Instaniel, First Knight Of The Sword
Table of Contents
Instaniel
“It is enough to serve.”
First Wielder Of The Sword of Truth
The first being in all of Earthworld to behold the Sword of Truth was not Lord Ligniel, who ruled from the black castle Ramething in the northern region of the Land of Mazes, nor the great Dunniel Rusiel, who was held to be the greatest Dunniel of his time, nor his students Orthaniel and Pelletiel. The first being to behold the Sword of Truth was a humble night from a country south of the Land of Mazes called Bedrosia named Instaniel.
The Four Treasures of Homil were created by Homil itself. The moment Grosp’s Corruption seeped into the cosmic framework of the Four Worlds, Homil took action. As a body’s tissues become inflamed in response to infection, so too did Homil become inflamed. It increased the power and volatility of the underlying powers of the Four Worlds so as to empower the inhabitants of Homil to serve as antibodies against the Corruption. Though the power of magic increased dramatically across Homil, it lead to great instability. In Earthworld, the spheres rumbled and cracked. The inhabitants of the Cirilian sphere found the ground beneath their feat splintering into fissures while chunks from the Morlochian sphere pelted their cities in meteor hailstorms. The sky was falling. The ground was breaking. The symptoms of a body’s immune response are often unpleasant.
Homil recognized that it was damaging itself even as it fought against the Corruption and developed a solution–four objects of great power which concentrated the underlying powers of the Four Worlds. When wielded by those that truly loved their homeworlds, these objects could mitigate the damage caused by the surging powers while ensuring that these powers did not weaken in the face of the spreading Corruption. To Fireworld was given the Ring of Potential, which generated endless, infinite, unformed power. To Airworld was given the Crown of Might, which placed reality under the authority of the bearer’s mind. To Waterworld was given the Chalice of Creation, which could create anything its bearer desired.
And to Earthworld was given the Sword of Truth–a weapon against which no evil can stand.
And it was wielded first by the hand of Instaniel.
Instaniel Of Bedrosia
Long before Pelletiel made him a Dunniel for his service in mending relations between the Circilians and Apshai, Instaniel was merely Instan of Bedrosia.
Bedrosia was a country south of the Land of Mazes known for being very clannish and distrusting of outsiders. These attitudes stemmed from the roots of Bedrosian magic. Bedrosian magic was designed for Bedrosians, by Bedrosians, and Bedrosian wizards shunned outside schools of thought. Far into the future, the wizards of castle Ramething’s tower of wisdom would intently study as a pure system of local magic free from influence. Bedrosian magic was built on a aggressive/defensive binary. The Lifeblood inside a a Bedrosian knight could either be projected as a wave of destructive force or as a protective aura. Bedrosian knights understood instinctively how much Lifeblood was within them and their Bedrosian allies. A Bedrosian knight, without even laying eyes on his allies, knew who was strong and who was weak. What was more, Bedrosian knights understood how much magic they and their allies used for aggression and defense. Bedrosians did not use words for their magic spells, they used numbers, which many wizards around Earthworld saw as an indicator of low intelligence and poor creativity, but soldiers and leaders of men understood the logic of the system. Spell 0 meant that a Bedrosian knight focused all his Lifeblood on creating a defensive field. Spell 1 meant that a Bedrosian knight focused all his Lifeblood on a wave of crushing force. .5 meant the knight focused half in agression and half in defense. A skilled Bedrosian commander could thus treat a battle as a mathematical equation. He knew that he would need so many “points” of aggression to destroy a foe. If it took 2 points of aggression to vaporize a certain wight, a commander could sent 2 Bedrosians at 1 each, 4 Bedrosians at .5 each, or 8 Bedrosians at .25 each. If he then knew that this wright was unable to blast through a defensive field of 6 points of strength, then he knew to use 8 Bedrosians to ensure no damage to his forces.
