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The Seven Seas of Rhye In the greatest of all worlds, in the mighty and ancient forest of Northern Rhye, walked alone man, the most noble, powerful and heroic of them all. He had been commissionedwith his quest by the sacred command of the Great King. He was to bring about the GreatVision. For many years, he had waged terrible war against the most horrible villains andmonsters. He had overcome the torment of a legion of enemies and prevented thedestruction of many lands. He had slain countless kings and queens of beasts, both animaland man. He had fought a grueling battle to unify the world and acquire the greatest of alltreasures. He was strong, fierce, cunning, solemn, and brave. At the completion of hismission, he would unite the final elements and glory, beauty, harmony, and truth would prevail throughout all lands, in all creation, forever and ever.He came to the edge of the forest and looked down the hill into a sweeping valleyin which a small city neatly rested. It was ancient, yet it was alive with people who stilllived and loved there as they had done so for many centuries. The man’s eyes swept back and forth and his deadened, rugged face was transformed. Thank the gods. After what feltto him like an everlasting journey he had, at last, come home. He wiped something out of his eye.The worn and dusty traveling cloak he wore rippled in the gentle evening breeze.The reinforced bronze chest plate that had saved him from so many attacks glinted in thedying sun. In the leather pouch that hung over his shoulder, within its folds, sat three of his great treasures, the final elements, as if they were ordinary artifacts. The fourth andgrandest of his possessions rested in a golden sheath upon his dragon-hide belt.**** The first element that he had acquired was stolen from the chambers of thewretched and controlling Black Queen, who had ruled over numerous dark and cursedlands for many agonizing winters. It was the legendary White Abacus, which, in proper and skilled hands, would bring about balance and justice in the affairs of all men, women,and creatures, great and small. She had usurped it from the Supreme Ones to pervert theminds of her subjects and subjugate the very will of nature. But then, by means of stealth,force, and deception, it had, unfortunately for her, fallen into the right hands. Now her and her minions were all dead and gone. See how justice moves, all ye of a wicked spirit. The second element had been retrieved from the depths of a dark and slimy cave,wherein dwelled one of the last great, enchanted dragons, possessed by the evil senator Romoss. It was the Flute of the Fairy Feller, which had been crafted by the Feller toinspire creativity, art, and everything beautiful and lovely. He or she who can play theAncient Notes perfectly in pitch and key, has the power, so the story goes, to commandthe muses and spread the influence of beauty in all of it’s manifestations to the very endsof the earth. Romoss, a corrupt and powerful leader who understood the liberatingstrength of creativity, stole the flute away and guarded it deep in the earth and beneath anawesome and deadly fire-breathing dragon in a place representing the antithesis of

beauty. For long and weary days did the great hero battle against Romoss’s greed andviolence, as well as the ferocious dragon attacks. Yet now, by the mercy or mereallowance of the gods, Romoss and his great beast were, as the Queen before them, deadand gone. The third element was simple, yet it was one of the most extraordinaryincarnations of power ever beheld by men. Its origins, like the rest of the elements, wereclouded by myth and legend, and few people, even in the land of Rhye, had ever truly believed in it. Its keepers for generations were the cold and hypocritical Lords and LadyPreachers of Southern Rhye, living just on the edge of the grandest of the Seven Seas, theSea of Higany. They followed after the God Heuchler, who they claimed commandedthem to seize the great element, else the world be exposed to the supreme blasphemy, somuch so that it would destroy the minds and hearts of all people. The element was verysimply a small parchment scroll with seven seals. The first four seals had already been broken. It was said that these seals represented four states of being: Life, Consciousness,Self-Awareness, and Intelligence. The three unbroken seals, uttered ancient myths andmorality tales, were said to represent three as-of-yet unattained states of being: Wisdom,Truth and Transcendence.In order to obtain this element, the great hero descended from the heavens with allthe ferocious force of a great comet, scattering the followers of Heuchler like pigs from agun. He brandished his mighty sword, fiery and terrible, and laid the repugnant andwicked men and women to waste. He stamped the ferocity of his violence upon their feeble hearts, and so marked them, like numerous souls before, as the necessary sacrificemade in tribute to the glory of the utopian future. Destroying all obstacles in his way by the nearly almighty power endowed to himfor his noble task, he recaptured the sacred and legendary scroll, obliterated the lastcrumbling ruins of the fortress and flew away from the place of ruin and devastation,where the echoes of the last dying cries of so many wretched fools would live oneternally. **** Great and terrible things did the hero do to acquire his precious elements, and hehad spent many hours thinking about the lands he had brought together and the lands hehad torn asunder. He was not without a heart, yet he knew that his deeds would ultimately be justified and rewarded. As he pondered his long, hard fight, he was curious as to whatthe ultimate achievement would be. What would a perfect world be like? He was not aterribly reflective man, but he had to wonder at times precisely what it was he wassacrificing his and other people’s lives for… As the man stood on the edge of the hill just above the grand valley below withhis home stretching out in front of him, he could hardly believe that it was almost over. Not just his journey, but everything. Soon, all things would cease to be as they had been.The world, all worlds, would become unified and glorified. People would stop hating and

controlling and killing each other. There would be no more disease or pain or death, for as an ancient and mysterious text once described, in a much different way, the old order of things would pass away, and everything would be made new. The man consideredwhat would happen to evil in this new world, and for that matter, evildoers. How wouldindividual people be changed, whether they are good or bad? How would that fit into theconcept of a utopia? For various reasons, the man did not desire to think about thesethings very intensely.What the man did desire to think about more than anything else was the fact thatsoon, very soon, he would be reunited with his lost love, his long departed White Queen,who haunted him still. Long before he had embarked upon his journey, he had sufferedthe terrible blow of having his precious wife die of a horrible and ravaging disease. Thelast glimmer of life had been extinguished from her delicate form as he had held her inhis arms in the dead of a cold, brutal night. For many hollow months, he had felt the piercing cold within the gaping hole of his heart and had cried out for salvation from thecrushing emptiness.He was contemplating a violent suicide when he had received the command fromthe Great King to become his herald of might and power and bring to fruition the glory of a redeemed and perfect creation. He had been chosen out of all the great warriors of thekingdom for reasons that only the King himself knew. His mission was to subdue thegrandest of tyrannies in preparation for the reign of harmony and truth. And so he had journeyed and fought and conquered for an excruciating amount of time; yet he did it with a willing spirit if it meant that, perhaps one day, some day, hecould again see and feel his beloved wife, to know her voice and her caress… **** The hero sat down on the warm grass, relieving his burden in more ways thanone. Although he greatly desired to see his home once again, there were few people in thecity who would recognize or even remember him. He had left no relatives or family, andhe had never had many friends. Perhaps some people would remember him, but for what?He dreaded old memories. But by coming home, his mission would be at an end. Here,the King would come. The man took the pouch from his shoulder and laid it gently next to him on theground. He slowly and carefully unbuckled his belt and laid it out on the grass. From itsgolden sheath he withdrew his great sword, stained with blood and smoke, yet gleamingred in the fading rays of the sun. He looked around wearily yet saw nothing. He had cometo have great respect for this sword. It was by this simple instrument of honor and war that he had accomplished his mighty and terrible deeds. It was the sword that hadendowed him with unyielding power and endurance. And with the ancient and magicalweapon, by the hands and authority of the King, the final elements would be broughttogether in absolute harmony to achieve their grand purpose.

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