PREFACE
I am Advik, a student at Neerja Modi School. I am studying in Class VI. I love reading fantasy books.
This book is about a fantasy land called Lythopia and how it was saved from its ultimate demise.
Chapter 01: The Mysterious Letter
One day I was going to work like I usually do every Wednesday. I was equally excited because it was my birthday that Saturday. As I approached my desk, I saw a mysterious letter on it. It said on the outside, “VERY CONFIDENTIAL FOR MR. EIRC.” It had my name, so I thought it was probably for me. I was curious to see who sent me this letter. But I was equally concerned because what if it had bad news like my pet goldfish died or I was being sued? You never know. So I just decided to ignore it while I worked. But I couldn’t take my mind off it. I looked again at the envelope lying on my desk. Then I looked at all the work I had to get done. Finally, I snatched the envelope off my desk and ran to my home like a madman. Once I reached my house, I locked my door and opened the letter, which had strange but familiar writing. I couldn’t remember where I had seen it. It said, “Meet me at the top of Catbells Mountain on Friday evening.
PS: What took you so long to open the envelope? “Geez, you have trust issues.” I was a little flabbergasted because the person who wrote this letter knew me very well. So, if I had to scale an entire mountain, I would need new hiking socks. My old ones have moth holes in them.
I went to the best place for mountain climbing equipment that I knew of. I told the guy behind the register that I only needed mountain socks, but he ran around the entire building, grabbing stuff and saying that I couldn’t take any risk if it came to mountain climbing. I was heading out of the building with six bags of hi-tech mountain climbing equipment. As I walked With all the bags in front of my face, I bumped into a little child with a loud bang. When I came to my senses, I saw that my nephew was the person I had banged into. He helped put all my purchases into the bags. As he kept them, he read their names out loud. He asked why I needed snake anti-venom ointment, ice climbing pickaxes, SOS radar beacon, etc. Then his eyes lit up. He asked me if I was going mountain climbing. Then he started to beg me to take him with me too. But I insisted on him not going because it could be dangerous. Finally, I made him prefer not to go, which was very hard because my nephew is very stubborn.
Chapter 02: Catbells Mountain
On Saturday at noon, I stepped out of my house with all my equipment. I reached the train station very weary. Somehow, I made my way into the overcrowded train, my hiking bag strapped to my back. The train was very uncomfortable, but I managed to get to Catbells Mountain without getting crushed by my hiking bag. Then came the tricky part: Scaling a 400-meter mountain, which doesn’t sound like much on paper but is challenging. I took an easy route to climb it, and it was already afternoon, so I decided to climb it quickly. As I hiked up the mountain’s steep edges, I got thirsty. I reached out for my water bottle and realized that I hadn’t filled it. I saw a stream of clear water and decided to fill my bottle. As I walked to the stream, I tripped on a rock. I bumped my head as I tripped. To make matters worse, I fainted.
Chapter 03: The Kingdom of Lythopia
When I came to my senses, I saw that I was no longer near a stream but in a cave. The cave was vast and high. I could see many ores sticking out. I suddenly noticed a green goblin staring at me. The goblin said something in a strange language, but I couldn’t understand any word he uttered. He must have seen the confusion on my face because he handed me a peculiar script with weird symbols on it. It took me a while to understand that the goblin’s language was written on the paper. But even with the paper, I still couldn’t understand the goblin’s language. He then used hand signs to indicate to me to follow him. While the goblin led the way around the gigantic cave, I hobbled after him. We finally came to a heavily guarded door. There were three guards with full-on metal armour, swords, and shields. Each of their armour had a coat of arms. They stood there, blocking the way for any trespassers. The goblin again started speaking in his language to the guards.
As soon as he finished, the guards opened the door for us. The goblin started leading the way again. It was a marble hallway made of marble, with every inch of it covered with paintings of different people achieving different feats. Soon we reached the end of the hallway. It led to an even more majestic room. It had massive pillars with inscriptions on them. In the centre of the room was a throne with a very bold-looking knight seated on it. The goblin then took me to the knight, who might have been their king. The king then looked at me from head to toe. Then he said something to the goblin (in his weird language, of course). The goblin replied, and the king nodded. The king said something, and the goblin bowed to him and left. The king then turned to me. He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. The king finally said something. He said, “I had asked my minister, the goblin who escorted you to me, to bring me a valiant and courageous person who would be worthy enough to save the kingdom of Lythopia.”
Chapter 04: The Prophecy
I was a bit anxious because it is not every day for me to go around saving kingdoms. I tried to negotiate with the king by saying that I was neither valiant nor courageous, but the king simply ignored me. “But what do I have to do,” I asked frantically. He pulled out a piece of paper. He said, “According to this prophecy, you are the key to saving our kingdom.” The king started reading from the paper, which supposedly was the prophecy. “One tragic day, the evil wizard Radagast will unleash a Witherstorm, which will seem small at first but will grow very fast, shadowing the Kingdom of Lythopia, intending to destroy every mere thing in its way.
