The world known as Alma was split up into six continents. Anthraka with its high mountains and abundance of minerals lay to the west. Ydrogono with its rivers, lakes, and island chains to the east. Azotou with its lush forests, deep jungles, and wide open fields lay to the center. Oxygono the roaming continent within the clouds floated in the skies above. Theio with its great craggy volcanoes, hot climes, massive deserts, and overcast skies lay to the south. Fosforo the mysterious and inhumane home of the dragons lay in the north.

The continent of Azotou was home to numerous peoples and countries. However most of the power lay in the hands of the two largest countries the empire of Antoli to the east and the holy kingdom of the Dytika in the west.

An isolated tower sat in the midst of one of the myriad dark woods of Azotou. Within this tower sat a man.

The man was stately, tall, and handsome. His silver-gray hair flowed down his back. His silken robes were charcoal colored with silver trim, and covered in sigils and runes. This man’s name was Halbert the Gray. A rogue mage and former noble of the kingdom of Dytika.

He sat in front of a magically projected map of the Azotou continent. The map didn’t just display the continent’s geography.

Countless scrying spells were used to keep the map up to date. The map’s creation had required an expensive and bloody ritual to briefly draw the essence of the akashic plane. Such a map would naturally be more profound than any other cartographic work.

Instead of simply showing a dead world of ink and power, the map showed a living world. An illusory world created with moving pictures and glowing three-dimensional icons. This was a map that showed the flow and positioning of power throughout the land.

Halbert sat watching the icons and images move across his map, watching as power flowed back and forth across the western and eastern sides of the continent. Watching as his plans came to fruition and tiny but a sizable portion of the power flowed into an area he’d prepared beforehand. An area that uncoincidentally was located in the same dark forest where he’d built his tower.

Halbert steepled his fingers and smiled as he gazed at the display, his dull brown eyes, tracking the movements of each icon on the map. Taking in the scene in front of him. Basking the moments that would presage his rise to godhood.

Halbert’s marble-like face shifted for the first time in days as he allowed himself a small smile. Then just as he began to smile he noticed something strange was happening on the display. The power that was supposed to be being drawn to his ascension pool was being stolen away. The flow of power between the east and west was being disrupted.

“Tch...Of course. Right when I’m on the edge of a glorious climax, trouble comes knocking on my door. Alright, let’s go see who's looking to get themselves hexed to death.” said Halbert. Using chantless magic to cast a spell of teleportation and carrying himself to point on his map where the most recent anomaly had taken place.

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Metal clashed with metal. Bolts of flame, frost, wind, and lightning flew through the air. Men screamed and died as they faced off against a beast beyond their understanding. The town of Debica was a doomed town. Death would have found its way here one way or the other.

Debica was a city belonging to the small kingdom of Vollstad. Vollstad was one of the numerous kingdoms that swore fealty to the Holy Kingdom of Dytika. Thus Debica was technically a city of the west.

Unfortunately, for Debica it was too far east. It sat on no meaningful resources. It abutted no rivers, and was more or less by itself meaning it didn’t serve as any kind of trade nexus. It also wasn’t associated with that many farms so it wasn’t a bread basket.

In terms of the war, Debica was just another square on the chessboard. A space without any real significance. The powers-that-be on either side of the war had largely forgotten why the city was built and the reason Dytika had bothered to invest in its defense and why one of their former kings sent ment build the city’s high walls of stone and magic.

Ordinarily, the city would have been forgotten completely but after years of bitter fighting, the two warring nations were willing to make each other bleed just for saying they’d drawn blood.

Thus the empire’s forces marched on Debica. The kingdom retaliated but due to Debica’s low strategic value instead of sending Dytikan soldiers to do the fighting they sent mercenaries. Mean men of war who’d been working long hours for little pay.

The hired swords had all already turned bandit ages ago, and simply took the orders that the military messenger sent them as an alert that there was a whole city sitting largely undefended in an area that the kingdom barely held interest in.

The poor people of Debica never stood a chance.

Lieutenant Eloise Briggs was a member of the Debican militia a small group of warriors and half-taught mages that the city ordinarily used as a police force and standing army. She and the sixty four other brave but foolish souls that chose not to dessert and run away on the day of Debica’s fall were all that stood between the citizenry and the two packs of human-shaped wolves that stood outside the city’s gates.

