Young Writers Society

I was stuck on a writers block about my new story 'Elswyre' (pronounced else where) and I decided to create a storybook so I could get ideas. Feel free to ask me any questions about the story book and my story, so yeah.

A few things about the story. This is a story about elves with ten different 'kynds' or types. You may choose from these kynds:



You may only be in one kynd. You may have as many characters as you want. Feel free to make up animals to have as pets but the maximum of pets is 5. A little more on the land of Elswyre. The land is ruled by the matriarch (a queen) and there is a council of ten, one representing each kynd. There are ten major kynd cities. You may choose which one to live in and you may travel around others as well. Or you may not want to live in one at all and make up your own small town. Here are the cities:



You may also choose your career.



Have fun!

Form

Devlin
Devlin opened her eyes to a shining light coming through her window. The sun was up and the jewels on her bedside sparkled, throwing rainbows across the room. She got up and stretched. It was another fine morning in Lacan and Devlin couldn't wait. She sprang out of bed and pulled on her regular tunic and leggings. They were her favorite because of the nice blue color.

"Good morning, Paola!" she called to her harlequin paanchi friend. Paola opened her big blue eyes and yawned. Paola was a water spirit that kind of looked like a panda that was a clear blue and was the size of a small bird.

Devlin raced through her house shouting good mornings to her family, who were still waking up. When she reached the entrance of her house, she put her hands above her head and whooped. Her house was a small, but airy one in the outskirts of Lacan. IT was in the middle of the pond and it mostly consisted of thran wood, a dark/caramel wood that shone in the sun.

Devlin dove into the pond and started swimming. Being a water kynd, she could stay under for however long she wanted to. The pond was beautiful underwater with fish, plants, and of course, spirits. When she finally resurfaced, she shot out of the water with amazing grace.

"Come one, Paola!" Devlin called, "Onvyr is waiting!" She raced down the smooth stone path leading to the first layer of the city. The first layer was where all of the farmers, blacksmiths, and other people selling things were located. Devlin raced down the path leading to the blacksmith shop, Paola perched on her shoulder. When she finally got there, Onvyr was banging away at a piece of metal.

"Onvyr!" called Devlin. He looked up and smiled that warm smile. Onvry and Devlin had been best friends since they could walk. And I hope, thought Devlin, we can be more than friends soon. Onvyr put his piece of metal down and went to greet Devlin.

"Good morning, Devlin!" he said, "Are you ready?" Devlin nodded in excitement.

"You've been promising me this for a long time Onvyr!" He laughed and put and arm around her shoulders. Devlin looked down and blushed.

"Then let's go. I have some food packed for us. And I see you've brought Paola." Devlin nodded and let Paola jump into her hands.

"Well, she should feel right at home. We are going to the Spirit woods today." Devlin nodded.

"I've always wanted to go, but no one has ever gone with me. I want to share this with a friend."

Onvyr
Onvyr looked at Devlin, her eyes shining with pleasure.

"Well then," he said, "Let's go. I've only been here twice, keep in mind." Devlin nodded and the twosome started walking down the path.

"Onvyr, I have a question," said Devlin. Onvyr looked over at her and motioned for her to continue.

"Why have you decided to become a blacksmith apprentice even though you aren't earth kynd?" Onvyr shrugged and looked over the lively ponds of Lacan.

"I guess I just wanted to be different. I wanted to be a wind kynd blacksmith so then I can show others that kynd doesn't matter if you really want that profession." Devlin looked at him in awe.

"Onvyr, you are just amazing!" Onvyr blushed and glanced down at his feet. The cobblestones were smooth and little droplets of water were hanging onto the surrounding vegetation. This was one of the reasons Onvyr loved Lacan. It was a village built half on the water and it's streets were made of cobblestone and boardwalks leading from place to place. It was in the midst of a heavily vegetated part of the lake and the plant life was absolutely stunning. He closed his eyes and took it all in. He loved his life.

Calidus Ignis:

A yawn escaped Calidus Ignis' lips as she finished packing up. The last month had been successful. It usually took twice that time to sell all of her wares, but the people of Lacan all seemed to want her trinkets and treasures she had bought. It was time for her to return Pyriux to purchase more wares. After that, she would head to Naventide.

She had gotten up long before the crack of dawn to pack. So, while the other stall owners were just opening up for the day, she was about to hit the long road home. She glanced at her stall with another yawn, checking to see if she had forgotten something.

And she had. Sitting on the top of table was a silver ring. She didn't know how she had forgotten it - the black gem on it was inscribed with the design of a white skull. Lidus was about to grab it when a guy appeared out of nowhere and picked it up.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. She tried to grab it out of his hands, but he held it high above her head and continued to inspect it.

