The hike from Sages’ Keep to the nearest town took several hours. It was a farming village that was listed on maps as ‘The Southern Edge,’ a name it got from the sea cliffs located at the south end of the town. However, it was more commonly known as Pigfall. Roland had been there many times as the Seekers from Sages’ Keep often made money tutoring local children.

As he approached the outskirts of Pigfall, he saw a young woman with long brown hair sitting on the steps of a small shrine that travellers pray to. Her hair was tied back and she wore a thigh cut dress with pants underneath. Years ago, Roland had seen a sword dance performance and the female members of the troupe wore something very similar. Beside her were a cloak, a wayfarer’s pack, and a spear. She was certainly not a local.

When she became aware of Roland she got up and headed towards him, “Thanks for deciding to finally show up,” she began. “What took you so long? They make you write a 500-word essay on why smut is bad before kicking you out?”

“What’s going on? Who are you?” asked a stunned Roland.

“Uh, we met yesterday? My name is Mallory. I walked by you in Sages’ Keep?”

“You! Those were your books weren’t they!? You got me kicked out!”

“Yes those were my books and that was me. Thanks for the recap. Now let’s get going, this place is the worst.”

“What are you talking about!? You ruined my life!”

“Please. You should be thanking me for getting you out of that place. What exactly is ‘ruined’? You won’t get to live out your dream of writing down the thoughts of a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals? Those creeps were probably more interested in molesting young boys than scholarly pursuits. What a life I deprived you of.” Looking towards Pigfall, she continued her rant, “Well I suppose if you now plan on settling down here and making a living shovelling pig shit with these yokels then, yeah, maybe you should be upset. Now let’s go.”

“Being a scribe at Sages’ Keep is one of the most prestigious positions in all of Relmgard. Maybe even one day I could have become a Seeker myself. You took that away from me.”

“You’re still going on about that? Ugh. Learn to move on already. I’m going to travel with you and we’ll unravel your mysterious past, overcome challenges, and achieve victory. All the usual hero's journey nonsense.”

“You are mad! I don’t know who you are or what your game is but if you’re not going to give me any straight answers just leave me alone.”

“Look pal, I’m not going to stand here and give you an info dump on your backstory and this world’s lore. Especially not while we’re standing in a literal dump.

“You want answers, head back to Sages’ Keep. Later nerd.” She then turned and walked away.

After this bizarre and infuriating exchange, Roland decided to simply press on and he headed into Pigfall to get dinner. After that, he set up camp outside the town. Despite his incredible exhaustion, he still had trouble falling asleep. Over and over again, he kept running through the events of the past day in his mind, not being able to make much sense of anything. When he finally did pass out, he was awakened shortly after by a loud booming noise and trembling of the ground. Although it was pitch black outside, far off in the distance he could see a faint red glow. He knew that it was from the direction of the Cantermere mountains but he couldn’t judge the distance.

Was that explosion at Sages’ Keep?

He watched the glow until the sun rose and then immediately headed out.

He was not eager to return to Sages’ Keep but between the explosion last night and his conversation with that mysterious girl, he felt he had no choice. When he arrived at his adoptive home late in the afternoon he couldn’t believe his eyes: The keep was destroyed - reduced to a pile of smouldering ash.

Who would do this? How is such destruction even possible?

He searched around for survivors but the blast was so intense that there didn’t even seem to be anything that was recognizable as a corpse, let alone a living soul. Eventually Roland had to leave as the heat and smell became too much for him to bear.

As he left Sages’ Keep for the second time in as many days, his thoughts turned to that girl. Despite her obnoxious behaviour and the contempt he had for her, she must know what this is about. He needed to find her again.

***

Roland had to camp halfway down the Cantermere Mountains that night, so he didn’t reach the outskirts of Pigfall until the following morning. When he did, he found that same girl lying on the steps of the same shrine.

“Did you waste enough time backtracking? Can we go now?” she said to him.

“Mallory was your name? Sages’ Keep was destroyed. Everyone was killed.” Replied an exhausted Roland.

“Horrible. Did those books I left in your room survive?”

“What? Of course not. Everything was burnt to the ground when I got there.”

“Truly a tragedy then. Some good stuff in that collection. I mean it wasn’t all gold. Don’t worry though, all of my five star ones are still in my personal stash. I’m not that reckless.”

“How did you know that Sages’ Keep would be destroyed? What happened to it?”

“Pretty basic stuff: We live in your standard high fantasy world and one of the tropes of such a world is lame prophecies. Recently it was prophesied that a new hero would emerge. But the details of the prophecy were, of course, vague and stupid.

“Regardless, I was able to sort through that hot garbage and found you. The Chosen figured it out as well, but they were one day late.”

“The Chosen? What do they have to do with any of this?”

“Ugh. You really are a blank slate. As you know, in the process of defeating the Archfiend they became incredibly over powered. After they achieved victory they used that power to take control of Relmgard.

“So now they run everything and do as they please. And it sucks.”

“But why would they destroy Sages’ Keep?”

“If you’ll let me finish … In the latest prophecy, it was foretold that a new hero would emerge and end their reign. So that’s why they tried to kill you. Razing the entire keep wasn’t the most elegant way to accomplish that, but I guess when you have nearly unlimited power, everything looks like a nail.

“Anyways, for now they probably think they’ve succeeded and won’t be looking for you. So off we go.” Mallory picked up her gear and began walking down the road.

Roland rushed after her, “Sorry, why should I travel with you? And where exactly do you want us to go?”

