Read the fifth chapter from the first book of the Laenif trilogy and meet the characters that populate it. You can buy book one of Laenif here.
Meet the Characters from Chapter 5 of Book One of the Laenif Trilogy
Each book of the Laenif saga is divided into segments separated by a series of seemingly random "notes." Before getting to the second such message and the chapter itself, let's meet the characters that are introduced in this chapter of the first Laenif novel.
There are three main characters, all of which are aliens from the planet Laenif. This is the first part of the Laenif story told in third person and not from the perspective of Marsle.
Wibodian
Like Ghoid, Wibodian is a member of the species called "the Indopi." The three-eyed alien is also a Shaman, which means essentially that he has a third eye. A lot of the middle chapters of Laenif: Book One focus on his desires and resistance to the other Shamans' way of living.
He eventually becomes the first being across the vast history of Laenif to ever leave their home forest despite not knowing what lays beyond the woodlands' natural border. This becomes a central matter of contention between him, a local committee of Shamans, and his only true friend named Verrulid.
Verrulid
Verrulid is an older, wiser Indopi that acts as Wibodian's social connection. More interested in peace and wisdom, he is baffled by Wibodian's decision to leave the forest. He debates his pal about the subject for a lot of the fifth chapter before telling the committee about Wibodian's plans.
He ultimately doesn't prevent his friend from leaving the forest of Phoresion despite his objection. The committee of Shamans that he is a part of is led by a female Indopi named Bilnagen.
Bilnagen
Bilnagen is the leader of the committee of Shamans that is localized in the area that both Verrulid and Wibodian occupy. As the group of Indopi debate the seriousness of Wibodian's decision is explore outside the borders of Phoresion, she is the most concerned. She insists there is something more sinister occurring while Verrulid tries to defend his friend's actions.
As the conversation grows more heated, her worrisome attitude intensifies and she becomes convinced that the urge to leave their home forest is a harbinger for worse things to come.
The Second Anonymous Message
All I have is my mind, body, and soul. I can trust nothing else to guide me. I can attach myself to nothing else. All I have is my mind to perceive illusions just as imagined as myself. All I have is my body to live, and die, within dreams of the infinite. All I have is my soul to guide me through individual perceptions. All I have is my mind, body, and soul. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I am a slave to myself. I am a breathing vessel controlled by chemical emotions and self-induced delusions. One thing will lead to another, and then it will be the end.
Chapter Five: The Laenif Shamans
The dark sky of Laenif crowded with angry flashes of sharp light and growing thunder. Beneath rupturing storm clouds, a body similar to Ghoid sat laughing in relentless rain. Lightning teased treetops above as he released uncontrollable howls of hilarity. It was as if a joyous feeling of invincibility and power possessed this being’s soul. He mocked furious clouds from his seat in thickening mud as water splashed across his face. He didn’t notice his forehead’s skin ripping open as a third eye emerged.
He just continued to explode into loud hysterical giggles for the blood gushing into his other two eyes couldn’t be distinguished from the harsh showers flowing all around…
It was but a dream awoken from in a darkened home to dry and poisoned silence. This was on Laenif, back before Ghoid had ever gone to Earth. Before he even had his third eye, this other being named Wibodian was lighting a small candle.
Absorbing its glow, he used all three of his eyes to glance around the small room. It had been built beneath a tree in his home forest Phoresion.
And like all the forests of Laenif, Phoresion knew only about what existed in Phoresion. Some occupants believed there were other forests, and therefore they also assumed there were many more creatures beyond Phoresion’s woods. But how many different types of creatures existed wasn’t anybody’s concern. Life was to be lived on this planet. Laenif had never been governed by its inhabitants. Therefore they were never subjects of systemization. Regulation was found only in the subtlest aspects of life.
The creatures, plants, and stars on Laenif were all in tune with each other, dancing to an orchestra of the universe. A profound peace could be felt throughout despite a faint darkness which lingered in the planet’s heart. It was an evil always appearing to be trounced by some compassionate tender spirit that infested the world’s consciousness.
