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| Author | A Greater Miracle |
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The Empire delivery service was most popular for their New Year's special delivery options. They knew a way to seal the gift boxes so tight that no Lord, no matter how hard he would try to unwrap it before the New Year's arrival, would succeed.
The streets of the Capital were becoming rivers of two counter-flows with Lords hurrying either direction to purchase a gift for those important to them or to submit it to the delivery office.
As a result, there were not so many individuals to witness events that happened the next minute at the Central Square. A couple of children chatting with their pets, four bored guardsmen hobbling on their constant patrol route around the Palace, some citizens that chose the longer way through the Square to escape the crowded streets - no one really payed attention to the foreign guest that appeared from the western side.
At first, The Druid's face was shifting its expression, from veneration to thrill, then sadness and reverence. He walked in circles around the Square, muttering some inarticulate words to himself, then stopped. He shuffled his staff at the pavement, as if looking for some specific spot to place it on, then slowly lifted and lowered his staff to touch the pavement three times. And then... | His face grew immobile, he flipped his staff and stroke the spot he had marked with all his power, squatting to create a bigger impulse. A blinding flash illuminated the Square, a globe of pure white light burst out of the stave's top, and began to expand quickly, passing through objects and animated beings, devouring everything, confining the whole Square in itself.
When the citizens within the Square regained their sight, they saw that the druid had stood up, but was not alone anymore. He was accompanied by a Stallion - not in flesh, but made of the same light as the globe that meanwhile kept expanding rapidly, as though now trying to confine the whole Great Capital.
The stallion approached the druid, bent its head, inviting itself for some caress, then pranced and... became an ox.
The ox was as incorporeal as its predecessor, but the colour was entirely different, light purple, as if the rainbow had given one of its arcs to saturate this image. Seconds later the Druid waved his staff, and the ox shapeshifted into a sheep. The sheep was made of indigo light, it shook its head timidly at the Nature's servant and immediately ceded its turn to a light blue serpent. Then the images of beasts began changing too quickly to capture them with an eye: a dragon, a hog, a tiger, a hound, each of its own colour, shifting so quickly that it became a weirdly shaped multicolored spot at first, then turning bright white again and acquiring its final form - the one of a rather large-scale rat.
The druid smiled at the spectral rat and winked at it, then raised his staff and cast it down at the image as if trying to squash the little vermin. The rat figure burst into myriads of tiny copies of its own self that flew asunder and apparently spread everywhere within the huge globe of light that was seen from every side of the horizon, having by now definitely embodied the whole Empire.
The next minute the globe began to contract itself, hovering in the sky right above the Great Capital's Central Square and forming a whirling spiral of light threads that slowly dropped down the square and got absorbed gradually by the Druid's staff. | While everyone at the square was narrowing their eyes and blinking, the Druid stood with his shoulders straightened, smiling and radiating an unruffled composure. He looked around, then approached the brightly decorated fir-tree amidst Square's middle burst into a vivid wild dance, beaming with happiness and screaming out some verses that resembled couplets of a song invented randomly right in spot.
"I feel my nimble finge-erzh!!
I feel my dekshtroush to-oezh!
Magic'zh all around ush
And there the Vermin crawlsh!!!
There'zh no more delaying
There'll be no shtanding shti-ill!
The air itshelf izh swarming
With loadzh of ekshtra shki-ill!!"
Her Majesty, who was observing this mysterious ritual from Her balcony, left the Palace the next minute and approached the Druid.
-I have never seen a ritual as marvelous as the one you performed, votary of Nature. Would you comment its purposes?
He smiled vaguely, his eyes shone with a frolic light as he shook his staff impetuously. A new portion of wisps appeared, forming an incantation rather similar to the ones that had been puzzling Lords' minds in the nightly enigmatic Lair:
Of eight wondrous traits
Is this miracle great.
Made of simple effects,
Can you name all eight?
-Another cryptic riddle? I like the manner in which you mimic our Sphynx's ethos.
-The Shphynksh hazh challenged me greatly, Your Highnesh. I have dishcovered shertain blanksh in my cognition of Nature myshteriezh, and I'm grateful to Your Majeshty and Your animated shtatue for pointing me at that gap. In gratitude for that, I have communicated to the Balanshe forshezh of the Nature to effectuate shome changesh in thish neighbourhood. Your people will, no doubt, dishcover them shoon.
The Lords, assembled around the Central Square, had unconcealed curiosity on their faces.
-Not horseradish has not understood! - an acute impatient voice of a young squire disturbed the silence.
-Did you understand anything this time? - the wolf rider and the Barbarian asked the wolf rider's wolf.
-Yes I did. But I won't tell you. - the wolf thrusted out its tongue as canines always do, but his two humanoid companions were quite sure the wolf was in fact teasing them. They stared at each other with indignation.
-Wait, did he just sing about "extra skill"? Is that what I think it is?.. Give me a fi-i-i-ght! - the young squire yelled and rushed towards his armory.
The Empress was on the edge of finally asking for the Druid's name, but at the last moment remembered, that druids had none. They abandon their mundane names when they step on the path of serving the Nature's cause, and are only known by their ranks. "Nice timing", She said to Herself, - "You were about to ask an ignorant question."
-May I have your Rank, dear guest?
-It izh no shecret, Milady. I am a Hermit.
The awe reflected on the faces of the Elven kind gapers around the Central Square did not escape Her Majesty's attention. | TL;DR version.
Events: The mysterious Druid character that recently arrived so unexpectedly, performs a powerful beautiful ritual in the middle of the day right amidst the Central square. He keeps acting as a mystery man by inviting citizens to guess the "Eight wondrous traits", granted with this ritual, by themselves.
Updates: New transfer option for the New year. Increased coefficients for many aspects of the game mechanics for the New year celebration period, that include:
- Hunt twice as often;
-MG quests twice as often;
-Thief ambushes twice as often;
-Old and New year Chinese horoscope symbolic hunts;
-Troops and mana restored twice as fast;
-Labor is 1.5 times as efficient;
-Skill points gained 30% more;
-Last and probably least, Xmas tree on the battlefield!
Interesting facts: the Druid guest claims to possess a Hermit rank. Empire elves learn that fact with impressive astonishment.
"-Not horseradish has not understood! - an acute impatient voice of a young squire disturbed the silence." is a reference to a long-forgotten thread in General Game Forum that shows all the wonders of automatic Internet translation, thus should not be taken seriously and considered an Easter egg. | Oh, and another interesting fact :-)
The randomly invented song Hermit performs during the ritual is a rephrased version of "Christmas is all around us" performed by Billy Mac, a Bill Nighy's character in "Love actually" movie. |
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