“You see, long ago there was a young girl who had just finished earning her last awakening stone. She had felled a terrible bronze rank beast that was hunting the small children of the tribe. Her power manifested as a familiar summoning ritual, and her people rejoiced. They drew the lines, added the reagents, and readied the ritual according to the ancient ways. But a rival of the girl was jealous of her achievements, and so she sabotaged the ritual. One changed little line, and the fates of two people were forever changed.

“The ritual activated under the light of the moons, a hush fell over the tribe, and then things went wrong. Radiant three-colored light blinded all those present, and the wild mana caused many monsters to appear in the camp, causing chaos. But in the space where the ritual was to take place a creature of ashen skin and glowing red lines of power stood and loomed over her. The thing stood on two legs like a man, but he was not something she had ever seen before, because this creature summoned from the astral had two metallic silver arms. It reached out to her and she accepted the silver hand into her own and proclaimed him her familiar.

“Of course, no bond truly formed, as she had failed to summon a familiar and instead had stolen a soul away from his home world of Vestal. He was one of the first World-Walkers the people of the land had ever encountered. Though later they would learn of others who arrived and perished. Still the two entwined their fates together that day and would remain eternal friends.

“The people of the land debated long and hard over what had occurred, no outsider like him had ever been allowed into the tribe before. But the girl, still mistaken as to what happened, insisted that he must stay since he was her familiar. He was allowed to stay, but the elders demanded he would have to prove himself in the ways of their people. Fortunately, the man came to them with his essences already, and even had many abilities already unlocked. But they were strange to them, essences of another world, foreign to any found on this one. He did strange things with metal and magic, blending them together. Even stranger was his original species, he was of the Smoulder people, but a type that do not appear here. He claimed to be a ‘slag Smoulder’, and that his world had types like ash, smog, and steam.

“His was a strange world to the people of the land. All towering metal buildings, clouds of ash and smog, and of greed incarnate. He told of how they had smothered nature with ash and fire, and how the great disturbance had led to a draining of their world’s natural magics. For his people it became harder and harder to reach Gold, and diamond was fading away into the realm of legend as their own diamond rankers left for more magical worlds in the astral.

“The man was strange to them, but he and the girl worked hard together. They became close, but never lovers. She helped him learn their ways, and he told them of how nature on his world had died. Many elders eventually listened to his stories and looked to the cities and civilizations just developing around the world and began to talk about the consequences of that path. His stories are a large part of why the people of the land eventually became the stewards of the land and nature, protecting it all as sacred.

“Eventually they proved themselves to the tribe, and they gained the strength necessary to begin wandering the deserts on their own. Wherever they went trouble seemed to follow. But with each tribulation and battle they pushed themselves further along. In time they learned that others like the man existed, but these outsiders were not treated kindly, either left to die on their own, or used as slave labor. The man took offense to both kinds of treatment and made a mission of changing things.

“He found others like him, none of his world, and offered them the help he was offered. He showed them the path forward and molded these lost souls into future heroes that we still know even now. Ukulane, the pass holder. Idena the slayer. And even Lithwen, who become one of the God Hero’s sacred martyrs. He taught them how to better survive this world and to walk the path of the righteous, and for this the World Walkers would go from discriminated outsiders, to lost souls in need of help.

“The man showed the girl, his friend, the injustice of holding men and women against their will and changed her mind on slavery. As he fought for the World Walkers, she began to pursue a path of emancipation, so much so that she earned a place of respect in the temple of both Liberty and Dominion. One for the freedom she fostered, and the other for the power and authority she took hold of to ban such things. Her actions then are why the honorable people of the lands hold no sort of bondage or indenture like other places in the world.

“I could tell dozens upon dozens of stories. But then we would be here all night. Eventually the two, through much struggle and conflict would rise to the rank of Diamond. They were among the first of the people of the land to do so. They shepherded the people of the land with their powers and learned not to be king and queen over the people, but honored respected elders, guiding by way of example and mercy. In their time at the pinnacle they fought off great threats to peace with their peers, and even against more aggressive diamond rankers who thought to rule all.

“In time though the man’s homesickness grew too great, and he began the pursuit of astral travel and knowledge. He learned how and began to explore the infinity of the cosmos in search of a single world in one of infinite realities. With great effort and time he found his home and returned to it. He used his power to slowly change things and undo the magical disasters that had depleted his world of its magic. But little did he know that his actions would have wider spanning consequences.

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“There was a war on his world, fought between those who wished to carve up their broken home and remake a utopia, and those who saw the death and destruction of such a thing and fought to stop it. The man sided with those of the will to preserve, and called many of his allies in to help. Thus Ronnac fought the greatest war of his life, the one that would leave him shattered.”

“BUllSHIT!”

The Matron stopped staring into the middle distance and focused her gaze on Seras. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, you can’t be, he can’t, you’re talking about Ronnac!” Seras exclaimed.

“Indeed I am. That was his name, so great was it that it has remained unchanged over so many years, even on your world I presume.”

Seras was shaking her head hard, “you can’t be… he can’t be the same. I grew up on his legends. What your saying would imply my world has magic, which it does not.”

“And you know this for a fact. It couldn’t have once held magic, but now no more?” she questioned.

“Yes I do, and furthermore…” Seras trailed off as a memory resurfaced.

