She was calling me back.
I’ve tried to invent enough alibis so I could go back to my work, my personal projects, product presentations and back to watching Wowowee. But her appeal was so persistent and I had to regard her pleas even if had to spend my lunch money to go online.
And so, that is why on the Solstice of 2010 of the Third Age, or 1020 by Shire Reckoning when I decided to heed the call of Taborea.
Crossing Over To The Light
I proceeded to set foot on this “café” that would usher me into the otherworldly realm of Taborea. This tavern was just like many in this agora-like complex which the Jaguar Men (GuarJa) refer to as the “mall” – palisades of glass and shimmering displays of text and images made up of light. I managed a fleeting glance at one of these hallowed writings. They had archaic inscriptions like Facebook, Twitter and Friendster. They must have been the venerated manuscripts of some antediluvian race who were all washed away when the Great Flood God Ondoy submerged the world.
As I drew close to this modernistic alehouse’s maître d’, I greeted her in Quenyan Elvish, “Maayong Aga, Mistress Netopia! A star shines on the hour of our meeting! In behalf of the Mage Knights of The Blackstone Kinfolk, I pay homage to you on this most transcendent and splendorous day!”
The hostess faced me, brushed the twilight-black hair from her brow and addressed me in a virtuous timbre, “”Ser, mag-e-enternet ba kayo?”
Impertinent kalurkey wench! I turned a blind ear at her feeble verbal stabs of insolence at my class (Mage – Knight) and level (three weeks at Level 10). Though she has wreaked a heathenish transgression, I purposed in my heart to exculpate the sins of this heretical Jezebel.
I arose to heed my calling and return to Varanas. And as I was about to be consumed by the portal radiance that would convey my spiritual essence back into the grandiose Guild Hall of the Empire, the vamp asked me again, “Ser, open time ba kayo?”
My Life in Taborea – Runes of Magic – The funniest home videos are here
I Left My Heart in Varanas
I am utterly vexed by all these teleporting sorcery!
I must make manifest my disdain of not growing acclimated to its alacrity and its ability to reconstitute the very minute molecules of my being. Thus, after every inter-dimensional journey, I need to have a barf bag in order to disgorge the contents of my viscera and not defile the verdant palace gardens of the kingdom. After regaining my poise and composure, I paid 10 Taborean quids to Snoop The Stubborn Dog.
The hallowed halls of Varanas have not changed since the last time I ventured. The elegant grand waterfalls still greet me at the entrance. I take time to relish in its coolness which brings refreshment to both body and soul. I did the same ritual back home when I basked in a shower from a busted fire hydrant in Manila when I was but a youngling many countless eons in the primeval ages of yore (about 40 years ago). But these are enigmatical times, and I soon was off to my meeting at the Guild Hall. But when I turned to make my way to one of its august corridors, I came face to face with an “acquaintance”.
“QiGonJoni. It’s really you – in the flesh. Or should I say – in the fat.”
“Galadria?,” I quipped. “You’re following me.”
“Just a little bit. So, umm, how did it go with that Priestess you met in Ravenfell?”
“Galadria – look. I’m not blowing you off,” I said. “I just need some time off alone for a little bit. I have a lot of things in my mind right now. Like, umm, saving Taborea from total obliteration, that kind of stuff.”
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you!? Say it! Say it!!”
As a knight, she has always been direct to the point. We both share this trait as knights who see only black and white in every situation. We also both believe that the best way to conquer an enemy is a head-long rush. From the very start, Galadria and I have shared many similar qualities which have drawn us both to pursue our calling as knights of the Empire. The truth is that it isn’t just these external attributes or talents that have brought us closer together in the days of peace and the duskiness of war. It is much more than mutual professional admiration. The bonds are of a more intimate nature – the same bonds that now strain our relationship and our profession.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I freaked out. It’s just that I feel that I just missed an audition and you made me feel bad because you didn’t invite me to your party.”
I walk closer to her, our faces almost touching. I look directly into her crystal blue eyes partly hidden by her soft blonde tresses. “You’ll always be in my party, Galadria. Nothing and no one can change that.”
In all our encounters with wild beasts, monsters, elementals and goblins, I have never seen her emotions evident. She maintained a professional stature that I can barely emulate. And yet, at that moment, I swore I saw a glistening tear form in her eye which she quickly wiped off and dismissed like dry sand from Dust Devil Canyon. Galadria bid me goodbye as she left northward to the Obsidian Bastion. I wanted to go with her for that patch of terra incognita was filled with horrors and perils that no knight should have to face alone. But my duty to the Empire far outweighs what my heart desires.
She was right though. My heart was still there – but it belonged to someone else.
