Hi people, creatures, robots, things, and everyone else. I'm back after a little...unwanted break. I lost another chapter to technology failing me, but I will make it better than it was. (Insert determined face here) My new computer cost so much, but it's really good so it makes me happy. I know some of the side characters haven't really impacted the story and don't seem to be going anywhere, but this is a long project, and eventually everything will connect. The chapter also might be a bit short but it was a good place to end and I didn't want to wait any longer. Thanks again for staying with me and please continue to enjoy the story.

Chapter 18: The Calm Before

It was a frightening thing he had to do, but it was for her, and even though he had no particularly strong feelings about her, the rest of the village cherished her. Zen peeked out from behind a barrel on the moonlit night, trying to see into a window of the small, dark mansion in front of him. There was a single, dimly lit room that he could see from where he was, and he thought he could see someone standing near the window. He swiftly ducked behind the barrel and out of sight, his heart racing and his palms slick with sweat. Zen was truly terrified as he walked stiffly towards the shadowy building and through the always open gate. He reached the middle of the courtyard so he glanced up at the window again, and his breath caught in his throat.

He was absolutely there in the window, and he was looking down at Zen who stood in the man's courtyard. He wanted to scream and run away, to tear his eyes away from the demonic gaze of the monster standing in the window. He thought of himself as courageous, but this was too much for him and he fell to his knees with tears in his eyes. He started to crawl away, feeling like a worm overtaken by cowardice as he retreated. He was only thirteen and there wasn't much he could do anyway. Someone else would save her, because he couldn't, not if he had to ask a child eating devil for help.

He stopped moving a few feet from the gate and he remembered at that moment why he was there and no one else was. He was the only one who was capable of helping, because he was the only one who knew what happened, and no one else could be trusted. He couldn't go to the guard and he was afraid that if he told his parents, they would ignore his warnings and try to speak with those very guards he wanted to most avoid. He steeled himself, replaying the scene from only a few hours ago in his mind. He walked back towards the mansion slowly, his eyes on the door in front of him.

Zen lived by the eastern town gate because his family owned a farm that went almost up to the short wall that kept thieves and pests out of the city. He had been awoken by the need to relieve himself in the middle of the night. On his way to the public outhouses, he saw some suspiciously cloaked people moving about a carriage and reflexively hid behind a locked tool shed. He couldn't tell what was happening but he had a hunch that it was better to not be seen by these people. He saw a pair of guards approach and casually talk with the hooded men. He began to think that maybe they were some secret organization working for the king and weren't actually bad people as he originally thought.

As he was about to turn away and keep moving, he heard more people approaching the group by the gate, dragging something. His curiosity got the better of him and he decided to see what they were doing. His jaw dropped and his heart began to race as he saw what they were dragging. It was a young girl being carried between two guards, her shoes scraping against the cobblestones. She was quietly weeping, her body limp as they roughly threw her into the carriage and followed her in. Two of the guards stayed behind as the others drove the carriage out of the town. Zen had leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was on the ground, breathing heavily and trying to understand what had happened.

That was only a few hours ago and the reason he was at the residence of the one "person" he was supposed to stay away from. The only chance he had was there in the place in front of him. He opened the door and walked around the creatures pretending to be human, pushing past them on his way up the stairs. No one tried to stop him, or hurt him on his way to meet the demon lord himself. His body shook with fear, but it also shook at the anger he felt at those terrible people who made the poor girl cry, and the anger at himself for being weak. He reached the final doorway, tripping over someone he tried to slip past and stumbling forward.

He caught himself right before he ran into someone wearing a decorative suit usually reserved for special occasions. He looked up into the face of the man and noticed a thin band of red around the man's iris. He had nearly run into the demon and that realization turned his legs into a jelly, causing him to collapse, his mouth working, but his lungs unable to pull in air. He tried to speak but he was unable to say a word and tears began to spill from his eyes.

The keeper sat down on the ground with a plop, leaning back in a casual and relaxed position. "Standing still all day listening to people drone on about the world really takes a toll on this body of mine," The demon said with a youthful mirth in his eyes.

