Four days earlier…
The party of five from Graeton, along with Maggie, took stock of the grove just twenty yards in front of them. From their vantage point they could see the tall, green trees reaching up for the sky. Each leafy tree was adorned with red apples, and the floor of the grove was carpeted with them as well. A quick scan didn’t show any sign of movement within the grove, but Maggie assured them that not only did raiders frequent the area for supplies, namely fresh fruit and whatever their unsuspecting victims were carrying, but there was also a magical nymph that resided in the forest and liked to cause mischief to travelers and raiders both.
“Well,” said Faro, satisfied with their survey and wanting to get a move on to catch Jarl, “I’m not seeing any sign that we will be bothered. And honestly, we will never be one-hundred percent sure until we go in for the horses.”
“I agree,” said Mathias as he walked back up to the group. He had chanced to get closer to the grove and reported that nothing seemed to be out of place there. “I also suggest we pull our weapons in case we’re ambushed,” he said a little nervously, drawing his sword. Though he had done well in the fight against the Dark Humans, Mathias was still a little leery of battle. He was a healer, not a fighter. Thora, on the other hand, pulled out her mace eagerly, and Tobi grabbed his axe with his usual fierce determination. Calm as ever, Lena knocked an arrow on her bow. Maggie only had a dagger on her now, but she held it so tightly in her grasp that her knuckles were stark white.
Faro nodded at all of them, and they all started forward. When they were mere feet from the first apple tree, they could make out the horses within the grove. They were several rows of trees in, tied up each to their own tree. They could be seen ducking down and picking up apples with the mouth and chomping them down.
“Ay! A snack does sound good!” said Tobi. He took the butt of his axe and drove it into the nearest tree. A dozen apples rained down on them and he quickly identified the fresh-fallen fruit and distributed them to the party. Maggie politely declined, still full from the loaf of bread she had wolfed down an hour earlier.
The air filled with crunching as they all and made their way further into the grove. Faro smiled as they approached the horses. Now they’d be able to get to Umbra’s Veil at much quicker pace and make up all the time they’d lost. Only, when they got up to the horses, they vanished right before their eyes.
Faro reacted by waving his war hammer into the air, stepping carefully side to side and surveying the area. The illusion of horses meant that a sorcerer was about, likely the wood nymph Maggie had mentioned. Glancing back, Faro could see the others waving their weapons around, confused as well. That was until they weren’t there either. The blackness pressed in around him, and then there was nothing.
***
Lena blinked and found herself in a familiar scene. Familiar, but so long ago. Her parents were laughing at the head table of the great hall of Zelira. Around them their guests danced merrily, most of them likely haven partaken in too much wine.
She watched her parents from the side of the room, leaning against the wall and taking in the scene. It was her parents’ wedding anniversary, the last time they would be happy together in such an occasion. So much darkness was soon to take them over. So much darkness had already begun to creep in, and Lena felt herself torn between staying loyal to her father and his kingdom, and following her training and staying in Solana’s Light.
The sight of them up there, being happy, was too much for her. She turned to leave but was greeted instead by a stranger she had never seen before. He was a tall, slender man. A human. He was bald, but sported a full beard and mustache, mostly obscuring his friendly smile. The bridge of his nose had a big gash in it, as if he’d been in battle and narrowly missed having his head cut clean in half.
“Funny time to be having a party!” he exclaimed and Lena just stared at him.
“I mean, it’s their wedding anniversary,” Lena shot back, but it was clear that’s not what he meant.
“Dark times ahead. I know it. Your father knows it. Given your studies of The Light, I’d wager you know it, too.” She studied the man as he spoke. He didn’t seem to mean her any harm, she just wasn’t sure why he was here stopping her from leaving.
“I don’t know what I know anymore,” she admitted. “I know the light is the way, but my father, he feels we need more to stop the darkness.”
At this, the man laughed. “Funny way to stop the darkness,” he mused. “More darkness? When has the dark ever stopped the dark? No. When it comes right down to it, it’s only the light that can stop the dark. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Lena smiled at the man. “Yeah, that does make sense actually. Thank you,” she said, smiling at the man. With that she turned towards the door and walked out, no longer wishing to speak about her father, nor the darkness ahead.
Before she was out of earshot, she heard the man call after her, “Only the light will save the heir.”
The words sounded odd to her. Heir? Heir of what? As she turned to ask him, she saw that he was no longer there. He was gone as suddenly as he’d appeared.
