Loneliness permeated the halls of Genevieve’s dreary, depressing abode. Words spoken fell upon no ears but those of mice and other rodents which roamed about, leaving behind their filth and grime. Sometimes, birds would fly in through the open windows, sailing straight past the boundaries protecting her home and entering in hopes of building a nest sheltered from the weather. Even they seemed unwilling to remain within her presence for longer than a few fleeting seconds. A lifetime ago, she had been a ruler, beloved and desired by the populace for her strength and beauty. Those days were long since gone, slowly being consumed in the fog of her memory as loneliness became all she could remember.

Atop her uncomfortable throne, she spent empty moments ruling over a world that no longer wanted to be ruled. Disease and famine plagued the land, but she was unable to lift a finger to prevent it without hundreds of voices rising to remind her how all of it was her fault, how it all began with her. The voices were not wrong per se, and they also were not necessarily right. It had been complex, the path from prosperity to ruin and the route toward madness she had taken. Now she preferred not thinking about it, let alone discussing it with drabble who could not look past hatred to seek reason, but they refused to let it go. She had been trying to save them when it all began, a fact nobody knew aside from friends long gone, and for a time, she succeeded. She kept the darkness at bay, peace at hand, and made people happier using the power bestowed upon her. It really hadn’t been her fault at all if you thought about it.

In the end, everything which occurred back then was probably better off left behind her. She didn’t really need it anymore, the power, respect, and adoration of strangers. Friends would be nice. She had friends in her past life, good friends who she had laughed with, cried with, ate with, and slept with. Some of those pleasures were unbecoming of a Vestal in the eyes of her subjects. A Vestal was not meant to take a lover or consume anything that did not grow from the bounty of the land. They were silly and pointless restrictions, but ones the order had followed for hundreds of years.

Standing from her throne, its shining black surface reflecting flickers of torchlight which illuminated the room, she took careful steps over to a glass podium a few yards away. Inside that glass casing rested both her doom and salvation; the thing which saved her life, and the thing which destroyed it. An orb, polished and rounded, sat atop a fluffy pillow of plush feathers and taunted her endlessly.

The Stone of Malkori had been passed down from Vestal to Vestal over centuries of delicate peace. Capable of tapping into an otherworldly and vicious source of power, the Stone was powerful enough that if she, or any other Vestal before her, had wanted to do so, they could have leveled half of the continent as simply as one might light the candles of their bedchamber. It was a weapon capable of unrivaled destruction or magnificent healing. Over five thousand years, only thrice had it been used and always in defense of the continent and her people. Genevieve had broken that pattern by unleashing the Stone’s full potential in the heart of her dominion, desolating the countryside and killing hundreds of thousands. That was the moment where she lost the faith of her people, the moment where she became the villain, and there was no turning back.

With a dark smile stretching her lips, she reached a steady hand forward and made to remove the glass casing. It would be so simple. So easy. Spells once protected the Stone of Malkori from potential thieves or those who sought to misuse it, but those spells were gone. She had done away with them after the accident, for she still knew it WAS an accident, and the Stone stayed defenseless on its small pillow.

Fingers brushing against cold glass, the temptation was greater than ever before. Every day, sitting up on her stupid, lonely throne, she considered taking the Stone’s power into herself again. This time, she would utilize those dark and mysterious forces to rectify her wrongdoings. She would rebuild the capital, revive the buried, heal the sick, and return prosperity to her home. That was what pushed her toward abusing the treasured heirloom of her order again, the artifact no other Vestal would dare to call theirs. Genevieve thought of it as hers. Feeling the deaths of all those people through it, knowing their final hopes and fears, the way it felt as shadow tore straight into their soft, fragile bodies and ripped out the other side, was enough, in her opinion, to say the Stone belonged to her. No one had told her the experience of using it was going to be like that; personal and painful. Some days, she truly believed it had broken her mind.

“I cannot,” she said, retracting her hand and wrapping the cloak she wore tighter. Even if her intentions were pure, noble, and heroic, the Stone could not be trusted. After all, she had never meant to hurt anyone, but a hundred thousand graves showed the proof of what occurred. That day, over a decade ago now, the goal had been to seal away the darkness underneath the capital. Contrary to popular belief, she really was not a bad person! No, not at all in the beginning. Vile and malignant beasts dwelt beneath the streets of her home for longer than anyone knew, staying contained in a void of evil which seeped poison and sickness up into the world of men. The previous Vestals had maintained enchantments that separated the void from touching the mortal world, but those enchantments were becoming less effective every day. Closing that void, and ridding her country of evil, had been the primary desire behind Genevieve’s use of the Stone, yet somehow, someway, something went terribly wrong, and the void opened further in an explosion of dark energy. That energy was what massacred everyone around her and leveled the city. In addition, the resulting taint brought plague and disease to the world unlike anything before. And, of course, it was all her fault.

