Hear…

Gulls circled on high against the pale blue sky and the beating-down sun when her eyes opened. The sun seared into her corneas, and immediately she closed her eyes and blinked. In that moment, she discovered that she couldn’t breathe, that her lungs were full of liquid. She thrashed and managed to roll over as she retched out the contents of her lungs and her stomach, vomiting copious amounts of seawater. She coughed up the last of it, upchucking a small lump of kelp stuck in her oesophagus, before collapsing to the white sand and doing her best to catch her breath, her chest expanding and contracting, greedily sucking down air. She turned her head to the right, looking out at the roiling sea. There was copious evidence of a shipwreck off to one side, shattered masts and torn canvas sails strewn haphazardly about the shore. She scrambled, then, to her feet, looking out at the ocean from which she had presumably washed up, doing her best to scour her mind for the last thing she remembered.

Hear… Feel…

She staggered as the phantom pain of being shot erupted across her torso, and for a moment, she was convinced that the event was occurring once more. Patting herself down almost frantically, she was relieved to find that none of the bloody holes that the bullets that had shredded her body to a pulp had left behind were there, nor was there any evidence that they were ever there to begin with. She was dressed in clothes so ruined that it was difficult to tell what colour they were initially, let alone their designs. The clothes she wore meant that she couldn’t place the era either. After all, she watched isekai anime. She knew that that was how this went—she died in her world and wound up in another. After all, Occam’s razor, which dictated that the simplest answer was usually the correct one, allowed her to class the idea of her having somehow survived being shot and being dragged to the beach, before being miraculously healed of the gunshot wounds, as being far more complex, and therefore far less likely, than simple reincarnation a la the isekai genre. The exact details of her death—like who shot her how many times and for what reason—were fuzzy, but then again, so was everything right then. Every thought that passed through her brain shot a lancing pain through her skull.

Hear… Feel… Think…

“The fuck are you on about?!” she cried out at the sky, keenly aware of how insane she must have looked, but equally uncaring on that score. She had bigger problems, like how that woman’s voice sent excruciating agony shooting down from her head through her entire body.

Find… Me…

That command sent her to her knees in pain. “Getting really fucking sick of this shit…”

All the same, the sensation quickly passed, and she stood once more, looking around. Directly to her left, then, was a cliff face with the yawning maw of a cave, a cave that she hoped would carry her further inland. She tried to walk towards the cliff face, but her knees buckled beneath her, sending her sprawling face-first into the sand.

She picked herself up and immediately set about dusting herself off. “Alright, gotta take this slow. Let’s see… Come on, just put one foot in front of the other… That’s it… Um… Fuck, what’s my name again?!”

This situation is fucked. I can’t even remember my own name… she thought to herself; nevertheless, she plodded forth, making certain her footing was assured before she took another step. It was slow going, akin to walking in ski boots, but she managed to make it to the cave mouth before the sun had hit its zenith. Looking in at the yawning darkness within the cavern, she sighed and proceeded.

The cavern’s maw was filled with long shadows coming from the strong sun outside. She stepped carefully within, and with every step she took from the light of the sun, she felt herself grow slightly stronger, until at last her stride was not so staggered as it had been before. She walked through the cave, keeping her hand to the left wall as she walked, just in case the path forked. It didn’t—it was more like an actual cave system than the ones she was used to in video games. It wasn’t incredibly expansive, and eventually she came upon what looked to be the ruins of a temple of some kind that once existed nestled into the cave. There was a certain bluish radiance that came from deeper within, casting flickering and shifting shadows that seemed to writhe like something alive. Walking into the temple, she cleared an archway, and came upon a chamber that caused her to revise all her previous assessments of this cave system.

It was a chamber that was approximately three stories from floor to ceiling, if her reckoning was correct. There was a winding stone path that curled helically down to the floor of the area, and she could spy from her vantage point on the other side of the chamber a similar helical path that made the entire system of paths into a double-helix. But that was not what immediately caught her eye.

No, what immediately caught her eye was the massive, gargantuan, pale-blue crystal that rested in the centre of the chamber, bathing the entire cave system in its irrepressible radiance.

