Prologue:
Seven Towers from what was once seven peoples, seven continents, hosting the most mysterious, powerful, and peculiar of peoples. Corruption spread over the lands; the ground tainted with foul blood. Malice poured forth like water bursting from a dam, irreconcilable unquenchable like the furious blaze of the summer sun. This aftermath of a terrible battle may be forgotten, but still, is warm in the hearts of generations after, beyond the scope of memory and recollection.
#
Chapter 1:
Her eyes quivered, her eyelids like a curtain rising, then descending once again. She could feel herself being ushered on a bed hurriedly, to some unknown destination. Mixed whispers and sounds of jostling blending itself in her semi consciousness along with the pain. The PAIN. Throb, throb, throb, the pain circulated around the crown of her head as if it was being imparted by her blood going through its vessel. She squinted, her eyes closed, her brows tightening, narrowing with every pulse. A quick stab of it shot in her head, then disappeared like mist before the beaming sun. Then it was warm, it was gentle, the bed she seemed to occupy drew her away from the world of the woken back to the roaming halls of slumber, wandering, walking.
She nestled into whatever warmth was embracing her, then a flash flew across her mind’s eye, of a dark figure leaking menace, a burst of lights, kaleidoscope vision. She arose suddenly, her eyes wide and open as if a gun had just gone off. A tall, slender, fair skinned woman stood before her with blazing orange hair. She looked at her with kind emerald eyes.
“Hua Le?”, the green-eyed woman said with oddly correct pronunciation, considering how few foreigners could speak Vietnamese.
The blanket falling on her lap seemed to possess a weight, a gravitas.
With a slow nod, leading to a pause, then she shook her head faintly and mumbled, her voice as weak as a small candle on a stormy, windy night, “Amy”.
Another sharp pain, like a meteor cleaving the foggy night sky. Amy put her hand to her head with a groan, the soft fabric of the bandages rubbing against her skin, her hand retreated hesitantly. A bandage?
The woman’s soothing bright and cheery tone sounded out like music lingering in the air, with a nurturing warmth, “Oh just you relax now dearie, you are safe here. My name is Glyn, and it is most certainly a pleasure to meet you, and happy to see you awake. Oof by my claws would ya take a look a that ghastly wound”, Glyn said as she tut-tutted and fussed with the bandages superficially, “hmm and just grateful you’d be able to wake up after whatever that was. Now just you relax dearie, I’ll be here so you can go and rest your weary little head yeh”.
Amy saw the woman’s lips moving then suddenly a wave of drowsiness crept upon her, as if a ferryman was leading her to the foggy shore. A single word, a single name accompanied the girl as her eyes closed: Jeremy.
#
“Ugh”, Amy groggily grunted as her eyes opened drowsily.
The image of the young lady, Glyn, sitting in a corner avidly looking at her tablet, filled her vision.
‘How long was I sleeping?’, Amy thought to herself.
“Well don’t you look better dearie”, Glyn said as she looked up from her device with a cheerful voice in an ambiguous Celtic accent.
Amy, a somewhat astute observer, recalling the same purple blazer the woman previously wore. The time had not strayed too long. Tap, tap, tap Amy could hear Glyn’s fingers poking and pressing on the screen.
“What happened?”, Amy meekly queried, then continued to herself dazedly as if she was both interrogator and interrogatee, reliving the recent trauma visited upon her, “I stopped in an old Chinese antique store … I think it just opened…I never saw it before…and this caught my eye”.
She was surprised to see the white wand still in her hand, “I found the wand and asked the old Chinese man how much…I thought it looked cute…I like fantasy…and then he said in oddly perfect English, ‘It would be both arrogant and foolish of me to attempt to put a price to that, besides it favors you and that is enough’”.
Why it was still in her grasp was unknown to her. So too was the warm mysterious hum emanating hence from it. She felt her neck hair stand up stiff like blades of grass reaching for the bright morning sun.