Barefoot steps padded softly across the room until coming to a rest at a large window. A gentle breeze blew her hair as she gazed outside, longing for the companionship of another person like she once enjoyed. The man she cared about most was dead too, buried right alongside the faceless thousands. She missed him each night and each morning, but he was not coming back.

“Just like the city is never coming back,” she said, eyes scanning the desolation far below.

What had been the capital was a sprawling wasteland of collapsed buildings and ruined residences, stretching a few miles in all directions. Her tower, the menacing structure which she called home ever since the people turned against her, was at the center of it all. No matter where she walked to, every view from the tower was a reminder of what she did and what she had become. That reminder clawed at her heart and hurt her blackened soul every time.

Leaving the window, Genevieve drifted back in the direction of her throne. From hero, ruler, and role model, she had become a villain, monster, and tyrant. Indeed, she was still a ruler, even if the people did not like to acknowledge her reign. There were those out there, beyond the capital’s ruins, who still viewed her as their savior, silly as that probably was. In her mind, she was many things, but a savior was not one of them. Possibly, above anything else, she thought that pariah fit her best as a title in these grim and grimy halls, secluded from the masses who continued to bear the pain and anger brought about because of her betrayals. As she took her place atop the uncomfortable throne, memories of the past weighed heavy on her breaking mind, and loneliness permeated the halls of the dreary, depressing abode.

From out of the woods, the woman strode, black cloak billowing in the night’s wind as she tried, in vain, to protect the small child who slept in her arms. Her left leg, covered by a bloodied bandage, dragged slightly behind the other as she desperately moved across the open field toward the large cathedral sitting a mere one hundred yards from the forest she had just left.

As the rain poured down upon her and the young girl she clutched to her chest, she trudged forward through the muddied grasses. With every ounce of effort that she could muster, the woman pursued her goal. If she bled out from her wound or succumbed to hypothermia in the rain, it did not matter. The only thing that mattered was getting the girl where she had to be.

The cloaked woman, at last, arrived at the footsteps of the Corec Cathedral, shaky and weary from her travel. Sadly, she had little time for a respite, as any second, the men, the ones who had followed her back to this time and chased her through that cursed forest, would catch up. Placing her weight onto her uninjured leg, she ascended the top of the cathedral’s steps.

“This better work, Andenria,” the woman muttered as she knelt and placed the sleeping child onto the top stair. Slowly reaching a hand into her cloak’s pocket, she retrieved the small placard made from oak that rested there. Upon the placard read the name “Anastasia”, and she carefully set it down beside the still slumbering girl, a smile stretching her face.

Standing up, careful to not place too much weight on her injured leg, the woman walked back down the steps. With one hand, she reached upward and touched her hair, soaked from the rain that refused to let up. As she brought it back down, the woman frowned at her palm, now coated in black hair dye. Soon, her natural blonde would become apparent to anyone who looked too carefully.

“Damn,” she cursed. If her pursuers caught up to her and saw her with blonde hair, the plan would be in jeopardy.

Reaching into her pocket once more, the woman pulled out a small metal rod. In length, it was similar to a pencil, and in width, it was like a carrot. Pushing a button on the end of the metal pole, a bluish fog formed around her body. It engulfed her, and she felt the power that came with it.

From the Elder Wood, four men, all robed similarly to the woman, came sprinting forward, each holding their own nassa. The woman pulled her hood tighter to hide her hair before giving the men a friendly wave and seemingly dissolving into the hazy blue fog.

Stopping in their tracks, three of the men turned to the last, awaiting instructions. Their leader sighed. “Follow her,” he said, pulling out his own version of the metal rod she carried. Like she had, the man clicked a button and was enveloped in blue mist, vanishing from the field. Each of his compatriots followed suit.

We begin our story five years past the decimation of a once proud people, a civilization on the brink of greatness which promised innovation and prosperity for decades to come. This civilization, though it had no name beside that of the land which it occupied, was governed by a singular woman whose power and glory was worshipped by all. When that power became corrupted, tainted by an evil which bore no name, this ruler sent her people into a state of plague and anarchy, effectively eradicating the entirety of what had made her dominion great. In the five years following, chaos and horrors sprouted up at an alarming rate, resulting in a broken continent where individual cities struggled to defend against brigands, monsters, and other evils. Sometimes, this defense would take the form of city patrols and watches, and other times, bands of heroes would form together and serve as guardians for whichever town could offer the highest rewards. This story tells the tale of one such band of heroes, who, in their later years, would come to be known by the moniker of the Miracle Crusaders.

*****

Illuminated by a gaping hole high above in the cavern’s ceiling, I searched the unfamiliar landscape of my surroundings with confusion. Pain seared in my body from the impact of falling three stories to the hard ground, but it seemed I had fared better than those I landed with. I knew none of them by name, but three people besides myself had managed to possess such terrible luck as to have found their way into a dank and chilly cave underground. Laying on the floor as I did, they seemed to be trying to assess each other and me, perhaps wary of an imminent threat.

