This is Chapter One, called Cherish. If you've read this before, you'll know that it's been greatly extended and added to. This is because I felt the first chapter was missing a few things, first of all, it felt rushed. I hope I fixed this problem with this new update. Second of all, someone suggested that I let the reader get to know Max better. Third of all, I feel that I've unfairly left out some characters and I feel that the storyline for Chapter One was poorly executed.
Throughout the story you'll see some characters that will become a part of the plot, permanently or temporarily. I will list them at the start of each chapter and thank the creator of each character briefly and respectively.
The story is to be based lightly on our server known as Edge of Eternity. A server filled with many creative minds and even more friendly people. Some landmarks will become obvious, such as the spawn which will be known as Spawn City. I will greatly appreciate any constructive criticism that you may have and suggestions.
*The contents of this Chapter are subject to change, I will do my best to keep these from becoming drastic changes*
-In this chapter are:
Echo, our mysterious and rugged character, thought up by Echo453.
Joe Forrest, only temporarily but he'll reappear later, created by MyNameIsTheDoctor
These are only a few but more will be added in very soon.
It goes without saying that if you love something or someone greatly you'll cherish it or them all throughout your life. Sometimes, it is easier to fall in love with someone rather than something, which is natural for the common human being. Throughout my boyhood I was raised alone until the girl I would soon have called my wife came by my family's little farmstead.
In our young age we were adventurous, we travelled together far and wide in search of a new quest or some secret to the world that nobody else knew. We cleaned out and explored every corner of my family crypt, we uncovered the hidden goods within the jungle temple located just outside of Spawn City, and we ventured beyond forbidden portal within the ruins of Old St. Brenderson City. We were gathering fame quickly, but as time passed by our love for adventure began to wear off into something much more. We were beginning to love each other more than we loved the adventure and soon we settled down back at my family farm where it all started. My parents had died sometime earlier and left me the whole stead in their will out of hopes that I would take care of it and carry on the family business.
As a boy, I never stuck around to learn the trades of farming so neither of us knew anything about it. As a result, we spent countless hours trying to milk a cow and master farming while the pigs and chickens were running loose creating mayhem. Eventually we got a hang of the life style and as if we didn't deserve a break from learning, a new challenge came about—parenthood. Neither of us had been ready for it but, life doesn't care when you think you're ready, it comes and when it comes it can't be stopped or postponed.
I spent two days without sleeping, waiting all day in the living room of our home as the doctor helped her to give birth to our child Max. Fortunately the birth went smoothly and both our child and my wife were healthy and my life changed for the better. But not all good things last forever. One night, when Max had come down with a fever Annabelle set out for the nearest township. I had been gone that evening to clean out the crypt from another infestation of spiders.
When I returned home that night, I was greeted by an empty house and a note on the table stating where she had gone. Max was crying in his crib in the bedroom down the hall and the fire had long gone out. The cold house and smoldering fire were evidence that she had been gone for too long. I waited impatiently for hours while comforting Max. She never returned that night.
Every day for several weeks, when Max had gone to sleep, I followed the trail from dawn to dusk. It was a terrible time for Max and I, slowly I became more and more desperate and I ventured into the woods at night and nearly got myself killed. It's funny to me now, I had to escape death in order to learn that she was gone and that my job now was to raise Max without his mother.
Twelve years later, Max and I are doing fine and the farm is doing well. Each year we haul in more food and have more for ourselves to eat, Max is becoming strong and showing more of an itch to adventure out and do something great. I grow weary of holding him back, but I don't want to lose him like I lost his mother. While sitting back and reading a book titled "The Mystery of the End", I listened as he played with his wolf, Bolt. He laughed as his companion tackled him and yanked on the collar of his shirt with a playful growl.
"You and that dog, it's like you were made for each other." I stated playfully as I watched him roll over onto his stomach and stand back up. He dusted his brown slacks off and laughed some more as Bolt attempted another tackle.
"It isn't my fault he's so persistent about wrestling." Max replied as he pushed Bolt off and pet him, both were obviously worn out because they were both panting loudly. I could only chuckle in response as I closed the book and slipped it back into its rightful place on the bookshelf, I turned to Max with a straight face.
"All right, son. It's time for bed." I said with a stern voice, Max knew it well that bed time meant now and there was no negotiating it.
"Okay, Dad." He replied as he scratched the back of Bolt's neck. "Come on, boy."
The two disappeared into the hallway and the door shutting echoed through the house. I walked over his room and opened the door slightly to tell him goodnight.
"Hey—Dad?" he asked with a curious voice.
"What is it, kid?" I replied as I opened the door further to see him lying with Bolt in his arms.
"What happened to Mom—I mean, where did she go?" He asked. The question had been eating at him all day long, I could tell because he asked about his mother constantly until recently.
I sighed and began thinking of what to tell him, I always told him that she was out visiting her family but he eventually caught onto the fact that she wasn't returning a long time ago, I could see the frustration in his eyes every time I told him that she was visiting distant relatives. I figured it was time for him to learn where she really was. "Your mother went out one night to get more medicine when you were sick…she loved you so much she was willing to risk her very own life for yours."
