The next morning, in the Chantry library…

Bookcases filled with tomes and librams from all over Nisha tower over paladins and healers huddled around ornate desks stacked with reading materials. Arcane Familiars in the shape of ensorcelled brooms and dusters shuffle about long aisles and large open spaces, always busy with tidying things up.

Today’s the third day of First Seed. The first of twelve Seeds of twenty-eight days each that form a full year in this world of Nisha. Exactly like how twelve months would form a year in my world. It’s a do-over, and like I said, I’ll do it better and right this time round!

Once, back when I was only starting out here, I only wanted to go home. I do miss my world very much, after all. I miss kicking it with the boys up on the rooftop, smoking and joking and cussing up a storm. I miss Mom and Dad and the video calls we have every weekend ever since I left our sleepy village to study in the big city, even if talking behind a phone screen just ain’t the same as seeing them at home. I even miss the Student Council meetings that go on for hours discussing (sometimes) the most inane details. I miss… fuck, I can really go on for days about the good old days and all that I’ve left behind.

But I want more than that now. I wanna have my cake, and I wanna eat it too! This time, I’ll fulfil my Prophecy with flying colours! Demon Lord slain… and Anna still with me. And then I’ll go home. But that means I’d have to say goodbye to Anna and Lady Iris… and everyone on Nisha. And I…

Okay, that’s enough. One thing at a time! I’m here, and I’m still me. My memories are intact, and I've quit smoking since... Nisha. Oh, and I have my (nearly) complete mastery of the Healer’s art as well! I can definitely work with the hand I'm dealt. So, just watch and learn!

Meanwhile, across the table, Anna’s doing her best to study from a Libram from the library’s massive catalogue. The sight of its snow-white cover bearing the golden runes of the Order of Selene tells me that it’s the Libram of the First Saint. And I know that it holds within its ensorcelled pages, the knowledge and techniques needed to cast Sanctuary – a Paladin spell that consecrates the ground beneath their feet to protect themselves and their friends from blades and arrows and everything else that’s sharp and nasty.

Good grief. Anna’s having a little trouble with that Libram, seems like. She's reading into those pages rather intensely, a frown on her face as she trembles on her chair. I’d lend my strength towards deciphering it, but that Libram’s for the eyes of paladins only, unfortunately. Everyone else, even their Healers, see nothing but indecipherable scribbles. Pretty annoying, I’ll say.

Some librams are only for healers, and others for paladins. On her end, she’d be unable to read a Libram with knowledge of a Healer spell like Holy Fire. That said, some of these librams, mostly the basic ones, have spells that are shared between both classes. Like Heal! This seems to be the way for other magic users outside the Order of Selene, like mages, conjurers, necromancers… they’ve got spells that only they can learn and use too. For such are the rules of Nisha. Rules bound by gods, and gods bound by rules. Meh.

But that’s enough stalling! I didn’t come here to gawk and slack off, much fun as it is to be doing that on a quiet afternoon. I came here to get started with the retracing of the steps taken to fulfil my Prophecy in the previous timeline. Writing notes, like I’m cramming for an exam. And to enter Arcadia, the Land of Demons, I had to recreate its key – the Runestone.

----------------------------------------

The Runestone…

Red like blazing lust. Green like molten envy. Blue like lucid dreams. Yellow like forlorn hope. Purple like esoteric wisdom. Fancy colours that shift rapidly under the light.

As I said before, the Runestone is the key to Arcadia, the Land of Demons. And by extension, an audience with the Demon Lord who’s slowly corrupting and bringing about the end of Nisha as it awakens from centuries of deep slumber. An audience so I can kill it dead.

Seven Lesser Shards form the complete Runestone. Each one of them dull and stained in blood. I’m not sure why – they were all like that when I got them the first time round. The first of these Lesser Shards belongs to Nhaka Mezalune the Oracle, a weirdly ancient yet little girl who summoned me here to be a Hero. And she gave us the Lesser Shard of the Oracle as a reward for what we had to do for her when Anna and I left the Isle of Spirits, sailing across the Silent Sea to reach Sharmarli, the Holy City to meet her, so as to begin my Prophecy in earnest.

Hmm. What did we do for her again? Oh, right. We went into a Dungeon deep in the wilderness in the outskirts of Sharmarli – a stronghold called the Convocation of Alyssa – and slew Anna’s idol. Y’know, Eris Aintree – that Bard whose (sappy) songs she likes so damn much! She had been taken by the Demon Cult, her mind irreversibly twisted into serving them as their goddess… and their slave. Their very own accursed herald, to speak for the demons as the Voice of their Lord. It was a fucked up affair. And maybe, just maybe… it ain’t gotta end like that this time.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But that’s just the one. What about the other six Lesser Shards? They weren’t any easier, far as I remember. For one, they weren’t resting in some nice fancy city, safeguarded by an ally predisposed towards liking me. Instead, they were found in…

* The once-great bastion of Castle Ferrous, nestled in the Iron Mountains found in the north-western frontiers far from Sharmarli. Fallen into disuse and disrepair, the goblins of the Cursed Legion – the largest Goblin tribe in Nisha, squat in once regal halls that have seen better days. They're ruled by the Goblin King, who keeps them all in line with a Blood Elemental bound to his service by the power of the Lesser Shard of the Iron Lord. I’ve seen the fate of their prisoners and slaves, the aftermath of those Elves drained into withered husk in the creation of that Blood Elemental… and I’d rather not remember at all. At the end of it all there was a locked room, its key destroyed, and in leaving it behind, I wonder even now, what was in there.

