Nikolaos was a normal child born in a nameless frontier village, his dad was a guard and his mother a seamstress, the east and the west were constantly at war sending anything and everything they had at each other, life was hard in these war-torn times but even then they found a way to scrape by everyday.
One day a messenger came to their little village, like many villages before them the massager proclaimed the same decree he had done time and time again.
“By order of the council, any able-bodied men are to be conscripted into our glorious countries army and are to serve in the front line, anybody who does not comply will be found guilty of treason!”
His words rang throughout the village for all to hear, for some, the words were a saving grace, maybe just maybe they could find a better life for themselves and their family if they racked up enough achievements in the battlefield, for others the words were like those of the reaper calling them to their death.
The next morning Nikolaos’s father went off with the other men in their village to go to war. With only the young, the elderly and the women left the town found it hard to supply themselves with food since not many were able to hunt and forage, and those that could would only bring back small animals or a paltry number of berries.
At first, people came together sharing food and necessities with each other but as the weeks passed relations waned as did their food supplies, everyone looked at each other with disconcerting eyes wary and full of doubt.
“what if they’re hiding food from us?”
“this family was pretty well off before this happened, so they must have supplies that their keeping from us”
“if others are hiding their food supplies there should be no problem if I pocket some for myself, its only one tiny piece no one will notice anyway.”
These are the thoughts that ran through many of the villager’s heads as times became more desperate, by the end of the second-month relationships were destroyed and enemies were made.
But in these times of hardship Nikolaos’s mom never gave up or resorted to stealing or lying to others, she pulled up her sleeves and went hunting to feed herself and Nikolaos.
Than that faithful day came the messenger came back and proclaimed that the east and west agreed to a cease-fire treaty with the pretense of mutually assured destruction.
Some might find this uneasy peace to built on a flimsy reason and that war would once again rear it’s ugly head around once again when both countries hoard up enough resources and wealth to restart the war, but right now no one cared about what may happen in the future because right now was a joyous moment, their loved ones would be returning from the war and life would be returning back to normal.
And for few a people this was true, but for the majority, they were plunged into despair, one victim of this tragedy was non-other than Nikolaos’s mom.
Squeezing between the many other villagers she excitedly waits for the return of her husband so that everything can go back to normal. Minutes passed, and a wagon appeared in the horizon, cheers rang out the villagers, for when the men came back everything would be back to normal and there would be some stories to tell and maybe one of them built up enough achievements to bring fame and glory to their little village.
As the Wagon came closer the cheering died down and an air of uneasiness spread, something was wrong, something went wrong terribly wrong.
Once the Wagon stopped in the middle of their village square, the stench of death and despair became ever so stronger, when the wagon door popped open there was no cheering no celebration only despair.
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Of the numerous men who left the village only 5 returned, even then that was no alarm for celebration, of the 5 men who came back 3 were crippled for life and the other 2 had wounds so infected it was most likely they would die by the end of the week.
There was uproar all directed at the messenger, asking if there was another wagon coming, maybe this was just most injured that need to be sent home early and that the others would return home at a later date.
But no this wasn’t the case, apparently all the men in this village were put in the same platoon, and in the dying days of the war they were used as a decoy to help the other platoons escape, unluckily their pursuer had been a sword saint, they had lasted longer than they had any right to, fighting against such a foe, in the end, their sacrifice had saved many but in return the survivors were left in this pitiful state.
In the following the days the village had turned into a ghost town many leaving the dying village in hopes of finding a better place to call home, others were chained to the village since they had to take care of their crippled son or husband, some abandoned their crippled family member leaving town in the middle of the night as to not face the judging eyes of their fellow villagers.
And what off Nikolaos’s family?
His father was one of the many who died on the battlefield, this wouldn’t be anything of note to the other villagers but there was one thing that earned them the ire of many of the others, from the testimony of those who returned home, apparently it was Nikolaos’s dad that volunteered his platoon for the task that would ultimately lead to their demise at the hand of the sword saint.
With the village dying it was readily apparent to most that this place had no future, hardly a place to raise a child, so mournfully Nikolaos’s mom made a decision for the sake of her and her beloved’s child she would abandon the only place she ever knew, the place where she and her husband were born, the place where they first fell in love, the place where they got married she would leave all that behind for the sake of their child.
So, departing from the village with Nikolaos in tow, she would move from town to town, sometimes she and he would simply walk from town to town, sometimes by caravan other times by smuggling away in some corner hoping no one would see them.
It was hard finding work, many were not willing to hire a stranger, and many could not afford to hire her, the repercussion of the war had rung wide and many could still feel its reverberations. Many where left destitute not able to find work, many veteran and trainee knights coming back from the war had no skills other than fighting and killing.
But she found little odd jobs that paid well enough to buy food, her seamstress skills were a godsend as she could find work repairing shirts and the like for those who needed it, and the skills she picked up when hunting in the absence of hunters in the village helped her in the gaps where she couldn’t find work.
Indecently it was around this time that the first true dungeon came into existence, a mysterious existence closely related to the nearly extinct dungeons that many have come to know, unlike normal dungeons that could take years or decades to regrow resources these true dungeons could regenerate resources in days.
This gave new purpose to those knights, cutthroats, really anybody whose only skills were with a blade a second chance at life, go in get whatever resources lie within get out and sell them for insanely high prices.
Little did anybody know the existence of these true dungeons would pave a way to a new era. Similarly, no one would expect a little almost bankrupt union filled with nutjobs called the Adventurers Association would become a prominent force in this new era.