Clavitas: Uncle Chestnut and the Town of Lierre

  Illustration by @shato_illust

  Copyright 2021 J. Deytiquez

  Published by J. Deytiquez at Smashwords

  deytiquezjesus@gmail.com

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Foreword

  Why do we read and dream about stories of people, places, and events that may not even exist? Is the reality that was given to us not suffice? These questions, the writer of the famous Chronicles of Narnia series, C.S. Lewis, once asked and answered in his book An Experiment on Criticism. He said that it is because we want to see, not only through our eyes, but also through other eyes, to escape the dark confines of our egos, and in doing so, find our true selves. This is similar to what his friend, the renowned author of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien, wanted to tell us in his celebrated essay, On Fairy Stories: in reading stories, we “escape” from our self-induced boredom to our world in order to recover and return a fresh way of seeing it—we forget for a while in order to forget. I believe this goodness of stories is not limited in books only. During this time of pandemic, many of us (including me of course) have resorted to books, video games, Netflix stuff, and YouTube videos to cope with the restraints and bad stuff that came along with the virus.

  I never looked down on video games. I think they are like those choose-you-own-adventures books out there but on steroids. In Final Fantasy VII, you experience being an ex-soldier walking along a dangerous but enchanting path in the middle of the night with a beautiful guide named “Aerith”. In Final Fantasy XV you cruise around amazing places on a dashing car with your friends while trying to reclaim your throne as a king. In Zelda: BOTW, you go on an adventure in a very vast world to save what was left in it, especially the princess who was fighting for you. In Kingdom Hearts games you travel different worlds with Donald Duck and Goofy. Like reading a novel, playing games transport one to places with people and events that may or may not even exist in our reality. Like reading a novel, it offers to us worlds where one can believe that he or she can accomplish something, that he or she can fight unto the end. Like reading novels, games enable us to have a glimpse of that something good, true, and beautiful that we cannot yet attain in our present state, like how the sight of faraway deep blue mountain ranges can often set us longing. We remember, for a moment, that there is still hope.

  All my life I’ve been a fan of stories, whether in paper or on screens, and in this time of pandemic, I found consolation with video games in particular. And as I have received, I dared to “give back”, by not only writing stories, but by writing stories that can be adapted into a video game. As I have no resources to turn them into games, I can only that hope someday someone who read them can turn them into one. Believe me, it will make me extremely happy. But as in reading, as in playing, I am happy already for just witnessing and writing these stories. It gave me a sense of purpose during the dark times of my life. Thank you for choosing to read this book. It makes me believe even more the unchangeable truth that nothing is ever in vain.

  P.S. Since this story was really written after Clavitas: Of Memory and Forgetfulness and Clavitas: I Just Want to See You Again, even though this can be said to be the prior to them in terms of story, I just found out recently that naming the monsters of this series as “Lethes” manifested a seemingly paradox: the name “Lethes”, of course, is connected to forgetfulness, while the word “monster” came from the word that means “to help to remember”. But I guess, in the end, the series also reflected this paradox, for while the Lethes posed to the protagonists the danger of forgetfulness, defeating them also paved the way for remembrance. But there’s more to that, the monsters of this story and even of other stories, I believe, serves as a reminder of what we fear the most, our dark side, or our side that must not exist in the first place, or our side that is less than human but still retains the human form and so is dreadful. But of course, as in many stories, what we always need are the courage and simplicity to face them and defeat them, and children often have them and maybe that’s why many of such stories’ protagonist are children, or at least have a child’s heart.

  May we always have that Heart.

  P.S.S.

  The next section, The Game, will be a weird one if one does not really play games. If you like to read the story more, you can skip to the The Story already.

  JCD 2021

  The Game

  Basics: What’s on the Screen?

  Light of Triunity – These are the three orbs on the upper right corner of the screen. Each of the orb is called “Chu-eok”, and these orbs of white light that can be also seen to be engulfing the character, serve as his last line of defense from monsters. Each time an enemy attack hit the character, half of a Chu-eok disappears. If the Light of Triunity disappeared, it will mean defeat for the character or game over.

  The Light of Bravery Bar – This bar, which is below the Light of Triunity, will be filled slowly with each attack that hits the enemy or when the character is hit. For its use, see Battles After the First Memory.

