A city of survivors, people who struggle in a cruel world to no end. A place where one is either a scavenger or fighter and those who have the blessing and curse of magic are free, yet shackled by the people they wish to protect. Those with no power only hold on to their lives, fighting each day to take another breath.

Within that city, a rogue mage, a woman with a bright smile sits amidst it all, breathing fresh air for the first time in her short life. Unlike the despondent humans who have lost their spot of hope, she bears it all. All the hope, all the happiness, all the glee. She cannot feel any other emotion.

Here, her story begins.

Kyrad saw her in an alley, giggling to herself with the largest smile. It was a strange sight, sure. Among the many downtrodden faces, he certainly was taken aback by the brash happiness emanating from the girl. She looked like a beggar, with nothing of note other than some linen pants and a baggy white shirt with the number 1 on it.

If she really were a beggar, Kyrad figured she’d be best off turned into the armies of Yharim to be used as a slave. It would be better than the slow death that awaited her. He stared at her, skeptically sizing her up. Her scraggy hair was a cartoonishly vibrant red, an infamously unlucky color, while her skin was dark, which wouldn’t have been too unusual for most people living in the jungle if it weren’t for how grey she was. Besides that, she looked decently fit, and not too dirty either.

Suddenly, her head jerked towards him, watching him with fierce but cheerful eyes. Perhaps she had gone insane. If so...he unsheathed a machete.

“What’s that?” she asked merrily.

“A machete. Tell me your name. And what’s got you so excited?” It wasn’t like it was a crime to be happy, but given the circumstances, he trusted a scowl more than a smile.

“A machete? Ha! Never heard of it! What’s it do!”

“It slices things.”

“Neat! And my name is...well, I was just called Clone 1 before now, so call me what you’d like!”

“Ok then, Smiley. Why’re you so happy?”

The woman tilted her head in confusion, a forced look of confusion on her face. “Is there something wrong with my happiness?”

“No, not necessarily.”

“So it is true. If you must know, my range of emotions only includes that of happiness, hope, and other...stuff.”

Kyrad nodded his head in understanding, taking it as fact. “Strange. And I haven’t seen you before. How did you arrive here?”

“I flew. Can you fly too?”

“No, but a friend of mine makes wings. I take it you’re some sort of mage. Maybe you’ve gone insane?”

“Insane? Depends on your definition. Not long ago, I was tricked by a friend into killing my sister. I destroyed everything,” she said matter-of-factly.

“What a, uhh...merry past. I guess I’d go insane too.”

The woman looked at her hands, her smile fading. “It hurts to smile when I do it so often. Tell me, how do you frown?”

“By frowning?”

“How imbecilic a description.”

“That was just uncalled for. How do you move your arm?”

“By moving it.”

“See?”

“Ha! So you are indeed right! I’m sorry I was rude to you, Mr.dude. What is your name?”

“Kyrad, First Hunter. So, Smiley, what will you be doing in our humble rubble of a city? I can tell you aren’t among the rabble like me.” He chuckled. “Humble rubble...”

“Ha! That was a weak laugh, dear!”

“‘dear’?”

“Say ‘HA!’ like me!” Smiley put a hand to her belly then let out another sharp, “HA!”

“HA!” Kyrad yelled, his voice cracking, unused to high pitches.

“Hmm...needs work.”

“Your sanity needs work!” he countered, pointing to her, before clearing his throat and taking a more formal posture. “I should get back to business, though. Are you a mage?”

“Yes, I am a mage.”

“Show me what you can do. Shoot some attack into the sky.”

“Mmm, sure!” The woman nodded, then walked into the open, standing just beside a gargantuan hole dug by a wandering wurm. “Small, medium, or large scale attack?”

Kyrad looked about. There was nobody nearby, only rubble, fallen skyscrapers, and bloodstained, broken roads. “Uhh, let’s start at small, to be safe.”

“It is as you say!” The woman held her palm up to the sky, cringing under the sun’s light. “Take a step back, please?”

Kyrad walked a good ten paces back, taking no risk. “Will do, mam.”

Smiley raised a hand to the sky, her palm outstretched. “One, two, threeeee!” As she counted, a blood-red flame swirled into existence above her hand, then finally shot upward. As it flew, it annihilated air, raining explosions as it shot upward into the sky, never to reach the ground. The atomic blasts of fire made a vacuum of air, pulling Kyrad’s clothing and short hair billowing towards the woman as we watched in awe.

“Woah.” Kyrad dumbly said, surprised at the raw strength of the attack.

“Cool, right?!” the woman asked, smiling proudly.

He nonchalantly swept his hair back. “I’ve never seen a human so powerful.”

