Prologue

On a rainy day in a small village a boy was walking through the streets. He stood 1 meter and 80 centimetres tall, had dark brown hair and his dark brown irises were only broken by his pupil and the whites of his eye.

Seemingly lost in thought, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, as his eyes were only focused on the small notebook in his left hand. He carefully turned the pages over to look at all the irredeemable nonsense he had been wasting this leather-bound notebook on for the last six months.

Scribbles of fleeting images hypothesizes on absolute ludicrous theories and descriptions of concepts that even a child would find impossible to create. Yet he had written it all down, he had used every page to immortalize those ludicrous thoughts, and he had enjoyed every moment of it.

He walked down the sidewalk with a grin on his face and his eyes focused solely on the notebook in front of him.

His senses dulled by the rain and his nonsensical scribbles, he did not hear the screams coming from across the road, he did not see anything but the booklet, he only felt the impact.

In his last moments in this world, he heard a voice. It was clear despite the sounds of the rain, the shouts of people running towards him and the high-pitched ring that had overtaken his ears. The voice was all around him, it surrounded his mind and penetrated through the blurry haze that the concussion had given him, and it asked him one question.

“What do you value more, your memories or your thoughts?”

Yet where a matter of the heart reigned supreme, another place didn’t require the judgement of a jovial and slightly off teen, instead it required the guidance of an old and wise leader.

In all the vastness of the realm beyond earth, only one man could be found which fit this description. Old yet sharp, wise yet eager, and charismatic yet humble. He was a man that had lived through centuries of watching over his domain, yet when the time once again arrived to fight those that sought to harm it, he couldn’t.

The reason, or reasons, for his passiveness were sitting right in front of them, having a heated discussion about hot air.

“Damnit Halian, I know this can only be you! No one’s farts smell this bad!”

The old one sighed as he looked at the druid’s reddening face, the scorn filled expression of the female knight, and sighed again.

He straightened his back and sat upright in his chair, which, surprisingly, immediately silenced the bickering youths. Well, if you call being close to two centuries old young.

The room immediately silenced as seven mouths shut and seven pairs of eyes were directed at him.

‘Had they thought me asleep? They don’t cause such a ruckus when I’m around.’

The old one gave up on the notion of seeing these centuries old leaders as adults, as they had clearly failed to provide a reason for him to. They acted like scared children in front of the big adult when he was around, instead of the authoritative figures, or at least the young adults, they are meant to be.

He caught their attention with a wave of his hand, and a parchment appeared in his hand.

“Brothers, sisters, we stand at the front of a rushing sea made from hordes upon hordes of monsters the likes we haven’t seen since the siege of Beinn Ranncrith. The creatures of the wastelands are stirring, yet we don’t know what has caused this.”

He was met with the understanding gazes of seven individuals, they had seemed to swap from children arguing on the playground to the adults, or young adults, they were.

‘Maybe there is hope for them yet.’

The old one relaxed for a moment, before adding with a soft tone:

“So, what will we do?”

The question had lit a fuse under the table, as all seven representatives burst up from their charge and announced their ideas. It quickly became a chorus of unintelligible cacophony, making the old one swallow his words.

He was about to intervene, as the voice of the young knight rose above the others and silenced them.

“I say we attack those damned goblins, orcs, and whatever else the wastelands throw at us! The kingdom of Eleanor has endured the green tides for centuries, and we will do so for centuries to come!”

Yet the fire in her eyes was quickly dimmed as the person opposite her retorted.

“I get your point, yet we should look for more solutions than to simply ‘endure’. The tree’s roots may be endless, but our numbers, defences or equipment aren’t. I suggest that we bolster the defences on our southern border by recruiting from the smaller villages, and by deploying a regiment of dryads to...”

He couldn’t even finish his sentence, as the druid’s face lit up once again.

“Lyrian, how dare you ask the world tree for help?! We can’t ask the world tree to defend us! It has already graced us enough with allowing us to reside in these sacred woods, it would be arrogant to ask more of it!”

A gruff looking man to Halian’s right supported him.

“He’s right. We can’t always hide behind the world tree, if we did, it would wither faster than your clan’s trustworthiness.”

“Oh really? In that case what do you suggest, Malar?”

The rugged man smiled.

“I agree with you on the first thing, we should bolster our defences along the southern border, yet we could also get help from somewhere else. I suggest that we have the northern kingdoms send out expeditions into the wastelands to grind down the number of monsters there. Vassals states should be useful for something right?”

