Another one from me the title of which - I haven't thought of yet.

[Therin]

Looking back now, I realize that I must have known the man was different before he even looked at me. It was in the way he walked, like a panther, coiled to pounce at any moment. But it wasn't just the way he walked. It was also in the way he seemed to fill the room just by standing there. He had an amazing sort of presence, and the fighting skill to back it up. I'm surprised now that I didn't notice it then, but he was strange enough without those underlying oddities, and to a mind of only sixteen winters, the surface is nearly everything. He was obviously not from my town of Treewhether, nor from any of the surrounding communities, for his dress was none that any of us had seen before:

He wore an ankle-length dark brown overcoat, heavy, but functional, and obviously much used. A tall, widebrimmed black hat sat comfortably atop his head, and from beneath it flowed a mane of brown hair speckled with shards of white and gray. His beard, which came to a point on the end of his hard, chiseled jaw, was also brown, though without the specks of age. Beneath his overcoat was a thin undershirt of deep forest green, riding loosely over a pair of tough canvas pantaloons that themselves covered the tops of his worn brown boots. On his back, he carried a massive crossbow, the handle of which protruded up over his shoulder so that all he had to do was reach up and back with his right hand and there it was. Crossing under the crossbow and forming an X in the center of his back was a quiver of the biggest quarrels I had ever seen, nearly the size of the arrows my brother and I had just learned how to make. Easily two hands long with dark fletchings, the tips were invisible in the bottom of the quiver.

When he entered the Inn, the local gathering place and center of gossip, a silence fell over the assembled, who had been chatting while to the old Gaffer, Buck Jones, told again, to whomever may have been listening, of the time he and his troop had been trudging through the frozen passes of northern Ichidria and had encountered one of the massive, white-haired Entrae that were rumored to inhabit the land there. The Gaffer, in the way of gaffers universal, continued his tale without a pause. In the course of his some eighty odd winters, he had undoubtedly seen things far more exciting than a man in foreign attire. To my friends and my mere sixteen, however, it was something new and exciting. The children, of course, in the manner of all children, immediately rushed the stranger with yells and cries that tumbled and mixed together until what was heard sounded curiously like a talkative drunk, deep in his cups: "Mister where are you dressed so from?" and much of that nature. The man, whose age looked to be somewhere between thirty-five and fifty winters, obviously knew where he was with children because he turned them back with ease only aqquired by one who has had children of his own before. My five friends and I decided to hang back and see what this new stranger would do. Boringly enough, though, he simply walked calmly up to the bar/inkeeper, whose name I fail to recall, (aging memory and the like) and asked for a room for the night and a mug of the local ale.

The next day, however, was far more interesting...

[Tobias]

very nice Lews...its awesomeness in a box

cant wait to hear what is next

That is all

[Therin]

*looks around the bar*

Only one listener so far?
*sigh*
Well you're all gonna miss it...

My twin brother Joseph and I were helping to patch up the roof of our family's house, which had been torn up by a recent thunderstorm, when the man in the brown overcoat came running down the road into town past our house at top speed. Along the way, he threw something up onto our roof, calling back as he ran on, "When I say throw, you throw like your life depends on it!"

I carefully tiptoed across the roof and discovered the object the man had thrown. It was a nondescript, brown burlap bag. Inside were somewhere between a score and thirty balls,of unknown substance, each about the size of my fist. Joseph came over to examine the balls as well, but neither of us could make anything of them, except that they could, of course, be thrown at someone or something. My father was coming over to chivvy us back to work when we heard the rumble in the distance.

It came from the same direction as the man in the overcoat had, just minutes ago, but it came with frightening speed. One second, it was a dot on the horizon, raising a dust trail amongst the meadows that stretched as far as the eye could see, the next, it was a huge, scaly, fanged, clawed nightmare that bristled with blurred spikes all down its back. Its arms were thin to the point of skeletal emaciation, as were its legs, body, and head as well. The tail that was long enough to almost drag on the ground behind the thing shared the same wiry traits. The head, while seeming to be just as skeletal as the rest of the body, was crammed with teeth, teeth that stuck out in a myriad of directions from the gaping mouth, teeth that almost shone, they were so sharp. Teeth that were almost as long as my arm, jagged and barbed and terrifying. The things eyes blased crimson, with random flashes of electric light. Sparks coursed down, along, and through its entire body as it rushed straight at my town. Suddenly,

"Throw! THROW, IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIVES!!"

