CHAPTER 1

Running through the dark and mysterious forest, that felt ever watching, Rose thought to herself, ‘Why didn’t I just join a caravan to get to the capitol, why did I have to be stupid and believe I could protect myself on my journey…why did I go alone.’ 

Rose was a magician, perhaps not a particularly great one but she was however a young one. Just 15 years old and the prime age for joining the mages guild located in the capitol of Icarus, where magicians could work, grow and become powerful. Magic had always fascinated Rose and since her mother had a small amount of magical talent, she was also fortunate to possess the ability. Recently she had succeeded in casting the apprentice levelled spell called fireball. This was considered a great achievement by both herself, her surrounding relatives and friends, but it had ultimately led to this exact moment where she was running for her life through the ancient forest commonly known as “Shadow Valley”.

The name came from the enormous valley the forest lied in and the impossibility navigating it without getting lost in the shadows of the trees. So, what happened? Why did she run towards the only place in the kingdom where no man, monster or creature would be foolish to go?

Because of her success in magic, Rose decided to take the chance given to her and journey to the Mages guild. It would be a long but manageable trip, but she was confident in her ability to walk the entire way… too confident.

After saying goodbye to her mother, Rose started her journey walking across the fields and meadows until she reached a road called “Chains road”, the road had received this name a long time ago and practically no one knew of its heritage. Unfortunately for Rose the road had another name, a name everybody who travelled would know about and would therefore as a result avoid using this particular road. The road was called by travellers “The bandits road”. Rose was after all a simple village girl and couldn’t have known that as soon as she got on the road a group of bandits would be waiting for her. Let’s return to this moment that would forever change the girl called Rose’s life.

“Well look what we got here fellas!” a rough middle-aged man with mismatching equipment, of leather and iron, loudly said surprising Rose as she was not expecting somebody to talk to her on the road when she was supposed to be alone. Several other similarly dressed men had appeared quickly surrounding Rose as soon as the middle-aged man started talking. From the man’s attitude and because he was the one initiating the conversation Rose could easily understand that he was the group’s leader, a leader of what kind of group (although obvious) was not something Rose wanted to find out.

“He-hello there, who might you be and why did you d-decide to call out to me” Rose said, with a voice just calm enough that that her nervousness wasn’t apparent. ‘This is bad, why did these men just suddenly appear from nowhere? No decent human being would just simply wait by the road for a stranger to approach.’

“You seem to be traveling alone, and me and my friends thought we would be kind and keep you company. You see, a young, beautiful, frail girl like you can end up in all kinds of danger, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?”. The leader said with a disgusting smile on his face. The other men were also smiling with eyes looking everywhere on a body they shouldn’t.

“I’m ju-just one of many travellers walking on the road. I simply walked ahead of the group since I was excited to meet up with the adventures from Icarus that had accepted a request to guide us.” Rose said to make the group at least slightly wary, and hopefully cause them to leave, before things would take a turn for the worse.

“I’m afraid you should try to seem calmer, and not look around so frequently, when telling such an obvious lie” The leader said with an even more disgusting smile as he now was convinced that the girl would be an easy victim. The man knew that the girl would not have anything of real value, but the decision to approach was not just to rob her.

Before Rose could say anything in reply the man quickly decided to remove all pretences he had used in the beginning and said:

“Now here’s what’s gonna happen little lady, you are going to hand over everything of value that you have to my men here, and then you and I are going to become better acquainted with each other. After all we can’t be sure if you haven’t hidden anything underneath that robe you are wearing”. If Rose thought that smile was disgusting before, she was now not only nervous but also terrified of it. There was no way she didn’t understand what the man was implying. The men around had also started to snicker, probably hoping that they themselves would get a turn as soon as the boss was finished “inspecting her”.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Please isn’t there anything I can do? Anything that would let me leave? Rose said, her voice easily betraying how frightened she was.

