Maybe I am the Hero. The thought resonates through my head once again. Ever since entering this strange world of Tollaria, I’ve been running about, putting others before myself, solving problems. I’ve taken so little time or opportunity for myself, despite my desire to do so. Perhaps that bitch-goddess was right, and this world is indeed sorting me out. Softening me, making me less incentivized by its natural riches and potential. A whole new market of people, and what have I done? I’ve shown them how to trade nuts, and defended them, practically for free. If I was talking with the board, or with Brandy, they’d think I’ve gone insane. However, being the Hero isn’t all bad. I have sway with these people. I have followers, and their allegiance is with me and me alone.
“Mark.” Lithelle’s cold voice cuts starkly into my internal monologue. Like that, the notion of owning the role of Hero is gone, to me. I’m just Mark. Mark Whooten, CEO, Chief Officer, wealthy, competent, and intelligent. Not to mention, given my new powers, quite strong. “Are you prepared to begin the journey north? It’s a few days of traveling.” She finishes her thought.
“Indeed.” I left a list of instructions with Crutch, Flit and Flott, Iskander, and Kizzo to work on in my stead. I will be gone to the north for a few weeks, it seems, in a kingdom full of elves who aren’t nearly as naive as the population I’ve stewarded for here. Ausiat, a civilized place. The idea slightly concerns me. Perhaps the magic of this world will wear off and I won’t be able to sway the elves as I have the goblins or the humans at Rosehill. Yet, Lucan and the other Antiquarians were the smartest people I had met prior to Lithelle, and they were easily convinced. “Let us make haste. Time wasted is profit wasted.” A saying that slowly had begun to fall out of my vocabulary the longer I’ve spent in Tollaria forces its way out of my mouth. I’m still Mark Whooten.
“Uh, sure.” Lithelle responds flatly to my remark. It seems as though the influence of the Five, or the Four and Me, has spread all around Tollaria, and different locales have different explanations of the incidents. From what I’ve gathered, each one of us was dropped in a different area of the world, and slowly have been expanding our influences outward. The Purple Armored Man, from what I understand, appeared in the wilderness and has largely cut paths of destruction in his wake, slaughtering innocents. Drapery Wizard has been made a fool of by the natural restrictions of the world, but still menaces much of it due to the lack of prior violence present. The Summoner, or whatever I’ll be calling him after my first interaction, has remained close to Ausiat, outside of the walls. He rides a great beast and preys on individuals, harnessing their souls and reanimating their corpses. The fourth, to my knowledge, has remained hidden from common visibility, but had the strongest magical signature upon entering the world of Tollaria. A fitting final boss, should they stand in my way. I’m a big fan of their current irrelevance, however.
“I will grab my things, and we will make haste!” I say, snapping to, from my thoughts once again.
“Yeah, you already used the haste line. I’ve been ready. I came by thirty minutes ago and you were sitting here, sorting various Yummynuts based on size.” Lithelle picks up one of the darker Yummynuts off of my desk. A slightly browner, richer color hints at the depth of flavor in the nut being greater than the pale nuts which are the standard. Lithelle’s eyes betray a seasoned warrior and gatherer. She chose that Yummynut with purpose. A goblin, were he to grab a Yummynut, would not think twice about which. They are all good, even though they are not equally good. Lithelle, however, has a discerning palate and pays close attention to what is presented before her. Perhaps I can convince her to work for me on our journey north. As Quality Assurance, or something. My only problem with that idea is that she might actually find issues, which means I would be obligated to fix them. These are things to consider. A snapping noise prompts me to lock in on her face once more. “Seriously? Are you good to travel? This is the fourth or fifth time you’ve zoned out in this conversation alone. Did you knock your head in the fight with the Conqueror?”
The Conqueror is one of the names that Lithelle has thrown out for the Purple Armored Man. Personally, I’m inclined to stay with my own naming of him, as it makes him seem less menacing and insurmountable. However, I have yet to surmount him, so, there might be slightly more truth to her name than my own. Though, he seems to destroy more than conquer. “No, I’m fine. Just have many thoughts. When you’re intelligent, you think a lot. I’m sure you zone out when some of the goblins here talk to you, no?” I smile.
