For the past few weeks, Ginn sat in his makeshift shelter reading the mysterious journal he found while munching on some coconuts.
After his first reading, he was convinced someone was pying a prank on him.
After the fifth one, he started worrying that he was going insane, not talking to coconuts insane, but more like ‘the birds are telling me to kill the emporer’ insane. He was worried because the words written down in that small leather journal slowly started making sense to him, he actually started to believe them.
After reading the journal for the 30th time, he was smiling. The corners of his mouth couldn’t stop curling upwards, all because he knew he had just stumbled upon something incredible. The journal of someone called Siegfried, a knight from 500 years into the future.
~ INTRO TO SIEGFRIED’S TALE ~
To whomever dug up this old journal, you have proven yourself to be a determined soul, for that I appud you.
I’m writing in here as a precaution, a fail-safe if you will. For I, Sir Siegfried, have made a grave mistake…
After undergoing a painful vascur readjustment performed by my country’s greatest surgeon, I, Sir Siegfried, traveled back in time. While I managed to somehow disappear from my original timeline, something went wrong. Not only did most of my veins burst, I was transported to some random rock in the middle of the ocean. I fear this might not even be my original world…
However, I, Sir Siegfried, never despair! Just like you who dug up this chest that I buried tens of meters underground, I will not give up! I will get off this isnd! And I will complete the mission given to me by my king! The Sky kingdom will be founded a hundred years earlier and we will beat those damned blood-suckers!
But I, Sir Siegfried, am aware of my shortcomings, although I used to be the Sky Kingdom’s strongest knight, most of my veins have burst now, and my Ichor cannot flow like it used to… This brings me to you, the stranger who unearthed this journal.
If I were to fail, travel to the Fallen Star for me and establish the Sky Kingdom in my name, I will give you the power and knowledge to do so in this journal.
There is just one thing I’m worried about, I am well aware you might be one of those sickening bloodsuckers. To prevent the worst from happening, I will only impart some of my knowledge in this journal. The rest, I, Sir Siegfried, will hide on the isnd of Barbaros, where I will test you again… that is… if I make it off this isnd, and if the isnd of Barbaros even exists here and now…
If I, Sir Siegfried, were to perish on my journey toward the isnd…
Well, good luck! I’m sure you’ll manage somehow!
Please complete this mission for me. The Sky Kingdom is forever indebted to you. At the end of this journey, you will be rewarded with power, knowledge, and riches you could’ve only dreamed of.
~~~
This little book filled Ginn’s head with exciting ideas and forbidden knowledge. He was intrigued by the Sky Kingdom, a giant collection of air-ships all tethered together, the first kingdom to finally conquer the Crown of the Fallen Star…
Ginn had heard of Ichor before, it was the stuff that granted the Blessed their power after all. But he had never heard about this ‘vascur adjustment’ technique. If what he read proved to be the truth, he could actually change the regur blood flowing through his veins into Ichor!
With that kind of power, Ginn could finally realize his goal. The goal he and his dad shared. To bring glory to the Savate family name.
Ginn took a deep breath and stilled his excitement, he had to get off this isnd first if he wanted to do, well, anything really.
‘I could probably swim to the STEEL isnds if I start training my stamina. I mean, I can’t see the isnds from this rock, but it should only be a couple of kilometers. Those outws didn’t wait long before they threw me off their zeppelin.’ Ginn reasoned, ‘The only problem would be those sea beasts…’
Ginn had been stuck on this isnd for more than six months now, and he didn’t see a single airship pass by. This didn’t surprise Ginn much, since the outws used this route to escape from the BLIMP corporation. It made sense to him that not many people would know of this piece of ocean.
Thus he reached the conclusion of swimming, the same conclusion that Siegfried ended his journal with. However he was no Siegfried, he was skinny to the bone and he had a limp.
“So that leaves me with only one option huh? Vascur readjustment…” Ginn spoke to no one in particur.
However, he also realized that he was in no condition to operate on himself. So he took a spear that he had fashioned out of a sharpened tree branch and headed off to the ocean. There he sat down in the shallow and closed his eyes.
Ginn sat there for one day and one night. When he finally opened his eyes, the sun was just barely rising. It painted a beautifully serene picture across the tiny tropical isnd Ginn found himself stranded on, using the dark blue ocean as a backdrop.
Ginn slowly, but resolutely, raised the wooden spear above his head. And then, using all the strength his pitiful muscles could muster, he brought down his weapon. The water turned red around him, and at the end of his spear, a rge fish found itself skewered into the sand. A fish that just moments ago considered this human it was swimming near, an unmoving piece of coral.
Ginn dragged the impaled fish to shore and started de-scaling it with a sharp rock. Once the fish was completely naked, he sshed at its neck.
But he didn’t let the blood flowing from the cut go to waste, Ginn happily pped up every single drop straight from the fish’s wound.
After the blood stopped flowing, Ginn didn’t waste much time, he didn’t have enough strength to fashion a fire drill and thus simply sank his teeth into the soft flesh on the fish’s back.
His stomach protested. It was accustomed to coconut flesh, bugs, and rainwater after all. But he resisted the urge to throw up and ate until his belly was full.
With this meal, Ginn would slowly start building up his physique again. This wouldn’t be the st fish he’d catch, no, this was only the beginning.
