4 FRIENDS AND THE DARKLANDS
Prathamesh Dabhekar gets a new video game ‘The Darklands’. His
friends and him were waiting for this game from a long time. Seeing no one home
he calls in his 3 friends Sugra Khanwala, Prasad Chaudhary and Shreya
Agrawal. They start playing the game but suddenly something unusual happens.
The room goes dark, everyone thinks it is the power cut but before they can
understand anything they appear to be standing at the gate of ‘The Darklands’. Their clothes changed to
armors and helms. Suddenly, A fairy
appears before them she introduces herself as gate fairy, Indraja Nikam. She welcomes
them to the darklands and tells them that its a test for them who call
themselves as friends. With that she gives them some weapons.
Prathamesh receives a Bow
and Arrows. His keen observation and alert senses will serve him to get
past everything with these weapons.
Prasad is always awed by
magic tricks and thus he receives a Magician’s Cap using which he can
pull out many things but he must be careful about it because the hat has one
rule “once you take out anything you must use it”. He must use his wisdom to
judge what he wants and how to use what he gets.
Sugra is the most voracious
reader, she believes ‘books can give you any answer’ and so she receives a ‘Book
of Everything’ which helps when she is confused. She is the one who is
going to provide all the knowledge they need to win or say survive their quest.
While, Shreya is a wonderful
writer and thus she receives a ‘Mighty Pen’ with which whatever she writes
during the sunset comes to life.
Adorning their gifts,
the 4 warriors proceed on their journey. After travelling for a while they
reach a castle. At the gate they are all questioned about their visit and are
taken to the queen Atreyi Chakraborty, who is known for her benevolence
and her beauty. When they are summoned before the queen she enquires the
purpose of their visit, they tell her their entire story of how they got inside
the game and how they met the fairy. Queen Atreyi welcomed them and in their
honor organised a grand feast, Naina Gill and Pooja Pandit known
for their mesmerizing dance all over the kingdom, that evening, depicted the
history of the kingdom and how the evil king Sarang Akhade took over the
entire kingdom and also the innumerable attempts they did to defeat him. After
the performance they came to know about the evil king and how has he harassed
the entire kingdom with his dark magic and powers. Shreya told the queen that
they will help and will fight the evil king and bring back peace to the kingdom,
the other 3 were stunned by the decision of Shreya, they started fighting with
her about the decision. in the middle of the fight, the fairy Indraja appeared
once again and she told them to calm down, she told that for serving the realm
the mighty have to take the sword and then only peace can be made, she told
them
“Help forges the future and brings rewards
to everyone” and disappeared,
they all thought about
the words for some time and it stuck to Prathamesh that Indraja was actually
talking about there freedom.
“If we help these
people, then we might be able to get out of this game”, they all thought about
it and at the end agreed to do so.
The next day, their journey
started again, now they knew what they had to do. they now knew what their
fortune was to do, but they knew that in
unity lied there strength. On their way they met a woman named Nupur
Agrawala and were offered with some delicacies that they loved. She offered
more and asked them to accompany her into her home which was at the verge of a
dark forest. They reached the house, it was small and smelt of potions but the
fragrance of the delicacies lured them in. Inside they meet a man Abhijeet
Borkar lying on the bed, he was weak and pale. He told them he was
suffering from a very grave disease which cannot be cured. Nupur offered them
some sweets, they ate them and then they suddenly dozed off. They woke up and
found themselves shackled. Nupur apologized for giving them the milk of poppy,
and told them that she has sold them to the evil king sarang and in return she
would receive medicines for her husband. She told them that the medicine was
prepared by Priyamvada Chauhan who is imprisoned by evil Sarang because
he was the one who has been working with an evil sorcerer Aniket Nadkar.
Aniket could hypnotize people, play with their psychology and make them do
whatever he likes. With Sarang’s very big army and Aniket’s dark magic those
two had conquered the lands. But god has its own way of destroying evil. Just
when sarang and Aniket were about attack on queen Atreyi’s castle, goddess
madhura appeared in the sky and declared 4 warriors will arrive from a
different world and destroy the evil. Sarang was enraged and Aniket came up
with the break-out of a non curable black plague. The 4 warriors assured Nupur
that they will get the medicine and also destroy Sarang and Aniket but Nupur
was still afraid. Thats when Prasad told her he can make them invisible with
the help of an potion which he can take out from the hat. This will keep
Abhijeet and Nupur hidden from Sarang. Nupur finally agreed and set them free,
Prasad gave them the invisibility potion, Nupur told them that they have to
cross the dark forest to reach Sarang and Aniket that’s all she knew. The
warriors thanked Nupur and they set off towards their destiny.
They enter into the jungle.
After going a bit far in, Sugra feels a light stroke on her head. At first she
thinks of it to be breeze but when that happens again she turns to see a ghost!
