Hello Friends!
Crystal is the first just-for-fun short story in the Beginnings collection. Scroll to the end for the story behind the story. If you like this mini Quest please like, comment, and share! If you’d like to propose a title for a future Beginnings story, hit reply and let me know!
Happy adventuring
Lindsey
CRYSTAL
Click. Click. Click.
Tumblers turning, spinning, slotting into place.
Click. Click. Thump.
Heartbeat hammering, pounding, demanding to be set loose.
Click. Click. Breathe. Click.
Clack.
The cold metal of the safe door cracked outwards. She felt the air whooshing out through her mouth, but it seemed a distant thing. Like it belonged to someone else. She reached out her hand, finally allowing the tremor in her fingers to show. She grasped the handle and pulled, the door squeaking slightly as it opened. And it had not opened in a long, long time.
Inside lay a simple wooden box with rounded corners, unadorned by any decoration. She placed her fingertips on the lid and paused. Even through her gloves, a faint warmth seeped through the box.
Thud.
It was the faintest of noises. If she had not been tuned to tiny sounds of the safe she might have missed it. She closed her eyes and let her ears take over, filtering through the layers of silence. The whisper of feet over ancient stone.
Her eyes snapped open. Someone else was here.
Without further ceremony, she snatched the box from the safe and stuffed it into her backpack. Then she swung the safe door closed and spun the dial, smiling as she heard the bolts lock back into their sockets. She stood and shouldered her backpack, cinching the straps tight around her shoulders.
Three long strides took her across the room to the window, where she vaulted up onto the narrow sill. The panes of thick glass showed only darkness outside. Quickly, she tugged on the levers, finding them as stiff and rusted as the safe had been. Nothing in this castle had been opened in decades, probably longer. Trust her luck to pick the one night someone else had decided to pay a visit to the ruins.
Or maybe it was more than luck. Maybe someone else knew what she sought.
The window lurched open, almost tipping her out into the darkness. She caught herself before she fell. Heat rushed through her chest, her heart hammering in protest. More carefully, she swung her feet out and found the cracks in the old stone. She tried to push the window shut behind her, but one of the hinges snapped and the whole thing stuck fast.
Leave it, her mind screamed. But, oh how she hated to leave a sign of her passing. Yet it was that or get caught.
As quick as her feet would take her, she climbed down the crumbling wall face. The ground was still twenty feet below her when she heard the squeal of the window opening again. A shard of glass splintered past her.
“I see you, Lore Hunter!”
And I hear you, Legend Keeper, she thought, not having to look up to recognise the voice.
It was the same man who had been following her for the last few months. But he was always several steps behind. Always too slow to catch her. Though she had to admit, this time, he had come closer than usual.
But still too slow. She jumped to the ground and spared a glance upwards. The Legend Keeper’s face peered down at her through the window. She saluted, then darted away into the dark.
A few hours later, the woods surrounded her and all trace of her pursuer had faded. She allowed herself to drop to the ground, flopping onto her back amidst the moss and leaves. Closing her eyes, she let her breath flow in and out, gradually slowing. She squirmed. Something was digging into her back.
She sat up and pulled open her backpack. Her breath stilled. There was the simple wooden box, nestled amongst her things. Slowly, she took it out and sat it in her lap. Her thumbs hovered over the latch. Did she dare to open it?
I am a Lore Hunter. Of course, I’m going to open it.
The latch clicked open easily under her touch, as if the thing inside the box had been waiting all this time to be let out. Bright light flooded out as the lid opened, and she squinted away from it. Either the light faded or her eyes adjusted, for she was able to bring her gaze into focus once more.
And there, sitting on a bed of straw, was the Crystal.
Behind the Story
Back in 2021, my brother challenged me to take part in Inktober (a challenge for artists to create an inked drawing every day during October based on a set prompt list), except instead of producing a drawing a day, he challenged me to write a story a day. I didn’t manage much more than a week, but Crystal was the first story I wrote that month. I started out with the simple idea of a thief stealing a crystal from a safe, but it wasn’t until I started writing that the idea of Lore Hunters and Legend Keepers came to me! Who are they? What do they do? What is the Crystal they are all seeking? Let me know your theories in the comments!
Please tell me there's another 74,000 words in the pipeline! This is so good, I want to read more. Maybe the crystal contains information to where the legends still exist. Perhaps the legend keepers see themselves as protecting the legends by keeping them hidden from people who would exploit them. Is a Lore Hunter even a good profession to hold? Who does she work for?
I love this! I think Legend Keepers vs Lore Hunters is great. Maybe Legend Keepers want legends to remain only known to the elite and Lore Hunters try to find magical items to prove to the masses that the legends are true... In which case something about the legends must be worth knowing.