  Basic Controls:

  a) Triangle button – Press once for jump, long press for higher jump, and press twice for double-jump.

  b) Square button – Press for dash and avoid an enemy attack. Press after jumping to perform an aerial dash.

  c) X button – Press to interact with things like opening a chest, engaging in a conversation, etc.

  d) O button – Press three times to initiate the Charge of Bravery.

  e) R1 button – Press for melee attack.

  f) L1 button – Press and hold for the character to aim.

  g) Left Stick – Lean towards the direction you want the character to go to.

  h) Right Stick – For aiming or camera controls.

  i) L2 button – Press and hold while using the Left Stick to run. Sprinting before jumping can also lengthen the distance of the jump, which will be important to reach some areas in the game.

  j) R2 button – Press to attack with arrows. This button, taking advantage of one of the innovations in the PS5 controller, will really feel like a trigger and will be harder to press as it is pressed again and again without a break. To make it lighter to press again, the player must not press it for a while.

  k) Options button – Press to access the bag of the character or the menu where one can change equipment and save the game.

  l) Touch Pad button:

  la) Press and hold the center of the Touch Pad for several seconds for the character to hold on to the Misericordia on his chest, pray, and refill the character’s “health” for one orb or Chu-eok. During this process, the character cannot attack or dash but only run, and if an attack of an enemy struck him, not only will the healing be canceled, but his “health” will also be “reduced”.

  lb) Press and hold the right side of the Touch Pad after firing five arrows in order to “reload”. Like in healing, during this process, the character cannot attack or dash but only run, and if an attack of an enemy struck him, not only will the reloading be canceled, but his “health” will also be “reduced”.

  Puzzle Games

  All throughout the game, there would be moments when the player must solve a sliding puzzle to get a prize or help the townsfolk.

  Battles After the First Memory

  If the Light of Bravery Bar below the Light of Triunity is filled, the character can now perform a series of quick and powerful attacks. To enter into this “Charge of Bravery” state, the player must press the O button three times. During this time, a random set or combination of five buttons (Square button, Triangle button, X button, and O button) will appear on screen, dropping and making the screen look like a clear puddle where raindrops are falling. After the player manages to successfully press them in order and after such a short time allowance, the character will dash like lightning across the battlefield, shooting barrages of arrows ending with three grand arrows being shot at the enemy/ies (during this time, the game will rely heavily on the cool animations).

  The Dark Waves

  When dark waves threaten the town, the character will automatically enter into a Charge of Bravery-like mode. The player must then press five random buttons that will appear again and again on the screen. Each button pressed corresponds to an arrow shot. The player will be given a required amount of arrows to be shot at the wave in order to defeat it, which usually are 30 arrows, but as for the last wave, 70 arrows are needed. The players will not be told of what number of arrows are needed to be shot, in order for them to feel what the character is feeling during that moment. There will be a time limit. And a wrong button will cost the player a delay (again, an animation of the character struggling). Failure to shoot the required amount of arrows within the time limit will result to defeat.

  The Story

  There is something that I have forgotten. Or was it a place or someone? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m searching for something, and that I’ve been searching for it my entire life. I know, all of the things beautiful, true, and good—all of them—that I’ve encountered all my life, they are not enough, for I st ill feel an ache or thirst for something more, even or most especially during those passing moments where I was made happy by them. What is it then? Where is it? When is it? Will I ever find it? Or did I lost the chance to have it already? This was the train of thought that accompanied me when I was standing there, waiting on a lonely train station that I found in the middle nowhere, watching the raindrops fall and shatter on the rocks and form ephemeral and overlapping circles on puddles.

  I said that I found that seemingly abandoned train station, but I guess it can be said to be the one that found me; I was just walking aimlessly that rainy day, and walked and walked, waiting for my feet to get tired and then I would return to my apartment. But they never got tired, at least until I stumbled upon that little train station at the edge of a forest, where no other people or train can be seen.

  “What is it that I’m longing for?” I whispered to myself.

  “A rather gray day isn’t it?” said suddenly a voice of a man that startled me, for I thought I was truly all alone in that place before.

  “Yes,” said I, recovering quickly, thinking that perhaps this was not really an abandoned train station. “Quite a nice day to stay indoors and enjoy sleep or hot drinks and food, and also a book perhaps.”

  “Indeed,” replied the man whom I now saw as a huge one. His hair was white and his seriously joyful face was decorated by a monocle and a hat. Due to his tallness and his big belly and his black and white attire, he gave me an impression of a very tall and fat penguin, and I began to wonder if he would walk like one. “But only if one already found his or her true home. And it is also quite a nice day to go on an adventure.”

  He then pointed with his swordstick those distant little red flowers growing among the bushes near the rails.

  “On a gray day, even those little red flowers look like little fireworks or tiny but burning sunsets. On a gray day, man can either be content to be inside to enjoy blessed solitude or the company of his loved ones, or brave the unremitting rain and the cold to seek, once again, what he was searching for all his life. The choice is yours now.”

  A wet but refreshing cold wind from the north brushed, for a moment, against us and revealed to me that he was wearing a black cape. Now, he no longer looked just like a penguin to me, but a funny gentleman who never let go of his inner child who imitates heroes of old with a stick and a cape.