“Do you hear that?”, Amy asked still trying to comprehend her situation.
“Hear what dearie?”, Glyn said as her eyes sparked subtly in recognition of something.
“Nothing”, Amy’s voice trailed off into obscurity, not wanting to be perceived in a negative way. A wand making a sound surely, she would appear crazy/
Knock, Knock, Knock, three quick but gentle strokes sounded strongly out in the room. The sound pierced through the fog in Amy’s mind, as she caught up with reality.
“Is it safe to come in?”, Amy heard a velvety almost musical male tenor from beyond the door.
That is right where was she? Her gaze quietly shifted around the room. It looked like a hospital room but not.
“She’s up and coherent”, Glyn replied as she eyed Amy with a curious look in her emerald eyes.
“It better be safe I don’t want you pulling one of your stunts again young lass”, a different gruffy but refined male baritone voice said, “This is not the time”.
The smooth white door of unknown material opened smoothly, and Amy watched as a tall extremely handsome dark brown-haired man walked in. His black suit was devoid of the usual whispers garments make, so calculated was his stride. Behind him walked an equally handsome man with blond hair. His dress was of a more refined and fashionable appearance. A beige knee-length jacket, and a deep blue silk shirt with pale green slacks, his garments seemed to discuss important matters amongst each other in dignified hush tones as he strode in with a relaxed purpose.
The one with blond hair turned towards Amy as the dark-haired man seemed to be committing the room to memory as he deftly closed the door allowing a teen to scurry in.
“Hi Hua, no, Amy my name is Liam”, he scratched the back of his pale beige colored head as he sought a chair to sit on, “Sorry for yee ol grouch over here, hope he didn’t scare ya. It’s just—".
“It’s just you never look at me as a proper winged adult”, Glyn protested as she hijacked the awkward apology, “my wing tips aren’t pale anymore and my claws are black”.
Amy tilted her head, as question marks appeared above her.
Liam responded, with an exasperated sigh “Yes, yes I know, it’s not odd for a wing leader and their wing mate when they are of age to…well you know, but give me a break lass I’ve known ya since you was a wee li’l one”.
A youthful male tenor voice brightened up the room, “Something, something happened, and Liam walked in on sis changing…in his home office…and she slapped him for it”.
“But wasn’t he in his office? Why was she changing? And how does that relate to me?”, Amy asked.
Amy was bewildered, in a hospital where she knew not where, nor what happened before, and this bizarre conversation was taking place.
“Well, you see she—", the young male was trying to explain.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Glyn cut him off defending herself, “You fucking gobshite, I didn’t know there was another girl in the locker room when I switched the signs”.
‘What is this? Some kind of third rate knock off isekai novel with poor punctuation and grammar?’, Amy asked in her mind.
Brief hazes of her memory entered her thoughts as trauma does unwanted, unwelcomed. Going for a walk in Portland, because her mother was nagging at her that she needed to exercise and lose weight to find a good man, like a typical Vietnamese mother. After the store, on her way home, she walked under the streetlight and it went out. Then it blurred together, but the pain she remembered. Amy touched her forehead, surprised to find it smooth and without any signs of the violence that had been done to her.
“So, Amy”, Liam pulled his chair closer to the hospital bed; Amy looked around, was this even a hospital, “First let me introduce myself again, I am Liam, that neat freak over there is Ian, and tha li’l cunt is Sean, and Glyn who you should know. We just want to understand the situation a wee bit, yeh, and to see how you understand it. I like this chair so comfortable”.
Amy’s eyes wandered, following Liam’s intro as he settled in his chair with a sigh of relief, to the other Male with well-kept dark wavy hair called Ian. He changed his position, leaning against a pantry tabletop studying the floor as if it was a book of ancient, advanced knowledge. Her eyes moved to Sean with the appearance of a normal late teenager with scruffy dark brown almost black hair. He waved his hand merrily then pulled out a tablet and began typing furiously; and then, finally her gaze was led to Glyn, who returned her look with a warm smile. They seemed nice enough, or so Amy thought. She felt a gentle authority emanating from them. Maybe they were police of some kind, but then their conversation led in odd directions, and lacked the staunch authority and gravity she expected from her image of law enforcement.
