Retribution is a rather rare breed of griffin, one which is only born every hundred-odd years, all of which become paladins. Following his family's tradition, he devotes himself to the Service of the Light, an order that has been dead for centur
Retribution is a rather rare breed of griffin, one which is only born every hundred-odd years, all of which become paladins. Following his family's tradition, he devotes himself to the Service of the Light, an order that has been dead for centuries, largely because of one of his previous lives. On his journey to reach true enlightenment and rebuild the Service, he will encounter those who would seek to harm the innocent, those who fight for causes similar to his, and those standing as either both or neither, and seek out old friends. Very old friends. Oh, and learn about friendship, that too.
"Chaos may rage And empires fall, But we endure, We outlast all."
((This is my first story. If you have any feedback which may help the story sound better, be better, or look better, suggestions are welcome. I'll be honest, I'm not sure where this will go, other than it including adventure. Looking for cover art.))
A storm was brewing. I could hear a knocking at the door, while my dad went off to get his hammer, the one he always kept in the cliff-face house. I could feel that there was something wrong, as my mother held me close. She was trying to look brave, but I was a child. I could see through her façade as as clearly as any other griffin could see through glass. She was scared. Very scared, but I was too afraid to ask what had her where she was, emotionally. I could hear as my father crept towards the entrance to the cave we called home, his breath unsteady.
What had my family so worked up? I had to find out.
But alas, my mother needed me, even if it was an irrational fear.
He finally reached the entrance, and opened the door. He then exchanged a few words with whoever was at the door, came back, bid us farewell, then left. Something was really off. Dad would never leave me or my mother; he loved us too much.
All that I remember was something about a "great evil" and "spires." It wouldn't be for a long time that I would know what he meant, judging by how rarely that sort of topic came up. Dad never really liked to talk about his time with the Service. Very sore topic. He always said that the things he saw couldn't be un-seen. I never really knew what he meant by that, but I guess that anything you see can't be unseen, unless you could travel through time or something.
Anyway, three years later, something... happened. I had been learning how to fly and manipulate the magic in my wings. Mom still wasn't quite over dad, so I never talked about it. I had managed to get the hang of flight, but then, of course, something new happened: I hit my first thermal. I got carried so high up that I could barely breathe. Then 'it' happened, and at the worst possible time.
I started to regain memory of my past.
Not from my current life, but of other lives from someone else's point of view. I saw myself going to an academy, a hammer like my father's in talon. I saw myself leaping from roof to roof, a familiar but large weight on my back as I ran from a group of diamond dogs. I could feel as I glided from peak to peak, wind ruffling my young wings. All these things and more, all at once, all as if I'd actually done them, all these memories from griffins in very different scenarios from my own, but always they did what I'd do in their situation; I ran, I fought, I learned, I trained, and I cried.
All while falling from the sky at terminal velocity. I could hear my mother screaming as I shot past her. It must have been terrifying, watching your own child fall towards certain doom. But of course, I couldn't just die like that, I was way too important, if my new memories were anything to go by.
That day, I learned who I truly am.
I am a legend.
I am an anomaly.
I am the ultimate weapon.
I am a tool of light.
I am Retribution.
And my it is my duty to right the wrongs that had been committed by all.
Not long after the whole "I know who I am!" moment, a lot of things started to go haywire. I knew who I was, and what I was supposed to do, but all of a sudden, the animals in the area got a lot more skittish. It took us a few weeks before we could catch a decent meal in the form of a deer, and things were just getting worse. I kept getting these weird numb feelings, seemingly at random, the only thing they all had in common was that they always seemed to happen at very inconvenient times. Newer animals started showing up, something always seeming somehow demonic about them.
The pure darkness made me sick, being what, in my recently acquired memories, was called a "paladin", some sort of a warrior of light. I also knew somehow, that I was able to manipulate magic beyond what a normal griffin, being whatever I was. My feathers always had this golden-red sheen to them, and my fur was a shimmering alabaster, which when compared to my mother and father's color scheme made me seem completely unrelated, as they both had what I assumed were normal griffin colors, white and brown feathers with an unremarkable brown coat for both. I was genuinely surprised when I realized this.
Anyway, the animals were getting very worked up over something, and I intended to find out what. Judging by the ley-lines and the "ripples" in them, it was big, strong, and dangerously close to home. That was another new thing, I could close my eyes and take in the world in a view based solely on the forces of the world, you know, light, dark, earth, that sort of thing. I liked to just follow the lines when I could, but a lot of the time they just led into a cliff or some-such obstacle, at which point they would change from a bright golden color into a much darker shade of green. But now, they looked a dank purple color, and the lines bent towards the west, whence growling would occasionally come, scaring my poor mother half to death.
So, of course, figuring there was something that would cause even more havoc if just let sit, I set off to find the source of the disturbance. After a few days of flying west, the ley-lines got darker still, until the area surrounding where they would be in the physical world was a bit... darker than usual.
It took me a few days of going through the physically painful darkness before I reached the source of all the darkness: a hole in the ground. More specifically, a half-kilometer wide bottomless chasm with a floating island in the middle, about a quarter-mile wide with all the vegetation I could see looking like it had contracted about every disease possible, with a purple haze shrouding the center of the floating hunk of earth.
Something wasn't happy to see me, because before I could begin to comprehend what I was seeing, a massive roar came from the pit. I thought it best to not get whatever the thing was mad, as it could probably swallow me whole and not even choke on me.
"Note to self, don't enter the massive hole in the ground unless you're being chased by a dragon, and even then, weigh your options," I said to myself, hoping I'd remember, but knowing me, I'd probably just ditch my "play it safe" strategy and dive in anyway, since whatever was down there was extremely likely to be the problem. If size was anything to go by, this incursion was big, and I appeared to be one of the few who knew about it.
The roar came again, this time more threatening than the last. If I was ever going to make up my mind, It'd probably be now. So, thinking the options over, I decided saving the world and earning my right to be a paladin by performing a mass exorcism was worth losing a few feathers off my wing.
So, being the zealous griffin I was, what do you think I did? I dove towards the island.