Because of their system of magic, Bedrosians were stereotyped as a strong people, albeit stupid. But if one wanted to master Bedrosian magic, he had better become used to the idea of Bedrosians, for while Bedrosians could read the read the Lifeblood of those that knew Bedrosian magic, they could not read the Lifeblood of those uninitiated to the system.
Bedrosian magic was a system that worked well for Bedrosians–and only Bedrosians. During the Great Synergistic Campaign when Lord Ligniel of castle Ramething gathered warriors from throughout Earthworld to stand against Salbrox’s surge, Bedrosians gained the infamous reputation of working poorly in mixed units. A Mersaian knight had no idea what his Bedrosian ally meant when he said “I’m .4, should I switch to .2 to better protect us?” Bedrosians were eventually segregated in Bedrosian units during the Campaign, and while this was tactically sound, it furthered their cultural isolation from the rest of Earthworld.
Because Bedrosians learned from Bedrosians, trained with Bedrosians, and fought alongside Bedrosians, their fame and exploits were largely localized in Bedrosia. While Lord Ligniel raised knights to Dunniels around Earthworld, none were raised in Bedrosia. The lack of a Bedrosian Dunniel caused may Bedrosians to view Lord Ligniel as biased against Bedrosia, and their suspicions caused the various kingdoms of Earthwrold to look upon Bedrosians as jealous and vindicative.
Instan, for his part, cared nothing for reputation–only action. He cared not if he or any other Bedrosian became a Dunniel, for what was a Dunniel but a man with a name? Instan was the flower of chivalry, humble and courageous. For Instan, achievement was its own reward, and pride an unwanted obscuration. He did not want to be a Dunniel, but he wanted to be as useful to Earthworld as one, and his position on the matter confused many of his comrades. He held not prejudice in his heart, neither for Bedrosians or against outsiders.
His character, coupled with his need, likely influenced Homil to choose him as the first wielder of the Sword of Truth.
The Ruins Of Cursor
Clad in armor forged from the sapphire ground of Bedrosia, Instan and his fellow Bedrosian knights typically spent their time delving the jade ruins beneath their homeland. During the Age of the Tokgorin, the ruins were a mighty Apshai city named Cursor, whose magics repelled even the behemoth Tokgorin from tis walls, until the Apshai were driven from the land by the Grue, their ancestral enemies. The Apshai survivors fled to the surface and formed a small community called New Cursor near Bedrosia which was allied, though not warmly associated, with Bedrosia.
The Grue held the city until their failures in the Great Synergistic Campaign caused a splintering within the Grue culture. The Nuibuse-Grue blamed the ruling Bal-Grue for the costly war and launched a coup against the Bal-Grue leadership which resulted in civil war throughout the Grue nations. The civil war tore Cursor apart and made it ripe for Cirilian adventurers to plunder.
It became the calling of every Bedrosia knight to prove himself by searching for lifegems and some of the finest lapidary weapons and armor the Apshai ever produced within the ancient ruins, fighting Bal-Grue on one side, Nuibuse-Grue on the other, and any wandering spawn of chaos that happened to lurk underneath the rubble.
The Dungeon Of Doors
Bedrosian knights with the right spell number, the right balance between defensive field and offensive wave, held the key to pass through certain doors. But that wasn’t the only danger inside the tomb. The Lifeblood within the walls and floors were unstable. The armory shook with tremors. It’s floor leapt. It’s walls buckled. Passageways once clear became blocked with rubble seemingly at random.
Instan and his allies rushed into the armory. They kept their footing through the tremors, organized themselves to get the right number to the right door, and kept a lookout for Zien and Hega. Grue attacked the armory as soon as it materialized before their eyes, but unorganized as they were, they fell prey to the tremors and doors. Instaniel’s unit rescued three Bal-Grue who had trapped themselves behind an energy door, and the Bal-Grue returned the favor by drawing their forces back, essentially surrendering it to the Bedrosian knights. While this showing of mutual respect didn’t bring peace between Cirilians and Grue overnight, it did help pave the way for peace. When the Grue prince Certhain sought out an alliance with the Cirilians in an attempt to defeat his brother Darag, he citied this episode as a reason an alliance with Cirilians was viable.
