Chapter 1; Enter the Forest
	STARK LIKE A GRAY NIGHT, HE WANDERED.  PONDERING, HE
sifted thoughts that left and came to his mind as quick as there was a noise to set it off.
His wide eyes searched the dead woods, maybe for life, maybe for treasure, maybe for
something else that wasn’t worth wasting life on.  But to him, his own life was not worth
the worry or carefulness.  It wasn’t worth a damn thing.
	He didn’t know where he came from.  He knew where he was going, but the fact
he didn’t know who he was or what he was made the journey seem as if he was blind.
	I could be a killer...I could be a friend...I could be a husband.    I could be no
one.
	But being no one would have not filled his heart with an anticipation to walk on.
He would of already killed himself if he was no one...he felt as if the journey had a person
waiting at the end of it; waiting to embrace his body, and love him.
	But he wasn’t a fool.  If the journey didn’t turn up one with a pure love for him,
he would just slit his throat right there.  He wasn’t the patient type, or even one that
thought allot.  He was one of emotions the flowed with words and actions.  He saw things
differently,  but to him, it was how things were to be.
	But the journey was like a bad memory.  It only popped into his mind rarely but
still remained at the back of his mind.  He couldn’t get it from his mind, and he wasn’t
dwelling on it.	
	“Maybe what if you are just a no one, then what?” The boy had not been traveling
alone.  A small animal stuck close to him.  It has probably wandered into the forest. Her
voice was softened by the forest and was a high voice to the point of squeaking.
	It was a short animal,  fur a deep purple and a horn in the center of it’s forehead.
The eyes were wide and blank with a dark pink,  and it’s razory teeth were overlaid with
rough skin that eventually faded into fur.	
	The animal was much like the boy.   They both didn’t know who they were or
what they came from, both in a sense.
	“Then I die, simple as that.”  The animal scurried as the boy moved through a
broken tree.
	“Why do you want to die?  You have always been so suicidal.”   The boy did not
stop walking.  He knew that was true; it didn’t faze him.  He wasn’t proud to be, but he
wasn’t going to hide it.  Snorting out smoke from his nostrils,  he burnt the embers at the
end of his cigarette on the metal brace on his hand.   He raised the cigarette to his mouth
again, and inhaled the soothing tobacco exhaust.
	The young animal jumped to his shoulder, and threw their paw to take the
cigarette from his mouth,  but the boy just swatted the animal to the ground.  It fell onto a
soft leaf pile and started behind him.   
	“Dying is just leaving.  Leaving things is not so bad.”  He wouldn’t know, of
course.  He didn’t remember leaving anywhere because he had been in the forest for so
long.
	The white mist had clouded his greyish memory into a sort of oblivion.  He studied
the puffs that came from his mouth, and he threw it in the air faster.  It raised above his
slowly and tainted the sharp forest atmosphere.
	‘I am that cloud...I poison people with my presence and remain in their minds to
naw away at sanity.’
	“Stop smoking!! Where’d you get that from anyway?”  The boy turned to look at
the animal while he ran his way through the thick branches.
	“I stole it from some old man.  I also got this.”  He lifted the 200 pikki bill in the
air, flaunting it.  “Now we can eat tonight,  Quatia!”  The animal disagreed.
	Quatia was of a holy element.  Stealing, lying, cheating, anything that was a sin
was very wrong to her.  But she had no one to go to.
	And by defying her element, she was weakening her power and herself.  She still
seemed very hyper, but inside she was dying.
	The boy laughed, recalling stealing from the stupid old goat.  He wasn’t just dumb,
he was also unclever and slow.  Those targets weren’t necessarily hard, but they were fun
to watch when they see their stuff was gone.
	“I’d wish you would not do that.”  Quatia’s head was being beaten hard by
something. So hard she tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t go away.
	“Whatever...I need the money.  We need the money.”  The animal jumped and with
every breath she felt pain.  The pain would soon go away when she did something good. 
	Quatia set herself up to fly.  Her small wings were from a fairies spell many years
ago, on her ancestor, and ever since then, the Wella never shook that gene off. 
	Gliding into the air, she batted her wings and flew right infront of the boy’s face,
grabbed the cigarette with her claws, and threw it to the side into dark forest.
	The boy was seriously surprised.  He’d never seen a Wella spread wings;  it almost
seemed cool to him.  Quatia landed softly on a branch. 