Zen felt like he was able to breathe a little bit as some of the irrational fear began to leave him, but he was still only able to choke out a few words. "They have Tafa."

The man's face grew dark with shadows, his voice edged with suppressed rage. "What happened? What do you mean?" Zen was once again frozen from fear. He could feel the powerful aura of the one in front of him, and he could see the barely concealed blood lust in his eyes.

The keeper leaned forward saying,"I have no time for this." as he touched Zen's head with three of the fingers on his left hand. Zen felt his fear dissolve and a strange, unnatural calm took its place. He explained everything he saw that night to the man and when he was finished, he slumped into an exhausted heap on the ground. He was tired from too little sleep and the over excitement of a day where the sun had yet to rise. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into his bed and sleep for the rest of the day, his task completed.

The man in front of him remained silent for a time, deep in thought after he heard the explanation about who had taken Tafa, and what they had probably done to her. He stood suddenly, pulling Zen to his feet immediately afterwards and gripping his shoulders tightly. "Tell me your name."

"It's Zen."

"Zen. You can call me Keeper. Let's go Zen. We have a lot do do in a short amount of time. We can still save her if we act now."

"Huh? Me too? What do you expect me to do?"

"Only what you can." He grabbed Zen and started pulling him towards the exit. Before he knew it, they were in a horse drawn cart racing out of the city. The cool wind ruffled his hair and he was instantly asleep on an adventure that he never expected.

Frost

Frost sat down next to the glowing pool of water and let out a contented sigh as he leaned back to take a break. An entire day of completing quests for a bunch of energetic fairies drained him of all his energy and he would need to get some sleep soon. After spending a few days completing quests for the earth fairies, he had developed something of a habit. Before he logged out, Frost liked to spend a little bit of time sitting by the pool of water, usually having a conversation with Seraya, the lady who watched over the fairies. She was like a mother to them, and they were certainly comparable to children, though many of them were much older than him.

Frost took a look at his stats that had changed drastically over the last few days with the help of a great number of quests. The quests he had been doing were quests that recommended level of thirty and higher. More than once he had nearly died to simple mobs such as giant moles and different cave demons that he killed to protect his new friends. Some of the quests he was given even had dire consequences that would have resulted in damage and death to some of the fairies. It was all worth it though, because he had reached level thirty two in just a few days, despite his leveling "disadvantage". Looking at his stats, he could only see the positive side to hero's burden and it brought a confident smirk to his face.

Frost Winterstorm Lvl 32Health 835Shadow Energy 210/210Stamina 487/810Strength106Vitality85Dexterity90Stamina90Wisdom40Intelligence60Agility150Luck45Health Regeneration0.95/sEnergy Regeneration0.40/s

Seraya sat down next to him, dipping her hand into the water and swirling it around with a serious look on her face. "Frost, can I ask you a question."

"Of course."

"What do you fight for?" she turned to him with a look of concern on her face as she asked.

The question caught him off guard and he wasn't sure of how he wanted to answer that question. "I guess...so that I can be the strongest."

"Why?"

"So that I can be the best. So that I won't lose to anyone."

"What then?" she asked as she turned back to the water. "When you've become stronger than everyone else, when there's no one left to defeat, what will you do then?"

He sighed. "I'm not really sure. If I wanted, I could spend the rest of my life as a shut in, playing games and wasting away. Maybe when this game is over, I'll just quit all of this and move on to something else. I know I've spent a lot of time working for just this, but I don't really know if I want to keep doing this kind of thing or if I'll regret it later on." Hedidn't expect her to comprehend what he was saying, so her reply caused his eyes to open in surprise.

"I think I am beginning to understand. I have seen your story before and I know why you are troubled. You are someone who grew up without having to work, and everything you ever needed was given to you. You haven't known poverty and so you haven't had to work for a living. You don't know the hardships of loss as you have never had a loved one die. Life has been far too easy for you, and you have no real driving force to help you decide which actions to take."

"You have no real reason to be the best, other than that someone told you to do it. You have no mortal enemy to drive you to be better than yourself, and no powerful love or friendship to help you grow. You are alone in everything you do because everyone is so distant from you. Most importantly, you don't know what it means to lose, and so you lack the drive to win that makes the greatest people able to do things that seem impossible to others. I'm not saying that you too can't be great, only that, one day there will be a time when you will fail. Someone equally as skilled as you are will come along, and they will defeat you because their reasons are much greater than yours."

