Down a sandy hill, past a drizzling creek, through a cluster of ragged trees, was a small, well-hidden path that led to a world known as C’wak. Pronounced more like Co-whack, rather than Quack, it was a strange world, a bizarre blend of our own world, and a magical world like Zigadu. Someone wandering without paying much attention, may not have even noticed they had entered a new world--until they came across something so other-worldly, that the obviousness of their situation should finally dawn on them. Fairmay Totems marked the haunted places that the Great Elders had considered both holy and fearful. Avoidance of those places was best--if you valued your life (or sanity.) It was near one of the Fairmay Totems, deep in the heart of C’wak, that we first encountered the Guardian.
The three of us had been wandering for a few hours, carefully avoiding sizzle snakes and barnacle bears, when we came upon a Totem, sitting at the base of a small grassy hill. “Ooo, what’s that?” Sam had inquired. She’d never seen a Totem before. “It’s a Fairmay Totem. The Great Elders of the Fairmay used them to mark places of deep magic.” I answered. Sam nodded in awe. Billy chipped in, “There are plenty of them in C’wak, but I don’t think we’ve seen this one before.” I shook my head, I was pretty certain this was a new part of C’wak, one that none of us had been to before.
Now, in all our exploration of the worlds outside the park, we’d come across plenty of monsters, and occasionally other people. There had been a kid, Jack, in a world we called Innara, and he called The Territories. In another world (eerily similar to our own) we’d met a guy who never told us his name, but who’d kept going on about something called Ice-9. For some reason, it didn’t seem to matter what world we went to, we were always able to understand what the other people were saying, and they us, although I’m sure none of them were speaking English.
Well, when Sam suddenly went quiet, Billy and I turned toward the grassy hill, to see what she was staring at. What we saw was not a monster, yet it was not a person either. The Guardian stood at least 6 feet tall, maybe more, he looked like a man, but was unlike any man any of us had ever seen before. For one thing, he wasn’t wearing clothes per say, but he wasn’t naked either. His entire body was covered in something that at a distance kind of looked like fur, but as my eyes focused more, I could tell wasn’t fur--it was moving! It was alive! The man was covered with millions, maybe billions, of crawling insects! Ants, centipedes, pill bugs, mealy worms, beetles, locusts, and hundreds of other varieties of insect. No spiders though, not any I could see anyway. The crawling blanket of bugs that served as his clothes covered nearly every part of his body. His wild black hair seemed to be blowing in the wind--but no wind was blowing. His piercing green eyes glared out at us like emeralds in a roaring fire. Some of the insects moved away from his face, exposing a mouth, which opened up, as he spoke to us.
“Defenders of the Outer Worlds, heed my news. The forces of darkness are growing. The one you know as the Dark Lord is but one of the many forces. Until recently, most of the forces have worked independently, which has ensured The Balance stayed intact. Now however, several of the dark ones have come together into a pact--forged by the one you call the Dark Lord. This pact is still fresh, and not fully formed yet, and it hinges on an event yet to happen: the marriage of the Dark Lord, to the Lady of Shadows. If they seal their bond, it will be unbreakable, and the pact will be solidified and grow stronger.
Normally, the Guardians offer no help to either side. We chose long ago to remain neutral in all things. However, in this circumstance, we must at least provide you with this knowledge, and ask that you try to prevent the pact from being finalized. For moreso than our stance of neutrality, is our oath to protect The Balance. The pact threatens The Balance, threatens to give an upper hand to Darkness, over Light. We cannot allow that to happen. The foundations of all worlds are kept in place by the maintaining of The Balance. Upsetting it could have disastrous effects on the worlds, and the boundaries between them.
So, I ask that you take what I have told you here, and find a way to stop the pact, for the sake of all worlds!”
I opened my mouth to say something, but the Guardian had apparently decided that no further conversation was needed, as his eyes and face faded into a shadowy fog, then his form began to lose its definition. Then, with no warning, all of the insects dropped to the ground, and scuttled off, leaving nothing in front of us, but a grassy hill with a Fairmay Totem standing at its base.