Darkfall

Darkfall.

The name of a city, an evil race, a plague...and despair.

Or so it is when Jonathan Adan Gutierrez, or 'Jack', as he prefers to be called, steps onto the planet Ymeyeran. City-states - like Athens/Sparta - are the predominant governmental centers. Eight city-states are in existence - there used to be twelve, but they were destroyed.

By what, Jack doesn't know. But he's going to find out - in a bad way.

Now that I've teased you with that, let me tell you about Jack.

If you've read my other blog posts, you'll recall I mentioned something called the Pathways. It is a box - a gigantic, closed-in box with portals all over its base. Portals to all the science and fantasy-fiction stories ever created - and one, really BIG portal, right smack-dab in the middle. The portal to Earth.
Jack is known in the Pathways as 'the Wanderer' - a strange boy with no real past, present, or definable future. He just is - living day to day in his own, Spartan, dark way. He makes up pasts for himself based on worlds he's visited, often using myths and legends from those worlds to make up his history. No one knows where he really began, and where his story will end. It is enough that he is there, and that he knows he has one task to perform. His task produces an endless, relentless drive in him - pushing him onward when he would rather stay, holding him back when he would rather go. His task is to help heroes in stories to succeed - and then erase any mention of himself from those stories.

Jack does know one thing - he's twelve millenia old, give or take a hundred years. Along his lonely road he has picked up a great many abilities and insights into life and war - which he shares in his typical, undiplomatic manner. He doesn't care what other people think of him - he's just going to move on eventually, anyway. He eats raw meat and licks the blood off himself afterwards. He doesn't love, doesn't cry, and doesn't feel pain of any sort.

That changes when he reaches Ymeyeran.

Almost immediately after arriving on-planet, he fights and kills some 200-odd bandits, killing them all before being seriously wounded himself. He is found and cared for by a nearby healer, whom he repays by escorting her daughter to the city so that she can stay with her uncle. While there, he goes on to do a great many things - including defend the city from attack, save the king's childrens' lives, and find out about Darkfall.

Turns out, Darkfall was once the greatest of the city-states, powerful and tyrannical, dominating the other city-states with a powerful force of deadly creatures that inspired awe and terror. Finally, however, they all rose as one, putting aside their differences to destroy Darkfall. They made it all the way to the inner city before the plague was unleashed.

The Darkfall plague spread on the air, wiping out the three closest cities to it, as well as the collected armies inside it. However, it also wiped out Darkfall itself, turning it into a black, foreboding ruin.

But when Jack comes, Darkfall awakes, with an evil greater than before. An evil so great, that even the Wanderer might not be able to defeat it.

This isn't your standard 'kill the badguy, save the world, get the girl' story. There's something far more sinister at work than just what's on the outside. And Jack has to make one terrible choice before it can all be over.

- JWest

P.S: I still need readers for 'Lands of the Sun'! If you're interested, please email me at...'jacen.solo' at 'ymail.com'. Thanks!