Walking down the path, after some time she came at last to the bottom of the chamber. There was an altar before the crystal, she could see, together with a great deal of iconography depicting indecipherable and esoteric scenes. Stepping forth, then, she brushed her hand along the smooth stone surface of the altar, and then decided to turn her gaze to the crystal. The enormity of its brilliance almost drove her to her knees, almost caused her to look away. She didn’t, of course, but it was a close thing. She still shielded her eyes, unused to such light even after the brightness of the sun outside—this was on an entirely different level. She reached out to the crystal, and laid her hand upon it.

Pain shot through her body, driving her to her knees and lancing into her skull like a railroad spike. She saw a quick procession of images, each more strange, alien and esoteric than the last. It seemed like a mental assault, as though it was an attempt to drive her to madness. And then, as quickly as the assault commenced, it ended, and the crystal, which had before been static, now began to spin on its axis, slowly, laconically, but undeniably spinning.

Welcome, child of another star. Welcome to this sacred place…

“And the crystal talks. Because of course it does…”

Long have we waited for the one who might awaken us…

“Please don’t say I’m some mystical Chosen One. That would really take the piss…”

Take this, the last sliver of power we are able to grant…

Searing pain shot up her arm, and she heard her heart beating loudly in her chest, sending sharp, stabbing agonies through her body.

Arise, Fallen One, and claim thee thy birthright…

“Fallen One? That’s new…” she mused to herself. She looked up at what was happening, and immediately was alarmed to see a black-and-red connection of energy forming between herself and the crystal. She didn’t know what was going on, but she recognised those colours, and recognised that they usually meant nothing good.

Serve… Save… Slave… Slay…

She clutched her head with one hand, unable to move her other, as a different kind of pain, the shrieking of the dead, the butchered, the forgotten, rose up in her mind like bile in her gorge, all while the feeling of being burnt at the stake mounted and spiked.

Is this it? Is this all that awaits?

No… No more… Enough…

Open your eyes. Do you see now? Do you see?

Girl…! Girl!

Then, there was a flash of violet light, an explosion that blew her back, and she hit her head on the back wall of the chamber as she crashed hard into the living rock of the cavern. Blearily, she blinked, and she looked up from where she was, only to see a figure in armour standing above her. The figure knelt before her, and looked down at her. It was impossible to determine the sex of the figure simply by looking upon them, clad as they were entirely in obscuring black plate. The helm they wore was close-faced, and as such, none of the facial features shone through—save for the gaze, which was clear, sharp, and focused, reminding her of the predatory precision of a bird of prey, and yet somehow, she knew that they were not focused on hunting her.

“I’ve been waiting for you to open your eyes,” said the figure. The voice that came from the helmet was distorted and therefore androgynous; in this, too, she had no idea what sex to attribute to her…caretaker? They reached out, and she reached up to grab ahold of their icy metal grasp. “You alright? You took a pretty nasty hit to the head, there. Name’s Frey. And no, I’m not here to kill you. Though the last couple of poor sods to come this way weren’t so easily convinced of that. They attacked me, and, well, needless to say that course of action was…rather ill-advised… But how about you? You touched it, didn’t you? That must have been rather harrowing.”

“You could say that,” she said as the person, Frey, lifted her to her feet. “I heard…things. Something like…thousands of people crying out in pain in their last moments before their voices were silenced… And through it all, I heard someone… Someone who seemed…angry, almost.”

“Voices, eh? And one was stronger than the others?” mused Frey. “Well. Before we leave this gods-forsaken cavern, we have to talk about what’s happening to you, the thing that is now gestating within you, if you’ll pardon the unfortunate pun.

“In every person, there is something called ‘the dark side of the mind.’ It’s entirely harmless, if a bit vexing at times. But something that crystal over yonder did…” Frey jerked their head towards the crystal, which now showed through with a dark and maleficent malignance, casting ever more perfidious shadows around the chamber. “...It changed you. Fundamentally. It altered you and gave you the ability to channel that darkness.”

Frey’s eyes began to glint and glow an infernal scarlet hue. She took a step back without meaning to, on reflex. “Without proper instruction, mind, and well… It might smart just a bit more than you’re used to.”

With that, Frey crossed their arms and leaned back against the wall. “So, go ahead.”