Though harassed and harried at every level of the armory complex by Zien and Hega, Instan and the other knights of Bedrosia were able to recover far more treasure than they, making them the victors of the day and celebrated heroes of the Cirilian sphere. All in Instan’s company were candidates to be raised to the level of Dunniel, but Instan’s actions following the successful armory raid made him stand out among his peers.
When the Apshai heard that a large chunk of their secret armory was now in the hands of Cirilians, they demanded Bedrosia hand them over. The Apshai were fine with the Bedrosians claiming the scraps of lost Cursor, they considered it payment for driving out the Grue, but there were lapidary weapons of considerable might within the armory. If they had wanted the Cirilians to have them, they would have told them about it. They thought the enchantment that hid the armory within a pocket of space would have lasted longer, at least as long as it would have taken for the Cirilians to clear out the Grue. But since it didn’t, and since the Cirillians had taken their treasures, they expected to get them back.
The Bedrosians saw things differently. They believed that since the armory was in Cursor and Cursor was abandoned by the Apshai that anything within its crumbled walls was fair game. If the Apshai cared so much about their treasures they why didn’t they go down and fight for them? They now expected to profit from Bedrosian sacrifice after they had benefited so much from Bedrosian protection? Besides, if they didn’t raid the armory, the forces of Salbrox would have taken the treasures, and no one in all of Earthwrold wanted that. Even the Grue, who had fought so fervently for Salbrox during the Great Synergistic Campaign, wished for the old adversary of Ligniel to drop dead and blow away like dust.
It was Instaniel who struck a compromise. He proposed that they give the armory treasures to the finest Ika lapidarists in their city of Isgalduin, because the Ika were known for their neutrality in Earthworld politics as well as their fine lapidary. Then the Ika would convert the treasures into lapidary to be used by two very unconventional knights, knights who at once represented both Apshai and Cirilian–Gen, an Apshai raised by a Cirilian family and knight of Bedrosia, and Abdual, a Cirilian raised as an Apshai and knight of their city Graham. The two would be trusted to act in the best interests of Cirilian and Apshai as they were both of the blood and culture of Apshai and Cirilian.
In time, Abdual and Gen would become close friends. The bards would call them the Deepfire Warriors, as they defeated the dark wizard Mor within the Deepfire tower. They would release the sleeping warrior princess, Julie of Lapour, from her slumber within the tomb of an ancient Bal-Grue, and she would join them in their adventures. They would travel to Fireworld during the Quest for Homil and rescue Graetz trapped in a magical prison by evil Apshai who wished to steal the power of the Graetz and forcibly reestablish Cursor as the supreme power of the Orisi sphere. They would become heroes celebrated across Earthwrold, and Instaniel would take the credit for choosing them as his champions.
Ligniel did not need to wait for the bards to sing of the Deepfire Warriors to instantly see the prudence of Instaniel’s compromise. He raised Instan to Dunniel. Bedrosia celebrated, and the few Bedrosians that gave him grief over Instaniel’s idea lost their bitterness in the celebration–Bedrosia had a Dunniel!
Now the first Dunniel of Bedrosia, Instaniel was given his first quest by the court of castle Ramething–to finish his battle against Zien and Hega and lead a raid against their magic tower, located by the scrying wizards of Ramething’s tower of wisdom.