	She was feeling much better.  Her head started feeling nice thoughts of nice things,
and she was content.
	“Humf...I didn’t know you had wings.  Fairy wings were the last thing I thought
Wellas had.  Why don’t you have feathered wings yet?”  Quatia turned a little angry.
	“Only very old and wise Wellas earn feathered wings.  That was part of the spell;
fairies can’t be very mad at us for very long, yah know.”  The boy recalled seeing a few
hundred Wellas fly toward the sun while they had these gigantic wings.  The wings had to
be at least twenty feet across at average. He thought they were just fat birds. “We’re so
darn cute.”  Vanity was a sin, but she was just being her cute self.
	That maybe was the only time he really saw the sun; he met an edge of the forest
that left off into the sea...all he saw was sea and nothing else until it met the sky.  He
decided that’s where he wanted to die if he ever thought it was the end. 
	“Yes, you are very cute.”  He said, being true to what he thought.  He reached into
his side pocket,  grabbed another cigarette and his ‘woman-shaped’ liter, and brought the
flame to the somewhat soggy ‘rette, and lit it with a few puffs added.  Quatia made a
disappointed sigh. “I’ll quit someday, I promise.”  Yeah, he won’t be able to smoke when
he kills himself, right?
	“Loer...”  Loer indulged in the smoke.  “Loer!!” Loer looked over to the animal.
	“What is it?” He said, a little of a bitchy tone in his voice.  She sat to the right and
behind him.  She backed up quickly toward him, and he nearly fell over from what he saw.
	There was something there;  giant and covering the sky that was shown beyond the
trees.
	Above the flat canopy, Loer saw that which what was evident.  He was in the
middle of an attack. 
	No, we was to be attacked. 
	The wind parted the trees like a child parting grass.  The forest that was there was
now on the ground, completely, making only the trees fall that were blocking the great
goddesses’ way.
	“Is that who I think it is?” Quatia asked. 
	“It’s Foresta,  the goddess of the forest...but, how?”  Above the high sky, Foresta,
the Sense-god began to talk to Loer. 
	“I am Foresta.  I have been called up from the grounds of these forests to destroy
you.  My master is the great Derithal, Kopolpian!”  Someone entered at the part of the
forest ground.  Loer’s eyes shook.
	“The old man!  Oh crap!! He found me! He owns Foresta!” The man’s hands led
to the heavens, and a giant green ball was what held up the great monster, Foresta. Loer
remembered there was no possible way to knock that ball out of the caller’s hands unless
you defeat the god and seal it back until power is gained to summon it again. 
	“How are we supposed to beat that?” Quatia asked.  The goddess sat on a green
cloud sky, her intimate parts deftly covered by shrouds and shrouds of leaves, her hair
billowing fast in the high wind.  Some trees that parted had led up to her like a staircase. 
	Loer grasped a fist.
	“Dammit!”  When he felt a weird pressure, he looked at the item in his hand.  His
liter was leaking gas.  “Oh man!! This...and now this?! Life sucks!!”  Loer reached to the
side of his chest and took the blade he had from his hilt.  Quatia looked at him and
panicked.
	“Loer!! No! Don’t you see?”  Loer looked at the blade, looked at the liter, and
analyzed Foresta’s attack that was about to begin. 
	“She takes the leaves covering her face and turns them at you to suffocate you!!
Just use your liter!”  The sky darkened.  Taking the power from her face, she lifted the
mask of leaves off.  Then, with her hand,  she directed the leaves straight at him.
	“La----a-st B-r---eaa----th!” The goddess shouted, then all the leaves came straight
to Loer.

	Loer stayed still until the last moment, then rolled to the staircase of trees.  He
flicked his liter, looking back at the leaves, then back at the liter.  It wouldn’t light up after
two tries, then he just plain the dodged the string of attacks.  He was hit on his face and
two parts on his leg.  The blood was flowing easily.  Loer wiped the blood.  He jumped
and lept from the leaves nearly six times until he got another chance at the liter. 
	This time it lit. But the leaves came so close to Loer that he burned the leaves.
Foresta stumbled.
	“What?  Fire?  From that?  What is that?”  Foresta became angry.  She re-created
the leaves again and sent them after Loer.  Loer was already having trouble getting the leaf
that was inching it way to his face, eventually to his mouth, to suffocate him. 
	The liter was acting up again.  But this was no time to act up. Loer smelled the gas
and smelled his blood. 