“No, I don’t, because it’s rude. But, whatever. Let’s go.” She can’t let up for one moment, it seems. We haven’t even left the Gubweh tribe, but my decision to travel with just myself and her, leaving some of her companions to help protect the Gubweh is already biting at my ankles. If she’s like this for the entire trip… No. Best not to think that way. My feet begin moving in tandem with her own as we walk out of the tent, my bag of supplies strapped to my back, and her bag to hers. I spot a shorter goblin out of the corner of my eye, carving away at some Bluewood.
“Ah, Crutch!” I had given him minimal instructions to follow in my absence, which simply boiled down to “make things”. However, After interacting with Lithelle once again, I had decided to have the goblin take another path in work for the time. The first line of his instructions was to prepare his traveling supplies and my own within the bag on my shoulders. “You will be coming north to Ausiat with us!” I take my bag off of my shoulders and hand it to him, and he slings it over himself. Crutch, for me, was a crutch that I could use if I anticipated the journey with just Lithelle to be harrowing or tedious. I’ve settled on the idea that it might be tedious, and, as such, Crutch will be accompanying me. Lithelle, frankly, doesn’t seem the least bit surprised. I only notice after Crutch slings the satchel over his shoulder that there were not one, but two blades sticking out. I’m no warrior, I’m not dual wielding swords. Perhaps Lithelle was able to tell that I had planned to bring Crutch with me.
“Alright, let’s get moving.” Crutch maintains a steady pace beside myself and Lithelle as he catches up, and the three of us step out of the Gubweh community, and will not be returning for the longest time I’ll have been gone since arriving here. A few thoughts sit in my mind, with the two most dominant being that of hoping the Gubweh are okay in my absence, and hoping that the mineshaft continues to be profitable in my absence. A few vials of the Purple Magical Goop rattle around inside of the bag on Crutch, which I had Flit and Flott prepare for me. Lyrie was given a proper funeral within the Gubweh tradition, Iskander was given a badge of authority fashioned out of Bluewood by none other than Crutch, and Kizzo is among the more competent of the Gubweh in the first place, so I trusted him to keep things running well.
A few minutes of marching onwards in quiet introspection is suddenly cut short by what I believe to be a blood-curdling shriek of death. Well, regardless of whether or not it is a shriek of death, it certainly was blood-curdling. I lurch forward and feel the ringing of the scream in my ears. Painful, harsh, and horrid. We’re not even halfway to Rosehill, and things have already started off difficult. Crutch holds his blade in his hand, and enters a defensive stance. I do the same, and feel my left hand pulsate with energy, chained to my soul and spirit. My heartbeat increases, and my eyes begin to dart left and right, seeking through the brush. Lithelle adopts a poised stance, and draws two daggers from her boots, one for each hand. Suddenly, a thought strikes me. Maybe she was being sarcastic earlier when she slow clapped. This is not a woman who is purely naive.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Two arrows whizz by my head, and thunk into a tree behind me. Crutch holds up his blade as if to prepare to slice the arrows which fly at him, which he clearly is not capable of. Lithelle’s eyes flicker back and forth faster than my own, scanning the surroundings for our assailants. She flips forward and throws one of the daggers with force, perfectly arcing and hitting something among the tree branches with a loud bang. Suddenly, out of the tree, a decomposing body drops, dagger embedded in its neck. The eyes of the corpse glow a faint purple, and it’s holding a bow loosely in its hands, where bone extends forward at the fingertips, as flesh has rotted away. Another corpse, no dagger embedded this time, loosely collapses out of a nearby tree, stumbling over itself. A similar blood-curdling shriek calls out from a different direction now. From Rosehill’s direction. Lithelle locks eyes with me.
“We must go now. Quickly.” She’s dead serious, like usual, but her voice conveys one message to me: This is the Summoner.
I feel my legs join her own and Crutch’s in running quickly. A few failed attempts at marring our progress are revealed in stumbling corpses and wires strung across the path to trip or clothesline us. As we run, Lithelle deftly calls out the obstacles and traps, perceiving the world innately with such speed and precision I would think her a robot, or vestige of some machine. Smoke billows from Rosehill once again. If this truly is the Summoner, then that means all but one of the Five have been to Rosehill at some point. The fact that the villas are still standing is impressive. I do feel bad for the residents, though.
After a few more minutes of running north, we finally reach the edge of Rosehill. People run and scream, and more fires burn around than I have seen yet. Given how many attacks I’ve witnessed on Rosehill since arriving in this world, this is an impressive feat. Corpses, drained of blood and vitality, stumble around, moaning and growling at those who are still living. All of them seem to be possessed in some manner or other, with their eyes emitting an ominous purple light.
