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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExDis" data-source="post: 888657" data-attributes="member: 10799">Adventures Beyond the Edge - Jaresh's JournalJaresh's Journal - Entry OneMy story begins, as most such stories do, when I was a child. However, it would be impolite of me to begin such a tale without an introduction; I am named Jareshi; but I am more commonly called "Coqui", which is also the name of small singing tree frog. I was raised by my mother, in a small farming village in a mountainous area near Yelden. All she would ever say of my father was that he was a soldier. I never met him. We lived, as was the custom of the poorer folk, in a small sod hut, sharing it, in fact, with a family of tenant farmers who worked a plot of land nearby. This was my family. The farmer Kennek, was a kind man, strong, patient, and simple, as was his wife Larna. They had two boys, both older than myself, and larger - and perhaps not as kind and patient as their parents, though that changed as they grew older. My mother was a weaver, and by plying her trade, and helping out on the farm when needed, we were able to keep clothes on our backs and food on our table. For my part, I was never fond of farming. Fortunately, I found a way to contribute that largely kept me out of the fields. My salvation was the oil nut trees, a type of oak tree which grew in the scrub canyons north of town. As you've probably guessed from the name, oil nut trees produce a type of acorn which can be pressed to release a nearly colorless, woody-smelling oil, with many and varied uses, including cooking, lamp fuel, and the treatment of leathers and wood. I was a gatherer of oil nuts, and the demands of my profession included frequent climbing and jumping, a fine sense of balance, and the occasional tumble from an unstable perch. Despite the fact that noone short of the local lord himself actually had any legal claim of ownership to the oil nut trees, the easier ones to get to were all staked out as the territory of people much larger and stronger than myself. As a result, my efforts primarily focused on the hard-to-reach trees growing on the canyon walls. On a few occasions, I was caught off guard by other nut gatherers, and my take for the day was 'confiscated'. Therefore, I felt perfectly justified when, happening upon an unharvested tree that was considered the territory of one of my predatory co-gatherers, I would carefully and watchfully lighten its harvest. I learned to keep an eye out for other oil nut gatherers, and to hide or flee silently upon their approach. In this way, I was able to contribute to our communal effort. As I was neither particularly strong, particularly smart, nor particularly comely as a child, the other village children had much sport at my expense, particularly with regard to my my family situation. After the repeated failure of various social overtures, I learned to look inside myself for fulfillment. I soon noticed that the other village childern, and many of the adults, lacked any real appreciation or consideration of the likely outcomes and possible consequences of their actions. I was, on a few occasions, able to use this insight, as well as my natural agility and the skills I had developed as a hunter of oil nuts, to exact a small measure of revenge for prior incidences of rough treatment. The village itself was about as uninteresting as a small farming town can possibly be. The only possible exception to this was the local temple, which was built in one end of the remains of what must have once been a much larger and grander temple. Only a few moss covered statues, and a beautiful fountain that splashed cool water, remained within the high buttressed walls. Stone gargoyles, themselves festooned with sheets of moss, leered down from the broken heights. What had once been the interior was now open to the sky, and home to a number of mature oak trees, none of which managed to reach the heights of the remaining walls. The overall effect was striking, and I went there as often as I could. The walls provided numerous challenges to the climbing skills that I was developing, and when no one was about, I would test myself against them. In any case, the people of the village used the area as a communal gathering area, or park.It was to this area that the Laughing Ghost came. Rumors had it that a few of the village childern, playing near the temple, unearthed a small, but surprisingly heavy iron bound cask, which made faint giggling sounds when touched. Apparently, curiosity overcame them, and they smashed it open with a rock. The accounts of what happened next varied widely among the witnesses, with the common thread being that a shreiking presense surged out of the cracked container, and fled into the air. The terrified children also fled to their respective homes and, claiming illness, refused to come out again for several days. People began to hear strange, faint giggling and laughing in the park. In the beginning, this only happened after dark, and only to solitary visitors. But as time passed, the noises became louder, and more people heard them, and not only at dusk or after dark. Where first only solitary visitors had heard, now groups did as well, and eventually the sounds began to include taunting and jeering directed at specific listeners. People began to avoid the park, particularly after dark, but the voice continued to grow in strength. It was a windy and frosty All-Hallows Eve, with no moon at all, when the maniacal laughter was heard the first time; loud and frantic and desperate, lilting above the moaning of the wind. It did not sound humorous at all. At first, constant laughter