"What, so I'm supposed to watch my parents die or fall in love to become stronger, better at a game? That's stupid. Just because I don't have major issues, I can't be special?"

"No!" She glared at him to stop him from arguing, but immediately after, her gaze became soft. "That isn't what I mean, foolish boy. I just mean that you need to find a reason for what you do. There are other paths than one that brings you pain and suffering. You don't need to fall before you can begin to climb, you simply need to find a handhold, a way up the mountain before you. I know you can become great some day, and I just want to help you find your path." She hugged him, bringing his head to her shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

He wanted to argue with her, to say that he would be the strongest no matter what, but he knew she was right. His reasons for winning were nothing more than a lie he told to himself because he didn't know what else to do. Seraya had managed to hit the nail on the head, so easily seeing past the front that he put up to convince everyone else that nothing was wrong. He had even convinced himself that if he just kept telling himself to get stronger, and just kept trying, everything would work out.

Truthfully, he was afraid of what he would be in the future, if he continued to live the way he was raised. He had wanted to believe that everything was okay, and that he could just ignore his fears. In Seraya's warm embrace, he stopped thinking about everything painful and simply let his tears fall out. They were tears of frustration and a way to let out the stress that had been building up over the years. He knew that she wouldn't judge him, and that she would support him. In her arms there was nothing but a soft comfort that soon caused him to fall asleep.

When Frost awoke, he was staring at a ceiling cloaked in shadow, too far away for any of the lights in the room to reach. He sat up and observed something he had never seen before. Seraya hovered just above the water, tending to a grid of pulsing orbs that shed a dull light. Her hands brushed across the orbs softly, coming to rest on a purple orb that started to pulse more rapidly. She cupped it with her hands as though it was fragile and precious, gingerly blowing on it as if to nurture it. Frost had no idea what the magical framework was for, but he watched in entranced silence as Seraya tenderly began to turn and pull on the orb as if extracting something from it. The process lasted a few more minutes, until she pulled back from the orb, raising her arms and flicking her wrist, causing the orbs to disappear.

She sank down until her feet touched the water and began to walk back to the shore on top of the ever luminescent pool. She smiled and then giggled as she looked in his direction, a knowing smile on her face.

"Now this is something I have not seen in a long time."

"A person sleeping? How long was I out?"

"Long enough, but that's not what I meant." Her smile grew slightly wider as she gestured for him to turn around. Frost turned around and laughed as he saw the pile of fairies, pillows and blankets behind him. The childlike people were sprawled about in strange positions, leaning on each other and draped over one another.

"Why are they sleeping here."

"They wanted to be there when you woke up so that they could ask you to do more tasks. I hope it's not too much. I can ask them to stop bothering you if you'd like me to do so."

"No, no, it's perfectly alright. In fact, these past couple of days have been great thanks to them, and to you of course." Frost stood up and dusted himself off, smirking at the fairies as he stretched, preparing to take on another day's worth of quests. He expected they would have run out of tasks but they always seemed to have more things for him to do. He avoided looking at Seraya, a little embarrassed by the conversation of the previous day.

Frost was considering waking them to save time and escape the awkward silence when Seraya spoke up. "Frost. I want to show you something." She held out her hand, palm up in a gesture for him to take it. He took her hand and allowed her to lead him to one of the short passageways in the wall. They had to bend down to get through, but the ceiling gradually increased in height until they were able to walk comfortably without needing to duck. Multiple tunnels crossed paths with the one they were in, all shorter than the one Seraya was leading him through. It twisted and turned, moving deeper into the mountains, until there were no longer any signs of other tunnels. They reached a set of spiral stairs leading down into the mountain where Seraya stopped and motioned for him to go on alone.

"It's up to you what you find down there, Frost. Whatever you do find, don't let it change who you are." Frost stared down into the darkness of the stairwell, getting an ominous feel from more than just her words. He took the first step along the path that would change his life when he placed a foot on the first stair.