One summer evening, Magni’s bright star fell,

Knowing what such an omen meant, his people wept as well,

Their protector was dead, their homes were safe no more,

and so the men and women prepared themselves for war,

But without a [Champion] to lead them, all their efforts were for naught,

and so they fled their cities, wounded and distraught.

But they didn’t know that Magni still drew breath,

and when he returned, he brought all their foes swift death,

With the power of dark magic, his axe became a crimson sun,

and set out to finish what he’d begun,

To Bavenspire!

-Excerpt from The Legend of Magni

Winesap Moon, Day 15

Week of the Gnome (Spells cost 5 less mana)

With their weapons raised and ready to strike, the spearmen slowly advanced toward me. My fingers twitched, and I was tempted to draw my sword to defend myself, but I resisted the urge. I had no quarrel with the people of Doolen, I reminded myself; I didn’t want to spill innocent blood.

Instead, I raised my arms, and called out, “Good people of Doolen, why do you approach with such hostility? Can’t you see that I’m but a simple traveler and mean you no harm?”

The spearmen stopped, and one of their number – a portly man with a thick orange mustache and beady eyes – called back, “It’s not on our account that we stand between you and our homes. Lady Myral requested it of us, and we are bound to do her bidding.”

“Lady Myral? I admit that it’s been some time since my last visit, but I’ve never heard that name before. Who is she?”

“You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. She’s asked us to bring you to her. Now, keep your hands raised and come with us. If you’re telling the truth, you have nothing to fear.”

We trudged through the mud toward the village, and I couldn’t help but notice that ground beneath my feet was different than I remembered. The road outside Doolen had always been a hilly mess, but that wasn’t the case anymore. Instead, it now felt like a ball of clay smashed by a child’s hand, with bumps here and there serving as the only reminder of the slopes I’d played on as a youth. Was that the doing of this mysterious Lady Myral too? If it was, she had to be a [Champion] as well. Only the blessed were capable of reshaping the earth itself so quickly and completely.

Inside the sturdy walls, Doolen was different in other ways as well. I couldn’t help but stare at them all in turn as we walked. The small huts and communal cooking fires I remembered were gone, replaced by larger stone buildings and dedicated kitchens. Hammer blows rang through the air from the direction of the local smithy – which now had three large bays instead of one – and off on the southern side of the village was a newly built tower. It was a chaotic, crooked thing, with a bright roof. A pair of villagers wearing midnight robes conversed in front of the door, consulting thick tomes now and then.

Beyond these changes, the village was filled with regular people going about their business, and my heart jumped into my throat at the sight of such peaceful living.

I was led to a surprisingly modest building near the center of town. It was taller than the other structures around it, but not by much, and the small flower patch outside was virtually the same as the ones I’d seen in front of the other houses. Since it was nothing like Davion’s gaudy tent, my opinion of Myral went up several notches.

One of the spearmen opened the door and gestured for me to walk inside. I did so, and saw that despite its outward appearance, the building wasn’t much of a house at all. If anything, it was more of a workshop. The floor was bare stone, and there were three big crafting desks in the main room. Bundles of flowers and barrels of powders were everywhere, and had I not been paying extra close attention, I would have tripped over something almost immediately.

The sound of my escort’s footsteps faded away behind me, and I turned around with a quizzical expression.

“Why have you stopped?”

“Our task was to bring you here, and we have done that. Lady Myral is just ahead,” the mustachioed spearman said, giving me a jab with the butt of his spear. “Go on.”

Deeper inside, I walked through a hallway filled with jars of floating monster bits. Eyeballs the size of my fist seemed to follow me as I passed by, and fangs that would put a howler to shame bobbed up and down in their brightly colored concoctions. There were plenty of other things I didn’t recognize.

I shivered. This was clearly a place of magic, and like any good hardlander, that made me uncomfortable. However, I figured that life as a [Champion] meant I’d have to get used to such things, so I steeled my spine and kept my eyes focused on the floor in front of me.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Flickering emerald light came from a room in the back, and as I approached, I heard a woman’s voice crooning in the darkness. When I paused to listen, though, she stopped and called out, “Hurry up lad, I haven’t got all day, you know.”

Pushing past a drab mauve curtain decorated with silver thread – the first bit of finery I’d seen since coming inside – I found myself staring at a small woman hunched over a yet another battered desk. She was wrapping a bronze wire around a small crystal pendant, and set it down after tying the end into an elaborate knot.

Her steely hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and her leathery skin told a story of years spent beneath the sun and stars. However, there was a strength to her presence that I couldn’t deny as she looked up at me with impossibly violet eyes.

With a gnarled hand covered in scars, she beckoned for me to sit down.

“Welcome. My name is Myral, and I watch over this village. What’s your name?”