was all there was, but the weather stayed cold, and the wind continued to blow, and soon all the milk in the village began to sour quickly, and the farm animals were unable to sleep at night. When the next year's seed stores went bad, people began to worry, and blame the Ghost, but it wasn't until livestock began disappearing that anyone thought to try to actually do anything. One morning, the men of the village gathered, long bows and wood axes in hand, to hunt their tormenter and defend their livelihood. The Ghost jeered and taunted them from the tops of the ruined walls. It had acquired physical form, but seemed barely bound by the constraints of gravity, leaping effortlessly from wall to wall and shadow to shadow. One of the men went around to the back of the old temple, to try and get a clean shot; they found him later, brained by a brick from the top of one of the walls. For their safety, the townsfolk began to shun the park, but the Ghost simply took to leaping from roof to roof, house to house, terrorizing anyone caught out alone. At close proximity, its laughter could seemingly freeze the blood, or cause mad panic and wild flight. It fed on our fear, and continued to grow in power. We sent an emisary to the local lord, but when he returned, he reported that the lord had simply laughed and said that we'd have to solve this problem on our own - he had his own affairs to attend to, and couldn't spare anyone to deal with a "mad gleeman". He did suggest that the villagers might want to seek help from a small local monestary, though no one in the village was aware that there was one nearby. The next day, while the villagers were arguing about what to do, a small, strange looking man walked into the village. He appeared genial, speaking haltingly and with an odd accent. He told them that he was searching for his brother, who he believed had some time ago established a small school in this general area. Noone in the village knew of any school, but perhaps, if he had a minute, he could assist them with a troublesome creature that had taken up residence in their community? Surprisingly, to my mind, he agreed, saying that he would see if there was anything that he could do. The townsfolk, though somewhat dubious, were in no position to turn away help, so they showed him to the ruined temple. There began what was clearly the single most astounding event of my young life. When the stranger arrived at the temple, the Ghost began screaming and pelting him with stones from the top of the walls. My fellow villagers, and indeed I myself, fully expected this small man to cast some wonderous magic spell, instantly ridding us of our tormentor. But that is not what happened. Instead, the man carefully lowered his small knapsack to the ground, picked up his walking stick, and ran straight up the nearest wall, to a ledge that I had climbed to on occasion, some 40 feeet up from the ground. For the first time since its appearance, the Ghost was, briefly, silent. The cacophany that erupted from it thereafter sent many of the villagers fleeing to their homes, and the remainder, myself included, took cover where ever we could.The traveller paused only a moment on the ledge, and then ran through a glassless window, along the arch of a buttress, and up a higher buttress, to reach one of the highest ledges on the walls, a frequent haunt of the Laughing Ghost. The Ghost itself jibbered and howled from the other side of the temple, throwing what rocks it could find or pull loose at this trespasser in its territory. The small man ran along the ledge before seemingly effortlessly leaping some thirty feet or more to a section of the opposite wall, landing on top of it and challenging the Ghost. It screamed and fled along the wall, but the visitor followed, and when it hesitated before leaping to a new section of wall, he struck it with his staff. It wheeled, and, brandishing fangs that none of us had noticed before, sprung upon the visitor. Somehow, though they both stood atop the ruined wall, he evaded it and struck again with his staff, and then the creature turned and fled in earnest, pursued at every step by the small man with the staff. It all ended quite suddenly, after a dizzying series of twists and leaps and sprints along spans of stone no wider than the palm of my hand; the staff connected one last time with a thunderous Bang! In a small puff of oily smoke, the creature was no more. I was awestruck.The visitor carefully decended from the heights, stepping lightly, yet still picking his way with all the dignity and grace of a lord decending the front stairs of his keep. The townsfolk were speachless, until one ventured to ask " is it gone?". He smiled, nodded once affirmatively, and reached down to the ground to retrieve his pack.The possibilities of what I had just seen were astounding. Beyond the fact the the Ghost, which had proven to be immune to any weapons that we villagers could bring to bare, could be dispatched with a simple walking stick, was the idea that such effortless movement could even be possible. That odd little man had run right up the wall! And it seemed so simple... all one had to do was to leap, and upon contact with the wall, to transfer their weight just so - thereby transforming horizontal momentum into vertical movement! And if the balance remained right, another step could conceivably be taken, thrusting upwards, and another! While the townsfolk looked about for signs of the Laughing Ghost, I moved to a quiet area, one of my favorite climbing spots, to try my theory. After a short running start, I leapt upon the wall, intending to run upwards as I had just seen the stranger do. Of course, that's not what happened. As I picked myself