Kel's Story

By John Bustrak

The first tale in both the saga of Kel, and the Refuge World; this is a tale of Kel's first Quest as part of the Tel'dai warrior society. The author believes in detailed, immersive worlds with well-developed cultures and characters, and this serves as a beginning introduction to the Refuge World as an example of such.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Bustrak
• Release date: Jul 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476035413

John Bustrak

I'm an author, by nature, and by intended trade. Intended trade, because I've yet to make enough off of it to earn a living, so need to worry about things like day jobs. Before I am an author though, I am a Christian. And that means there are things I'm willing to die for; if there's nothing that matters so much to you to be willing to die for it, what then are you *living* for?

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Kel's Story

By John Bustrak.

Published by John Bustrak at Smashwords.

Copyright 2012, John Bustrak

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On a world known as 'Refuge' by its inhabitants, though they had forgotten why, the largest continent in the northern hemisphere was divided roughly into three parts by two immense mountain ranges, splitting the central part of the continent off from the coastal regions to either side. In time long past, the region's inhabitants had further divided it along political lines; nations, provinces, counties, and tribal territories, as people in any land are wont to do. The vast majority of those human-determined lines had long since been obliterated by wars, wars where man, beast, and beings neither man nor beast had twisted the very elements to their will, and blood was spilled across the land like so much water.

A full generation of war went by before it was realized that blood spilled on the lands tainted it, and crops grown on it had strange, all-too-often deadly effects on any creature who ate them. Few generals or Kings were interested in listening to the farmers by that point, and war raged on, until the lands earned a new name, the Blasted Lands, and less than a tenth of the region's original inhabitants remained, more dead due to induced famine than due to the wars themselves.

Now, only six distinctions remained in how maps of the region were drawn. To the East, nearest the mountains, lay the Axiad lands, warded by a great wall; magi were forbidden in the lands of the Axiad, save those who served in the military to protect the wall, and the lands within were the only remaining concentration of fertile soil between the mountains. To the northeast lay the lands of the Dragon, a being none outside his domain had seen in hundreds of years; common legend said that he accepted those who fled to his territory as refugees, but precious few who sought his shelter returned, and more fear than hope was directed toward the Dragon. To the North, lay the Tundra, vast expanses of open land unspoiled by war, but ruled by Winter the vast majority of the year; few