The man had started walking forward, ignoring Rose, however he stopped when an additional man that Rose did not see before appeared to whisper something in the leader’s ear. The smile that had been on the man’s face quickly turned to a grimace as he heard what the scout said. The leader tilted his head causing four of the men to immediately walk towards him.

He spoke quietly: “It seems we will have company. Frank, Igor, go hide and prepare the ambush”. The two men, now known as Frank and Igor, walked away with their bows raised while the leader addressed the other two.

“You guys will take the girl and hide, I will be damned if we will be forced to just hand our prey over simply because some other gang decided enter our turf.”

One of the men asked, “You don’t think the girl was actually telling the truth and a bunch of adventures are coming here?”

“You idiot! The girl is clearly just lying to make us worried enough so she can leave. Besides, our favourite scout told me that it’s the rival gang that showed up a few months ago.”

Rose prayed that help was coming, that her bluff was in some way becoming truth, and she would be saved. Even if she was a mage, that did not mean she could get out of a situation like this without any training or experience. Rose didn’t even understand that she could have tried to intimidate the group with her knowledge of magic. Rose knew that magic was rare and powerful, but that the very thought of attacking a mage was something all bandits feared was not something she was aware of, unfortunately.

The two men tasked with taking Rose away approached her while the leader decided to speak to her once again.

“It would seem that we will have some visitors coming our way. Do not worry we will protect you from harm while these approaching bandits will be taken care of.” The man smiled once more while Roses hopes were quickly dashed now knowing that it wasn’t help that was coming but another bandit group.

‘Oh no, why couldn’t it have been anything other than bandits! Even if I scream the only result would be a change in who would do me harm’. Rose, with tears starting to appear in her eyes, tried to think of a plan, but her mind was still shaking from the false hopes she had given herself.

“Now, please behave while my two men here will take you to our hideout and guard you. I promise nothing will happen to you.” The leader’s words were not a lie entirely, he would have them protect and keep her safe, but only because he himself wanted to be first when having her body.

Rose did not have time to reply as one of the men took her arm and started to walk away from the road, into the woods, while the other walked behind her. Rose did however finally have a plan, that could have a slight chance of success.

‘If I stay calm and quiet, I can perhaps use my magic to escape once we’re away from the rest of the group and they start battling… If I can only remove the man’s hand from my arm and summon a fireball on the man behind me, the shock might give me time to escape.’

The small group of three had only walked for a short while when they heard the start of fighting. The two men who had previously tried to think of way use their time alone with the girl, without the boss finding out, tensed a bit and started to walk faster.

It was now that Rose decided to enact her plan. Rose started to deeply concentrate and gather magical force, so she could cast her spell, when she started slowing down. The men not realising the cause simply tugged harder for her to keep walking when Rose abruptly opened her eyes.

She wrenched her arm from the first man’s hand and quickly turned around, with her now free righthand she released the magic she had been storing and shouted “FIREBALL!”

She was successful in firing at the man walking behind her, but unfortunately only struck his shoulder. Still it caused the man to writhe in pain while the other man was simply to chocked to stop her from running.

“She’s a mage!?!?” the man screamed while Rose started running, sweat already dripping from her forehead.

“NO KIDDING!” the man with a burnt shoulder screamed back as he started to run after her, clutching his shoulder that was in extreme pain. “Who cares if she’s a mage! If she gets away the boss will be pissed, come on!” The man continued to shout to the other man whilst running.

Rose had already gotten a good head start when the men started going after her, but the men were faster, and more importantly used to their surroundings. Rose was running for her dear life when she got out of the pleasant forest and saw the towering dark forest coming up ahead, she had no mind to think about where she was running and did therefore not hesitate in entering this dangerous region. The uninjured man however stopped slightly when he realised where she was going. “Shit, she’s entering Shadow Valley!” He shouted to his injured ally.

“I don’t care!” said the other man blinded by his pain as he continued running into the mysterious forest, which in turn forced the hesitant man to run after while grimly thinking ‘this is a terrible idea’.