The Balance

Another twisted story from the mind of johnfn, I'm sure you all are going to be thinking that this is just your standard cliche story, I can tell you that it is not - just wait until the 3rd part. (as for the name, it will make more sense near the end of the story)

The Balance

Part 1
I hiked back up the mountain.

Well, not the entire mountain any ways. I live in a village on the side of the mountain, but its about a half mile hike up from the base. I took a beaten path up the mountain. Trees were scattered all around my ascent. The grass was green, and the trees were in full color. I then looked back down the mountain. The trail went down, down, down, flattened off at the base of the mountain, and then went into the jungle, where I had just been. The jungle, now just a massive green colored part of my vision, held all sorts of herbs and valuable roots. It was considered by many an herbalist's best dream, but was also inhabited by dangerous beasts that it was better not to attract the attention of. I was coming back from the forest where I had to gather a few herbs. It wasn't so hard. I'm pretty good at not attracting attention.

I was almost to the village when I noticed something strange. Something - I couldn't quite tell what - was camping on the outskirts of the village. I couldn't see what it was but it didn't look good. I ran up to the village, and looked around. The village was a nice tidy looking place. Houses were scattered around the area, divided by the beaten path I had walked up on. Further away from the path, I could make out several farms that were owned by the village people.

Then I seeked out the herbalist, a tall and skinny guy with brown hair who always seemed to wear blue. I gave him the herbs, and in return, he had a message for me. "Go see the village chieftain," he said to me, and he took an omnious glance at whatever was camping near the village. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty serious. I ran over to the chieftain.

"The herbalist said you had something to tell me," I said to him. He looked at me with a worrisome glance, and I looked at him for the first time. He wasn't very tall - not much taller then I was, but his face looked old and wisened as if he knew a lot of things and went through a lot of experiences he would have rather not gone through. He was an imposing figure should he have to be.

"Listen, son, I bring some dire news." Ut oh, it looked like my intuition was correct. I wondered just how bad this news would be. I had no idea.

"That camp that I'm sure you noticed near the village - it is a camp of Nether Walkers." I was shocked. Everyone knows what a Nether Walker is - they were legendary creatures. They looked about the same as a human, but they had dark and nearly transparent bodies, and were amazingly good fighters. They say that one Nether Walker is a match for 10 skilled humans. You can't trust everything that you hear, but things looked grim for the village.

"There is only one thing that we can do," he said in a soft whisper. "We must consult the Council." The Council was a group of five wise men who lived on top of the mountain. The village hadn't consulted the Council in over twenty years - it rarely had problems of this significance.. Then I suddenly realized why he was telling me all of this in the first of place. Looks like I was in for a hike up the mountain.

"You already know why I am telling this," he said softly after he finished watching my reaction to his previous statement ,"and you know what you must do. Consult the council. They will be able to help us in our time of peril. I hope to see you soon."

I walked over to my house. My mother was there as usual. I told her the news, and she was silent for several minutes. Then she nodded her head and said ,"You must do what you must do. Good luck." I was suprised. I didn't think it would be that easy.

I decided to get moving as quickly as possible. I packed some food into a bag and put it over my shoulder, and I started hiking up the mountain. It was a long hike - nearly one mile up. Fortunately though, I was probably the most agile one in the entire village, and that's not me bragging, its the truth. That was probably the reason the chief had picked me to talk to the council - I was the only one who could get there in time. As I ran up the mountain, the grass slowly started disappearing. The trees I saw lost their leaves, and eventually disappeared. Indeed, there was a small layer of snow on the ground when I finally reached the Council.

Before I knocked, I looked around the mountain. Far down where the path lead, to the north, was the jungle.

Further on past the jungle was the large city of Albaron. To the east of Albaron was the Bay of Lut'turoth, which then extended into the ocean. Albaron was a city by the ocean. To the east you could see the Burned Plains, which looked like a huge crater but was really the result of a vicious fire about 15 years ago. Face south, and you could see the city Du'loth, as some sort of counterbalance to Albaron. Now face to the west, and you'll see the Grasslands.

