Farheim was a welcome sight for all the travelers who came from the Blackwoods. A beacon of civilization, standing strong against the decay and ruin which they were immersed in for hours, or even days, at a time. A place just on the cusp of the gray field in the sky where the sun still set and the moon did rise with the unchanging smudge of unnatural light hovering in the distance. The gates were half-closed for the night, easier to seal in the event of some tragic incursion from the lowlands, and the guards were likewise half-asleep. Which made it easy work for Stormen and Ozzy to strut on through.

The town was quiet. It was after twilight. Candles and lanterns burned in windows marking where people made their time together in the after hours doing whatever stray menial tasks were undone during daylight. Few people were out, those who were went in a hurry to get to where they wanted to be. All was quiet around. A far cry of difference from the usual ever-busy city streets that Ozzy fuzzily remembered.

He had a lot of time and silence to think on their journey back. Little of note happened. They passed the ruins where he was found by Ruder. It gave him a strangely nostalgic pang as they passed, like all the import of that place to him was already long since drained away. After passing that he knew they were in the clear, yet he felt nothing. The whole way back, Ozzy’s mind was mostly empty.

It was always empty, being just a skull. The emptiness he felt was more profoundly deep. He felt at once responsible for the confusing turn of events and also ashamed for not noticing what went wrong. Yet Stormen remained equally stoic as when they started. Ozzy stayed close in Stormen’s purposeful march as they reached the end of one road that linked into two more.

“This is where we’ll part for now,” Stormen said. “I’ve my own business to tend to first. But you’ll be properly initiated soon. If you stay in the area, all you’ll need to do is arrive to the hall as you did before. They’ll know you on sight, a Tartarian man with a rapier.”

“Yeah,” Ozzy said. He waited for a silence to come and filled it immediately with a question. “Why didn’t we go inside? They - will they believe you if you don’t bring anything back? Like a treasure? There is treasure down there. Somewhere.”

“And from entrance to hoard,” Stormen asked, “would the way be clear and easy going? You know that place better than I do, I’ll admit. I’ve never held good company worth braving such a terror myself, by luck or any other blessing. Were the two of us, indeed, enough to take any plunder?”

“...no,” Ozzy said.

Stormen nodded. “I took your warnings to heart. If a situation as described sounds impossible in scale or structure, then believe it. The parts of the world which the sun does not grace with light are exceptions to our daily reality. And it takes exceptional kinds to be part of the Defender’s. Exceptional in skill, knowledge, courage and luck.”

“I’ll be sure to get all of those as I can,” Ozzy said.

Stormen smirked and nodded to him. He left him with that small moral and the sword at his side and nothing else. Not a single coin for what was apparently work rendered. Ozzy didn’t even sigh. For once he embraced his static state as a lifeless walking bone pile and swayed his way back to the guild hall’s ground floor.

He wasn’t sure what to expect. Perhaps a warm reverie on his return from the dreaded lands with his body no worse for wear and only one lethal looking wound already patched up. Or maybe some friendly jeering as he came back alone, some hazing from the veterans who’d gone through trials before him. Or maybe just someone who recognized him saying hello. He got none of that. The room was nearly empty, and completely quiet. He sat at a table and looked around. A clerk behind the desk next to the wall of posted papers moved around in a backroom. And the barbarian from earlier was leaned against the back of a booth with his arms crossed and eyes closed.

I guess this is fine. I don’t really need money, anyway. I’m not hungry. I can’t even eat. I don’t need to sleep, although the quiet time at night is sort of getting to me already. And I’d like to just rest my mind after all this…combat. But my muscles aren’t sore. Not even my legs. I feel normal. Which is to say - I feel like I’m nothing but -

“How went your quest?”

“KKKKKHHHHH!!!!!”

Ozzy jumped, and the barbarian likewise jumped in his seat, startled by the startling sound of Ozzy’s start-up.

“Sorry!” Ozzy exclaimed. The silence of the room made every word he spoke sound way too loud so he lowered his tone. “Uh - anyway, it went good.”

