It has been a long and exhausting day for me, but my work is not yet done. A stiff wind kicks up in the distance as I stare up at the towering ruin in the middle of the village. According to Roderick, this ruin was once an imperial palace. It stretched into the sky like an Egyptian pyramid, pumping magic protection throughout the entire city and the surrounding hamlets.

I want to ask my brother more about it, but he is off somewhere with his new ‘girlfriend’. Good for him, but bad for me. I don't know much about this world, and he is the only guide to help understand it. We have only been here for a little more than a day, and I have a lot of learning to do if I want to stand on my own.

Can I restore this building to its former glory? Can Roderick and I use it as our base of operations? I open my chronicle and attempt to answer my own question.

Imperial Seat of Power Current Level: 0 (Ruined) Material: Cut Stone Shape: Pyramidal Heating Source: Geothermal Defenses: None Color: Gray Restore? Yes or No.

Okay, this is different. Unlike the other buildings in town, there is no ‘upgrade’ option available to me, instead there's a prompt asking if I want to ‘restore’ the building. It's a subtle distinction to be sure, but I suspect that it will cost me. I click ‘yes’ at the prompt.

This action will cost a persistent 10,000 mana points. Continue? No.

10,000 mana points? That's insane! No way can I continue.

I can still daydream though. I gaze up at my would-be capital and wonder what it looked like in its prime. “Roderick, do you think I should…”

That’s right, Roderick’s not here. I have to remind myself that I’m alone. It feels weird without him. Almost unnerving. That's probably my anxiety talking though.

The sun begins its descent towards the distant horizon. There's still quite a bit of daylight left, but we are now on the march towards darkness. I amble my way back home and contemplate my next steps. I feel exhausted, both physically and mentally. My conversation with Margot gave me more than my fair share of things to worry about. Flaera sounds like bad news to me. I'm not sure I can take her on. Do I even want to?

“Master Imperial, wait up.” A booming voice shakes me from my thoughts.

I turn around and see two bumbling characters jogging towards me. They are wearing tanned hides and fur boots. Compared to the other villagers they seem quite physically endowed.

“We are cooking a roast this evening; would you care to join us?” The fatter of the two men waves in my direction.

“Cousin.” His thinner and taller counterpart bops him on the head, “you have to introduce us first. How is he supposed to know who we are?”

“I know that, you beanstalk. I was just getting to it, but you interrupted me.”

“Who are you calling a beanstalk, tubby?”

“Tubby!”

“Whoa, whoa, take it easy guys.” I slide in between them. “I’d love to try your roast. Plus, I'd like to meet the Warriors who are guarding this village. Can I assume that you are them?”

“My kind of man,” they both slap my back in unison, “indeed, we are the Warriors.”

“My name is Drago,” the slimmer Warrior tells me while we walk, “and this here is my cousin Drake.”

“Drago and Drake, got you. It’s nice to meet you.”

I normally feel nervous around strangers, but these two are a completely different breed. Despite their hulking muscles and threatening clubs, they seem rather docile and harmless. Kind of like two dotting uncles.

“We’re the town watch,” Drago says with a jolly laugh. “Boy oh boy was I surprised when my wife and kiddo came home the other night and told us about you.”

Our conversation is pleasant and simple. Drago and Drake want to know how my brother and I slipped past their security. I explain that we came into town through the swamp, instead of using the main path. They are surprised by this.

We crest a ridge near the edge of the village and Drago points towards a simple Cottage. “This here is my home. It’s not as fancy as those houses you built in town, but it’s my home nonetheless.”

This particular house is just outside the range of my protective spell. It seems somewhat dilapidated, but in a homey kind of way. There are spears and simple tools lying on a rack outside the house. From a moss-covered chimney, a light wisp of smoke billows into the breezy air.

“They’re here! They’re here!” A boy peaks his head out of the house and jumps up and down. He seems very excited by my arrival.

“That’s my son, Drako,” Drago beams proudly.

“Drago, Drake and Drako.” My head is starting to spin. “You don’t have any other kids, do you?”

“Not me, but Drake here has a son who lives in Rudderduck.”

“Let me guess, his name is Dragon.” I laugh.

“How did you know?” Drake looks spooked.

I resist my urge to roll my eyes. There is absolutely no way that I'm going to be able to remember all these names that sound exactly alike.

