The sun rises to a new day and beneath its light glistens the banners of four armies.

Hexwood

Winterwood

Elder Moor

Desolate Plains

Only one can bear the crown. Only one can command the Elder. Will they unite, or will they fall?

In a world built upon the essence of dragons, in a land razed by battles of the ancients, under a moon that calls forth our darkest desires. It takes a legion to end what has begun, yet takes only one to reign in the endless.

8 playable races, 32 callings, 16 masquerades.

Who will you become?

PRESS ENTER

Michael had not seen the title screen of this game in five years, and now it was in his dreams. He had not pressed enter. He had gone to bed beside his fiancé and woken up on the floor. Not their floor, because even in his sleep dazed state he was fairly certain their floor wasn’t marked with arcane symbols, but the cold and hard floor of a much smaller home.

Above him, he heard a tsk, and looked up just in time to twist his head to the left before the sticky wax of a black candle dripped onto his forehead.

“Unf,”

“Exactly.”

He felt a sharp kick to his ribs and turned back to face the person standing over him.

“Sarah?”

It was the first name that came to mind, but as his eyes adjusted he recognized that this wasn’t his fiancé, well, it was… in cosplay? He’d mentioned possibly, maybe, only if she’s into it, bringing cosplay into the bedroom for a bit of fun, but this was going too far.

“Why am I on the floor?”

“If you call me Sarah one more time you’ll remain on the floor. Where did you go? Elder Moor?”

The woman leaned over him and with the same hand he had taken many times before, only doing much more generic things like taking a walk, she pulled him up out of the green and bubbling filled etches that made up the swirls and sharp angles on the otherwise grey tiles.

Her hands brushed over his shoulders and down his sides. A blow of warm air met his face and soon a clump of wax that was stuck to his brow was plucked free.

Standing in closer proximity, he looked down to the woman. The same height, the same facial features, the same body even – if a little bit paler, but perhaps that was the light. It was dimly lit, only a few candles lighting the room. What was with her outfit? A black dress, long and fitted about her torso but loose around her legs. A choker made of red and purple gems, an assortment of sizes.

She laughed awkwardly under his gaze. Not the same teeth. Brushed her hair behind her ear. Definitely not the same ears.

Instinctively he reached forward and tugged at the tip of her right ear. His hand was met with a sharp smack and as he pulled it back she stepped away from him. His confused eyes met her hurt ones, still dark he noted, but in the light, they shone more purple than blue.

It wasn’t Sarah. He hadn’t needed to pull on the woman’s ears, that hadn’t budged, he’d noticed, to know this. That feeling wasn’t there, the one that pulls your eyes to find your loved one instinctively, the burning in your chest that says “they’re close” when they’re across the room. He felt nothing for this person, but looking at her, he was sure he should have felt everything.

“Who are you?” he asked.

His eyes shifted from her, now he knew that she wasn’t who she was supposed to be he turned his head to look around the room that was not where he was supposed to be.

It was small, upstairs or downstairs he wasn’t sure. A door closed behind him, just one, gave him the impression he was upstairs, although he was unsure of why he thought this. It felt familiar here somehow. Only by sight, but the unlit stone fire to the far wall, the altar trimmed with tiny effigies, the bookshelves either side of it plump with thick tomes that pushed scrolls together, one such scroll hanging loose against the shelves, the glowing green symbols on the floor that had begun to dim, the wicker basket stacked with unlit candles and the sconces on the wall, their metal glinting beneath the glow of waning but steady wicks – their fire the only warmth brought to the room. It all looked so familiar.

Protectively, the woman moved towards her altar, as though uncomfortable with Michael’s stare being upon it too long.

“Selrah,” she said, backing against it, hands pushed upon the stone desk almost knocking over a jar that looked to be filled with dried herbs. “I’m Selrah. Where did you go that you could forget me?”

She looked at him with that same hurt look he’d seen so many times before on Sarah’s face, somewhere inside him he ached.

“I don’t know,” he lifted his arm, a simple movement often done to signal what is being spoken. His plan to say where is this stopped abruptly when he glanced down at his arm. Had he reached towards Selrah’s ear with his left arm he would have seen this already, but now with it raised his mouth dropped open and tongue stuttered to find words.

The length of his arm was marked with tiny inscriptions. They flashed between a dull red and bright white before settling to a dim green that laced across his wrist and wound about his elbow. He looked to his shoulder, an awareness of his clothing, or lack thereof, another nauseous turning in his stomach. Five bands glistened in the flickering of the candle light, each one joined by a vertical line that swept through them. All of them decorated with a scripture unknown to him, but cursive and joined through loops and harsh lines.

“You’re fully healed,” Selrah said, walking back across the room towards him. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. I thought I’d used [Duibhlinn Blessing] but I guess I drained my wisdom with [Kranaxus’ Portal].” She looked up to him, sucking in the inside of her cheek and then with somewhat of a temper continued, “Maybe this will finally push you to help me through Marshwood to empty my affinity and gain the points I’ve been working so hard for.”

“I don’t understand a word you just said.”

