was almost claustrophobic. There was a meat-curer, a post-office, and a small gathering hall that the public attempted to keep in relatively good shape. That was all, other than the houses of about fifteen families.43
Eversnow was just the opposite. It was the New York of Felion’s mind. It had beautiful streamlets everywhere you looked because of glacial runoff. It never stopped snowing. Ever. It provided the town with some if its water and made the city seem to shine with a glowing white everywhere you looked. The buildings were all built in the same way, curved like domes to ward off the snow. There was a city hall, a supplies store (frequented by Felion), a gathering hall that was kept absolutely spotless by the public, a grocery store, a museum, an ammunition shop (these were just about everywhere in this world), a school, and an arena. The arena was an important building. Money was exchanged profusely with all of the betting and it was a popular gathering spot.44
Felion was average height – about 5 foot 7 inches – with intelligent blue eyes. He was handsome, at least compared to the children living around his town. He wasn’t particularly strong, but was very well built and toned. Despite this, he still desired to be a sword.45
It was forty three years after the great battle and the whole world was in chaos. The swords had barely managed to defend the city and reinforcements from other cities came just in time to end the battle. Following this was a period where battles were waged between groups of people who were becoming doubtful of whom they were. Knives slowly started to become paid assassins and mercenaries instead of a disciplined class. Former guns wandered in groups and pillaged freely. Swords ceased to be swords but remained united. Staffs had no say in the matter and remained cloaked in secrecy. The age of classes had ended for the most part and the world was slowly becoming more industrialized. Among this was still a solid group of people disciplined in a single weapon, which plunged the world into a strange sort of chaotic insecurity. The ceremonies for becoming classed still existed, but it wasn’t thought of as nearly as serious a practice as before. Felion had only a very vague idea of what had transpired. Former swords and guns and knives developed hatred towards each other. It was about as close to racism as this world managed. Black people were simple dark skinned individuals, for better or for worse, on this planet. 46
Felion hated that something so sacred and revered could be so easily destroyed by a bunch of meaningless acts. He was strongly self-disciplined. It made him sort of an outcast in his age group, though. It even caused a few conflicts occasionally.47
“Oh!” said one of his fellow teenagers one day while Felion was walking home from the post-office. He had ordered a wooden sword to practice with until the day came when he could create his own. “The little pansy wannabe sword!” The bully was surrounded by a group of friends. “Let’s see you stop a bullet with a sword, pansy.” He pretended to pull a gun out of his pocket and shoot Felion. “BAM!” he screamed.48
Felion flinched. The boys laughed. “Scared of them eh?” asked the would-be ring-leader, “The won’t get you anywhere in the world, now will it? Someday, guns are gonna be pointed at every sword swinger in the whole world. And you know what? They’re all gonna fuckin’ die too.”49
Felion reached into his jacket and pulled out a ball. The ringleader snatched it from him.50
“What’s this?” He said, his rough voice edged with curiosity.51
“Dunno,” replied Felion, “Press the button and find out.”52
The boy pressed a small red button on the black ball. There was a sound like tearing paper and the ring-leader was engulfed in a tight-fitting net. It forced him to retract into the fetal position to give him room to breathe. It was originally created to capture rabbits.53
“Let’s see you talk now,” Felion snarled, kicking the boy hard in his lower back. The other boys couldn’t help but laugh at the suddenness of their leader being trapped in the net. Felion walked away, carefully listening to see if he was followed.54
“Hey!” a boy yelled after him, “how do we get him out?”55
“Makes you wish you had a sword or something doesn’t it?” a satisfied Felion replied.56
The days whizzed by, with the usual tinkering with different traps and training with his sword routine combining with the packing for his trip. The most exciting thing in that week or so was hearing that a Simari – a very rare, elk-sized lizard animal – had been spotted around Eversnow.57
“Good thing to test my new badge on,” Felion thought, smiling at the prospect of tracking and killing such a prized animal. They were famous for the tenderness of their white meat and the strength of their hides.58
He said farewell to the few people that he knew cared enough to return the gesture. He would be gone for two and a half weeks, with the trip lasting a full day. The journey to Eversnow would be boring and uneventful, and when the day came to leave he couldn’t wait to get it over with.59
They set out, a pair of horses drawing their sled across the packed snow of the road. Felion wrapped himself deeply in coats and blankets and tried in vain to sleep.60
Halfway through the day a thought occurred to him. “Uncle?” he asked hesitantly.61
“Yeah?” the gruff man replied.62
“What class were you?”63
He wheezed out a few unhealthy sounding laughs. “Me?” He snorted. “I was a staff myself. Why d’you ask?”64
“A staff?” Felion was surprised. His Uncle was not how he pictured a staff to be, a quiet, wise, content people. Not drunken, potentially loud-mouthed, violent, and rude.65
“Yep.” A hint of nostalgia crept into his voice. “But ever since the staffs stopped caring for anyone but themselves, I decided to call it quits.”66
Felion sat, deep in thought, until he was interrupted by his Uncle again.67
“Watch this,” he said, and broke a solid stick off a passing tree. He took out his long hunting knife from its sheath at his belt and quickly trimmed all the branches off of it. It was fairly straight, about as big around as a nickel and about a yard long. He held it strangely in the hand that wasn’t holding the reins, as one might hold a pencil, between his middle and ring fingers. All of a sudden it became a whirring blur as he proved to Felion the immense power of being classed. His Uncle was spinning the stick in a hypnotic pattern that made your whole body want to sway and move. He started to feel tired from the brown blur in the air his Uncle stopped abruptly and swung the stick at a nearby tree.68
The makeshift staff connected with the tree and shattered it into tiny fragments. Chunks of wood flew backwards into the forest.69
“Y’see boy,” he said to his now wide-eyed nephew, “No matter what you swing at, no matter what you use, you can do that.” He pointed at the remains of the tree with the stick. “There’s a spot on every object calling its ‘breaking point’. If you hit this spot, no matter what you’re usin’ and on what, be it a blade of grass on a mountain, it’ll shatter into tiny little pieces. With the staff they teach you a whole lot about where to find these points and how to find ‘em. The more you learn about staffs, the bigger the objects you realize you can break. There’s a breaking point in this world somewhere Felion, I just hope nobody ever finds it.”
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