"So she's dead?" He whimpered with his eyes watering up.
"No, she's just missing. I followed the road to town in search of her many times and there was nothing signifying that she was killed." I replied. "I even had the whole town searching for her in the forests."
"So…there's a chance Mom's all right then?" he asked with hope rising in his voice.
"There is a chance that she could be out there somewhere missing us as much as we miss her." I replied with a saddened voice, it felt as if she were never coming back but I hoped the feeling was wrong.
Max didn't ask any other questions, so I shut his door and made my way down the dimly lit hallway. The torches gave off some warmth but not enough for me to want to stick around. I could already see my breath on this cold night so I made my way quickly to my bedroom. I pushed the door open and was greeted by an even colder atmosphere. I shivered uncontrollably as I made my way to a pair of furnaces next to the beds.
After starting a fire in each, the room began to warm up. With a sigh of relief I lay backwards on the large comfortable bed and began to reminisce about my younger years.
I remembered many things as I slowly drifted away into the wonderlands of my dreams. I remembered the hot and muggy afternoons in the jungles, the cold and quiet mornings of the forests, and most of all, I remembered the warm campfires as we sat together with two other adventurers. The fire crackled and smoked as I tossed another log into the fire. One of the adventurers were leaning forward and holding onto their injury on the left leg. His name was Joe Forrest and he had been out carelessly running through the forest, we had come by him crawling away frantically from a creeper.
Echo, the other adventurer, had been accompanying us for a bit. Up to this day, we still know very little about him. All four of us were enjoying the smell of the chicken that was inside of the furnace my wife had built. At that point in time we were only friends and nothing more.
"I'm hungry." Forrest stated as he sniffed the air. "Aren't you guys?"
"Yeah." Echo stated simply as he nodded. He didn't speak much at all, he only answered questions or responded with a small statement when it was needed. This was his way and we quickly grew accustomed to it, despite some of us itching to get more information out of him.
"So, Echo," My wife started as she pulled the cooked poultry from the furnace. It was still sizzling as I grabbed a bowl and slipped it under the chicken. "Where do you come from?"
"Far from here." He said with no real emotion in his voice.
"How far?" Joe asked as he reached for the chicken carelessly before getting his hand slapped like a child.
"Far."
"Is it possible to hold a conversation with this guy?" Joe Forrest asked us as he rubbed the back of his hand. My wife and I shook our heads with a slight chuckle, we had tried to spark up conversation but getting too personal stopped the train in its tracks. That night was a good one because of the fact that it was the first night any of us actually held a nice conversation.
The sunlight blinded me as I yawned and wiped the slobber from my face, the room was toasty warm and the sound of the chickens and cows grazing added to the morning ambience. I sat still with my eyes closed, enjoying the atmosphere. My memories became my dream and the taste of the perfectly cooked chicken lingered in my mouth.
"Bolt, come back here!" Max's voice called from outside. I sat up and looked out of the window to see him charging after the wolf. In its mouth was a bone, most likely Max was trying to fertilize crops again.
Whenever I overslept, it wasn't unusual that Max would take over the morning chores of the farm. He did it mainly because he rewarded himself at the end with cleaning out the family crypt. That was his favorite part of doing my work. He loved taking Bolt into the deep tunnels of the underground to pay his dues to ancient loved ones and to kill the spiders that invaded constantly.
The morning air was still cool as I exited the house and drowsily looked over the work that had been done. The crops were irrigated accordingly, the sugarcane was cut and the air smelled of burning wood. Most people thought that my main source of income was the amount of food I shipped off to Spawn City, but really that was only to bridge the gap that was left between paying off my grandfather's debt every month and paying for supplies that I needed. The main income came from the wood we burnt everyday into charcoal, it was cheap and inexpensive and it also happened to be high in demand for the traveling adventurer.
"Hey Dad, are you going to Trade Township today?" Max asked me, I could see the itch to get away in his eyes. I stopped to think about it, it had been quite a long time since he had been to Trade Township.
"Yeah, are you up for a bit of traveling?" I asked him. The excited look in his face was priceless as he began to strafe over to the door eagerly.
"Am I!" He responded before he finally turned and ran in through the front door, followed by Bolt whose tail was wagging in circles as if it were propelling the dog.
I let out a chuckle and turned to look down the path into the forest. The oak trees had grown in large this year. Their bows hung over the path to the township, veiling everything in their shadow, if it weren't for the glowstone lamps the path would be pitch black and too dangerous to travel.
Bolt's barking caught my attention immediately. A loud crash sounded out from the backyard and the first thought that came to mind was that the dog had been chasing the chickens again.
"Bolt you no good animal!" I scolded as I rushed into the backyard. Much to my surprise it was Max—chasing a pig. "What on earth are you doing?!"
"You told me Pork Chop was old enough to ride!" Max said as he chased the frightened pig around the corral. Bolt was sitting on the sidelines barking and bouncing from side to side excitedly wagging his tail.
