The War of the Balance
A Fan Fiction Sequel to "The Longest Journey"
This story picks up where the game "The Longest Journey" leaves off. I tried
to put in enough explanations so that someone who has never played the game
can still read it. All major characters are the property of Ragnar Tornquist.
Part I. At Loose Ends
The adventure was over now, wasn't it? April Ryan watched with satisfaction
from the blue-sand desert of the Guardian's Realm. Gordon Halloway, the new
13th Guardian of the Balance, sat in the Tower of Balance and channeled the
twin beams of logic and chaos to where they belonged in the twin worlds of Stark
and Arcadia. Stark and Arcadia were worlds of technology and magic
respectively, divided from each other long ago by wise humans working together
with powerful alien beings called the Draic Kin (or Dragons) to prevent people
from abusing the combined powers of science and magic. It was the Guardian's
job to keep the worlds in balance.
There was a huge personal price for being the Guardian; his mind and emotions
would remain stored away in the World Disk for the next thousand years and the
world he returned to would be completely different from what he left. But
Gordon was prepared to pay that price. April at first had thought she would have
to become the Guardian, and she had not been prepared at all. But it turned out
that she simply had to bring together Gordon's logical half with his emotional
half, which Jacob McAllen had split from him to create the Chaos Vortex.
McAllen, who was actually a Draic Kin in human form, had wanted to reunite the
two worlds by force and rule them both. But April had been able to help Gordon
become a proper Guardian instead of McAllen's puppet. So both worlds were
saved and she hadn't had to sacrifice her whole life to do it. Not quite.
Ten days ago (Friday July 28, 2209 to be exact) April Ryan had been an ordinary
struggling 18-year-old art student in the city of Newport whose only problems
were finishing a painting and occasional nightmares about dragons. Then she met
a mysterious man named Cortez who had sent her on bizarre adventures in both
Stark and Arcadia; who had turned her life upside-down. Now she was a Shifter
who could move between worlds, and much more than a Shifter. April didn't
think she could return to her old life now even if she wanted to. Sinister groups
were still after her in Stark: the McAllens's Church of the Voltec (a front for his
Arcadian Vanguard cult), and probably the corporate police force of the
Bokamba/Mercer Corporation. So, where to?
"I can go from here to wherever I want. Stark or Arcadia? I want to find out what
happened to my friends Emma, Charlie, Fiona, and Mickey, but I guess it'll have
to be Arcadia first," said April.
"Yeah, I like that. More chicks there, and I mean the feathered kind," said Crow,
her talking bird friend from Arcadia.
"There's another reason. I can't go back to Stark dressed like this. I look like a
fugitive colonist in this orange-gray uniform. In fact, I _am_ a fugitive colonist.
If the Bokamba/Mercer Company catches me they'll ship me off to Bokamba 8."
"What do you mean, a fugitive colonist?"
"Hmmm, how to explain? Basically, I sold myself as a slave to get passage to a
place near the Guardian's Realm. A space station, um, a floating island in the
sky."
"So you're a runaway slave now? That's really tough."
April found it incredibly easy to open a Shift to Arcadia from the Guardian's
Realm. She and Crow went through it and came out at the edge of Riverwood just
north of the great city of Marcuria, where she could catch sight of the battle for
the city without being caught by the invading Tyren ogres.
The thick plume of smoke was rising to the south and the sound of war cries told
her the battle still going on. She was glad most of the people had evacuated in
time (except for Brian Westhouse and the Fathers of the Sentinal Enclave, who
had stayed to defend their property). There was certainly nothing good for her
that way. She started up the road into Riverwood. She would go to her friends the
Mole People (they preferred to call themselves the Banda), and then maybe...
"Crow, you told me you saw Abnaxus heading north?"
"Yeah, heading to a huge tree with other Venar in it about two miles north from
here as the crow flies. As the Crow flies! Hee-hee, I crack myself up!" said Crow.
He was easily amused.
Abnaxus was an emissary of the Venar, a magical race that experienced time
differently than humans. They lived in the past, present, and future all at once.
"His people must have an outpost in Riverwood. I could use his advice about what
to do next. I really wasn't expecting to have a choice. I thought I was going to be
the 13th Guardian and have to stay in the Tower for a thousand years."
"Hey, wait a second! You were going to disappear on me again?" Crow said
angrily.
"I thought I was destined to be the Guardian. I had no choice. I didn't see you..."
"But what about our deal? You promised to take care of my fleas for a year if I
fetched you water from the Well of Making!"