"How much are you offering this for?" he questioned. It was his quiet voice, laced with death, that made her fall silent. She finally looked him over.

His hair, short and messy, was black with several white highlights. He was frustratingly taller than her. His skin was the same shade of pale that vampires supposedly had. His outfit consisted of a black tunic, black leggings, black boots, and an ankle-length jacket with an extremely large collar. Around his neck was a choker, and a silver skull dangled on a silver chain above his chest. His ears were pierced with multiple earrings, all the same shade of silver as his necklace. He looked down at her with a silver eye. In the place of his right eye was a strange eye patch.

"Death kynd," she whispered, eyes widening. She had never dealt with a death kynd before. Her only knowledge of them came from rumors - the death kynd barely left their city, save for the ambassador.

"How much are you offering it for?" he asked once again.

She stammered out her price.

His eye narrowed as he brought the ring closer to his face. He finally agreed with an ominous nod, pulling out a bag of coins from one of his jacket's large pockets. "I see that you have closed up your stall." His voice was low, quiet. It made shivers race up Lidus' spine.

"I-I finished selling everything," she managed to reply. Her heart had to be beating loud enough for him to hear it, and it couldn't possibly be beating at a healthy speed.

He slipped the ring onto his ring finger on his right hand. "Where are you headed?"

"Why are you asking?" she said, somehow gathering up the courage to not give a straight answer. The stare he directed at her made her immediately regret it, but she stood her ground.

"No one else has responded like that today," he informed her. "Most ran off by this point in the conversation."

Unsurprisingly...

"I need someone to come with me to the Spirit Woods."

She had to have misheard him. "Excuse me?"

"I need someone to come with me to the Spirit Woods," he repeated. He waited for some sort of response from her, as if he thought he was asking her to do something completely reasonable.

"Are you crazy?!" she exclaimed. "Do you have a death wish-"

A laugh escaped his lips. When she glared at him, he sheepishly said, "I'm a death kynd, so I found that funny..." He coughed, and when he spoke again, it was with the same tone of voice from before. "I need someone to come with me to the Spirit Woods. I do not have a death wish."

"Yes, I know you need to go there - you've said it three times already," she replied, growing impatient. "And you have to have a death wish, because no one in their right mind would go there! It plays with your mind, it's chock full of spirits and ghosts and all sorts of things that go bump in the night, and if you somehow manage to leave the forest, you might not even end up in Lacan!"

"I will pay you a high sum of money. I need someone who can scare off unwelcome...guests." He offered her a cold smile. "And a fire kynd fits that job description perfectly."

"Why do you need to go to the Spirit Woods when you're a death kynd?!" she exclaimed. "You can summon and control them, for crying out loud!"

He turned around so he was looking away from her. "We can't summon all of them," he simply said before beginning to walk away.

And though he tried his hardest to hide it, she could hear the sadness in his voice. Maybe that was the reason why she decided to postpone her return to Pyriux. Maybe that was the reason why she chased after him. And maybe, after falling into step next to him, that was the reason why she told him, "You better pay me a lot for this!"

Devlin
Devlin gazed around as they entered the spirit woods. The woods were green and full of life. Spirits of all kinds floated around and a few came so close, Devlin could reach out and touch them.

"I hope you know where your going Onvyr," said Devlin. Onvyr looked at her and ruffled her hair.

"I do, don't worry. We're going to one of my favorite places." The two walked deeper and deeper into the wood. Devlin closed her eyes to take it all in, when her eyes flew open.

"Onvyr," she said, "We're not alone."

Calidus Ignis:

Once they entered the Spirit Woods, Lidus instantly regretted it. Though the woods were beautiful with lush foliage, the spirits occasionally wandering across their path terrified her. Following the man's instructions - he still hadn't told her his name - she would create a ball of fire to ward them off.

And it worked. The minute she started waving the fire about, the spirits rushed out of their way. "What exactly are we looking for?" she asked. He remained silent, looking around them. "That's not an answer, you know."

"I know it isn't," he suddenly said, "but I'm not going to give you one."

"You did hire me."

He cast a glance over his shoulder at her. "To scare off different things. Not to find what I'm looking for." He bit his lip. "Although your presence certainly is helpful..."

She sighed and ran her free hand through her hair. "If you're not going to tell me why we're here, you can at least tell me your name."

His gaze returned to the forest before them. "My name is Torva Messor. What is yours?"

"Calidus Ignis," she replied. She narrowed her eyes. "You keep doing that."

"Doing what?" he innocently asked.

