An old man gently rocked backwards and forwards in a well worn rocking chair built with his own hands. The wrinkles on his face would be reminiscent of the canyons in a far away windswept desert if anyone living had still possessed the strength to see that place from above.

The smoke from the pipe that was his constant companion enveloped everything he owned with a bitter earthy tone, as he pondered life. He was near the end of this journey, and he felt it down to his bones. Small things that he used to take for granted in his youth, like basic bodily functions, dabnabit, became small victories worthy of celebration when they worked properly.

“I miss when I could sleep through the night without having to pee.” he said as if the the cat on his lap could understand him. He laughed at himself before falling into a coughing fit, as he thought about the three visits he made to the outhouse last night. He missed a lot of things.

But every time he stumbled out of his shack towards the privy in the middle of the night he would be greeted by the stars above, and his eyes would open wide in fascination. Then his body would not so gently remind him of the urgent quest at hand and he would quicken his pace toward his destination. But after he took care of business, he would find himself lost in the stars again, as they peeked out at him from behind the treetops.

Then his mind turned back to what the stars had gifted him last night.

“Ahh, its finally time” he sighed, feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The thought of gifts made his mind wander in another direction again.

‘Maybe this worn down body of mine is some deities idea of a divine gift' he thought, ‘and I’d trade a hill of gold for five minutes alone with that jerk to personally thank him with my fists.' He hadn’t been in a good fight in years, and although his body felt like it was more likely to snap in a high wind than bend, he knew he still possessed the strength for at least one or two more good fights before he blew over. Especially if he didn’t fight fair- which he couldn’t remember ever doing.

Although no one had the courtesy to say it to his face, he could guess what the other villagers really thought about him, based on the insults their children hurled towards his back like stones. Some of the boldest children had even broken into his medicinal garden from time to time while one fool in particular had even tried to kick his cat.

He took a moment to consider the way that people treated him and countless others like him who had committed the crime of acting or looking different than everyone else. It was just one among many of the unjust punishments that this world liked to throw at him.

But at least he had never had to carry the curse that those unfortunate enough to be born into this world with noble blood did. Just like the puppet of a king was sworn to the church, every leader of the kingdoms noble houses had to swear an oath of loyalty that they would not betray the king and that through them, his will would be done.

The old man knew that it was like this in all of the kingdoms protected by the Church of the Sun or its rival the Church of the Moon. For all of their differences that they used as a pretext to wage war on each other, they were more alike than apart.

If the noble or his house betrayed the king by disobeying a compulsion, the magical oath that was wrapped around his spine like a snake coiled around a twig, would break his body just as easily, and then the whole lineage would be purged by the other noble houses.

Even with that mortal threat upon their back, a new house would inevitably rise from the ashes as a knight or official with a mind poisoned by the promises of power and gold, would choose to assume the vacant mantle. It seemed that a fool really was born every day.

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Yes, it was true that becoming a noble enabled someone and their family to become immensely strong. Noble men and women could become something more than a mortal should, while becoming seemingly immune to death and the effects of aging that plagued the common people.

Everything that a noble did in life, from studying to fighting monsters, gave them experience that would compound into inhuman skills and strength that could reap death on a mortal battlefield like a farmer scything wheat. Many would kill for that kind of power, and after tasting it, many nobles dreamed of more as they salivated over the idea of becoming the king or queen of a kingdom.

Fortunately the threat of mutually insured destruction was almost enough of a weight on the other side of the scale, to counter the innate greed of man, and would discourage nobles from rampaging across the countryside or participating in minor battles.

Most commoners thought the compulsions from the noble oaths were a rumor, and that the nobles' cruelty only came from within, but he knew from experience that it was the sad truth. He tried not to think about that anymore.

It made him sad to think of how average people didn’t have control over their own destiny and could be slain by a noble harvesting experience like a crop, but he had a rising feeling that everything was about to change.

‘Enough about the past’ he thought, as his eyes that were more perceptive than they ought to be, spotted two small forms playing in the forest and his mind stumbled back to the matter at hand. ‘There’s something I must do.’

“Are you ready Alice?”

His cat just stared up at him with the look of superior indignation she always wore when he dared to stand up while she was napping on his lap, before stretching and quietly following her oldest friend away from the village.

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On forgotten paths reclaimed by time and replaced with game trails, the old man and his feline friend picked their way through the forest. They ventured over creeks, through thickets of thorny brambles and past groves of trees and plants of all shapes and sizes. Occasionally stepping over the crumbling remains of ancient marble buildings, hinting that this wilderness frontier had once been something more. They avoided any dark voids in the ground that may have once been basements or wells.

The old man knew of places in forest where the air was stagnant and scattered fields of rusty armor and broken weapons could be dug up, having been dropped or still attached to the dusty bones of their unfortunate owners among ancient battlefields. There were even treasures to be found there that could resist the dull of time, and would cut as sharply as the day they were forged.

But he would let the dead rest today, old men and their cats had no use for rusty weapons. Besides, he had another destination, and most of the time it was smarter not to disturb the restless spirts of the slain, lest they reach out to pull you down to join them.

The old man gently set Alice upon a rock shaped like a giant skull, one of many huge boulders that lined the unnamed creek that they had crossed. She looked at him indignantly, like he had wronged her by picking her up to ferry her across the water, even though he knew he would never hear the end of it if she got her paws wet.

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” he chuckled.

They were getting close to their first stop.

A few minutes later the old man came to the bottom of a cliff and after scaling it with a speed and skill that would make an adventurer a quarter of his age envious, he found himself standing at the entrance to a hidden cave halfway up the cliffside. Alice softly padded next to him after the cat climbed up by her own means.

Unlike other ruins he walked past on his trek through the forest, this cave had an agelessness to it, as if the long gone people who built it had just stepped out for supper and would be back at any minute.

The ceiling was a dome dotted with precious stones representing stars and constellations. The stones shone with a faint blue glow, lighting the pedestal in the center of the chamber in a dim cold blue light. The man entered alone and bowed his head as if in prayer as he reverently walked towards the center of the room.

Upon the pedestal rested a basin of liquid the color of steel that reflected the gems above. It looked to have the consistency of molten metal as it softly swirled in the basin of its own accord, but as the man pulled back his sleeve and dipped his arm into the liquid and grabbed a stone at the bottom, not a drop clung to him when he withdrew his hand.

Activate [Key of Ascension]? Yes/No.

For the first time in a long time, the old mans resolve waivered for a moment before he chose No and passed the test. It would be wasted on him. In war it's the burden of the youth that their strength must be used to pay the for the mistakes of their elders.

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Standing in a clearing but invisible for all intents and purposes, the old man watched as two children approached. They wielded sticks as if they were weapons while running around slaying invisible opponents. He wasn’t sure which enemy they were fighting today, but they seemed to be winning the battle.

This was the moment he had been waiting for and with a silent prayer he placed the invaluable treasure the system called the [Key of Ascension], among the ruins. The lightly glowing crystal seemed to brighten as he walked away, as if it was pleased with what was about to happen or maybe it was just impatient to beckon in the change it was designed for.

His deed done, the old man stealthily made his leave. The stars had warned him to limit how much he intervened past this point, except if another church came sniffing, or the cult.

As man and cat hiked home in the fading light, a Forest Wolf stalked them thinking it had found an easy meal. The pup startled in surprise when it smelled Alice, before bolting off with its tail between its legs.