Many Meetings
The Guild Hall was already filled with a council of selected combatants along with a congregation of fellow mages from the Vahtos Academy who serve as monitors for this urgent meeting. Everyone is standing (some mages prefer to levitate) in a semi-circle around a stone pedestal with a map of the Empire.Leoric, a Templar addresses our group.
“Strangers from distant lands, friends of old, honored delegates from the Northern Drylands –“
“Wen, manong!” a voice behind me shouts in Sindarin Elvish (I think).
“You have been summoned here to answer the threat of the Dark Lord,” Leoric continues. “Taborea stands upon the brink of destruction. None can escape it. We will unite or we will fall. Each one of us is bound to this fate — this one doom.”
“Templar, how do we know this to be undeniable?” asks Pistrix.
“Stay your disbelief, mistress rogue,” I barge in. “Leoric speaks the truth. I have seen the Dark Lord himself – face to face, eye to eye – through the all-seeing, all knowing YouTube cinematic orb.”
Wulfsturm, a veteran berserker, steps forward. “And what would a mage-knight know of this matter?”
“This no mere wizard, barbarian.” From across the wide hall and the vermilion carpeted floor, a soft yet impaling voice pierces the walls of the meeting place. “He is Lord QiGonJoni, son of Anzures, kindred of the Aristorenas. You owe him your allegiance.” The crowd turns to the voice to reveal an elegantly-robed priestess.
“And what if Wulfsturm does not bow down to this mage-knight from the north, preacher!?”
The female cleric’s eyes gaze at the warrior, her pale skin and silver hair attest to her Elven Island ancestry. “Then, he shall make sure to delete your character in the selection menu as if you never existed.”
“Good point.” Wulfsturm disappears behind a contingent of sentries.
I turn to the priestess. I try to calm her seething rage with words of wisdom filled with assurance. “Freja, buen aqui todits.” She obliges and stands by my side, her long lustrous hair cascading like water from the Ystra Highlands. Until the very last minutes of the meeting, she stood by my side. She was silent. Yet our unspoken words were more eloquent, more consequential than what mere lips could ever say.
The Guild is Forged
“It is thus settled,” Leoric pounds the gavel in concurring the decision of our hastily-assembled conclave. “We have only one choice – to save Taborea, the Dark Lord must be destroyed.”
“What are we waiting for?” Pistrix inquires. “I can summon my kin from the Al Qaeda Guild and they can manufacture for us a most ingenious exploding IED which we may be able to consign to the Dark Lord’s address. And as he opens the coffer, the device will be commanded to explode and conflagrate sending his most evilness to the next life or whatever hell or lake of fire he deserves to spend his lifeless eternity.”
Freja steps forward. “The Dark Lord cannot be destroyed in yon fashion, Pistrix, daughter of Asterix, boo of Obelix. The Dark Lord’s power was forged in the fires of the dark lands. Only there can he be unmade. You must go deep into his realm and cast the Dark Lord back into the fiery chasm from whence he came.”
Wulfsturm scoffs at Freja’s declaration. “One does not simply walk into the lair of the Dark Lord. Its black chasms and gates are guarded by more than just ogres, behemoths and hellions. There is evil there that does not sleep. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume (enunciated ala Boromir). Not with ten thousand knights, mages, priests, scouts, rogues or warriors with ten thousand lives could this be done. Wulfsturm says it is folly! It is more than folly – it is suicide!
Morrigan paces halfway across the hall to confront the berserker. “Have you heard nothing Lord Leoric has said? The Dark Lord must be destroyed!”
Wulfsturm flexes his muscles, eclipsing the female archer. “And Wulfsturm supposes you think you’re the one to do it, ranger!?”
“And if we fail, what then?!” adds Pistrix. “What happens when the Dark Lord decides to come after our own lands – beyond Taborea?!”
Morrigan turns to face Pistrix. “I will be dead before I see Taborea in the hands of a thievish rogue!”
Suddenly, Pistrix draws out her poison daggers and starts to lunge at the female ranger. Her swiftness is countered by the archer’s drawn longbow aimed at her heart. Heated arguments and commotion start as the combatants begin to draw their weapons poised to attack each other in a senseless PvP battle.
“Enough! I will lead the way!”
For an instant, everyone ceased to chop off each other’s head or burn each other into a pile of glowing orange embers. Their eyes were transfixed on me.
“I will take the battle to the Dark Lord. But I fear that I will die before I reach Level 11.”
Leoric walks toward me. “I will help you reach Level 11 and beyond, my friend. So long as you immediately cease and desist from hitting on my castle’s house maiden. She my girl now, dig?”
