Fred's Quest - Chapter 100: The Story So Far

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 1954

My name is Jonathan Tisbitt, and I've been dead for quite a while now. And let me tell you something, death isn't all it's cracked up to be.

After I died, I roamed the world, a restless spirit. Oh, I wasn't looking to avenge anything or destroy anyone. I was just bored. But then THEY caught my eye.

And I've been watching them ever since.

I'm speaking of the Manimals, of course. They keep running from one adventure to another, and I am very happy to have a front row seat for it all. But perhaps it would be easier to tell you their story if I concentrated on only one of them. A manimal by the name of Fred. He is the hero of this little drama, after all.

LORD FRED D'HONAIRE is the son of Duke Dredrik of Suffex and peer knight of the Great Kingdom of Allaria. Fred had been sent by King Emry Exultaine to the Southern Caves to slay a dragon. It was there that he met the warrior-princess ASTRA. But before he could free her, the evil dragon MINESTUS had teleported him to the Island of the Dragon MOREAU.

And moreover, Lord Fred had now become a manimal! What is a manimal you ask? Why, it is a man (or woman) with the shape of a man (or woman) but the body of an animal. There are catwomen and manbears and wolfmen and ferret people. They aren't lycanthropes (humans who turn into beasts when the moon is full) or demi-beasts (magical races of humanoid animals), but rather they are something sort of the same but then again not really. They are manimals.

And what kind of manimal was Fred? A 5'10" red whiskered fox. He was quite shocked, I can tell you. But he wasn't alone, on the island were hundreds of others just like himself. There was LOAM, a wolfman and ALICIA, a very attractive she-fox. All of them were victims of the Dragon Mage Minestus who had created this odd type of human/animal hybrid.

The island was split up into two groups: The Pack, those who had retained their sanity and their humanity, and The Forsaken, those who hadn't. There were a lot more Forsaken than members of the Pack. In part because the manimals, like human lycanthropes, would fully transform into beasts during the phases of the full moon. And many never changed back, but stayed that way, vicious animals, forever.

Fred didn't like that idea very much. He was determined to escape as soon as possible and find a cure. Luckily for him, the Leader of the Pack, CARRADENE was secretly in league with the rogue dragon MALACHI. With the dragoness' help, the Pack might gain its freedom. Unluckily for Fred, Minestus was in league with an alien race of LIZARD MEN, and had used their super science to create a plague that would wipe humanity off the face of the map.

And just to make things more complicated, there was an interdimensional ALLIANCE that was waging a war against the Lizard Men. And Moreau's island had just become ground zero for the next attack. The dragon Moreau was killed and the Pack escaped, but Minestus' plague was let loose on the world and within weeks 80 percent of the human population was dead.

After their escape, Fred and the Pack set up camp in the deserted city of Panaras. Things unfolded rather quickly after that. The Alliance, in their war with the Lizard Men, began attacking every dragon stronghold they could find. Malachi's companion, SYNIZN was fatally wounded. In order to save his life, Malachi transformed him into a manbear. She then sent him to aid the Pack. Minestus realized too late that the Lizard Men had planned all along on the Alliance destroying Dragonkind. That way, once they had secured the planet from further Alliance assault they would be able to rule the world unmolested. Both the dragons and the humans would all be dead. But Minestus had an ace up his sleeve as well. He had designed the plague with a dormant gene that he immediately activated. Across the globe, the Lizard Men began to die and their leaders quickly realized what had happened. A retreat was ordered, but in order to keep the planet out of the Alliance's hands and to exact a certain measure of revenge, they bombed the world with hundreds of nuclear warheads before they left.

But the story didn't end there.

Though there had been much destruction, and nuclear wastelands now pocked the globe, the world still turned. It was still alive. And so was Fred and the Pack. The Manimals had taken the city of Panaras for their own. And they had also learned that their lycanthropic curse had mutated. They were no longer slaves to the full moon. They could now change at will from their half-human form to full-animal, and without losing their human consciousness. Things were finally looking up for them. But Fred wasn't ready to live the rest of his life as a manfox.

He now turned his attentions on getting back home and finding a complete cure for his animalistic condition. As far as the Pack knew, Minestus was dead. But his lair was still in the Southern Mountains, and so too perhaps was a way to regain their stolen humanity. And Fred had another mission as well. In Panaras, he had been reunited with his cousin WILLIAN. When King Emry had sent Fred to dispatch the dragon of the caves, Willian had discovered that Fred's father, Duke Dred, had switched the maps so that Fred would face the Dragon Mage Minestus instead. Now Fred had been trained and equipped to fight a dragon, NOT a Dragon Lord, so this was a veritable death sentence. Willian had gone after him, but had never found him. Instead, Willian had come upon Princess Astra and rescued her. The two soon married. When the plague hit, they escaped to Panaras via an ancient Alantean built slipgate.

It was this slipgate that would send them all back to the Great Kingdom so that Fred could confront his father and find Minestus' magical library. By this time, Fred and Alicia had married as well. So the two couples, Synizn and a handful of others stepped into the magical portal and left Panaras behind.

But instead of the Great Kingdom, the group found themselves sent to the Arabi Desert and the land of Alicia's birth, fabled Ethiopia. Alicia's father had been the King, but the royal family was now dead, victims of the nuclear missile attacks. In their place, Malachi of all people, was now ruling what was left of the desert nation. Alicia resigned her royal authority and together with Fred and the others she continued the journey back to the Great Kingdom.

They braved the radioactive wasteland and battled mutated monsters and many died, but they were most terribly stricken when NATTHIAS, Alicia's insane father who was not dead but had become a half-mad were-jackal instead, attacked Alicia. He was fought off but Willian was fatally wounded. They hoped to save him by turning him into a manimal, but they discovered to their surprise that they were no longer lycanthropic in nature. Their manimal transformation had fully mutated into its final form and they were now the founding members of a new race of beings. Unfortunately, this left poor Willian hanging out on death's doorstep without much hope of being saved.

And that pretty much brings us up to speed. It's been a wild ride so far, and I fully expect that the fun is only beginning. I mean, there's just so much that's going on. Just today in fact, our heroes crossed into the Channel of Sueze, a marvel of ancient Alantean engineering. It is a passageway that cuts across the northern continent and connects the western ocean with the eastern. It hasn't been sailed by Man in over 10,000 years. Who knows what they will find there?

Well, actually I do. But I hate spoiling a good surprise. If you want to find out what happens next, well you'll just have to keep on watching. Just like me.

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WolfRun

6/1/1999 9:05:54 PM

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