The Wanderer's Notebook Volume I

By Christopher Emrys

The Wanderer's Notebook reveals tales of wonders, nightmares, and the bizarre all taking place in a vast interconnected multiverse. See the world of humans through inhuman eyes. Make trusted, but unusual friends. Explore lands divided by timeless mists. Journey to the farthest reaches of space.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Undying Curiosity
• Release date: Oct 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781735724911

Book preview

The Wanderer's Notebook Volume I

By Christopher Emrys

Cover Design & Artwork by Nicole Sato

www.thewanderersnotebook.com

Undying Curiosity

Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.

Revised 2022

ISBN: 978-1-7357249-1-1

Contents

The Sorrowful Sprite

Tabitha

Aurelia

Eleanor

Shattered Alliances

At First Sight

Henry and Adelaide

Journey Beyond

Appendix I

The Wanderer's Notebook Volume I

I

The Sorrowful Sprite

Faetir, Year Unkept

Dynoltir, +1543 TR

The three sprites ran through what would appear to be a temperate rain forest after a hard rain. Wide, tall trees shaded the ground covered in bushes and ferns, moisture saturating every surface. The sprites raced after each other, climbing and leaping, sometimes in the trees, and sometimes near the ground.

Sprites possessed a strange combination of animal traits. They were typically small, only about 1 foot in length, with their tail being roughly half of that length. Their slender bodies were covered in something akin to glistening metallic scales, while patches of short fur bristled through the cracks. They had medium-length protruding snouts shaped like large reptiles, but their faces were more articulate, able to smile and snarl in a mammalian fashion. Long, pointed ears trailed behind their heads when they ran but were fully capable of twisting and turning as needed to locate sounds. A series of larger scales ran along their backs in two rows, one on either side of the spine. These plates could be raised in order to unfurl large, gossamer wings.

Though sprites could change shape and color at will, these three each had their own preference so that no matter what form they took, one tended to be blue, one red, and one green. On this particular day, Red was in the lead.

Red's mouth hung open in a subtle smile as she ran from her two playmates. The adrenaline surge at the prospect of being caught was exhilarating. She raced up a tree and out along one of its branches. Without hesitation, she leaped to the next branch and then ran down the far side of the trunk.

Almost as soon as she hit the ground, she heard Blue and Green land behind her. They must have used their wings to take a direct diagonal approach to the base of the tree.

Adrenaline shot through her again, and she raced ahead even faster.

Red dove straight into a large thick bush, ducking and leaping to avoid the branches. Her smile became less subtle as she caught sight of a peculiar scratch mark near the base of one of the branches. There was a slight depression in the soil below and after this particular branch. Red grabbed the branch with her front claws and swung herself over the depression. As soon as she'd passed it, she spun behind the base of the bush, flattened herself to the ground, and changed color to blend in.

She watched as Blue and Green tore along the ground a few seconds later. As soon as their feet touched the depression in the soil, the ground exploded as the two halves of a spiked trap slammed together, impaling her two pursuers in multiple places.

Red rolled over on her back laughing as her coloration returned to normal now that her concentration was broken. Blood poured from the wounds in the impaled blue and green sprites. She kicked her legs and pounded her fists into the ground as her body shook with laughter.

Blue and Green sagged in the trap. Their bodies went limp as the blood pooled on the ground.

Red's laughter was interrupted by the sound of the other sprites' bodies twisting and pulling away from the trap’s center. They reconstituted themselves on either side of the trap and playfully pounced on her, their mouths hanging open in ear-to-ear grins.

The three sprites rolled around laughing and playfully biting at each other.

This was by far Red's favorite game. She and her friends had chased and trapped each other for as long as she could remember, and she never tired of it.

Eventually, their laughter died down. Red was getting sleepy and she knew they were as well. She curled up in a ball next to Green and Blue. The warmth of their bodies was comforting, and she sighed contentedly as she drifted off to sleep.

When the last of the three friends had fallen asleep, the forest around them began to fade, replaced by a white void. The only thing remaining were the three sprites curled up next to each other.

*      *      *

Green rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked at her still sleeping friends. She was sure she'd heard something that had woken her up, yet the void around them was still empty.

Giving up on the sound, Green focused her mind on the area in front of her. The empty void faded into a lush patch of earth and vegetation. A bush grew out of the foliage and soon sprouted berries. Green went about eating her fill of the berries until she heard the sound again.

It was there but faint and unrecognizable. Her eyes squinted as she looked at her friends. What if they were producing the sound? A sly smile crept across her face as she mentally probed their minds, but, much to her disappointment, they were still asleep.

Green went back to eating the berries, looking around for the sound’s source. She found it captivating, as if it was beckoning her.

There.

The sound was coming from somewhere to her right. She slowly trotted off in the direction of the sound. Eventually, she came across a strange sphere of swirling colored lights. She'd never seen anything like it. The world was easy to mold with her mind, but this wasn't from her imagination. She reached back and mentally kicked her friends awake. Within seconds, they joined her and the three of them began chittering excitedly while curiously circling the sphere.

And then it came again, but this time louder, more distinct, and forming patterns she didn't recognize. She had no idea what the words meant, but there was a mental projection that went along with them. It was an invitation. They were being invited to enter the strange sphere. A new place to play was on the other side... new playmates and things to explore.

The offer was appealing, and she desperately wanted to go. Green turned and chittered to her two friends. They conferred for a few seconds.

The decision was unanimous. They all wanted to see this new land and what games they could play there.

Green leaped into the sphere. 

*      *      *

Blue fell out of the swirling sphere of color and felt the soft, moist earth beneath his feet. He turned to look back and saw Red fall out behind him. Seeing that she landed safely, he turned and began taking in his new surroundings.

