《Tales of a Monk》


 Chapter 1 – Kaz Rodnar

    My name isKaz Rodnar. I am 9 years old, son of Dennis and Kate Rodnar and brother to LucyRodnar my 6 year old sister. I am the plain in plain sight, I have dark hairand brown eyes, am of average height and average looks. I live in the magicalworld of Thorvald, am a citizen of the Empire and I live in Ismet.


    Ismet is asmall city or a very big village. I am not sure since it seems too big to be avillage, but doesn¡¯t seem to have enough buildings to be a city, but I reallycan¡¯t say since I¡¯ve never been anywhere else. In this magical world ofThorvald there is a vast array of creatures and species, but the main ones arethe elves, the dwarves, the beastmen, the humans and the magical creatures. Eachof these species has an enormous amount of sub-species. I don¡¯t even know ifthere is someone who knows them all. I myself and my family are all humans, asis the vast majority of Ismet. As a matter of fact, I¡¯ve never seen neitherdwarves nor magical creatures in Ismet, and I¡¯ve only seen a few half-elves andbeastmen slaves.


    My fatheralso has dark hair and brown eyes like me, he is of average height and sturdybuild and is a guard in Ismet, whilst my mother is a servant of the Darynafamily. She has blond hair, green eyes, she is tall and has a slender body. Mysister has a light brownish hair, green eyes and is by far the cutest littlething ever, no arguments. My parents were both mercenaries travelling the worldbefore they met and fallen in love with each other, and when I came along theydecided to settle in Ismet because my father was originally from here. Coincidenceenough my mother was also from a small settlement not too far from here.


    By decreeof the Imperial Family, everybody is obliged to attend basic school by the ageof nine, which last three years. In basic school you learn how to read andwrite, basic math, history and geography. Afterwards, if you have talent in magic, you can go on to middle schoolfor a duration of six years, where said talent is cultivated. Then there isalso the Imperial Magical University, supposedly the greatest place to studymagic in the entire world, but only accessible to those of high birth, whichsadly excludes me.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    It is nowspring and I¡¯m supposed to start basic schooling this fall, as such there isnot much to do. I usually spend my days playing around in the backyard of theDaryna family and throughout Ismet with a few other kids. Mostly they arechildren of other servants and slaves of the Daryna family, which annoys thehell out of my mother. She insists I keep poor company and that I must makefriends with other kids, better kids, kids of rich families and such. Sheparticularly dislikes my beastmen friends, including Klim, my best friend.


    This worldis heavily elitist and racist and it starts showing off pretty early in kids lives.Most rich kids my age are nothing but jerks, bullying slaves and children ofservants. Once at the behest of my mother I tried approaching some of them tomake friends and play but they wanted to make me their errand boy. When Irefused they beat me up, which was how I met Klim.


    Klim issome sort of weird dog beastmen. Now when I say weird don¡¯t get me wrong, he isperfectly normal for a beastmen. The thing is he has slightly less humanfeatures than most other seen beastmen, namely he has a snout. It does not helpthat he does not know who his father is. Apparently it was a mercenary that waspassing town during mating season. Klim has golden eyes and pitch black fur andeven he himself doesn¡¯t know what race he is exactly. He is really fun and agreat guy. Klim, me and Lucy are inseparable.


    I fear thatwith the coming of fall that will change. Whilst I will begin school he willbegin training has a slave worker. He is not sure what he will do, but hethinks it will be some sort of heavy manual labor, away from public sight. Thisis why we have been trying to enjoy most of our time together.


    My name isKaz Rodnar¡­but that is not always my name.

 Chapter 2 – John Smith

    Chapter 2 ¨C John Smith


    My name is Kaz Rodnar¡­but that is not always my name. I have dreams. Dreams of another live, a live that is not mine. In this live I am called John Smith. These dreams are weird. They are more vivid than they should be. It is like I¡¯m there, and afterwards when I awake they stay with me as memories, as experiences.


    These dreams started when I was an infant. The first memories that started coming to me were of war. Bloody, full of gore, messy rabid war. The feeling of killing someone for the first time was one of the firsts I ever had. It was tormenting. I had nightmares and was always really scared of everything and everyone, including my parents. They worried a lot during those days. They thought I was sick so they called several healers who wouldn¡¯t find anything wrong with me. And I only know of this because they told me recently, which makes sense because I have more memories as John Smith than Kaz Rodnar.


    Eventually more memories began to appear. Memories of a really sweet couple, who I thought were also my parents and memories of an old lady, who I loved more than anyone in the world. It was really weird growing up, because the memories of John Smith always came to me fragmented and scrambled. It was difficult to understand things growing up as i would often confound both worlds because as John I would know things instinctively, but as Kaz I would have to learn what is what. As John I knew how to speak English, but as Kaz I would struggle with the common tongue. It didn¡¯t help that there were entire concepts that didn¡¯t exists in the other world.


    As time went on more memories came and I started to piece things together. Nowadays I believe that the memories come in a certain order. From the most traumatic and ingrained in my mind and soul to the ones that are absolute rubbish. I still haven¡¯t gotten that far yet, but as I dream I experience everything, only in a broken manner. For example I can remember waking up and then I am suddenly teleported to later in that day. I have never experienced travel in my dreams yet and if I am right it stands to reason that those memories will sooner or later start to appear.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.There is not much I know of John Smith yet, but I can tell you this he was a soldier. John had a happy childhood all the way through high school, after which he enlisted to defend his country. He did a tour and came back just as the war started to die down a bit. He went to university and studied business. In his last year the war escalated tremendously, what was a small skirmish between two countries became a world war, so he was forced to re-enlist. It was the most devastating war the world had ever seen and it lasted 15 years. Afterwards the habitable areas and planetary resources were heavy depleted so another war started. This one was a bit different; it was a free for all of countries trying to get the upper hand. Eventually John left that life behind. He settled and married Carol (the old lady from my dreams). He was well into his 50¡¯s by then and was tired of live but together with Carol he lived the best moments of his life, never had children though. He died in his early 70¡¯s murdered by some rebel anarchists trying to end the wars.


    Later I have been dreaming of John time in school with his peers and the knowledge he gained then. Most of it was useless in this world.


    I still don¡¯t really know if I should be grateful to him or not. On one side he screwed my childhood, scared me for life and in a way driven me way from my parents, especially my mother who thinks I am a failure. She doesn¡¯t say it but I can see it in her eyes and the fact that I was different was definitely part of it which is why the only one who knows about the dreams is Klim. On the other side he gave me an understanding beyond my years and knowledge of things that none in Thorvald would even dare imagine.