* Finding the Farduunrblur

*

“What do you mean we’re about to be expelled?” Aesandoral panicked.

“I mean,” Rionriv turned her attention towards the other girls. “We’re not in good standing after the whole Skirrtlegirt and Greeythric business.”

A sudden tightness settled in my chest. Not at the expulsion reveal, but something else. Something that had been slowly nibbling away at my mind since I arrived in this world. My world. The world I painstakingly crafted for the majority of my life.

Oh no, what the fug are these names? I thought as one of my worst nightmares came to pass.

Fug! Was everyone who read my story right? Were the names I wrote into this world too complicated and ridiculous? The girls' names, I get. But Skirrtle-huh and Greeyth-who? No. No. No.

“I-I’m sorry, the wh-who and where the fug?” I stammered, trying to keep it together.

“Our failed summer project,” Aesandoral explained with the utmost seriousness. “We were helping Professor Skirrtlegirt delve deep into the Tombs of Sir Greeythric Talsissod to collect the Farduunrblur stones.”

“Pffffft—!”

I couldn’t hold back any longer, quickly releasing the loudest and most resounding laugh I’d had in years. Unlike my trauma breaks, this mental crack was something else entirely. It was a pure, uncensored moment of hilarity-induced despair. My laughter was manic. Hysterical even. Two fries short of a Joyous Meal from MacRonalds kind of crazy!

Laughing so hard that I began to cry, I clutched my aching ribs.

What have I done? This is why you don’t play God, kids. Those names are so stupid! Is this what the world really spat out to fill in the blanks I left? This is what it thought was okay? What. Have. I. Done?

“This is no laughing matter. Some of us are students here and want to remain students.” Rionriv protested.

“Why, though?” I asked, quieting my laughter long enough to wipe the tears from my eyes. “School is dumb. So what if you make a little more money at the end? If it doesn’t make you happy, it’s a waste—”

“Because it matters to me!” Rionriv slapped the table. “Now, if you want us to help you save the world or whatever, you’ll need to help us stay in school.”

“Honestly, it would be a lot easier if we ditched and I just made you rich and famous in other ways. Be cool and drop out of—”

“No!” Rionriv stood with a start. 

She marched towards my side of the booth to get in my face. As her hand came towards me, I instinctively flinched away.

“If we’re going to help you, we graduate. That’s it! That’s not up for discussion.”

“Okay, okay—chill.” I sighed, fearful of getting sucker punched again. “I promise that you will graduate. One way or another.”

Taking a moment to think, I wondered what they could have meant by their summer project. I knew that every adventuring triop had to do winter and summer quests to put what they had learnt into practical application, but I had no idea who the professor they mentioned was. I had never heard of the guy, or the tomb for that matter.

“If I’m going to help you with this…” I finally spoke up. “Squirter-girth greydick business—“

“Skirrtlegirt and Greeythric.” Rionriv hissed in reply.

“Sure-sure, whatever. If I’m going to help with that, I’ll need as much information as you can give me.”

“Why don’t you just tell us, gifted boy?” The sorceress crossed her arms.

Rolling my eyes, I inhaled a deep breath before sighing.

“Humour me…”

Luckily, Aesandoral was more forthcoming with the information. After a bit of discussion, I discovered this tomb was on the edge of the Ter’aquit and Anak’hati regions. These were the two other major players of Moal’aw that competed for land with the Capital region and soon-to-be nuclear crater of Sutin’eli.

The location in question was a few days southwest of Squalls Crossing in the Tera’quit region and equidistant straight west from Dry Shire in the Anak’hati province. It was an unmarked site said to hold a weapon from a hero of the Two-Generation War—a devastating conflict that nearly tore Moal’aw apart almost two hundred years ago.