“My sister was my favorite human! Besides myself, maybe? She wasn’t very strong, though...” she said ponderingly.

He scratched his stubble, thinking. “The dead one, I guess...I take it you’re a rogue mage?”

“I am no rogue, but I am a mage. Unless you are referring to the ‘alone’ definition of rogue, in which case, yes, it is true.”

“What earthly desires would convince you to help me?”

“Do you need help?”

“Well, yeah, the whole world needs help.”

“I see that is true. Are you asking for my help?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then I shall help you!” the woman threw her hand up, then walked to Kyrad and slapped it onto his shoulder. With her other hand, she sent him a thumbs up. “I don’t know what the world’s all about, so as compensation, keep me informed!”

“Great. I’ll take you to the First Hunters.”

“Lead the way!”

“So this girl is our new mage,” Kyrad said.

He had led Smiley to the First Hunters’ campground, which was nestled in what used to be a park, filled with long-dead trees covered in ivy. The campground only had three tents, though two had been unoccupied for a good year, so they were stuffed beside a tree.Kyrad and Smiley stood beside the campfire, which was slowly burning out. His two comrades were on the other side of it, having answered his call to talk.

Kyrad shrugged. “Well, I should introduce everyone, first. That’s Jakal, he uses flarestorm weapons,” He pointed to him, a man who looked like the oldest person in the group, with a few white strands of hair folded behind his ear. “He’s got some knowledge of arcane stuff. If you have any questions about the world and our history, just come to him. He’s old as dragons and even fought in a few of The Emperor’s wars.” He pointed to the other hunter, a younger man in a crimson cloak, relaxing against the broken remains of a building’s wall. “And that’s Ethir. He uses bows, and if I had to describe him in one sentence, he’s the do or die type.”

“Nice to meet you all!” Smiley said, quaintly flailing her hand about in what amounted to a wave.

Jakal rolled his eyes, leaning back onto an arm. “Another rogue mage?”

“You’re worried she’ll abandon us?” Kyrad asked the cynical man.

“It’s a question of when and not if she ditches us. When do ya plan on booking it?”

“I’ll leave when and if I feel like it!” Smiley responded.

Ethir butted in as he ate a bit of bread, carefree. “Why don’t you find a way to blackmail these mages, Kyrad, sounds like a good way to keep them in check,”

“Hey, one day maybe one will stick around,” Kyrad snapped back. “Maybe she will.”

“And what’s with that smile on her face? Did ya pick up a crazy mage?” Jakal asked.

“Hey! I was just born this way!” Smiley defended herself.

“Oh, Smiley, what’s your name going to be?” Kyrad asked.

“Mmmm, Calamitas 2 maybe?”

Everyone else’s eyes widened, and Ethir spat out his bread in surprise.

Smiley looked to all their faces in confusion, not sure what she’d said wrong. “Woah!? I-it’s that bad of a name?! Jeez, I mean, I don’t know sis’s real name so...what other titles does she have...? Bringer of Brimfire, Witch of the Underworld, The Great Witch...? Yeah, you could call me The Great Witch 2!” she said, perfectly serious.

Ethir looked to Kyrad with a big grimace. “Shit, Kyrad! You picked up a loon! For a second there I thought I’d be incinerated by some wannabe Witch of Calamity!”

“I-I didn’t know she was the freaking witch’s clone!” Kyrad said, defending himself.

“She’s probably just some joker,” Jakal said dismissively. “I really thought you had more sense in your head than to pick up ‘loons’ as our defense force, Kyrad.”

The witch tilted her head with confusion. “You appear incapable of believing who I am. Would you like a demonstration of my power?”

Jakal shrugged and waved his hand. “Show us what you got, ‘witch’.”

“And don’t cause any collateral damage!” Kyrad quickly ordered.

“I will follow your orders as intended!” Smiley said.

The First Hunters watched with various expressions as Smiley walked backward, then began to slowly float up, all the way to twenty feet in the air. “Small scale attack in one, two, three!” She shot a comet of brimflame into the sky, creating a spectacle of explosions as it flew.

The loose, dusty ground was sent flying up into a small sandstorm while a blast of heat swept over the campground, irritating the hunters’ eyes.

“Wow, that’s hot!” Ethir yelled, shielding his face with an arm.

“Is that sufficient convincing?!” she yelled to the ground.

Jakal sighed and shook his head as the dust finally settled. “That’s a witch’s power alright.” He yelled to her, “So yeah, you can come down!” Then, he grumbled to himself, “Great, a second witch capable of leveling cities in a heartbeat. What’s next, another dragon?”

Kyrad looked to his elder with expectation. “Will you accept her into the first hunters then?”

“What’s the earliest she can fight?”

“Anytime, I think.”

“Where will she live?”

