The Questing Game

by James Galloway

  Prologue

  The Blood War

  It was a war that shook the world. It was a war that destroyed gods, and a war that created new ones. It was a war for the survival of the world, and it was a war that changed the entire world that it saved. It was called the Blood War, and it was a war of survival against the creatures of darkness that existed beyond the boundaries of Sennadar.

  Creatures called Demons.

  They had appeared not long after the first of the Outworlders began to arrive, humans and other strange creatures that hailed from places not of their world. They called themselves Wizards and Mages, and they commanded a mighty magic. A mighty magic that was initially scorned by those that they had tried to impress. Sennadar was a world of powerful magic, a magic of tremendous power that was wielded by enigmatic beings who were a natural extension of their power. They were called Sorcerers, katzh-dashi, and it was their task to serve mankind with their powers.

  But the magic of these outworlders was a curious one, and it quickly began to gain a foothold within the world. The main reason was because the powerful magic-users of Sennadar, the Sorcerers were wielding a magical power that was a natural gift. Only those with the gift could be Sorcerers, but anyone with the intelligence to grasp the magical concepts of their order could command Arcane magic. Because of this, many who had always wanted to learn magic began to train under these outworlders, learning the powers of magic not native to their world.

  The gods themselves did not object to this influx of new magic. It created new windows, new opportunities, and it did not interfere with the Balance of things that the Elder Gods were charged to maintain. If anything, it enriched the world, and the world prospered because of it. And so it was permitted to remain.

  It began from a single man. He was named Val, and he was a native Sennadite highly trained in the outworlder magic. He was a dark man, sinister and ruthless, and he hailed from the prosperous merchant kingdom known as Rauthym. Val aspired to conquest and rule, to control vast lands and their wealth. To this end he began raising lesser creatures of darkness, Wraiths and Poltergeists, Haunts and Wights. The peoples of Sennadar proved to be vulnerable to them, for the natives of their world had no intrinsic defense against the extradimensional entities. Val learned this lesson well, and through his power and cunning, he carved a kingdom for himself on the eastern steppes of the continent of Sharadar. He named his kingdom Valkar in honor of himself, and it grew in power and importance.

  And then the hordes of Valkar, both mundane and magical, attempted to invade Sharadar. The great Sorcerers of the Realm of Magic, Humans and Sha'Kar, rose up and smashed the invaders, utterly destroying them. They further reached over the InnerSea and crushed the fledgeling nation, scattering its hosts across the Sea of Glass to the Wild Jungles of the far off continent known only as the Dark Lands. The displaced army found the Mahuut natives to be easy prey, and the nation of Valkar rose once again. But Val was bitter and enraged by his defeat, handed to him so decisively by the normally passive and docile katzh-dashi. His creatures, which overwhelmed nation after kingdom, had been utterly defenseless against the might of the Sorcerers. Val tasted defeat, and he found it too bitter to withstand.

  And then he heard a legend of a mysterious artifact, a magical staff which within was trapped the power of Creation. He understood the power of such an item, and sent his minions across the Known World in an attempt to locate it. And locate it they did. Val researched the powerful device, and came to unlock its secrets. On the appointed day, staff in hand, he rose it to the joined moons and bade it to give him the power of a God.

  It responded, and Val was transformed into a divine being of awesome power. Full of his newfound power, he again raised his army and its minions of nether creatures, and froze the Sea of Glass. They marched across that icy platform and again invaded Sharadar.

  But when he arrived, he discovered the Elder Gods there awaiting him. Combined with the mortal powers of the katzh-dashi, the Elder Gods smote Val, destroying his army, and confronting him with certain death should he attempt to use his divine power to attain victory against the katzh-dashi. Again defeated, Val retreated to his temple complex, and there he brooded.

  He achieved a solution some years later. The peoples of Sennadar were defenseless against the nether-born creatures of beyond, but Sorcery could affect them. What he needed were the most powerful of their ilk, mighty monsters known as Demons, who would be immune from that power. He conjured forth only one, one of the mighty Demon Lords, and offered it a proposition.

