Sunday, October 8, 2023

Petunya: EURUE - The Forgotten World

 


Petunya

Frond

Northern Coast

 

THE TWO Centuar maintained their humanoid guise for reconnaissance on Petunya’s southern continent. While their usual forms would eat up distance, it didn’t allow for proper scrutiny of the situation.

Assint and Mahler arrived where birdsong had the upper hand. Despite the harmonies, never had a place felt so empty. Everywhere there was sign of habitation, but no people. In this type of cold one expected to see smoke rising from chimneys, but the air was dead and still.

“One plus about these daetal is that they don’t leave bodies behind,” Assint grimaced. “This would be worse if we had to stumble over the dead.”

Mahler nodded.

They walked inland. Most fields were fallow for winter, ploughed, and sporting a thin layer of green, the winter wildflower seeds that had sprouted before proper cold set in. Orchards awaited pruning time, their branches leafless.

The farms were large, with only the occasional house and barn dotting the landscape. It was agricultural territory, fortunately. No animals were in sight. If it had been about husbandry, animals would now be penned for winter, and that was a terrible state to contemplate. Those animals would now be starving without their minders to feed them while indoors.

“Maybe the daetal ate the animals,” Mahler muttered after a few hours.

“Maybe,” Assint whispered.

There was no sign of even a dog, never mind a fox or boar or something.

“Horrific,” Mahler said.

“Shut up.”

Eventually they came to a cluster of buildings. It had to be what passed for a town or gathering centre, because saddles were on display in one window, preserves in another. A small outdoor area contained multiple tables and chairs, under a pergola. A vine clambered the structure, as leafless as the trees surrounding the village.

The two Centuar investigated every building, but found no signs of life. They moved on.

“We’re wasting our time,” Assint eventually said.

“We need to sniff out the presence of life,” Mahler agreed.

Glancing at each other, they shifted into their Centuar forms.

And galloped through the landscape, swift as the wind.

  

Southern Frond

 

KILA, a farmer’s daughter in another life, paled markedly. She and Prima had arrived in a stable to find a skeletal horse barely clinging to life, and the affront of that nearly undid her.

Prima was as horrified, but he clamped it down, and moved to the poor animal, and swiftly put it out of its misery.

She sobbed, once, and then squared her shoulders to exit the stable. Outside, nothing moved. When Prima joined her, she said, “I aim to kill them … slowly.”

Prima was grim. “And I aim to help you do so.”

Together, of like mind, they set out.

  

IT WAS A fertile land, and it was also a goddamned wasteland. Nothing warm-blooded lived, anywhere. Trees were mute accusers. As midday approached, having been through two villages, they rested alongside a fast-flowing river.

“I need to do something,” Kila muttered.

Looking around, Prima agreed. “I am of the opinion that these daetal keep Tristan and Alusin hostage somewhere. They no longer roam the countryside, because, well …”

“… there is nothing left.”

“Precisely. I am also of the opinion that we will find nothing to shed light on the conundrum we face in this aimless wander.”

Kila’s red tresses swung his way. “What are you saying?”

“We meet up with Assint and Mahler and together bloody find Tristan and Alusin.” Prima never swore; he had clearly reached a point where action, whatever the cost, was better than simply walking.

“While I agree with you, shouldn’t we inform Belun first?”

Prima was silent a time, thinking about that. “I am of the opinion Belun is too protective of his brothers.”

Kila licked her lips. “He can, um, neigh pretty loudly if crossed.”

Prima snorted. “You should have heard Torrullin in the old days. Now that scared me.”

Laughing, Kila stood. “Let’s do this.”



THE UNIVERSE IS populated, and many worlds are far-flung, forgotten. Until the day Gabryl, a man both alive and dead, his body reposing in a sarcophagus, his spirit roaming as a shifting being, bellows a call to arms. Eurue, as world and civilisation, after ages of isolation, will now step into the ultimate arena.

 Tristan and Alusin of the Kaval hasten to answer the summons to where tentacled miasmas are consuming people body and soul. Savier, as Keeper of the sarcophagus, sheds light on an ancient legend. Tianoman, Vallorin of the Valleur, brings the Valleur host to Eurue, and Emperor Teighlar of Grinwallin pledges his army.

 But how does one fight miasma?

 Who is the true enemy?

Meanwhile, as the spaces become frantic, a woman in a turret somewhere, elsewhere, plans her revenge. The schism between what went before and the reality of the present presents to her the power to control the fate of all.

 Who will stop her?


EURUE: The Forgotten World

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