“My place, probably.”

“Will you feed her?”

“She can definitely do that for herself, sir.”

Smiley plopped onto the ground then skipped to Kyrad’s side, leaning towards the conversation, curious.

jakal pinched the bridge of his nose, then sighed before looking back to Kyrad. “First, we fight a swarm with her. If I trust her enough afterward, we try to kill the nearby plaguebringer.” He looked to Smiley. “For now, we will call you Mage. Is that understood?”

“Happy to help, captain!” Mage said gleefully, standing straight.

Kyrad began to lead Mage to his house, but she split from him to take a better look at the landscape.

She flew far above the destroyed city, observing its make. The taller buildings were kept closer to the city’s center, most only five stories tall, while the homes and smaller buildings were on the outskirts. Not that many buildings stood, anyway. The larger buildings were broken and shattered, even if they weren’t already collapsed, but the smaller houses seemed to be works in progress, some unknown catastrophe’s destruction in the process of being patched up by wood and stone. Broken glass was likely a very prevalent danger in those parts, Mage figured. The city was built inside a thick rainforest, though she had seen a massive waste just a few miles away, devoid of life. It was yet another place to venture through, she thought happily.

Mage landed beside Kyrad not long after, near the middle of the city, having followed him as she flew. “So, are we there?”

“Yep, just behind the corner,” He said. He led her onto another street, and down to a three-story tall building with boarded-up windows. “We have this whole place to ourselves, aside from my sister, but I don’t have any bedding for you since most of it was scavenged long ago. It’ll be your job to secure that sort of thing.”

She nodded. “I can handle that.”

“Good, come in. Mind the tripwire.”

She walked behind Kyrad into the first floor, stepping over a tripwire in the entrance. It was an open room where two mattresses were laid beside each other, and a few sacks of essential supplies were placed beside them. Further, in one of its corners, a stash of various weapons to be thrown was laid against the wall. All the windows were sealed off with wood.

“I don’t have much in the upper levels, so we just stick down here.”

A brown-haired woman was huddled atop one of the mattresses beneath a thick blanket. She looked to the two as she sat up. “Oh, who is this, Kyrad?” she asked weakly.

“This is Mage. She’s going to be staying here for a bit.”

“Oh, then hello Ma-” she coughed. “Mage...Have a nice stay.”

Mage smiled. “I hope you get better too!” She said, correctly assuming the lady was sick.

That elicited an awkward silence, though.

“I hope I do.” She looked to Kyrad with a weary smile.

“She won’t last longer than a month,” he bluntly said.

“O-oh my!” Mage said, jumping up with a smile, unintentionally insensitive.

“The only way to save her from the plague’s poison is through killing The Plague Mother. I hope you’re strong enough to kill it, but...”

“I-if you didn’t know, I’m Kiary, his sister,” Kiary said, interrupting her brother.

“Hello, Kiary!” Mage said.

Kyrad plucked a canteen of water out from the bags of supplies and took a swig. “You can sleep here, but you’re providing for yourself. That’s the way down in plague city.”

“Is that really the name of this place?”

“No. The name is Temple City.”

“Is there a temple here?”

“There’s said to be an ancient one nearby, but who knows if it’s still standing.”

“Hmm...maybe I could look for it!”

“Maybe consider it later. For now, you should get us some supplies for the day since it’s getting dark.”

“But I wanna talk with your sister!”

Kyrad sent her a strange look, but after a second, he shook his head, giving up. “Wierd girl. Don’t blame me if you’re begging for food in the morning.”

“Yay!” Mage walked to Kairy and sat in a fetal position.

“So...who are you?” Kiary asked, about as confused as her brother, though less stubborn.

“I’m Mage. I guess I’m a new mage for...the First Hunters, right?”

Kiary nodded slowly. “Well, what’s your story, then?”

“Oh, I don’t really know the whole story of me, but I can tell you my life story!”

Kiary chuckled, then recovered after her voice giving out for a moment. “Sure, why don’t we start there...”

Mage scanned the barren wastes while flying thirty feet up. The place looked like something had sucked the life out of it. The dead, fallen plants had turned black like ash, the air felt like bile in her lungs, and the pools of water nearby were irradiated, colored a nasty dark green.

Behind Mage, the first hunters wearily marched through the waste, their weapons at the ready. Kyrad was now in a purplish outfit that looked more befitting of a rogue, which covered most of his body, the clothes lined with obsidian, clinked together as he walked. He held a diamond dagger in his hand and had a small cartridge filled with black and purple shurikens strapped to his belt. Jakal held a hefty, obviously old machine gun of sorts, its strange, cylindrical bullets pouring over his shoulder and into a backpack. He wore what seemed to be a beekeeping suit, though without any helmet. Finally, Ethir held a blue and pink bow, strung with a glowing red arrow. He still wore his crimson cloak, though he had primitive chain mail over his shirt. Each of the hunters had a bracelet with a rough red stone engraved in it, one red flask and three white flasks hooked onto their belts, and some other basic essentials, excluding food, which could easily be infected by the plague.