We were not all the same. That much I could tell immediately. Unlike my own skin, which was a well-tanned color, the large man who landed nearest me was an off-grey with almost pinkish hues. His face bore two small tusks at the end of a well-defined jawline, and he had no hair to be seen. Scar tissue covered practically every exposed part of his body, which was an incredibly chiseled and muscular shape, making it obvious that he had seen his fair share of combat. He was an orc, to be certain, but something slightly unusual in the way his nose was shaped indicated an almost human quality. Surely no woman would have bred with an orc, I thought as the man began to stir, lifting his torso off the ground and opening large eyes. At least… not willingly.

Having never seen an orc until that fateful day five years ago, when all of Ria shone with a garish white aura and life changed forever, humanity was still becoming used to living side-by-side such unnatural beasts. Previously home to regular folk alone, Ria became a land filled with monsters and creatures of all shapes and sizes. Goblins and gnomes, halflings and harpies, and at least a dozen other horrifying and disturbing fantasies emerged from whatever miserable plane of existence had previously held them. No one knew why they had arrived in Ria, nor where exactly they came from, but a clear majority of people wished them gone. Orcs and goblins were at the top of most everyone’s list when asked which species they believed was worst, and it was simple to ascertain why. Five years of orc raids on small villages and frequent attacks by goblins did not generate a positive opinion within the community. I myself had met a few orcs two years back, and they had been decent enough fellows, able to drink themselves into oblivion and wake up the next morning feeling right as rain. If this man who lay beside me was anything like them, then perhaps we would get along.

Behind the orc, the other two strangers who were trapped with us looked much plainer. One, a man of middling height and a decent age, lay on his side struggling to keep down the contents of his stomach. He seemed human from what I could tell, bearing attractive features and dirty brown hair. I too felt a touch queasy, likely from the fall or whatever substance we had all been given that caused paralysis, yet I didn’t share his struggle against hurling. As for the final person who I could see, she was a woman of incredible beauty, long brown hair flowing just past her shoulders and a delicate complexion making her seem like much more than a simple peasant. A green streak of what might have been paint ran down both of her cheeks, making it appear as though she had been preparing for combat. Strangely, her ears bore a sharp point at the ends, a genetic trait I had never seen so defined in a human, but I quickly wrote it off as just a minor peculiarity.

After taking a minute to assess these strangers, I shakily forced myself to stand up and evaluate my surroundings. Besides us, the only other thing inside our cold, moist cavern was a crashed and splintered wagon. The one which we had been riding in, I recalled. Out of the fog in my head, memories flooded back to me of a grimy little city on the edge of the Aposian Coast. I had been there searching for a man, the man who killed my family so many years ago, but instead ran into a well-to-do gentleman who boasted knowledge about anything one might wish to know. Naturally, I asked him the question which had haunted me for the past four years. What is the name of the man who slew my parents? I knew a face, grinning and evil, yet had no name to match it. The well-to-do gentleman directed me to a small building on the far side of town where two hooded figures jumped me and forced a vile substance down my throat. Before I passed out from the drug, I helplessly watched as the hooded figures picked me up and took me to their wagon, tossing me inside. There were three other people there, unconscious and tied up, but I was too tired to try and wake them. That was the last thing I recalled prior to waking, and it seemed my companions were equally perplexed.

Across the cave, the pointy-eared girl had gotten up, and she stared at me now with a chilling glare, brown eyes filled by suspicion. “Who are you?” she asked me, a hint of an accent I did not recognize in her voice. “Why did you drug me? Why was I brought here?”

“My name is Telos,” I told her slowly, trying to avoid unnecessary confrontation with someone who had clearly suffered a similar ordeal to my own. “I took no part in drugging you nor do I know where it is we’ve been brought to. I believe that we were in that wagon, but the ground gave way and we fell into this cave. I promise you, I mean no harm.”

Frowning, the pointy-eared woman stepped closer towards me, exiting a darker portion of the cavern and coming fully under the light. She was a decently tall person, closer to the other man’s height than my own, and her shape was fit yet slender. “I am called Astrid,” she replied, extending a hand to me. “I apologize for any alarm I might have caused you.”

Amused that this thin and beautiful woman would ever have thought she frightened me, I shook my head while restraining a chuckle. “Think nothing of it,” I managed to say without cracking up. “We’re all in the same situation here. Isn’t that right my large friend?”

I had directed my question to the orc, the massive man who stood nearly a head taller than anyone else. He was staring at the pointy-eared woman and I with a frown, clearly attempting to puzzle out the situation. “Elf and human taken here like Gäree?” he asked us, voice booming loud enough that it would wake the deepest sleeper. Though he did not bother to name himself as Gäree, it was obvious that was what he meant.