Myths throughout the planet spoke of a Prophet whose stories explained the origin of life on Laenif and Earth. Yet keep in mind that like all myths, these too had slowly been shedding truth over generations. The most intelligent species on Laenif was what Wibodian and Ghoid both were: a humanoid type of being called the Indopi. Myths tell that centuries ago, the Prophet came to the Indopi and allowed their Shamans to go to Earth. There they met with humans and, for dozens of years, there was an intergalactic celebration of life. Within this time, humans refined their language, architecture, and methods of thinking.
They built new cities, discovered new abilities, both physical and mental, and initially found a pocket of purity within their world, but somehow (and there are many variations of this part) the humans banished the Indopi, brutally murdered one of the Shamans, and thus forced the Prophet to close the cosmic gate connecting both worlds…
Phoresion became a quiet place to be after that. The Shamans, who were Indopi with three eyes like Wibodian, built rooms beneath trees for their living space. They also began gathering in small committees to talk about philosophy, history, and folklore by creeks or on hills or in clearings. And it was in villages where Shamans dwelled among two-eyed townsfolk.
For all Indopi, at one point in their life they would either be swallowed by fear or taken by enlightenment. Enlightenment to them meant gaining your third eye and becoming a Shaman. What being a Shaman meant wasn’t understood until transforming into one. Their enlightenment couldn’t be grasped by a mind until that mind had become enlightened as well. The Shamans had three eyes, which couldn’t lead them anywhere else but to truth, purity, and unison.
The Indopi who never opened their third eye were condemned to an adult life of paranoia, fear, and stubbornness. The only existing illness, violence, and deception of Laenif existed only for those who had two eyes or less. Those who had not found truth did not get a third eye and thus were left vulnerable to what little evil still lurked around their forest. But love more than anything had an evident presence across the planet. It was hard not to enjoy yourself regardless of awareness.
Life came from flowers on Laenif. They were like eggs on Earth. Female Indopi obtained the blessing of spreading and creating life by growing inseparable blossoms during puberty. Sprouting from the hips, they were stunning flowers that represented what beauty the universe could achieve.
When penetrated by the right male Indopi at the right time, the flowers closed their petals and after a few months, blossomed to give birth to a child. From birth, every Indopi’s life was defined by individual chances, choices, and circumstances. Some grew to become a Shaman. Some lived forever in a village, never to know what rested just beyond their own ignorance.
And then there was Wibodian. He was a Shaman who did little else besides sit in seclusion and obsess over all sorts of nonsense. Before he opened his third eye, he wasted time the same way but he had a head then filled with darker thoughts. Thoughts that were plagued with violent urges, periods of torturous self-loathing, and strong desires to be like (what can only be described as:) the God. (Or: an Almighty Creator.) Wibodian yearned to become this idea of the one God so that he could prove to the stars that it was possible to make a better universe than this supposed almighty already did.
Throughout Wibodian’s childhood and adolescence, he felt as if he was greater than anything else in the universe. High on an intense ego-trip, he believed that he alone was better, smarter, and more divine than anything that did or even could exist. But once he let go of these heavy delusions and desires, he saw the Laenif sky as a canvas. He saw the blues as blue as his own tears. He watched the sun fall into orange golden tones of humming pain, witnessing stars shine through trees and it felt like loving arms were reaching out to embrace him. When the sun rose again, he would see that, too. He saw the truth of his world.
Unlike in Wibodian’s dream, his third eye did not bust open as he laughed under a raging storm. It happened in his sleep one morning and that’s when he knew that all the aggression and hate he felt as a kid was finally gone. He met happiness with three eyes wide. Wibodian’s transfiguration into a Shaman was now complete. He was now engulfed by a sacred truth that showed him his beloved forest relinquished of the veils that once hid beauty from his sight. This was all exciting, daunting, and liberating for the younger Wibodian to grasp.
Other Shamans soon found out about him and invited him to their committee and to their parties. He met a few girls in these months, but none of the relationships ever found a way to materialize. And then maybe about after a year, enlightenment’s initial rush faded, and Wibodian drifted away from the other Shamans, and again he returned to isolated contemplation. With the third eye, his meditations weren’t filled with despair any longer, but he still felt the itch of dissatisfaction. He felt as though there was a hole inside of his heart that could not be filled. And he feared deeply that this hole would slowly consume him with a doubt not even his blessed eye could heal.