"You're doing it again!" she exclaimed. "You'll act all mysterious and like a necromancer one minute, but the next you're acting like a kid-" Without warning, he stopped. Lidus, surprised, bumped right into him. "Why are you stopping-"

"Sh," he whispered. "Do you hear that?"

She listened carefully.

"Onvyr," a girl started, "we're not alone."

Her voice was coming from close by. Exchanging a look with Torva, the two slowly walked in the girl's direction. I can't believe there's someone else stupid enough to come here...Wait, what if she's a ghost?!

Onvyr
Onvyr stopped and listened.

"I hear nothing but the spirits," he said, "Come on, lets keep going."

"But what about-"

"Come one, Devlin." Devlin reluctantly followed. Onvyr led the way down a winding path. Suddenly, two elves popped out of the bushes. Delvin yelped in surprise.

Calidus Ignis:

They found themselves face to face with two other elves. The female elf, the one who had given the startled yelp upon their entrance, had brown hair, blue eyes, and pale skin (not as pale as Torva's). The male elf she was with had extremely light blond hair (so light that it almost was white), pale blue eyes, and skin that was the same shade of pale as Torva's.

"Sorry for scaring you," Lidus apologized. When Torva remained silent, she elbowed him. He still didn't apologize. She gave a sheepish grin at the two. "My name is Calidus Ignis. I'm a fire kynd, as you probably can tell. I'm also a travelling bazaar stall owner." Torva wasn't even paying attention to the two now. He was staring at the forest. The look on his face made it seem like he had seen a ghost.

Then again, we are in the Spirit Forest, so he probably did.

"This is Torva Messor. He's a death kynd. I'm not sure what he does for a living-" She stopped upon looking next to her. Where Torva had been standing minutes before, there was only empty space. She frantically searched the area for him. Lidus finally located him entering the bushes. "Sorry, got to go!" she exclaimed, chasing after him.

"I saw him," she heard Torva mutter as he skid to a halt. She had the feeling she wasn't supposed to be listening in on this conversation. "Sanctus!" he yelled. "Sanctus, I know I saw you! Please come back! It's me, Torva! Torva Messor!" The desperation in his voice was clear as could be - he wanted to be with this Sanctus person more than anyone else in the entire world.

Lidus took a large gulp of air. "Who's Sanctus?"

He jumped in surprise. "You followed me," he said in disbelief.

"Well, you did hire me, after all." She crossed her arms and stared into his silver eye. "Who is this Sanctus person you were trying to catch up to?"

He hesitated. "An enemy."

"You're lying."

"No I'm not."

"You hesitated. You have to be lying."

Torva stared down at the necklace around his neck, fingering its skull charm as he did so. He sighed. "Fine. I'll tell you...Sanctus is the reason I came here...We were enemies once, back when we were kids. But after our parents died, we became a lot closer."

Her tone was softened, compared to before. "Sanctus and you are siblings?"

"Were," he confirmed. "Sanctus was my older brother...When our parents died, we lived on the streets. I survived our childhood. He didn't."

Devlin
"Oh," Devlin said, blushing, "Sorry about that." She held out a hand to the pair and smiled.

"My name is Devlin," she said, 'And this is by b- uh I mean, companion Onvyr." Onvyr dipped his head.

"Nice to meet you," he said.

Shaila
It was unusually quiet in the woods. They, the woods, seemed to be listening to something else instead of my muffled footsteps.
I had spent my whole life getting to know these woods, so when I heard a pulsing beat, I knew that a wyhsp was approaching. Wyhsps are a spirit that must repeat any other voices except their own the rest of eternity. This one was tinted blue and seemed more friendly than most. He was floating right next to my left shoulder barely whispering a sentence.
"What are you saying dear one?" I coaxed, it's alright, I'll listen"
"Nice to meet you." It says in a tenor voice, obviously male.
"Is there any more of that conversation?"
"Oh sorry about that. My name is Devlin and this is my b- uh I mean, companion Onvyr," it says in a light female voice.
"Nice to meet you," It response in the same male voice.
"Is there any more?"
"Nice to meet you," It says.
"So I guess not."
"Nice to meet you."
"Ok, you can be quiet now."
Now I understood why the forest was so quiet. There were intruders and I knew what it did to invaders, I knew what I had to do. someone needed to make their home secure again.

Torva Messor:

If Sanctus had remained after Torva had given up on chasing him, the arrival of the two elves (Devlin and Onvyr) had no doubt scared him off. He was mad at himself for not being able to catch up to Sanctus, mad that he was so pathetic he couldn't summon the ghost of the person he needed in his life.

He tried to slip back into the role of a necromancer, but he was too distracted by losing his brother once again to put effort into his act. "Why did you two enter these supposedly cursed woods-" He stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening. His skin somehow became even more pale.