  “Soon there will be a little train coming, and I will board it: it is your decision if you will follow me or not. It may take us anywhere. It may lead us to what your heart is seeking. But it may not also. So what is your answer?” he said while looking at me directly into my eyes. “Will you go back and enjoy a hot cocoa indoors and be satisfied for a moment, or continue to seek to find that elusive one? Dear sir, you may take it as an inconvenience to be asked by a strange old man to accompany you in a train ride to God-knows-where, for you to forgo enjoying your hot drinks and food indoors, but know that adventures are just inconveniences taken rightly. And if you are not seeking adventure, and is really seeking the coziness of indoors, why are you here? I daresay you wish to brighten this gray day with the light of excitement, you wish to find your own flower that will burn against such gloomy day!”

  The man is now grinning, brimming with excitement.

  “What is your name, sir?” I asked.

  “Well, my little friends call me ‘Uncle Chestnut’. If you like, you can call me with that name also,” replied Uncle Chestnut as the “little train’s” noise can already be heard from the distance. And little indeed it was, at least in the horizon, where it started to appear seemingly out of nowhere just like the station: as a small black blot. And when it arrived, I saw that the train was indeed smaller in comparison to other trains that I saw before. It only has a small engine where only one man can fit, and two cars with one for passengers and one for stuff including a box.

  “How about you? Do you remember your name?”

  “It’s Dan.”

  “Now Dan, what say you?” asked the man. “Peter here is already waiting for us.”

  He pointed at the big, bearded, and muscular man on the train who was smiling at us. Peter can put any professional wrestler in shame with his built, but somehow, I get the childlikeness of Uncle Chestnut also from him.

  Feeling a strange excitement mingled with a dreadful notion that if I let this go, I may never get the chance again, I boarded the train with the old man brimming with youthful vigor, who indeed walked like a penguin.

  ...

  Along the way I saw the many peaceful sights that one can see in the countryside in the middle of the rain. For some moment, Uncle Chestnut was a little quieter than before as we sat and observed the things around us. And Peter too, was also quiet. But then there was no need for words during that time for the serenity of a ride amid the rain and the simple beauty of our surroundings, became the things that we share instead of words that oftentimes just represent them—don’t we just talk because we want to connect? Uncle Chestnut then took out a cigar in his pocket and started smoking it.

  “Fancy any coming Lethes, Peter?” cried Uncle Chestnut suddenly as if he sensed something amiss.

  “I cannot see any Lethes from here. How about there?” returned Peter.

  “Everything’s clear on my side. How about on your side, Dan?” he asked me.

  When they started asking each other, I thought Lethes were just some kind of animal that can pose difficulty to our travel, like a sheep or a cow or a wilder kind of animal. But then when Uncle Chestnut asked me if everything’s clear on my side, I know I must confess my ignorance on what a Lethe is.

  “I’m sorry Uncle Chestnut, but I don’t know what Lethes are, so I cannot answer you,” I said.

  “Oh, do you see any black and red moving things on your side?” he asked me.

  “Well, there’s nothing... Wait! I think I see one! It looks like a big, spiky, black spider with some glowing red lines all over its body. Now two... Three... There’s a swarm of them! Are they dangerous? Will they attack us? Why are you asking for them?”

  Then Uncle Chestnut once again showed his grin, stood up straightly as if a knight called into a duel for a fair lady, and readied his swordstick and hat.

  “Here, take this,” he said as he gave me a necklace made up of two rectangular pieces of white cloth with some embroidered images connected by a brown string. “Press it against your heart and a weapon that is fitting to your need and adventure will appear. Come on, let’s fight! Lest we lose the Clavitas and even your vague memories for the one we seek! Peter, drive like crazy!”

  “You know that, this vehicle being a train, I can only follow the path set for it, right Chestnut?” laughed Peter. “But if what you meant was that I make the train suddenly faster or slower at some point, that will make it harder for them to reach the train and the Clavitas, I will.”

  And then Uncle Chestnut jumped out of the train and bounced amid the fields like a giant ball with a stick, whacking some of those black and red monsters that are called Lethes here and there.

  “What are you waiting for! Do what he told you! He may be a good swordsman, but he needs also your help,” shouted Peter, making me move from my spot. Feeling the necessity to help and trusting once again in that amazing old man, I wore the necklace and pressed one of those rectangular pieces of white cloth against my chest. A crossbow appeared in my hand out of nowhere. I wondered then where can I get the arrows for it, but out of the sudden, when I accidentally pressed the trigger, a white arrow materialized in the crossbow and fired—thank God it struck no one!

  While still not that over to the wonders that were happening this time, I fired white arrows from the windows of the train at the Lethes to help Uncle Chestnut, and I thought that the arrows were unlimited until the crossbow fired no more. Not knowing what else to do, I pressed again the necklaced on my chest, and to my surprise the arrows come out once again! Also, while helping Uncle Chestnut vanquish those Lethes, Peter once again shouted something to me.

 

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