Hello, hello, hello, what's happenin' readers?

This chapter was edited and re-uploaded at the same time as chapter 82. I have made every effort to remove mistakes/typos but, naturally, some may remain. If you spot anything I missed please point it out to me. Thanks, and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Jagex, RuneScape, or any of the RuneScape characters. All I own is the plot of this fanfiction and some of the characters in the story. I am not making a financial profit from this story.

Chapter 8: Prayer with Brother Brace

Osrie1 and I were running down the long, twisty, cobbled stone path, covering our heads with our shields. The sky above us was roaring. The sun had been blocked out by miserable grey clouds, and the wind was howling in my face. Rain was pouring down on us, as if we were in some gigantic shower. I could feel the terrible rain pattering noisily on my helmet and shield. I could just barely see and hear a clap of thunder over the howling of the wind. Nearby trees were falling down, not from the thud of an axe, but because of the strength and force of the dismal weather.

A slight fog was rising over the ground, making everything ten times worse. Osrie1's messy orange hair was flying everywhere. I was shivering, trying to use my wooden shield to defend myself from the merciless and ferocious weather. But, surprisingly, it did almost no difference. The weather had decided to go around the shield to hit me, instead of trying to go through the shield. In the end, I gave up trying to defend myself, thinking about how useless a shield was if you couldn't protect yourself with it against a bit of rain and wind. But a bit of rain and wind was an understatement, I thought glumly, as the bad-tempered weather tried to send us flying into the nearby lake. Another clap of thunder appeared in the sky, illuminating the sky with light.

"RUN!" I shouted at Osrie1 behind me, who nodded, and sped ahead of me. I looked opposite the lake, and nearly tripped in amazement. In the distance, past the lake, I could see a large hill. On the top of the hill was a group of people, some cutting down trees (which was a bit pointless, I thought, as the trees were falling down without axes). Others were attempting the almost impossible task of setting fires.

I could see a pinprick person leaning over a hopeless case of a fire. The only reason I could see him or her over the gale, and the mist, was because of the billowing amazing red cape the person wore fluttering in the wind. That hill crowded with people was the survival grounds, and that red-caped person was Brianna.

I followed the two paths with my eyes. The first led back to the RuneScape guide's house, which I couldn't really see clearly. The other led down the hill to a windmill, which was turning very quickly in this wind. I could see the grain field was almost empty, as the wind was blowing all of the grain away. But it was growing back very quickly. I followed the path even further to a house, which was the quest master's house. After that was underground, I knew. I dodged a nearby wave that the wind had blown out of the lake. Another clap of thunder was heard.

By now Osrie1 was attempting to drag me behind him. Grumbling, I continued running, which took a lot of effort, since the wind and rain had turned its blow up to full pelt.

After a nightmarish ten minutes of trudging through the bad weather, we saw a large cathedral-like building. It was the biggest building I had seen so far, even bigger than the bank. It had large stained-glass windows, which had pictures of different holy-looking men and women. But the biggest window on the side had a large bearded man with golden robes on him. The building was made of large silver bricks the size of huge cupboards. There were shiny main doors in front of us. We walked through them into his massive building.

It was colossal on the inside. There were rows of seats on the close end near us, and at the far end there was a white altar with a golden candle on it, along with a golden bowl full of what looked like water. There was a shelf full of books on the wall by the far end, with a wooden chair next to it, with a small wooden door next to the chair. There was a man sitting on the chair, reading a book.

This man wore long brown monk robes, and was bald. He wore a golden holy symbol around his neck. He wore a long, golden cape, and like all other guides on Tutorial Island, he had a large rucksack on his back. His eyes were a greenish-brownish colour. He saw us standing there; shivering and sopping wet, and smiled at us.