“Is this all I’m here for?” Wibodian asked himself as he looked around his candle-lit room. This was years after he first received his third eye. He was thinking about his recent dream and its storm clouds and the rain. “What’s the point of my little life?”
This vast forest called Phoresion was all he knew, and he was growing cumbersome. He got sick of the endless arrangements of trees that enchanted the sky. He was tired of the fruits and the water that never stopped supplying themselves. And he was bored with not knowing what was beyond his own habitat. He had read the tales of Earth by ancient Shamans. From those stories he hypothesized oceans, deserts, mountains, and snowy plains all existing somewhere on Laenif. But the truth was in a box somewhere, locked.
Wibodian longed to explore but lacked any need to do so other than personal gain. What lay beyond his own reality were dreams to never be. He shook his head, staring off. Then he blew out his candle’s flame and walked up the stairs and out his door to come to the surface of the forest.
Wibodian was a sure loner. He knew of the great committees of Shamans who met and discussed Earth. The Shamans who pondered on parallel universes and searched for hope in the possibilities that confined Laenif, but these were not for him. The Shaman named Verrulid was his singular friend. The pair would talk about things troubling, amazing, and compromising them. Verrulid was the only one who Wibodian felt understood him. But even that feeling was fleeing as persistent uncertainty wrapped around him like a snake.
“Do you ever wish to leave?” Wibodian asked. “To find a better place and start over?” He and Verrulid stood in a clearing of Phoresion, where the bright sun was mostly shaded by distanced treetops.
Verrulid shook his head. “We are given what we gave ourselves. The flower from where we all came knew what we would need and not need. And you cannot begin again without first destroying your past.
What purpose would there be in doing so other than to selfishly run away from what you don’t want to endure?”
“Well how justified is want?”
“Desire is a business of two-eyeds, my friend. It will only bring suffering and fill you with pain,” Verrulid reminded him.
Wibodian sighed. “Well if an individual desire to discover new ways of looking at things is unjust… does that mean raw reluctance is all that is holding us back from finding what is buried under the unknown?”
“Just because there are things out there unknown to us, which can be revealed, does not mean in any way that they should be,” Verrulid assured. “The quest for a definite answer is pointless. The only answer we should reside in is the only life we should exist for and that is the one that cannot die. It is inside and all around you. Have faith in where it’s taking you and you will find your answers. Trust me.”
“I’ve got buckets of faith, Verrulid. It’s just I’m not sure if it is answers I want. I’ve had to accept a lot in my life. That’s how I got my third eye. I accepted this reality is one to be shared, and that I am never going to be anything other than what I perceive myself as. I’ve had to accept that what others see me as doesn’t matter because there is something here that means so much more than the figment of this imaginary consciousness. The answers aren’t enough, though. I need more,” Wibodian urged. “I need to find that something that I know is out there. That something I can’t define and refuse to live without.”
His friend was a little confused. “Is that not the one life? Is that not the love given by the third eye? Is that not the answer to all questions? What else could there be?”
Wibodian pulled out a plump, purple fruit from his long cloak and bit down deep. As he did this, Verrulid stared at the sun and wondered humorously if there could actually be a magical gift waiting for him elsewhere. He asked himself, ‘Could there be some sort of different gold waiting to be found far beyond the forest that feeds me life?’
Wibodian put his fruit down and attempted to properly describe this thing that he was so feverishly driven to discover. “It’s a satisfaction. It’s a succession I need to accomplish.”
“Are you not content with your three eyes?” Verrulid clenched his cheekbones. “Did your gift from the genetic consciousness not come from a selfless sense of being? Why would you be granted to glimpse otherwise hidden dimensions if you still had a personal task to complete?”
“It’s not so much of a task,” Wibodian whined. “I just feel that we haven’t done enough with our world simply because we are afraid of falling apart like the humans did. There’s a lifestyle among Indopi that works. The fearful hide until death or enlightenment while the Shamans claim to keep the peace. We Great Enlightened Shamans make sure nothing clouds our view of The Divine Truth. It works. I get it. Yet I still can’t help myself from thinking that because of this fear, we’re too reluctant to stretch our wings. Now I’m not saying I want to change the ways of the Shamans. I’m just suspicious about why we can’t get outside Phoresion and explore what is occurring elsewhere.”
