Jarkuk the Wise is a warrior who leads an army of 2,000 members, over half of which are aliens, on missions to steal information from other planets. He comes across carvings describing a castle on the planet Zuegan that contains a sphere holding all knowledge of the universe. Jarkuk travels there with his army and encounters Pringy, a man protecting the castle. Pringy reluctantly takes them to the castle, warning Jarkuk not to look into the sphere. Jarkuk ignores this and looks into the sphere, rapidly aging as he gains all knowledge. Overwhelmed, he returns everything his army stole and wanders off alone, dying with both regret and pride over his actions

1. Malias A.
WISDOM WARRIOR
There Jarkuk the Wise stood wearing his space cloak with ancient scrolls in one hand and
an atomic grenade in the other. He was a brave warrior driven by knowledge who had just
attacked yet another planet with half of his two thousand man army, just to steal some of the
solar system’s valued information. As Jakuk started surveying the planet, he noticed a limestone
boulder with exquisite carvings on it. He was astonished and quickly began jotting down notes.
“Sir, how can you be so sure of what that foreign language is describing?” questioned
Wong, Jarkuk’s servant.
“They don’t call me Jarkuk the Wise for nothing,” bragged Jarkuk. “I know many
languages, many symbols, many places, and many things,” he continued.
“Now hurry! We have a new lead on the planet of Zuegan. According to these carvings
there is a castle on that planet that contains all knowledge of all things, condensed into a small
but powerful sphere,” explained Jarkuk.
“But Zuegan is far out of our solar system and is not close enough to teleport to,” Wong
said worriedly.
“Well, fire up the engine of our finest ship!” ordered Jarkuk.
Jarkuk’s army consists of two thousands members, but well over half of the crew is not
human. In 2017, almost five hundred years previous, during the worldwide apocalypse, most of
the humans died off, making it hard to form a human army. The majority of the army are aliens
from surrendering planets. These extra terrestrial being are human like and very good soldiers.

2. 2
Jarkuk and Wong impatiently waited for all the troops to be teleported back to the orbiting space
station. Finally the crew was gathered and started their three-week expedition to Zuegan. While
they were on this trip, Wong worked on making many spaces cloaks for the human soldiers in
the army. The alien soldiers did not need the cloaks, being that they had far more senses
including an ability, which allowed them to adapt to any solar environment instantly. Jarkuk
worked on his gun invention that created pellets out of thin air as it fired, thus, creating a weapon
that never ran out of ammunition.
Jarkuk was well prepared for battle given that he was almost positive that the castle on
Zuegan was well guarded. On arrival, Jarkuk was surprised to see no life there at all except for
small plants.
“We’ll set up camp toward that sea over there!” shouted Jarkuk to his crew.
“Make sure that all of you keep on your space cloaks throughout the night, because the
freezing temperatures will kill you!” Wong warned the human soldiers.
When the crew woke from their six hour rest, they continued to follow the map to the
castle. The further they walked they started doubting the existence of the castle. Then Wong
saw a figure off to the right.
“Jarkuk! I see a human!” Wong shouted excitedly.
“We must be careful! Whoever this is, they have been able to see us approaching for
miles due to the flat terrain of this planet,” Jarkuk noticed.
“You are right, this could be a trap,” Wong added.
Since Jarkuk and Wong were both humans they decided they would go speak to the man
alone, without the whole army. As they came closer to the mysterious man, they noticed he was
very skinny, wearing a golden robe, sitting on a wooden chair with nothing but a compass,

3. 3
stopwatch, and canteen. Wong stepped up to the man and made many signals with his hands,
attempting to communicate.
“Your hand gestures are not needed. Judging from your demeanor, I assume you are from
Earth and speak a language similar to mine,” the old boney man said.
“Yes I understand you completely! My name is Wong, and this is my boss, Jarkuk the
Wise,” introduced Wong.
“My name is Pringy, and you are Jarkuk the Wise, huh? Well I guess I know why you
are here. You want to take a look into the Sphere of Wisdom,” Pringy predicted.
“I was actually hoping to add the Sphere of Wisdom to my library, which stretches across
the Earth’s entire moon,” Jarkuk responded.
“Wow! That seems like quite a collection. I’m sure the Sphere would be a great addition
to your library, but unfortunately I cannot allow you to gain possession of the Sphere of
Wisdom,” Pringy said.
“Surely you can see the hundreds of soldiers standing behind me? You are just one
scrawny man,” Jarkuk insulted.
“I’m much more powerful than I seem,” Pringy said. “I’m really a supernatural being
communicating with you through the human you see before you!” Pringy continued.
Of course Pringy was just bluffing; however, neither Wong nor Jarkuk was aware of this.
Pringy continued to play mind tricks on them for several hours, until Jarkuk, being a splenetic
man, quickly got irritated and raised a dagger to his throat.
“No Jarkuk! If we kill him now, we may never find the castle,” Wong cautioned.
“Well if he keeps on giving us mendacious clues and hints, he is no use to us,” Jarkuk
said in a very threatening voice.

4. 4
“Alright, alright! I will take you to the castle you desire,” whimpered Pringy.
Pringy led Jarkuk’s whole army for about a week, to the castle which housed the Sphere
of Wisdom. Pringy was ashamed he gave up the secret location of the Sphere because he was
the protector of Zuegan, but it seemed like something else was bothering him. Finally he blurted
out the truth.
“I have looked into the Sphere, and my whole life has been ruined. I’ve lost everything
important to me, so I’m begging you, please don’t enter the doors of that castle,” Pringy wept.
Jarkuk assumed this was one last pathetic attempt to keep him from getting the Sphere, so
he continued to walk up the diamond stairs, and through the golden doors. The rest of the army
and Wong stayed outside of the castle, keeping an eye on Pringy. Jarkuk stands now on the other
side of the castle’s golden doors, and behold there it was, the legendary Sphere of Wisdom! It
simply looked like a large iridescent marble, until the closer he got, he noticed tiny images. He
continued to stare into the Sphere and the longer he peered into it, Jarkuk started aging rapidly,
but still he didn’t look away. When finally Jarkuk gained all of the wisdom of the whole
universe, he limped out of the castle, holding his head, crying. At that precise moment Jarkuk
the Wise had become one of the most foolish people who had ever lived. He had never thought
that knowing when, how, why, and where everything happened would be a bad thing, but it was,
it was a very bad thing. The knowledge he had acquired was too much to withstand. The nearer
he got, the more unrecognizable he was to Pringy, Wong, and the rest of his crew.
“Jarkuk, what happened in there?” his crew questioned.
Jarkuk walked over to Wong, “Wong I want you to take my place when I’m gone. Go to
all planets we ever attacked and return everything,” Jarkuk wheezed.
“But….but I don’t,” Wong stuttered.

5. 5
“Shhhhhh….trust me,” Jarkuk insured.
Then Jarkuk stumbled over to Pringy.
“Thank you. You gave me knowledge more valuable than anything I learned in there. I
should have never entered the castle,” Jarkuk whispered.
Then without another he walked into the sunset, never to be heard from again. When
Wong and the rest of the crew flew back to the space station, they did as Jarkuk said, returning
all the treasures, books, tablets, and scrolls.
Jarkuk was never seen again. He confined himself to a small asteroid, a little south of
Saturn. He lived in solitude, later dying both with regret and great pride.