Chapter 2
Amasu returned to Buganbal.
He roamed the streets of Buganbal and as he did he could hear the people mocking and whispering things about him to each other.
“This has to his fifteenth attempt this week to capture and slay a beast from the forest” Amasu heard one of the people say.
Another said “how can the son of such a great man be so foolish”.
“He must have hit his head as child, that’s why he is such a fool” said another one of the people.
Amasu finally lost his temper when he heard someone say “I think he must have inherited his madness from his late mother”.
“Who dared to speak ill about my late mother, let him come out and see how much madness I inherited from her” said Amasu angrily as he brought out his sword and pointed it to the people.
“Amasu, stop this!!!” said the voice of man, a voice Amasu recognized.
Amasu turned around and saw his father, Delamu, the greatest warrior in Buganbal, head of the royal guards and also Amasu’s father on his horse looking at him with a look of disappointment.
“People of Buganbal, I apologies for my son’s behavior and I assure you he will be punished severely for his actions” said Delamu to calm the people down.
Delamu then came down from his horse and went to Amasu and whispered to him “go home now; I will deal with you later”.
Amasu bowed down his face knowing full well what his father meant when he said those words.
Amasu left and went home, awaiting his father and whatever punishment he had in store for him.
Meanwhile deep in the forest Anja and Braiba made their way to their home, small farm house on the top of a great hill near a river.
As they got there they saw their father, Afini, a Storm Maker chopping down some fire wood with a wooden axe.
“Where have you two been” asked Afini.
“Nowhere really, we decided to go for a walk through the forest” said Braiba.
“I hope you two didn’t get yourselves in to any trouble, you know how dangerous the forest can be” said Afini.
They looked at each other, knowing full well how their parents react when hear anything that has to do with Buganbal, for you see their parents, Afini and Alaelra were the Storm Maker and Sorceress that were in the king’s room when he died and were the ones blamed for his death.
After Atoni made the law to kill all magical creatures, the Storm Maker and Sorceress made their way to the forest where they decided to start a family together and eventually had Anja who inherited the powers and abilities of a Storm Maker from his father and Braiba who inherited the powers and magic of a Sorceress from her mother.
Both Afini and Alaelra thought it would best if they kept their family away from Buganbal and forbade both Anja and Braiba from going to Buganbal or interacting with anyone from there in anyway and because of this Anja and Braiba thought it would be wise not to tell their parents about the events that took place in the forest especially the part where they met Amasu, the Buganbalian.
“No father, we didn’t get in to any trouble” said Anja.
“Alright then, get in. Your mother is making dinner and she will soon be done” said Afini.
Anja and Braiba then rushed in to the house where they were greeted by their mom who was busy in the kitchen preparing dinner.
Soon dinner was ready and they all sat down on the dinner table to have their dinner.
As they ate Braiba began to think of the beast they encountered in the forest.
She had never seen a beast so vicious and deadly before, it looked like a demon.
She was so lost in her thoughts about the beast that she barely touched her food.
“What’s wrong Braiba” asked Alaelra, her and Anja’s mother, seeing that Braiba was not eating.
“Nothing mom, I was just lost in my own thoughts” said Braiba as she came out of her deep thoughts and back to reality
“Can you tell me what you were thinking about” asked Alaelra.
“Nothing important” said Braiba as she began to eat, thinking it was best if she said nothing about the beast to her mother.
“Alright then my dear” said Alaelra.
Meanwhile back in Buganbal Amasu went home and waited for his father to return so he could punish him for his reckless action.
Amasu looked at a portrait on the wall of his late mother who died after he was born.
“I wish you were here mother maybe you would understand” said Amasu with a deep sigh, looking at his mother’s portrait.
Amasu then went to his room.
There, he went to his bed and brought out small book from underneath it.
This was no ordinary book, it was his father’s old journal from when he was younger and inside the journal were the many stories of his father and the many adventures he had when he was younger.
Inside the journal were tales a great monstrous beast each of which were killed his father back when he was a younger and hungered for adventure.
Amasu found this journal some years ago laying around somewhere in the house.
His father upon seeing the journal threw it away and said “that journal tells a tale about a foolish boy who only dreamt of being a man”.
Amasu managed to get the journal back and hide it from his father.
Amasu did not understand what his father meant when he said those words before he threw the journal away or why he would choose to throw a journal filled with so many stories of all his adventures as young man.
As Amasu read some of the many stories from the book he wondered what would have made him change so much.
The book described his father as brave warrior who would travel across the lands, daring to cross paths that nobody else was willing to cross, slaying monsters that gave the mightiest of warriors scared.
The man the journal described was nothing like the strict man Amasu knew as his father.
The man in the journal was free and did not let anything rule over him.
The man in the journal craved and hunger for danger so much so that he would willingly dive head first in to it, without fear or hesitation, staring in to the eyes of danger as he charges into to it.
This was a man Amasu would love to call his father; this was the father he wished he had.
Amasu yawned feeling tired and exhausted after reading some of the tales inside the journal.
He was about to close the journal when he thought about reading just one more story.
He then began to read about the time his father fought a creature known as Loliya Perinama or the Moon Beast.
In the words of journal;
“After months hunting I’ve finally found it the Loliya Perinama better known as the Moon Beast. This demon like creature did not come from our world; it came from another. Tonjurofori Ama, the land of no light, a place cursed with a night that lasts for an eternity.
Some mad sorcerer for whatever reason thought it was a good idea to summon it in to our world, that old fool probably thought he could tame it using magic but the fool quickly realize that ordinary magic would not be enough to tame a beast from the land of eternal night when it completely devoured him mere moments after being summoned.
Now it hunts the poor village where the sorcerer resided in, the poor villagers are even too scared to go out in to the forest to hunt out of fear that that beast would attack them
The Moon Beast was a creature that possessed dark fur, teeth and claws so sharp that they could slice through a steel blade with ease and a sharp bone like spike on its tale”
Amasu then began to think, ‘the description of the beast matches with the beast that attacked me in the forest’.
Amasu read the journal further.
“What made this creature truly formidable was the fact that it grew stronger at night.
At night it drew power from moon light and grows into something bigger and stronger, something not even I could not defeat.
I barely managed to survive the beast at and had to wait for the sunrise before I could deliver the final life ending to the beast”
Amasu then began to wonder if that beast he saw in the forest was the same beast his father spoke of and if so that meant…
Deep in the forest, hidden by the thicket of the trees the beast waited for the sun to go down and the moon to rise up.
Soon enough the light of the sun began to die down and darkness of the night slowly began to set in.
And then the moon came out.
As the moon light reached the beast it began to change, growing bigger and stronger than before.
Its claws and teeth grew as well, more spikes began to sprout out of its tale and a pair of demon like wings spouted out of its back.
Once the beast monstrous transformation was complete it took to the skies with its demon wings, its sights set for Buganbal.