A young woman knelt on the floor of what used to be her home. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and her once crimson red hair was matted and caked in mud and ash. It had been five days since the attack, and she was the only one left. They came in the night carrying torches and spears, setting every building ablaze and killing everyone in sight. She thought the bandits would’ve been searching for jewels or metals from the town’s mines, but they didn’t take anything. Their intent was unwavering and unrepentant destruction. While they burned and murdered her family and friends, all she could do was hide. She cursed herself for not doing anything. She cursed herself for being weak.

She had been living, if one could even call it that, under a tarp she had affixed to one of the still-standing walls of her ruined home. She had found one of the few remaining remnants of life before the attack: a portrait of her and her parents that her father had commissioned some weeks ago. It was singed and torn along the edges, but the smiling faces of her mother and father peeked through the ashes.

Soon she would have to leave this place. Most of the food had been either burned or eaten by scavengers, and the well water was too polluted with ash to drink. The town was built halfway up a mountain in a small valley, making it rare for any animals worth hunting to come near. Something was holding her back from leaving, however. It was more than just a love for her town or a fear of the wilderness, it was a primal instinct. Something in her gut told her that something was coming and that she needed to be here for it.

Rosalie left her shelter to patrol the empty city streets beyond. It had become something of a nervous habit for her to walk through the ruins of the town, searching for dangers who had already left to protect people who were already dead. There was nothing of the town left standing aside from the odd wall or pillar. Everything was coated in a thick layer of soot and ash, and it had taken nearly a full day for her to be able to breathe again without choking.

She approached the edge of the town and the site where she had buried all the bodies she could find. The town was quite small, with only around 75 people, and she found and buried every single one of them. It had taken her the better half of three days. All of the graves were unmarked as the bodies were charred and unrecognizable. She knew she could’ve guessed who many of them were, as she knew every single townsfolk by name, but she felt it would’ve been disrespectful to guess and get it wrong, or to mark only some and not others. She knelt and prayed that Numinos would be kind to them all.

She felt something tug at the back of her mind, calling to her. Trying to ignore it, she walked to the rubble of a small bakery. It had a stone basement that preserved some of the bread stored inside, but the fires still spread and destroyed most of it. It felt wrong to be taking bread from her neighbors but she had few options. She grabbed the last loaf that was still mostly intact, and returned to her home to eat. She had a pot of water that had most of the ash filtered out through a cheesecloth she found, and she just had to boil it to make it safe to drink.

She gathered some sticks and lit a small fire, placing the pot on top. She poked and prodded the kindling as the flames bounced and danced in her vision. The tugging in the back of her mind increased, and she felt her breathing grow heavy. The light and heat of the fire began to sting her eyes but she couldn’t look away, her eyes glazing over. Over the sounds of the crackling fire she could hear the sounds of marching, followed by screams and the ringing of a church bell.

Please no, her own voice rang out in her head. She felt tears roll over her cheek. Not again.

Stop! Please! Don’t hurt them!

She choked back a sob. She opened her mouth to scream and cry but nothing came out, she needed to be silent. She needed to hide. She covered her mouth with her hands, desperate to make no noise.

“Take whatever you want, please don’t hurt us,” the voice of her father said. Her vision was overtaken with the memory of watching him through the cracks in the floorboards begging for his and her mother’s lives, and being run through with a spear.

She began to shake. Her breathing was fast and her head was feeling light. Tears were gushing down her face like a waterfall, but still she could make no noise. She couldn’t get her eyes to focus and she couldn’t move. All she could see was the light of the fire.

She had to get up, she had to fight. There was still time, she could still save her mother. She tried to move but she couldn’t. She tried to scream and beg for help, but all she could do was cough out the smoke filling her lungs. She pushed herself, desperate to get up and protect her mother. Just as she saw the spear pierce her mother’s chest, she felt a terrible pain in her leg.

In the shock of the pain, the visions faded. It was getting dark out and in her panic she had accidentally kicked her fire over. The pot of boiling water thankfully fell away from her foot, but she still had her leg directly in the flame. She pulled it away, gasping to catch her breath. The flame didn’t spread to her clothes, and instead was snuffed out leaving her in the cold and the dark. The sounds ringing in her ears, the visions clouding her eyes, and the smoke filling her lungs… none of it was real; just memories from the attack.

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Her stomach growled and panged with hunger, reminding her of the loaf of bread. It was hard as a rock, and the water she planned to wash it down with was now spread across the ground. Still, she ate and nursed her burned leg. She was sick of filtering ash-filled water and choking down stale bread. She was almost glad that this was the last loaf of bread. Despite her injury, she needed to leave in the morning for another town.