The Magic Tower
Hega used her magic to rebuild and fortify one of the tower fortresses of the Grue left abandoned by their civil war. The Grue were no longer allies of Salbrox, but they would benefit him nonetheless. The massive column stretched like a pillar coming close enough to the Cirilian sphere to provide easy access but not close enough for detection. The magic tower was a great place for Zien to stash treasures stolen from all around Earthworld. When Hega was done rebuilding the tower, it even included a functional lapidarist workshop so that Hega could use Zien’s spoils to carry about their master’s bidding–the creation of new lapidary for his prized minion, Telen of Gard, who gained his favor by assassinating the victorious Nuibuses-Grue royal family just as unification of the Grue was declared, just as a peace treaty was proposed between the Grue and the Cirilian sphere.
Hega went back and forth with herself on whether or not to put a spell of obedience on the armor. Telen frightened the other minions of Salbrox, including herself and Zien. He still believed on some level that he was a knight of the Cirilian sphere, the he was different and better than everyone else that toiled for Salbrox and his patron god Grosp. So many would thank her if she put Telen under a spell, even if they didn’t dare vocalize their thanks. So many would owe her, and she could use that to place herself and Zien in a better position than lapidarists-for-the-favorite. But if Salbrox found out that she had placed a spell–and he very well might, for he had magic beyond the knowledge of Ligne and the tower of wisdom, Hega feared Salbrox, for fear of Salbrox was the one commonality among all his colorful minions, each twisted in their own unique way. It was the one commonality for all–save all save Telen, which perhaps contributed to him becoming his favorite.
Instaniel had been exposed to Zien and Hega’s magics. That, when amplified by the wizards of the tower of wisdom, gave him a degree of immunity. He could pass through their outer defenses of their base and eliminate them–but he would have to do it alone. Instantiel couldn’t be spared a single partner. Two men made twice the noise of one, and this mission necessitated quiet. If Hega knew he was coming, she and Zien would flee with the treasures or, if they couldn’t, destroy them.
Instaniel had to attack alone, which mean his group-minded Bedrosian magic had to be supplemented by Mersadian magic.
Many Bedrosians wished that Instaniel would reject the mission. They felt that the first Bedrosian Dunniel learning Mersadian magic would play to stereotypes that Bedrosian magic was simple and incomplete, and indeed, in the present, many tease the Bedrosians about Instaniel learning Mersadian magic, but Instaniel always believed in expanding his understanding, and so he agreed to learn Mersadian magic.
He had the time to learn. Ligniel was in no hurry to take down Zien and Hega. That they were unware the tower of wisdom was watching them meant they went about their business. Zien traveled to many hidden bases of the cult of Salbrox. He made contact with many turncoats that gave him information. The tower of wisdom took many, many notes.
The lack of urgency in Instaniel’s mission made his education under the great knight Rusiel very comprehensive. He learned a great deal of the Mersadian canon and had seven spells as his favorites. Will seize and enervate allowed Instaniel to either take control of a target’s senses and will make them fall asleep on the spot. His teacher loved those tell spells and made sure Instaniel had mastered them. Flame implosion was a spell Instaniel liked because it reminded him of the power and precision of Bedrosian magic. It created a ball of fire that absorbed objects into it, incinerating them on contact. Instaniel found that he could combine this spell with Bedrosian magic to set up a fireball far away from the target outside of their awareness and then knock the target into it with a wave of force.
The spell maze demi-eye, a variation on the famous maze eye spell developed by the great wizard Orthaniel. Maze eye was developed to create a version of the scouting spell expand mind with some offensive power. With expand mind, a caster threw his thoughts and perception across the dungeon, through walls and floors and ceilings Maze eye did the same, but anchored the caster’s perception onto a point which became an animated, floating eyeball that could fire a bolt of force from its iris. Maze eye was useful not only in spying on the forces of Salbrox but in baiting them into an ambush. Wrights in particular were easy to bait as they couldn’t help but respond to a bolt of force thus opening them up to an attack directly to their exposed backs. Maze demi-eye created a localized eye, smaller and more independent than its larger cousin, which could fight alongside its caster. Instaniel, who was used to group tactics, liked having something he could pull off pincer moves with.