The only person who can save Lythopia from imminent danger is a brave knight who can put an end to the relentless Witherstorm and defeat Radagast.” Hearing about this evil wizard, Radagast and his Witherstorm, gave me goosebumps. I tried to tell the king again that I wasn’t a knight, but he didn’t listen to me. Instead, he called another goblin and said something to him. The goblin bowed to him and returned after a few seconds carrying a chest. The king opened the chest and pulled out a gleaming set of armour, complete with a sword and a shield. “This special armour made of Lythopian Sapphire can protect you from a cannonball hurling at you at full speed.” The king said. I shuddered. I definitely wouldn’t want to test that. The king handed me the armour and commanded me to wear it. After putting on the complete armour, it felt like a sauna. I tried to take off the helmet, but the king forced me to keep it on.
Chapter 05: The Ride on the Emerald Dragon
I asked him how I would get to Radagast, even though I didn’t want to fight him. “You will go on the Emerald Dragon, dropping you at the base of Radagast’s castle. I will give you a bag with everything you will need. I groaned. I didn’t want to bring more bags with me, but then I realized I didn’t have my mountain-climbing equipment bag on my shoulders. So the king called the goblin again and said something to him in his language. The king told me the goblin would take me to the Emerald Dragon. He also told me that when I have to leave, there is a whistle in my backpack, which I have to blow, and the Emerald Dragon will come and pick me up.
The goblin took me to a majestic green dragon.
The goblin seated me on the dragon’s saddle. When the dragon took off, I clutched the reins for my dear life. I am a nervous flyer and always get airsick on aeroplanes. On a dragon, it’s 100 times worse.
I tried to look around to see if the goblin had packed any airsickness bags. While being a wimp, I didn’t realize that we flew through half of Lythopia. The king had informed me that I would find Radagast’s castle a little far east of the edge of Lythopia. I looked in the bag that the king gave me and pulled out a compass. I checked to see if we were going in the right direction. It was already afternoon when we took off. We flew through the night. I didn’t sleep because I was worried that I would fall off the dragon in my sleep.
When it was dawn, I saw a humongous, threatening black cloud up ahead. That was the ferocious Witherstorm. When I looked down, I saw that the Witherstorm was devouring everything in its path. It ate trees, houses, and parks. With everything it ate, it became gigantic. I clutched the dragon’s reins harder. I didn’t want to be eaten by the Witherstorm. The dragon took to the skies and flew directly into the dreadful Witherstorm. I had kept my eyes closed, waiting for tragedy to strike. When I opened my eyes, I saw that we were okay. My armour kept the dragon and me from being devoured by the Witherstorm. I squinted, and I saw a vast, dark castle in the far-off distance. I saw a very tall chimney, from which it seemed like the Witherstorm was being produced. The dragon left me at the base of the castle.
Chapter 06: Radagast’s Castle
I tried to sneak into the castle, but I couldn’t dig my way in because the ground was rock solid. I couldn’t break the wall because I didn’t have anything to break it with. My only possible option was to go through an open window or simply break it with the hilt of my sword. I saw a window on the second floor. I looked in my bag to see if I could find something that would help me get up there.
I found a foldable ladder, which I opened to reach the second floor. When I got there, I bashed the glass and jumped in the window, trying to avoid the glass shards.
I looked around my surroundings and saw a lectern with an open book of spells. The page that opened was the spell for creating the Witherstorm. I was scared of snooping around in an evil wizard’s room. I tried to be quiet, but the floor was creaking so much that I felt like the floor would break. I flipped around the book’s pages, hoping I might find a spell to reverse the Witherstorm, but I had no luck. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I ran around the room, trying to find a hiding place, and slipped under the bed. Just as I went under the bed, Radagast burst into the room. He walked over to his spell book and flipped to another page. “I have to tear out this spell page and throw it away so that no one can reverse my Witherstorm,” Radagast said, and he tore out a page and threw it away.
Then he walked over to the window I broke to get in. “How did a bird manage to break such a hard
window? No problem, I can get it fixed.” Then he came to the bed and lay down on it. I waited for him to fall asleep so I could go down to the other floors to see how he was making his Witherstorm. I waited for a few minutes for him to fall asleep. When he slept, I sneaked out of the room.
On the first floor, I saw many shelves with sparkling potions, but once I reached the ground floor, I saw a cauldron under a chimney with something as black as coal that was steaming. I assumed it was the cauldron from which the Witherstorm was being produced.
I quickly ran back to the wizard’s room to get the spell with which I could reverse the Witherstorm. I tried to read the spell, but it was written in the same weird language the goblin was speaking in. I looked inside the bag the king had given me and saw some pretty weird glasses. I put them on, thinking they were spy message decoder glasses.
When I looked at the spell page, every sentence seemed to be written in English. I removed the glasses, and the text changed into the goblin’s weird language. I put the glasses on, and the text transformed back into English.