“No, you are the only one from your world right now. But you’re not the first outworlder to get shunted from your world. Though the last one was a long time ago, back when you still called your world Vestal.” “Yes, your world had gods just like Pallimustus.”

Knowledge had hinted at somethings before, but she never said it outright. But… Gods needed magic, her world had Gods, but now none. Therefore it should have had magic before.

But that didn’t mean the rest of the story was true. The old woman could have invented it for some reason. But then… how would she know about Ronnac? Seras was sure she hadn’t ever mentioned it around the old lady, she had just told her about the great war of the Gods, leaving behind and ruined world afterwards. She thought of the carved gorge she had once walked through, the product of a Diamond ranker’s battle. That kind of power could explain a few things on her world.

One more fact jumped out at her, the old lady had called the world Vestal, just like Knowledge had. Vestal, Vestal, just like the ancient dead language all other languages on ruin had evolved from. Just like the… “the astral space.” Seras muttered.

The old woman looked up, “hmm?”

“When I entered this world, I didn’t emerge directly into the actual world but in an astral space deep in the Labyrinth. It had this whole abandoned ancient city in it, I was on this temple thing, and within it had a room labeled ‘Vestal adventurer society branch’ and my GPS labeled the astral space as the Vestral Gateway Astral space. Where does that factor into your story?”

The woman frowned, “I, I do not know. The stories told do not include such things. And for you to appear there instead of in the main reality of our universe. Tell me, what was the state of things in this astral space.”

“A mess, there were monsters roaming about, and some buildings were in shambles. I even found dead adventures.”

“What was the status of these dead adventurers?”

“Very dead.” The matron gave her a flat look and Seras elaborated “almost nothing of their flesh remained, just bones. And I found a death essence in the armor of one.” Actually, Seras still had the armor, she summoned it from her pocket space and handed it over.

The woman took it and looked it over. “This, hmm, I know the material and style. This is only some three hundred years old. It was made in Karstess like this for a long time, it was one of the few metals they could refine at the time.”

“So then it’s not ancient, ancient? Like Vestal ancient? How’d they even get there?”

“No its not, and adventures do wander into strange places all the time.”

Seras leaned back, her earlier denial had faded away completely as she convinced herself of the truth of the story.

The old woman seemed to see this in Seras eyes and prompted her next question, “do you wish to hear how it ends?”

Seras laughed, “I know how it ends, I lived it. Ronnac fails, the gods die, magic’s gone, and the people that remain learn nothing. They continue to ruin what’s left of their world until a fail state is reached. In this generation or the next life on Ruin will end.”

The old lady sighed, “yes, he did fail, it is said that the failure nearly broke him. Made him wish for death. But the reason the tale of Ronnac is still told is the same reason we attribute the Silver Hand constellation to him. First it rises, then it stands tall, then it pushes back the weight of the sky, and then it falls again. Ronnac did not die, instead he rose and trained and began again. The lesson is that the truest failures are both to not try, and to not try again.”

Seras let out a long sigh before standing up again, “I need to go and… process this. Goodbye.” Seras turned to walk away before stopping in her tracks, “what’s your name by the way?”

“Novidara,” she replied.

Seras nodded, “thanks for that. I don’t know what I’ll do with the knowledge, but thank you.”

~~~*~~~

Novidara watched the troubled young outworlder go. She fiddled with her staff and let out long sigh. she was glad the girl ended up believing her story, she had a rough path ahead of her, much like Ronnac’s own path. So many heart breaks and tribulations glossed over.

Her last words though disturbed Novidara. She had lied only twice to young Seras so far, a record for a liar like her. Then again, the best liars were the ones who lied only once, but enough to change a person’s fate. The greatest liar of them all was a Goddess who didn’t lies at all.

The Vestal gateway was opened again, troubling. Ronnac was supposed to have closed that one for good. No wandering souls should have penetrated it, and no adventurers should entered. It should have been bare to even monsters.

Novidara also pondered the twisted golems Seras had told her and the others about that first day. That was the second lie, from their first meeting in the valley, the girl had asserted that she was a silver ranker, and she had gone with it. Novidara was much, much more than a nosey silver ranker. Though she was still nosey. Even couldn’t tell such a bald-faced lie to deny that fact.

Something had changed; the Vestal gateway would not have opened unless something had gone wrong in the astral membrane. And with these golems Novidara had a likely suspect. That did not bode well for them at all, something had to be done, but discreetly.

The enemy was an ancient and canny foe and had made subverting disgruntled fringe folk into an art. They would already be deeply embedded everywhere if they were at this stage.

Some small warnings would do the most good right now. No expeditions into all known astral spaces, not yet at least. Do that and they might go to ground to prepare for the real trouble to start, best let them slowly poke their heads up and receive her waiting blows.

Novidara prodded her other selves to begin their work. The body in the bookshop jerked mid-sentence with a potential customer. The old story teller around a campfire in the Nara tribe paused in her retelling of the cavern breaker, before deciding to stop her story and instead speak of Ronnac. The old clerk in the employ of the Smoulder king in their volcanic kingdom paused in her reports and began drafting a new one of potential threats. And the dour Matron with the Akemi tribe elders paused in her observations and began to speak to the other elders. The people of the land would be ready for the enemy, Pallimustus would not go the way of Vestal.

Never again.