Entry 20

Heavy rain poured over the southern reaches of the king's land. Poor weather was nothing new for mountain dwellers, but the chilled air normally marked a drier season amongst the Kradellan peaks. Little could be heard over the roar of the wind, and seeing through the deluge was near impossible. Tree branches whipped back and forth, tossing leaves and stray branches aside at startling speeds. To find yourself out in such a dangerous storm would be akin to suicide.

"Adrian! Felix! Are you out there?!"

A small boy shouted into the pounding rain, desperately hoping for a reaction. A response, a signal, a change in the wind, anything to let him know that he wasn't alone. But the howling wind drowned him out, rendering his pleas pointless.

After a minute of desperately scanning the treeline for signs of help, he sloshed through the growing pools of water in a direction that he hoped would lead back home. His mother had warned him about straying too far from the village, yet the allure of the unknown proved too great for he and his friends to bear. It had been Adrian's idea to leave before the storm; the boy practically overflowed with promises of safety and boasts about his prodigious skills at wilderness survival.

Where was he in that moment, as the storm reached ever-higher towards its grand finale? As his friend fought against the wind, no longer knowing the difference between his own frightened tears and the drops brought by the downpour? Where was he?

The boy wading through the woods knew no answer. Whether his friends were safe, dead, searching for him or not, their fates were an unknown to him. So, he trudged onwards. Home couldn't have been far now, with him being so close to the base of the range. No matter the conditions, the rocky outline of the Kradellan Mountains was unmistakable.

Buckets upon buckets of water already soaked his well-worn clothes when he met face to face with stone, marking the lower reaches of the mountains. A pitch-black opening marred the weathered stone, stretching wide and jagged like the maw of a great beast. This scar in the mountainside didn't look like any cave that the boy had previously found in his childhood adventures; maybe he was farther from the village than he thought.

Whether he knew the exact layout of this random hole in the wilderness mattered not, as any shelter would be better than none at the time. He hurried inside, careful to avoid getting caught on any sharp outcroppings on the way in. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness a bit more, the curious nature of the cave could be better explored.

Rock still provided the primary structure for the cave, but not the only one. Wooden beams had been erected as supports, preventing the room from collapsing. Nothing else stood out aside from a dark mass piled up in the corner. It could have easily been little more than a large piece of stone, possibly the remnants of a camp left behind by whoever set up those beams.

But then the darkness started moving.

That small boy stood completely still in the center of the cave, unable to shake the fear that kept him frozen in place as the object shifted and reformed into a different shape. First a lump, now a slightly taller lump, now a lump with an appendage of some kind sticking out - no, not a lump of stone. A person. A child, probably around the same age as the motionless and terrified one watching this transformation play out.

This new child kept his back turned to the first as he stretched, but whipped around quickly when a whimper escaped the scared boy.

"Oh, hello! I didn't see you there. The rain was too heavy for me to go out and do anything today, so I slept in here! What's your name?"

For someone who had slept on a stone floor during a thunderstorm, that boy showed enough energy to put a racehorse to shame. His words came out so fast that they almost didn't register with the one intended to hear them, leading to a momentary silence.

If you can even call a split second without a response "momentary silence".

"Uh, you there? Are you dead or something? Dead people are no fun, how am I supposed to play with someone who can't speak or move? Wake up!"

Being told to wake up by a hyperactive child proved effective, as the stiffness began to dissipate and the boy's fear eased. Still not fast enough reaction time, though.

"Well since you won't tell me your name, I'll tell you mine first; then we can trade!" How someone so lively had found themselves sleeping in a dank cave was a mystery. The boy wouldn't have to wait long for an answer, though.

"My name's Crescian - Crescian Hillock! Now, it's your turn! What's your name?"

"Uhh," he said shakily, "Vaeris. My name's Vaeris."

"That name is so cool! I wish I had a name like that. Where'd you come from? I don't recognize you from the tunnels."

Vaeris didn't know there were any tunnels this close to his village. How far had he gone? Would he even be able to find his way back? All valid questions. None were asked in that moment, though; Crescian continued with lungs big enough to let loose gale-force winds.

"I told you my full name, but you only told me half of yours! That's no fair! If you tell me, I'll show you around the caves..." He whispered the last part as if it were some great secret, an honor that only the best kinds of people could receive. 

Apparently stumbling waterlogged into a random dark cave puts you in the running for that title.

"Okay," Vaeris muttered, unsure of the other boy's intentions. "My full name is Jon Vaeris Rells. But...I don't like being called Jon. So, you can just call me Vaeris."

Crescian's face lit up the darkness. The storm raged on; but for the first time, Vaeris couldn't care less.