I notice Lithelle holding two daggers again. Either she retrieved the one from the corpse she had dispatched earlier, or had even more than I had observed. A few of the residents recognize me, and a few recognize her, and they run towards us for solace. Behind us, some of the citizens gather and cower among the chaos destroying the town. In my right hand, a sharpened blade, with a fine bluewood hilt. It’s well balanced and crafted by none other than Crutch, who holds a slightly smaller blade in the same style he crafted himself. He stands to my right, and interestingly wields his blade with his left hand, leaving his right hand free for a buckler made out of metal. My left hand aches with powerful energy. When I channel it like this, it feels almost like forcing my own muscles to cramp, but in my hand, where such muscles aren’t present in a bulky degree, it feels as though my bones themselves are crackling and splintering. The pain keeps me engaged. At my left flank, Lithelle stands, holding her two daggers, one in each hand. She leads with her right foot. We are the Vanguard of Rosehill, at least for now. The Hero, his Assistant (Lithelle), and his Friend (Crutch).
The corpses have now noticed us, and the blood-curdling scream finally comes from a visible source. A smaller, creepy looking man, pale, with thin wispy hair growing off of a balding head sits atop a strange beast that seems to be a cross between a Peregrine Falcon and a Rhinoceros, glowing with a dark purple energy. In his hand, a large staff, made of a material that glows with metallic sheen and is, unsurprisingly, purple, sits. Come to think of it, very little in this world that is naturally occurring is purple. Most of it is green, blue, brown, white, or yellow. There’s obviously some red, such as the many roses of Rosehill, but…
My hand suddenly shifts, and I feel all of my fingers break in an instant. A wild, vicious blast erupts from my hand, forming an arcing and crackling beam that immediately impacts into the chest of the Bald Beastrider. He flies off of his mount and rolls down the hill he was standing atop. He clings tightly to his staff, and as he continues to roll, I see him thrust it down into the ground. It stabs into the dirt, and energy channels up it, allowing him to align himself upright without using any of his own energy. He adopts a battle stance, and the beast he was riding atop takes flight. The wings and beak of the beast strongly resemble a falcon, but the shriek it unleashes is much more close to that of heavy machinery malfunctioning. Ripples emit in a burst, and I feel myself getting pushed back with force.
“YOU! YOU MUST BE THE HERO!” The Bald Beastrider shouts. His voice is embarrassingly unintimidating, and much higher pitched than I expected, as though he lost it, and has been shouting far too much lately. Another unhinged enemy to battle, it seems.
“Well? Is it time to fight, Mark?” Lithelle doesn’t refer to me as Chief Officer, as Hero, or any other titles. She doesn’t see me as her superior, despite her introduction and plea to me previously. I’m slowly understanding her view now, after witnessing her competency myself.
“Yeah. I suppose it is time to fight.” I look at my left hand, for the first time since unleashing that blast. Where it was once covered in flesh and fully human, I now have an ethereal, translucent hand in its place, glowing with mystic energy. Purple claws and sparks protrude from it, and it almost has a mind of its own as I charge forwards towards Bald Beastrider. He raises his staff. Lithelle keeps pace with me at my flank, and Crutch trails slightly behind me but prepares his blade. The Summoner thrusts his staff down into the ground again, and suddenly, a cacophony of voices erupts from the mass of corpses shambling throughout Rosehill.
“Mark Whooten, the depraved and malignant tumor of Tollaria, it is time for you to be excised. I, the Summoner, will deliver this fate upon you.” I feel my feet rooted in place mid-charge, and see ethereal hands grasping my ankles. Lithelle and Crutch have suffered the same fate. Around us, all of the reanimated dead turn towards us. The corpses speak in unison, move in unison, and act in unison. Suddenly, what was once a three-pointed charge transforms into a triangle formation, as the three of us find ourselves surrounded and rooted. “You are no Hero, Mark.” The bald man speaks clearly, now, far more confident and clear-voiced than he was mere moments ago. “You are not the first of the Five to oppose me. You are not the first of the Five I have defeated. You will bend the knee to me.” He snaps his fingers, and suddenly, a corpse, wearing a long purple cloak turns and shambles forwards.
The Drapery Wizard stands, his eyes empty of life, replaced with that same purple energy which inhabits the rest of these corpses. He groans, and stumbles forwards. “Drapery Wizard.”
“That is not…” The corpse groans out. “My nhh…”