"Crow, I'm sorry. I had a lot on my mind. I thought I was going to have to hold
two worlds together for a thousand years. I thought I'd have to disappoint all my
friends, that they'd think I was dead..."
"But the fact is you made me a promise you had no intention to keep! Some
friend!"
"I'll keep that promise now," protested April.
"You made me fill my beak with magic water that could have killed me, fly down
and drop it into that horrible scary nothing, and then after all that you were going
to go away and abandon me in the desert for 1000 years?"
"I'd have sent you back to Arcadia after I became Guardian, Crow," April said,
but shuddered as she thought, "Would I really have been able to remember to do
that with my soul in cold storage?"
"I'm really sorry, Crow. I did take advantage of you. Forgive me, please?"
"Not this time, not again. I'm out of here to find some fluffy little chickadee for
consolation. Next time you think about piping me up with your magic flute, think
again!" Crow flew off in a huff.
"Crow! Please come back, Crow!" called April, but it was no use.
--------
April's Diary: August 7, 2209 Monday evening
I'm at the Banda camp by the fire. Ben-bandu and the others gave me a hero's
welcome but I'm not feeling very heroic. I keep regretting the things I did for this
mission. I got a navigator's job for Tun Liac and magical wind for Captain
Nebevay and then accidentally wrecked their ship, I hid the truth from my
friends in Stark and got Emma shot, and if I'd become the Guardian I might have
left Crow to die in the desert. It isn't so great to be what they call a Wave of
destiny when the Wave leaves wrecked lives behind. Now Crow hates me,
Captain Nebevay hates me, Tun Liac hates me, and probably so do Fiona, Mickey,
Emma, and Charlie...
At least the Banda and the Elder Mole are still my friends. I'll sleep here tonight
but definitely NOT in the Spirit Dig! No "Bak-Baar" spirit dreams for me
tonight. I wouldn't mind seeing dream-Charlie again, but I'm definitely not up
for another round with my dark-side dream-April.
I've been thinking about Charlie a lot lately, ever since the dream-spirit told me
that he loved me. I didn't think I felt that way about him at first but now I think
I've started to. He's always been so kind and great to talk to at the Café.
I thought for a while I might be in love with Cortez. (Is he still alive? I hope so!)
Last time I saw Cortez, he and McAllen were fighting and they turned into
dragons right before my eyes as they fell off the top of the MTI Building! I know
I'm actually a dragon myself but I'm still in denial about that, and anyway Cortez
must be thousands of years older than me...
I still feel human. I WANT to be human, not some kind of alien monster. I want
a normal human life and Charlie could be part of that. I kept pushing my feelings
down while I had a job to do but now I wish I could see him again. Maybe it isn't
too late. I'll get a change of clothes somewhere, Shift back there, sneak past all
the goons from the Vanguard and Bokamba/Mercer, find him, and get him to
forgive me somehow. Heck, I've done tons of harder things than this last week. In
the morning I'll ask the Elder Mole to help me find the Venar. Abnaxus may be
able to get me some clothes.
-----------
April decided to try to talk to Crow again. She got out her flute from her
Dimensional Pocket. The Pocket was a technological marvel that her rich friend
Sarah had given her for her 18th birthday four months ago. April had no idea
how it worked but somehow it could hold a huge number of small objects without
a bulge. April wore it all the time, attached to her clothes or tucked into her
panties. It was a safe place for her credit card in the big city and it had been a
lifesaver on the journey. She'd been able to carry all sorts of useful things and
keep her hands free.
It was funny about the flute. April was pretty sure it had started out as a plain,
ordinary flute. She kept using to call Crow and it kept bringing him to her from
farther and farther away, from places where he couldn't have heard it, even to the
Guardian's Realm itself. It had to be her doing somehow. An Arcadian innkeeper
had said that April was an Artisan, able to shape magic by the force of will alone.
Could an Artisan just use something, will it to work, and make it so? Maybe.
She'd once used a common pocket calculator to defeat an evil alchemist.
"Ok, let's try it. I hope this works, I hope this works..." thought April, and she
played the little summoning tune on the flute.
Crow appeared in a blue flash, but he flew high and called down to her.
"Hey, I told you not to call me anymore! What do you want, more fetching and
carrying?"
"Look Crow, no matter how you feel about me, I promised to pluck your fleas and
I'll do it," April called up to him.
"Really?"
"A promise is a promise. That's the reason I called you."
"Well, if you're really willing, I think I picked up a case of lice from the wren I
met this afternoon. And she seemed so clean and innocent, too... All right, I'll
come down. I can't stay mad at you."