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“Knock that damn gate down and get to work, lads!” roared a lanky man with pale yellow hair, and a face made ruddy from alcohol.

The man’s men roared back as they charged forwards with battering rams, explosive charms, and magical extending ladders to circumvent the aged magical wall that surrounded the city.

Jarell Rollins was one of the three surviving captains of the Tillman Tin Reavers. A mercancy company that normally operated in the southern part of the continent. The Tin Reavers had gotten involved in the war between the two giants of Azotou a little over a year and a half ago. At first things were fine, they’d found that the war was quite profitable.

One got one’s marching orders from the kingdom’s free company administration offices. You’d report to a desk jockey who’d have a book full of jobs that the kingdom needed done and positions the kingdom needed held.

It was good money...if your luck held up. When your luck went bad, or if you managed to piss off the man at the desk, you ended up being offered jobs with iffy or just plain wrong information.

One night of drinking, and one bad bar fight in an establishment that also happened to be frequented by the local mercenary administration offices was was all it took to put the Tin Reavers in a bad place.

From that day onwards, they’d found themselves sent into ambushes. They were sent to take towns with magical and martial heavy weights hidden amongst the citizenry. They asked made to hold unholdable positions while more favored companies were allowed to retreated.

Fast Forward to now, and five out of the former-eight captains of the Tin Reavers had been knocked out of the war. Three of those five had fallen in battle, with hundreds of men falling with them. The remaining two had been dishonorable whoresons who’d understandably decided to move on to greener pastures with groups that weren’t on the administration office’s shit list.

Technically speaking, Jarrell Rollins was no longer a soldier of the kingdom either. It had all just been too much. Now all he cared about was recouping some of what he and his men had lost to the kingdom’s pettiness.

The city in the middle of nowhere was the answer to the Tin Reavers’ prayers. Besides their antiquated wall, they had no real army. Thus the only thing Jarell and his cohorts needed to worry about was reaching the city before the empire’s forces did.

They’d loot and pillage the city of Debica and then go to ground. Hiding out in the outskirts of the continent where neither kingdom or the empire held much power.

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“By jove, What in blaze is that?” said Sir Martel Ewing of the Knight of the Empire and a Major of the Empire of Antoli’s imperial forces. A broad shouldered man with pale green skin and an elegantly waxed handlebar mustache.

The Knight-Major stood atop a carriage, with a telescope in his hands. He watched as the Tin Reavers crawled over Debica’s wall and blew open her gates.

“I do believe the city is being sacked, sir.” said Levon Gray, Sir Martel’s Squire and Attache. A stiff faced young man with slightly pointed ears and blond hair.

“Drat...We’re late. I knew that damn storm was going to slow us down.” said Martel.

“Yes, sir...But if we hadn’t slowed down we might have lost the cavalry in that swamp.” said Levon.

“True...Very well. It’s not like its not all bad news. From what I see there’s only a few hundred of them while there’s more than a thousand of us. Since they’ve been kind enough to open the buffet for us, we might as well go and see what’s on the menu.” said Martel. Putting down the telescope, collapsing it, and handing the delicate device to his attache for safe keeping.

“Have the mages scry the surrounding areas to make sure they don’t have backup hidden somewhere, then if it’s all clear send our boys in and have them steamroll the lot of them. ” said Martel.

“Yes, sir.” said Levon. Bowing at the waist and running off to go and relay Martel’s orders to his subordinate officers.

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Eloise fought like a woman possessed, her mage-steel falchion became a flashing silver streak as she lashed out at the men who were killing her city. Of the sixty-four that had stood by her side when the fighting began there were maybe a paltry fifteen left and even that number was a miracle.

Lt. Eloise owed her continued survival to dumb luck and years of training from her former-adventurer father. The man had been a former-hero, one of the Adventurer elites. The late Camilo Briggs had been an abusive, drunken lout, who’d only been good at a single thing in his miserable life and he’d made sure to pass that one thing on to his only acknowledged child.

Now she used those swordsmanship skills to face off against a little under thirty men who’d come to storm the home of one of the city’s wealthy elites. Behind her were six out of the fifteen remaining Debica Militiamen. The seven of them were all that stood between the citizens who gathered to hide within this fortified frontier manor and the madness that was taking place in the streets.

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“What’s the hold-up?” said Jarell. Taking a swig from a crystalline bottle of fine spirits that he’d found in a shop on the city’s tiny merchant district.

