• Chapter one: The Beginning of a new Tale





    This story starts in the Middle Ages. I have pieced together this story from different people because I was not there for some of the parts. I will start at the beginning because the beginning is the best place to start.
    As I have said, our story starts in the Middle Ages, when a evil dictator who calls himself king, rules our lands. He takes and never gives back, he even lets raids come and attack us without doing anything. We are a little village right outside the castle he had built for himself. When I was little, my twelve friends and I were dedicated to the Lord, so that he would use us to bring the king down. The Lord answered their prayer in a blinding light saying, “ These thirteen will indeed bring help bring the king down, but beware, one of them will turn against you all. I have granted each of them special abilities, several the same, while others different. Use them wisely, for if not used right, they will be taken away!” Then at that moment, while most of the parents rejoiced in the Lord, one family snuck away and the told the king what happened. But, instead go have the babies executed like most kings would have done, he was so sure of himself, so arrogant, that he did nothing, not even use the family as a spy. That was 20 years now, and now it is time for us to rise. For right now we are the thirteen, thirteen men and women against an entire nation. Thirteen against a force of darkness beyond belief. This is our fight because of the power that has been bestowed on us when we were children, this is our story, our tale, our lives.
    When we were little we started to try to figure out what abilities we had been given. We all thought our powers were going to be invisibility of the power to fly, and several other crazy ideas. None of us expected what they really would be. If you had seen the things we did you probably would have laughed until you suffocated for not being able to breathe. We would jump off trees, sneak up on people, stare at walls for a long time, try to pick up huge boulders, and much more, so much more, there is not enough time to tell them all. Most of the village tolerated our antics, for they too wanted to know what our abilities were.
    It was not until we were 10, that we finally found out what they were, they were actually the ability to use weapons at a greater capacity than others, we had then found out that two of us were archers, another two were mages, one of us was a thief, two of us were great at axes, and three were excellent at spears, lances, etc., while the last three, two others and I, were superior at swords and shields. You see, our parents had started praying to the Lord again to show us what our abilities were. So one day, as we were taking a walk in the forests, we found these weapons and holders on the ground. Thirteen weapons in all, two long bows and quivers stuffed full with arrows, two staffs and two scrolls with magic spells and charms on it, a lock pick and knife, two axes, three lances, and three swords and shields. But these were no ordinary weapons, like those we have seen the king’s men wore, no, these were beautifully made and etched into each was our names, like they have been waiting for us all this time. As soon as we saw them a blinding light came and an angel with a shining blade in his hands came to us saying,
    “ The Lord your God has heard your villages’ prayers and have answered, for these are for you, as you can see, your names have been engraved on your weapon, these are to be used wisely, for good and not for evil.” And then, as fast as came, he disappeared. We took the weapons and ran home as fast as we could, putting the holders on and attaching the weapons on them. Our parents then again praised the Lord for answering their prayers. And once again the family snuck out and told the king what happened, and once again, he did nothing.
    Every day after that we would practice, we would practice for hours on end. The archers would find targets put in trees by the villagers and shoot them down, the mages would study the Books of light that they had found and practiced their spells, the thief would go out into different villages and steal from the wealthy and give most of it to different orphanages and poor people, the rest he gave to the village, the axeman would go out into the woods and hunt and cut down trees, and the swordsmen and spearmen would spar with each other.
    By the time we turned fifteen we would go out and kill small raids of the king’s men attacking small villages nearby. We would take the weapons we got and would give them to the villagers of different towns. We would tell them to hide them until we came back to teach them how to use the weapons. We would disguise ourselves with the uniforms we got from the raids of the king’s men and go into the royal bars and find out information from the drunk soldiers.
    We didn't just kill the king’s men, we also had to fight off the raiders that attacked the
    villagers. Lets just say, we had our hands full. The raiders were the first problem we had,
    after one year of being killed in their raids, they waged war on the thirteen of us, that’s when
    we had our first war, and showed the people the full power of the Lord our God.
    I have never told you our names, or our races. To start off, my name is Martin, I am a human. I am the strongest and wisest of the thirteen, and have been voted leader of our clan by our clan. The human archers’ names are Rachelle and William, though we just call him Will, the names of the axeman are Bartre, and Baltor, they are dwarfs, also the mages names are Nicholas and Ilion, with that there are Sita, Florina, they‘re elves, and Amon, the elven spearmen, the thief’s name is Matthew, he‘s human too, and finally, the last two, the other human swordsmen’s names are Khris, and Kane.
    Now to get back to the war, we will start, not in the beginning, but right after the first fight. Just as Baltor and Nicholas went to check out the bar for information.