I blinked my eyes blearily as the ray of the morning light bathed my face.

"Ah, you're awake!" someone said beside me. I looked over and saw an old man with a bushy white beard and fading gray hair. He was wearing a dirty white long sleeved shirt and brown worker's pants. Behind him I can see a table filled with various illustrations of symbols and glyphs. There were also mortars, pestles, and different sized containers. An alchemist's table. I looked around the room. Aside from the light coming through the open window, the room was pretty dark.

"Where...?" I tried to get up but a stinging headache said no.

"Rest. You are still too weak." the old man said.

"Where... where am I?" I eyed the man suspisciously, "Who are you?"

"Do not worry, you are safe. I advise against doing anything, even talking." he said with a thick northeastern accent, "You should really save your strength. I do not know what happened to you last night, but based on your state when the patrol found you, you definitely had a long one." Last night, I thougth to my self. Last night!

"Mom!" I pulled the blanket covering me away and jumped to my feet. I winced as I ignored the protest of my body and crawled as fast as I can to the door but the alchemist put himself between me and the door. "Let me go! Please! You don't understand! My mother! She needs help!"

I tried to struggle from the hold of my host despite the throbbing pain coming from my body when I heard footsteps coming from the other side of the door. It slammed open as a tall muscular man came striding inside the room. He was wearing thick leather cuirass emblazoned with a symbol of a head of a white bear over his gray shirt. He was also wearing the same kind of leather as wrist guards and greaves. Gaps in his armor revealed his tawny skin underneath. The man doesn't have any helmet on so I can see his neck-length wavy obsidian hair and stubble of a beard. "I heard a commotion doctor! Is everything okay?" Then he saw me squirming with all my might as I'm being gently wrestled into the bed by the old man.

"Ah, Captain Glenn. I could really use your help right now. Your 'foundling' has awaken." the old man requested the armored man... Captian Glenn.

"You should lie down, young man." Captain Glenn advised me. "You should gather your strength." He fidgeted in is sit. "Do you remember anything?"

"Please! Help me! My mother, our house! We were attacked!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "We need to go! NOW!"

Captain Glenn put a hand on my shoulder, the other one on my hand. "Young man. We are here to help you, but we cannot help if you can't give us any information we can start on." He took a deep breath. "Panicking won't help. I need you to take a deep breath, calm down, and explain to me what happened, okay? Help us help you."

I followed his instructions and closed my eyes, then I took several deep breaths. I felt myself calming down. I opened my eyes again and nodded to the armored man.

"Good." He then turned toward the old man. "Doctor, can you please provide a glass of water for this young man?"

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Captain? He just woke up, and he really needs his rest." the old man answered instead.

"I'm afraid we don't have much time for that luxury. I received reports of an attack." My heart skipped a beat. "I don't know any details yet, but we may have one right here." he nodded to me as he explained to the old man. "I'll be gentle, doctor."

The old man looked for a while longer. First to me, then to Captain Glenn, then sighed. "Alright then." he surrendered as he exited the room.

"Right, okay then. I suppose I'll introduce myself first. I am Mirza Glenn, captain of the guards." he said with a smile. "What is your name, young man?"

"E-Erdem." I paused. It took all my strength to talk now. My body now enduring the effects of my stunt earlier. "Where... am I?"

Captain Mirza took a while to answer, seemingly pondering over something. "You're in our town of Svolsk, in the Northeast province." Just then, the door opened again and the old man returned with a jug full of water. "Here, drink. It will help you restore your strength." he offered as he poured me a glass and helped me onto my side and drink. I coughed and sputtered some of the water as I laid again. "This is the backroom of the Arkady Apothecary," he continued as he motion his gaze to encompass the room, "and this is Doctor Ruslan Arkady, the one who treated you." he motioned to the old man. "Doctor Ruslan, Erdem."

Doctor Ruslan nodded to me before explaining with his thick northeastern accent, "I am no doctor. You can only find those in the cities, with their infirmaries. I'm just an alchemist running a small apothecary here in Svolsk. All I did was make some concoctions to treat your wounds. You are in no danger now, but you would still need to see a proper doctor."

"Thank you, Mister Arkady." I managed to utter.

"No need to thank me, I would charge this anyway to the Svolsk guards, specifically the captain. After all, he is the one who came barging in after rudely knocking like a madman on my door, in the middle of the night."

"It was an emergency." Captain Mirza defended. "Anyway, that's what happened. The guards on patrol found you unconscious in the forest at the foot of the Frost Mountains, just at the outskirts of town. You were all bloody and barely breathing, so they called me, and then I rushed you here."