  The Demon Lord was interested in the bargain. It supplied Val with Demons to overwhelm the native defenders, in return for the right to take the souls of the defeated.

  For a third time, Val crossed the Sea of Glass and threatened the magical realm of Sharadar. But this time, a horde of raging Demons stood behind the god, a power not even the katzh-dashi could challenge. But again the Elder Gods rose up, joined this time by the Younger Gods, and their combined might banished the extradimensional beings from Sennadar. They challenged Val to battle, a battle Val would surely lose, and the god fled once again.

  But the Demon Lord was not so banished. The banishment only freed it of the bargain it held with Val, and unleashed it upon the world. It appeared in the continent then known as Draconia, and its Demon minions quickly overwhelmed the entire continent.

  It was the beginning of the Blood War. Demons raged to the north and east, spreading across the great pangeal landmass of five continents like a tidal wave of destruction. The gods called together all the peoples of the world, Humans, Sha'Kar, Fae-da'Nar, even the Vanished races of Hobbits, Gnomes, and Dwarves, and the Gods supplied them with weapons that could harm their enemies. Even Val joined ranks with those he had called enemy, for he fully understood that should the Demons prevail, there would be nothing left for him to rule. The peoples of Sennadar, human and non-human, warrior and Sorcerer, priest and Arcane Mage, gathered together and marched, and they met the host of demons on the plains of Nyr.

  It was the greatest battle the world had ever seen. Titanic magical forces clashed even as sword met claw, as the hosts of Sennadar challenged the Demonic horde. In a battle lasting ten days, the peoples of the world won a decisive victory, turning aside the advance of the Demonic invasion. It was ten days full of magic the world had never witnessed, as the gods themselves joined in the struggle against the extradimensional invaders, and turned them back. Several of the Younger Gods perished on that field, and their loss weakened the resolve of the gods who had survived. But there was no room for quarter in this war, and they pressed their advantage.

  It was a war of two years, as the peoples of Sennadar inexorably pushed the Demons back, back across the arid savannahs of what was now Yar Arak, over the desert which would shelter the Selani, back into the forested western reaches of the continent of Draconia. They were pressed all the way to the coast, as the Demon Lord's minions were destroyed faster than he could summon them, until they held only one stronghold. A grim fortress known as the Citadel of Ice, which overlooked a cold lake in the tundras of the continent's northern reaches. The cost of this advance was staggering, as a man died for every step the army made against their enemies, paying dearly in blood for every span of ground they claimed, often having to pay for the same ground over and over again. Younger Gods faded and vanished as their entire sects were destroyed, and the entire races of Hobbits and Dwarves were exterminated, their proud races fighting to the very last man to destroy the hordes threatening their land. Sorcery and Arcane Magic pushed the Demons back, called the very land itself to rise up and attack the invaders, bringing horrific weather and devastating earthquakes to lay waste to large segments of the Demonic army, to weaken it in the face of their adv
ance. Until they had managed to surround the last stronghold of the Demons, the Citadel of Ice, surrounding the depleted monsters on the cool tundras of the icy region.

  It was a battle of wholesale destruction. The hosts of Sennadar pushed the Demons back, pushed them into the keep, where they holed up. A thunderous charge led by Dragor the Industrious, a mighty warrior and general, opened the front gates at the cost of the mighty general's life. With their defenses breached, the Demons fell quickly to the swords and spells of their human and non-human foes, until the Demon Lord himself was challenged by the Sha'Kar Sorceress known only as Spyder, a Sorceress who had been imbued by the gods with the power to destroy the Demon Lord. She defeated the great monster in a duel of spell and steel against power and claw. At the end of that battle, Spyder turned and struck Val, striking with the granted power given to her by the Elder Gods, and Val was cast down. Val had fallen, but not completely. Stripped of his status as an Elder God, he nevertheless held the powers of a god within him, but without the powers of an Elder God, he became dependent on the mortals who revered him. His was a tiny following, and he faded in ability in heartbeats, and the Elder Gods imprisoned him for his part in starting the war which had so devastated the world.