“Go ahead?” she parroted.

“Go ahead. Ask me to teach you to harness the darkness that even now roils tumultuously within you, apparent to any and all who have but eyes to see it,” Frey replied. “All you have to do is ask, and I will. But be forewarned. Those with these…abilities…are feared and reviled throughout the land. It’s not their fault—it’s an instinct. In their eyes, we embody the parts of themselves that they would much rather forget exist. Fools, the lot of them, I say—but largely understandable. By undertaking this path, however, you must first cast aside your pride, and indeed any thought of glory. We follow our hearts, not our coffers. We are not mercenaries—we are defenders of the weak and punishers of the wicked. We have no formal code, nor do we have any obligation to follow anything but our own consciences. And that…that freedom… It frightens people, specifically powerful people who stand to lose that power that they have so perfidiously gained and maintained should ever they abuse it. We aren’t heroes. We’re not even, strictly speaking, good people. We have no need of that kind of sanctimony. We’re merely those who seek to do what we think is right. Knowing all of this, do you still wish to embark?”

“Do I have a choice?” she asked.

“Theoretically? Everyone has a choice,” replied Frey. “More practically, however? No, not really. Whatever that crystal did to you, it’s irreversible. Trust me—wiser and more experienced than you have tried. Tried, and died.”

“Well, I suppose that answers that question, then,” said she.

“Indeed,” said Frey.

“Well then, Frey, I am in your hands.”

Frey nodded, pushed off of the rock wall, and walked towards the path up and out of the cavern. She followed, through the path winding upwards towards the strong sun. Or so she thought—at the moment, however, night was reclaiming the heavens. Following the equivalent of walking up three flights of steps on a cave floor—barefoot, she might add—she walked out into the darkness that immediately followed the setting of the sun. She walked out of the cave mouth, and got precisely thirty metres away from it before Frey stopped, turned, and placed a hand on her chest to make absolutely certain she stopped. “Lesson number one. The darkness within you will give you strength, but it comes at a price. It is a sacrifice we all make, but justice…justice demands no less.

“Lesson number two. Saving one person necessarily means damning another. But it is a necessary sacrifice, for indecision and inaction damns both. Do you follow?” Frey continued.

She nodded.

“Good. Well, at the very least you don’t hold to that fool notion that everyone can be saved. That’s more than most of the half-cocked morons I usually have to teach.” Frey sighed. “That which lurks within you, just beneath the surface, thrashing like a beast to try to escape even now—that is what we call the Darkside. Fear, pain, rage—these emotions, buried at the very base of your soul, these are what fuel it. And they are powerful. But with power comes danger, the danger of being submerged, consumed. To deal with the Darkside is to teeter at the end of sanity, on the very verge of being destroyed by it. But if you can balance on that knife’s edge, that is where true power lies. Worry not, however; in every journey, no matter how long or arduous, the most difficult task is invariably to take the first step over the threshold.

“The process of accessing one’s Darkside is similar to weaving quintessence,” continued Frey. “Search your soul for it. Dig deep within. Call to it, and it will answer. Do it now. Only a sliver is needed.”

She nodded, and closed her eyes. As Frey said, just beneath the surface, she could feel something writhing, deeper down than she had ever experienced. She thought to herself, So this must be what a soul feels like…

She remembered, then. Remembered what it felt like to be completely inundated with pleading cries for aid, for mercy, for a hero or some absent god to save them. The screams rose as she did this, and suddenly, she realised that she was no longer remembering—no, she was hearing them anew.

One foot…in front of the other… Over and over again… To the ends of the world, and back again… And if time has no end, still forward and onward…over and over again…

Serve…

Save…

Slave…

Slay…

Those last four words, each of them was like a nail being driven into her body, into the fabric of her very soul. It was pain unlike any she had ever experienced.

“That’s it… You are on the very cusp of it… The cusp of true strength… Embrace it! Strength is pain. Strength is suffering. Strength is sacrifice…” Frey encouraged.