“It seems this city did have an expert afterall, sir.” said a Tin Reaver.

“Bah...What level?” said Jarell.

“She only seems to be Soldier-ranked, sir?”

There were seven ranks of elite that roamed the lands of Alma: Seed, Soldier, Expert, Master, Fortress, Sage, and Saint. The ranks started with the Seeds who were barely considered actual elites and were more elite in the making. Then there were Saints who could gather with the wind and clouds, toppel mountains, and split the seas.

Speaking less extremely, Seeds were basically just naturals who could give a fully trained non-elite in a given field a run for their money. Soldier-ranked elites were equal to five to ten fully trained non-elites. Experts were equally to thirty to fifty fully trained non-elites. A master could take on over one hundred people. A fortress-ranked could generally take on one thousand people on their own.

As for Sages and Saints, they were as rare as hen’s teeth and if you got on the wrong side of one you were likely dead either way, so what’s the point of splitting hairs? Does it really matter if an ant is crushed by a falling mountain or a falling moon?

If the tin-reaver had said that there was a master-ranked elite guarding that house, he would have ordered his men to avoid it and move on to the other areas in the city.

Though this was one of the few manors in the city there were plenty of other houses, and shops to loot, and honestly, even if there was likely a vault of treasure hidden in this house, it’d hardly matter to the hundred or so lads who died facing off against the elite.

A soldier-ranked elite however, was a lower hurdle for Jarell and his boy’s to climb. Low enough that Jarell tossed aside his bottle of liquor and got serious.

An elite slave might be one of the most valuable things they could find in this humdrum town. Magically gifted slave-warriors sold for ten times their weight in gold. Worth three times as much as all other slaves that the reavers were capturing from the town put together.

“Awright...I’m coming.” said Jarell. His mind already making calculations. Thinking of how much money they’d be able to sell the elite for, and how much recovery time that much gold would buy the company.

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Eloise’s blade flew across the neck of one of the mercenaries and pierced through the chest of another. Blood and sweat ran down her face as she fought at the entrance of the manor.

Her fellow militiamen fought from within the manor. The one mage courted ego-death by plying her exhausted soul for aether as he cast spark-bolt spells at the Tin Reavers that tried to circumvent Lt. Eloise’s one woman barricade. The two archers arrows out of their quickly emptying quivers.

The two swordsmen were mostly idle. One lead the townsfolk in obstructing the windows and doorways. The other stood behind the lieutenant ready to futilely lay down his life for the townsfolk who’d taken shelter in the manor if she fell.

Elosie slew yet another Tin Reaver with a sword that struck like steel viper. Then suddenly her sword met another sword and she felt her arm go numb during the interaction.

“An elite?!” said Eloise. Her tone morose but resigned.

“Aye…Jarrell Rollins. Expert-ranked, albeit barely so. Captain of the Tin Reavers.” said a red face man with coarse yellow hair like sun bleached corn-silk.

“Bastard…” said Eloise. Roaring to return the heat to her movements rather than any real outrage.

She refused to give up even though she knew that there was almost no way she could win.

Though it wasn’t impossible for an elite to defeat someone of a higher-rank, she’d been fighting for hours and some of that blood on her uniform was hers. All the same, she would fight. She would fight for the townsfolk behind her, and more selfishly she would fight to force the man in front of her to kill her, because she knew from her father’s stories that death would likely be preferable to capture.

The two elite clashed. Eloise’s falchion losing in mass and range to the jagged bladed claymore that Jarell was wielding one handedly. Eloise’s eyes flashed as she drew on the last of her by now, nearly non-existent, aether reserves. Her blade glowed blue as the sword began to move faster, humming as it began to carry an electric current.

Jarell’s eyes widened as he riposted an aether charge thrust from the woman. Feeling his arm go numb from the electrical discharge.

“Bloody hell, a breakthrough in a moment like this?! That’s an extra zero to your worth right there!” said Jarell. Smiling like a madman, flashing a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.

Jarell decided to get serious and suddenly his sword was covered in a dingy, hissing, ooze.

“Consider yourself lucky, very few ever see my blade of the Viper’s Blade and live.” said Jarell.

His acidic and poisonous blade melted through Eloise’s attacks. Jarrell was an old hand, knew what the young warrior would be aiming for. Thus when her falchion fell into two pieces and she still tried to attack, all but lunging into the point of his sword he pulled back and back handed her. Knocking the young lieutenant unconscious.