A Fan Fiction Sequel to "The Longest Journey"
This story picks up where the game "The Longest Journey" leaves off. I tried
to put in enough explanations so that someone who has never played the game
can still read it. All major characters are the property of Ragnar Tornquist.
Part I. At Loose Ends
The adventure was over now, wasn't it? April Ryan watched with satisfaction
from the blue-sand desert of the Guardian's Realm. Gordon Halloway, the new
13th Guardian of the Balance, sat in the Tower of Balance and channeled the
twin beams of logic and chaos to where they belonged in the twin worlds of Stark
and Arcadia. Stark and Arcadia were worlds of technology and magic
respectively, divided from each other long ago by wise humans working together
with powerful alien beings called the Draic Kin (or Dragons) to prevent people
from abusing the combined powers of science and magic. It was the Guardian's
job to keep the worlds in balance.
There was a huge personal price for being the Guardian; his mind and emotions
would remain stored away in the World Disk for the next thousand years and the
world he returned to would be completely different from what he left. But
Gordon was prepared to pay that price. April at first had thought she would have
to become the Guardian, and she had not been prepared at all. But it turned out
that she simply had to bring together Gordon's logical half with his emotional
half, which Jacob McAllen had split from him to create the Chaos Vortex.
McAllen, who was actually a Draic Kin in human form, had wanted to reunite the
two worlds by force and rule them both. But April had been able to help Gordon
become a proper Guardian instead of McAllen's puppet. So both worlds were
saved and she hadn't had to sacrifice her whole life to do it. Not quite.
Ten days ago (Friday July 28, 2209 to be exact) April Ryan had been an ordinary
struggling 18-year-old art student in the city of Newport whose only problems
were finishing a painting and occasional nightmares about dragons. Then she met
a mysterious man named Cortez who had sent her on bizarre adventures in both
Stark and Arcadia; who had turned her life upside-down. Now she was a Shifter
who could move between worlds, and much more than a Shifter. April didn't
think she could return to her old life now even if she wanted to. Sinister groups
were still after her in Stark: the McAllens's Church of the Voltec (a front for his
Arcadian Vanguard cult), and probably the corporate police force of the
Bokamba/Mercer Corporation. So, where to?
"I can go from here to wherever I want. Stark or Arcadia? I want to find out what
happened to my friends Emma, Charlie, Fiona, and Mickey, but I guess it'll have
to be Arcadia first," said April.
"Yeah, I like that. More chicks there, and I mean the feathered kind," said Crow,
her talking bird friend from Arcadia.
"There's another reason. I can't go back to Stark dressed like this. I look like a
fugitive colonist in this orange-gray uniform. In fact, I _am_ a fugitive colonist.
If the Bokamba/Mercer Company catches me they'll ship me off to Bokamba 8."
"What do you mean, a fugitive colonist?"
"Hmmm, how to explain? Basically, I sold myself as a slave to get passage to a
place near the Guardian's Realm. A space station, um, a floating island in the
sky."
"So you're a runaway slave now? That's really tough."
April found it incredibly easy to open a Shift to Arcadia from the Guardian's
Realm. She and Crow went through it and came out at the edge of Riverwood just
north of the great city of Marcuria, where she could catch sight of the battle for
the city without being caught by the invading Tyren ogres.
The thick plume of smoke was rising to the south and the sound of war cries told
her the battle still going on. She was glad most of the people had evacuated in
time (except for Brian Westhouse and the Fathers of the Sentinal Enclave, who
had stayed to defend their property). There was certainly nothing good for her
that way. She started up the road into Riverwood. She would go to her friends the
Mole People (they preferred to call themselves the Banda), and then maybe...
"Crow, you told me you saw Abnaxus heading north?"
"Yeah, heading to a huge tree with other Venar in it about two miles north from
here as the crow flies. As the Crow flies! Hee-hee, I crack myself up!" said Crow.
He was easily amused.
Abnaxus was an emissary of the Venar, a magical race that experienced time
differently than humans. They lived in the past, present, and future all at once.
"His people must have an outpost in Riverwood. I could use his advice about what
to do next. I really wasn't expecting to have a choice. I thought I was going to be
the 13th Guardian and have to stay in the Tower for a thousand years."
"Hey, wait a second! You were going to disappear on me again?" Crow said
angrily.
"I thought I was destined to be the Guardian. I had no choice. I didn't see you..."
"But what about our deal? You promised to take care of my fleas for a year if I
fetched you water from the Well of Making!"