I read the spell. It said, “To reverse every spell ever made by the user of this book, you need to crush the Emerald of Destruction into bits.” It will destroy all the spells made from the book and ruin the book itself. Once the book is destroyed, no more spells from it can be used. Anything made from the spells will disappear. This spell was perfectly what I needed. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to get the Emerald of Destruction.
Chapter 07: Escape from the Cage
While I was reading the spell, Radagast woke up and ran down the stairs. This time I got a good look at him. He wore a long purple robe with silver stars that brushed the ground when he walked. He was wearing a massive ring on his ring finger. The hat he was wearing had two feathers in it. His eyes were black as the Witherstorm and as cold as ice. He chanted a spell that put me in a cage. Alarmed, I pulled at the bars, trying to bend them but had no luck. “Oh, lucky me. It’s been a very long time since I had man-meat for dinner. I love eating human meat but can get only a little of it every year. But today is my lucky day.” He said. I tried to cut the bars of my cage with my sword but had no luck. “That cage is made of pure proteus, which, per se, is a very tough material,” he cackled. He left the key to my cell on a table far from my reach.
The king hadn’t packed any grabbers in the bag he gave me. I rummaged through that bag to find anything that would help me get off Radagast’s dinner menu but had no luck.
I looked around the room and saw a rat looking at me curiously. I pointed at the key repeatedly so the rat could get it toward me. It opened its mouth and asked me, “Are you mute, or are you an idiot pointing at the key.” I took the rat speaking for a surprise. I answered, “I am not mute, but can you please pass me that key?” It scurried over to the table and handed me the key.
After I unlocked myself, I asked the rat, “Where would I find the Emerald of Destruction?” “It’s on the topmost floor of the castle,” he said. I thanked him and hiked up the stairs to the top floor.
Chapter 08: The Emerald of Destruction
There was a small door on that floor, which, surprisingly, was open. I went inside, and there, on the pedestal, was a velvet cushion on which the Emerald of Destruction was resting. I took the emerald and yeeted it on the floor. But the emerald was unscathed. Then I remembered that sapphire could cut emeralds, so I ran back down where I had left my sword. I took my sword and tried to cut the emerald from the same side I had tried to cut my cage, which did almost nothing to the emerald. The proteus had managed to blunt my sword a little. I turned my sword to its other sharp blade and sliced the emerald in half.
As I cut the emerald in half, the entire castle disappeared into thin air. The emerald, however, when I sliced it, crumbled apart and faded away.
Chapter 09: The Duel for Lythopia
The wizard fell from where the first floor once used to be. I guessed he was making himself an invisibility potion. I was excited because I had managed to defeat Radagast and reverse the Witherstorm, meaning it would spew everything it ate. I had managed to save Lythopia. Or so I thought. Radagast looked very angry. His large ring was sparkling uncontrollably. But it did not disappear. Out of the ring emerged a dark blade that looked just as threatening as the Witherstorm. I pulled out my sword, which was blunt from one side. Our swords hit each other in such a way that they formed sparks.
The fate of the entire Kingdom of Lythopia depended on me. If I lose this battle, the Kingdom of Lythopia will be destroyed. Radagast’s sword almost cut my neck, but I dodged his attack. I was exhausted but had to keep fighting. In a last-ditch effort, I pulled something cylindrical out of my bag and threw it at Radagast. The cylindrical thing I pulled out was a smoke grenade. It so perplexed Radagast that I was able to take advantage of his confusion and cut his ring. Finally, he was disarmed. Then I hit him on his head from the hilt of my sword, from which he fainted. I quickly pulled out a dragon-shaped whistle and blew in it. The Emerald Dragon came for me in just a few seconds. I mounted myself and Radagast on the saddle and flew back to the king’s castle.
I was welcomed like a hero because I was one. The king put Radagast to justice and sentenced him to life imprison. Everyone Radagast had captured was freed. The king asked me for any wish I had. I said, “The only desire I have is to return home. I was in the middle of scaling a mountain.” The king said, “Then so it be. You will ride the Emerald Dragon to go back to your home.” He then called the Emerald Dragon, and I was seated on him. I said goodbye to everyone, and the dragon flew.
Chapter 10: A Surprise Birthday Party
I saw a rainbow whirlpool up ahead of us clutched the reins harder, and tried to tell the dragon not to fly in it. But the dragon flew inside of it, and the whirlpool flew me off the dragon’s saddle, leaving me floating in the endless vortex of the rainbow. I closed my eyes and waited for myself to fall. When I opened my eyes, I saw I was back on Catbells Mountain. Just as I got up and dusted myself, everything came rushing back. I received the mysterious letter, climbed Catbells Mountain, went to a stream to fill my bottle, and tripped. There was a watermelon-sized lump on my head. I rose to the tippy-top of the Catbells Mountain. There I saw all of my relatives and a huge banner reading: “Happy Birthday, Eric!” My family had held a surprise birthday party for me. I was thrilled when everybody sang Happy Birthday to me.
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