"Welcome, my friends, to tutorial church! The holy god Saradomin looks over us here in this church. I am here to teach you the basics of prayer, and all of its glory. My name is Brother Brace, and I was originally a monk from the monastery back on the mainland. But the prayer master there enlisted me to travel here, to Tutorial Island, to teach the new players about prayer. There is much for you to learn, friends," he told us kindly. He looked at a book in his hand, and gasped at the front cover.

"Goodness gracious! Look at my prayer points! I'd better pray and to thank the lord Saradomin for the goodness in life, and to recharge my prayer points," he exclaimed. He went towards the altar, dipped his hand in the holy water, and spread it across his face. He kneeled over, and put his hands together. He muttered some kind of prayer. After a few seconds, a wonderful, glorious light filled the room, coming from the altar, and then faded. Brother Brace looked happily at his book, and then turned to us again.

"Well, that was a basic example of what you should do when praying by an altar of Saradomin. Praying by a chaos altar is quite different, though. By praying on a chaos altar, you are worshipping the evil god, Zamorak, who is purely a prince of darkness, Saradomin's worst enemy. Zamorak worshippers do something with some kind of evil wine, but I am not entirely sure, since I do not pray to Zamorak," he informed us.

"First, let me explain about prayer points," Brother Brace said. "When you are new to this world, you only have one prayer point. But, you can raise your prayer level by doing two things.

"The first would be to pray. You raise levels by praying to any god, but Saradomin has mercy in his soul. If you pray to Zamorak, you would have to stick with him, or you will anger him, and the last thing you want is a vengeful god. Just pray to raise your points.

"The second thing you can do is bury bones of the dead. Use the little shovel I will now give you to make a small hole, bury the bones in it, and cover it with earth. At least the dead creature will have a burial of some kind. It shows goodness in your heart, and will raise your level. The bigger the bones, the more prayer points you will gain." After finishing his speech, he handed the pair of us small shovels from his bag, perfect for digging.

"Another thing you might ask is, 'what is the point to prayer points? What can you do with them?' Well, the answer to that is, almost anything! It usually depends on who you've prayed to. There are very righteous prayers that are useful in combat, but there are some evil ones too that can be useful. There are prayers to raise special defences, making it very difficult to attack. There are special advanced prayer attacks, like the complex one 'blast of light', a Saradomin prayer (Zamorak worshippers use blast of darkness). That requires great prayer experience. It shoots a ball of powerful light or blackness towards the foe, causing him/her a great deal of harm, especially if that foe is an evil sorcerer, or a demon of pure evil, while using blast of light. It requires a prayer level of 68 to do both! Uttering such prayers would drain you tremendously of energy and prayer points.

"Another thing you can do to gain prayer experience is repair other people's gravestones. When people die here, you see, they lose all of their items except for three exceptions and their books, and get sent back to their respawning area. They leave behind gravestones, their bones, and a pile of their items. The items are protected from greedy people, and only the owner of the items can come back to their gravestone to pick them up. But the gravestones are fragile, and only last a couple of minutes, unless other people pray for or bless the gravestones, so they last longer. But, a word of warning, once the gravestones disappear, so do the items.

"You need to pray at an altar to recharge your points. I will give you two a book that includes all of the different prayers that can be cast," Brother Brace explained. He handed both of us books with buckles on them. It had a sign of Saradomin (a star-like shape) on one side, and a crooked bolt of lightning on the other side (Zamorak's sign). In the middle there was a golden symbol of what looked like weighing scales. One side was silver, while the other was a blackish-purplish colour. In the middle, above the scales, was my prayer level (one) and below, how many prayer points I had left (one also).

I put the book away in my book pouch. The pouch was getting a bit full, and probably could only fit in one more book. I stood up to ask another question, but I was interrupted by Brother Brace.

"Well, my dear friends, you have learnt the basics of prayer, but you can wear this beginner's amulet of prayer to help you pray. When you decide to which god your loyalty lies, you can buy or make that god's symbol. I am wearing the most advanced symbol of Saradomin, given to me by the prayer master in the monastery," he told us.