“Did it,” the man said. He stood up, all however many hundreds of pounds of muscle he was. He was taller than Stormen by a foot. A goliath of a man with dark hair cut short and frayed at the edges as if it had to be sheared with a handsaw just below the ridge of his jawline. Despite his enormity, he had a youthful look to his face with wide, bright eyes that shone with an arctic blue. “That is good.” He took the spot across from Ozzy and leaned onto the table. Sitting in anything other than the wide booth pews seemed impossible for him. “Tell me about it.”

“Huh?”

“If you can,” he said. “I wish to know.”

“Uh -.”

“I’ve nothing to trade for your tale,” he mentioned, “if that is what you wish.”

“No no, that’s not -.” Ozzy stopped himself and looked around again. Just to make sure they were really, basically, alone together. “Were you here the whole time?”

“I was,” he nodded. “I’m not a true initiate in the Guild. There are…some obstacles my arms cannot destroy, and so I am prohibited from participating.”

I guess I’m extra-lucky that I can read.

“Sorry for being ignorant,” Ozzy began, “but - well first off my name is Ozzy.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“I will remember that,” he said with a nod.

Ozzy waited an extra moment to see if he had anything else to say. Then reminded him. “And you?”

He stood upright and lifted his heavy arm up to his nearly bare chest. “I am Gunn. Son of the Mountains of Barbary.”

So Barbarian isn’t an insult, it’s a place name. Like Tartary, I guess. Maybe they’re neighbors?

“Nice to meet you, Gunn,” Ozzy said.

Gunn nodded. “We have met,” he said. “It has been adequate so far.”

Ozzy nodded vacantly, trying to make sense of the manners of the hulking man. There was something off about him that he couldn’t place. The ideal image of a barbarian in his mind contrasted all but visually, and even then there were differences in Gunn’s equipment that betrayed the common visual of the always shirtless savage warrior king. He had a pauldron of metal and fur attached to a whole armored sleeve that was strapped to the interior angle of his arm with thick cords. His chest was occupied with thick strops that held the shoulder piece in place and also covered the right half of his exposed torso. His lower half was fully dressed in a thick mantle as a sort of rear-cape. Under that was a pair of dark pantaloons that puffed out, or were filled out by his huge thighs, tied down near his knees.

“Where should I start?” Ozzy asked. “From when I left?”

“Please do,” Gunn said. “Leave any details of your journey intact as you recalled them or saw them. I do not need to know what you were told happened to you by your fellow.”

“Okay,” Ozzy agreed. “We, uh - Stormen, the fellow I was with, once we left he gave me this,” he motioned to his sheathed sword, “which I admitted I didn’t know how to use, but I got used to it later on. And we went into the Blackwoods where -.”

“There is a length of road,” Gunn interrupted, “between Farheim and the Blackwoods. As well as a meadow where the road deteriorates and remains unmarked. Did anything happened to you between here and there?”

“No,” Ozzy said. “We just walked there. I followed him. And then we went into the Blackwoods and -.”

“What was the weather like as you departed?” Gunn asked. “If you recall.”

Ozzy’s non-existent face crinkled with cautious perturbance. It was one thing for a man like Gunn to be weirdly analytica, but he was also nearly 8 feet tall and as wide as a barn door when his arms were stretched out fully. His insistence for the smallest details were puzzling at the least. Ozzy felt like he was under some interrogation. Like a wrong answer would lead to a snapped arm.

“Uh - actually,” Gunn said, “if it’s not important then you don’t need to say it. I’m getting ahead of myself. I apologize for that.”

“I don’t think you did anything wrong,” Ozzy said.

“It is my duty,” Gunn explained, “as a World Reader, to learn and know all that I can within my life, and upon my final days I must recite it to those who will inherit all that I know.”

“I see,” Ozzy said. “That sounds…”

That sounds like it would be easier if you knew how to write, actually.

“Forgive me for my ignorance,” Ozzy said, with the trained tone as if it were a catchphrase he was working on, “but I’ve never met one of your people before. So I’m unaware of what I should tell you that will help your…thing you’re doing.”

