Current day in world: July 18, 2326 TP

~Caden~

One more day. One more step. How long had it been? Weeks? Months? Years? It had felt like an eternity.

Caden lied in a muddy patch of grass. His fire had just about died out. His eyes were heavy and his body ached all over.

By his side was a beaten and rusted sword that somehow still held strong though it had been through many grueling battles. He stretched his hand out to the blade. “Soon you will have rest.”

The sword had once been a sight to behold having been forged in steel by the dwarves of Mount Thaleia. Even in its worn-down state it stood as a testament to their mastery over stone and metal. The sword had not failed him.

“Get up lazy scales,” a squeaky, accented voice demanded. “Breakfast is almost done.”

A little creature covered in green scales was messing around with some pans and skewers by the dying fire.

It was Shashu. He was a Green Kobold, a race of dragon kin who were small and known to be tricky and feisty. Usually, kobolds served under a dragon master, they had a natural instinct that made them want to serve their much larger, and in their own words, much higher kin. Shashu was green, a color commonly associated with evil dragons, but he served a metallic master. His master was a high priest of Bahamut and in turn he was a priest as well. He had been sent on a pilgrimage about a year ago and four months into that pilgrimage, while wandering through the dangerous forests of Daxodias he had stumbled upon a young, human man who had been barely clinging on to a thread of life.

His pans were full of all types of roots and mushrooms mixed with various meats that had been scavenged. It was a mystery to Caden how many different types of meats were in those pans. He could also make out bits and pieces of bugs native to the Daxodian woodlands, with many shells and many legs, things that were once very exotic to him, but now were as common as a bowl of porridge.

The kobold hummed and sang as he finished up the cooking. Caden could understand some of the words in the verses, but he had not learned much of the Draconic tongue when he had been taught it in his younger days, though Shashu had been trying to help him learn it again. He was making good progress, at least according to Shashu.

Caden glanced over to see what the green kobold had piked on the skewers.

It was fish.

They looked a bit off, but so did almost everything found in the Daxodian wilderness. If it was Daxodian it always had more of something, it was either bigger, longer, hairier, smellier with more layers or limbs.

Caden got up and stretched out his arms.

He was a complete mess.

But that was to be expected after having traveled for months in the same set of clothes walking for miles and miles through dank bogs and swamps, and mossy overgrown forests.

Honestly, he should have been dead. Nightmarish memories flooded his mind, from them he saw his fellow soldiers running away from something dark and dreary, something that had been malice incarnate. It had gotten a hold on him with slimy, clawed arms and had swallowed him whole. One thing he knew for certain, it had been a demon of the Abyss. A foul creature only heard of in nighttime stories.

The pain he felt had been like no other.

Every inch of his body had been stinging.

He had felt sick and so nauseated. Every time he tried to make his body expel the feeling, of what foul thing that had crept inside, it got worse.

With his trusty blade, he had managed to rip his way out. Perhaps it was by the grace of Athena. There was an owl. For a brief moment he saw it as he had climbed out of the cavity of the beast. In the blink of an eye, it was gone. But he had felt that warmth. That sweet caress of a goddess. Many scholars taught that the Prime Pantheon of gods had died ages ago in a horrid war, and that their titles and names had been taken up by lesser forms. Dead or not, he had felt the blessed hand of the goddess. It had felt so wonderful. But as soon as it had come, it had gone. He had felt relief for a brief moment and then all the suffering had returned. Even in death, the demon was not finished with him.

He could still feel its presence. Its essence was still inside of him.

He knew he was cursed.

“Young master,” Shashu said. “We have a big day ahead of us, we shall be entering Zenikardia very soon. Eat and restore your strength. I have prepared for you some fine dishes to help with your pain and to breathe some new life into those legs.”

The kobold walked over and presented two plates full of the mystery meat, bugs, roots and mushroom concoction he had made. It honestly did not look too bad.

Caden was still getting used to the kobold. Most of his life the interactions he had had with them involved hunting and killing them. Drake rats most soldiers would often call them. They were menaces and pests that stole food and skwama. They also could be very dangerous especially in numbers. Shashu had shattered most everything he thought he knew about them. He was polite and well spoken. Once he had gotten to know Caden a little better, he had started to call him young master, though he was not a dragon.

Caden grabbed one of the plates and started to eat.

It was delectable.

He remembered the first days after he had narrowly survived being consumed by the demon. The most he could do was crawl at the time. It had been so hard and painful. He remembered his stomach growling as he had gone without food for several days and the only water that he found to drink was in mirky puddles. At the first chance he had he grabbed a big worm he found in the mud and ate it raw. Next were bugs. He even tried tree bark and all sorts of leaves, seeds and strange fruits. He had gotten sick several times. He lost track of the number of times he expelled grime from his mouth not being able to stomach something. He was somewhat knowledgeable in identifying safe things to eat, but we was no ranger. At many times he had started to vomit blood and would just pass out. But more than all of the pain that he had felt, nothing could describe the loneliness. That day Shashu had found him may have been the best day of his life.