"Crow, I'm sorry. I had a lot on my mind. I thought I was going to have to hold
two worlds together for a thousand years. I thought I'd have to disappoint all my
friends, that they'd think I was dead..."
"But the fact is you made me a promise you had no intention to keep! Some
friend!"
"I'll keep that promise now," protested April.
"You made me fill my beak with magic water that could have killed me, fly down
and drop it into that horrible scary nothing, and then after all that you were going
to go away and abandon me in the desert for 1000 years?"
"I'd have sent you back to Arcadia after I became Guardian, Crow," April said,
but shuddered as she thought, "Would I really have been able to remember to do
that with my soul in cold storage?"
"I'm really sorry, Crow. I did take advantage of you. Forgive me, please?"
"Not this time, not again. I'm out of here to find some fluffy little chickadee for
consolation. Next time you think about piping me up with your magic flute, think
again!" Crow flew off in a huff.
"Crow! Please come back, Crow!" called April, but it was no use.
--------
April's Diary: August 7, 2209 Monday evening
I'm at the Banda camp by the fire. Ben-bandu and the others gave me a hero's
welcome but I'm not feeling very heroic. I keep regretting the things I did for this
mission. I got a navigator's job for Tun Liac and magical wind for Captain
Nebevay and then accidentally wrecked their ship, I hid the truth from my
friends in Stark and got Emma shot, and if I'd become the Guardian I might have
left Crow to die in the desert. It isn't so great to be what they call a Wave of
destiny when the Wave leaves wrecked lives behind. Now Crow hates me,
Captain Nebevay hates me, Tun Liac hates me, and probably so do Fiona, Mickey,
Emma, and Charlie...
At least the Banda and the Elder Mole are still my friends. I'll sleep here tonight
but definitely NOT in the Spirit Dig! No "Bak-Baar" spirit dreams for me
tonight. I wouldn't mind seeing dream-Charlie again, but I'm definitely not up
for another round with my dark-side dream-April.
I've been thinking about Charlie a lot lately, ever since the dream-spirit told me
that he loved me. I didn't think I felt that way about him at first but now I think
I've started to. He's always been so kind and great to talk to at the Café.
I thought for a while I might be in love with Cortez. (Is he still alive? I hope so!)
Last time I saw Cortez, he and McAllen were fighting and they turned into
dragons right before my eyes as they fell off the top of the MTI Building! I know
I'm actually a dragon myself but I'm still in denial about that, and anyway Cortez
must be thousands of years older than me...
I still feel human. I WANT to be human, not some kind of alien monster. I want
a normal human life and Charlie could be part of that. I kept pushing my feelings
down while I had a job to do but now I wish I could see him again. Maybe it isn't
too late. I'll get a change of clothes somewhere, Shift back there, sneak past all
the goons from the Vanguard and Bokamba/Mercer, find him, and get him to
forgive me somehow. Heck, I've done tons of harder things than this last week. In
the morning I'll ask the Elder Mole to help me find the Venar. Abnaxus may be
able to get me some clothes.
-----------
April decided to try to talk to Crow again. She got out her flute from her
Dimensional Pocket. The Pocket was a technological marvel that her rich friend
Sarah had given her for her 18th birthday four months ago. April had no idea
how it worked but somehow it could hold a huge number of small objects without
a bulge. April wore it all the time, attached to her clothes or tucked into her
panties. It was a safe place for her credit card in the big city and it had been a
lifesaver on the journey. She'd been able to carry all sorts of useful things and
keep her hands free.
It was funny about the flute. April was pretty sure it had started out as a plain,
ordinary flute. She kept using to call Crow and it kept bringing him to her from
farther and farther away, from places where he couldn't have heard it, even to the
Guardian's Realm itself. It had to be her doing somehow. An Arcadian innkeeper
had said that April was an Artisan, able to shape magic by the force of will alone.
Could an Artisan just use something, will it to work, and make it so? Maybe.
She'd once used a common pocket calculator to defeat an evil alchemist.
"Ok, let's try it. I hope this works, I hope this works..." thought April, and she
played the little summoning tune on the flute.
Crow appeared in a blue flash, but he flew high and called down to her.
"Hey, I told you not to call me anymore! What do you want, more fetching and
carrying?"
"Look Crow, no matter how you feel about me, I promised to pluck your fleas and
I'll do it," April called up to him.
"Really?"
"A promise is a promise. That's the reason I called you."
"Well, if you're really willing, I think I picked up a case of lice from the wren I
met this afternoon. And she seemed so clean and innocent, too... All right, I'll
come down. I can't stay mad at you."