The swordsman that stood behind her stared shocked. Jarell snarled at the boy and the youngster courage broke. The militia tried to flee and Jarell cut him down. The boy’s face was forlorn and horrified as his acid blade rendered him into two halves.

Jarell then turned his avaricious eyes on the townsfolk. He was just about to call his men to have them collect the manor’s living and nonliving assets when suddenly one of his men cried out.

“Captain, we have company!”

Jarell frowned and turned towards the Tin Reaver behind him.

“What company? You best not be talking about the other captains’ boys...otherwise I’ll have you cleaning up after the horses for a ten-day.” said Jarell

“No, sir...It’s the imperials. We’re surrounded.” said the Tin Reaver. His face pale with fear.

“Aw….fuck.” said Jarell. Scowling wondering what his fellow Captains had been busy doing while the Antolians were getting the drop on them.

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Martel and his men rode through the city, killing everything they saw. Their orders were to clear Debica off the map so no hostages, captives, or slave would be taken today. The city and its entire populace would be reduced to fodder to raise the level of magical energy within the body’s of this particular regiment of soldiers.

The imperials were here ‘grind’ their fellow man. Using the occasion of war to justify a normally forbidden exploitation of the law of magical osmosis. Thus the hapless, and otherwise useless, Debicans would be turned into strength for the empire. If Martel had any luck, one or two new elites would be the result.

A ring of six hundred hundred men surrounded the city and blocked the holes the Dytikan mercenaries had so helpfully made in Debica’s defense. They would catch and slay whoever tried to flee.

Martel swung his axe and lopped off the head of a mercenary who’d begging for mercy. The mages and arches fired on the dozen or so fellows and townsfolk that happened to be on that particular street.

The imperials spread out purging Debica of life. They took time with the task. Cleaning out the streets and then meticulously breaching each and every building.

During the purge Martel happened to come across a bearded, dark haired, man in a slightly nicer uniform in what looked like a tavern. At least the top half of the uniform was nicer. Martel couldn’t really say about the bottom half because his trousers were around his ankles.

The man had been preoccupied with forcing himself on one of the townswomen. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t notice that Martel and his men entered the tavern till Martel had already cut the man and the woman beneath him in two.

Martel and his men eventually came across a certain manor, where the captain of that particular segment of the mercenary company seemed to be loading captives and loot into wagons in preparation for beating a hasty retreat.

“You might as well surrender, knave. The way out is blocked.” said Martel.

Jarell sneered.

“Ah, maybe...maybe. But you see, if you’ve had a long streak of shite luck you get to making plan Bs, plan Cs, and even plan Ds in case things turn sideways. Use the charm boys!” said Jarell. Cackling as he gave the order to his men.

Martel scowled as he found himself staring at an empty street and mostly burned down building.

“Teleportation charms...How the fuck did they get their hands on those?!” said Martel. Thoroughly dissatisfied at having let his quarry escape.

“Black market mages, sir?” said Levon.

“Nh...Probably. In that case, I doubt they’d have been able to afford real quality.” said Martel.

“In which case, they likely didn’t teleport very far, sir.” said Levon.

Martel smiled.

“Let the boys outside clean that trash.”

Martel and Levon’s guess was right on the money. Jarell’s gambit only carried him and his men outside the city walls. They ended up literally yards away from the enclosure of stone and armed men that had trapped them moments before.

“Retreat, lads. Run like hell is chasing you!” ordered Jarell. Whipping the horses that lead the wagon full of his share of the loot.

The imperials and their officers, who’d been guarding the wall, were only momentarily shocked before they sent a portion of their men to give chase.

Jarell and Tin Reavers found themselves dodging a hail of arrows and spells. Jarell could see escape in view. All he and his men needed to do was make it to the edge of the wood that lay on the edge of Debica’s territory. The imperial cavalry and their horses would lose their advantage and though the spirits of the woods weren’t on anyone’s side they would certainly react more hostile to the large group.

Jarell had almost made it to the wood when he saw a swirling black and red something appear in his view. Both bright and dark at the same time.

“Cor, what in the nine hells is that?!” said Jarell. Pulling on the reins of his horse to keep them from running into the glowing aperture.