Once the kobold saw that he was eating he allowed himself to partake as well.

“Shashu, why do this all for me?” Caden asked.

“It is the way for followers of Bahamut to help those in need,” he said. “I simply abide by the tenants of the great metallic father.”

Caden took a few more bites of his breakfast. The raw worms and bugs had been disgusting when he had first eaten them, but the kobold had somehow cooked them to be fairly palatable.

“But you were on a holy pilgrimage? You had been sent to do something important.”

“Mysterious are the ways that Bahamut works. I was told to travel to the Great Daxos Bell Tree and I would find what I needed to do. My directions never said I had to be there. And indeed, I found something. A human barely clinging to life who looked like he needed the good word of Bahamut to ease his weary soul.”

“I think it was Athena’s grace that helped keep me alive until you found me.”

“Well, Bahamut is not against working with other gods, he may not be part of your Prime Pantheon, but he has worked with them in the past. Perhaps they have a holy plan for you.”

“I’m not Crownborn though. I barely made a good soldier either. I had trained under Count Aurelio Ortansio, a master swordsman and a Bellatorex. He always said I was promising with a blade, but that I was clumsy, that I always needed more practice. I guess he was right. If I had been more skilled maybe I would not have been in that sorry predicament.”

“I am not Crownborn either. Yet I make do with the gifts I have been given. Don’t be too hard on yourself young master. You should be proud that you have survived up to this point.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Shashu’s words were comforting.

Caden in all his life, had never would have thought that a kobold of all things would be something that he looked forward to waking up to every morning. Every time he opened his eyes as he woke up these past few months and Shashu was there, he was filled with a joy that little by little numbed some of the intense pain he still felt.

After they had finished eating, the kobold started scampering around collecting all the dishes and making sure everything was accounted for. He carried with him a Daedalite device called an Angel Cube. They were uncommon, but not extremely rare, and were very valuable and useful. Their main function was to hold and preserve. They were very light and could float around those they were bonded to. Though the kobold appeared to not be carrying very much, he had in fact a small portable room that could hold quite a bit inside of it, filled with all his belongings. The cube was about the size of an apple and it had intricate patterning. Once he had everything in place, he started to put it all back inside the Angel Cube.

Within a few minutes their camp had been cleared and clean.

“Well, young master, we should be getting started. The day will not wait for us.”

Caden got up. When Shashu first found him, he still had to crawl for days before he had the strength to stand, and after about two months had passed, he then began to walk. The kobold had medicine and knew how to cook meals for dealing with certain ailments and aches. He had used his sword as a walking stick, but now he could walk normally.

The pain was still there. But Shashu had helped him numb it and helped him to ignore it. He could move very well now. He had started to practice again with the blade and at times he even sparred with Shashu with staves that Shashu had stored in his Angel Cube.

He was healing.

But it was not enough.

Shashu had determined that he had a grave curse. They had managed to stop it from growing like a weed, but it needed to be pulled out from the roots. Unfortunately, not even the blessings of Bahamut or the sweet caresses of Athena were enough to do this. He needed something stronger.

They were making their way south, back to Zenikardia.

It was Caden’s homeland.

As much as he wanted to go home and rest, that was not the reason they were returning.

Shashu was given a special relic when he had been sent on his pilgrimage. His dragon master had given him a beautiful sapphire globe called a Prong Seeking Orb. It was made from Blue Bellatorite and sapphire gems, and its primary function was to point the wielder to one of the ten prongs of the Holy Crown of Zendivos. They were the only magical compasses in the world capable of locating the prongs.

He had given Caden the orb deeming that it was he who it was destined for.

It would guide him to the cure for his curse.

Just from holding it, Caden could feel the powerful magic swelling within it. Shashu instructed him that while holding it he could will it to seek a prong or that which he most desired. However, after being given its directive, it would only be good for finding that thing, but it would continue to show the way until that thing was found. As much as Caden would have liked to find one of the Holy Crown Regalia, divine artifacts that were infused with the very power of the gods, he had no idea if it were even within his potential to harness such awesome power. He decided it would be safer to give it the directive to guide him to the cure for his curse.

When he had willed it, the orb glowed and instantly it produced an arrow of light that pointed the same direction regardless of where he moved it. To his astonishment, while he held it, it even spoke to him in his mind. It pointed to Garadan City and told him there he would find a demonfolk woman and that she would be the key to his salvation.

It was a challenging task that had been set before him.

The first step as hard as it had been was almost done, they were almost there, just a few days of walking away. The second step would be very tricky. He would need to get into the city, get inside Count Ortansio’s palace, go down to its dungeons and free the demonfolk woman the orb spoke of. He had no idea why he needed to free her, but Shashu insisted that the orb’s magic was absolute in finding what the wielder wanted.

Caden did not know much about demonfolk. They lived primarily in Daxodias, their numbers making many, many tribes. On quite a few occasions both he and Shashu had been close to encountering them, but laying low and hiding was enough to avoid them. From what he knew of them, they were violent and barbarous. On many occasions he heard scholars calling them uncivilized. He had observed what he could of them when those close encounters happened, but it was hard for him to determine anything from what he had seen. Shashu feared and respected them, but would not really talk much regarding them.

