"Honey´s Journal" by Kortnee Bryant

Spending the rest of eternity as a ghost is very boring.  The Bard Honey discovered this fact, much to her chagrin, after the first fifty years and looked for something to occupy her time.  She was not confined to the place where she had died but had agreed to serve as a guide on searches that would bring people through “her” bit of land and found she needed something to do to pass the time.  Christopher brought her a book enchanted to allow her to touch it.  She conjured her own writing utensils and left the book open for ‘questers’ she didn’t like to find.  Without the proper equipment, it was impossible to read past the first entry.  Ghostly snickering is often heard when people try to read the next entry.

The first entry reads at follows:

Words are dangerous creatures.  Made up of single letters, they can combine to multiply to truly devastating consequences.  For example, the words ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident’ can spiral out of control and create new nations.  Even the word ‘yes,’ when applied to the correct questions, has spawned a race of beings with two arms, two legs, two thumbs, eight fingers, ten toes and a single head.  These creatures have made new words and those words have given them power over their environment.

Words carry power and when used correctly or incorrectly, depending on the point of view, can wreak more havoc than a single axe wielding maniac could ever hope to accomplish.  A smart leader recognizes the power of words and can use them to his advantage.  A foolish leader ignores this power to his peril, often remembering it too late to use it and just in time to understand the word ‘martyr.’

In the dawning of pre-history, on the world of Trinily, it was the man with words who was the first hero.  Surrounded by the unknown, armed with crude weapons and fighting every day for their very survival, it was the man who named things who led his people, for a name steals the power of the thing named and gives it a shape.  Dangers still lurked but they became known dangers; a thing could kill but, if it was real, it could also be defeated.  Words could make things real.

The First Hero named things and gave his people power over the land surrounding them.  He gave them words for the good and the bad and told them of the gods; of the beautiful mother who created them and all her children set to look over them.  The people embraced the gods and gave them shape, telling stories to each other.  The First Hero knew it was time to let his people find their own way because they had found words that could give power as well as take it.

The First Hero began to travel the world he had given form to and visiting the creatures he had told his people of.  He held converse with the first dragons and the ancestors of the elves.  He learned to swim and spoke to the merfolk of the other people in the sea.  The journeys he took were numerous and he developed a great love for his world. 

But through all of his journeys, he lacked a companion.  However long he stayed in a place, death would come for those around him and he knew it was death for he had named it in the beginning. 

The First Hero returned to his people, his first love, and watched as they grew.  There came a time when his people needed a protector and the First Hero went to watch over the protector and give him strength with his words.  The protector did his duty and saved his people but took mortal wounds in the process.  The First Hero had much admiration for the fallen protector and refused to let death have him so he named himself and gave his power to the fallen protector so that he might live.  With that decision, the world stopped and a voice spoke to him from within a bright light.  “First of my children, I can se the love you bear for my creation and I grant you this boon.  You may have all those who choose to bear your title.  Any whom you wish to keep with you in this mortal realm shall be shielded from death.”

“But what of the others?” he protested.  “Not all wish to take up arms to defend their people.  They wish to feed them and love them and serve them.  Surely they deserve something as well.”

“Then I will extend that boon.  Any who wish to give words to my children shall be given to them after death, that death is not the end but the next step in the cycle of life.”

The First Hero named himself…

That is the end of the first entry and it is believed that whoever can read the name of the First Hero can compel him to grant them life.  This is, of course, utter nonsense but it has been persistently circulated by a bard commonly known as Christopher.