The tugging in her mind grew into a throbbing pain. All of her instincts told her that something was happening.

Did they come back to finish the job?

She looked down the street outside her ruined house and saw a red light emitting from the burial site. Her heart pounded in her chest.

Why? Why would they come back?

She raced down the street as fast as she could in her injured state. As she got closer she saw that the light couldn’t be from a fire. She intimately knew the color of fire, and that red was too deep and unnatural.

Rosalie stood at the edge of the improvised graveyard and saw the source of the light: a red gemstone placed at the top of a long staff. The staff was standing straight up out of the soil and looked to be about as tall as she was, made of a dark wood, and the gem was held on with golden claws. It was a simple design, but there was something about it that demanded her attention and, strangely enough, her respect. She knew with certainty that it wasn’t there when she visited here earlier.

Had someone come while I was at home? It hadn’t been that long… even if someone did, why would they just leave this here?

She approached it slowly, limping on her throbbing leg and watching for any signs of movement in the bushes beyond. As she grew closer, she could feel the power radiating from it and drawing her in. Gingerly, she grabbed the staff and instantly felt a warmth coursing through her arm. The glow from the gem intensified and her whole body was filled with strength. The pulsing in her head ceased and the throbbing in her leg was soothed. After a moment, she felt as if she was never burned at all. She felt as though if she had this staff when the attack happened, she could’ve taken them all on herself.

There was some form of energy coursing through the gemstone, she could almost see it if she focused. It spread down through the shaft and flowed into her arm. While it was flowing out of the gem and into her body, it also cycled back out through her chest and into the gem. Something instinctual told her that she could manipulate the flow of the cycle and push more energy in.

She spent a moment observing the flow and feeling how the energy moved. She focused on the movement in her chest and, trying to mimic it, pushed more energy into the gem. The gem grew brighter and brighter until it hurt to look at. The staff began to shake, and with a noise unlike anything she’d heard before, the energy released. A bright bolt of red light shot out from the gem and hit a nearby tree. The force of the impact split the tree in two.

Rosalie stumbled slightly, feeling dizzy from the strain. She stared at the gemstone, her eyes wide. She pumped more energy into the staff, this time going slower and more gently. Once it was filled with only a fraction of what it had last time, she released it. A smaller bolt of red light shot out and hit a different tree, this time only leaving a small imprint. She breathed heavily, both from the effort required to fire off the staff and from the exhilaration of it.

This is it.

She recharged the staff and fired again, and again, and again. Each time she fired she felt more tired and dizzy, but her determination grew deeper. She aimed at specific targets on the mountain and fired over and over, not stopping when she broke out into a migraine. The side of the mountain was peppered with smoldering craters.

This is what I needed.

She pumped a great deal of energy into the staff, but forced it to release slower. A constant stream of crackling red light burst from the staff, slicing trees in half and lighting up the ruins of Whiteridge in an ominous red. Her mind was flooded with images of blood and bandits. She panted and wiped the blood that was now dripping from her nose. She had power now, and she could have vengeance.

The next morning, Rosalie felt awful. She had only ever been hungover once; it was so bad that she hadn’t had alcohol since, and the way she felt now was much worse than that. She didn’t remember falling asleep the night before, but she awoke to find herself on her improvised cot in her house. The staff lay beside her on the ground, the gemstone no longer glowing. The power it gave her felt good… it felt right. And she knew exactly what to do with it.

It was something of an open secret that the bandits were camped out in an old military outpost near the border of Elordia. Nearly everyone in the kingdom knew they were there, but no one did anything about it except stay away. Rosalie was going to change that. With the staff, the bandits won’t know what hit them. The outpost was around a five day walk, so Rosalie pushed through her migraine, grabbed the staff, and began the trek.

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High above the world, a figure held a glowing red pawn in their hand. Their brother had already shown his hand, and they had to admit it was a good move to play the long game. They knew it was a gamble to play this piece, but they were confident in the power of their pawn. The red pawn was placed on the chessboard opposite the golden one. A flash of light encompassed the board as soon as the pawn was placed. When the light faded, both pawns were gone and replaced with glowing king pieces; red opposite gold. On the side of the gold king there were now two additional golden pawns, while the red king stood alone.

Elos sat back, a smile on their face. Now was the time to watch the game unfold. It was all up to the mortals now.