Enchantyon, Enter The Arcane: The Jörd In The Ice

Chapter One: It's So Simple, Even Bandle Could Do It

Bandle had had about enough of this. One more snowball, and he was going to lose it on someone. He would rip off this humiliating sign off of his back, throw it at the next person to throw a snowball at his head, and then he would tackle them. Unless they were a child. Then he would only toss them.

That morning, Bandle had to endure the frustrating punishment for his most recent screw-up: wearing a sign as he walked through town that said, "Throw snowballs at my head and win a prize!" Then, if anyone did hit him in the head, he was supposed to hand them one of the stuffed versions of a creature called a fluff-moo that he had in a bag to the respective "winners".

Bandle decided that he would head out of the snowy village of Froljörow to see what progress his family had made in trying to fix the mess he had incidentally made. They were all working on one of the large stone statues that were positioned in a large ring around the village. Each one was crudely carved eons ago into the images of jördic warriors, and together they acted as chains in a magical barrier that protected the village. Or at least it did, before Bandle broke one, thus the mad rush to fix it.

"Hello, everyone." Said Bandle, when he reached the group of builders and sorcerers that were gathered around the broken statue. They all turned to glare at him when they recognized his voice. "Right...don't suppose any of you have seen my family?"

"Bandle, what are you doing here?" came a man's scruffy voice.

Out from the crowd came a smaller group of five people: his father the village chief, his mother, and his three older brothers. He was the shortest out of all of them—despite being over six feet tall—except for his mother. All of them looked tired, and as expected, all of them looked cross to see him.

"Well, son, let's hear it." Said the Chief, the largest of them all. "I see you still have some stuffed fluff-moos in that bag of yours, so why aren't you still carrying out your punishment?"

"Dad, I just wanted to come and help." Said Bandle.

"You can help by staying out of our way." Said Valor, one of Bandle's brothers. "You've helped the village enough as it is."

"Look, I know I screwed up—"

"Again." Cut in his brother, Handel. "You screwed things up for everyone, again."

"But I don't like it when you guys have to clean up for me, so I came to—"

"Oh, you don't like it when people have to clean up after you?" said the Chief. "Well neither do we, Bandle. And yet here we are in that same situation, again." He sighed deeply before continuing. "Uh, you know what...Kroff, just...explain the new job to him and just have him get ready for it."

"What?" said Bandle. "What new job?"

"There's a trade that we need taken care of before the festival in a few days." Said Kroff, the oldest of his brothers.

Bandle was shocked. "Wait...you're really trusting me we a trade job?"

"No. We don't trust you with anything." Said Yonder, the last of his older brothers. "But as you can see, everyone that we actually trust is either here helping us fix your latest mess, or their actually doing their job with protecting the village."

Bandle's mother approached him next. She placed a hand on Bandle's arms, sighed, and said, "Bandle, please. This is important. Try to do this to the best of your abilities—"

"Yeah, I will, Mom."

"And, follow your father's and your brother's instructions exactly. We need those supplies. Not just for the festival either."

After assuring his family that he would do his best—and after they made it painfully clear with the expressions on their faces that they had serious doubts about this—Kroff steered him away, back towards the village.