We threw...

[Lanfear57]

very cool. id have to read more of it before i can help with a title, though. is it old, or have you finally written something this summer?

[Therin]

I finally wrote something, but it's not summer anymore. I wrote it after hearing that poem you were working on last night. Don't ask me what the connection is, I don't think there is one. There was when I first started thinking of it, but over the course of the hour after we talked, it got transmuted into what you see now.

[Lanfear57]

keep writing it

[Therin]

*makes a motion of appeasement*
Young lady, I am telling the story as fast as I am able! You wouldn't want to go and parch an old man's throat, would you?
At any rate, if I may continue...?

[Lanfear57]

or maybe ill try to continue it...
ECH-HEMM!!!
*clears throat and starts to choke*
yes... well


We threw, and the world seemed to explode around us. i still do not know what happened then, but when the dust had settled and all was quiet, there was not a sign of the stranger, or of that beast we had seen.
And, being the young, stupid lads we were, we wanted to go and look for the thing. But no, our parents said, stay here where its safe, you dont want to go meddling in other peopls business. they didnt seem to realize that it BECAME our business when that man came to our village, with that thing following him.
we all tried to forget about it, to just let it pass, but thats a little hard when there is a new crater in town and a few buildings are missing. some months passed, and things had gotten back to their normal happenings, when he showed up again.

[Therin]

...you're welcome to continue from a perspective of your own making...I will, however, continue to tell the true tale of Alvon Weatherseed...

My goodness, but those little balls were heavy! They can't have weighed less than twenty or thirty pounds each. But throw them we did, and right on time, too, it seemed, for no sooner had they hit the ground then the large, spark-infused monster hit the edge of town. Houses were town up like matchsticks. The little balls, so insignifigant-seeming in the path of that horror, began to glow. It wasn't noticeable at first, but as the spark-beast drew closer, and draw closer it most certainly did, the glow increased, until, when the thing collided with them, they were burning like tiny suns.

Yes, indeed, the beast did in fact collide with the stones, although it was not so much a collision as a simple draining of kinetic energy. The beast simply ceased to move. A golden barrier sprung up, connecting the little fist-sized spheres in a radiant wall of light. Through that wall streaked bold after massive bolt. Joseph and I turned in astonishment, for we had forgotten the now tiny-looking old man. He held the crossbow in both hands, right hand on the trigger, and somehow the bow was cocking and loading itself! Or atleast that was how it looked. After staring in utter amazement, I, and then Joseph, realized that this was not the case, but something even more astonishing: The man's left hand was a nearly invisible blur between his back and the crossbow. Joseph and I looked at each other. What strength the man must have! We were yet again distracted by the screeching cries of the spark beast. A bolt was driven deep into each of its baleful eyes, and two into the the roof of its mouth. A bolt pierced each arm and leg at its elbow-joint and the thing simply sat there, thrashing and keening helplessly. The man approached cautiously, carefully, wary of its flailing limbs, and stretched his left hand out. A hole opened in the man's left palm, a gaping, toothed void the color of colliding stars. The beast warped strangely and grotesquely and was, suddenly and completely, gone.

---------

The man stood atop a pedestal in the town square. His hands were upheld to signify quiet, but out town was slow in granting him his wish. Cries rang out amid the general hubbub, cries of "Who are you?" and "What happened back there?" Finally, out of patience, the man whipped the corssbow off his back and leveled it at the commons. This gained him instantaneous, though tense silence.

"My name is Alvon Weatherseed. I have come from halfway round the world bearing a tale of woe and misery. My country was destroyed, completely annihilated by beasts such as the one you saw. My wife and children were eaten before my very eyes. I have come to this land, which is still ignorant and relatively untouched, to recruit new defenders for the world, for they are sorely needed. Be you between the ages of 13 and 40, and willing, come with me and I will teach you...