After this slight bout of sightseeing, I figured it would be good to actually go in to the council's living quarters.

I knocked on the door.

Part 2


No answer.

I knocked again, and the door swung open. I walked inside and what I saw made me gasp in horror.

The building had been abandoned.

The four seats in the front of the building were unoccupied. The bookshelf with all that knowledge contained within it had gathered nearly an inch of dust. The stove in the back still had a pot on it, but it probably hadn't been used in at least ten years. The four beds in the room beyond that had certainly been unused for quite a long time.

Then the meaning of all of this came together, and the shock was too much. Everything faded to blackness.


I woke up nearly an hour later. I ran out of the building. I had to tell the villagers! I ran down, down, down the mountain, and trees and grass flew past me. When I saw the village clearly, there was a smoke cloud surrounding it. I didn't want to know the implications of that. I kept running, running, running. I was going faster then I had ever gone in my life. I reached the village in under fifteen minutes, but it was too late even then.

The scene around me was something out of a horror movie. Bodies lay strewn on the ground. The buildings were burning or burnt. Most of them were just charred black. Even the ground had taken on a blackish color. I then saw something that horrified me. It was my father. I ran over to him.

"They...got all of us...too...fast...for us...Son...is that ...you?"

"Yes, dad, it's me." I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I hoped it was a bad dream that would end soon.

"Listen...son...I found...something. I'm not...sure ...what it is... I read it...in an old... old...book. Go to...the forest!" At his point, he coughed and his entire body shook. I told him to stop talking because he was using his remaining strength. But he ignored me. "By...the forest...to the east...there is ...something..."

His voice trailed off, and then he closed his eyes. "Don't die on me!" I yelled to him and everyone, but he did not wake. I shook his body through the tears in my eyes, but he would not awaken. I couldn't take it all. I ran, away from the village, down the mountain. Without realizing it, I was running towards the jungle... or more accurately, the east of the jungle.

Part 3


Down, down, down I ran. I was trying to leave it all behind, but I knew I wouldn't be able to. I wanted to kill - to murder every single Nether Walker in existance. But even in my terrible state I could at least recognize that this was nigh impossible. The trees rushed past me, faster and faster. I was going so fast that to anyone who looked at me I would be but a blur. I kept running. I got to the base of the mountain, and then started running to the east of the forest. Then I had a clear thought for the first time in an hour and realized what my dad was trying to say to me. I stopped.

My dad had mentioned something about something east of the forest. That was where I was now. I looked around. Then I saw something which seemed out of place: four trees in a small group. They were arranged in a diamond. I looked at them, curious. These trees did not look like ordinary trees. First of all, I realized that each one seemed to be representing a different direction. There was one tree almost pointing north, one south of it, one between them and to the right which I figured must be east, and one to the west. Then I started looking at actual physical characteristics of the trees.

The tree on the north looked like a tree straight out of the jungle, a characteristic none of the other trees shared. The tree on the east looked burned, and dead. The tree on the south at first had no special characteristic. But then as I examined closer, it had a building scratched onto it's surface. The tree on the west had grass growing all over it.

Interesting, I thought, but what did it mean? I then noticed something else. There were four rocks that seemed to correspond to the four trees. I looked closer and was suprised to see that they had letters on them. The northern rock had a J on it - or was it an A? The eastern rock had a G on it. The south rock had an R on it, and the western rock had a B on it.

(PS. If you want to solve the puzzle by yourself, don't read past this point. I will tell you that it is solvable, and solvable pretty easily.)




