Plane of Earth
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to praise Balamar, possibly
one of the bravest Mages who has ever lived.
You all know that Balamar has spent most of his adult life wandering the
differing Planes of Existence in search of perfection, well it is quite possible
that he has found it, or the closest thing possible.
Or so it seems at first glance. The
report that is being handed out to you is an exact copy of the diary of Balamar,
with some unimportant sections being left out.
This diary tells of his trip to the Plane of Earth and of what he found
there.
Yes, I know that the Plane of Earth
has been visited many times before, but never has such detailed information been
returned to us. Unfortunately, we
have no way of knowing exactly where Balamar is now but we will do everything in
our power to locate the brave man and return him to us.
So, ladies and gentlemen, begin
reading and remember, there will be questions at the end of the class.”
Lecture
given by Zebediah Leyles, Earth Master in the University.
10/09
I’ve finally managed to tune the Portal Spell into making sure that I
arrive at Mestone. It’s taken me
weeks of study and I was beginning to think that I would never make it but it
has finally happened. I’m certain
that I will appear within the bounds of Mestone and from there I will be able to
properly explore the Elemental Plane of Earth.
I
discovered Mestone when I was wandering, almost at random, through the Planes
and I’ve been trying to get back to it for the last five years.
Maybe I should explain.
I am
writing this journal in the hope that someday it may be of use to those who come
after me. I will be leaving
instructions as to how to following in my footsteps and I will be trying to
detail and explain everything I
come across. This is certain to be
a large, probably impossible task but I will do what I can.
The Plane
of Earth. As you may or may not
know, Shardar and the world of Keltar is nothing more than a lump of rock
floating through a vast emptiness. Also in the emptiness are suns and stars and maybe even other
inhabitable or even inhabited planets. The
Plane of Earth is almost the exact opposite of this.
It is a vast expanse of solid rock and earth, with a few bubbles of light
and air captured within it.
Most of
these bubbles are nothing more than empty pockets, completely lifeless and
uninhabitable. They are forever
dark and nothing will grow in them. There
are a few pockets, however, that are much larger than most.
They are thousands, possible even hundreds of thousands of miles across
and they are capable of sustaining life. The
reason for this life is the miniature sun that floats in the centre of these
bubbles. These suns are most
certainly created by Magic, but by what Magic I do not know.
Life grows
in the inside surface of these bubbles, all the way around, and it is held in
place by some force that I do not even begin to understand.
The light from the central sun beams down constantly onto these areas,
causing much growth for plant life, and making these bubbles into dense jungles
for the most part.
Also within
the life giving bubbles are animals, insects, fish-life and humanoids.
Whether these humanoids are settlers or original inhabitants of the Plane
I doubt I shall ever know, but they are there now and they claim the air pockets
for their own. Mestone is the
largest of these air bubbles that I have ever found and it is here that I wish
to return to.
When I
first arrived in Mestone, I stumbled upon it by accident.
I had been trying to get to the Plane of Air, but I was disturbed at the
height of the Incantation and something went badly wrong.
The journey to the Plane was an eventful and dangerous one and I believe
that I now know something about what we travel through to get to the Planes, but
that is not what I am speaking about now.
I arrived
in the middle of a jungle and for a while I believed that I was in Dargoth.
I only started to disbelieve this when I realised that although I had
been there for many hours the sun had not gone down.
In fact, the sun had not moved at all in all that time.
The heat was incredible and the humidity made it even worse and I was
beginning to panic.
Food was no
problem, my Magic was sufficient to bring down many animals and I could easily
identify what was safe to eat and what was not.
I had no real idea how long I stumbled through this jungle for but I
guess that it would have been upwards of a week, possibly much longer, before I
was discovered by the natives of this land.
I was
following a stream, hoping to come across some sort of civilisation when a
large, green-skinned man stepped out of the jungle, only a few paces in front of
me and started babbling in a language that I did not understand.
A quick Incantation solved that small problem and when I could converse
with this being, I discovered that he was demanding that I identified myself and
was asking what tribe I was from.
After some
initial confusion, I formed a friendship with this man who called himself
Calask. He agreed to take me to his
village which was many miles away and during the journey I managed to gather
some more information from him.
Apparently,
we were in the world of Mestone and his people were called the Parren.
There were many different tribes in Mestone and the Parren were just one
of them but, according to Calask, the Parren were the best.