The spell mind blade was his last favorite, a spell which he easily mastered due to its similarity with Bedrosian magic. Mind blade took an explosion imagined in the mind of the caster and made it a reality in the mind of the target. It increased in power by concentrating on the target just like the Bedrosian force wave. It also worked well when cast in tandem with Instaniel’s familiar force wave. Mind blade destroyed the mind and Bedrosian magic destroyed the body.
With these spells, Instaniel was able to raid the tower of Zien and Hega. The duo were shocked. Not only were caught off-guard by Insantiel’s incursion, but because he was a Bedrosian knight clad in their blue armor, they thought he had to have a partner nearby. They looked for the other knights and so didn’t concentrate on the one in front of them. Instaniel defeated them both, and would have killed them if they did not flee. But the day was his. The tower was conquered. And all its treasures were claimed for the free people of the Cirilian sphere–and more. Some of the treasures were taken from the Grue, and while some of Ligniel’s court wanted to keep the treasures and log them as late spoils of the Great Synergistic Campaign, Ligniel left the decision up to Instaniel, who returned the treasures to the Grue with the hope that the gesture would help burry the past and pave the way for a better future.
Years later, Instaniel’s reputation for showing calm fairness towards the Grue would make him a key player in resolving the tensions that erupted after the rogue knight Telen of Gard assassinated the royal family of the Grue and started the War of the Four Bastards. When the Grue prince Mog approached Ligniel with the proposal of a Circilian-wide alliance with his faction, he was referred to Instaniel, who told the young prince that he should make peace, not war, with his brothers. Instaniel told Mog that he could not, and would not, promote a martial alliance with his faction, but assigned him the powerful Mersadian knight Massiel, knight of the orbuculum, as his guide and protector as Mog journeyed throughout the Cirilian sphere in search of allies.
A Knight’s Quest
Salbrox was not pleased by the failure of his thief and witch. He had invested much in the duo, perhaps too much. He had raised them up from gutter-level cutpurses. He had given of his power to them, and that meant more for Salbrox than it did for other people, because Salbrox was all power, nothing but power and the pursuit of power. When he gave of his power to a disciple, it as like he gave of himself, gave of his blood and soul.
All the stolen treasure, gone. The tower, gone. Poor Telen had to go about his duties without upgraded weapons and armor.
His investment?
He would not give it up.
The two had to be punished, of course. Punishment was warranted. But he couldn’t destroy them. He had invested too much into them to throw it all away. If anything, they required more power.
And so, Salbrox, true to his reputation for twisted imagination, gave Hega and Zien more power while punishing them.
He gave them the dragon curse.
“Dragon” means a lot of things around the multiverse. Nearly every world has some kind of dragon–often, several kinds. There are as many varieties of dragon in the multiverse as there are humans, perhaps more. In some worlds, dragons are a race of beings. In others, dragons are animals. In others, dragons are gods. But in Homil, dragons are a kind of curse.
One of Salbrox’s many, many epithets is Father of Curses, and he earned it, as he did all his epithets. A curse in Earthworld is any kind of disruption to an organism. What we call poisons and diseases Earthworlders place under the umbrella of “curses.” In his war against Ligniel, Salbrox created many curses to plague the good people of Earthworld. The red curse turned its victims bright red before killing them, ensuring that they would be identified and ostracized by their community before they perished–if they did, because a third of the time, the red curse only made a person red. In this way, the curse spread resentment and distrust along with death. The black curse could kill many, but could be willingly taken into the body of a single individual who would by his sacrifice spare the many. It was a curse that targeted the noble and weeded out potential knights. But the dragon curse was perhaps Salbrox’s crowning achievement. It granted a person a powerful and monstrous form. They grew scales, teeth, claws, wings, and bestial, greedy impulses. The horror of a dragon was that the person remained inside the body of a beast–but in a twisted state. All their desires and drives remained but magnified. They no longer wanted things. They needed things, and they needed them with all the single-minded craving of an addict
All desires were magnified by the dragon curse, but two in particular were magnified above all others–greed and the desire to pass down a legacy. Greed was satiated by taking lifegems and hoarding them. The lifegems were not taken to empower the dragon. Beyond a certain point, Lifeblood could not add to the fearsome power of a dragon. The lifegems were taken simply because dragons wanted them and always took what they wanted. To pass down their legacies, they kidnapped the innocent and transformed them into dragons like themselves. They captured only the best and the brightest, typically the sons and daughters of nobles, for they were arrogant, and wanted only the best offspring.