I was puzzled. What on earth did all this mean? Then I noticed something. The northern rock. It had an A on it - like the A in the city Albaron! Then, as I was thinking of city names, the name Ruloth came up - just like the R that was virturally pointing in its direction! But what about the other two rocks? What could possibly be to the east...except the Burnt Plains? And as for the west... What do I know that's to the west except the Grasslands? Then I realized that they were backwards. I picked them both up - they were pretty heavy - and moved them. At that exact point, everything went black.


Part 4

Everything was black, but I wasn't unconcious. I still had use of four of my senses. I then had the strangest sensation - it felt like everything in my body was being duplicated. At least that's what I thought it felt like since I've really never gone through the experiance before. Then I felt something else wierd - it seemed like i was being shot through some sort of long tunnel. I tried to make some sort of noise but I found that I couldn't, so instead I just waited.

I didn't have to wait long. I finished my strange journey and came right back where I started - right in the middle of the four trees and four rocks. I frowned. Surely I couldn't have gone throught that entire trip for nothing. I was right, but I didn't know just how right.

I got up and started walking around. Then I looked in the direction of the jungle. What I saw suprised me, to say the least. In its place were burnt tree stumps. Here and there there would be a tree, but it would be blackened as if it had only resisted some sort of fire by a thin margin.

I was stunned. Where had the jungle gone? I couldn't really put my thoughts in order. I decided to start walking around. I ran a little bit through the jungle, and I thought that I could see the city Albaron in the distance. At least the city was still there. I ran back to the edge of the jungle near the mountain. Then, I looked up the mountain, and the shock that registered when I saw the jungle was nothing compared to what I saw this time: there was a village on the mountain. I couldn't believe it. Maybe something had happened when I went through that wierd trip thing. Could I have changed the entire world?

I ran a little bit to the east to see if I could see the Grasslands. I was once again stunned speechless. Instead of the Grasslands that I always liked to look at from the mountain village, I saw swamp. And this was a real swamp in all of its swampish glory. Trees poked out of the marshy ground every here and then, and they were all covered in ivy. It also had some really strange looking animals going through it as if it was home. I saw a huge snake (about the same size that I was) that had two back legs that seemed to be guiding it. I saw a huge bird with a light blue skin color that seemed to be looking for something. I saw a black bird high up that looked like a messenger. I even saw a hand sized lizard that ran faster then I did (and that's quite a feat). I could have stayed there watching for quite a while, but I heard a strange noise.

I ran back over to the dead jungle. I looked at the four trees and saw something very odd. It looked like something was appearing there, like parts of whatever it was were reassembling it right on the spot. I then realized that it was a human shape. He then finished being recreated or whatever was happening. I looked at him. He was about medium height and had light-brown hair. He was wearing some really beat up clothing. His shoes were little more then soles with straps around them. He stared at the jungle and looked horrified. Then he kept on looking and exclaimed to himself, "Ah! Albaron! It still exists! But how..."

I figured this was a good enough time as ever to introduce myself.


Part 5

The guy who had come out of the 'portal' thing had some interesting things to say as well. His name turned out to be Jhash. I asked him how he got here, and he said that he had solved a puzzle involving the four trees/rocks as well. He asked me about where I was from, and I told him the whole story about the mountain village. I asked him what his comment about Albaron meant. He explained.

"My city of Albaron was totally demolished by savages. I was running an errand for my parents and had to go down to the bay. By the time I got back it was all over. The entire city was destroyed. I ran through the entire jungle in a daze and then when I came out the other side I saw that group of trees. I calmed down and notice just how out of place they were, and then solved the puzzle and, well, look where I am. But enough about me, what about you?"

I explained to him exactly what went on in the events that occured right before I was whisked off by the four trees. He was interested, especially about the Nether Walkers, which he said he had never heard of before. I was suprised, because they were pretty much legend. Then I said that I didn't know of any savages that walked the lands, and we got a lot closer to understanding exactly what happened with that portal.

"So...what? Are we comming from different worlds or something?" I asked.

"I'm not so sure about different worlds so much as different variations of the same world. We both know about the city of Albaron,and Ruloth for that matter, and it's in this world as well. That mountain is still there, too. Maybe its just different variations of the same world."