“Come on in,” Drago motions me to enter through his front door. “My wife should have the roast sliced and waiting for us.”

“Wonderful,” I say, as I enter the house.

Sure enough, a hulking plate of meat is waiting at a wooden table in the center of the room.

“I see the roast, but where is your wife?” I look around the cottage.

“Momma went to fetch some grog,” little Drako sits on the floor with his legs crossed. Compared to the rest of his gargantuan family, he is an absolute runt.

“I remember you,” I sit down next to him, “you were at the ritual the other night. You pointed at my chronicle.”

“Can I see it?” He eagerly bounces in place.

“Boy, go help your mother fetch the drinks,” Drago sits down at the table and motions me to join him. “The adults are going to talk.”

“Awwww, but I want to see his chronicle.”

“I’ll show it to you later,” I pat his rust-orange hair and stand back up. “I promise.”

“You’d better,” he jumps up from the floor and runs out the door, “I’ll be waiting.”

Drako seems like a good kid.

I wonder if he is being trained to be a Warrior like his father and cousin. Perhaps he is tethered to that role, after all, my brother said that Warriors are also a racial class. As the new sovereign of this area, I probably need to start looking into the development of my subjects. If we ever end up going to war, having a well-developed contingent of warriors would give us a big boost.

“So, my dear Imperial,” Drago pats the seat next to him, “let’s talk about you.”

“Talk about me?” I sit down, “I’m not that interesting.”

“Sure you are.” Drake grabs a piece of meat in his mouth and tugs at it like jerky. “You’re the first Imperial we have ever seen. We were damn near sure that all of your kind were dead.”

“And yet, here you are,” Drago interjects.

“Yeah, here I am.”

“My cousin and I couldn’t help but notice what a fine-looking young man your brother is. Straight hair. Fair skin. Freckles. He looks just like us folk here in town.”

“I guess he does.”

“You and him don’t look too much alike,” Drago grabs a fistful of my hair and tugs on it. “These locks of yours are mighty curly.”

“I’d appreciate it if you stopped doing that,” I swat at his arm.

Talk about uncomfortable. I appreciate that we are in a medieval fantasy world, and most of the people I've seen look pretty European so far, but I still find it a bit annoying to be gawked at by strangers.

“Yeah,” Drake leans in towards me. “Your skin is pretty dark too. Like that of a Westerner. I hear they got magic that can alter buildings also. Just like yours.”

“My mother is Eritrean,” I swat at Drago again, who still hasn’t given up on playing with my hair. “I inherited some of her traits. Eritrea is a region where the people are more medium complected, like me. Of course, my dad’s an old white guy – so things kind of balance out.”

“That don’t jibe with the legends we’ve heard,” Drake leans in close enough for me to smell his ratchet breath. It reeks of gingivitis and tooth decay. Gross!

“I hear the Westerners also use mind altering magic, just like our Acolytes.”

Drago's forceful hand is starting to get very uncomfortable. It feels like he may yank out my entire head of hair, scalp and all. “You might have everyone else around here fooled,” he says, “but I’m not buying your story.”

“Let go of me now,” my nerves switch to fight or flight mode. My skin tingles. My brain moves at a hundred miles per hour. Things are not going well at this dinner.

I find myself surrounded by two hostile brutes. One of them refuses to let go of my hair. The other one licks his lips at me like a wild beast.

I flail at Drago, but my attacks are ineffective. I jerk backwards in my chair and fall to the ground.

A massive fistful of my hair rains down on me from above. My scalp burns like a raging wildfire. Two enemies tower over me. I foolishly play into their hands.

“I hear they pay a pretty sum of coin for the heads of Northerners in The Pass,” Drago unlatches his oaken club from his back and pulls it in front of him. “I wonder how much a Westerner would fetch?”

“You heard him cousin,” Drake’s belly protrudes as he staggers to his feet, “he’s an Eri-tree-an. I’ve never even heard of people like that before. They must be real exotic.”

“Back off now you racist weirdos, or I’ll use my magic on you.” I'm still planted on the floor. I should have never entered this stupid house. Nobody knows where I am. Why do I put myself in these situations? This is just like when I went to Cumberland.

“Are you going to brainwash us like you did with that boy? Pathetic. Don’t you know that mind manipulation doesn’t work on Warriors?”

