Knight Solos 1-3: 1734 words


I pledge my life and loyalty to Earth, and to Drombeg.
I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine.

 
The words were innate to him now. They had filled his head as soon as he had been purified, but he had been unable to act on them until now. He had a break before his first day as a Park Ranger as his civilian job, which he was glad that he had help with getting, and so he had finally decided to visit his Wonder. He wasn’t sure what to expect. After all, he didn’t know what any of the knight Planets were really like except for Pendour, so Earth would be new to him.
 
But he had access to his Wonder, finally. It always felt as though a part of him was missing as an Agent and as much as he wanted to be out of this magical war completely, there was a part of him that knew that he could never go back. He could lose both sets of memories and he would still have that nagging feeling in the back of his head that a normal civilian life wasn’t all that there was.
 
But now he had no Generals to report to, no draining energy from civilians that he had to do weekly… He only had his Wonder to go to, if he wanted, and fighting against the Negaverse that had forced him into all of this. He wasn’t sure if he would have preferred to stay as an ignorant civilian, but there was no turning back now. And he would finally be visiting the place that had been calling him as soon as he had become Drombeg. As soon as he had become a Knight and had the chaos removed from his starseed.
 
If there was anywhere, he belonged, it was here.
 
As soon as he whispered those words in the park at night where he hadn’t sensed any chaos auras, he opened his eyes to find… more darkness? No, it appeared that there was some light, so it was most likely morning wherever he was. He grinned. It had worked! But he couldn’t see anything. For a moment he was confused before he saw what appeared to be a stone archway. When he got closer, he could tell that there was a dense fog in front of him.
 
So, either his Wonder was completely invisible by fog, or it had some extra protection. Perhaps it was a way to keep out those who were not invited or were planning on invading. For a moment, he wondered how he would find his way through the fog when he thought of holding up his sword. It had only been a fleeting idea, but considering he had no others he decided to do it.
 
As soon as he did, he could feel as though it were pulling him in a certain direction. And so, he followed. He moved around as the pull appeared to change direction every so often, and after a minute he finally found himself outside of the fog and in another clearing. Walking about 20 feet he found himself in a densely forested area. Around him appeared to be stones surrounding another stone, and then around them many hollowed trees, with the one in front of him being the largest.
 
He… wasn’t sure what to think of it at least. He stepped into the stone in the middle, the only one level with the ground and looked around. It was quiet. There were no sounds of birds or insects. Just the wind as it went through the trees and leaves every so often. It was… peaceful. While he wasn’t sure what he should have been expecting, he was quite pleased with it, nonetheless. If anything, he could use the Wonder as a retreat when he needed to get away from ordinary civilian life.
 
He decided to start on the right where he saw a small stream going around the sides of one of the hollowed trees before it disappeared into the overgrowth and decided to investigate that tree first.
 
He didn’t know what he was supposed to see inside of it or how much the previous Knight, or Knights? Had done here, but it seemed that this one had a few tools. He recognized one of his previous weapons and realized that they probably carved wood in here. What those carvings were used for or what they even were, he was unsure. Perhaps it was used to make weapons such as his sword? There even seemed to be some pieces of wood that had been left from the last carving. As though time had stopped for this Wonder. He felt a bit of sadness. He knew he would be the only one here and yet he knew that it must have had some people living in it before. And without any signs of having been attacked, it was as though they had all just… disappeared. He would be quite alarmed if he saw meals that were in the middle of being eaten.

There was nothing else for the rest of him in this tree, and so he decided to go to his left. This time, it seemed to be some sort of… training arena? At least he believed that some of the stumps had been used for attacking from all of the cuts they had on them. It was definitely used before, this time it was much more clean. Like whoever lived here knew they weren’t going to come back and decided to put everything away. There was quite a bit of overgrown grass in some places, and nature appeared to have tried to take over once again, but there were still some remnants that he could make it that seemed to hint that there were no random weapons lying around. He hoped.

Did they ever use metal weapons? If he stepped on one, would he get tetanus. He was thankful that his new job required being up to date on all vaccinations.

He made his way back to the opening, looking at the very, very large hollowed out tree that appeared to be silently inviting him in. There even seemed to be steps made out of the root of the tree leading directly into the opening.

He would have to take this chance and hope he didn’t run into a den of insects.

He slowly made his way up the steps, making sure to look down as he did so. They appeared to be quite old and while he was no carpenter, the steps were in definite need of repair. Getting everything off of them that had overgrown, making the edges a bit more distinctive.

This was his Wonder. He could decide what happened here, at least for the time being. He was in charge of it. And he could fix up the steps and other areas if he wanted. A chill went down his spine at the the thought. And then he became angry for a moment. As an Agent he would have never visited here, never new it existed. He would only be useful for carrying out orders and destroying things. They had kept ALL of this from him.

They would pay for it.

However he continued on and for a brief moment could see only shapes in the darkness. As he stepped inside, glowing orbs appeared to turn on and he could see the this was the living quarters. There was what appeared to be a fire pit in the middle, a hole in the ceiling so that the smoke could escape. And there were several other rooms that could be seen from the middle. A bed to the left that clearly needed to be cleaned, or at least the sheets changed and a pillow to be replaced. What appeared to be a… well he wasn’t sure since there wasn’t much there other than a giant Earth symbol on the wall, but it appeared to be a good meditation place or other space if he needed it on the right.

And… books? Scrolls? A number of what seemed to be both of the two in the third room, a bit more darkened than the rest. He ran over to look at one of the scrolls, opening it, and while the pictures looked interesting, it appeared to be in a language that he had never seen on Earth. A slight disappointment, but he didn’t expect anything from a thousand years ago and that had been hidden away to be able to be easily figured out. Even reading old English appeared to be another completely different language.

He moved out of the room and into the one with the bed, sitting on the mattress and realizing it felt quite comfy. Feathers? Whatever they stuffed it with, it didn’t smell and it appeared to still be soft. This would be a great place if he just needed to get away from the world.

It was then at the end of the bed next to the wall that he noticed a set of drawers with the Earth symbol on them. He moved over and knelt in front of them, opening the top drawer and finding a hand-carved wooden box, again with the Earth symbol. Quite the pattern around here, at this Earth Wonder. When he opened the box, there appeared to be a ring delicately placed, as though someone had just forgotten to take it. But it was his ring. Not in terms of being “the One ring” but he just had a feeling that this was meant to go to the current Knight of Drombeg. And that was he. There was… no one else.

He took the ring out, slipping it on to his 4th digit on his right hand. It fit perfectly, which was a bit strange, and seemed to glow for only a second, before it became a perfectly normal ring again.

He wasn’t sure what he could do with it, but he knew it was important. He needed it. But for now he needed a nap. The quiet peacefulness of the Wonder was starting to effect him and he couldn’t help but be called back to the bed. He would look at what else he could do with his Wonder, right after taking this nap…