image [https://imgur.com/RJSQv2V.png]

The Hero leaned heavily against the stone wall, looking down at the crushed and broken red furred beast. He had gained another level. Level twenty. He flexed his hand, watching as flakes of dried blood fell off. Although the beast had nearly reached his throat, he had not suffered any great wounds. Did he feel disappointment? Odd. The stone walls around him shook and trembled. Did he do that? No. Probably not.

“Hey bud! Hey hey! Hero! Big guy!” A sphere of light was floating ahead of him in the hallway. He picked up his iron ax. Should he kill this thing? “HEY. NO. NAUGHTY.” He frowned and lowered the ax. He had never been talked to by the other things he killed. “Okay come on! Follow me! Hey! Listen!!” The glowing ball floated off and The Hero looked after it. Then he followed.

“Okay we gotta take a quick detour to pick up the other one, and then… woah!” The whole labyrinth shook again. “Give a girl a chance to actually DO WHAT YOU TOLD HER TO DO, sheesh.” The Hero moved after this light, oddly fascinated. A thing was moving and he was not killing it. It felt uncomfortable. “Okay okay he should be… um…”

A stone wall slid back, and then another. “Oh right.” A third stone wall slid open, revealing a one eyed man. He held a bloody club and looked ready to strike. The Hero raised his iron ax.

“CUT IT OUT BOTH OF YOU. I AM… A FAIRY! A GOOD FAIRY! HERE TO RESCUE YOU BOTH! NOW FOLLOW!” The man with one eye trembled at this, and quickly lowered the club.

“A fairy? You do not look like the ones I have seen previously. Are you-” A deep groaning sound filled the stone hallway, and a large chunk fell from the ceiling.

“I’M VERY RARE. NOW LORD DAMN IT ALL FOLLOW ME.” The fairy darted down the hallway and the man with the club hurried after it. The Hero moved after, a strange emotion stirring in his heart. He found that he was slowly grinding his teeth against one another. The pressure was calming.

He heard the roars of beasts and strange creatures resounding through the halls. A hallway to the left revealed a large slithering serpent made of hands. Hands? Hands. It opened a huge finger filled “face” and then a stone wall slammed down in front of it as they ran by.

“Oh he was so proud to have caught that one. Shame shame.” The fairy seemed to enjoy talking, because it continued to do so even as they moved quickly along. “Yes so both of you need to leave the castle because… uhhh… the dark wizard who made it has died and now it is collapsing. But not before a great enemy was dispatched to kill you both! Don’t try to battle it. Seriously. And I was sent to rescue you. By the Good guys! Yessir. So do exactly what I say otherwise you will be killed.” The man with the club was nodding eagerly.

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“My brother! Is he somewhere nearby? Or… home? Is he back at home?” The fairy bobbed in the air. “What, am I your brother’s keeper? Just stick to the current task, pal.”

Ahead of them a huge stone slab ponderously opened, carved lights on the side flickering and guttering. “Oh good, that still works. OUT OUT OUT.” Intense light flooded through the opening stone, and pain lanced through his eyes even as he moved forward relentlessly.

The Hero suddenly stumbled out into daylight. The sky overhead was too vast and too blue. The colors all around were overwhelming. An impossibly long hill descended before him. He could not help himself, it was simply too much, he came to a stop. The other man dropped to his knees, looking at the ground and the sky. “Ah. It was all a dream. All a dream.”

With annoyance the fairy rapidly swirled around both of them. “GET UPPPPP!!” A sharp cry from behind them made The Hero look back and up. A small lizard man was on a high nearby wall, a bow in his hand. Another one already had an arrow knocked, and sent it flying. It slammed into the ground very close to his feet. The hero bent and picked up a rock. “KEEP! MOVING!!” The fairy was already flitting down the hill, and the one eyed man stumbled after. The Hero felt conflicted. He should kill those two things, but he should also obey. He decided to hurl the rock AND follow. The rock whistled through the air and punched into the face of one of the lizard men. The Hero moved quickly after the fairy as the remaining lizard man made sounds of distress behind him.

The world around him was so open that he didn’t really know where to look. He kept staring off into infinity, and his eyes hurt. He heard an odd sound, and could not help but gasp as he saw water up ahead. Racing, roaring, torrential water. It was flowing by in a vast sheet, cutting the land in two. The fairy flitted around a large bush. “In here dummies, in here! Boat! HERE! IN. HERE!” The man with the club was the first to respond, moving to the bush and pulling. A sleek wood boat emerged. He pushed it into the water, and clambered in. “YOU AS WELL, “THE HERO”.”

The Hero paused, heart thundering as he looked at the water. It was all simply too much. But, he was being told what to do. He must do as he was told. As he stepped into the boat he felt warmth run down his leg. Not a big deal, it happened most often when he almost died, but this time it was entirely because of fear. The other man made a sad looking face at him, but The Hero wasn’t sure why.

“Okay big fellas! Go down this river until you get to a town. It’ll be in the Contested Zone, so you should be kinda safe. Uh. Don’t kill people. Unless they try to kill you first? Ah whatever, this is outside my jurisdiction. Have fun and-” The fairy suddenly turned in the air as the boat slid into the water. “OH SHOOT.” The fairy zipped away from them, and then suddenly vanished.

The boat had been quickly dragged by the current into the middle of the fast flowing river, and The Hero clung to the thick wooden bench with his fingers. He could hear creaking sounds from where he gripped, and the wood was beginning to bend. The other man squinted back from where they came, and his eye widened. “Oh God no.”

A stone was somehow rising over the hill. Wait. Not a stone. A huge humanoid figure was rising from behind the ridge, three white dots in its “face” glowing as it scanned back and forth. The light passed over the area they were just in, and then turned slowly towards them.

Already they were rapidly leaving it behind, the water racing by. The Hero understood that a thing like that could not be defeated. He felt that as a fundamental fact of his universe. It was death. Death in a physical form had come for him. He felt no fear from this, he had become so comfortable with death by now that seeing it manifest felt almost logical. He raised a hand and gently waved in greeting. The one eyed man dived at him, tackling them to the bottom of the boat.

The white dots grew impossibly bright for a moment, and then-. White light was everywhere. He felt his skin and clothing grow incredibly hot. The Hero didn’t understand. He was flying? He was… shards of wood fell all around them. Water vapor. Everything was chaos. He saw the man with one eye falling and he reached out, grabbed him, pulled him to his chest. They hit the water and were immediately dragged under. Cold, pain, darkness. Nothing new.

The Lord’s Vessel watched the bits of boat rain down into the water, and then began to slowly but resolutely move down the river. The target still lived.