She never saw the man again.
***
Little Thora found herself padding across her parents’ shop. The room shown bright yellow as it always did, lit by the inordinate amount of subfluore crystals that always occupied the space. Her parents worked with the precious crystals to help develop weapons and machines of wonder for the Evania family, as her family had done for generations.
The little nine-year-old girl loved the warm glow the crystals provided, and seeing her brilliant parents’ inventions come to life always left her in awe. She was an only child, so her parents often had the time to show her what they were working on, and they would introduce her to the patrons that would come into the shop to buy inventions of lesser importance, like street lamps and lighting for their dwellings.
Every now and then they would even get royalty through their doors, which was always a special treat. Just a few days prior the king of Incarta, James Envato, and his son Faro had been in to purchase a large load of special lighting brackets that were meant to be hung around their mining facilities, along with a subfluore-powered grinding machine that her mother had invented that would help them refine iron ore at an astonishing rate.
Today her mother and father were in the back, and she was tending the front of the store in their absence. And by tending, her parents had told her, that meant to call them immediately when someone came in. She found it annoying when they did this. She knew she was big enough to handle a customer, they just didn’t want to admit their little girl was growing up.
As she waited for the next customer she found herself tossing around a crystal like a ball. It was funny, because she had read there used to be wars over this stuff, but here it was, sitting around the shop like bread on display at a bakery.
During one particularly high throw, the bell to the front door dinged and distracted her. The crystal dropped to the ground and shattered, keeping it’s bright glow, but now only in a thousand tiny pieces across the floor of the shop.
“Oh no!” she cried, forgetting the customer that had entered, and getting the broom instead of her parents. She had to get it cleaned before they came back. She found herself sweeping the second half of the broken crystal up when the customer engaged her.
“Her there, little miss. Looks like you’ve got a bit of a mess there!” said a man’s voice.
Startled, Thora glanced up an saw a tall, slender, bald man staring down at her, smiling through a bushy beard and mustache.
“Ugh, yeah I know. The ding of the door made me miss my throw.” Looking up at his face, Thora noticed something odd. “What happened to your nose there, mister?” she asked, showing no tact as kids usually don’t.
The man just chuckled at her. “Someone tried to take my head off. Let’s just say I’m good at dodging,” he said, flicking his finger off the gash on his nose playfully. “Now,” he continued, “I hear this is the best subfluore shop in all of Evania. I’m in the market for a weapon with a little extra kick.”
“To stop people from chopping your head off?” she asked without pause.
“Yes,” he chuckled again. “Exactly.”
“Well I’ll go get my parents and they can help. They’re in the shop out back,” she said, finally remembering her protocol.
“Well, I have a feeling you can help me,” he said, kneeling down beside her. “I want a sword that delivers an energy jolt to make sure the bad guys stay down when they’re hit.”
She thought for a moment, and then started showing him around the swords. He sure was a picky customer, as nothing she showed him seemed to fit the bill.
While she showed him a particularly gnarly, curved scabbard with a subfluore embed in the hilt, they heard a loud bang from outside. Thora felt that she should go and check, but the man insisted that the customer comes first, and that she continue to help him out. She agreed, and kept showing him the weapons.
After what felt like an hour of showing him around, he finally settled on a longsword with a double subfluore embed. As he was paying, he tossed her an extra coin. She caught it and was struck by it’s odd nature. One side had a crown that looked like the royal seal of Evania. The other had strange markings that she couldn’t decipher. She looked back up to thank the man, but he and the sword were gone.
She pocketed the strange coin and headed out back to tell her parents about the sale she had just made. Only they weren't there, and there were signs of a struggle. Later she had found out the Cosimir had sent his Dark Humans to kill her parents and steal their war machines from the shop in the back.
***
Tobi stood behind his bar on his raised sub floor, polishing a glass. He had sent his daughter Thora next door to the general store to see if she could make a deal on their next month’s ration of food for their dwelling upstairs. The general store was run by a woman named Karen who was always wound uptight, which was funny because she had a particular liking for his special brew, and would often give them discounted food for a special supply of the vodka. Tobi always thought that would loosen her up more, but she was still wound tight ever time he saw her.
As Tobi set the glass down and made to pick up another, a man walked into the tavern. Tobi sized him up. He was a tall, slender man with a balding head. Strapped across his back was a big, menacing looking sword with two subfluore crystals embedded in the hilt. Tobi instinctively felt under the bar for his axee, but the man simply stode up the the bar and took a seat
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“Two please!” he said cheerily.