I remembered the horrors that happened last night, how I turned my back on our burning home, my siblings, and especially mother. "Thank you, Captain, Mr. Arkady. Please help me, we were attacked."

"By night beasts?" the captain asked.

"No. By armed bad men." I then proceeded to tell Captain Mirza and Ruslan what happened last night. From waking up to smoke and fire, to finding mother, to me cowardly running away. All of it.

The captain just sat through it, nodding away and jotting down notes on a piece of paper. I can see from the corner of my eye Ruslan just shaking his head and showing expressions of disgust and anger as he heard my story.

"Despicable. Such barbarity!" Ruslan said afterwards.

"I see" Captain Mirza said, "Do you know what is your place called? Or do you have any landmarks near it?"

"I don't know. To me, it is simply just home. But sometimes mother takes us out to gather plants from the forest, and there's this cliff and we can see this huge valley below and some distant farmlands." Captain Mirza paused at that.

"I see. I'll go talk to my men quickly, I'll be back shortly." the captain said and I just nodded. He then left the room and closed the door but I can hear his muffled voice from behind it. I can also hear several more male voices, presummably his men.

"What is he doing?" I asked Ruslan who was left with me in the room.

He took a seat beside my bed. "He is giving orders to his men. They are going to help your mom." he said with a warm smile.

"Really?" My eyes just sparkled with hope with that. I just hope that mom is okay. Ruslan handed me another glass of water and helped me to my side and drink. Captain Mirza again entered the room. He took the chair from the nearby table, and sat on it beside my bed.

"Sorry for the wait. Where were we?" the captain said as he again fished for his paper and pen from his pocket. "Ah, right! So Erdem, what is the name of your mother? Come to think of it, you just told me your name, but never your family name."

"I... I don't know. She was just mother to me and my siblings. As for me, I also don't know. I'm just Erdem. That's the name mothers calls me by."

"Hrmm..." the captain went. "Alright. I think that's it for now. We don't want to push you too much, you already went through much as it is. For now, Erdem, you should stay here for a while or at least until you get your strength back. We will then decide what we will do next, okay?" the captain said to me as he touched my head and ruffled my hair.

"Okay."

"We will leave you to rest then. I need to go back to my men now and I will see to it that your mother is safe."

"You should be fine now, just do not force yourself and just lay down and sleep." Ruslan added. "I need to open up my shop. I left water there for you to drink, but I will be back from time to time." I nodded at that.

With that said, the two left the room, but I can still hear voices from the other side of the door, their voices. It looks like the two were talking. Against the advice of Ruslan, and the protest of my body, and the good manners instilled to me by mother, I left the bed, slowly shuffled my way to the door, pressed my ear to it, and listened in on them.

"Again, thank you doctor for providing for the kid. I'll repay you the expenses."

"Do not be silly. It is all on me. It has been so long since I had this... feeling."

"Ah, remembering Arlan, I see. I understand."

"Do not worry, once the kid has recovered, he is free to stay or go, it is his choice. What do you think of him?"

"What do you mean, doctor?"

"His story."

"I think I have a good idea of where he came from. An orphanage up in the Frost Plateau. I have stumbled upon the place one time I was hunting, back when I was still an adolescent. If my memory serves me right, it was called something along the lines of 'Fairsborough Shelter'."

"An orphanage, huh. Well that is troublesome. Under the law, they are independent from villages, towns, and cities, as they are under the protection of the church. Who knew there was an orphanage just up in the mountains nearby. Anyway, how sure are you about this boy coming from there?"

"I don't want to judge but... his name, Erdem, sounds like a name from the Southeast Central Province. We all know that that land had famines in the past. Many lives were lost there and orphans were a common sight. Even the land itself hasn't recovered yet up to this day. Plus with that information, his story of him not knowing his family name, or his mother's name, or the name of their place, it just adds up."

"Now that you mention it, it sure does. One thing is dubious though. The attackers, he said three armed men. It is questionable enough that someone will attack an orphanage under the protection of the church, let alone it happening in this time of peace."

"That's what's bothering me too, doctor. I suspect hallucination from the smoke. Post-famine traumatic experience from his birthplace is also possible. So is blunt force trauma-induced memory alteration from a night beast attack. Whatever the case, his head injury and the state we found him in is very real."

"Poor child. Such a thing to go through at such a young age."

"Indeed. Now if you'll excuse me doctor, I need to follow my men up the mountain to go to the bottom of this."