Yerf And The Lost Crystal

• Jorja Winen, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

Chapter 1
In a mystical land far, far away, there lived a great adventurer named Yerf. Yerf may not be bold and tough but he is polite and intelligent. He may be scrawny and yes, he may be shy and filled with fear, but he has the exact traits every good adventurer needs. You can’t be a good adventurer if your brain is as thick as a brick and all you have is a body full of muscle. Yerf has the perfect qualities of a great adventurer, with his significantly stubborn wombat Bargle who is made of copper and iron.
On a damp, rainy day just before noon, Yerf’s village was called to a conference at the hall, leaving his wombat Bargle at home. This was no ordinary meeting though, all the brawny, big and buff guys made an appearance. Yerf was the only puny person there, he felt like he did not belong until he got told that Chief Obclif required the most skilful and unsurpassed adventurer in the village for a gruelling quest.
All the competitors would each have to go through a series of complex tasks to prove they were worthy to go on the extremely important quest. The first test was to prove strength and endurance. The test was to complete the obstacle course in the wilderness. Now Yerf is not the most athletic, but he was sure he could complete the course. He sprung over all the logs and boulders, he ascended up the tree vines and skimmed under the branches, he was in the lead! Suddenly, ‘SMACK’, he ran into a tree branch and fell onto his backside. He felt as if he was clotheslined by the branch. Yerf gasped for his breath back, realising that he was almost in last place. At first he was disappointed but Yerf knew that he could at least come third if he passed Jodak Haas and Kai Sui. To his relief, Yerf ended up placing second, after the satyr Jack Olande.
The next task was to show their survival skills by spending three nights in the forest with no shelter, water or food supply. They would have to collect their own resources, make their own shelters and create suitable living conditions. Yerf knew that he could use his wise mind as an advantage against the other opponents for this challenge. The first day passed by in a blink of an eye, before he knew it night was upon him. He already made a fire and slain a hare with a spear he’d made from a few sticks, vines and a fragment of a razor-sharp, jagged rock. He had to gather some more vines to weave into a warm blanket, which he then covered in the hare hide. Yerf was grateful that he could sleep soundly, as he had prepared almost effortlessly for the next two nights.
Stay tuned for Chapter 2 of ‘Yerf and The Lost Crystal'.