"He is, but you can't just chase him down with a saddle, boy." I replied with a chuckle as I stopped him and took the saddle. "Things like this take subtlety—go get me some carrots."
It took a little less than three carrots to get Pork Chop to come back to us and stay as we tied the saddle to him. To motivate Pork Chop into moving we tied a carrot to a fishing rod and held it in front of his face. His eyes immediately locked onto the vegetable and he began to walk forward stupidly chasing the carrot.
"Dad, didn't you say you were an adventurer?" Max asked as he watched a man in leather armor pass by with a female friend.
"I did." I replied as I looked over to my boy. He bared a whole lot of resemblance to his mother, his eyes were a deep green and his hair was strawberry orange as it hung over his forehead just above his eyes. "But it's been a long time since I've gone on an adventure."
"Why did you stop?" He asked as he turned to look up at me. His curiosity didn't bother me it was a normal routine with him. Every day was a new Question and Answer session with Max due to his need to learn the unknown.
"I stopped because your mother and I decided to live out our lives together peacefully." I stated truthfully as I readjusted the sack of potatoes on my shoulder. "Believe it or not, you kind of get tired of always being in danger."
"If I were out there, I'd never get tired of being an adventurer!" He bellowed excitedly as he began to grow excessively chatty about how he would slay endless hordes of the undead with his diamond sword.
I couldn't help but to laugh at his imagination, affectionately I placed my hand on his head and rubbed it gently. "Maybe for your thirteenth birthday I'll take you out on an adventure. Who knows, maybe I'll grab some of my old friends?"
At this statement Max's eyes widened with joy. "REALLY?!"
"Really, son." I stated with a smirk of self-pride, we had been walking for an hour now and the constant sound of crowds talking filled our ears as we reached a bend in the road. At this point the road split, one road ran to the ever-busy Trade Township, and the other ran around it into the Black Forest. This was the road that nobody dared to use, not because of the fact that the name was ominous, but mostly because it tended to be perilous. The road ran through a flooded ravine with a fallen tree connecting one side of the path to the other, and then it went through the swamps, and over more ravines. To make matters worse, it was always dark, it was impossible to explain the fact that no matter what time you set off, you reached the swamps at dusk, and no matter how long you camped out, daybreak never came. These were only a few instances experienced within the Black Forest.
"It's good to see you again, Daniel." A mysterious voice sent chills down my back as I whirled around to see who was speaking. I was greeted by a black haired man in worn iron armor. I recognized him immediately and smiled as I remembered much about him.
"Echo, how've you been?" I asked as I stuck out my hand. We shook hands briefly as he began to accompany me in my stroll.
"I've been well." He stated as he looked past me at Max. "Your offspring?"
The term 'offspring' came unexpectedly, so much so that it knocked me completely off-guard and I found myself struggling for a reply. This was mainly because 'offspring' felt a little too emotionless, and if I said son, I'd be repeating myself.
"I can see the resemblance." He further stated patiently as his eyes returned to the Township.
"So, this is Echo?" Max butt in as he reared his pig about to walk in between us as he looked Echo over curiously. "Wow, you have better armor than Dad."
"He likes to meet new people." I stated with a nervous laughter as I readjusted the potato sack on my shoulder again in irritation. The sack kept slipping from my shoulder and I couldn't get a proper hold on it to keep it in place.
"…and Annabelle?" Echo asked expectantly.
"Gone." I solemnly replied as I averted my eyes down to Max who seemed to be in his own little world petting Pork Chop.
"I'm sorry…" Echo replied sadly as he placed his hand on my shoulder.
The words died down as the three of us entered the Township, Echo said his goodbyes to us and made his way off into the blacksmiths shop.
"He doesn't say much, huh?" Max asked as he watched Echo leave.
"Yeah, but he's still a good man." I replied as I slowed down in front of the farmer's market. An elderly man greeted me as I placed the sack of potatoes down on his counter, and then removed the other sack from behind Max on Pork Chops back, and another hanging from his side.
"Had a very good year again, I presume?" The old man stated with a smile.
"Yeah, much better than last year." I replied with a friendly smile. The old man searched his pockets and pulled out several emeralds and laid them out in front of me.
"A fair deal, yes?" He asked as he pushed the gems towards me.
"A very generous offer, sir." I stated thankfully as I picked up the gems and separated them, I gave a small portion to Max and turned away from the clerk to view the Township.
Max was looking over the gems with a look of happiness, he had never really had any money before and this was the first time he even got to hold an emerald.
"These are mine?" He asked with a tone of excitement.
"You earned it, son." I replied with a wide smile and a pat on his back. "Go on and get something for yourself."
"All right!" He cheered as he held the carrot out in front of Pork Chop and disappeared into the crowd.
I realized then that life was getting better and better with each and every year that passed by. I sighed with longing as I thought of Annabelle and I wished that she were back, only then would life be the greatest yet. But nothing good lasts forever—does it?