Tobi laughed. “But there’s only one of you, sir!”
The man smiled at him. “Seems like a good day for a drink, so it seems like it will be an even better day if I have two!”
Tobi couldn’t argue further with a paying customer, and so got him his drinks. He pulled out a stein he’d bought in Baltha, where he’d found his daughter Thora living on the streets, and poured his special mix vodka in it. After repeating the same action, he slid both over to the man.
“Quite the sword you got there!” Tobi chimed in, trying to keep his customer happy and engaged.
“You think so?” asked the man. “It’s done me some huge favors in battle.”
“Apparently not enough favors,” Tobi quipped, pointing at his own nose, indicating the scar across the man’s nose.
“Oh yeah? What if I was to tell you that without this sword I wouldn’t even have a head!” Both men burst out laughing, and the man happily slurped down his drink. Tobi was impressed at how the man downed his alcohol. Vodka usually had a burning feeling, but it didn’t seem to phase this man. They made small talk and the man downed his other drink, and ordered two more. Tobi was sure he was going to be cleaning the man off the floor by the end of the night.
The man started to slur his speech. “Cutest… cutest… cue… little girl… she sold me this sword. Ten or so years back. You know that? Sweetest little girl in the world.”
Tobi smiled, thinking of his own little girl next door still haggling with Karen. “Glad I met my cute little girl. She’s trying to haggle with the hag next door for our food for the next month!” Tobi boomed proudly. “Sweetest thing she is. Gave me this,” he said, yanking his axe from below the bar, “when she first met me!”
The man drew back a bit. “She ga…gave you an axe! I thought you… heh… thought you said she was sweet!” The man bust out in laughter, his mouth hanging open wide as he did in a loud guffaw.
Tobi laughed just as hard back. “No, no, no!” Tobi yelled over the man’s laughter. “This!” He pointed at a coin that was forged into the joint of the axe where the head met the handle. The man looked intently at it. It had the crown of Evania on the side that was facing out, surely the more decorative side if that was what the dwarf had chosen to be outward facing.
“Quite the coin,” the man said, and Tobi was taken aback by the clearness of his voice all of a sudden. “Crest of the Evanian family. A sure sign that the heir will return.”
Tobi’s eyes grew wide. “Who are you, friend?” Tobi asked in awe.
“Just a traveler,” said the man, getting up to leave. “Thank you so much for the drinks,” he said, flipping him three gold coins, way more than the drinks were worth. “Stick by your little girl, and you can’t go wrong, Tobi,” said the man.
Tobi was bending over to hook up his axe back under the bar when the man said this. “I never told you my name,” the dwarf said, standing back up to face the man, but he was gone. Not even the tavern doors were swinging.
***
Mathias shivered as he sat atop the peak of the mountain. He could see the even taller, snow-covered peak of Mt. Fluore in the distance, and was thankful that he didn’t have to trek up that far. In fact no one did, as the ruthless Emperor Cosimir hardly allowed anyone up to his summit.
Instead, Mathias was here to help with the Darmarkan people, the primative tribes that had settled the mountains around Mt. Fluore after the Evania family and their armies had freed them from harsh slavery in the country of Darmark to the south.
Mathias was a traveling healer, and he had heard that a grave illness had befallen the tribes of the mountains. Being the caring man that he was, he had rushed to their aid. He not only wanted to see if he could cure them, but he had also heard rumor that the symptoms were that of the once-dreaded scourge that Cosimir and his Dark Mage Eldryn had cast upon the land to control the kingdoms. He had to see for himself if it was as many had feared was coming for years: the scourge had returned.
Now as he sat on a rock in a hut, tending to a young, fair-skinned child, he was fairly certain what had struck the village was a case of awful food poisoning from a village celebration they’d had a few days prior. Not knowing the cause, they had continued to eat the tainted food for days until Mathias had arrived. There wasn’t much he could do for them except make them all some ginger and peppermint tea to help with the symptoms and wait them out.
Leaving the hut and looking for a camp fire to start the brew, Mathias heaved a sigh of relief. The scourge wasn’t back. No one really knew why it had subsided to begin with, but no one really cared, as long as it didn’t come back.
It was night on the mountaintop, so locating the nearest fire was easy. It had burned low, as there weren’t many well enough to be out tending to it. Mathias stoked the fire, and then set up his camp stove from his supply pack and began preparing the peppermint and ginger plants to add to the water when a man’s voice cut the night air.