She stood, and that in itself was strange—she did not remember her knees buckling beneath her, at least not this particular time. Swirling around her was a black-and-scarlet miasma, and she lifted her hands to her view, closing them into fists. All confusion, all doubt was burned away in the fires of agony that even now raged within her, and all that remained…

“Now, release it, slowly now. I know it’s a heady drug, but the more you partake of it, the closer you come to dying, or worse. You’re not ready to handle much more. Let it go… It won’t want to, but it must. You are the master. The Darkside is of no greater magnitude than you yourself. It is a part of you. It is not the other way around, no matter how it feels. And, believe me, I know how it feels. Breathe. In, then out. Listen to my words. Listen to your heartbeat. They will guide you out.”

She nodded sharply. Taking a deep breath through her nose, she let it out slowly, in a hiss, from between her lips. Then the fog of pain, of misery, of raw, unbridled power slowly began to ebb and clear, and at last, she was free. That was when the exhaustion hit her with all the force of a speeding locomotive, and she collapsed to her knees, gasping for air.

“That is why we do not drink too deep. I told you that the power the Darkside granted would demand a price. This is that price. Your life force is siphoned in order to maintain your empowered state. Quintessence, that which a mage might quantify and dub ‘MP’, that is what is needed. The fatigue, the bone-deep exhaustion you feel right now—that is the world, the planet itself doing its level best to erase you from existence.”

“Why?!”

“Because you brought something that, in its estimation, should not exist out into it. It will tear the magic that radiates from you away from you as quickly as it can, and you exude magic faster than it can be torn away. Thus, if you do not manage to replenish your stores of MP before you run out, your soul will slowly be erased from the fabric of this reality.”

“Hardly seems fair,” she chuckled grimly.

“The Planet’s a vicious bitch, no two ways about it,” remarked Frey, walking over to her and putting their hand out. She reached up and grasped it, and they hauled her to her feet. “Now, it’s time to continue. The dawn is almost here.”

“Dawn…?! How long are the nights here?!”

“Roughly sixteen hours in the winter. About nine or ten in the summer. The other two seasons? Somewhere between those two figures,” said Frey.

“That can’t be correct! We’ve only been out here…”

“...Approximately eleven hours?” supplied Frey.

“...What?!”

“I do not believe I neglected to mention that the first step over the threshold was always the most difficult,” replied Frey. “The first communion with the Darkside always takes the longest, and usually by far. I once taught a dunce who took a full three days to even perceive of his Darkside, and he was somewhat quicker about it than average. The dark path is not easily tread, and for that reason, it is not well-tread at all. It takes time and dedication, and in your case, no small amount of natural talent. I’m impressed.”

“Well then, I guess that’s somewhat okay,” she said with a sigh. “I only ask that you let me know in the future when you’re about to pull a time dilation stunt like that.”

“Of course. Unfortunately, I must leave you for now. Our time together has come to an end, it seems.”

“What?! Where am I supposed to go?!”

“How should I know?” returned Frey with a shrug. “My best advice would be to choose a direction and start walking.”

With that, they walked away, waving, until at last they disappeared into the ravenous shadows of the predawn hours.

She huffed and looked to the horizon. Indeed, the night sky seemed to be dulling from its umbral brilliance into a uniform grey colour. She regretted immediately not doing some stargazing; where she lived in her previous life, the light pollution blotted out all the stars, leaving only the lonely moon hanging in its clouded, inconstant orbit. She sighed, and looked back down to the earth, and stomped her foot onto the ground, fretting, “But I don’t even know my name!

“Oh well. What was it the voice said? That’s right. One foot in front of the other… One foot…in front of the other…”

She came with the dawn.

Decades, centuries, millennia later, this line was always the first used when speaking of the legend of the Fallen One. It seemed almost an obligation for the oral traditionalists of the world, and later, when the tales were transcribed, and the Fallen One’s accomplishments were penned to parchment, this line still persisted. It persisted even as so-called ‘historians’ centuries later called the historical value of the tales into doubt, and then finally, in their hubris, deemed her exploits, and thus those of the Laughing Tree, to be largely fictitious. It persisted as those same charlatans came to believe that the narrative constructed therein was entirely false, a parable used alternatively as an inspirational and cautionary anecdote.

As the many stories of the exploits of the Fallen One and her fellows passed into history, then into legend, and thus, therefore, into myth, through numerous rewritings, political doctorings, and moral sanitisings, the one line that remained unchanged, untouched as though it was sacrosanct, was the first.