Michael stood with his palms out, upturned towards her, like many other men before him who have tried to work out what it is they’ve done wrong. He was honest in his confusion. Selrah had spoken words to him that may as well have been in another language, but it was one he understood the basics of.

“Spells,” he said, a finger now pointed towards the woman in front of him. “You’re saying you cast, or didn’t cast, spells on me.”

After a brief look at Michael, Selrah glanced over her shoulder back to the scroll that hung upon the bookcase and then down to the now all but empty etchings on the floor.

“Have you forgotten who I am? Or who you are?”

It was a good question, and both were topics he was having trouble understanding. He hesitated over which to ask first, and then decided he’d leave it in the hands of the concerned looking elf lady.

“Both.”

Selrah sighed. The kind that comes from a hopelessness of our own inadequacies rather than those of another. Despite this, it was Michael she soon turned on.

“You need to do something about your Intelligence. I’ve been on at you for months about it, ever since that mishap with the guild.”

Unsure of what she was talking about Michael stood, gave a brief shrug and allowed his mouth to gape open a little lower.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Selrah replied, and with a gentle swish of her skirts she was back at the desk, tidying what didn’t need to be tidied. “Just because you go out adventuring more than I do, just because you’re more trusted, doesn’t mean that you can pretend to not remember when I’ve been there too. We have a big raid coming up, one that, you know… that is, if you remember, that I’m a part of. You pretending that you don’t recall my input only leaves me feeling more insecure. Without me, who is there to cast [Summoner’s seal]?”

She stopped speaking, and Michael saw this as his cue to make it better. He had no idea what to say but judging the path the conversation was taking he took a guess at, “No one?”

“That’s right, no one!” Selrah said. She pushed the last pot and it slushed against the wall and then turned back to Michael. “Well there’s Le’ Et, but she’s on goblin duty. So, it’s just me. Okay?”

Michael nodded.

“You have some nerve forgetting what happened in The Forgotten Keep,” she paused, laughed with a glint to her eyes that was so similar to his fiancée’s Michael found himself laughing too. He knew what she would go on to say.

“Forgetting, forgotten, I just… I don’t know, that made me laugh,” she told him, even though he had already seen that it did. “But, The Forgotten Keep, I buffed you and I swapped your soul with that stupid dreg’s right before your health could drain. I did that.”

It was a video game. How long he had known this, he wasn’t sure. The words Selrah was speaking, the terminology she was using. It had been his greatest desire for so long, to be pulled into a video game with Sarah, both of them living out their lives with magic and adventure. Yet, here he was, surrounded by items he could only imagine himself stealing or breaking and with a woman who looked like Sarah, but it wasn’t Sarah; and so far, this had been a lot less fun than he’d ever imagined it would be.

“And do you know how much wisdom that drains me of?

“A lot?” Michael said this with a shrug which only seemed to worsen Selrah’s temper.

A sigh left her lips, but not before one furled up and a scowl shone in his direction, and she pushed her hands down against her desk.

“It’s been a long morning. I need some fresh air and we need supplies for tomorrow’s raid.”

Michael glanced towards the window that was shuttered closed. Surely being boarded up couldn’t keep out all of the morning light, he had been certain that it was night outside.

His confusion was soon replaced with discomfort though when Selrah opened the door and light flooded in from a stairwell. A window directly opposite showed that outside it was daylight, and from the looks of it a beautiful day. Much different, he noticed, from the rainy weather he had left behind in his own home.

Selrah’s hand was running down the wooden handrail of the staircase when she looked back at him, “Are you coming?”

He nodded and followed her down into another room. This one had a fireplace against the far wall and an archway that led through to what appeared to be a kitchen, a huge stone fire in one corner with black metal pans hanging above it. He could smell bread and despite not being hungry moments before he now found his stomach was rumbling.

“Just in time,” Selrah said and pointed towards the kitchen. “I’ll get these in my bag, you grab some supplies from the cupboards and we should be good to go before there’s nothing left to be going to.”

It was only from the gesture of her hand that Michael saw where he needed to be looking. A large cupboard that had books stacked atop it and drawers, some open, he found all to be bursting full with scrolls and vials of different colours.

He glanced to his arm, and looked at the patterns.

“What am I?”

The broadsword that glinted made him aware he was melee, and with this he remembered what he had rolled back when he had joined Sarah in the game.

“I need energy potions… green… where are they?”

After a few clinks he found them in the bottom drawer and pulled out a dozen. Then, like he was in his own home, he opened an above drawer and took out red and blue. “Selrah is a caster, blue is always mana. I think.”

Part of him still wondered if he were in fact dreaming, but either way, he wasn’t about to sit around shrugging when he knew how worlds like this worked.

Selrah back from the kitchen, a pouch now at her waist, she threw another towards him.

“Make sure you have your scroll,” she said, examining the potions he had laid out on the table. “Impressive,” she muttered, turning a blue one over in her hands.

“Impressive?” Michael responded, “Do I usually pick out the wrong ones?”