The fear of dragons cut across Cirilian society and changed it. Parents feared their children would be taken and corrupted and in response created the cultural practice of giving children humble, self-effacing names like “Worthless” and “Weak” until they came of age and received their true name. Knights feared the dishonor of turning against their vows leading to formal ceremonies in which a knight’s fellows swore that they would destroy him if he ever fell to the curse. Commoners feared the destruction dragons caused, for they were given to rage over the smallest of offenses, and in their rage indiscriminately razed the land.
Most afflicted by the dragon curse turned completely, becoming a twisted reflection of the man or woman they once were. A rare few had the willpower to hold onto enough reason to kill themselves. A rarer few had the willpower to live as a dragon without falling to their impulses, the most famous example being the dragon knight Mekiel, who quested around the Cirilian sphere with the elf of his brother Aldiel, who Mekiel had killed in a draconic rage. Aldiel was Mekiel’s partner and warden, constantly reminding his brother of who he was and keeping him from falling to temptation.
Typically, only a dragon can turn another being into a dragon, but Salbrox was the father of curses and could turn anyone he wanted into a dragon.
Zien and Hega were turned into dragons They screamed as light flashed from Salbrox’s hands, screamed until their screams turned into roars.
Salbrox thought that, if they were driven to steal and hoard as if their lives depended on it, they would succeed this time in gathering lifegems for Telen’s armor.
He tasked his transformed minions with acquiring two items in particular for the armor–a chalice and an anchor brought to Ligniel’s court by a Waterworld dignitary. The chalice was known as the Chalice of Waters and was a gift to aid Ramething’s tower of wisdom. It could attract water and hold any amount of water within itself. In Waterworld, the Chalice and others like it were used as weapons. They could create impossibly large currents by absorbing the infinite waters of Waterworld and sweep aside entire armies. They could absorb and hold entire cities, entire worlds, imprisoning them in whirlpools and then reducing them to drops that would never spill the brim of the chalice. In Earthworld, where water was rare and earth infinite, the dignitary hoped that the chalice could be used to separate water from earth and thus purity the earth, resulting in purer Lifeblood and thus purer and stronger lifegems and lapidary. The anchor was known as the Motionless Anchor and could render a person unmovable relative to his surroundings. The Anchor was used in Waterworld to hold one’s position in even the most violent of currents. As such, it was used to defend against weapons like the Chalice of Waters. The Motionless Anchor was given to Ligniel to compliment the Chalice of Waters as a shield was given alongside a sword.
As Ligniel recieved the dignitary to his court, Zien snuck in hidden by the sorceries of Hega. He was detected by a ward, but by then he was too close to the artifacts for the guards to do anything. Shedding the disguise of an innocent nobleman, he stood before the court unveiled as a dragon. He swallowed the Chalice of Waters and Motionless Anchor and took flight. He was pursued, but he used his newfound powers to summon flying wrights to cover his escape.
Zien was the first to be found by Instaniel, who located the dragon far to the south of the Land of Mazes in the Cloudy Mountains. While navigating through the mountains, he found resting on a rock a strange, odd-looking dagger.
