Mason awoke with the sun shining in his eyes, and feeling something was off. He thought for a moment before he realized that what he felt was a window.But that couldn't be right, there were no windows in the Home for the Giftless. And how was his mat so soft? Had his leaves finally not been taken away? That's it, he thought, opening his eyes.

“Uhhhg” Mason groaned. “Yesterday did exist.

With a huge act of willpower, Mason heaved himself off of the fancy mat, which seemed to just be filled with thousands of feathers. But when Mason got up and took one step, his legs cramped up.

“Uh oh,” he said aloud. Then promptly fell over. His legs felt like meat that had gotten crushed beneath a wheel, that was then left out in the sun to dry. But someone forgot about it, so the meat dried up into unusable crisps that would crumble if anything so much as breathed upon it. He hit the ground with a respectable thud.

Mason put his hands out for any purchase that he could find, but there was only dirt and small pebbles that dirtied his hands. Mason tried calling his way forward, and even using his tongue to pull himself forward. Nothing he tried had any effect, except making his mouth taste like the purest form of nature. Still tired and having no other option until his legs worked, Mason once again fell asleep.

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Mason woke once again, but this time to his grumbling stomach. Dragging himself to his feet Mason tested his legs. He took a step. He held up. His legs worked quite well considering they had just felt deep-fried a moment before. Mason’s stomach growled at him.

How long was I asleep? Surely it can’t have been that long. Mason pulled open the door and walked outside. The first thing that hit him was the stench. All the bodies of the townspeople were giving off a nauseating scent. How are the bodies already making a smell? Mason then saw one specific guy lying in the dirt. Never mind, it’s just Old Joes. Old Joe had a reputation for being unpleasant to be around.

The other thing that Mason noticed was the sun, it had shone directly into his face, and he was facing west. The sun was setting. How is the sun setting already? Did I sleep through the entire day? He had also slept through the entire night before, meaning that he had gotten 24 hours of almost uninterrupted sleep.

Realizing this Mason’s first thought was to find something to eat. Wanting to eat like the rich, he set out to find any sort of food from the biggest homes. Mason walked towards the back of the town. He stepped over the bodies of ex-slave masters and tried to get on donkeys to ride into the darkness. He even high-fived a guy who he thought was still alive but was actually covered in a clear coating. What in the name of the Gifter is that? Mason thought, even though a substance that turned people into real-life statues seemed pretty cool.

When Mason arrived at the biggest homes in town he studied them, trying to find the biggest one. Inspecting each home something caught his eye. Wood! They all had balconies of wood. Only the richest could afford to adorn their home with wood as there was no efficient way to shape it. Mason hurriedly ran to the front door of the closest house and tried to pull the door open. Nothing happened. The door was locked. Without hesitation, Mason immediately punched the door in an attempt to break it open. The only result was not a dent in the door, but a dent in Mason’s fist. Trying not to cry out in pain he kicked the door. There was a pause. Then a cry burst free from Mason’s lips.

After recovering for 5 minutes Mason was able to stand again to try different things to break in. He karate-chopped the door, almost breaking his fingers. He tried to get a donkey to kick the door down. That ended with Mason having quite the goose egg on his forehead. He tried to jump into the air and kick it with both feet, giving him a sore rump. He even tried to burn the door down, but having no knowledge of how to start a fire all he ended up doing was covering his hand in splinters from rubbing it all over the door.

As he studied the door trying to find the best spot to chew on Mason noticed something from the corner of his eye. Mason slapped himself on the forehead. How could he be so stupid? All he needed to do was go through the window.

Using the bodies of the leaders of the town that were on the street, Mason was able to make stepping stones up to the window. He felt a little regretful for treating the dead so disrespectfully, but then again they didn’t treat him with any respect while they were alive. But, they all saw him as a worthless animal that was only there to make them have a better life. So maybe it was better that the demonic king baby had killed them. I should not be thinking this. Not wanting to examine those thoughts any further he jumped off the governor's head and into the house.

With a thud, Mason landed in a room that was much different than he had always imagined. He looked around in dismay. There were no fancy portraits or paintings. There weren't any jewels or gold anywhere in the room. No fancy mats the size of carriages.

“It's just dirt. Just dirt!” Mason yelled into the empty house. Then he looked through the doorless archway into the rest of the house. “Oh, never mind.”

Mason walked out into the living room of this rich person's house. This is what he had imagined the place looked like, sort of. There were wooden beams that ran up to the ceiling, and there were soft rectangular things on the floor made of cloth. Why someone needed the floor to be soft Mason had no idea, but he just wanted to spread himself out on whatever this was. There weren't jewels or anything and the wall was still made of dirt, but they were colored in some sort of peeling substance.

Walking around Mason found the pantry, and it was amazing. There was enough food in there to last 5 people for a week, even if they had 3 meals a day! There was also cheese! Cheese was the stuff of legends, only the richest could afford it.

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Mason snatched up the cheese and started to shove it down his throat as fast as he could.

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Harriet watched from above as the only remaining citizen of Smegenbieg gorged himself on cheese. In this poor town cheese was a luxury only enjoyed by the richest. But that was in this town. Town was even the wrong word to describe this place. This was a measly village that would make the poorest people from almost anywhere else in the world look like kings, as most villages had been incorporated into kingdoms and the citizens were brought to a better state of living.

This village had almost no technology. They could barely farm and only really knew how to breed animals. They didn't know about the existence of any sort of metal, only using stone for their tools. Which mainly consisted of big blocks of stone with a handle for hammers. They had made axes before, but they couldn’t really do anything with wood besides burn it since they had no way to process it.