“We’re going to defeat the Chosen. You’re doing it for justice - to avenge the death of your adoptive family. I’m doing it for reasons that are, at this point, unknown to you. Normally, you’d figure them out on your own but given that you can’t infer anything from context, I’ll probably have to explicitly spoil the mystery.”

Although Roland was suspicious of everything that Mallory had told him, she clearly knew something about what was going on. While she didn’t seem to be in any hurry give him a direct answer - or even tell him where they were travelling to - he decided to follow her for now. After all, despite her idiosyncrasies, it seemed undeniable to Roland that she did actually save his life.

***

As the two travelled further east, Roland tried to ask Mallory about who she was but he couldn’t get much out of her aside from some rude comments. Further, most of the time she would walk too far ahead for him to do anything except shout at her. After several days of travelling, buying food from small villages, and camping outside they finally stopped at the first real inn that lay between Pigfall and Bright Port. This was the furthest east Roland had ever travelled and he was excited by the rowdy atmosphere in the dining area. There also appeared to be several groups of adventurers laughing, drinking, and singing.

As they finished their meal and began drinking, Roland decided to take a different tact to get a response from Mallory. He would ask her questions under the assumption that her prophecy premise - which he found absurd - was actually correct.

“How can I defeat the Chosen?” asked Roland. “Aren’t they basically invincible? I read every book about them in Sages’ Keep and it seem like they’re no different than Celestial beings.”

“Didn’t I tell you that you were prophesied to end their reign?” said Mallory. “That means they’ve already lost. We just need to lay back and enjoy the ride. Determinism may be the basic bitch of philosophy but its results are inevitable.”

“Are you serious? We’ll defeat them no matter what? How can that even be possible? I don’t know anything about fighting or magic.”

“You grew up in a library so I guess your special ability is that you’re the best at studying. And we can use that to unlock the greatest gift of all - the gift of knowledge.”

“The gift of knowledge? Really?”

“Ugh. I was being irreverent. Try to keep up. No, we do actually have to do work. It turns out prophecies are wrong all the time. If we fail, this will be just another false prophecy. There is no ‘Celestial being’ protecting or guiding you.

“However, seeing as how you weren’t vaporized last week, maybe there’s some merit to this prophecy. Of course, I guess I could check right now by trying to kill you.”

She swung her spear in the air.

In a normal tavern this would attract a lot attention, however in this place their conversation was regularly punctuated by glass mugs being smashed, so no one paid much notice.

“But ‘eh’, let’s not screw around with potential paradoxes,” Mallory said as she put the spear back at her side.

She continued. “First of all, We aren’t going to take them out all at the same time. But even one-by-one it’s going to be nearly impossible. In a fair fight we’d never win. Even in an unfair fight we’d likely still lose.

“We'll just have to trust the prophecy. You have to be good at something other than penmanship. If not I guess it’s going to be a letter writing campaign to take down the Chosen.”

“I can read and write twelve different languages. I was also the best at the Sages’ Keep trivia night.”

“Yes, it was foretold that you would dominate pub games.” She sighed. “The prophecy spoke of ‘Innate Magicka Crest.’ I assumed that meant you’d be able to cast magic as ‘Innate’ means natural, ‘Crest’ means master, and ‘Magicka’ is just a dumb way to say magic. So you should naturally be a master wizard. Have you ever tried to cast a spell?”

“No, of course not,” said Roland. “How would I know the power words for any spells? Incantations are well guarded secrets. Also, I thought magic doesn’t work anymore.”

It was common knowledge that when the Archfiend was defeated, the Chosen sealed the portal to the World of Darkness in order to prevent future incursions of monsters. Shortly after, though, magic spells stopped working in Relmgard. From reading all of the volumes of Master Sorenburg’s History of Magicka in Relmgard, Roland knew that this was an unanticipated consequence but that the Chosen had agreed that the tradeoff was worth it.

Roland thought for several minutes about the phrase ‘Innate Magicka Crest.’ Mallory’s interpretation made sense but there was another possibility.

“In the Cantermere language ‘Innate’ does mean ‘natural’ but when referring to spell casting it has another meaning,” he said. “It often refers to a specific class of spells known as cantrips or charms.”

Mallory knew what cantrips were. They were the simple spells that apprentice mages first learn.

“Beginner’s magic?” she said. “Like being able cast mind control on a squirrel? Snap your fingers to light a candle? Cure a mild brain freeze?”

“Sure but if there’s no other spell casters in Relmgard then I will be the most powerful one.” Roland took a sip of his beer and smiled.

“You’re pretty smug for a guy who’s going to have to defeat a group of people with Celestial-like powers using a bunch of party tricks. I’d give a children’s magician better odds.” Mallory tilted her back and looked at the ceiling. “Maybe I was suppose to find a different scribe at Sages’ Keep?”

As Roland began to reflect on these revelations, a drunk patron walked over to their table. He was with one of the groups of people that looked liked adventurers and he seemed to be some sort of warrior.

Standing inches away from Mallory, the warrior said to her “You wanna to see an even bigger spear?” while grabbing his crotch.

“Pretty unoriginal material, pal,” responded Mallory without even looking in his direction.

He leaned closer and put his hands on her shoulders, “What did you say my little bobble?”

“I said: I hope you know a good rub-and-tug because you’re not going to be cranking it yourself anymore.”

“Huh? Why don’t we go back to-“ he froze for a second and then began to scream.

Did that really just happen? Roland thought. Did Mallory really move her spear so quickly that I could barely see it?

It wasn’t too difficult for Roland to accept that it did happen because both of the warrior’s hands were now lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

Mallory brushed off her shoulders, finished the last sip of her beer and looked at Roland, “You good?”