They were in a forest, though the plants were slightly different than the ones they normally conjured themselves. The moisture in the ground and scents in the air indicated a recent rainfall. Red was clawing experimentally at a tree, and Green was digging into the earth near its roots. Blue's eyes followed the length of the tree upward and gazed on the clear blue sky between the leaves.

His thoughts were interrupted by confused chittering from Red. Blue turned his attention back to her and went to see what was going on.

Red continued to chitter away, poking at the tree and sending waves of mental images washing over him. The tree couldn't be changed. Blue, perplexed, tilted his head. What did she mean the tree couldn't be changed? Everything could be changed.

Blue flicked his mind at the tree to make it into a bush, but nothing happened. His head jerked lower and tilted again as he squinted at the tree. He focused harder, but nothing happened. In confusion, he clawed at the tree as if to dig through its surface and find the answers he sought, but nothing happened.

Waves of confusion washed out from him and over him from his two friends as they chittered away. Eventually the confusion faded and was replaced by a new thought: What sort of creature could and would overpower their will and keep the tree a tree? In their homeland, if two creatures were to vie for control of how the world was formed, it would normally be a matter of each participant changing things back to the way they were rather than completely denying or stopping the other from making the changes they desired.

The curiosity of it all took root in his mind and spread to the others. After a few moments of circling around and looking about, Blue and his two friends took off in the direction that instinct said they should go.

*      *      *

Green floated on her back in the cool waters of a stream they had found. Her arms and legs were relaxed and sprawled across the surface of the water. The sun shone brightly between the branches and warmed her hide, relaxing her muscles and her mind.

They had explored the forest for a few days but had not discovered anyone capable of reshaping the world or preventing them from doing so.

The three friends had, however, come across some of the local wildlife. There were small, soft, furry creatures with long ears who hopped away as soon as any of them approached. They had also encountered tall four-legged creatures with short fur, long pointed faces, and short tails. Some of these even had large, irregular, branchlike protrusions coming out of their heads, but, alas, even these creatures seemed unwilling to play.

They did have some luck with another creature with medium-length fur, a long tail, and four legs. It had sharper teeth and liked to howl at the sky for some strange reason. Every time it did, they could hear other howls, but they always seemed so far off. The three sprites followed the creature for a day, noticing that it kept trying to move closer to where the other howls had come from. Since it had sharper teeth and friends, they decided to see if it would be more open to playing than the other creatures they had encountered.

The three sprites circled the creature, nipping at it and running away to encourage it to chase them, but instead the creature responded with deep growls and bared teeth. It snapped at them a couple times, but they playfully dodged and laughed. Eventually, Blue managed to bite it back on its snout and draw blood. The sight of the blood was a sign that Blue had scored a point against their new playmate, but the creature ran off instead.

Disappointed, the three friends continued wandering aimlessly through the forest until they found a stream.

Green's eyelids became too heavy to keep open, and her mind drifted off.

Slowly Green became aware of a sound, different from what they'd heard in the forest so far, more fluid and continuous.

Green opened her eyes and turned her ears this way and that to isolate the direction whence the sound came. Once she honed in on it, she swam back to shore and crept along the bank until she spied its source.

The sound came from a tall, bipedal animal. Its flesh seemed mostly devoid of fur, except for an unusually long patch on the top of its head that flowed down around its shoulders. The head did not protrude in a snout-like fashion like so many other creatures, and its mouth seemed comparatively small. At first, Green thought that the upper torso was similar to hers with front legs ending in feet intended to grasp things...but its lower body was like a shapeless blob. After several minutes of observation, she realized that the shapeless blob extending up over the creature’s torso and front legs was some other material and not the creature's own body. Green had never seen a creature that covered its body with some other material in this fashion.

The strange creature with the artificial secondary skin was checking a trap in the stream and pulling out several small, narrow, smoothly scaled and gilled creatures and depositing them in a wooden cylinder. Green easily recognized the trap for what it was. She and her friends made all sorts of traps for each other quite frequently.

Since this creature was the most like her that she'd seen so far, Green began to look for a way to play.

The slippery scaly creatures looked tasty. Perhaps stealing one would make for a fun little game.

When the melodious creature turned its head away from the hollow wooden cylinder, Green snuck up and stole one of the slippery scaly things.

She scurried up a nearby tree and watched as the creature turned back to the cylinder and stopped its fluid sounds. The creature's head turned this way and that, looking for the missing thing. Green laughed so hard that she lost her grip on the scaly thing and it fell to the ground a few feet from the creature. Its head jerked up and its eyes locked on Green.

Green stopped laughing and stared back at the creature. It wasn't running away like the other creatures or making any moves to indicate that it wanted to play. The behavior was more like it was wondering what Green was.

Green tilted her head and made some cooing and clicking noises toward the creature. It picked up the scaly thing, placed it as far from itself as it could, and slowly backed away. Green tilted her head again as she looked at the offering. Did the creature want her to have it?

She carefully climbed down the tree and approached the scaly thing. If it was giving her the slippery little creature, she might as well eat it. Green took a few nibbles. Whatever this was, it was delicious.

The melodious creature slowly approached her and she stopped eating. She watched as it came closer and knelt down a couple feet away. The creature hesitantly reached out a hand. Green reached back and touched the soft flesh of the strange creature. Green's skin was tough and scaly, but this thing was very soft.

The creature made some sounds similar to its previous ones, but much less continuous, flowing, or pleasant. After a while, the creature stood to its full height and began walking away, taking its wooden cylinder with its tasty slippery, scaly things with it.

Green followed the creature back to what must be its home: a large wooden structure with square and rectangular openings. 

*      *      *

By the time Red and Blue had followed Green back to the strange creature's large wooden box, night had fallen. Red split from her