“I’m warning you, back off,” I struggle to counter Drake’s arguments and find my words. My throat swells with fear. I can’t call for help. I have to fight these people off on my own. I'm not sure I even know how to fight. All I have done so far is burn some stupid reeds in a swamp.

At the sound of my pathetic whimpers, my chronicle emerges and floats in front of my face.

Activate Battle Mode? Choose: Yes or No.

“Yes! Yes, hell yes!” I scream as the first club swing comes falling down at me.

A loud metal ping reverberates as the club hits my body. The bulky weapon ricochets off my body, hitting Drake with a recoil.

I roll to the side but get tangled up in something. I look down and am shocked to see that my imperial robe has become augmented with glowing chainmail.

“Damn magic user,” Drake stumbles after me, “I’ll squash you like a bug.”

My chronicle levitates above my body, but I am too busy to read it. All of my efforts go into my evasive maneuvers, and keeping myself out of danger. I probably look pathetic, but if my evasion can keep me alive, I do not care.

Drago traps me against a corner wall as we play our game of cat and mouse. He swings his club towards my skull, but I duck out the way. I weave my way through his legs but the danger remains. Drake stammers after me, holding his club like a battering ram. The clunky idiot crashes straight into his cousin, sending both of them toppling to the ground.

I run to the other side of the room and contemplate making an escape through the wide-open back door.

Though my frayed nerves crave an escape, my fear continues to keep me tethered to the cottage. What if the other villagers in town turn on me? What if they attack Roderick too? Anxious thoughts rage through my mind as my chronicle steadies itself in front of my face.

On each side of its wide-open pages, two diagrams of my opponents appear. It reveals their level, their estimated stat values, and their weak points.

Drake ‘The Tubster’ Level: 2 Race: Warrior Faction: Imperial Remnant Specialization: None Constitution: 195/200 Stamina: 96/200 Weak Points: Calves, Head

Unsurprisingly, Drake’s biggest weak spots are his overburdened calves and exposed face. He is the first to rise from the pileup at the end of the room.

He turns toward me and runs full steam ahead, using every bit of energy that his overweight body can muster to bludgeon me.

I am scared to death. This is insane. As good as my evasive moves have been thus far, I know that I can't keep dodging these attacks forever. If there is ever a time to fight, this is it.

I hold my hands in front of me, pointing them at his calves. I have about six seconds to make my move. If I fail, I will undoubtedly end up pulverized under the weight of his club.

“[Fireball]”, my voice squeaks.

A sparking ball of flame springs out of my hands like a rocket. It is a ferocious attack. The room feels like a burning oven as it explodes.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” He shrieks in agony. The attack roasts his legs to a crisp. The fireball explodes into smaller fragments, lighting the table next to him on fire. Burning splinters rain down on his body from above.

“You bastard!” The nimbler Drago abandons his club and reaches for a kitchen knife, “I’ll flay you alive.”

He zigzags towards me, making it hard to steady my shaking hands. “[Fireball], I yell. My shot misses him and soars out an open window.

“Crap!”

Drago’s knife stabs into my chainmail armor but fails to penetrate its magical defense.

I lurch backwards and roll to the side. He changes strategies and opts to slash wildly at my unprotected head.

A giant ‘X’ appears on my chronicle as I dodge attack after attack, putting some distance between myself and Drago. The “X” covers Drake’s stat page, which now shows his constitution at 0.

“You killed my cousin,” Drago screams and runs full steam towards me.

“[Fireball]”, I scream back. The attack hits him dead in his abdomen, burning through his leather armor with ease.

I watch in horror as he shrieks like a banshee and struggles against the flame.

Drago ‘The Beanstalk’ Level: 2 Race: Warrior Faction: Imperial Remnant Specialization: None Constitution: 15/200 Stamina: 20/200 Weak Points: Torso, Head

His stats pop in front of me and quickly reduce to 0. A black ‘X’ covers his diagram, just as it had his cousin.

With the fight now over, I collapse onto the ground in a fit of shakes. “My medicine,” I reach into my pocket, “I need my medicine.”

Battle Complete Experience Points Earned: + 400 Critical Hit Multiplier: x2 Total XP Gained 800 Next level up at 1000 XP. (You are 200 XP short.)

I dismiss the prompts from my vision with a shake of my head. My chronicle relaxes itself.