That was an interesting idea. But I still had a few lingering questions. "Just what are we doing here?"

Jhash pointed towards Albaron. "Maybe we can find out there," he said.


I started running through the burnt trees, but eventually stopped and came back. It turned out that Jhash wasn't much for running - he wasn't very athletic. He was a great thinker, though. I liked bouncing my ideas off him.

"So why do you think this forest is burnt down?"

"Well...hmm... It could have been a lightning storm, but wouldn't the storm have been the same throughout the three worlds? Or would it have been? Who can tell? Or maybe... Oh, thats an interesting thought..." He trailed off.

"You were saying?"

"Oh yes. I was thinking that maybe the worlds would share some generic types of things. For example, your world has Nether Walkers, mine has savages. Maybe this world has another type of being that does mainly evil. Maybe they're the ones who burned down the jungle. Or maybe..." He trailed off again.

"Hmm?"

"Nevermind."

"So, what's up with that swamp?"

"What swamp?"

"You know, to the west of the four trees." (The four trees were kind of like a reference point) "There were all these huge creatures going through it. It looked really strange, but I could have stared at it for hours."

"Thats interesting, west of there in the world that I'm from is a desert..."

"In my world, its a grassland."

"Hmmm...thats interesting..." He went quiet in thought. I decided not to interrupt him. We walked through the burning forest for another ten minutes, and then we appeared out of the forest and about five miles away from the city Albaron. But I could tell, even from the outskirts, that something was drastically wrong...

Part 6

The city of Albaron is a nice place, generally. The buildings come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, as if the designer decided at some point never to use the same building twice. All the buildings were a nice white that looked a little like plaster, except the city hall, which was gray. The city streets that ran through it were also white. From a distance, it looked like a white hill. The north of the city is kind of a marketplace, where everyone from everywhere comes to sell their goods. Albaron is one of the biggest cities on this side of the world, and the biggest market for several hundred miles (Ruloth was not a market, it was a royal city). But something here was drastically wrong.

The city of Albaron was enslaved.

Yep, you read right. Huge beasts that looked like lions on two legs roamed the city. People walked around in groups with the lion people watching over them. It looked like they did basically everything from cooking food (that the lion thing would sell) to going out to farms that dotted around the outside of the city and working. As I watched, one of the villagers tried to escape. A lion was on him in five seconds. He didn't even have a chance, because those lion things could run at least twice the speed of any human. It was a horrifying sight.

Jhash took it a little worse. "My city...The people... How could they DO this? How wrong! But...what can we do?" He took a step foward, then collapsed on his knees. "What do we do now?"

I then had an idea which turned out to be one of my best, but I didn't know it at the time. "Why don't we go to my village?"

He thought about it for a little bit. "Hmm...I don't remember seeing any lion things walking around. Maybe it hasn't been enslaved yet!"

We started walking back through the burnt forest. Since we didn't have anything to do other then turn around every now and then and make sure Albaron wasn't a figment of our imagination, I decided again to bounce a few ideas off him.

"So why is Albaron enslaved here but not in our worlds?"

"I don't know... Maybe those lion beasts are the same as Nether Walkers and savages. Maybe though here they were smarter, so instead of killing everyone, they just made them slaves."

"Why isn't the mountain village enslaved then?"

"Maybe it doesn't have enough people to really make the lions care."

"Well, what do we do by the time we get to the village?"

"Humm..." He paused for a few seconds. "Why don't we tell the chieftain about what happened?"

"That's a good idea. Maybe he can think of something."

We stopped talking for a little bit and kept walking. We reached the path up the mountain and started hiking.

"So, what do you expect to find up here?" Jhash asked me.

"I'm not quite sure. But, hopefully, we can find the chieftain..." I had another reason I wanted to go that I didn't tell him: I hoped that maybe my parents were still alive in this world. But could that truly be possible? I didn't know, but I was about to find out.