“I may be a thief,” declares Pistrix. “But I fight honorably. And in this quest, I swear by my honor — if by my life or death, I can protect you, I will. Lord QiGonJoni, you have my daggers.”
Moriggan walks to join us. “And you have my bow.”
Wulfsturm shakes his head and laughs heartily as he approaches the three. “Wulfsturm has nothing but contempt for knight-mages and their ilk. But if this is indeed the will of Ayvenas, then Wulsturm will see it done.” He swiftly pulls out his double-handed hammer and whirls it several times before setting it amongst the daggers, the bow and my hand. “For Taborea, you have Wulfsturm’s Mjöllnir war hammer!” I noticed that it was gold and was probably 40K. Such warhammers must have ushered in the dawn of war.
“Lord QiGonJoni is not going anywhere without me.”
Like water that heals, her voice was always assuring. It made one feel that taking on the entire legion of the Dark Lord would be like a walking in one of those parks like Sandara. Freja placed her clerical staff on the stone table and looked at me. “I may not have all these mortal weapons that maim, kill or destroy. But what I have, I freely give. You will always have my heart. A heart that heals every broken bone, aching muscle and even restoring hearts that have been incorrigibly broken.”
“So be it!”, Leoric declares. “After all this mellow-dramatic crap, this fellowship shall henceforth be known as –.”
Moriggan answers, “The Sinestro Corps?”
My Life in Taborea – Runes of Magic from jonnie_anzures on Vimeo.
The End of All Good Things
It’s been over an hour since the team set forth on this voyage. There have been few resting places and plenty of obstacles along the way.
I think I’ve lost a thousand XP points being stung by insects, mauled by bears and boars, and shot at by elementals. But it was all worth it. When you’re a mage-knight defending the Empire, being attacked is part of your job description.
My team has also been a great help. Pistrix makes the initial contact and completely surprises the fiends with her stealth and her poison barbs. So effective are her roguish wiles that she finishes off our adversaries even before they knew what hit them. I learned that back in her hometown she was known as the Queen of The Ativan which I surmise must be a highly secretive cult of professional rogues.
As always, Wulfsturm refers to himself in the third person. His boorish ways are only exceeded by his vulgar profanities. He seems to derive primitive pleasure in bad-mouthing our enemies as he pounds them to a pulp with his humungous war-hammer. But as a mage-knight trained and brought up to be prudent and reverent, I am exasperated by his words which should not come out of one who hails from the simple yet civil village of Logar. No one in that town will ever mention the cuss words he screams in the heat of our battles. To put it bluntly, his words are “wala sa Logar”, to use his own Logarean dialect.
As we cross a deep gorge, I turn and see that Freja’s eyes have been looking at me for quite some time. As our glances lock, she pretends to look at some fireflies in the enchanted forest. Like all healers, Freja’s mere presence brings comfort and inner strength to our war party. But our bond is deeper than a relationship between a mage-knight and a priestess. Besides both depending on manna as our source of power, we depend on each other to satisfy our inner longings.
And Galadria felt this. It was too strong to be kept a secret.
Suddenly, the forest comes alive. What we thought were giant vines and tall trees turned out to be ogres, shades, banshees and minotaurs.
“It’s an ambush!” shouts Leoric, stating the obvious.
Moriggan fires several arrow shots at the charging wall of fiends which were closing at us from both sides, threatening to engulf us in a deathly clamp. I concentrated to infuse my hands with enough power to launch a giant fireball. Hurling it at a group of minotaurs, I managed to give our team enough time to regroup. But even our combined skills and levels would not stop the inevitable – we were all going to die in this lonely fissure.
Before I threw an electric bolt charge at the marauding wall of beasts and inhuman malfeasances, I took a long gaze at Freja. As our gazes met, possibly for the last time, I saw the same tears that I saw on Galadria’s face.
As her quivering, soft lips attempted to whisper the last words that I would ever hear, a loud, unearthly voice shattered my very being.
“Ser, magsasara na po kame. Closing taym na. Balik na lang po kayo bukas.”
Heretical pasaway wench! Just when I was warming up for the battle royale (with cheese) of a lifetime! If it was only possible to feed her to the fungus fiends who would slowly digest her in a span of a thousand years.
I hesitantly left my war-band to fight another day. Before the clanging metal gates of the so-called café hit the floor, I knew I would be back for a chance – just one more chance to show my enemies that they may take our lives. But they will never take our freedom – our freedom to defend Taborea once again.
All this living in the virtual world of Runes of Magic may be an obsession for some. But remembering Freja’s last glance, I knew I wasn’t going to leave her – and Taborea ever again.