“So, Amy, would you be so kind as to run us through as much as you can remember”, Liam continued with a more serious glint to his eyes, “We want to confirm what situation you are in, and why this happened”.
Amy began to recount all the pieces and parts she could remember diligently, with a studious expression.
“So, this bit about the wand”, Ian asked from the corner interrupting the flow, raised his gaze settling it intently on the wand still by her side, “You got the wand, then got attacked. Do you remember how long it was after you got assaulted?”.
“No long time but not short”, Amy responded tilting her head in thought, “maybe like thirty, forty minutes”.
Ian and Liam shared a glance.
“After that, all I know is: I was attacked, then I woke up here”, Amy reiterated, “Did you save me?”.
“No Lass”, Ian responded with a focused look as he was brooding over some sliver of thought, “Someone had already done tha hard work already”.
“That is one fo the things we were hoping you could tell us yeh?”, Liam asked, as he leaned forward fixing his jacket collar, in a gentle but coercive tone.
“I can’t remember seeing another person”, Amy looked down trying to hold tears back, for the wound was still fresh even through the passing of time, “My boyfriend Jeremy maybe, but …um”.
Amy’s voice trailed off. How could she say, that she has not seen her boyfriend in a year. It still hurt so much that he left suddenly with just a note saying, ‘I need to figure some things out’. Was she defective, did she do something wrong? She had to push the feelings down.
“Who was it that attacked me?”, Amy asked with a small voice trying to change the subject.
“Not who but what”, Liam said with a loaded look to Ian.
“Aye, that’s what worries them so much”, Sean said as he finally peeked up from his tablet device, “Of all people especially good ol’ Ian over there, should know exactly what it was, but he’s clueless”.
Liam stood up from his seat, with a firm decisive look on his face, but a scratch on the back of his neck, “We’ve discussed, and I’ve decided…for your own safety I believe we need to take you with us to a safe place”.
Ian shared a look of agreement with Liam and a nod.
‘Wha, WAIT’, Amy reflexively screamed out in her mind. She began to squirm anxiously. Her mother, her sisters, she could not leave them behind without a word. Her mother would worry then get sick.
Then Glyn’s voice broke through her cloud of anxiety and fear in a calm warm voice, “I believe it is for the best dearie lest whatever it was, comes back for round two yeh, and you will be helpless and might even get your family involved”.
The pace of Amy’s thoughts, which had frantically increased, like a fleeing fearful rabbit, screeched to a halt. Glyn was right. She did not want to involve her family in something dangerous.
With a slow unsure nod and an apprehensive tone, Amy responded, “O-Ok”.
“Good lass”, Liam responded in a warm supportive tone.
#
After some time changing, Amy was ready. She had no possession save for her blood-stained clothes and her cellphone. Well, she did have the clothes until they were just disposed of. The phone was horribly broken, but she was assured the data could be recovered as she constantly procrastinated backing it up.
“I hope you like the clothes Amy”, Glyn said as she pinched Amy’s cheeks, “Forever 21 white denim overalls and a baby blue sweater with a yellow hat. You look ugh!...so adorable!”.
Somehow, Amy felt like she was treated as a doll defenseless against the whims and desires of the young girl playing with them.
“Umm…Thank you”, Amy nodded with a polite but awkward smile.
For sure she looked like a five-year-old. However, Glyn was smug, nodding to herself in self-satisfaction for her choice of clothing, so she did not want to ruin the atmosphere. Amy sighed inwardly, but at least she had seen her baby sister wear something like that one time on a secret date with her boyfriend in high school.
Liam waited for everyone to vacate the room first, then put his hands out in a guiding gesture and said, “After you lass”.
