Thunder struck. The sound was so loud in his body, yet he heard it to be so far away. His eyes darted open, and he instinctively rose so that his upper body was erect. The room around him was mostly dark, although the light of a lantern placed in a nearby doorway crept into it. His surroundings seemed to be a crypt, from the ornate stone walls just barely highlighted by the yellow flame of the nearby lantern, to what seemed to be the stone statue of a knight placed to the right. And most of all, he seemed to be sitting upright in a coffin, a tapered hexagonal box made of stone surrounding his body.

Voices. Distant. One feminine and soft, the other harsh and masculine. Yet he couldn’t quite figure out what they said. Despite this, a sense washed over his body. Sweat down his face, a shiver down his spine. Those voices instilled some primal instinct in him. To either run, or face them. But no matter what he did, he would have to get up and out of that coffin. So, he grabbed the sides and pushed himself out.

As soon as his feet touched the floor and he let go, he felt himself stumble and trip, slamming straight into the wall to the left of the coffin, next to the dimly lit doorway. The voices stopped talking, and he could hear footsteps. He ignored the pain, instead scrambling back to his feet, and began to run as fast as he could - although it was more of a hobble. He barged right past one of the sources of the voices, their shoulders brushing against each other, but he didn’t have the rhyme or reason to see which one of the two it was. After making it another few steps, his whole body…froze.

It was all so stiff. Every time he managed to move his body, whether it be a whole leg or the joints of his fingers, it would snap back into place. It wasn’t painful per se, but it was incredibly restrictive, causing him to hyperventilate. He realised, behind him, one of the voices was chuckling. It was the male one. His body forcefully twisted round, a gut-wrenching feeling spreading through his abdomen. 

His own eyes met with the yellow eyes of man controlling his body, an angular face plastered with a snarling smirk. With the man’s teeth shown off by the smile, he could make out elongated canines - he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it reminded him of something in his foggy memory. A memory that just added to the sensation in his gut. The man’s arm and hand were outstretched towards him, his hand glowing with a sort of red and black energy. 

Moving his eyes slightly to the right, he saw the woman of the pair. Her face was softer, rounder, but shared the yellow glow in her eyes that the man did, and she did not smile. They both wore black cloaks that rested over a set of ornate plate armour, which immediately gave him the impression of a high place in society.

“Well, how the mighty have fallen.” His eyes darted back to the man, whose deep, imposing voice had interrupted his analysis of the two foes before him. “The great Edvard Diefenbach, reduced to a hobbling weakling,” the man continued, a great sense of judgement and amusement oozing out of his charismatic voice.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Edvard Diefenbach? Who? Was that…his name? He couldn’t remember, but…it must be, if they’re referring to him as such. He gritted his teeth, trying his best to wiggle out of the man’s control, but his grip was just too tight. It felt like his body was being crushed, ever so slowly, ever so slightly.

The man laughed. “You can’t even break free of such a simple spell. I don’t know what I was expecting when I came to retrieve your corpse, but dear lord…” He looked to his partner in crime. “If it wasn’t so amusing, we’d be disappointed, wouldn’t we?”

She nodded and gave a slight grin, before looking back at Edvard. “Come on. Use some of your great power, Diefenbach.”

It was so irritating, so taunting, it struck to his very core. His brow furrowed and, out of an instinctual defence of whatever pride he had within, he began to concentrate. Concentrate whatever was within him, concentrate whatever power they were so eager to see. An aura of black, shadowy energy began to surround him. He noticed it emanating from his fingers, his palm, his forearm, and so on. 

At first, the two seemed genuinely impressed, but…the power failed to manifest. It cut short, and he felt his body go loose as his own energy was sapped by the failure of his own ability. The two began to laugh once more. The man stopped laughing after a few seconds, and pulled from a scabbard on his belt an ornate curved knife. He came closer.

“You’re more useful to us dead, to be honest. We could use your blood - I bet it’s still potent enough - but you yourself? Powerless, unable, weak.” He shoved his palm downwards, and Edvard fell to the floor, his knees painfully slamming against the stone floor. He was in a subservient position to the man before him. “As cliche of a line it is, I must ask - any last words?”

Edvard sighed. He knew nothing about himself, where he was, who these people were, and yet they demanded something to summarise his pitifully short existence? He closed his eyes. “Just kill me.”

His eyes opened. Edvard was surrounded by darkness once more, but there was a faint blue light in the distance. He stumbled forth to reach it, and once it came close, he touched it, with a tingling sensation going up his body.

EDVARD DIEFENBACH

LEVEL 396 1

STR: 66 1

DEX: 66 1

END: 66 1

WIS: 66 1

INT: 66 1

LUK: 66 1

A glowing blue screen was revealed to him, with these words imprinted on in similarly glowing blue text. He had no idea what it meant, no idea what the significance of it was, but it felt so familiar to him, a wave of both sentimentality and grieving despair washing over him. 

Then, the screen changed.

YOUR TALE HAS ENDED. WOULD YOU LIKE A SECOND CHANCE?