It was like a workman’s dagger. The blade was metal, which made it unlike the blades of knights, which were composed of energy suspended between the particles of lifegems. Workers often used solid blades like the dagger for labor that only called for a sharp edge. But though it was a simple tool, it was ornately decorated. Lifegems were embedded in the handle and on the blade itself. These gems didn’t seem to be enchanted. They were inert. He tried to sense what power, if any, lurked within the lifegems and found them unresponsive. They were, apparently, weak lifegems, and yet they were cut as if worked over by a lapidarist.
It was very strange. It’s edge was sharp and keen. Not a spec of dust covered it. He figured someone must have dropped it, but he couldn’t find anyone around. When he came upon an inn for travelers deeper into the mountains, he asked the owner if anyone in the area was missing an ornate dagger. The owner answered that no one in the Cloudy Mountains would dream of owning something as strange as an ornate dagger. He assumed it belonged to Instaniel, as Instaniel was a knight all the way from Mersad.
Since no one claimed it, Instaniel took the owner’s words to heart and took the dagger for his own.
He did not know it, he could not know it, but he did not claim the dagger. The dagger claimed him. The dagger was the Sword of Truth, not fully yet formed, yet functional. And it had chosen Instaniel to aid.
Instaniel found Zien in a cavern and slew him. It was a fairly easy battle. Zien was used to fighting through agility and swiftness and had not yet mastered how his new body moved. He was used to lurking in the shadows and ambushing his opponents, but there was no way to hide as a massive engine of destruction.
Zien panicked as Instaniel’s sword drew his blood, and if he had the sense to surrender. Instaniel would have granted him mercy, but instead he tried to run, and Instaniel cut him down with a Bedrosian force wave.
The Last Stand Of Hega
With the Motionless Anchor recovered and Zien dead at his feet, Instaniel proceeded to track the Chalice of Waters and Hega. Instaniel found Hega as easily as he did Zien. She was in the caverns near the Taras Sea west of Gillies, using the Chalice of Waters to separate trace amounts of lifegems from that massive body of water. Applied over such a large body, the production of lifegems was considerable. But though she was easy to locate, she would not be as easy as her brother to destroy. Hega had conjured up a deadly dungeon between herself and Instaniel–12 levels of wights and monsters and mercenaries all ready to fight to the death. And there was no door to this dungeon. Instaniel had to make his own by blasting through the rock with his sword.
The forces of Hega were no match for a combination of Mersadian and Bedrosian magic. But Hega was not her forces. She felt her partner die in her mind. She smelled the man who killed him in her lair. Her draconic emotions exploded as soon as she sensed Instaniel. She clawed and chewed through her own forces as she charged at Instaniel. The knight was caught flat-footed. He expected another fight like in the tower where she kept her distance and threw spells. He did not expect a mad beast to charge full-tilt at him and tackle him through the wall.
He was surprised, then stunned. Hega bathed him in fire. Plasma coated his lapidary armor like amber around an dead insect. He was about to die. Her teeth would have pierced his armor and she would have shaken him to death like a dog with a rabbit in its jaws.
But then a miracle happened.
The funny little dagger Instaniel kept by his side for luck sprang from his side and cut between him and Hega. There was a single, softly formed strike, and then Hega recoiled in pain, recoiling. A ribbon of gore encircled the cave, a purple circle covering ground and knight and ceiling.
The dagger glowed like fire. Dragon blood hissed as it evaporated off the blade.
It was the Sword of Truth, and it had cut Hega with the truth.
She saw the life she and Zien could have had they had shunned the ways of Salbrox.
She saw them poor and old. Zien made a living as a miner. She helped by washing dishes. They worked for the kind of people that they robbed and killed in the life they actually lived, wealthy people, powerful people. They had so little. Compared to the power and riches of the life they did lead, they had nothing in the life they could have lived.
But they were happy.
And alive.
Together.
Hega could not turn away from the truth.
She wanted to be with Zien. She wanted to follow him. And, grasping the dagger in her foreclaws, she followed Zien.
There was a final, terrible breath, an exhalation of fire that gashed a black furrow in the stone walls that dripped hissing to the cave floor. Then she was still.
