Modest was the house I had grown up in. Always I had wanted more, desired a grand mansion with servants and every whim catered to. Longed to live in luxury and wealth. Now, I was glad beyond belief to simply be home.

I sat now at the dinner table, silent as I listened to my parents speak of matters around the town. My eyes drifted from my meal, moving around to take it all in. There had been a certainty in me that I would never see this all again after the fire and raids.

A gift had been bestowed unto me, and I would not forsake it.

“At a loss for words today, Jacen?” My father remarked, eyebrow lifted. “No plans for adventure dreamt up with your blissful nap?”

A sharp, witty man that had put a smooth tongue to good use. Owner of the town’s trading post and flour mill. It was thanks to him that I had been able to indulge in my interests in my first life. His gold had funded my adventuring career, albeit not of his will.

“SImply enjoying what I have.” I returned, doing my best to remember my old habits. “An excellent sleep, to be fair.”

“Perhaps that time would better be spent at the mill.” Not a question, but a declaration that I would be working all evening.

“Another day.” I brushed it off. I had other business in mind. Of a much more important nature than to break my back grinding wheat. There lay before me now a second life, and I was not content to idly let it slip me by.

“Off to drink with your moorish friends again?” My sweet, calm mother asked, her distaste for the ruffians I kept company with clear. I blinked and remembered what a younger me had wasted so much time on.

“Not at all. I’ve realized that I may need to reconsider who I keep in my presence.”

Supper finished as a quiet affair after that, and I promptly dismissed myself. Out the front door I strode, nothing but the clothes on my back and a few coins in my pockets. Coins that might have been wasted at the pub, once. No longer.

All of Novic spread below me, the grassland town perched at the Spine’s edge. My home, as I recalled it before it had been set to the torch. It existed and thrived here with the fields that spread in every direction, but mostly because of the dungeon that grew outside its borders. High on the hill as it was, I could glimpse those stone archways from here. That was not my destination. Not yet.

Familiar was the figure that awaited me at the hill’s bottom. Welcome, he was not. Lucian staggered upright and waved as I approached, his gait unsure and smile easy. Once, my closest friend and confidant. Blonde of hair and ruddy of face. Some might even call him pleasant. I preferred to think of how much precious time and coin I had wasted because of him. How many people had died because of his weakness.

Now, I condemned him to live.

“Off to a merry night of drinking we shall go!” He crowed upon my approach. “Let us please the ladies and sample the Tavernkeeper's finest swill after such a hard day!”

There was naught but contempt in my gaze for him, and only ice in my heart for his plans.

“Go then, but go without me.” Was all I deigned to speak and strode past him. He followed, flabbergasted.

“What’s gotten into you today, Jacen?” Came the words as I angled down the hill and toward the forest’s edge. Like a dog I could not shake, he clung to my heels.

“I’ve realized, Lucian, that my life is being wasted here. In part thanks to myself and my own actions, and in part because of those who leech off my coin and influence me. You are both of the latter and I have no need for that. Goodbye.”

Harsh, cutting words that could perhaps be softened. I had not the time or patience for that. Instead, I had a town to save. Distant though the memory was, I knew what would come next. Novic prepared now for the Festival of the First Harvest, but a few weeks away. And the memory of what happened that night was scarred forever into my mind. The first catalyst that had tipped an inexorably large scale past the point of no return.

Countless memories floated in me. Precious knowledge of crucial events that slowly, inevitably led to the death of my world and everything within. For all the thousand times I had wondered; “What if” the chance to change that now lay before me.

First, I needed power. Strength. Tools. There was no magical talent in me. That I had learned after spending far too much of my past life to chase it. That road was a futile journey. I lacked the wondrous arsenal that had once been carried at my side, the steadfast companions that traveled alongside me. The authority I had wielded as Blade-Bearer off the Deathless Crusade. Even the body I had once walked in. Now I was naught but a young man, unscarred and without the myriad of advantages I had amassed. All save for mind and memory.

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Those were sharp still.

Down by the river, at the forest’s edge stood my destination. A small cabin near the dense woods, surrounded by tanning racks and felled trees. Hild watched me approach, one unscarred eye keeping rack of me as she sat atop a stump. What business did some miller’s son have with the huntress that kept far away from any light or life within the town? I knew this was what she thought.

My reputation was..not good, I knew. A drunkard and a lout, coasting by on his parent’s effort, oft with the rowdy crowd. This would need to be rectified.

“I need an axe,” Was all I stated. “I’ll pay well for it.”