She rounded the corner as Liam followed her. Wasn’t she bleeding from head trauma only hours ago, yet her stride was steady and normal. Her wound had disappeared as if it was a lie. This was not normal. ‘Could it be?’, Amy’s eyes darted to the walls, the structure, and to the floor. How disappointing it was the same, like a hospital but not, rather plain really. She looked up as they were walking down the hall and saw a sign: elevators. A huge burley man rounded the corner striding towards them at a steady confident pace.
He had a pale green wool knee-length coat, a beige straight muffler, grey slacks, tan shoes, and a dark green pin striped button up shirt. Amy looked at Glyn, and back to William, the large man’s hair was blazing orange as well, and they had similar features; however, his thick neck length beard with his small half round sunglasses was a striking combination. He exuded a confident powerful aura, yet with it, refinement, and a subtle gentleness. Another ‘Dep chai’ man.
“Ohh, would you take a look at the wee lass”, he said with a rich cheerful Celtic bass voice as all their paths met and his eyes gently settled on Amy, “So glad you’re up and about. You can call me William yeh. Tis a pleasure to meet ya”.
Without stopping William settled behind Amy together with Liam, with Glyn and Sean in front of her and Ian leading in a quasi-formation. Amy looked down on her clothes, she must look like a child to William. They rounded the corner then boarded the elevator with a relaxed pace.
‘Huh’, Amy thought to herself.
There was an elevator operator there in a non-descript black suit with a wire in his ears and sunglasses on. Security, maybe this was some government law enforcement agency.
“Ohh! By Draeg’s claw this is your first experience with the Draegwn, the wee lass doesn’t know”, William boomed looking at his cohorts, then after a quiet deep chuckle he pulled a tobacco pipe out of his jacket pocket and stuffed it in his mouth, “Well this will be interesting for you, and most amusing for me”.
“Main Lobby”, Ian said.
Amy felt her weight lighten as the elevator went up. Wait a minute, wasn’t the main lobby usually down in the hospitals? Was she underground? That question ushered in her next: where was she again.
As her thoughts were passing by, the door opened, and she finally looked up then gasped. Stretching before her was a large black stone walled lobby. What made her gasp was not the massive structure no, what made her gasp were the people before her, if she could even call them that.
‘So, this IS it’, Amy thought to herself.
Amy had always devoured and enjoyed everything fantasy. Mariner moon was her favorite show as a child in Vietnam. The magical girl anime harnessing magic from the cosmos via a heart-shaped wand in an eastern school uniform and skirt. They walked forward out of the way of foot traffic, then they paused. They were trying to give Amy time to see, even though she was currently oblivious to their thoughtfulness.
Those look like dwarves, are those elves; thoughts like these raced around her head excitedly. Oh, that looks like…what does it look like, small horns, and a square angular face, an orc maybe. The little people with white bushy beards. Many types of fantastical creatures were before her going to and fro, chasing after their own business. Some were known to her by sight, others were harder to place a name to, and some were even unrecognizable.
Amy hated the trope of the stupid protagonist that refused to believe where they were, and, in what situation they were. Similar to zombie related media, where she the people acted like they had not seen the movies about zombies, or read the books, that had been in circulation for seventy-five or more years. Come on stupid, of course the monster would be there, use the artifact, phrases like these came to her mind as her gaze jumped to the different kinds of people. When she thought about realistically, either she was so high off hospital drugs, or this was real. Deception, she snorted in her mind, what profit could be gained by staging all this just for her to see.
She had a mysterious humming wand, a host of unknown creatures before her, besides it was much better than idling, waiting in her mother’s house in her tiny bedroom, as if she was a dejected lonely party of two with just one member.
“You ready Lass?”, Liam asked.
“Unn”, Amy said as she nodded her head meekly.
She took a step forward into a new world filled with curious things, and amazing marvels; however, little would she know how much she would change, and how much the world would change, before her journey was through.