“The simple remedies are always the best, are they not?” asked the voice.
Mathias set down his knife and looked towards the voice. Before him stood not a villager, but a tall, slender man with a balding head. In the flickering of the campfire, Mathias noticed that the man had a noticeable chunk of his nose missing, but knew that he had enough tact not to mention such a deformity.
Curious as to why someone else who wasn’t a villager was here, Mathias asked as much. “What brings you to these parts, friend? Bad case of food poisoning here, so I hope you brought your own rations!”
The man smiled and pulled out his pack of rations from his side satchel. “Everywhere I go!” he said.
“Excellent,” Mathias said back, going back to chopping up his ingredients. “And yes, a simple tea is about all I can do here. That and time to let this pass for them.” The man nodded.
Mathias glanced at the stranger again, and noticed the large, glaring weapon that he carried. A longsword with two subfluore crystals embedded in the hilt. “Brave man,” said Mathias. “Come to the mountains with a loaded weapon such as that, and the Dark Humans, maybe even Cosimir himself, would likely hunt you down and kill you for it.”
The man just patted the sword. “That man’s not the true king. He can come try and take it if he wants it.”
Mathias raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Not many are willing to speak so openly about such things, nor to make threats to the emperor on his own mountains.”
The man pulled a cloth out and unwrapped it, revealing dried meat. He offered a piece to Mathias who took it happily and began to munch on it between brewing the tea.
The man took a piece for himself and began to chew on it. “This land still has so much blood to shed before the true heir rises,” he told Mathias simply.
The healer wasn’t really sure what to make of that. “An heir you say? To the Evanian throne? An honorary heir at best, no doubt. The Evania line was stamped out when Cosimir slaughtered them all.”
“Were they?” the man asked calmly. “They may yet be wiped out,” he continued. “That’s what the forces of evil seek to do. Evania will need a man who can heal both flesh and spirit if the heir is to take their rightful place on the mountaintop.”
Mathias wasn’t sure what to make of this man. “You’re speaking in riddles, friend,” he said, hoping the man would elaborate more. He didn’t.
“You are a kind and caring soul,” said the man, pulling out another piece of dried meat. “But traveling as a healer must be hard on you as you're getting on in age.”
“A little,” Mathias agreed. He was here shivering on the mountaintop, sore from the rough climb to the top the day before. “But healing is my calling. Has been since I was a child.”
The man shook his head. “There’s a little town I was at, not too long back. You’d think it was a quiet, cozy little town, but it’s actually bustling with life. Town called Graeton, just to the east of the mountain range through the valley. A lot of trade goes on there. More than almost any place in Evania since it’s so close to the mountains, but not quite. I have a feeling they could use a good healer there.”
Mathias bent to check on the tea, and then sat back up to ask the man why he thought it was such a good place for a healer, but the man was gone. Even a man of science like Mathias was baffled at the man’s silent departure.
***
Faro held the shield tightly in his grip, waiting for the impact. When it came, it was not as hard as he had anticipated. It was true that he was a big, burly man, but he was still expecting a bigger hit from the bigger burly man he was training. “Come on, Eli! Is that all you’ve got?” Faro yelled at his opponent. “My old gran can swing a hammer harder than that!”
Eli brushed his long black hair from his face and struck again. Faro just laughed at him. Eli became frustrated. “I don’t understand why I have to train to fight!” he yelled in frustration. “I thought my job was to deliver Solana’s message to the kingdoms and be done. We’ve done that, now it’s time the real fighters take over!”
Faro clicked his tongue at the man. “Tsk. Tsk. Eli, you are the face of the rebellion. You hold the hope of the entire country of Evania on your words. That also means that you drive it’s fate with your hands. Now strike like you mean it!”
This time Eli summoned up all his pent up frustration at being called to something he never wanted any part of and swung the hammer hard into Faro’s shield. Faro felt the strike reverberate through his entire arm and took a step back to absorb the recoil of the force. “Excellent! There’s that blacksmith swing! Just pretend your enemy is an anvil, you will do just fine!”
Eli’s face broke into a smile. “I’m glad you've been there for me through all of this, you know,” he said to Faro. “I didn’t ask for these visions. I’m a nobody. I don’t deserve all this grandeur.”
Faro shrugged at his friend. “Solana chose you, my friend. Out of everybody in Evania, He chose the blacksmith from Incarta. Doesn’t sound like a nobody to me.”
