A disheveled looking man kneeled atop a massive magic circle, its golden hue the only thing lighting up the expansive darkness that surrounded him. A spear was pierced through his body, nailing him to the center of the magic circle. Manacles were clamped around his wrists pulling his arms in opposite directions, the neverending chains going off into the abyss. A door flittered into existence and two figures walked towards the man. A beautiful woman with waist-length blond hair and ears that came to a point, flanked by a massive orcish man with muscles that would put any bodybuilder to shame, stopped in front of the man who was on his knees.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” The kneeling man said. “The only company I usually get these days are the Spearman and Chainbearers.” his voice raspy as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time. He coughed a few times before his body momentarily shuddered, a pulse came from within his body, into the spear and manacles.

“What did you do, Chained One?” The woman said, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and slight anger. “You’ve been a good boy for all these years. You haven’t even let out a peep and now all of a sudden the ones we’ve charged with watching over you have said that you’ve been subtly using your power more than what we deemed acceptable.”

The orc grunted, a deep guttural voice came from the man. “Why don’t we just kill him once and for all?”

“Because the Chained One isn’t like us, he doesn’t need followers. He didn’t need to climb his way up through the ranks and fight for his place here. He simply has always been, and killing him doesn’t work. We tried it and it is infinitely more effective to keep him sealed away, letting his influence gently wash over the world in a way that we can manage.”

The orc grunted again. “Whatever, sounds complicated.”

“Why are you here?” the man said.

“We just told you why. You’ve been actively using your power and I want to get to the bottom of it.” the elf narrowed her eyes. “What are you planning?”

“Jeez..” the man groaned with a laugh and a cough. “Can’t a guy flex the old muscles a little bit? Even if I did use my powers, which I didn’t, but if I did…why would I tell you guys anything? You and the rest of this crooked pantheon” the man said with obvious venom in his voice towards the end.

“We’re going to figure out what you’re up to, and we will put a stop to it.” the elf said, grabbing the handle of the spear and twisting it. The man winced in pain, but didn’t make any noise. Then he started laughing maniacally, coughing in between laughs.

“You can’t keep me here forever. You may have erased my name from history, but I’m still known and accepted by ALL.” The man said as he got off of his knees and stood tall. Flexing his arms and causing the enchanted manacles to begin creaking. “You cowardly deities have disrupted the natural order for too long!” The veins began to appear in the man’s arms as he strained against the chains. A trail of magic that looked like lightning seemed to be going from the speartip to the center of the magic circle, trying to pull the man down. Sparks were flying from the tip of the spear. The woman began to look frightened and had pulled her hand away once the Chained One had begun to stand up. Three more figures entered into the room, these figures were hooded and took up a spot by each of the chains and one grabbing the spear.

The man kept laughing. “Don’t worry about what I’m doing, when all of your days are numbered. It’s too late now, everything has already been set in motion, and things will never be the same.” the man hissed out. The three figures pumped magic into each of the enchanted items. The manacles pulled the man’s arms taut and the speartip snapped back into position, stabbed at the center of the magic circle and forcing the man back down to his knees.

“You only care about chaos!” the woman exclaimed, a grunt and nod of agreement came from the orc.

“I am Natural Order. You’ve all been able to slow me down, goddess. But none of you are above me. Everything…has already…been set in motion” the man said in a whisper as he shut his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Asher’s fists hit the boy’s face repeatedly. Blood that was coming from the boy’s nose and found its way falling off Asher’s knuckles in the form of little crimson droplets. It had been one of the many fights in Asher’s life growing up. He didn’t even remember why this particular fight happened, probably something small that didn’t even warrant the level that Asher had brought it to. Asher’s mother was crying in the car ride back home when the school had notified her that her son had been in yet another fight. He’d been told to sit in his room until his father got home from work, so he did. Once his dad had returned home, it immediately turned into a beating. He was crying, his mom was crying, his dad sat down in a chair, breathing a bit heavier than when he had originally got home.

“If you’re gonna have all this energy…and violence in you.” His dad said as he looked down at a crying Asher. “Then at least use it for something productive, or to help others.”

Asher looked up at his dad, another tear ran down his face.