“Yes,” I answered him. “It seems that we were being transported across Ria in that wagon for some reason. It’s beyond me what the reason was.” The name which he called Astrid was also beyond my knowledge, as I had never heard the term “elf” before. Perhaps another creature from the Otherplace. The Otherplace was what humanity had dubbed whatever world or realm these beings hailed from, where they had lived up until the disastrous events of five years ago. Hardly anyone knew what went down that day, when the world had shaken and the capital was destroyed, but it had left behind changes that would never go away. Namely, these other species of people.

Still frowning, the orc’s nostrils flared as he let out a huff. “That wagon?” he asked, pointing to the wooden carriage which lay on its side in splinters. I nodded in affirmation, and he smiled a wide, toothy grin. In massive, heavy strides, the orc made his way over to the wagon and gripped its underside with his hands. Astrid and I watched as the muscles of Gäree’s body tensed, straining to lift the broken heap of wood. Quivering with the effort, the orc let out a shout of rage as he exhausted every inch of his strength to complete the task. Stunned into silence from his achievement, we stared as the cart began to rise from the cave floor, debris and dust falling off as it moved. Underneath, two more people’s unmoving bodies were uncovered as the orc set the wagon down a few feet away. Turning back to us, he looked at our awestruck expressions, and a proud glow highlighted his grey features. “Gäree strong,” he boasted, and neither Astrid nor I could deny it, not after witnessing possibly the most impressive show of might I had ever seen.

Walking over and searching the two bodies which had been revealed by Gäree’s feat, it was simple to assess that one of them was dead and the other still breathed faintly. The dead man, flattened in the middle by the weight of the carriage he drove, had on his person a thin knife, a meager ration of food, and a pouch of what I instantly recognized as the drug used to subdue me back near the Aposian Coast. As I searched that man, Astrid had decided to search the other, rummaging through his pockets in search of useful items. She found a vial of pinkish liquid labeled “curative” on the side in black ink and pocketed it.

“Help… me…,” whined the man who Astrid stood over, lifting his head to plea to us. He was a middle-aged man with creases on his forehead, garbed in common clothing any regular person might wear. His dirty blonde hair had specks of wood sprinkled along it, and his back bent oddly. Probably from where the wagon struck it. Clearly, the man was in a fragile state. “My name… is Ollie. Please help… help me.” His desperation came through alongside pain in his tone, obviously fighting against his injuries. I looked to Astrid to see what she thought of helping this man, a man who may have been responsible for our current whereabouts, but it appeared our orc friend had ideas of his own.

Bending, Gäree grasped the injured man by the torso and lifted him up into the air, making Ollie begin squirming and groaning in agony. “Tell Gäree why you take him here,” commanded the orc. “Only if you tell us truth then we help Ollie.”

“Gäree,” I said, putting my hand on the man’s bicep, “maybe we should ask him questions while he’s on the ground. It will be easier for all of us.”

Thinking about what I said, Gäree stared at Ollie in his grasp. The man’s face scrunched up in pain and his back twisted grotesquely from the wreck. For a moment, I believed the orc was going to listen to me, letting Ollie go and allowing Astrid to utilize the curative she had found, but no such thing happened. Instead, the sound of our final companion’s voice rang out into the cavern for the first time, soft, but bearing a charming quality. It was the voice of someone who knew how to get what they wanted through manipulation, a voice I recognized from many years of dealing with such individuals. “Gäree is it?” he asked gently, moving right up beside the orc. “My name is Malzahar. You’re a strong man Gäree, I can tell from how you moved aside that pesky wagon and how you hold this man with such ease. You can use that strength to make our friend here talk. Make him spill the reasons he had for taking me… us prisoner and bringing us here. You want that, don’t you Gäree?” Nodding, the orc licked his lips and grunted. “Then make him talk for us Gäree.”

Clearly taking this Malzahar’s opinion over mine, Gäree began gently shaking Ollie, causing the suffering man to yelp in discomfort. “Tell Gäree the truth puny man,” ordered the orc, rocking his prisoner back and forth violently. “Why bring us here?”

Tears streaming down his cheeks, Ollie did his best to speak through the apparent pain. “I had no… no part in that!” he cried desperately. “All I did was… drive the wagon here from the coast. They… they’ve been threatening my family. My wife and daughters.”

“Gäree, that is enough,” said Astrid delicately, hoping not to provoke him while he held onto the fragile Ollie. “He seems to be speaking truly. I believe the man.”

“Don’t listen to her, Gäree,” chided Malzahar louder, making sure to seem more confident than Astrid or me. “This man took us away from loved ones and homes, from where we wanted to be. Don’t trust him so quickly as you would an innocent man.”