There was a city where people lived in stone houses and talked many
different tongues, but that was many, many miles away and Calask wasn’t sure
how to get there.
After a
trip where we were forced to sleep three times due to tiredness, we finally
arrived at Calask’s village.
I gathered that trips of this length were quite normal for the tribes of
Mestone. With so much area to cover
and relatively few people to do it, it was usual for hunters to be away for very
long times. This was not due to
lack of food in the area surrounding the village but more likely it was simply
due to the hunters wanting to explore. Most
of the tribes people were very interested in exploring and covering as much
ground as they could.
The people
of Calask’s village were all physically similar to him, tall, well muscled and
green skinned. Their hair was
normally of a darker green colour and the clothing that they wore was all of a
course material dyed either green or brown.
These people were almost perfectly camouflaged when they moved through
the jungles of Mestone and they seemed to be completely at home in this
environment.
After some
initial suspicion, these good people took me to their hearts and treated me like
a long, lost relative. I was guest
of honour at a feast and the Elder of the village spent much time talking to me,
another great honour. I told him
that I was from far, far away, across the sea in fact and this seemed to be good
enough for him. The Parren value
explorers highly and my journey placed me in the elite group.
After the
meal I was introduced to the Shaman of the tribe and I watched with slight
amusement as he went through an elaborate dance of blessing and health for the
tribe. Afterwards, he spoke to me
and cast some sort of foretelling about me.
I let this go on with amusement more than anything else and was greatly
shocked when the Shaman told me that I was indeed a traveller, but from greatly
further away than across the sea. He
told me that I was born under a different sun and had seen many, many places.
My amusement turned to respect and I listened with more care to the old
man.
He asked me
if I wished to go home and I told him that I did, more than anything else, but I
also wanted to come back and see more of this strange world.
Nodding his head in agreement, the Shaman went into an elaborate, complex
dance and the world started to spin around me.
The next thing I knew I was back in my room in the University.
My servants
had given me up for dead but Matrix would not let them move my belongings out of
the room. He had given instructions
that everything was to be left as it was and that he was to be informed as soon
as I returned to Shardar. I spoke to the Arch-Mage about my journey for a long time and
he seemed greatly interested. It
was under his suggestion that I tried to find a way back to the same place and
it was during these studies that I discovered more about the nature of the
Plane.
Now I’m
ready to return to Mestone and as much as I would like to see Calask and the
Parren again, I am aiming for the city of stone buildings.
Everything is ready now and I am preparing myself for the journey.
I will keep this journal while I am in the Plane of Earth, but I will be
giving the dates in the form of sleep periods.
This is the only way I have of keeping any sort of track of time and
although it will not be completely accurate, it is the best that I can do.
Day
1
I arrived not in the city where I had hoped to but in deep jungle.
I don’t know what went wrong but I am more prepared for the Plane of
Earth this time. Casting a minor
flight Spells, I soared straight up above the canopy of the jungle so that I
might be able to spot the city from my lofty vantage point.
What I did
see came as a shock to me for in every direction, as far as the eye could see,
was jungle. I had not realised the
vastness of the jungle of this Plane and if my studies were correct, it would
extend completely around the inside of the bubble.
In the distance, I could just see an area of grey and white instead of
green and, taking this for the city, I flew towards it.
My trip was
a quick one and, although there were a few large bird-like creatures that I had
to scare off with my Magic, it was relatively uneventful.
The city in Mestone is gigantic beyond imagining.
There is no need to crush buildings together, they can expand outwards
because there will always be more room, so every building has a large garden
around it and takes up a huge amount of space.
I believe I
had found a Council building of sorts and I am going to head towards it to try
to find out more about this Plane. Hopefully
they will be friendly and I will continue my writing in my journal as soon as I
get time.
Day
4
The city is called Farenheim and it is a meeting place of cultures and
tribes from all across Mestone. There
are green skins, black skins, brown, yellow. Grey, white, red, blue.
I have never seen so many different types of people living together in
harmony.
No weapons
of any kind are allowed in Farenheim but I don’t see how they enforce this law
because I have never seen any kind of guard or official in the city.
The Council is made up of the Elders of every tribe that is within the
city and the number varies between 10 and fifty.
There are
no taxes, very few laws, hardly any restrictions and it works!
The amazing thing is that this does actually work.