“We’re growing, Wibodian,” Verrulid bluntly said. “We Indopi are blooming as much as possible. We are such a prosperous and unified species that we possessed enough intelligence and awareness to reach Earth and share our culture’s wisdom with an entirely different planet’s species. We grew so beautifully that the Prophet, along with the one soul inside all the cosmos, gave us the ability to travel across an oblivion of space to a physically remote planet just so we could experience our natural growth with humanity. We’re doing something right. If there is more out there we need to find, we will be lead to it by the mystery of the divine. Not by some vague desire such as you just described.”
“But humans threw everything away.” Wibodian spat. “We failed. Following the divine failed. The last one of us to go to Earth tried to explain the essence of their very being to them and he was beaten, neglected, and finally killed.”
“They had the potential to be great,” Verrulid scolded, now leering down at his friend, who was much shorter. “They chose to walk down a selfish path. Some king of man chose greed and death over mutual prosperity and life. It corrupted them, true. But the potential in them for peace has never faded…”
Wibodian dropped his stare to the ground. “My dear friend, I wish to leave. Whether it’s the divinity of all things steering me, or leftover individual yearnings, I do not know. However I do know that if I walk as far as I can and be as wise as I can, then I might get someplace that can offer relief to my insatiable yearning. If I go out looking for nothing but love, the purity of infinity will guide me.”
“So love is this mysterious something you seek?”
“I guess, yeah. I need to feel compassion,” Wibodian confessed. “A persisting harshness betwixt the realities I’ve analyzed has left me empty yet undeservingly wise. I lived in a nightmare of fear perpetuated by arrogance before. I struggled to wake myself up from it. I pried open my third eye. I found nothing mattered and now I am empty. This new eye shows me love but no love reserved for my individual perception. It shows me only the universal love. Only the compassion that will exist whether I feel it or not…”
“Isn’t that vanity?”
“I was given my own perception of the one dream,” Wibodian stated. “I can’t continue on with such knowledge and still sustain this burden of emptiness. Something is calling out for me and I need to know what it wants.”
The taller one sighed. “What if it doesn’t want anything? What if in truth, this is nothing at all? What if this is nothing more than hubris speculation disguising itself as honest intuition?”
“Then I will discover that for myself.”
Wibodian left eastbound out of the forest of Phoresion. He had started a physical quest he thought he could handle because of his burning instinct. He was in search of a new love, of an untapped passion. He dreamed of finding a better paradise hidden somewhere beyond the forest.
His desire and confidence in the paradisiacal residence’s existence pushed him to the valley just outside Phoresion. It was an empty plain that held no sign of what was beyond it. No Shaman before Wibodian had ever cared to hypothesize what was out there. They accepted that everything in the barriers of possible reality could technically be outside the forest, but saw no reason for leaving their home. And Indopi with two eyes feared everything they couldn’t know, so they ignored the possibility of what could be beyond the plains.
To the Indopi, life was a constant flow of relaxation urging slow consorting of various challenges of existence with reason and love. And life in the forest wasn’t bad at all. They had access to food. They had bountiful amounts of water, and plants with medicinal chemicals entrenched inside. The Indopi had everything.
But Wibodian continued his journey because he could feel something else. And it made him believe his future lay upon unprecedented lands, hidden far across empty plains and deserts. After walking through that first valley, he climbed atop a hill which blocked the outlook of the unknown from Phoresion. He stood on it and felt accomplished and proud, but pride was not a necessary element of a Shaman’s life. If anything, it was something to avoid. It was something that could skew the perception given by their enlightened vision.
Standing gallantly on that hill, smoothly observing a vast uncharted wasteland, Wibodian felt a light pain in his forehead’s pupil. He flinched a little and rubbed it in a displeased manner, starting to feel whatever holy energy that blessed him with the holy eyeball. He experienced a sudden resentment towards himself. Yet despite these stinging pains burning his brains, the daunting trek continued eastward…
Meanwhile within Phoresion, Verrulid was telling a small band of Shamans about Wibodian’s quest. “He said he felt love’s inspiration, in his own words of course, and that there was something hidden from him, waiting for him to find it out beyond the borders of our forest.”