Lyrian eyes flared.

“So, we’re going to leave the human kingdoms exposed? If they suffer defeat, they wouldn’t have enough strength to hold their own.”

Malar’s smile only widened.

“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy. We both know that if there is any race that can match the fertilization rate of the gobs, it would be the dinol. Besides, those pink meat bags have been doing fine on their own, what’s a few more or less to them?”

Yet his smile quickly faded as the man opposite of him burst up from his chair and announced with a loud voice.

“What are you, nuts? If we leave the human kingdoms exposed to go on these ‘expeditions’ you speak of, we won’t have any trade! We will lose our supply of food, ore, salt, pepper, sugar, equipment, alchemic catalyst and so much more! We can’t produce everything in the forest, half our population would starve to death! So, ‘a few more or less’ may not be important to you in your ivory tower, but it is to us!”

The man took a slight breath and widened his focus from the man opposite of him to the other seven figures.

“I suggest that we hire mercenaries, adventurers, maybe even a mage guild just to stem the tide. We could even buy combat slaves and have them act as meat shields!”

Yet where his remarks were previously met with agreement, the last sentence killed any empathy the other figures had, as they rose up like one and drowned the room in their overbearing discourse, returning it to the chorus of incoherent gibberish it once was.

The old one sank back into his chair, staring past all the figures in the room, and into the forest beyond. His mind travelled through the endless sea of roots like a fish through water, yet he was abruptly returned to his body as his soothing dive was shattered by a scream of agony echoing through the woods.

The powerful emotions had been clear, as the desperate wails mounted the stage for a cry of desperation, shocking even the old one for a moment, before returning him to his body.

The cry had startled him, yet it had also cleared his mind, and it reminded him why he was even attending these meetings.

With a voice filled with vigour and frustration he shouted: “Silence!”

His thoughts reached out to his duties, yet the scream of anguish that had awoken his vigour was invoked by something he couldn’t do anything against. It was something natural, yet cruel and quite audible. The tranquillity of the night was broken by the soft sobbing of a woman and the relentless comforting of a man.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.”

He held her close, whispering sweet words into her ear as tears rolled down his cheeks. He said it again and again, not even noticing that his wife had long fallen asleep from exhaustion, both mentally and physically.

He finally opened his eyes, only to find a sleeping beauty in his arms. He quietly laid her down on the bed, only to quickly distance himself from both her, and the deformed heap of flesh that stained the other end of the bed.

With a downcast expression and silent steps, he exited the room and headed for the kitchen where it took him only seconds to find what he wanted. The bottle hit the wooden table hard, creating a soft *thump* that resounded through the room.

He pulled back one of the chairs, sat down, and slumped down on the table, crying into his arms, muttering something about ‘weak’ and ‘stupid’. His mourns lasted for several more minutes, filling the rooms with silent wails of desperation and filling his eyes with water as his cheeks were flooded by his emotions.

The liquor only fuelled his emotions, causing his soft mumbling to turn into drunken gibberish, only broken by the occasional sob.

Yet his drunken wails were disturbed by a cry from outside. It wasn’t of pain, sadness, nor any other negative emotion. It was a cry that solicited help. His mind sobered up as he turned towards the source of the cry, finding that it originated from outside.

He ran towards the source, yet in his drunken stupor it took him more than a minute to cross the small room. He stumbled several times, before finding purchase on the oaken door. His hands searched for the handle, finding it after an excruciating long time.

He opened it immediately, slamming the door against the wall in his clumsiness. He winced at the sound it created, yet shivers ran down his spine when he finally looked for the origin of the sound.

He did not find it, yet what he did find was a spider. A spider the size of a dog, with pure white skin reflecting the moonlight like marble, and small specks of white in its empty eye sockets.

His eyes widened, staring at the pale creature in front of it. He knew what is was, yet he couldn’t figure out what it was doing here, especially making such noise.

‘Had they evolved to attract people with the sound of a crying child?’

Another cry ran out, fixating his gaze at his feet where a small basket had been lain on the floor. He had all but forgotten about the spider, as he carefully yet hurriedly removed the blanket.

The blanket was quickly pulled away, slightly tearing in the process, yet when he saw the contents he found himself overwhelmed by emotions.

He looked upon the pale skin of the creature below, gawking at the deep brown eyes which captivated his own for minutes. His thoughts were jumbled as he couldn’t begin to comprehend what is was doing here.

‘It’s a-a dinol… a baby.’