He fished out two simple amulets from his bag, and handed them to us. There was a string of red ribbon attached to the amulet, so we could put them around our neck. The amulet itself was made out of simple silver, and had the symbols of Saradomin, Zamorak and the mysterious weighing scale symbol on it, on three ends. The amulet seemed to possess this strange power that felt like it was coming from the centre. I put it on. Brother brace smiled at me, but then grimaced as a man went through the door.

This man wore robes of a deep red, like Brother Brace's robes, but a different colour. He wore a golden unholy symbol around his neck, and had a very haunted look about him. He was bald. Brother Brace scowled.

"My brother, Master Samuel, what are you doing in the holy Saradomin tutorial church? Be gone, you evil supporter of Zamorak!" Brother Brace shouted across the church at this man. Master Samuel chuckled, not in a friendly way, in an evil way.

"Ah, but brother, I am here on one quest, sent by Zamorak. You see, I am plotting something big, and to help me with my plans I must teach new people the power of Zamorak, so I am taking over this church," he spat back at Brother Brace. They glared at each other so loathsomely that you couldn't tell which one hated the other the most.

"There is no way I am giving up the holy church to a monk of Zamorak like you," he growled. "Go back to where you lot came from, that being the wilderness!" I wondered, yet again, what the wilderness was.

Master Samuel got a jug of some kind of wine out of his robes. This wine had an aura of menace around it, and was bubbling a bit. It was a terrible, deep red, like blood. Brother Brace's expression turned from furious to absolutely terrified. He got the water from the top of the altar, and, shaking madly, he whimpered "How dare you bring that vile substance into this holy church!"

"You really expect to scare me with a bowl of holy water?" Master Samuel chuckled. Master Samuel went towards Brother Brace, forced the bowl of holy water out of his hand, and spilled some of his wine into the bowl. The water turned black. The room filled with a dark light coming out of the bowl. Brother Brace started creating some kind of ball of light behind his back. Then, suddenly, the ball grew from the size of a tennis ball to the size of a football. It grew bigger, and bigger, until it was so big Master Samuel could see it from behind his back.

"Fine then, we will fight fire with fire," he laughed, creating a ball of pure darkness. Both were muttering prayers under their breath, until they both yelled "BLAST OF LIGHT/DARKNESS!" and fired the balls at each other. Both missed each other by inches, and hit the intended targets. Brother Brace flew seven feet into the air, before landing with a crash on top of Osrie1. Master Samuel, however, got blasted into the shelf of books, and the shelf fell on top of him.

Brother Brace got up, apologised to Osrie1, and using some kind of prayer, lifted up the shelf and all of the books, and put them neatly back where they were meant to be. Master Samuel, groaning, stood up. There was a beam of dark light, a gust of cold wind, and he was gone.

"Well, at least that vermin has gone," Brother Brace muttered. "But oh my goodness, he had unholied the holy water!" He got a jug of gleaming water from his bag, and spilled the purple mess that was in the bowl outside. He refilled the bowl with holy water, and placed it back on top of the altar. He apologised to the gods, recharged his prayer points, and turned to us.

"Well, you seemed to have learnt all I can teach you, so you may leave," Brother Brace told us. We were preparing to set off, before I asked the question I had been longing to ask.

"Which god do the scales on my amulet and book represent?" I asked timidly.

"Ah, that represents the god of balance, Guthix, who stopped the god wars," Brother Brace replied.

My mind exploded with questions. The god wars? Guthix? What on the name of RuneScape were they?

"Could you tell us about the god wars, please?" I asked. Brother Brace sighed. He obviously hadn't really expected this.

"Very well, I shall tell you a tale that has been repeated for years now," he muttered. We waited with baited breath for the ancient tale of the god wars.

...and that concludes chapter 8! I hope y'all enjoyed that!

Next time, the tale of the god wars is retold to Mainiac97 and Osrie1, but I've twisted the classic story around and created my own alternative version in the process.

Until next time, toodles!