Current Version:
388 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…
Fast-Paw felt a shiver. “Probably nothing,” they thought, but still they looked for conformation from others of their kind among the usual morning crowd.
Twitch was pacing more forcefully than usual, their tail shifting left-to-right with frantic energy.
Bright-Eye kept their head lowered in thought.
Snaggle seemed entirely absent.
Fast-Paw sighed. Today’s Wordler, up the platform, was an eager young woman with raven-black hair and piercing red eyes. She had knelt before the QUEEN as an ordinary Villager, but would arise as the REALM’s next champion. They wished her the best of luck, but Folk premonitions usually meant that a Wordler was going to have a rough day.
“I take your name from you,” the QUEEN intoned. “No longer shall you be referred to as, well, hmm, it seems I’ve forgotten it already.”
The witnesses chuckled, as they always chuckled for this joke, or for any other joke delivered by Her Royal Highness. Fast-Paw rolled their eyes. Others might accuse them of lacking a sense of humor, but they’d come to loathe this morning ritual of faked laughter.
“No matter,” the QUEEN continued. “You have a new name now, more befitting your new purpose. With my blessings, you now become the 388th citizen chosen to save us all from certain destruction. ARISE, Wordler 388!”
The Wordler stood to fanfare and enthusiastic applause, at least from the humans and other non-Folk in the crowd. The Folk all seemed too distracted to respond. Twitch was pacing so fast that they began to stoop, as if ready to shift from two legs into their four-legged gait. Bright-Eye heaved their shoulders with a heavy sigh. Snaggle had finally shown up, bedraggled and still in their bedclothes, as if they had arrived straight from waking.
“You felt it too?” Snaggle said to Fast-Paw.
Fast-Paw nodded. “There’s another rough day ahead. But the Wordlers usually prevail, even on days such as these.”
“Usually,” Snaggle agreed. The two Folk bowed their heads together in remembrance of the few, over the past year of the curse, who hadn’t been so lucky. But somehow, against all odds, Wordler Village had remained intact even during the days of failure. The curse had been beaten back time and again by just the right Word on just the right day.
“But did today’s shiver feel any different to you?” Fast-Paw asked their friend. “More, I don’t know, more shivery than usual?”
Snaggle shrugged. “I was thinking that today would be a good day to go hunting.”
“Out in the forest?” Fast-Paw asked.
“Away from the village,” said Bright-Eye, as they and Twitch joined in.
“And we should invite 360 to come along,” said Twitch.
Less than a month before, Wordler 360 had become one of the few Folk Wordlers to ever be chosen. Their dead-name had been Stuck-Up, and they’d had a reputation for being aloof, even by Folk standards. But becoming a Wordler tended to change a person, and 360 had changed more than most. Helpful, productive, and engaged, they were now a leader for Folk and humans alike.
“I can’t go with you,” said 360, anticipating the question as the others approached. “If things go badly today, the village is going to need me.”
“We’d need you too,” said Fast-Paw.
“Then give a call, and I will find you,” 360 pledged.
“You too,” said Fast-Paw. They’d meant the words as a courtesy, but somehow they triggered the strongest shiver yet.
The other four Folk left 360 and travelled on the West Road. Beyond the limits of the village, the road entered a forest of plentiful game, and the Folk shifted to their four-legged forms for a day of hunting.
That day, in another forest of the REALM, Wordler 388 failed her quest. The sun went down, NIGHT fell, and Wordler Village was destroyed.
* * *
Among the ruins, 393 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…
The Folk had hunted these forests long before the encroachment of pastures and fields. They’d slept under the stars before the construction of the first thatch-roofed huts. They’d claimed sole dominion over the plains before the first humans had ever stumbled into the land. Fast-Paw had no doubt their kind would survive, as their ancestors had, without the comforts of so-called civilization. And all the humans, probably, would go back to the lands of their ancestors as well. Perhaps, they thought, it was just as well for the curse to have reset the REALM to the state that it was always meant to have.
But the shivers didn’t end with NIGHTfall. If anything, the premonitions of doom were stronger than ever, and came with a frequency that disrupted the hunt. “We must move on,” said Snaggle, as they became the first to abandon the land of their ancestors. They were followed by Bright-Eye and Twitch.
By the fifth day after NIGHTfall, Fast-Paw found themselves alone. Alone and stubborn, they told themself. And as the most stubborn of the Folk, they’d inherited the entire REALM.
Or maybe they were not quite alone after all, it seemed, as they heard a distant caterwaul in the distance. Fast-Paw followed the call to its source, back within the shattered rubble of the village, where Wordler 360 lay in a tangled heap under the collapsed chimney of a broken house.
Fast-Paw took them by the hands and pulled. “Here, let me—”
“No.” 360 lapsed into a fit of coughing before they could continue. “It’s too late for me. I’m meant to die here. She made that perfectly clear.”
“Then why did you call for me?” Fast-Paw spat. “Why bring me here just to watch helplessly as you die? I thought you’d moved beyond such selfishness, Stuck-Up, or did the curse reset you as well?”
360 winced. “I called you to deliver a chance for you to survive the day. ‘Pass it along,’ she told me. ‘Tell Fast-Paw that they are Wordler 393.’”
“Who told you this?” Fast-Paw asked. “Was it the QUEEN? She has no authority anymore. Not in the ruins of her failed monarchy, and certainly not among the Folk.”
“The QUEEN is dead,” 360 stated. “You were chosen by Wordler 388.”
A shiver. A vision of the raven-haired Wordler who failed. “She has declared herself to be our new QUEEN?”
“She is an agent of the curse, and through her the curse has become unshackled from the REALM. Using her bones, it roams the world as a hunter.”
“You’re delusional,” said Fast-Paw.
“And you’re doomed,” said 360, “unless you can find just the right five-letter Word to protect yourself. But she did provide a clue. You are meant to entertain me now, in my final moments. Do something silly. Do something crazy. Make me laugh hard enough to banish the shivers of premonition, so that I might escape this world in peace.”
With tears in their eyes, Fast-Paw—now Wordler 393—launched into the first comedy routine of their life.
Web3 Draft:
Revision Notes:
To be added.