Snarling, the orc glared daggers at Ollie in his arms, getting angrier by the second. “Tell Gäree why you bring us here!” he shouted, forcibly jostling his captive back and forth as the wounded man shed gleaming tears. “Tell Gäree the truth!!” Still, he rocked him back and forth, up and down so violently that, in my eyes, Ollie began to blur. The man offered no other answers than what he had given, though it seemed he tried to and found his voice muted by the agony of his situation. “Speak little man!!!” Gäree roared this final command as Astrid, Malzahar, and I merely stood back and watched him, shaking Ollie until a sickening snap rang out within the cavern. In Gäree’s arms, the wagon driver fell still, and his head lolled sideways to leave empty eyes staring down at the floor. For a moment, none of us spoke, each looking at what Gäree had done. The man was dead, that was to be certain, and not one of us had really bothered act to prevent it.

“Great work,” Malzahar frowned angrily, kicking a rock on the floor toward the somewhat peculiar-looking orc. “I told you to ask him questions, not kill the bastard.”

Shrugging, Gäree dropped Ollie’s lifeless corpse from his hands, his still warm body colliding with cave dirt and splaying out limply. “Gäree not try to kill weak human. Human too weak to survive gentle shaking? How Gäree supposed to know that?” Seeing the completely honest demeanor which the brutish man possessed, I realized that he truly had not realized his captive’s life had been in danger, never having considered his strength would prove fatal in such a way. Astrid too seemed to understand the complexities of our situation, and she stared at me questioningly to see how I might respond.

“It’s okay, my friend,” I said calmly, placing a gloved hand onto the orc’s forearm. He had yet to lower his appendages from the position they had been holding Ollie in, and Gäree looked at the crumpled corpse with disdain. “Even if he spoke truly, the man still helped take us prisoner. He likely had dozens of opportunities to do something, anything which might have prevented him from ending up with us in this cave, but he did not. He’s just as much at fault in all of this as we are, and you did nothing but ask him a few simple questions. It was his injuries from the fall that did him in, and there’s nothing we could have done to stop that.”

Huffing, the odd-looking orc nodded and dropped those brutish biceps to his side. Tension drained from Astrid, Malzahar, and I as we all relaxed and took a breath ourselves, three simultaneous inhales sounding as Gäree plopped down on the cave floor. For a moment, everything was relatively okay, with the four of us quietly taking in the predicament. Oh, while some truth laid in the words I had spoken, about the captured wagon driver and his plight, we all knew that Gäree had done much more than merely shake Ollie. He had killed a man, and we were all witnesses. As witnesses who failed to help the man, most would likely deem us liable for the crime as well. If anyone found out and chose to let a mayor, or worse, the Devote, know what we did, then it would be straight to the gallows.

Thinking on it for a moment, I came to the belief that whatever punishment some mayor or governor deemed necessary would truly be a minor annoyance compared to that of the Devote. Known for their unflinching sense of loyalty to Ria’s most corrupt figures, as well as an unsavory reliance on violence, the Devote would no doubt end our lives for what Gäree had done, and no one in their right mind would dare try to intervene. Though they favored punishments which were enforced against Otherplace criminals, those fiends who were caught doing vile acts and happened to be something else than Rian, there were still hundreds of instances in which their swords, whips, and knives tore into human flesh, hacking at it until the offender passed out from pain, died, or completed their sentence. Should a third party intervene at all, by either trying to fend off the Devote or convince them to cease punishment, that party typically became next to receive discipline. I shuddered to think of being subjected to the Devote’s brutalization, and the fear which struck at me meant there was no chance I would report Ollie’s death to any authorities. Hopefully, I thought anxiously, as Astrid stared upwards to where light shone from the cavern’s broken ceiling and Malzahar searched the rest of the room angrily, my companions also see the reasons not to share details of this… accident.

“Now what do we do?”

The sudden sound of Malzahar’s voice, no longer as charming as he had been to Gäree, surprised me as I pondered that exact same question. Devoid of anything save us four, two bodies, and a broken wagon, the setting of Ollie’s murder provided little in the way of interest. It was dim, as caves are, yet gleaming light from a wagon-sized fissure above illuminated most the central region. Beyond that lit up zone, I could glimpse no other passages, natural or man-made, and I was not particularly interested in remaining down beneath the surface. Dark and terrible things had begun to claim the underground as home ever since the Otherplace came to Ria and infested it with monsters. Compared to orcs like Gäree and those ever-irksome goblins, the Terrors which burrowed beneath land were far, far worse.

“Gäree not want stay here any longer,” answered the hulking man, squinting at the bright fissure with perplexment. “We need way to reach surface. Maybe build ladder from wagon or climb out with hands?” I was legitimately shocked to hear such a reasonable train of thought come from the orc’s mouth, having already dubbed him an unintelligent oaf. Sure, there was no way the plan to build a ladder could succeed, given our lack of nails or building equipment, but it was creative and utilized a resource I had yet to think of. As for scaling the wall, there was certainly no chance of that.

“Perhaps I could manage the distance,” Astrid offered, moving lightly to stand at Gäree’s side. “If you threw me, then maybe I might have a chance at grasping an edge.”