There was one time when he was much younger where he had been shown them being held in the dungeons of the palace. They looked like humans, but their demonic features were very pronounced. Their skin ranged from various shades of blue that on some was so dark it looked grey. The adults were large and often stood at around seven to nine feet tall. And each one had a set of vibrant orange red eyes, along with a set of horns on their heads, and a tail on their backsides.

As a child they had struck much fear into him.

But now, he felt like he understood them, if only a little.

The harsh wildlands of Daxodias were as hostile as the stories made them out to be. Multiple times both he and Shashu found themselves in tense combat with goblins, aggressive predators and other kobolds. The green kobold had been surprisingly competent as a fighter. Luckily, the fights had happened after Caden had started to walk again, and he had been able to hold his ground. Though each time they had clashed with enemies and beasts, he had taken more wounds and become worn down. Because of these battles that he had needed to recuperate from in addition to his curse and wounds from the demon, their progress had been incredibly slow.

Every step was another step of uncertainty.

But those steps of uncertainty were also steps forward.

“Shashu,” Caden said as they began to walk. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me young master. I am simply doing what a faithful servant of Bahamut should be doing.”

They continued on.

Caden thought back to that memory a year ago.

One of Lord Ortansio’s sons, Sir Sergio, had been infatuated by a noble lady from Thessabel City who said she would marry the man that could bring her the head of a great goblin chieftain that had slain her father in Daxodias. Caden had trained with Sergio at a young age and they became good friends as they had practiced together. Sergio had always been the better swordsman and the better soldier, which was to be expected from the count’s son.

Caden had wanted to live a simple life. His family lived in a village in Ortansio County a short journey southwest of Garadan City called the Moss Grove. He had signed up to be a soldier with the modest goal of becoming a tower guard or a gate guard. Either of those would have been good enough for him. They did not need to be the best combatants; they just needed to sound the alarm and effectively send messages when needed. Caden could do those things fairly well. Though he had trained hard and tried so many ways to improve, he had always failed his swordsmanship tests and could never get promoted past a basic foot soldier.

Sergio had promised him that he would get him any position he wanted equal or below his rank if he came with him to hunt down the goblin chieftain.

“I just need to fill up a company of one hundred strong before father approves for this type of expedition,” he had said. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you in the safest place at all times, plus, I have General Telamon on board. You’ll just come for the ride to fill in as one of my hundred and we’ll take care of everything else.”

Sergio had lied.

They had an ample fighting force especially with General Telamon coming along, but it had been much more than just coming along for the ride.

After journeying for seven weeks, they had finally found the cave where the goblin chieftain made his lair. The chieftain had been cunning. Traps were littered all around and inside the cave. Around eighty of the hundred men that Sergio had gathered were Bloodfallen, Caden being among those eighty. Sergio and Telamon had made the Bloodfallen go in first. They had lost twenty by the time they reached the entrance to the cave. The traps having been triggered around the entrance had alerted the goblin host. By the time they had gotten to the goblin chieftain, only ten Bloodfallen soldiers remained.

Sergio had promised that he would be safe.

In the personal chambers of the goblin chieftain that is when everything finally turned into darkness. A small latent fissure to the Abyss was inside the chamber and all the bloodshed had been enough to fuel it to open briefly. It had all been part of the goblin chieftain’s plan.

The demon appeared.

It had been a horrible revelation.

Sergio and Telamon had realized too late that they had walked right into a death trap, for they had kept their confidence high the entire way to the chamber slaying the goblins as they had used their Bloodfallen soldiers as human shields.

Caden had known several of the Bloodfallen soldiers that had fallen. Some of them were his friends. He had seen Sir Elias who had a dear wife and a newborn daughter back at home, get skewered by goblins after Telamon had pushed him to activate a trap.

That was the first time Caden had ever felt such anger.

Throwing his training to the wind he had jumped in raging.

While he had been blindly hacking away that was when the demon had been summoned.

Caden had managed to slay the chieftain in his desperate bout to avenge Elias.

He had dragged the corpse of the chieftain over to Sergio and Telamon who both were unscathed. He had been wounded and bruised badly, and had not realized that a demon had been summoned.

At that moment Telamon had looked directly into his eyes, “A Bloodfallen cannot take the glory of Crownborn. I’m sorry lad, but you need to fall. Glory to Agenor.”

And he had kicked Caden into the amorphous form of the manifesting demon.

The last thing he saw as he was being engulfed was Sergio and Telamon carrying out the goblin chieftain’s corpse followed by a few of the Crownborn soldiers.

Caden came back to himself.

Shashu was whistling a jolly tune as he skipped along.

They came out to a clearing on a tall hill.

Off in the not so far distance was Ortansio County nestled in the land of Zenikardia where beautiful green fields and patches of forest stretched out beyond the horizon.

Caden was finally returning home.