  And then it was over. The cost to the peoples of the world had been ghastly. Entire races had been wiped out by the incredible struggle, and other races suffered greatly. The peoples of the world had been horribly depleted, and the entire continent of Draconia was abandoned to allow it to heal from the scars of the horrendous war. The survivors fled south, to Sharadar, one of the few lands untouched by the war, where the magical realm could feed the refugees, stave off famine and plague, and help nurture the survivors back to health. But the scars of the Blood War ran deep, and many races and people did not wish to remain and remember. The Gnomes, who had been nearly exterminated in the war, simply vanished. Some peoples struck out on ships, sailing into the vast reaches of the unexplored Sea of Storms, never to be seen or heard from again. Some turned east rather than west, vanishing over the SkydancerMountains to lands unexplored. Some crossed the Sea of Glass to repopulate the eastern continent, which would forever be known as Valkar. Over time, as the peoples who had sought shelter in Sharadar multiplied and strained that ancient land's resources, the ravaged continent healed under the tender care of Elder and Younger god alike. The continent was restored, most of its horrible scars healed, and this restoration brought the humans back. The continent was again recolonized, from the first kingdom of Draconia to the mighty kingdom of Yar Arak, and from there in all directions. The people built, they spread out, and they again began to thrive and prosper.

  And as time passed, the memories of the great war were lost over time, until only legend and myth remained.

  Chapter 1

  The Star of Jerod was an old ship, a galleon of Shacèan build that had seen many years of rugged action along the coasts of Sennadar. She had sailed further than most, from the Pirate Isles to the southern continent of Sharadar, all along the coastline of the three continents abutting the Sea of Storms and the Stormhaven Isles, which lay to the west of the west coast of Sennadar. She had seen many wondrous sights, had nearly been sent to the bottom more than once, and had become something of a living legend among the sailors of the Sea of Storms. She was called the Divine Lady by many, the one ship that always seemed to come back, no matter what dangers lay in her path. She was a good ship, and to serve on her was an honor. That mystique was part of the reason for her survival. A ship was only as good as her crew, and because many would jump at the chance to serve a tour aboard the Divine Lady, it allowed her captain to pick and choose the best men he could find.

  She certainly didn't look like a living legend. The ship showed her age, with roughened, peeling paint that had been dark blue at one time, and more than one visible patches holding along her amidships. The mainmast was missing the top five feet of its length, ending abruptly above the crow's nest, and the sails along the foremast had all been patched and repatched so many times that they looked like a villager's quilt. Her rails were pitted and scratched, the victims of the large grappling hooks used during the many of a boarding attempt, and her decks were gray with age and exposure to the salty water of the sea. She had one particularly large scratch along her port side, from where they had happened a bit too close to a Unicorn Whale, and the stern still had a trident head embedded in it near the captain's quarters from an attack by the dreaded Sahuagin, the Devil-Men of the deep.

  She was an old ship, with a colorful history and a colorful captain. Captain Abraham Kern was a stooped man of advancing years, with a head and beard full of dark hair liberally peppered with gray. He was missing both his front teeth, and his voice had been permanently damaged by the salty air and the need to shout at almost all times. He was thin, somewhat bony, given to wearing dirty canvas shirts made of sailcloth and rugged leather breeches, with his polished flare-topped half-boots. For some reason, he wore a black sash around his waist, into which was stuffed a scabbarded cutlass and a very curious little iron object that Keritanima identified as a starwheel pistol. Tarrin had never heard of one of those before, and it seemed to shock Keritanima that he would own one. But that was just one thing surprising about the salty old sea-dog. He was gruff, he was blunt, and he was very vocal. He was given to ranting to nobody in particular, and he liked to smack his men with the polished cherrywood cane which was always in his left hand when they weren't moving fast enough to suit him. But he was, simply, one of the best captains on the twenty seas, and his crew endured his idiosyncracies because they had the most profound respect for the gnarled old man.

  Few captains would have dared the ice in the Sea of Storms to journey in any direction but south, but Abraham Kern was absolutely fearless. He would sail into the Nexus itself if he had a good reason to do it, and he would probably come back. He was unshakeable, unflappable, and nothing even caused him to raise an eyebrow. He had seen it all, more than once, and the nights were filled with tales of his prior adventures, tales of mysterious islands, nameless dangers, the monsters that dwelled beneath the waves, and pirates and adventure.