“No way,” cut in Malzahar, frowning at them both. “Though I appreciate the initiative, you’ll surely get yourself killed by trying that. Elf or no elf, a leap that large would find you as fit as poor Ollie.”

Glad to not be the only sane person among us, and disappointed to be alone in not knowing what an “elf” was, I fiddled with my pockets to see if anything had been left inside. Before being taken, I had carried a trifle or two which mattered to me, one a ring of my mother’s, and another a wrinkled, old letter, but everything was gone. Must’ve been stashed somewhere else while we were under. Their loss was a significant loss for my happiness, but neither would have been useful to escape the cave, so I did not fret about it for long. “What do we all have on us? Anything that might serve a use?” I presented to them the slim knife, food pouch, and drugs that I had pillaged from our dead captor as a gesture of goodwill. They did not seem like they wished to hurt me, but all three remained strangers, and they likely held reservations about trusting me as I did them.

“Gäree has nothing,” replied the man, a dissatisfied frown contorting his scarred face. Once again, despite his uncouth and seemingly simple demeanor, I found myself unable to dislike the pinkish-grey orc. He truly did remind me of the two I drank with back in Rivlenheim, and there were plenty of humans worse than them. I liked to call myself an open-minded sort, though like practically any Rian I did harbor prejudices against beings from the Otherplace. If forced to choose between two completely unfamiliar figures, with one being a human like me, and the other being like Gäree, I would choose the human every time. Was it right? Probably not, yet five years of hearing about orcish raids on villages and towns built a certain mistrust not easily shaken. Until Gäree did something wrong though, I supposed trusting him was not that hard. He had killed a man, unfortunately, but most people I met nowadays had. Some, like me, had killed several. It would take something worse than an accidental murder to make me completely distrust the odd-faced orc.

Removing the vial of curative from her pocket, Astrid shrugged and tossed it in the air. “All I have is this mixture. It was likewise removed from the wreckage down here. It may not be helpful for leaving, but I think that it might prove invaluable to me down the road.” As she spoke, the vial had soared high above even Gäree’s impressive height, and it fell back down quickly. Barely glancing, Astrid snatched the bottle back from the air and returned it to her pocket.

“Impressive,” admitted Malzahar, “though nothing I could not do with a knife or ball.” Not bothering to check or show proof, he too announced a lack of valuable items or tools. “We need a different strategy for escaping this pit,” he frowned, stroking his well-trimmed beard absentmindedly. “I read once that caverns such as these, hidden mere feet beneath the surface, are particularly easy to break through. If we could manage to find another point in this place that’s near enough to reach the ceiling, Gäree might be able to just bust through.”

“Gäree strong!” grinned the orc, affirming his approval of this new plan. I was less enthused, but there was no need to debate.

From above, beyond the cave, a voice called down to us. “Good sirs and madam, it appears you’ve found yourself in quite a spot of trouble.” Peering over the side of the cavern’s open ceiling, a man’s face smiled broadly. “If you’d like some assistance in escaping this dreadful predicament, I am more than happy to offer mine.” When none of us objected to his suggestion, the grinning stranger disappeared, only for a thick rope to slide into the cave and fall toward the floor. “Climb on up,” the man called, and we listened.

Astrid went first, scaling the rope gracefully. There was no fumbling or uncertainty in her movements, and in a swift minute, the elf was out of sight. I had never seen anyone move so perfectly before. Comparatively, Malzahar’s assent was a clumsy thing, though, if he had not been preceded by Astrid, it would not have seemed so. My turn climbing was much worse, nearly resulting in a deadly fall back to where Gäree waited. Luckily, I slipped at the top and not halfway, so Astrid was quick to grab my flailing arm and pull me to safety. It was a moment or two after catching my breath that I finally set eyes upon our savior, and how he looked shocked me. Stout, bearded, and dressed in fine clothing, it was obvious that he was not human. Though I was a tall man, short only compared to the orcish Gäree, this fellow barely stood above my hip. Dwarves were not uncommon in Ria, at least not anymore, but my experience with their kind was minimal. As Gäree clambered out of the cave and stood beside the rest of us, the dwarf spoke again.

Never letting his broad grin drop, our fortunate savior gestured with his arm at himself as he gave a loud introduction. “My name is Dagen Stonehammer, of the Stoneborn Dwarves who hail from the Laydlin Mountains.” My lack of knowledge when it came to Otherplace society showed as both Gäree and Astrid nodded, clearly understanding the importance of this Dagen’s statement. Whether Malzahar knew or not, he pretended to. “It seems you four found yourselves in a terrible spot of trouble. Were you traveling to a nearby town and simply had the misfortune of driving your wagon over an unstable part of the countryside?”

“Gäree got kidnapped!” said the orc sadly, rubbing his massive arm with a callused hand. I had not planned on sharing anything about my journey here with this dwarf, but once Gäree began speaking, the rest of us followed suit. One at a time we shared the paths that brought us to waking up together at the bottom of that cave, and a common thread arose. Over the past month, all of us had traveled to the Aposian Coast searching for answers. What questions we sought to have resolved, well, that was not something we were about to share. I certainly did not intend on telling these people too much about me or where I came from. At least, not yet. It was Malzahar who realized all of us had been captured after talking to the same man, a man who offered every answer we could dream of.

