Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (essential reading .txt) 📗

And in the north, at the foot of the Mazurman mountains, was a field dotted with flowers. Lakes of buttercups, hills of roses, and rivers of tulips... Birds flying over this colorful ocean would sometimes stop in awe, risking colliding with the rocky hills because of their carelessness.

In the center of this field, not far from the lake in which various fish splashed merrily, was a small house. So small it was that it could barely be called a house. It looked like a cabin. Inside, save for a kitchen, was one small room in which the owner of this house lay. He was young, about twenty-three, with a lovely face and a body shaped by years of hard work. Opening his eyes, the young man sat up and gazed over at a little box with colored lenses on the table next to the bed. One was brown, the other blue. Having given it a thought, the young man chose the blue one. Today he wanted to look the world with eyes the color of the azure sea, and not those the color of fertilizer.

Stretching, he got up, scratched his head, and sniffed. Rolling out of bed, he gathered his clothes and got dressed: patched-up and well-worn trousers, a canvas shirt with ribbons on the chest, and a pair of sandals made of hemp and wood. The look was completed by a wooden staff that stood leaning against the wall. It looked like the most ordinary staff; so plain and mundane…

“Breakfast,” the man yawned and hit the floor with the staff.

The air rippled, walls shook, dishes rattled and windows covered by boards rather than glass quivered. The logs in the stove caught fire on their own and cracked cheerfully; drawers opened and utensils flew into the air. A knife twitched and started cutting the lettuce that had flown onto the chopping block from the wicker basket by the door. The kitchen, which was a couple of feet from the bedroom, seemed to come to life.

The water boiled in the kettle that had once been a soldier’s helmet. Leaves of tea flew from their box into the mug. Slices of fragrant bread landed into the breadbasket and were quickly covered with lovely, golden butter without any knife.

The young man was a wizard, you see, and not the kind you meet at the carnivals that coax you into spending your hard-earned coin to see their cheap tricks. Sure, he didn’t know how to turn stone into gold nor did he know the secret of eternal youth, but he was still a wizard. Sitting down on a stool that ran up to him, the young man rubbed his hands and began his meal. A black scarf flew over to him from one of the drawers and wrapped itself around his ashen hair.

As he chewed his bread with pleasure and ate his fried eggs, wagging his finger at the confused pan, it had gotten it wrong again), the young man thought about what he’d do today. It was about time to go to the market and sell herbs, as he needed coin to buy more food. He couldn’t live on roots and berries forever.

Having finished his breakfast, he got up and hit the floor with the staff once more. The dishes spun and leaped into a barrel full of water. The kitchen towel wiped them clean, and they settled to dry.

The door opened on their own, creaking with its hinges as if it to say “Good day!” to the young man. The moment he stepped foot on the green grass, the seemingly solid house wavered as if it were made of fog and disappeared. There was only a small grassy meadow.

The illusion left much to be desired, but who in their right mind would come all the way here looking for something? Here in the mountains, there were no dwarves with their eternal fairs and cheap metals or monsters to hunt or the gloomy drows, with their protruding fangs and skin the color of wet stone.

Who then was this young wizard that so carefully gathered herbs and plants into his satchel? No one knew the answer to this complicated question. Everyone thought he was just a Ternite, but he knew for sure that he wasn’t human Worst of all, he knew he wasn’t a Fae either. The only thing he did know was his name.

“Ash!” squeaked something near his sandals.

The boy looked down and saw Maverie, a flower fairy, so tiny that she could fit comfortably in a teaspoon. Though, she insisted that she was just fine living in a tulip. Just like many other flower fairies.

Smiling, Ash squatted and held out his little finger. Maverie fluttered over to him, flapping her tiny little wings. Landing on his finger, she dusted her dress sewn out of blades of grass and petals so thin and delicate that a harder wind could tear them, and so valuable that any alchemist would gladly give a gold coin for a single petal. But Ash didn’t seem to care that he was holding a fortune in his hands.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”

“You woke everyone up stomping around like that!” she said, voice sounding more normal now as Ash had brought her closer to his ear.

“Sorry, sorry, I forgot that you sleep till noon.”

Maverie snorted and puffed her cheeks. Fairies, which many thought were a figment of the imagination of Ternites and those that had had one too many mugs of mead to drink, woke up only when the flower buds opened, which was usually at noon. “Where are you going?”

“To the village. I’m going to sell some herbs and flowers in the market.”

“Take me with you!”

Ash smiled. A couple of times of a week, Maverie would ask him to bring her with him, but he always refused.