Campaign of Survivors
an excerpt

Skiflo stretched and yawned after he saw the Finar girl, that had whispered for him to wake up, return to her spot amongst the sleeping members of their little band. He brushed the brush and leaves off of himself and sat up, his eyes shining brightly. This was going to be an interesting morning, or at least he hoped it would be. Skiflo stretched a bit more, he always thought that one could never stretch too much, the muscles should always be well worked before doing anything. The Ignan then leapt to his feet in a single, fluid motion. After standing he fished around in the brush and leaves in which he had slept for the wood that he had been whittling the night before. He smirked when he found it, then moved over to the fire and sat down. Ah, fire.. How little Skiflo cared for it, despite his race’s intuition with it. He cared for the air, the wind, so much more. How he loved the feel of the air against his flesh when he ran or jumped. Fire could never feel anything near as wonderful, the bout with the Murnoks was enough to show that. Sure, it was great to keep people warm when times got cold, and it really did help with seeing, and yes, it was the element that brought about the existence of the Ignan race and culture, but it was wild and uncontrollable. The air, while also uncontrollable, was not destructive, not in the way that fire was known to be.
“That’s enough of that.. I don’t need to be thinking like that, it is too early to be debating the elements with myself. Hmm.. What are these? Toys?” Skiflo looked down at the miniature figures in front of the fire. There were eight of them total, seven constructed of stone, most likely with the use of magic, and another carved from wood, obviously with a knife due to the rough, but well detailed, work. He giggled to himself when he saw the little statue of himself, holding the transformed version of his trench knife, looking valiant and victorious along with the others. “Ah, that truly is amazing work, and quite flattering. It really is an amazing work of myself.”
He eyed over the other representations of the group that he had recently joined in order to learn more about the great illusion in the sky, in order to make sure that none of the others were more well detailed than his own. Skiflo’s grin turned into a frown for a fraction of a second when he saw that the model of the other Ignan, Xavier Xandergliff he said his name was, was much more well done than his own. They were all close to being exact copies of the people that they were supposed to be, but Xavier’s copy was just that much closer to being real, and he looked much more triumphant and heroic than the others. “Well, at least mine is more detailed than that Finar... Shaid’s. Ah, how I don’t care for him. He’s a strange one, and he never seems all that happy. Sure the world isn’t the best, but at least I make the best of it.” Skiflo smiled and patted his pocket, which was heavily laden with money. “With money like this so easy to come by with all the gullible fools in all the cities of the world, who could ever think the world to not be a great place.” The Ignan laughed to himself.
He picked up the wooden figure. It was obviously done by someone other than the one who had done the stone statues. Skiflo traced his fingers over the miniature... Monk... It was of the dead monk, a tribute to the dead monk master who had brought them all together. Skiflo smiled, “How nice, and such amazing workmanship. It would take someone as skilled as I am with a knife to be able to do something like this.” He set the carving back down with the rest of the figures.
He leaned back and looked upwards at the stars that were fading from the sky. Kopeh was setting and the sun was starting to rise, it was almost time to get rouse the others so that they could set out for the day ahead. Suddenly, Skiflo started to get an odd feeling about him, as though he was being watched by someone...
“Wake up!” he shouted. “Everyone, get up, ready your things. We’ve got to hurry!”