While discussing this, Dagen merely stood by and listened, nodding along and smiling. “I figured you were not simply trying to visit any of the nearby villages,” he chortled once we all quieted. “The closest one is this place called Meathaven, and, despite its name, that place really isn’t the paradise you might think it is.” Something about how bizarrely friendly this dwarf was made me want to distrust him, but I had no real reason to. After all, he had saved our lives. “It is a great thing that I found you four, heroic-looking youths,” continued the dwarf. “I have a job that needs doing, and I would wager you all could get it done. There is a place called Fandren, and I seek strong men and women to defend a shipment of supplies I am bringing there.”

“I am not looking for any such work,” Astrid told him. “There are places I need to go and people who need to be found.” Her sentiment was one I related to, and it appeared the others did as well.

Before any of us could walk away, separating and continuing the individual quests that brought us together in the first place, Dagen spoke one final sentence in hopes of convincing us to assist him. “There will be profit for those who agree to aid me.” Spinning on his heels, Malzahar was the first to take up the noble cause of assisting Dagen in transporting his wares to Fandren, a city none of us had ever even heard of. Gäree and I were next, with the peculiar orc enthusiastic about earning gold. Astrid took more time, walking several steps into the distance as she muttered to herself. When she turned back around and joined the rest of us, there was a look of uncertainty in her eyes I knew well, but she voiced no complaints as Dagen shared the details of our contract.

*****

Thusly, my tale begins; a tale of danger, heroics, and a great deal of wealth. We were four strangers, each of vastly different backgrounds, united by a common desire for riches, power, and maybe a small wish to play the savior of a helpless town. On the route to Fandren, a medium-sized settlement that, at the time, suffered from the cruel control of a dangerous militia, I learned about my companions. Among us, there was the brutish half-orc, Gäree, the icy elf, Astrid, the selfish and arrogant thief, Malzahar, and me, a rugged and lonely mercenary who sought vengeance for his family. I knew not that I had just met my dearest friends, nor that we would someday become legends in the pages of history, but I did know one thing at the time of this beginning. Being a hero is dangerous work, and sometimes, you don’t live to tell your own story.

*****

This is the end of the sample. The rest of the story can be found at www.thearmeanjournals.wixsite.com/mysite and is free to read. Based on reactions, further sections may be posted her on The Prose. I would love feedback!

All the Best,

Alex R. London

Breathe. Just breathe. They all tell me that it's the best solution, but it doesn't seem to help any longer. I've been hiding from my demons for so long, hiding from the pain, the regret, and the shame. I tried the bottle, and all I found was more misery and despair, bringing my skeletons out of the closet and into the lives of those around me. I hurt them, and that hurt me even deeper than simply wallowing in my own agony. Everyone gives me the same advice about facing my past, the atrocities I saw and helped commit, but none of them can possibly understand me. My parents, my siblings, my friends. None of them have witnessed the horrors I have. They haven't seen cities with bodies littering the streets as far as the eye can see nor pits where the dead have been pilled atop eachother haplessly as if they never even mattered. I've seen that. I've caused that. There's nothing a doctor or therapist can understand about it. They tell me to slow everything down when I start to feel overwhelmed by it all, the emotions and memories that plague me, and I tell them just breathing isn't fixing anything. I can't outrun something inside myself. I just can't. I wish it was as simple as that.

Loneliness permeated the halls of Genevieve’s dreary, depressing abode. Words spoken fell upon no ears but those of mice and other rodents which roamed about, leaving behind their filth and grime. Sometimes, birds would fly in through the open windows, sailing straight past the boundaries protecting her home and entering in hopes of building a nest sheltered from the weather. Even they seemed unwilling to remain within her presence for longer than a few fleeting seconds. A lifetime ago, she had been a ruler, beloved and desired by the populace for her strength and beauty. Those days were long since gone, slowly being consumed in the fog of her memory as loneliness became all she could remember.

Atop her uncomfortable throne, she spent empty moments ruling over a world that no longer wanted to be ruled. Disease and famine plagued the land, but she was unable to lift a finger to prevent it without hundreds of voices rising to remind her how all of it was her fault, how it all began with her. The voices were not wrong per se, and they also were not necessarily right. It had been complex, the path from prosperity to ruin and the route toward madness which she had taken. Now she preferred not thinking about it, let alone discussing it with drabble who could not look past hatred to seek reason, but they refused to let it go. She had been trying to save them when it all began, a fact nobody knew aside from friends long gone, and for a time she succeeded. She kept the darkness at bay, peace at hand, and made people happier using the power bestowed upon her. It really hadn’t been her fault at all if you thought about it.