One eye looked me up and down, a baleful glare that bid me to scurry back from wence I had come.

“You’ll get none unless the coin’s in me palm.”

And so it was. My coin left my pockets and passed into hers. Angry and spiteful the widow might be, but I knew her not to be untrue.

“Something sturdy, with a good blade. Good enough to kill a man.” Was all I requested, and it was what I received.

In another life, my first weapon had been a sword. A fancy little thing imbued with cold that had cost me far too much time and money. I had gotten little use from it, in the end. Just a decoration of regret on my wall.

One among many. Now, I needed something practical. Useful. A tool with which to survive and bring low my enemies, though they were legion.

Hild gave me just that. An axe of wooden handle and steel head. Made to fell trees, comfortable to hold in my long limbs.

With that, I had no more business here. A nod given to her, I set off. It would not be the last time I saw her, I knew. Now, my path led me concurrent to the town, towards the rise of stone pillars that stood not far from the last farm outside Novic’s walls.

Novic’s dungeon was small, uninteresting even. The only reason this place had been built, and even now the town had outgrown it. Its core was weak, unable to grow and now remained more of an attraction than a threat.

Or so everyone thought.

Small and out of mind as it was, the dungeon’s entrance was still under guard. Stone pillars rose around the stairways that led down to its depths. A temple stood erected to its potential, a landmark so people might know where it lay. As if those depths were hallowed in some way. It had brought the town traffic and resources, given it the gifts it needed to outgrow it. Now, it was naught but a proving ground for new adventurers and delvers, meant to be their first test before they set out for the great unknown.

Blonde of hair, girthy of waist and lacking of enthusiasm, Terrance lounged by the entrance. I had the misfortune of knowing this man, through his blood relation to Lucian. Much like his nephew, the blonde man was a drunkard, but worse, he would be a traitor.

“Afternoon, Jacen.” He sounded genuinely surprised as I approached, axe on my shoulder. “Never figured I’d see you in here.”

And in another life, he would have been correct.

“I’m fixin’ to head inside.” I spoke, tone carefully kept in check. If a hint of contempt leaked through, it was not acknowledged.

“Well now, you know I can’t just let anyone stroll right on in. This here’s a dangerous place, young man. Did you get your permit from the Guild yet?”

I had not. I could not afford to wait for the several weeks that would take. And I knew he would not understand that.

“No.” Was all I replied, standing relaxed as I was. “I just woke up this afternoon with an urge to head on in.”

The man laughed at that, deep and jolly.

“Well now, you’re an enthusiastic one. Can’t let you in, though. Not even for a pocketful of your daddy’s coin.”

That gave him another chuckle as I mentally lined the axeblade up with the space between his eyebrows. He deserved to die, as did several of his associates. But his corpse would be heavy to drag around, and his death would raise questions. My words put me on another course.

“How about you stand aside and let me through, or I’ll start tellin’ folks -folks that matter- about those robes you keep hidden under the floorboards in your guest room and the sort of people you meet with in private out in the forest?” I watched his face subtly change from shock to fear to anger. “And I’ll make good on that too.”

Just a few sentences had turned him pale as snow, and a few more got him to step aside entirely. These words would not go unanswered, I knew. But that was something I would deal with in a bit. For now, I needed the power to do exactly that.

No words were spoken as I carefully stepped past him and down into the dungeon’s guts, my eyes locked on the larger man’s form all the way. Only once I was well and truly in its maw did I turn and focus on the path ahead.

Stairs led down into a dull darkness, lit here by torches on the wall. I hefted one for myself and moved with haste, descending into the darkness.

Before me lay a barren room, hewn of rounded stone and with stained blood upon the floor. The air here smelled cold and dead, far below the surface of the world above. The first room of many. I walked to its center and held the torch high, knowing what was to come. Ever so slowly, I turned, my back to the open doorway that loomed behind me, eyes glued on the room’s center.

One step, then another I took back, axe held at the ready. One foot came down, and fast as I could blink, the door slammed closed behind me. A flash of blue light erupted from the room’s center as a bellowing Kobold berserker was wrenched through space, armed and ready to disembowel me.

The axe bit through its skull before it could more than blink. It looked confused for a moment, then collapsed forward until my grip supposed its weight. With a grunt, I wrenched the axe free and let it plant a face-first onto the concrete, well and truly dead. One moment, it has been enjoying whatever it was Kobolds did in the Spine of the World, the next it had been teleported here in defense of the dungeon.

And now it was dead, and there were many more to come.