She screams out loud when she finds not just one but a hundred of them.
Petrified as they are, they can't think of a thing. Randomly Prathamesh
sends an arrow from his quiver at one of them. But it turned out to be useless
because the arrows penetrated through them. Now, Shreya took out her `MIGHTY
PEN' and wrote- a paranormal healer. Nothing happened. It struck to her
that it works only during the dark. So, Sugra, now opens the book she has been
bestowed with. It gives a way of producing the dark. And that is how a
paranormal healer, Deepali comes to life. She helps the 4 warriors to overcome
the ghosts. She calls her friends named Raj Meghwani and Nihal Tiwari,
who she says will help them with the war she believes that is soon to be break.
She says that this information of the war is not to scare them but to prepare
them for their destiny.
The warriors were
standing at the gates of the dark keep, it was said that the castle was
impregnable, that many armies had tried to but they couldn't even pass the army
at the gate. The warriors were afraid, the evil orcs army started blowing horns
so for the battle to begin, but right then they heard horns from their side,
they turned around and saw a huge army marching towards them and with that for
the first time since the siege the sun came out from the dark and gave the
warriors a sign of hope. Queen Atreyi had sent her army to help the warriors in
the quest. The gates now opened and a huge army of evil orcs came marching
towards the warriors, and in the rumbling noises of warhammers, the rustles of
swords and arrows ‘The mighty war of the middle earth’ began, Prasad pulled out
swords from his magic cap and handed it over to the others, and thus the mighty
warriors entered into the war that was to turn the future of the entire
darklands, men started falling, on both the sides. There were huge animals,
giants, fighting from the evil side, some so huge that they can kill an entire
battalion, but these determined souls stood still, Prasad and Prathamesh, with
their horses came at the front and spoke to the army, they said
‘look at those
creatures, if you think they can kill you then you are right,
if you are afraid to
stand , its not wrong ,
people of darklands ,
this is a day, the
history will remember when we brave souls challenged the mightiest army and
won. for fear dwells in the heart of the courageous”
‘for darklands...’
With this roar the army
fought with the giants, the orcs and all other creatures who happen to come
from lands unknown. The brave souls fought bravely, killing every beast standing
in there way, the evil army soon was on the losing side, and suddenly the evil
king called out for a retreat, the walls of his castle had been breached, his
keep was destroyed, the brave souls and warriors had lost more than half of the
army they felt that the victory was near, they felt that the war was soon
to end, they felt that it was the last time they were holding their swords. But
then suddenly the evil king rose with an unknown army, the army of the dark,
the army which was never defeated in any battle, the battle began, the dark
army began to slay the brave souls. It felt as the war was to end on the other
side. Everyone lost hopes. But then they heard something that made their hopes
come back to life, the army of ent had arrived , Akshay Nimje the
shepherd of the trees lead the army and behind them the whole jungle rose for
the darklands, the evil king was stunned, within minutes the whole dark army
was slayed. a fierce battle took place between Prasad and the evil king, swords
clashed, the evil king in one blow killed prasad, it was a dreadful moment. But
when the evil king turned, Prasad got up and slayed him. The dark army turned
to clay, none remained on the battlefield except the brave souls and the
warriors, within a blink of the eye the mighty battle of middle earth was over.
Everyone was happy but they had suffered a terrible loss. prasad lay dead on
the battlefield, the warriors surrounded him.
“WE FINALLY WON, GUYS”
he said and passed away.
The great warrior was taken to peace.
Everyone was at sorrow
with this loss, they offered their condolences, and Akshay the shepherd of the
trees said “battlefield is the graveyard of warriors, may the great warrior
rest in peace”
After offering rightful
services the army went in the castle and the warriors started their journey
towards queen atreyi’s castle, they had freed priyamwada, on there journey back
to the castle, they dropped priyamwada to the dark forests where she made
potions for the poor guy, on reaching the castle they were welcomed with a
grand feast and were taken to the queen directly. After a few words with the
queen, Indraja came in as the princess and asked the warriors whether they
wanted to go back or not, to which they happily replied yes, she reminded her
words to them and said that the whole darkland was in their debts. she took
back all the weapons she had given to them and a magic door appeared in front
of them, she told them that it will take them home, the warriors asked about
their friend Prasad to which, she drew a spell and Prasad appeared in front of
them, they all were very happy to this and happily passed through the door,
prasad was the last one to pass through it, before passing he told the queen
“the realm is served”
and got inside.
the warriors were at
their place when they opened their eyes. The darklands was now just a memory to
them, an unknown dream which they saw together.
This
was a story which depicts the power of truth over evil. though at times the
evil seems to take over but at the end ‘the good triumphs’. Even the nature
supports the good, much like it happened with the warriors. differences aren't
made by big things, but by a million of small ones....
So, try and MAKE A
DIFFERENCE, a good difference!