‘She came with the dawn.’

Of course, as was the case with most things that are looked upon in retrospect, the arrival of the Fallen One was not so immediately auspicious as the storytellers and chronicle-writers would have one believe. When she came to the city’s gates and passed beneath the marble arches along with an influx of merchants and an outflow of farmers and landowners who were wealthy enough to live within city limits, it was not to fanfare, nor to praise. She was not immediately hailed as a saviour. In this, perhaps, the charlatans who profess, falsely, to be students of history, while simultaneously turning their backs on it, had a point. But as even a broken horologe is correct twice a day, this was hardly significant.

No, in those days, it was talk of the exploits of but a single company of heroes that littered the streets, and it was most decidedly not the Laughing Tree. In fact, if one were to walk those streets on that same day when the Fallen One arrived, and to ask random passers-by to pick out the Laughing Tree from the veritable mobs of adventuring companies, five-man-bands who wished to be heroes, sometimes for fame and fortune, and other times for more complicated reasons, such as the pursuit of a dream or aught like that, who thronged throughout and operated out of the Guilds of Adventurers that could be found in each of the four Free Cities (though those piteous fools who went directly to the headquarters of the Guild in the Grand Duchy of Rosenfaire, were swiftly and pitilessly, and often unceremoniously, rebuffed, Rosenfaire being the nominal capital of the region, though it had little governmental authority over its fellow Free Cities) they would be hard-pressed to find any who recognised that name. Those who did were uniformly elderly, stooped and gnarled men and women of various races, who spoke of the adventuring company of yesteryear, whose exploits the aforementioned company of heroes had long since eclipsed in the minds of the commonfolk; they did not speak of any of the names the hypothetical visitor from the future walking those streets would recognise.

In those days, the sole company of heroes, based out of the predominantly hume Free City known as the Republic of Bantamoor, whose names were in common parlance, was the Warriors of Light.

Thus did the Fallen One’s arrival go without auspice and without portent.

Walking through the streets of the city was as much of a drag as traversing a large metropolitan area had ever been for her. She passed many men and women of varying races who stopped and stared at her, and it perplexed her. She supposed that few people had seen a human here in recent times with how much of a novelty she seemed to be.

Funnily enough, a moment of startling realisation immediately succeeded that moment of supposition. This moment came when she passed by a mirror being held in front of a market stall. She only saw her reflection out of the corner of her eye, at first, but she didn’t have the security in her own sanity to dismiss it as merely a trick of the light. She backpedaled almost as soon as she noticed it, and stared into the depths of the looking-glass, studying her face and her features.

To this point, she had assumed that she was still wholly human. What she saw in that mirror marked that perception as patently false.

The first thing she recognised was that her features, what few of them were still remotely human, were beyond beautiful. They were ethereal. Her face was soft in both curve and contour, and her long hair that tumbled down her shoulders in a tangled mess caked with kelp petrified in the driving sun of the previous day and matted with dried seawater, was raven, the purest black that was an immediate contrast to her milky-white flesh.

The next thing she noticed were the eyes. Their pupils were slits, not like a cat’s, which would reliably dilate in low light, but rather like some kind of reptile’s, which wouldn’t. Add to that the fact that her eyes glittered and glinted an amethyst hue and with that stone’s lustre, and she was nearly startled out of her reflection. Nearly, but not quite.

Brushing her long raven locks—and wouldn’t those be a fucking delight to care for and maintain—out of her face, she touched her skin, and came into contact with what could only be described as pale white scales. They were thin and delicate, so much so that they gave quite a bit more than a reptile’s would, but the underlying texture and structure were the same. Following her scales backwards—and there were quite a few places where the scales encroached upon her skin, forming patterns that even she had to admit were fascinating, making her wonder if she had scales on other parts of her body, even though a single cursory glance at the back of her hand would tell her definitively that yes, yes there were—she did not encounter ears as she had expected, but, and she had no idea how she had failed to notice this prior, horns. They were not like a rhinoceros’s horn, made from matted hair—no, these were purer than ivory, with the hue and texture, though not the hollowness, of bone. They were curved, turning out and forwards with a slight downward slope into a gentle inverted S shape, and helped to frame her face, and most importantly, they connected to her skull where her ears would have otherwise been.