Selrah pushed a number into her pouch, far more than should have possibly been able to fit, and with a smile said “No, Mythril, of course not. I just figured after your trip you’d not be quite yourself and may have forgotten some things. You know, like you forgot me.”

This stopped Michael from asking any further questions. He pushed his own potions into his bag and then remembered he had been told to check for his scroll. Reaching his hand down he found that the bag was far deeper and wider than he had expected, but in a corner he felt paper and pulled it out.

“This is my scroll?” he said, staring at it. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

Selrah had been busying herself in the kitchen and poking her head round the door, a bunch of herbs in her hand, she squinted her eyes. “Well, what you always do. Push your thumb on the corner and make sure your map works.”

More interested in the scroll than what Selrah was doing Mythril did as he had been told. Pushing his thumb into the corner of the map a circular symbol lit up, a more angled one surrounding it glowing also. After a brief moment a map had come into view, some areas grey but others brightly coloured with names printed in a golden calligraphy against it.

“Elder Moor,” he said, running a finger over the words of the place Selrah had mentioned to him.

She returned to find him scanning his eyes over the map, looking over it like a tourist might, eager to find the next treasure.

“We’re only going to edge of the woodland.”

“Elder or somewhere else?”

Selrah had been flitting between the two rooms but this time she came back with more than just a pouch in her hand. Lumbering a chest piece onto the thick oak table she sighed as it clattered against the wood and wiped a hand across her brow.

“Elder, yes,” she said, her eyes glancing side ways towards him, brows furrowing in concern. “Where else would we be going?”

Mythril looked back down to the map and tried to recall what he could about this world. He remembered standing in line with his fiancé while they waited to be tested. A game like no other! It had been advertised as. Discover who you really would have been! A state of the art personality test and four hours later Sarah was leaving with a usb and echoing what had been written all over the walls of the shop: not only do your choices change the world, they change you!

He looked back at Selrah and before he could help himself he asked, “what class are you?”

“What class?” she asked, flipping the chest piece over and rubbing the same herbs he had seen her holding in the kitchen over it.

“Calling,” he corrected before Selrah could glance up towards him. He remembered now, it had been called a calling.

Selrah looked up towards him and with a smirk shook her head. One hand pushing her white hair behind her ear and the other leaning on the table she said, “I’m beginning to worry about you. How could you forget even that? My calling seems to be what has caused this mess. I’m a summoner.”

Mythril nodded his head, he remembered Sarah’s excitement. “And what am I?”

Selrah didn’t answer, instead she pushed the chest piece towards him and returned to the kitchen. A few moments later she was back with a cloak hanging over her arm.

“Put it on then,” she said with a nudge of her head. “I worked tirelessly on putting the [enchant] onto that after you’d finishing smithing it.” She moved her head to look down at Mythril’s legs. “Also, as much as I like seeing you wander around in such little clothing, hurry up and equip your gear.”

Thankfully, after saying this, Selrah pulled out her own map, and leaning against the table in front of him Mythril was able to see that once she had pushed her thumb to the corner, the symbol different to his he noted, she swiped her thumb right and another menu appeared, before left again and then twice until still looking over her shoulder he could see that an inventory of clothes was open.

“I won’t need to worry about a blood pact for this, will I?” she asked, before shaking her head in answer to her own question. “I shouldn’t, considering your new armour.”

A tap of her finger against the scroll and the black dress she had previously been wearing was replaced with black trousers, a purple top, and black boots. She swung the cloak about her neck and Mythril saw it appear upon the scroll, blue lighting around it.

“There, logged.” She said with a smile.

Repeating what he had seen Selrah do Mythril swiped across on his scroll until he reached his armory. He already knew that he was a melee class, both slightly from memory but also from the patterns across his arm. Looking at the clothing though he could only presume he was destined to fight rather than guard.

Tapping on a set of leggings with the stats written beside the picture he jolted in surprise as the cold metal of chain mail suddenly pushed against his skin.

“Why are you putting those on?”

“I just wanted to try them out,” Mythril responded, weakly.

“They’re rubbish. You broke them weeks ago in a resources run and said they weren’t worth fixing. Why have you even kept them? Salvage them.”

Unsure of there use Mythril instead clicked them a second time on the scroll. It was not the cold of metal that met his skin, but instead that of a breeze that moments before he hadn’t realized was sweeping in from beneath the door. Looking down the sight of his hairy bare legs, and further up, brown underwear, had him rushing to click on another piece of gear.

“Better,” Selrah commented.

Unlike the other trousers these ones felt tighter around his thighs, not restrictive, more secure. Although, Mythril wasn’t sure if it was the security of not being naked in front of the Selrah that he was recognizing.

“Yeah? Good for the woods?” he asked, turning to see Selrah’s approval.

“Sure, we’re only going to be doing some basic quests, some herb picking, you need to mine a little, and I need to also look into trading in some of my potions for tokens. Unless you want to head into a small dungeon?”

Had he been sat behind a computer screen his answer would have been yes, but because, as far as he could tell, he was standing on a solid floor with birds singing outside and an elf staring him in the eye he opted to instead say, “Yes, what the hell.”