I can’t think of levels and experience points right now. I just killed two men. I burned them to a crisp like the roast that now lay splattered all over the floor. How am I going to explain their deaths to the villagers? What about my brother?

“My medicine. My medicine,” I cry, “where is my medicine?”

“Are these them?” A little hand reaches towards me.

Dangling in front of me is the familiar sight of my pills and a cup of grog to wash them down with.

“Good job,” little Drako smirks at me, “you fight like a coward, but when push comes to shove, you’ve got good reflexes.”

I shiver as I scarf my meds down, “I killed your dad and cousin. How can you be so calm?”

“Those guys,” he points over his shoulder, “those were just my shadow clones. I’d sooner throw myself off a cliff than be related to racist buffoons like them.”

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“I’m saying that I’m the real village Warrior, and those two were nothing more than dummies.”

“I’m sorry – I still don’t.”

“Just, open your chronicle,” he lets out an exasperated sigh.

I do what he says and point my chronicle towards him. It flips open to a back page where another stat sheet appears. Outside of battle mode the parchment seems to return to its normal blue-white state.

Drako ‘The Imp’ Level: 7 Race: Warrior Faction: Imperial Remnant Specialization: Subversion Constitution: 700/700 Stamina: 700/700 Weak Points: ???

“Sorry for tricking you,” he shrugs, “that’s just how I fight.”

“So you created those two to test me?” I shake my head and allow my medicine to calm my nerves, “I could have died.”

“But you didn’t.” He walks over to the charred corpse of his ‘father’ and waves it away in a puff of smoke. “Like I said, these are shadow clones. It’s one of my abilities. I was testing you just to make sure that you are who you say you are. The elemental magic you used is all the proof I needed to see.”

“You could have just asked me to make a fireball”, I say.

“I could have,” he nods, “but that wouldn’t have been as much fun. My mother is running the same test on your brother right now.”

“She’s doing what!?”

I erupt onto my feet and dash out of the charred cottage. It is one thing to mess with me, but nobody messes with my brother. Nobody. Roderick doesn’t even have an affinity for fire magic. What if he struggles to fight back?

“Amazing”, a circle of villagers gathers around a commotion in the main square.

“Out of my way.” I push through them. “Where is my brother?”

I struggle to see what is going on. Hooting and hollering spectators block my path forward. I truck my way through them, all the way to the front.

My brother is running in circles around a massive grey wolf. The furry canine barks and lunges at him with salivating lips. Emborsia claps and giggles while Roderick excitedly slashes at it with his arms.

“[Force Wind]”. He shoots a blast of invisible air from his hand. It slams into the beast’s side, forcing it to the ground. Embrosia tosses her staff to him from the audience. He tips his metaphorical hat towards her and then turns back towards the wounded animal.

It stands up and lunges at him. He points the staff at it and blasts it with another round of compressed air. “[Amplify], [Force Wind]!”

The blast of compressed air sends everyone flying, including me. I bolt backwards along with the rest of the spectators. Red blood sprays through the air like water vapor.

“Roderick!” I shoot right back up.

“Done!” He flings the staff back to a clapping Embrosia. “That was a good bit of fun.”

The crushed pile of flesh and fur evaporates in a puff of smoke, as does the blood splatter on all of our clothes.

A red-headed woman emerges from behind a nearby house and claps, “You passed, young Imperial.”

“A shadow clone, huh?” Roderick approaches her, “so you must be a subversion specialist.”

“She’s not the only one,” Drako’s boyish voice resonates in the square. With a snap of his finger, the last bits of simulated blood evaporate in a puff. “You defeated that beast like it was nothing. You are definitely of Imperial blood.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Acolyte Margot approaches him with a stern strut to her step.

“I was just giving our new overlords a little test.”

“Without my permission?” She stabs her staff into the ground, “can you even comprehend the sacrilege you have committed today. Our ancestors are our everything. They are worthy of praise and honor, not tricks and test taking.”

I emerge from the crowd and stand at her side. Just as I am about to chastise him, he reaches his arm into the air and motions a group of villagers towards us. In their hands they carry a whole roast hog. It is drenched in a steaming sauce that looks devine. A savory and delectable aroma lofts through the air, causing a marked shift in everyone’s emotions.

“Tonight, we feast in honor of our ancestors. To Imperial Derek and Imperial Roderick: welcome home!”