The first two days were expected. The third day when no one came for him, however, Sethradine knew they never would. He had been clawing at the dirt for hours and it was a remarkably difficult task but he could not stop now. He was out of water and he could not survive another day baking in the sun with his left arm buried to the shoulder, deep in the earth. He was almost free now and the sun would be up in a little over an hour. He attacked the loamy soil with renewed fervor, fingers bloodied, most of the nails now missing. How he wound up in this unusual predicament is an unexpectedly simple tale. A half-elf, outcast and embittered, he had left his village at a young age and fell in with a shaman. He didn’t even have to wander far. The shaman lived less than a day’s walk away, alone and in the woods, shunned by the very same village Sethradine was running from. Shunned, that is until someone needed him for a poultice or a potion, a glimpse into the future, or perhaps a blessing over a swollen belly (always for a male child though it seemed to work only about half the time). He took Sethradine in as an apprentice of sorts, feeding his hungry mind with all sorts of knowledge that fell on both sides of the truth. Several years later when Sethradine expressed an interest in becoming a shaman himself he was unceremoniously shoved out the door for several days. Through the shabby walls of their little hovel he could hear the shaman chanting for hours on end and smell the acrid smoke from too much burning incense. On the final day the shaman built a roaring fire that threatened to burn the structure down. Sethradine could feel the heat through the walls and hear its wicked crackling. Finally, he heard the shaman speaking in a low voice, no longer chanting but holding a seemingly one sided conversation for a very long time. In the end there was quite a bit of arguing. Sethradine could hear it in the strained but still hushed tone of his master. Then abruptly the arguing ceased and Sethradine heard feet stomping angrily for the few steps it took to cross the room. The door jerked open and Sethradine was pulled harshly inside. Sethradine listened intently as he was told what he had to do. In order to determine whether he truly had the vision and power that it took to be a shaman he would have to pass a test. For two days he would be buried empty handed, up to his shoulder, in the earth not far from where they lived. With him he would have enough water to survive the stay but nothing else. He was to keep this vigil alone, but after two days the shaman would return to free him and if in his hand he now grasped a root they would know that he had been blessed by the earth and could truly be a shaman. So that is how he came to be in such unusual circumstances, now finally unearthing the wrist that had been in the ground for three days now. Whether anything was in that hand he had no idea as his entire arm had become leaden by lack of circulation. Most of his arm had come around during the past hours of furious digging, and it felt like an angry swarm of ants stinging him as it did so. Suddenly his hand popped free and Sethradine just stared at it there all covered in mud, the skin a frightening blue color that was surely close to death. The fingers were so tightly clenched he could not see if anything was in there. In the dawn of a new day he held his left hand in his right like it was a foreign object that needed to be explored. The wrist was now burning with the phantom ants so he felt somewhat certain that the hand would live. Pushing grim thoughts aside he finally began to tug at his own fingers, unable to wait for them to return to the living. With one hand beaten to a pulp and the other like wood it was no easy task but at last he accomplished his goal. He stared at the palm of his hand, blinking slowly as the sun peeked over the horizon, unable to fully comprehend what he saw. Lying there was a pewter pendant, a sphere pitted and marked with tiny craters, looking like an object he often saw in the night sky. Looking closer he could see that there were words cleverly crafted around its diameter, disguised to look like the other pocks and marks at first glance: “You must build a fire and make it big for I am so very far away.†The pendant thunked to the ground and Sethradine followed in a heap. The ants were all over his hand now and his other throbbed and screamed with pains of its own. Exhausted and confused he curved his body around the tiny pewter thing and fell into a fitful sleep. He found little rest.
Ohh, this is a great start to a story. Please finish it! I want to know what happens to Sethradine! *grin*