	Something came from the forest.  Chantings, and a swell of magic power.  Loer
saw who it was.  He did a double take,  looked back at the leaves, and they knocked him
down. 
	The person who came landed right infront of Loer.  Foresta began to make another
attack when the girl who came lit the tree-staircase into an inferno.  The fire raced up that
staircase, hit the goddess, and burned her to the ground;  the spinning body blew up air
when it fell.  The forest lifted itself straight up again. 
	The girl was a person from Loer’s past.  A princess that was thrown out of the
castle for alleged treason against the king.  Loer had only known her once, as a child;  she
had grown into a fairly beautiful  young woman.  He had a few memories, but he himself
had no idea what kind of person he was.
	The girl walked to Loer slowly.  She hadn’t seen all of what happened to him.  He
was still awake, and she knew it, and bothered to shake his shoulder.
	“Are you awake?  Hello?” Her voice was very feminine and almost dainty. 
	Loer tried to flip himself over.  He made it halfway, and saw the girl. 
	“Diadre?” Diadre gasped dramatically.
	“You...you know who I am?”  Loer wasn’t very sure of himself.  He just blurted
the word that he remembered from somewhere.
	“You are princess Diadre, aren’t you?” She gave him a leer. She turned from him.
	“How do you know me?” Loer did not change his face. 
	“Humf...I didn’t think you would remember me...” Loer stood up. “You are far
too self centered.” Diadre took offense to that.  She flipped her curly strawberry blonde
hair and snubbed him.  Opening one eye to look down at him, she said:
	“Loer.” She She turned from him. “You are still the same suicidal creep you
always were.” Loer shrugged.  Diadre smiled.  “Oh, man!! I’ve missed you so much!” She
came up to him and gave him a hug.  He gave her a strange look and tugged away from
her. 
“Geez, you were always desperate for guys but this is a little too much.” Diadre giggled.
	“Loer, you know you are the only one for me...” She said jokingly, but in a good
way. 
	Diadre had a sweet personality. She was very uncaring to rude-types, usually,
because they shut-out people before they give them a chance.  But she had a liking for
Loer.  She always thought he was cute in a rough way.
	Loer thought Diadre was slightly naive and underexpierenced.  He knew she liked
him, she told him a lot, and in a way, he thought that she was the only girl he could ever
want to be with.  She didn’t judge him for wanting to kill himself alot, because she
admitted she does that too, just with not as much enthusiasm as he.
	“What are you doing here Diadre?”  Diadre let go of him and wondered of to a
nearby pond.  She placed her toe in the water, and laughed.
	“I’m here to find a very special Derithal, Loer.  He has a key that is needed to
unlock something for me...” Loer walked to her and lent against a tree.
“What is his name?” She looked toward him...maybe trying to remember the person she
was talking about. 
	“His name is Job...” Loer grinned.
	“I know Job...you don’t want to mess around with him.”  She got up from where
she was and looked him in the eye, placing her fist on his chest, then giving him a
determined stare. 
	Diadre always seemed determined...
	“I will have to meet him.  And you will have to help me.”  Loer noticed how close
she was to him and gave her a look she was giving him.
	“And if I refuse?”  She took a step back and grinned.
	“Then I’ll have to insist.”  Diadre stuck her hand into her bag and pulled something
that was radiating light from her hand.  “These are called rubaic stones.  One stone alone
is worth 25, 000 pikki.  I have a total of 9 stones.  You do the math.”  Quatia gained flight
once again and looked at the stones. “To make this REALLY quicker, it’s 225,000 pikki.”
Loer’s mouth dropped straight to the floor.
	“But those stones belonged to Queen Tersana! How did you get them?”  Diadre
gave the mystic animal a satisfied look.
	“Aunt Tersana is my only way into the royal family, but since she has been missing,
I can only bear these stones.  I am the only one who can give the person the right to bear
the stones.” Loer started thinking. “That means, if you want these stones to be sold, you
have to have me there, and---” She turned to Loer, “To have me there, you must please
me...get the deal?”  Loer rubbed his chin.
	“So, if I help you find Job, you’ll give me the right to sell the stones, and then give
them the right to bear them?”  Diadre knodded.  “Me ‘n Quatia are going to have to
discuss this.”  Loer directed Quatia to a nearby dark patch.
	“Yes,” Loer and Quatia said at the same time.  The returned to Diadre. 
	Diadre smiled.
	Oh, well.  I was going to die today, anyway.