Suddenly, as the conversation reached its peak, I remembered something similar in my story. It was vague, mainly because I had only ever included the location in rumours that spread around the world after the war's tragic conclusion. But, as with all good rumours, myths, and legends, there had always been some truth to them. This one was that a piece of a puzzle crafted by a forgotten mage had been lost to time. If found, it would allow those who wielded it to dive deeper into the hero's crypt.

That was when I remembered where the truth was hidden—

“A Tale of Earth and Fae,” I announced excitedly, looking to the girls. “I-It’s a book deep in the Grand Central Library, and I believe it has what you’re looking for.”

“Explain?” Rionriv said with a cocked eyebrow.

Chugging down the rest of my drink and tossing the appropriate coinage to the table, I nodded to the triop.

"Walk and talk time!"

And, as we walked to the library at the centre of campus, I explained almost everything. I provided a lore-rich deep-dive about a book written decades ago chronicling a small, cursed village. The story followed the discovery of a sealed ‘tomb’ deep in a nearby cave system and the village's downfall shortly after. Over time, the tome in question became saturated in the site's cursed energy and, through years of mishandling, eventually found its way into the basement archives of Al’Magi.

Anyone who found the book and opened its leather cover disappeared. And what those who had never seen the inside of the tome couldn’t have known was that upon opening it, the unfortunate wielder and everyone immediately around them were transported into the story of this village's final moments. Once there, if they managed to survive the night, they would be released and rewarded with an ancient stone of protection, which I believed was what the triop was searching for.

An author goes into the story they authored, then goes deeper into a story within the story they authored. Things are getting meta here…

“And if you don’t?” Sharzin asked, pulling me from my award-winning movie idea.

“If I don’t what?” I replied as we rounded the final stack of books and approached where I knew our quarry would be.

“Survive the night?”

“You die?” I responded matter-of-factly. “But don’t worry, the story was straightforward. We have, like, three actual enemies to worry about. Plus, it’s mainly existential psychological horror, which is so lame. But I really think it’s the thing you’re looking for.”

Glancing around the dimly lit, forgotten stack, I searched for the markers. “Alright. Grand Central Library, Sub-Basement Two, Stack Eighteen, Column Six, Row One.”

With a flick of my wrist, a small orb of light pooled in my palm. No brighter than the flame of a candle, it drifted into the air, shedding its glow over the space.

“Whoa—wait!” Rionriv gasped. “How’d you use a spell without an incantation?”

Ignoring her, I continued to mutter the quest's location like a mantra. Each whisper of my breath stirred the dust already kicked up by our presence. And then I found it.

A simple book with a black leather cover. It was slim, no more than an inch or two thick, with two distinct markings.

Adorning the cover was a leaf with runic symbols etched across its surface, and at the bottom of the spine, the letters ‘MM’ were scrawled in glimmering gold ink.

“Hey, that’s it! The Farduunrblur.” Aesandoral gasped, placing a finger to her lips. “So, wait, this book will show us how to find it?”

“Okay, I’ll explain it again,” I said as I turned to face the party. “We’re going to be transported into a story—specifically, into the Village of Crathdaug, like a hundred or so years ago. We’ll need to kill the three Karryonth who are tormenting the site with their telepathic fearmongering. You know. Classic right-winger shit. With all going well, you should each walk away with a cool one-sixty-five gold pieces each and your flan-burger stone—or whatever.”

“And you know where everything is?” Sharzin asked curiously.

“Yes! Asterisk. The caves may give us some trouble, because if we don’t kill the creatures immediately, there’s a chance they blow up the whole cavern system, killing us. But that won’t happen, I believe in you three.”

“But we’ll be fine because you know everything?” Rionriv asked, keeping her hand placed on the cover.

“Are we all ready?” I ignored her and prepared to open the book.

“We’ll be fine, right?” Rionriv asked one more time, her palm firmly pressing the cover down.

Opening the book from the bottom, I allowed the pages to spread as a blast of inky energy flowed out and swirled around us. One moment, we were in the dusty stacks of the library, and the next, we were standing on a single deserted dock.