Mage fell to the ground, then walked beside them. “Clear! No busy bees bothering us!”

“Good,” Jakal said.

“So, what’s that gun?”

He held the gun out a bit, showing it off to the witch. “It’s my old flarestorm cannon. It’s been pretty busted up over the years, though.”

“Hmmmmmm? Sounds cool. Why don’t you show me what it can do?”

“Flares ain’t cheap, witch. I can’t waste a single one.”

“Too bad!” Her head snapped to Ethir’s bow. “And what’s that weird thing?

Ethir smirked proudly. “It’s my coral bow, my pride, and joy. Made it in my pilgrimage to the sunken sea.”

“Cool! What’s it do?”

“Uhh...just makes my arrows a little stronger and stuff.”

“Not interesting, but practical! What about you, Kyrad?”

He rattled the cartridge at his side. “These are rot balls from the corrupted wastes. If I kill something with one, it’ll turn on its allies. And this is our next best weapon to the firestorm cannon, the Crystalline.” He brandished the crystal dagger, then threw it off into the distance. The item split into three somewhere along the way and hit the ground with the sound of breaking glass. Once it fell, Mage looked back to see the weapon had never actually left his hand. “I can throw it as much as I want, and it’ll always return to my hand. Nifty, eh?”

“Really cool, yeah!”

“Now get back up there, Mage!” Jakal yelled. “I don’t want to use our repellent just because you decided to be social!”

“Sure, sure!” Mage leaped into the air and surveyed the ground. It wasn’t long before she saw what she was looking for. Large enough to be easily seen from ten miles away, a massive tree stood towering in the distance. All its leaves were dark green, though it seemed shrouded in a green mist that continued for miles. It appeared the mist was expanding...towards them?

Mage quickly hovered closer to the ground, her face drooping a little in what she hoped was serious tension. “I see a cloud of green approaching us from far away. What should we do?”

“That’s not mist, Mage, that’s a swarm,” Kyrad said.

“A swarm of bees!?”

Jakal glared at Mage, catching her eyes. “You better be prepared, Mage. Remember what I said. The bees are slow and act as one. Just hit it while moving away, and you should be fine. Although I doubt a mage of your caliber needs any advice, don’t underestimate these creatures. Just one sting and you’re usually a goner, like ol’ Kyrad’s sister.”

“I can follow those instructions, sir!”

“Good. Now, one last thing.”

“Yes?”

“When they get within a mile of us, shoot a blast straight through them.”

“Small, medium, or large?”

“Medium, I suppose. ”

“That requires one hundred feet of distance between us, or else I might hurt you.”

He nodded. “Got it. We’ll be careful.”

“How will you all fight such obscene numbers when they approach? Your weapons seem ill-suited for this trial.”

“Don’t worry about us, girl. Just take out as many as you can.”

“I shall fulfill your orders with reasonable discretion!”

“Then let’s get cracking! High march!”

Mage flew ahead of the first hunters, and they sped up, jogging behind her steadfastly. About twenty minutes later, the mist finally approached them on the horizon, blotting out her view of the tree from the ground. Mage landed, then looked behind herself, assuring her comrades were safely far from her. She called out, “Should I shoot now?”

From the distance, Jakal yelled back, “Shoot when ready!”

She looked back to the approaching swarm. “Medium blast!”

She held her palms out, dead-focused on the swarm of green bees moving towards her. She held out her hands, her fingers touching each other in a wedge shape, then she closed her eyes. A blood-red flame flickered into existence, then began growing in a double spiral, creeping up and around her arms like a snake before finally reconnecting.

“Launch in one, twoooo, thrrrrreeee!” The spiral compressed over the course of the next few seconds, then finally sprang backward, unleashing a laser of brimfire at the swarm. A catastrophic explosion followed, and when the dust settled, the mist of bees was blown in half, all the way through to the tree behind.

Mage smiled, satisfied at her bout of destruction. She looked behind her, only to see Jakal with his hand on his face, silently pointing to the tree as the other hunters looked like they were in physical pain at the girl’s stupidity, a bit of fear mixed in with their expressions. She turned back to see something in front of the tree, far away.

It was a green and grey bee of colossal proportions, visible even from the horizon, flying about the hole she’d burnt through the remains of its home. The creature turned to them, its hate palpable. Then, it flew.

A plaguebringer had awoken.