My thoughts on this matter were interrupted by Jhash tapping on my shoulder. "We're there." he said. I looked at my old village. But once again, I noticed there was something different then the village that had burned down in the other world...

Part 7

It was the people.

Yeah, I decided I'd not bother you with details about the village like I did last time with Albaron. After all, I already described this place once.

I looked at the people of the village. On the outside, nothing looked wrong. They walked around and chatted with each other, and should an outsider look at them, they looked fine. I, however, had been a resident of the village for fifteen years, and could see a subtle difference in the way they talked, and the way they went about their business.

They looked haunted.

They looked as if they knew that something dreadful was going to happen very soon. And, from what I guessed, they were right. Jhash thought that those lion things figured that this village was useless, the village people clearly thought not. I guessed that they were thinking they only had a few days left. Why didn't they flee? I wondered. I didn't know, but I assumed that I would find when we talked to the chieftain.

Jhash was kind of suprised. "You see, in my world, this village is inhabited by generally some very evil people. We never really go there anymore. To see it being run by civilized beings is a kind of suprise.

I had come here to look for my parents, but found the task convienantly impossible, as the entire building layout had been totally changed. We decided to just go and talk to the chieftain.

"Who are you?" he asked us, looking at us suspiciously. This chieftain looked different then the last one. He was taller, with lines under his eyes that made him look as if he had worried for days on end. He had a long, curved stick that he was leaning on, and he wore blue robes. His hair was white, and he had piercing blue eyes that you could stare at for a long time before you finally got bored and wandered off.

"We may be two kids," I answered ,"but we have quite a story to tell." He raised his eyebrows.

"Come with me," he said, and we followed him to his house.

. . .

We sat on two chairs and related the story to him while he stood. I told my third that happened on my world, then Jhash told his. He stuttered a lot. He probably wasn't used to talking to chieftains. We then told the third part where we both met up and continued it to our walk to the village. At first, he interrupted us every few moments with a question about clarification or description. As the story continued though, he got more and more silent.

He brooded over it for a few moments, and then spoke. "This is all very interesting, should it be true. But why did you bring it to me?"

I was suprised. That wasn't really the responce I was expecting. Then I realized that he had a good point. Why were we telling him, anyways?

"Maybe, uh, well, we thought you might have some advice for us..?" I said.

"Hmm..." He thought for a little bit. "Why don't you go consult the Council? Surely they have some advice for you."

"The Council!! I thought they were gone!"

"Not in this world they aren't. I know it must seem like your going from one place to another, but why don't you go talk to them anyways? Certainly they will be able to teach you something"

"Can I ask you a question?" I waited for his response, then said,"This village... it looks haunted. Why?"

"The griffins have surrounded the village on all sides. There are only a few days until it becomes enslaved. But maybe you can do something to stop them! Go on now, and consult the council. I will be waiting for you."

This looks really nice as it is now! I just hope you won't ruin it in next part(s) because I won't give you a rating until you do a few parts... or just tell me if you'd like a rating right now.
I think I'm gonna take some inspiration on your text to write chapter 2 of the Infiltration that's in progress right now ^_^

Well I just updated part 3-6, really I had done 3 earlier but I forgot to post that I had updated it (really, the internet went off AS I hit the post button x.x)

You all better read carefully now, as there's a lot of stuff that I haven't told you yet and things are about to get really weird. Then again, they were wierd ever since my twisted mind thought of this story in the first place :P

I hope you all like it, and POST COMMENTS, since this kind of thing takes literally hours to write out, and I wouldn't like all that time to go to waste :/

•_O

The story is going in every direction... at least you got me surprized a few times... Give us one or two more parts and I'll go for a rating

I added part seven, and it'd be nice to see someone else respond besides BFD (don't worry BFD I like your comments too :P)

What the... stop writing so fast! ^_^