“You’re strong, smart, but we will not raise a bully in this house. Fight after fight, parents calling us left, right, and center about how their precious children have been brutalized. Threatening us with having to pay hospital bills. Maybe they deserved it, maybe they didn’t Ash…but you need to learn when to stop or when not to fight at all. We barely have enough to make ends meet, and this is another school threatening to expel you. We can’t afford to send you to anywhere. We’ve had this talk before, but if you won’t listen then I’m going to beat it into ya.” Asher’s dad stood up.

“At least use it for something productive, or to help others.”

“Help others...”

“Help others…” Asher’s dad’s voice faded off into the distance. Asher awoke with a sharp inhale, his body covered in sweat. It was a dream he hadn’t dreamt in a long time. He ran his hands through his hair “Why is it coming back?” Asher mumbled to himself. He got out of bed and made his way through the Chapman mansion to the kitchen. He filled up a glass of water and began to drink it.

“What are you doing up at this time?” The familiar voice of Aldren came from behind him causing Asher to almost choke on his water. He coughed a little bit before looking at the man.

“I had a pretty rough dream.” Asher said with an awkward smile. “What about you?”

“Anything you wanna talk about?” Aldren said as he began to fill up a glass with water. “And the price any successful business owner pays are a lot of sleepless nights. I’m basically and owlbear at this point” The man said with a chuckle.

“Owlbear?” Asher said curiously.

“Nocturnal predatory animal. Pretty much kills most people who come across it.”

“So you’re a predatory animal?” Asher sighed a curious hum.

“No, I meant the nocturnal p –“Aldren stopped the explanation when he heard Asher trying to suppress a laugh. “You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”

Asher shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I am…” he set the empty glass on the counter and began walking towards his room. “Or maybe I’m just dumb, who knows? Anyways thanks for checking up on me, but I’m fine.” Asher looked back to see the man smiling like a proud father, the way his real dad would smile approvingly at him when he wasn’t mad about him getting into another fight.

“If you need me for anything, you know where to find me son.” Aldren said just before Asher disappeared from his view. Asher returned to his room and was soon fast asleep. He didn’t have any more nightmares that night.

A hardcover book with pictures of plants intertwining with one another and a large tree in the center of it sat in front of Asher - The herbinomicon. He quickly flipped through the book seeing very detailed pictures of plants, trees, and other things. The pictures would be broken down into different sections, explaining what each piece of the plant did, different recipes they could be used in and how to go about safely handling them. On top of all this though were large sections of the book that were just empty.

“Why are there gaps in here?” Asher looked up from the book and asked Master Alaria.

She shuffled nervously as she began to answer, “So we call this the Herbinomicon, but it isn’t the real deal.”

“If it isn’t the Herbinomicon, why’d you bring it to me?” Asher said, confused. “I’m not really following.”

“For all intents and purposes, this is the Herbinomicon.” She said as she cleared her throat. She walked up next to Asher as he sat and she opened the book up to one of the fleshed out sections. “It just isn’t a complete thing, and it isn’t the original.”

“So where’s the original?” Asher asked.

“In some cave system to the north. At least that’s what the old stories say. What we have is a copy from what someone who studied the original thing remembered…hence the gaps. Of course this was generations ago and has been passed down from owner to owner until it ended up in the Syndicate’s hands. At that point it was copied and distributed out to all Syndicate branches. And then,” she motioned both of her hands towards the book in a form of celebration. “Ta-Da! We have the “Herbinomicon”. Everyone accepts it as basically the genuine article.”

“Why doesn’t anyone just go get the real thing?”

“Because no one is strong enough to make the trip. The monster’s are too strong and too many. Why risk death when you can easily just look at the info we have and have made readily available - we’ve even distributed a few copies to the public.” Master Alaria said matter-of-factly. Her hair drifted in front of her face as she explained.

“Hmm. Interesting” Ashe said as he tapped one of his fingers on the cover. “To the north?”

“No.” Master Alaria said sharply, her tone a bit reproachful.

“What? I haven’t even said anything?”

“I know what you’re thinking and no. You just got here, we need you since you decided to leave a gap in our ranks, specifically in the Eyes.” She narrowed her glance down at him.

“Okay, okay…I won’t hunt for it…yet.” He said with a chuckle “And I didn’t pick a fight with Fist, I just defended myself.” Asher said as he closed the book and stood up. Well I should probably stretch my legs around the Sanctuary for a bit.

“You should go see the Guildmaster, he said he has a job for you.” Master Alaria said as Asher was reaching for the door handle.