"What's wrong?" Calidus asked.

He lifted a shaking finger. "That!" he managed to get out, his voice jumping several octaves as he did so. They all followed his gaze to a little boy standing on the edge of the clearing they were in.

With his big yellow eyes, and too-big clothes, he looked like an adorable Fire Kynd child. His lips quivered at the sight of the assembled group, and tiny, shaking hands grasped the bottom of his oversized tunic.

But a tiny pair of horns peeked out from behind his red curls. Scarlet scales lined the sides of his face, and formed a mask around his eyes. In the place of fingernails, he had claws. Both his hands and bare feet were covered in the same scarlet scales. Around his neck was a choker similar to Torva's, only it was more similar to a collar.

To his surprise, the child ran off to Calidus and hid behind her. His tiny hands grabbed onto her legs as he peeked out at them."Scary," he muttered, pointing at Torva.

"You know that-that thing?" he said in disbelief. He tried to stop himself from trembling, but he couldn't.

"Very well. I raised him from when he was an egg." As she said those words, two tiny wings unfurled themselves from the child's back.

"Egg?" Devlin, Onvyr, and Torva all questioned.

She affectionately tousled the child's hair. "This is Parva Draco. He's a red dwarf dragon, and though many don't know this, dragons can somewhat take on the forms of elves. Parva is only two, so he isn't powerful enough to really control when he changes forms, and his appearance when he does so."

Devlin
Devlin looked at the baby dwarf dragon. [/i]That is one weird child[/i], she thought. She cleared her throat and put on her best smile.

"Hi there," she said softly, bending down to the dwarf dragon's level, "My name is Devlin. Do you want to be my friend?"

Calidus Ignis:

Parva peeked out from behind Lidus once again. He looked Devlin over with wide eyes the color of polished gold, taking in her pale skin, blue eyes, and dark brown hair. "Pretty," he muttered. Then he nodded to answer the water kynd elf's question. "Friend!" He darted out from behind Lidus' legs.

But the dwarf dragon suddenly came to a halt, despite being only a snail's length away from Devlin. He stared at Torva; at his choker, at his skull necklace, at the ring on his finger, at his silver earrings, at his silver eye, at his white highlights, and at the eye patch over his right eye. "Really scary!" he exclaimed. Seemingly too far away from Lidus, he made due with using Devlin's legs as a hiding spot.

Lidus crossed her arms, and shifted her weight onto one foot. "He's only reacted like that to shifty, evil people," she said. It was a major lie - for the most part, Parva was scared of everything he ran across. A squirrel had once scared him when it suddenly fell into the path they had been traveling on.

"Hey! I'm not like that-" Torva began to protest, but quickly fell silent. He ran a hand through his messy hair. "I mean, I'm a necromancer. A death kynd. What else did you expect? For me to be an adorable warrior of justice?"

The thought of a tiny, child Torva wielding a sword, and being clad in an oversized cape and prince-like outfit made a laugh escape her lips. He stared at her with his one unnerving eye. She attempted to cough instead, but the damage had been done.

Devlin
Devlin stood up.

"Well, we'd better get going, " she said tugging at Onvyr.

"Hold up," he said, "Maybe we can take a few minutes."

Torva Messor:

Once Calidus finished her sudden coughing fit, she reached down and grabbed Parva by the waist. The dragon initially struggled. Upon realizing Calidus was the one holding him, he threw his arms around her neck and buried his face into her shoulder.

He resisted the urge to go, "Aw!" at the sight.

Now that everything had calmed down, he finally had a chance to look the two elves over. Onyr, who appeared (like his friend) to be in his late teens, had an incredibly light complexion. His blond hair could be called white in some lights, he possessed pale blue eyes, and his skin was almost as pale as his own. He appeared to be a wind kynd. His friend, Devlin, had somewhat pale skin, eyes that were a darker shade of blue than Onyr's, and dark brown hair. She seemed to be a water kynd.

Interesting... he thought. What could a wind and water kynd possibly want in the Spirit Forest? A death kynd, like himself, he could easily understand. Maybe these two also wanted to speak to the dead? He opened his mouth to ask.

And then he heard someone approaching. "Someone is coming," he whispered. "And because I can hear their footsteps, they're very much alive."

Still holding onto Parva, Calidus used her free hand to reach into the depths of her cloak. Something glinted from within; a flash of silver before the cloak moved to cover it. It appeared she had a hidden knife.

He reached into his jacket's pocket and withdrew a pair of fingerless gloves. They were black leather gloves, with the design of skull on their backs. The gloves helped him focus and channel his powers.

They would just have to wait to find out what happened next.