One day Ishigami was tending his flock of Coney-Stags, when he saw a puddle forming slowly from the ground. He watched it curiously for a few minutes, then was distracted by his stags and turned away, and left the puddle. A couple of days later it had begun to rain. Ishigami hadn’t thought about the puddle until now. He told his Coney-Stags that he was going to go back to the puddle and he left. After some intense running, he came upon the puddle. What he had left it as a few days ago, was nothing compared to what it was now. The puddle was the size of a big lake! Ishigami was shocked that a transformation from puddle to a lake had happened that quickly!
Before I go on let me give you a little background on Ishigami. Ishigami is a very nice and generous person. He spends his days tending a flock of Coney-Stags. But there is something very special about Ishigami, he is able to communicate with all animals. He can tell them about a threat and they can tell him of a threat if needed. But the most important thing of all, are the Coney-Stags. The Coney-Stags antlers actually. The antlers are the key to a treasure. A treasure like no other. This treasure contains not only diamonds, rubies, and gold but it also is the key to everlasting life. In order to get the antlers from the Coney-Stag, you have to kill every single Coney-Stag for the them to release the antlers from their heads, and there are 500 of them! Ishigami was born into the family of shepherds who tended the Coney-Stags. His family had been shepherds of the stags for the past 15,000 years.
Ishigami continued looking in awe. Almost half of the land he let the coney stags roam on was underwater! In all of his years as a shepherd he had never seen such a lake form in that amount of time!
Out of the corner of his eye he caught something moving along the far shore. He strained his eyes at the moving figure. He noticed it was walking on all fours, so it must be an animal. As he watched it walk along the shore, closer and closer it came. Finally he understood what it was. The animal was a fox. Ishigami called over to it.
“Fox, are you listening?” The fox turned around and stopped puzzled by the noise. “Over here fox” called Ishigami again. The fox again looked around, even more puzzled then the last time. Then he saw Ishigami on the far shore. The fox then said “ Why do you want me Ishigami”?
Then all of a sudden, out of the center of the lake rose a huge man! The fox ran away and Ishigami stood paralyzed with terror. He had never seen such a man before. The man started towards Ishigami. Closer and closer the man came, until he was within hearing distance. “I am Yoshimoto, King of the Rushing Waters. I have come to fight and kill you and all of your Coney-Stags!”
Ishigami was shocked, nobody had tried taking the treasure in thousands of years! Then Ishigami said “You are going to have to be a wizard to obtain the treasure.”
“I am a wizard.” said Yoshimoto. Then in a flash he had turned the grass around Ishigami, into knee deep water. Ishigami leapt out of the water and ran. While he was running, he called to his Coney-Stags and told them to go to their hideout. He could not see the stags, but they responded to his call and raced to the hideout- a little cave concealed by bushes and trees.
When Ishigami reached the hideout, he told the stags about what had just happened. A stag named Prothonotary then asked “How will we stop this Yoshimoto from killing us”?
“That is the question,” said Ishigami. “His waters could drown all of us.”
Just then he heard the tapping of something right outside the door. Horrified, Ishigami peaked out. The only thing he saw was the green grass, trees, and wait, what was that? A decent sized wooden poll was sitting right by where the thicket ends. Puzzled, he tiptoed very slowly closer and closer.
Chchchchchchcshang!
“Wha…. what happen…… happened,” Ishigami said in a terrified voice. He seemed to have fallen into a hole. Ishigami sat up. The space was dark, but warm. Still horrified he looked up, hoping he hadn’t fallen far. He hadn’t. He hadn’t fallen more than ten feet. Next he looked at what he was sitting on. He couldn’t believe his eyes! He had found the set of weapons his grandfather had told him about when he was a little boy. There were lots of swords, shields, axes, spears, bows, and arrows! He had found just what he needed. Well actually, he needed to get out of the hole first. He called softly to the Coney-Stags to let them know where he was. They responded and two very brave stags walked over to the hole to stand by. The first thing ishigami did was to pick out an ax, and start cutting stairs alongtheedge oftehhole, going to the surface. Ishigami tried to stand up but he slipped and fell. He tried again, but now he couldn’t stand. He looked down at his legs and noticed he had a huge scrape on his left leg. It wasn’t bleeding luckily, but it was hurting. He picked up his ax and started digging out the stairs. He dug and dug and dug, until finally he reached the the top. Immediately he went back down, and brought up shields for all of the stags to wear for protection. Next, he brought up a couple of bows and thousands of arrows. He also brought up spears, swords, and axes. Then he heard something coming his way. He ran to the edge of the thicket and there was Yoshimoto walking his way slowly, with the water following him. Ishigami ran back to the cave and got two shields, two bows, thousands of arrows, ten spears, and two swords. He ran back and saw how fast Yoshimoto was advancing very quickly. He was only about a mile and a half away now. Ishigami sent out a call to all of his animal friends to warn them about Yoshimoto. Within a few minutes he could see multiple animals of different species all popping up at different locations, all ready to attack Yoshimoto if anything went wrong.
Twang! An arrow struck Yoshimoto right on his lower right foot. Yoshimoto looked around. He fired an arrow in the direction of Ishigami. The arrow missed wide to the left. A wolf came running out and bit Yoshimoto’s left leg. It held on and wouldn’t let go. Then Yoshimoto shot another arrow, but this time at the wolf. It missed and Yoshimoto fell over in pain screaming. At that moment Ishigami sprang up and raced over to Yoshimoto and said, “You either leave and live or you’re going to stay and die!” Yoshimoto got up and ran. He ran and ran and did not stop. That was the last time that Yoshimoto was ever seen in that part of the world. And from that day on no one ever tried to kill the Coney-Stags again.