* The corpse-city of Dagon, far beneath the waves of the Crystal Sea along the northern coastline of the mainland. Down there, loathsome cyclopean structures teem with pelagic Mer-men, loathsome horrors that make my stomach turn. Therein all that fucked-up shit, lies the Lesser Shard of the Abyss. I remember encountering a Cultist who only wanted nothing more than to leave this place, were it not for her little brother, her heart full of regret that she was the one who introduced her to this… madness. Our encounter ended in bloodshed, but then… maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe.

* The pristine glades of Purity Grove, sprawling across the eastern fringes of the land, far from civilisation. Within hazy evergreen groves of ageless trees and crystalline lakes host to monsters born of root and stem, life finds a way. Elan Vita, ever the ancient and venerable Elder Nymph, jealously guards her Lesser Shard. It’s just one of the many treasures in her ever-expanding trove of assorted artifacts and curiosities collected by her Monster and mortal supplicants over the centuries. And she won’t give any of it up, especially not her Lesser Shard of the Everglade, without a fight. Unless…?

* The dark city of Nevermore in the heart of the south-eastern lands, where moonlight shines eternally in shades of bloody red, and blood falls from the skies when it rains. In labyrinthine streets of glitzy bars like temples of worship, where not much lies between despair and ecstasy, Vampires hold dominion over this slice of paradise meant for them and them alone. Been that way for centuries, apparently, as dictated by the Promise ordained between them and the mortal races and the gods. Rasha Ayan, Vampire Ancient and proprietor of the Hotel Red Sun, holds the Lesser Shard of the Blood Moon, and she holds massive, lavish parties every other night, waiting for a special someone to show up someday.

* The Arcane University down south in the city of Crucible, levitating high above the land by sheer force of magic! Mages and Conjurers from all over Nisha would kill for a spot to study with the best of the best. Sometimes they do. In those hallowed halls of learning and mastery, the Ancient Lich Elena de L’Enfer is the incumbent Mage Queen. Fancy title for a school principal, I’ll say! Either way, I know she won’t part with what’s hers – the Lesser Shard of the Liminal Path without me offering something of equal value. Perhaps more. And she drives a hard bargain!

* The Isle of Eden far off the south-western coast, almost like a twin of the Isle of Spirits. I say ‘almost’, because it’s nothing like home, and instead, it’s pretty fucked up. Within foul caves deep beneath the earth, twitching masses of misshapen flesh, gristle and bone, a mountain of corpses and failures, fuse and take shape in the dark. In fetid shadows and pitch-black warrens, campfires burn and war drums thunder as tribes of flesh beasts prepare for war. Against each other, thankfully! For the Lesser Shard of Genesis rests deep beneath the earth, waiting to be dug out and claimed by only one Warlord. Or me!

That’s it. I’ve got quite the road ahead of me to re-tread, once more. It is what it is.

----------------------------------------

Break time…

Hmm… yeah, I think that oughta do for now.

I steal a glance at Anna and find myself smiling as I look at her. She’s taking a break from the Libram of the First Saint. Can’t blame her that! It’s always a struggle learning a new spell. But at least she's looks a lot more relaxed now, so that's a relief.

There’s another smaller book she’s reading instead, flipping through the pages gently and lovingly. It’s not part of the library’s catalogue, and dare I say it… is that what I think it is!? Already, I can feel my eyes widening as I focus on it.

Yup. No mistaking it. It’s her diary! I’d recognise that carefully embroidered leather cover any day! And I know that it’s something special to her, something that she keeps close to her. Within those pages, she writes down what people say about her. Encouragement. Praise. Criticisms, too. It’s her reason to endure, to carry on no matter what.

Oh man, that brings me back! In the previous timeline, I got to write in it! And I wrote…

“Umm… Arisa?” Anna whispers worriedly, her hand upon her cheek. “May I help you?”

I keep smiling. She looks a little worried, cheeks blushed and all. Must’ve noticed all that gawking I’ve been doing. I admit, I’m not doing a very good job of being subtle. Never been good at that.

“Umm…”

“I wrote in that diary once,” I answer wistfully, looking away momentarily. “It was right there with what Luna and Archie wrote for ya. And uh… I…”

While I’m busy stammering and making a fool of myself, I notice the look of dismay on Anna’s face. She’s got a pretty clear idea of what I want to ask, and she’s… hesitating. Worried, even. It’s then that it dawns on me that I’ve been overstepping my boundaries.

Good grief. I was so glad to see Anna again that I forgot that this is a new timeline where we’ve yet to forge the bond we had in the previous one. Here and now, Anna and I… we barely know each other. We’ve only just met, after all. It’s foolish of me to assume and impose on her like this, even if she’s my Paladin. Even if I remember what we once were.

Quietly, and awkwardly, I sit back down, staring hard into my notes. And uh… perhaps someday I’ll earn the right to write what I once wrote in that diary again. Rinnah willing…