The imperials caught up to the mercenaries and immediately began slaughtering them. However, eventually, even they were given pause by the swirling hole in the world.

Something bubbled out the hole, the sound was wet and disgusting. A hand emerged, dripping with ooze that quickly turned into vapor. This hand had five digits like humans, except inordinately long and tipped with claws that were longer than the average sword.

The hand was attached to an arm, longer than any arm could be. Muscular and emaciated at the same time. Covered in dark tendrils that looked a lot like shaggy matted fur, but somehow were clearly not.

The hand dug into the earth and pulled tearing great rents and furrows in the soil. Out of the swirling aperture came a head and shoulder. Both the head and the shoulder were covered in the same, unnerving, ever shifting, black-red tendrils that had covered the arm.

The shoulder was broad and bony. The head was equine, lupine, cervine, and somehow human-like all at the same time. With three sets of glowing orange flames for eyes. The jaws of the head were large enough to swallow a horse and rider whole, and were lined with teeth of a clearly carnivorous nature. Jagged and long and sharp.

The mercenaries and imperials gazed up at the unknown sum that had appeared before them and they watched it freeing itself from the aperture, it finally occurred to them that they weren’t just having a group hallucination.

This nightmare was very real, very corporeal, creature and each and every man present instantly knew without a doubt that if it managed to escape that hole in the ski, they were all going to die.

“K-, Kill it!” cried Jarell. Ordering his men to attack.

The officer at the head of the imperials gave an order to the same end. Both the eastern and western men of war were unified by a very basic existential, terror. Brought together by an instinctual knowledge that they and their families back home would never again know peace or safety if this creature entered their world.

Martel and the rest of the imperial rode up to join their fellows. Approaching just in time to see the creature for the first time and be struck dumb by the aura of death and desolation it wore upon its thirty-plus foot frame. Approaching just in time to see the first group annihilated by a beam of dreadful crimson light that poured from the beast’s maw.

Martel watched as over four hundred men were reduced to heaps of ash and smouldering flesh in a single heartbeat.

He struggled to swallow the lump that had risen as he saw so many lives reaped by the horror that stood before him. Then with a mouth drier than a thousand deserts, Martel cried out.

“R-, Retreat! Fall back!”

There was no other option by his reckoning this was a beast that could easily fell a team of fortress-ranked elites. Nevermind a single master-ranked elite like himself.

The beast roared, as the men ran. Whipping and kicking their steeds to make them go faster. As Martel and his men retreated, he realized that there was a certain familiar rhythm to the wretched noises that the creature was making. He realized that the beast was laughing at them.

Though normally prideful, in this one instant Martel didn’t care if the beast laughed. In the face of absolute power, the knight-major would be satisfied with escaping with his life. Dignity be damned.

Just as they almost made it over the eastern border of the continent where an army base lay a mere handful of miles away, Martel saw a familiar sight. A sight he couldn't help but recognize.

“N-, No...How?! How?!”

Several hundred voices cried out as they felt their minds stretch and break at the sight of the horror before them. Somehow without making a single move it had caught up to them. In their minds there was no way the world would allow to such terrors to exist, thus the only option was that beast was either devilishly fast, or capable of bending space and time.

Something inside Martel broke and he found himself considering charging at the creature. A part of him whispering that he should rush forward into the afterlife rather than allow himself to be terrorized. Before Martell could attack on the impulse young Levon charged first. He and several other of the younger men urged their horses forward whilst they rattled their spears and thrust into their air with their lances.

Just as the youths were about to enter into a range where their weapons could reach the beast, they simply ceased. The dozen or so young men and women burst like balloons, spraying blood, metal fragments, scraps of cloth, and chunks of flesh onto their surroundings.

A trembling Martel sputtered as he found that a piece of blood and cloth had managed to fly into his mouth. He leaned over to vomit and found himself falling. His horse had died on its feet. Killed by fright and the overwhelming aura that the creature exuded.

Martel and the other surviving imperials scattered like insects out from under a lifted stone. As they ran the creature raised an arm and waved it through the air, Instantly casting a dozen destructive spells that charred, blew apart, frozen, and melted, many of the fleeing soldiers.

After enjoying the appetizers the creature turned its gaze towards the ruin that had once been Debica. The fallen city was the main course of the creatures meal, the treasure hidden within the city’s foundation drew the beast’s towards it like bees and flowers, or corpses and flies.