Game Intro Short Story

Colourised - Game Intro Short Story

In the Glade of the Forever Tree the Warden Flit watched while the setting sun painted the sky with dancing, changing colours. Enjoying the sight, as the blue sky became filled with a brilliant array of yellow streaks and soft orange glows, Flit walked under the canopy’s branches, feeling the sun’s warmth on his skin.

Flit held in his small hand the Forever Staff and tapped the Crystal at the Staff’s tip against the Forever Tree’s rough skin. Once a tiny twig from the Forever Tree the staff was Flit’s prized possession; it was his walking stick, his jumping pole, and sometimes, when the crystal was charged, it was magic wand.

The colours of the setting sun bled from orange to red to brown and Flit passed the knotty entrance to the Tree’s inner sanctum – The Hollow and there he slowed. Flit watched as the colours of the sky bled from brown to grey to black, and he stopped.

The colours of the sky were disappearing.

Flit clutched his Forever Staff tightly and spun around looking left to right, up and down – the Forever Tree’s Canopy all around him still held the vibrant colours of life and growth and hope, but the sky was completely colourless. It was as though a painter had stolen the true hues, leaving only imitations in shades of gray.

“Grayscales”, Flit said aloud. “Grayscales has returned to the Forever Tree, and he seeks to steal the Colour Stones!” As Flit started running towards the knotty entrance to the Hollow he passed bent branches of wood and leaf that were now tightly wrapped in sticky white insect-web tendrils. “This is Grayscales’ work alright”, Flit puffed, running past a mushroom that had lost all of its colour.

His little feet barely touched the ground as Flit passed another branch and he stopped. Pushing the branch to the side with the tip of his Forever Staff he saw a glow coming from beneath a curled-up fallen leaf and his hands trembled as he pushed it aside to see the glow’s owner. A single small shard of brilliant green lay on the soft mossy ground. Flit motioned towards it with his staff and suddenly it moved, up from the ground it rose, floating towards Flit, then closer, and closer, until it reached the tip of Flit’s Staff, where suddenly and almost magically, it was absorbed by the Crystal set into the staff’s tip.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but this must have come from one of the six Colour Stones”, Flit spoke confusedly. “If the stones have been damaged, and the Forever Tree loses its colour… all is lost”. Hearing his own words, his staff now glowing green from its tip with a magical charge that must have come from the shard fragment he’d discovered, Flit raced on, faster this time, to the knotty entrance to Forever Tree’s sacred Hollow. “I must stop Grayscales, I must” said Flit, as he reached the knothole entrance and went in. “I will protect the Forever Tree and repair the stones.”