“Oi! If yer gonna look so intently at it, buy it or scram!”

She started. Looking in the direction of the stall, she saw a small person, perhaps going up to her mid-thigh in height—and to call her ‘petite’ was to put it lightly—whose head was encased in a helmet with a most prodigious beard attached, directing his gaze at her, which was strange because of the fact that, since the helmet seemed several times too large for his head, his eyes, and therefore the intensity of his gaze, were shrouded in shadow, leaving two luminous pseudo-‘eyes’ staring out at her.

“Yeah, I’m talking ta ye! Don’t ye go thinkin’ I’m daft enough ta believe that ol’ wives’ tale tha’ ye drahn are all bloody deaf! This dwarf knows ye don’t need ears ta hear her!”

“Wait, her?! And the fuck’s a drahn?”

The—apparently female—dwarf (and wasn’t that a confusion and a half) stared at her like she had grown six heads. “Tha bloody Hel…! Are ye touched, lass?! Yer a drahn! Descendents of dragons?! Tha dwarves’ natural enemies?! Even if ye were bundled up all furtive-like, like most o’ yer kin, ye’d easily be recognised by yer tail!”

The apparent drahn—who still didn’t know her own name—nodded in comprehension, before she started again. “Wait, I have a tail?!”

“Ye really are touched, ain’t ye?” sighed the dwarf. “Bang yer head or suchlike?”

“You…could say that…” said the drahn, looking back at her posterior and immediately noticing what the dwarf was talking about. “Oh. That’s what you were referring to…”

The tail was a long, slim appendage, going from her backside down to her ankles, plated in the same pale scales that marked the rest of her body, and with a spade at the end to really drive home what the dwarf had said. Descendents of dragons…

The dwarf sighed again. “An’ I suppose yer here ta become an adventurer, or somesuch nonsense?”

“I…suppose… I’m quite new to this land. I don’t even know where I am right now beyond the vague terminology of ‘a city.’ A primer would be much appreciated.”

The dwarf looked to the left and to the right. “Crystals alone know why I’m doin’ this… Go ta th’ Guild o’ Adventurers. Ye cannae miss it—’tis a bloody big building, an inn, mos’ like, near tha Artisans’ District. Go in, an’ ask fer a dwarf named Maerwhentt. They’ll try ta give ye tha run-around, tell ye there’s nahbady callin’ themselves tha’. They’d be righ’, bu’ tell ‘em ol’ Gwenett sent ye, an’ they’ll let ye talk to tha Host—tha’s tha head o’ tha Guild. Then, explain yer situation, an’ they’ll bloody well get ye ou’fi’ed wi’ tha bare essentials.”

“Thank you, Gwenett,” replied the drahn.

The dwarf nodded. “I’ll jus’ chalk i’ up as me good deed fer tha day. Now, off wi’ ye. I’ve wasted enough time entertainin’ ye. I’d charge ye if ye looked ta have even a gil ta yer name. Jus’ dinnae go spreadin’ around tha’ I helped ye. I’m na runnin’ a chari’y, here. I hafta eat, too, ye know.”

The drahn bowed, and beat a hasty retreat as the dwarf shooed her away.

“Okay, Guild of Adventurer. Guild of Adventurers…” she muttered to herself as she walked the streets, no longer wandering aimlessly, but travelling with purpose. It didn’t take long before she came upon a huge building, easily three and a half stories tall, and above the door was written ‘Maelnaulde Guild of Adventurers.’

The building was squat despite its height, and like the rest of the city seemed to be constructed in an analogue of the neo-Gothic style. It was in the steepled arches of the windows and the doors, really, and in the pale-grey stone of its construction. Unlike cities from Earth contemporary with the style, the roads were not dirt—past the city gates, they were uniformly made from cobblestone.

“So, I suppose this anachronistic time capsule—and isn’t that a concept and a half—is Maelnaulde. Good to know.” She walked up the stone stairs to the heavy iron-reinforced wooden double-doors, and cast them wide open. With the eyes of every adventurer in the Guild suddenly fixed squarely upon her, she smirked.

And so it begins…