The people of Farenheim want to be here, they want to trade with other
tribes, they want to exchange information, they want to live in peace. I have never seen any other place where this would work,
certainly not in Shardar.
The Council
have told me that I am welcome to stay for as long as I wish, to explore, to
interview, to do anything I want as long as I do not interfere with the smooth
running of the city. This is truly
a wonderful place and I would be more than happy to make this my home.
So far, I
have learned that the flora and fauna are very similar to what is found in
Dargoth but they can grow to much, much larger sizes.
The dense jungles hold some extremely ferocious predators but they tend
to avoid humanoid settlements and hunt in the depths of the jungle.
Also in the jungles are a race of giant humanoid creatures, physically
very similar to the people who inhabit the city in every way apart from size.
These Giants are evil and aggressive, if not very bright, and they seem
to take great delight in hunting, tormenting. torturing and finally killing
anyone they come across.
No one has
been able to tell me anything about the sun that provides the energy for
Mestone. As far as everyone is
concerned, the sun is a completely natural thing that has always been there.
The sun never dims and it is a constant factor of life in Mestone.
People sleep when they are tired and there is always constant activity in
every community with about two thirds of the population being awake and active
at any one time.
The
Elementals of this Plane take the form of moving rocks or lumps of earth.
They tend to mimic the beings that are closest to them so that is why
they have always been seen as gigantic humanoids when they have been summoned to
Shardar. They have very little interesting humanoids or in the air
bubbles at all and tend to avoid them. The
Elementals can move through solid rock and earth as easily as we can move over
it and there are rumoured to be gigantic cities of Elementals deep in the rock
that surrounds the air bubbles.
I have also
learned that there are some tunnels that connect many of the different air
pockets to each other. The length
of these tunnels is unimaginable and it would take any normal person many, many
lifetimes to travel the distance of them. For
a Mage, it would be slightly easier but it is still an incredibly daunting
journey.
Day
12
It has taken a great deal of time but I have finally managed to discover
how they keep peace in this city. I
thought that the amiability and orderliness of everyone was too good to be true
and it is. Behind the Council of
Elders stands a second Council, this one made up of the Shamen of the tribes.
The tribes
of Mestone have always fought against one another, have always hated each other
and it is only in Farenheim that this is not so.
The Shamen have ordered that there is to be no fighting and they deal
very harshly with anyone that breaks the law.
Expulsion
is the normal penalty. A criminal
is branded with a mark on their forehead and then sent from the city to live on
their own. Although the tribes
people are great explorers, Mestone is a very dangerous place and you can only
survive on your own for so long before you start to make mistakes.
In the jungles of Mestone, making a mistake is normally the same thing as
committing suicide.
The Shamen
watch over the population by Magical means, different from the Magic that we use
but equally powerful. I don’t know what the Shamen want with a city like
Farenheim but I’m not certain that it is for the benefit of the tribes people.
I am going to investigate further and try to discover what exactly is
going on behind this gentle mask.
Day
13
The Council of Shamen are hunting for me and I have very little time to
write this. I am going to send this journal back to Shardar in the hope
that someone will make use of it.
From what I
know of the power of the Shamen, it is going to be very difficult to hide from
them so there is no point in fleeing into the jungle.
Although I have no doubt that I would be able to survive the natural
creatures that dwell in the jungle, this is the land of the Shamen, this is the
territory that they know. If I was
to fight them in their own land I would surely lose.
Instead, I
have chosen to enter one of the tunnels and try to reach another air pocket.
This is a difficult and dangerous journey that I face, but I think that
it is my only hope. The Shamen are
preventing me from leaving the Plane, I don’t know how they are doing this but
I think I will be able to slip the journal past their notice.
I know that I cannot return home from Mestone so I am going to try it
from somewhere else.
I must go
now because I can sense the Magic of the Shamen closing in on me.
I hope that someday I will be able to talk to Matrix about this and I
hope that I will be able to continue my writing in this journal.
Until that day, fare ye well!
“We
have heard nothing more of Balamar as yet, but rest assured that he is being
hunted for even as we speak. We
cannot say for any certainty if this journal is truth or fiction but we must
take it at face value at this point. Who
can say what really happened in Mestone? Who can say what really happened to Balamar?
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will
start the questions so I hope that you were paying attention to what Balamar
wrote.”
Zebediah Leyles