Instead of looking happy at the sound of this, Eli looked like he might throw up. Instead of continuing the topic, he decided to change the subject. “Do you think the Dungeon Lord Council has decided on a proper successor if we’re to succeed in the war?” Eli asked him.
Faro thought for a minute. It was an insanely hard decision for all of the kingdom’s rulers to make. Who among them had the right to sit atop Mt. Fluore and rule all the others, when they had all been made equal for so long? That was the decision that the rulers had come to Evania to make, and the debate had lasted days. There were rumors that they were close to a consensus, but Faro could also see it dragging on a while longer. Either way, once the decision was made, that king or queen would become the acting High King or High Queen, and take their place atop the mountain when the war was won.
“First of all,” said Faro, “I don't think they like being called Dungeon Lords anymore. That was Cosimir slang that just stuck. It’s demeaning.”
Eli nodded. “Yeah, I get it, force of habit.”
“If they’re smart,” Faro continued, “They’ll pick someone who isn’t a standing king. Someone who can be impartial and have the best interest of all kingdoms at heart.”
Eli’s face went pale. “Oh, Solana. I hope that’s not me,” he said, knowing it was a small possibility given his prominent stance in the rebellion.
“You are the most timid savior I’ve ever seen,” Faro laughed. “It’s like a thousand to one shot it’s you, but if it is, you’ll do just fine. And,” he added, “you already got your right hand man!” Faro said, pointing two thumbs at himself.
“Hah! Absolutely,” said Eli. After a beat he said, “Enough sparring for one day. The thought of all this is making me sick to my stomach. I need to get back down home and get something to eat,” he said, referring to his home with his mother down in the lower dungeon levels of Incarta.
“Yeah, for sure. I need some chow too,” said Faro, waving at his friend and heading off to the upper level mess where people of higher standings always had food waiting for them.
The corridors he walked through were all stone, hewn out from the existing stone beneath what used to be the grand kingdom of Incarta. Once Cosimir took over and the scourge drove everyone underground, the dungeons were made below the surface by mages and masonry workers. They provided a safe haven for people to keep clear of the scourge, which needed the sun’s power to make it’s magic thrive. Down here is was dank and dark, with only the provided subfluore crystals to help provide any light to their dark existence.
Faro saw the door to the mess and was about to excitedly rip it open when he heard voices. Two men were talking down the hall by his father’s council room. The same room where the meeting was taking place to decide the fate of their world.
Being as sneaky as he could for a larger fellow, Faro made his way down the corridor and hid behind a pillar. Now he could hear every word the guards were saying. One man, a tall, slender, balding man was talking quickly, in a hushed tone to the other.
“It’s done! They’ve decided!”
The other, a short, stocky man answered excitedly back. “You heard what they said?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. They weren’t very quiet about it in there. James Envota is the new High King!”
Faro's heart sank. Of all the people in the room, his father was one of the last he would have expected, or at least hoped, got the vote. After all, Cosimir himself was from Incarta, so Faro assumed that would have put some sort of stigma on chosing another Incartan ruler. Besides, what did that make him now? Was Faro the King of Incarta now in his father's stead? He had to be. There was no other heir, and with his father moving up in the world, that made Faro next in line to be king. He swallowed hard. Was he even ready for that?
The shorter man answered excitedly, “Good at eavesdropping, eh? Must be how you got that huge gash in your nose!” Both men laughed before the short man continued. “Think we'll get a ticket to ride along with the king up to the top of the ‘ol summit?”
The tall man smiled. “You might maybe. I think my job here is done. I'm likely off to something else here soon. I just hope there’s a peaceful transfer of power.”
“Peaceful?” yelled the short man. “ No way old dust bones up there is giving up his throne without a fight.”
“No, no, no,” said the tall man. I mean when the true heir of Evania returns. I hope the Envato family graciously bows out to the rightful heir.”
The short man scoffed. “An old wives tale for sure,” he said. “The whole Evania family was wiped out when Cosimir slaughtered them all.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” said the tall man. “The heir is hidden and safe somewhere far away. The fate of Evania hinges on the strength or weakness of that heir.”
The short man laughed. “You keep to your wives tales then, friend. Seems like we're done here. Let's make another round and come back.”
Faro could hear the footsteps of the men walking away. He dared a peak out from around the corner of the column, but what he saw made him raise his eyebrows. Only the short, stocky man could be seen walking away.