The dagger glowed like a star in her chest.
It pulled itself loose as if seized by invisible hands and gently, politely, returned itself to Instaniel’s side.
The knight could not understand what had happened. He vowed to try and remember as much about the strange scene as he could. Maybe it would be enough for the wizards of Ramething’s tower of wisdom to understand what he could not, what he would never be able to.
When he returned to Mersad with the Chalice of Waters, the Motionless Anchor, and the strange dagger, he was greeted by cheers his ears barely heard. He waved the crowds away and quietly made his way to Ligniel’s throne room where he made his report and discovered much to his shock, that the dagger was gone.
He never felt such panic, not even when Hega had him in her jaws. But Lord Ligniel put his hand on his shoulder and reassured him all was well–perhaps even better than well. Ligniel remembered Earthworld in the Age of the Tokgorin. Earthworld was louder in its infancy. The spheres made a sound in those days, and not just for the ears but for the mind. Earthworld was alive, though so quiet it was easy for people to forget that it was. The dagger saved his life and defeated his foe. That spoke of intent, of heroic, benevolent intent.
Ligniel did not believe for a second that Instaniel had dropped or made up the dagger. As strange as the events were, they happened, and the cause had removed itself from notice. Perhaps the hand of Earthworld wanted it to be hidden. But Ligniel had another theory. The Lifeblood which constituted the physical principles of their universe had been surging through Earthworld ever since the the Peddit delved. The Lifeblood pulsed like thunder through the sphere.
Earthworld was more quiet nowadays than in the past. It was quiet to the point of silence. But perhaps this was because it was learning the value of actions over words? Perhaps Earthworld was becoming more intelligent, more alive. Perhaps it had a plan and protecting heroes was part of that plan?
Ligniel told Instaniel to not worry about the dagger and where it came from and where it went. It was the job of the Lord-of-lords and the wizards of the tower of wisdom to discover such things. His task was what it had always been–to fight, to struggle, and to endure for the sake of Earthworld and the Cirilian Sphere.
His mind at ease, Instantiel took up his task again with renewed vigor. Though he was still exhausted from his quest, he felt the the strings of purpose pull him towards the hall of Dunniels. He would not rest. He could not rest, not with his heart so light and his mind so clear. He took up another quest on the same day, and those who arrived at Mersad too late to welcome back Instaniel also missed wishing the Dunniel farewell on another adventure.
Instaniel never held the Sword of Truth again. But he got to hear about the sword, his sword, helping other knights, coming to their rescue as it did for him, it was better than if the Sword of Truth had bonded permanently to his hand. He always wanted to be part of something greater than himself, greater than Bedrosian, greater than Cirilian, even greater than Earthworlder, and when the Sword of Truth made him the first link in a great chain, he became that something. He became a servant of the greatest possible good. And for Instaniel, it was always enough just to serve.
Elfhood
Instaniel was struck down during the Quest for Homil as all the hidden minions of Salbrox lashed out as one across the Four Worlds in a last effort to gain victory for their master Grosp. He fell in the defense of his home, and though he fell, Bedrosia stood. Thus he perished without regret, and his soul became an elf of the Whisenwood Tree. His elfhood was grieved by all of Bedrosia.
For most elves, the desires and baggage of their personhood slough off, leaving behind a pure spirit free of earthly attachments. These discarded desires often form elf flowers. Particularly strong desires form shades, perfect, beautiful images of what the elf loved in his or her life that glow like moonlight beneath the shade of elftrees. Particularly strong, violent desires form wraiths, gibbering monstrosities driven to act out age-old vendettas. But Instaniel’s sense of duty was so strong that it remained with him in his elfhood.
When he offered to take up a sprig of life and take corporeality so that he could once again fight for his homeland, the king of Bedrosia ordered him to rest, and so Instaniel remains to this day at the Whisenwood Tree, his gaze turned towards Bedrosia.
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