  But the grand Divine Lady had never had such an unusual retinue of passengers aboard before. The old ship was carrying some pretty unusual people, and it was something that was new to Captain Kern. And at his age, things that were new were not good. If they didn't fit into his prior experiences, he had a tremendous distrust of them. That distrust had exploded into outright terror when he found out he was carrying a Wikuni High Princess aboard his ship. He began to dream almost nightly of a horde of Wikuni clippers and warships bearing down on his precious old ship and sending her to the bottom, but those fears abated when the harbor at Dineval froze solid with them inside it, trapping them on the Stormhavens for over a month as they waited for a warm spell to break up the ice trapping them in.

  The strangest of them all was the Were-cat. They had been warned about him, warned about what he was and what danger he could pose, and that was enough for the crew. They avoided him like Death Herself, giving him a very wide berth and letting him move about without hindrance. Two months with him on deck had dulled them somewhat to him. They didn't recoil from him in fear as they did those first few days, but neither would they talk to him, or get too close to him. It was obvious to them, to anyone, that he was very unhappy. Given the katzh-dashi's warnings about his temper, that was enough to keep everyone away from him until he felt more sociable. No matter how long that took. The month's delay had done little to temper the creature's ire, but Captain Kern had the feeling that it was more than just the delay causing the Were-cat to be so contrary.

  Tarrin lay that morning on a yardarm high in the rigging, well up and above the scurrying people below, staring out at the sea before him with disinterested eyes. The air had warmed considerably when they sailed due south from the Stormhavens to avoid the ice, and now they had turned east and north to come back up to Den Gauche, which was their next port of call. The coo
l air soothed him in ways that the others couldn't understand, the clean, clear smell of the sea and water untainted by the smells of the crew below, carrying faint scents that he couldn't identify. His furred tail swished back and forth over him absently, moving of its own volition, just as his cat-ears tended to move by themselves to track in on any sound that reached them.

  Tarrin was a Were-cat, a mystical being that was deeply grounded in myth and legend to the human world, but he had not always been one. His condition was inflicted upon him by another Were-cat, Jesmind, who herself had not done it willingly. His condition had been thrust upon him by the Council of the Tower, the ruling body of the katzh-dashi, who wanted a non-human Sorcerer so badly that they had destroyed his life to get one. His Were nature imparted to him certain advantages over humans, for he was a creature of magic. He could not be truly injured by any weapon unless it was silver, imbued with magic, or was an unworked weapon of nature, and only fire, acid, and other very damaging natural conditions could do him any true harm. Any other wound would heal over as quickly as it was inflicted. He was inhumanly strong, and had the agility and quickness of the cat which was now a part of him. He had the senses of a cat, with acute hearing, night vision, and a sense of smell so sensitive that he could track people by their scent.

  But with those advantages came a trade-off, and it was one which Tarrin agonized over. With his animal gifts came the instincts of that animal, and his mind was a battleground between his human thoughts, morals, and traits against the powerful instincts of the Cat. There had been a long stretch when he thought he had achieved a balance between his human and animal halves, but it turned out that he was in balance only because he was never exposed to a situation where he would lose control. That moment had come when he was captured by traitors within the Tower, traitors that worked for a rival organization that meant to use him for their own ends. He had gone berzerk after being freed from their magical control, gone so totally mad that he had went on a killing rampage. The deaths of hundreds of men and women were on his shoulders, stained his soul, darkened his every thought. The memories of his actions had been slow to come to him after he had finally come out of his rage, and they had hurt him deeply. Tarrin was not a violent or savage man, but he had done things while in his rage that he felt he could never reconcile. He had killed helpless men and women, killed people trying to run away from him, people that had never been a threat to him. His Were-cat gifts had proven to be totally deadly when used indiscriminately, as guards and warriors used ineffective weapons against him, weapons that only made him angrier. The gifts that had saved his life so many times had turned into a killing tool, a tool which the Cat had used to their utmost potential.