This place was so poor because of its location of being next to Kandor.

Kandor had once been a friendly nation. It traded, supplied, and helped other kingdoms. With a rich supply of metal and farmland, it sped up technology more than at any other time. Canons were created, as well as advanced irrigation. Brilliant minds in Kandor figured out the keystone in arches and were now able to hold up buildings that weighed thousands of pounds more than ever before. With their large farmlands, Kandor supplied thousands of people all across the world. Everyone prospered. Until about 20 years from the present day, when something changed.

Kandor just went silent. They stopped supplying food and technology, and it seemed no one ever came out of the city.of the gates of Kandor. Messengers were sent to ask the newly appointed King Gathoric why he and his kingdom had suddenly gone quiet. But no matter how many messengers were sent, and no matter who sent them, they never returned. All forces sent to provoke even one person out of the gates of Kandor failed. And when anyone went inside the gates, they never came out. Including half the army of the Meilwin Kingdom. They went inside the gates and vanished, they were simply gone.

Then, two weeks ago, an army had burst through the gates, attacking this village. At the head of the army, a family passing through the town reported seeing a man unlike any other. It had a visible brain, purple skin, huge muscles, and a crown. They hadn’t recognized the body of this man, but he was clearly King Gathoric. The family had barely been able to escape.

When the merchant family had reported this incident, King Merlin of the Meilwin Kingdom spread the news, and across the Boarhead continent, fear spread. The four kings Hermann, Gelin, Alik, and Sean all assured their people that everything was okay and under control. Merlin was the oddity among them. He started to build an army after half of his army had been eradicated.

That was where Harriet's journey had begun. She had joined the army believing that Kandor was a threat. She had started the journey to the capital of Meilwin to stop Kandor, but on her way, she had met a creature. It was a reptile, 10 feet long, with bony wings. It was a dark purple, not like Kandor’s army which obviously wore purple, no, this purple was almost black. A dark fire had snorted from its nostrils. This was a creature of destruction. A shadow dragon, a rare and supposedly beautiful creature.

Harriet had frozen instantly as the dragon dropped from the sky. Dragons had not been seen for centuries, so Harriet had accepted that she was going to die right then. The dragon had sniffed around her horse until snapping its head up and stared right into her eyes. Not even daring to breathe, Harriet stared back. After a moment the beast spoke.

“Who are you?” The dragon had asked in a surprisingly high voice for a creature that size. Harriet had expected the shadow dragon to have a deep rumbling voice, but it sounded like an average adult man.

“I am Harriet of the Meilwin Kingdom”, she had replied in what she thought was a confident voice.

“I need your help.” Harriet had been shocked. Why did a dragon need the help of a human?

“I feel a calling from the West, and I want someone to accompany me.”

“Why?” Harriet had asked, still too frightened to move.

“I feel something stirring, something dangerous,” it answered.

So Harriet then journeyed with the dragon to the West. She did it only out of fear that if she did not comply, then the dragon would eat her. If there was no threat then she would have just run off because she did not believe that the dragon was sensing something from Kandor. In fact, Harriet half guessed that the dragon was taking her to its layer to share with its pack or whatever a group of dragons was called. Over the journey, Harriet learned that the dragon’s name was Jeigir and that his parents had perished shortly after his egg had been laid. With no parents, he had been forced to learn how to hunt by himself, but somehow did not know how to fly. Harriet asked if he had tried to flap his wings after jumping off a cliff, but Jeigir had told her that that hadn’t worked.

Finally, after about a week, Jeigir had sensed that he was close to his destination. They were at Smegenbeig, where Kandor had first attacked. They were led to the biggest shack in the village, where Harriet found an eighteen-ish or so boy stuffing himself with cheese. He was giftless, that was easy to tell. He had no traits that suggested any gifts.

“Seriously, this guy?” Harriet asked Jeigir, as they watched from a hole in the roof.

“I can sense it, this is where I have been led.” Crouching down, Harriet paused, and with a sigh and much hesitation, Harriet dropped down into a now cheeseless room.

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Mason was in heaven surrounded by all the cheese. He had never had anything that actually tasted good. Well he was once surrounded by cheese. That was five minutes ago, now all the cheese was in his belly. For the past five minutes all he had done was shove cheese into his mouth with such gusto that he hadn't been able to breathe. A new experience for him. With the last crumb of cheese in his mouth, Mason slumped to the floor. He started coughing, trying to expel the cheese from his throat. Blood and pressure built in Mason’s head until he thought he was going to explode. Pressure kept building, and coughing kept on echoing through the house until a chunk of cheese, about the size of a thumb, catapulted out of Mason’s mouth. Finally, he could breathe again. Mason gratefully inhaled gallons of air at a time until he had recovered.

Sitting up, Mason noticed a new pain, but this type of pain was a new experience. It felt like his stomach was too full of food to take in any more. This novel experience would have felt like a great victory now that Mason could eat food, but the only thing he could feel was a pain in his stomach. Mason slumped back onto the ground for the first time having a satisfying meal.

After a few minutes of laying down and a session of relieving the bladder, Mason was feeling much better. He tried to plan out his next day of eating. Should he get food from the smaller homes then work his way up? Or should he just eat the cheese in all the big homes? These thoughts plagued him until he knew the way forwards, more cheese. Cheese was the answer. With this plan in mind, Mason started to stand up.

A grunt echoed down from above as he started to move. A shadow was falling quickly towards him from a hole in the ceiling. Mason couldn’t even scream before the shadow landed on him.