In the end, everything which occurred back then was probably better off left behind her. She didn’t really need it anymore, the power, respect, and adoration of strangers. Friends would be nice. She had friends in her past life, good friends who she had laughed with, cried with, ate with, and slept with. Some of those pleasures were unbecoming of a Vestal in the eyes of her subjects. A Vestal was not meant to take a lover or consume anything which did not grow from the bounty of the land. They were silly and pointless restrictions, but ones the order had followed for hundreds of years.

Standing from her throne, its shining black surface reflecting flickers of torchlight which illuminated the room, she took careful steps over to a glass podium a few yards away. Inside that glass casing rested both her doom and salvation; the thing which saved her life, and the thing which destroyed it. An orb, polished and rounded, sat atop a fluffy pillow of plush feathers and taunted her endlessly. The Stone of Malkori had been passed down from Vestal to Vestal over centuries of delicate peace. Capable of tapping into an otherworldly and vicious source of power, the Stone was powerful enough that if she, or any other Vestal before her, had wanted to do so, they could have leveled half of the continent as simply as one might light the candles of their bedchamber. It was a weapon capable of unrivaled destruction or magnificent healing. Over five thousand years, only thrice had it been used and always in defense of the continent and her people. Genevieve had broken that pattern by unleashing the Stone’s full potential in the heart of her dominion, desolating the countryside and killing hundreds of thousands. That was the moment where she lost the faith of her people, the moment where she became the villain, and there was no turning back.

With a dark smile stretching her lips, she reached a steady hand forward and made to remove the glass casing. It would be so simple, so easy. Spells once protected the Stone of Malkori from potential thieves or those who sought to misuse it, but those spells were gone. She had done away with them after the accident, for she still knew it WAS an accident, and the Stone stayed defenseless upon its small pillow. Fingers brushing against cold glass, the temptation was greater than ever before. Every day, sitting up on her stupid, lonely throne, she considered taking the Stone’s power into herself again. This time, she would utilize those dark and mysterious forces to rectify her wrongdoings. She would rebuild the capital, revive the buried, heal the sick, and return prosperity to her home. That was what pushed her toward abusing the treasured heirloom of her order again, the artifact no other Vestal would dare to call theirs. Genevieve thought of it as hers. Feeling the deaths of all those people through it, knowing their final hopes and fears, the way it felt as shadow tore straight into their soft, fragile bodies and ripped out the other side, was enough, in her opinion, to say the Stone belonged to her. No one had told her the experience of using it was going to be like that; personal and painful. Some days, she truly believed it had broken her mind.

“I cannot,” she said, retracting her hand and wrapping the cloak she wore tighter. Even if her intentions were pure, noble, and heroic, the Stone could not be trusted. After all, she had never meant to hurt anyone, but a hundred thousand graves showed the proof of what occurred. That day, over a decade ago now, the goal had been to seal away the darkness underneath the capital. Contrary to popular belief, she really was not a bad person! No, not at all in the beginning. Vile and malignant beasts dwelt beneath the streets of her home for longer than anyone knew, staying contained in a void of evil which seeped poison and sickness up into the world of men. The previous Vestals had maintained enchantments that separated the void from touching the mortal world, but those enchantments were becoming less effective every day. Closing that void, and ridding her country of evil, had been the primary desire behind Genevieve’s use of the Stone, yet somehow, someway, something went terribly wrong, and the void opened further in an explosion of dark energy. That energy was what massacred everyone around her and leveled the city. In addition, the resulting taint brought plague and disease to the world unlike anything before. And, of course, it was all her fault.

Barefoot steps padded softly across the room until coming to a rest at a large window. A gentle breeze blew her hair as she gazed outside, longing for the companionship of another person like she once enjoyed. The man she cared about most was dead too, buried right alongside the faceless thousands. She missed him each night and each morning, but he was not coming back. “Just like the city is never coming back,” she said, eyes scanning the desolation far below. What had been the capital was a sprawling wasteland of collapsed buildings and ruined residences, stretching a few miles in all directions. Her tower, the menacing structure which she called home ever since the people turned against her, was at the center of it all. No matter where she walked to, every view from the tower was a reminder of what she did and what she had become. That reminder clawed at her heart and hurt her blackened soul every time.

Leaving the window, Genevieve drifted back in the direction of her throne. From hero, ruler, and role model, she had become a villain, monster, and tyrant. Indeed, she was still a ruler, even if the people did not like to acknowledge her reign. There were those out there, beyond the capital’s ruins, who still viewed her as their savior, silly as that probably was. In her mind, she was many things, but a savior was not one of them. Possibly, above anything else, she thought that pariah fit her best as a title in these grim and grimy halls, secluded from the masses who continued to bear the pain and anger brought about because of her betrayals. As she took her place atop the uncomfortable throne, memories of the past weighed heavy on her breaking mind, and loneliness permeated the halls of the dreary, depressing abode.