up, it seemed that if I waited a bit longer to jump and pushed more up than forward, perhaps it would work. I took a few steps back, wiped the blood from my nose, and tried again. This time I actually took one step up the wall, though my elation was short-lived as I fell to the floor from nearly eight feet up, knocking the wind out of myself. As I lay, gasping for breath, I heard a voice say "look at Coqui, trying to run on the walls like the stranger!", and laughter rang out. Now, mixed with the happy laughter of relief came the colder sound of ridicule: "Coqui's going to do it too!" "Save us from the Ghost, Coqui." "Run up the wall little frog." "Oops, you can't do it!" It continued from there. The other children had seen me. I tried to tune them out, but they kept teasing, and though I kept trying at the wall, I felt my confidence began to slip away. Maybe they were right, after all; nobody had ever seen anyone do such a thing before. Even some of the adults, who did not typically join in the teasing, were starting to taunt me, and the mood was turning uglier by the minute. I knew I had to escape. A small curtain wall nearby was pierced by a tall, narrow window. I did not feel up to confronting the crowd just now, so I seized on that window as my escape route. I leapt through, tucked into a roll when I hit the ground, and then bounced up and jumped around a corner, out of sight of the villagers inside. Standing there, as if waiting for me, was the traveller. I was frozen in surprise. He regarded me for a moment from under partially closed eyelids, and as I gathered breath to defend myself, he said "You see possibility... where others see only the impossible... that is perhaps... the most important part". His voice was strangely gravelly and airy at the same time.I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. After a brief wait, he continued, "Do you know... why the people reacted... the way they did"?I was finally able to focus, and after a moment's thought I said "yes, they were terrified of the ghost, and very relieved to be free of it, yet at the same time, they were frustrated at their own impotence in not being able to deal with it. Their frustrations were simply transferred onto the nearest target, which happened to be me, I guess". "Your insight... speaks well of you" he said. My heart sank, however, when he asked "did you really believe... that you could run up... the wall?" Was I to now face ridicule from a stranger? There was nothing left but the truth."It seemed possible. You made it look easy"."Such things... can only be mastered after much training... and you have not had that training..." His voice was harder now."Of course not." "Then there is no shame... in your attempt... too often those who believe that they already know the outcome... do not even make a first attempt... and in not doing so... fail without even trying" he replied.I felt like I was having some difficulty following the conversation; approval, admonition, approval, which way was this going? " I... I should be going, the people inside are likely to come looking for me soon, and I'd prefer not to be here when they do." "As you will", he replied, placing his hands together, palm to palm in front of his chest, and inclining his head slightly towards me. He stepped back, and I turned and ran.All the way home. And locked the door behind me.It was the next season, nearly a year later, when, according to my mother, a barefoot young men dressed in coarse-woven brown tunic and trousers appeared at the hut. In much more cultured Brandobian than we were accustomed to hearing, he accurately described me, and inquired as to where I could be found. When she appeared unsure, he merely smiled, and presented her with a wooden tube, capped at one end with a larger knob of a different kind of wood; asking that she give it to me upon my return.I was gathering nuts at the time, so Mother could truthfully say that she did not know exactly where I was. Later that afternoon I saw that same man walking quickly up a narrow, infrequently used trail leading further up one of the canyons. As I watched him, from a concealed position in one of the trees, I thought about several occasions over the last year when I had felt that someone was watching me, seen flashes of movement in the corner of my eye, heard unusual, but faint, sounds - oddly these had all happened in this canyon, too. I briefly considered following him, to see where he was going, but decided against it as it was getting late and I was hungry.The tube contained a scroll, which apparently was an invitation to study, though the message was comprised primarily of foreign symbols which I had no idea how to enunciate. Also included was a map, which was a simple affair showing both the village and the school. Mother looked at the invitation, deciphered what she could, and smiled sadly. She cupped my chin in her hand, and looked into my eyes, her brown to my gray, and said "you will go to this school". "You will work very hard, and you will master all that they teach. In this way, you will grow beyond what this poor village offers, and you will find your place in the world. But you must always remember the lessons of the old ways, for their wisdom has been tested and found true.""Be true to yourself.""Hold only what you can use, and use what you hold.""Do not seek power for power's sake, for it binds stronger than any chain.""Find your place, and then take your place.""True friends share a life; the loss of a friend lessens you as well."I left the next morning. Walking down the trail, with the chill of dawn on my skin, I wondered what this road would bring.</blockquote>

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