Many of the listening Shamans were smiling thoughtfully. A few giggled at Wibodian’s fault, interpreting such desires he held as misperceptions. “Let him walk down his path,” one Shaman said. “It will lead him where it takes him. If the comfortable space built for him beneath the ground and roots of the trees isn’t enough for him then he will stay unsatisfied until death.”
Another chimed in, “I agree. What is out there will not give him anything more than what he was naturally given by Laenif, inside this holy forest.”
Another one of the Shamans remarked, “He will only find mistakes until he is driven back home by failure with more experience and less impulsive attitudes.”
The leader of the band (not the wisest but the best fit for leading wisely) named Bilnagen, talked over the sudden silence she created. “This may be more serious than it appears.”
“How so?” Verrulid wondered.
“Never before has an Indopi with three eyes acted on the blind desire of a two-eyed creature,” Bilnagen announced. “What he seeks out there he will not find, but the sad reality is that something might exist out there. Laenif created this forest. It could very well have created other environments that would sustain life. Even some myths speak of other forests and other intelligent species across Laenif. If Wibodian stumbles upon an un-tapped reality, he might perceive it as the love he fled to find. And an attachment to a place that holds little physical connection to its host is one to drive the mind into evil corners…”
“I thought the third eye gave light to darkness,” one of the Shamans said. “I see life in cycles and all my ignorance has become a dying dream. Is there something happening to Wibodian that would make him believe love seriously wanted him gone? Could he really believe the place that gave him existence didn’t care for it anymore?”
“Yeah,” Verrulid agreed. “Why would the one mind grant him the gift of a third eye if he still felt unwanted and uncertain? How did his third eye fail to guide him away from this madness?”
“His personal perception might have gotten muddled somehow,” Bilnagen suggested. “Maybe he began to desire his life with two eyes again. Maybe he still wasn’t satisfied.”
“I thought having the third eye was the epitome of life’s contentment though,” a nearby Shaman said.
Bilnagen pondered on it. “Well then perhaps far away from our forest, there is truly something beckoning him, and then it is this thing that has made him unsatisfied…”
“What other connection could he have other than to the holy life from Phoresion? Where could something else be happening?” intrigued Verrulid. There was a silence. The committee of about eight Shamans was relaxing in the forest. They were resting on logs. Some leaned on trees. All loosely contemplated the situation at hand.
“Earth,” Bilnagen eventually proclaimed.
“Does this mean we get to return? Does this mean they’re ready to learn again?” a Shaman asked excitedly.
“I’m not sure,” Bilnagen responded. The group dispersed into chatter.
“How long has it been since one of us has gone to Earth?”
“Four hundred and twenty-six years…”
“That’s about two thousand Earth-years!”
“Wait!” Bilnagen cried. “If Earth is sending us spiritual matter, meaning our connection with them has continued to flourish, then maybe we have no need to return. Maybe they’re finally learning how to live wiser even without our influence…”
“Possibly.” Verrulid considered it. “But if that’s true then they might be more susceptible to us. If humans are beginning to follow more peaceful and truthful perceptions, then they might accept us! We could go to Earth again and celebrate our unified hearts.”
“Remember what they did to Honperg,” a Shaman had to proclaim. Honperg was the last to venture to Earth, he who was so infamously beat and scorned by the humans. The gathering lent Honperg a silence for remembrance.
“We will be patient,” announced Bilnagen to break the quiet. “Even if we found out how to go to Earth again, no one shall go until more evidence of Wibodian’s intentions emerge. After all, this may very well have nothing to do with Earth. No one here honestly knows what it is that’s causing Wibodian to succumb to the dark and ominous lure of personal desire. We do not know what is truly leading him further and further away…”
Although Bilnagen wasn’t trying to make it public, she had been feeling an aching uneasiness recently. This situation concerning Wibodian was crawling toward uncomfortable places. She couldn’t understand how a forest, which had shown her infinite love and wisdom, could as well want another, seemingly equal, cast out.
For never before had one of the Shamans (nor any Indopi for that matter) desired to leave Phoresion. So how could Wibodian not be satisfied here? How could he still want anything more if the third eye was supposed to vanquish all such desire? All Bilnagen knew was that something was changing. She could taste it in her lungs.