“Aster.”

“Well, Aster, how’d you do it?” she asked with a knowing smile as I tried to get comfortable on the lopsided chair across from where she sat.

I don’t know if the room actually got colder, but her question sent a shiver running down my spine all the same, and I fought to keep my face neutral as I answered.

“Do what?”

She pointed to my gauntlet. “For all that it fits you perfectly, you weren’t born with that thing, boy. Now tell me who it belonged to first and how you got it. Did you use poison?”

I stiffened, and a bead of frigid sweat trickled between my shoulder blades. “I don’t know why you’re accusing me of such a –“ I started to say, but Myral’s fist slammed into the table and the lie turned to ash on my tongue.

The gaudy silver bangle on the woman’s left wrist glowed with the same sickly green light as the candles in the room, and an orb of magic that I recognized as the start of a [Hexgrid Sphere] appeared above us both.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” the other [Champion] warned. “You’ll find that I’m not a particularly patient woman. I know you’re not truly one of us, so tell me when, how, and why you did it.”

With no other choice, I swallowed hard and met her furious gaze. The time and method were easy to explain, but the rationale was not. How could I explain the flurry of emotions I’d felt in the moment just before I’d killed Davion?

I couldn’t.

Instead, I simply told her the facts as I’d experienced them, trusting her to understand why I’d taken Davion’s blessing.

----------------------------------------

“Classic valor shit,” Myral muttered as I finished my tale. “Doesn’t matter what star you’re born under, all you meatheads think any problem can be solved with enough sword swings. Do a better job than Davion did? Protect the weak and helpless? Noble goals, but did you give any thought at all to how you’d accomplish such things? Don’t try and answer that, I know you didn’t. Still, I suppose your heart was in the right place, and I would have done the same thing if I’d been in your position. It’s a hard thing to lose your home.”

She fell silent for a moment, as if wrestling with an unpleasant memory, then said, “It’s troublesome, but maybe you’re right. I’ll lend you a hand.”

Standing up, the other [Champion] walked across the room and touched an empty patch of wall. She closed her eyes and muttered something I couldn’t hear, and then opened a hidden panel. She slid it all the way open to reveal a small, glowing wooden chest. Grumbling to herself, Myral opened several of the chest’s drawers and poked around inside. Eventually, she took out an armful of vials and brought them back to her mortar and pestle. Haphazardly arranging them on the table, she grabbed one that was filled with what looked like purple sand. Like a chef seasoning stew, she pulled the cork free and dumped out a seemingly random amount. This process was repeated for the rest of the vials, and once all her ingredients were in the mortar, she vigorously stirred and pounded them with the pestle.

“You’re in more trouble than you realize,” she said as she dumped the entire mixture –a sickly gray powder that looked like campfire ash – into a mug of hot water and held it out for me to take. “For all his other failings, Davion was right about that much. We [Champions] are jealous of our powers, and we don’t much like it when those born under other stars try to muscle in on our sacred domain. It’s only a matter of time until [Astral Paladins] are sent to hunt you down, and I promise you that they’ll make that storm you endured after taking Davion’s blessing look like nothing more than a light spring rain.”

I shook my head and tried to wave the cup away. “Be that as it may, I’m not drinking poison.”

Myral glowered at me. “It’s not poison, you dolt. If I wanted you dead, your corpse would have already been taken out beyond the wall and discarded.”

“That’s not particularly reassuring,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “You valors are something else. Weren’t you listening earlier? I said that I was going to help you.”

“Forgive me for not being convinced,” I said. “I don’t have much faith in the words of [Champions].”

“Don’t be stupid, Aster. For all the powers that separate us, we [Champions] are people too. Just like [Peasants], we can be kind or cruel, competent or foolish. The blessing of the stars doesn’t change that. I’m nothing like Davion.”

That was probably true, I thought, as I considered how much different Doolen was these days. If Myral was responsible for all the changes that I’d seen, then she clearly cared about the village and making sure that its people were safe. But was that enough to trust her?

And who were the [Astral Paladins]? I’d never heard of them before.

After a moment’s consideration, I decided I didn’t have the luxury of trying to figure it out on my own, so I grabbed the cup and raised it to my lips. I took a tiny sip – more of a taste, really – and was pleasantly surprised by how minty it was. When I didn’t notice any strange tingling or burning in my mouth or throat, I finished the rest.

Myral rolled her eyes.

“So what was that?”

“A draught of my own creation. It will help you stay awake, but more importantly it’ll help you remember everything that I’m about to tell you. If you’re going to survive as a [Champion], these are the things you’ll need to know. The first lesson is this: if you want to escape the judgment of the stars, you’ll need to build something so bright that they can’t be seen.”