“I understand,” Gunn said. “That is why I took such particular interest on your story, as it relates to our meeting. I, too, have never since met one like you who is so free to talk and be heard. The trader-folk often ask for compensation of some kind, yet I only travel with the necessities I need to live off of and nothing more. And I cannot work here to earn their coins that would allow me to trade because they do not accept me.”

“That seems pretty unfair,” Ozzy said. “You’re probably stronger than everyone else who was in here earlier. Including Stormen.”

“I am,” Gunn said, plainly. “But strength alone is not the desire of the Defenders, as I have come to learn. They value things which I do not possess and cannot attain, and so they assured me that my willingness to travel with them as an unmarked guest of their adventures is an unwanted venture.”

“Right,” Ozzy said. He looked at his own hand. The padding inside his glove went uneven. It looked lumpy like it was broken in many places or covered in bruises. Beneath it, he felt nothing. No weight or heft, no strength. No courage either. No skill. Maybe just a bit of luck still left in the cracked corners of his palm bones. “I feel like I haven’t earned this yet. So it doesn’t feel real. I wish I could tell you anything exciting happened. Well, we got attacked, but that’s not too unusual.”

“By what?” Gunn asked.

“Skeletons,” Ozzy answered morosely.

“The Ruinous Ones,” Gunn nodded. “What was their make?”

“You mean what they looked like?” Ozzy asked. An idea passed through his mind as fast as a bullet to take off his veil and scream LIKE THIS as a joke. And he immediately imagined Gunn crushing his head into powder with a punch. The idea was gone, and his body went unmoved before he thought to speak again. “You know, like…skeletons. Average sized ones. Well, one had long…I guess they were arms of a sort. It was up in the trees and threw bones on us that were still moving even without a head. And then I got back into the lichyard, met - saw another. But I chased it away. And then Stormen and I…”

Hang on. Maybe he doesn’t want me to tell anyone we didn’t actually go into the crypt? Like, not even a single step. He’s got a reputation as a big, incredible adventuring veteran. And he more or less told me to just take getting in and out as a win. He talked a bigger game than I did just by showing up and showing me around. Should I -

“And then Stormen and I,” Gunn repeated.

“Sorry,” Ozzy said. “Uh…some Defender’s Guild secrets happened. That I can’t say.”

Gunn blinked like he didn’t understand the concept of a secret, or the politeness of not sharing every detail with strangers.

“But we found a way in,” Ozzy said. “On one side the wall kind of grew out of a hill, but it didn’t grow higher from it, so there’s a grade that someone can walk up and just vault over. You, definitely, could just kind of push yourself over it and then you’re in the lichyard!”

“Could I?” Gunn asked.

“Yeah,” Ozzy said. “You’ll have a lot of new problems to deal with but you can…handle a few of them.”

“Your story is spotty and full of uninformative patches,” he said. “It’s not quite the tale of a quest that I was hoping to collect.”

“Sorry,” Ozzy said. “Once I join the guild formally I’ll probably have more heroic stuff to do. And, maybe it’s out of ignorance, but I wouldn’t mind you coming along as well. Member or not.”

“Ah,” Gunn said with a smile. “I would appreciate that. Living through one’s history is the most effective way to transcribe it. Our people know only what is seen and spoken, what has been read from the tales of the world before the ending.”

“The ending?” Ozzy asked. “Oh, right. Of your life.”

“No, Ozzy,” Gunn said. “Of the world.”

Gunn spoke with such a serious, yet excited tone, that Ozzy couldn’t help but take notice. The notice he took was that Gunn spoke from a deep belief. It was like hearing someone talk about the end times, or an oncoming recession, but not just any person. Someone who lived and breathed a certain culture so much that it not only sounded right to their own ears, but it sounded true whenever they spoke, of whatever they said.

And so Gunn positioned himself to talk to Ozzy about the end of the world. Just three-ish days after Ozzy was born into it, he’d learn how everything he didn’t even know about would die.