The world Of Ruxriel seems to be broken beyond repair. I tried to fix it but failed. I did the only choice I had at the time and that was to hide that horrible Orb from the devil worshippers and the other extreme greed filled people. I haven't lost hope yet. My mind will only go dormant until the hunt for the Primordial Scrolls begins once again.

Snap snap snap

My eyes travel around the featureless white room seeing nothing, but a characterless one-legged table with an unsolved jigsaw puzzle scattered across the table with two plain brown chairs sitting crudely surrounding the table.  

Snap snap snap

My mind spins with questions. 

Who am I?

Where am I? 

What am I? 

Snap snap snap

My head starts spinning, my numb, frail body feels like it is getting thrown around until a hooded figure faces me. 

My vision starts going fuzzy as I stretch my hand out to the hooded man. 

I blink and find myself in front of a jigsaw puzzle, sitting, with pieces littering the table beckoning to be put together. 

The hooded figure reveals himself, unveiling his somber and unshaved face with pointed ears that fly out as the hood gets dropped. Two different colored eyes glare at me, one a blue that could be mistaken for the ocean the other a grave gray that has no pupil or sclera.

“Who are you?” I mutter. 

The man shakes his head at me, “I was going to ask the same question, but I am afraid I have no answer to your question”. 

The way the unknown man speaks has a clear but firm tone to it, that I get a tiny bit intimidated by the way he speaks. My eyes travel around the room, maybe to find any clues of what this place is. Nothing but just a white void surrounds the man and me. 

“Do you have any ideas where we are?” 

The man shakes his head once again, “No not an idea. Though strangely enough, I seem very drawn to the puzzle like nothing else in the world matters other than just this puzzle…”

 The man starts digging through the pieces that sprawl in front of him. 

I turn my attention to the puzzle as well… My hands, against my will, forcefully extend to the sea of pieces. My mind starts to only focus on the puzzle.

Snap snap snap

Through the pieces we manage to sort through I notice it most likely makes something humanoid. I start to link some pieces together, but-

SNAP SNAP SNAP

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-the damn racket prevents me as it shakes the white void tossing pieces carelessly. I jump over to catch some pieces, my head begins to feel light. I stumble back, falling out of my chair. The man that was sitting across from me looks at me for a moment and then continues on the puzzle. 

My vision begins to fade in and out until-

A deep voice calls out to me, "Kid wake up".

I blink and see my surroundings completely change. I'm sitting on a narrow pathway between two brick buildings with cracks all across the base. I could see weeds growing through the cracks of the pathway. Kneeling in front of me, I see a man with a hat that looks like a green bush. The man has a gash under his right yellow eye and has a droopy frown. 

"Welcome back to the land of the living kid".

I look up at him, 

"Hello..." My own voice shocked me for a moment, 

I seemed to have a deeper voice in the white void than this place. I gaze up at the man, and see he isn't fazed by my voice, 

"Hello... What's happening?"

The man's frown grows with a look of pity,

"You were standing in front of my Paap stand, you looked distressed, looking behind you and everything. You then fell unconscious, so as not to distress any of my wonderful customers. I dragged you over here outta the sun. I think you might've been a bit dehydrated".

I tilt my head, puzzled about what a paap is and of the events the man told me. I nod to the man,

"Thank you" I say with sincerity in my voice.

The man pats my shoulder, and my eyes take a quick glance around the pathway. I could see people walking around a plaza with tons of markets. My eyes trail up to a large tree that towers over everything in the city giving a nice shade to the unforgiving sun.

The man's droopy frown fades away,  

"Before I go back to my stand, have this paap it's on the house and the paap should help with any dehydration you're feeling".

The man pulls out a reverse teardrop shaped crimson fruit with a dark green stem on top. I grab it and the texture of the fruit has a hard skin, I bite into it and get rushed with a delicate, sweet taste as juice runs down my cheeks.

My eyes light up, "This is amazing! Thank you!"

The man laughs and backs up from me,

"If you ever want more come over to my stand I always sell paaps even in the cold periods!"

The man walks out of the alleyway, waving to me while he returns to his work. I take a few more bites of the paap, each bite making more of a mess of my face. 

I wipe the juices off with my hand and lean my head back onto a gray wall, I have to at least know what my name is right?

I search throughout my mind, trying to find any clues. Anything would be helpful... Nothing... I jump up quickly and find something heavy on my back and fall backwards on my spine. While also bumping my head into the wall behind me.

"Gah! What the hell?" I shout loud enough to make a few people look over at me.

My hand stretches over my back and finds a large backpack.

I laugh to myself, "I must be really out of it if I didn't even notice a large backpack".

I put the backpack on my lap and started investigating the bag hoping to find some clues of my situation.

There was only five things I could find,

An empty black book (thanks for writing nothing former self).

A short sword hanging off to one side of the bag (probably cut myself if I even touch it).

An empty waterskin (man my former self really didn't want to give me anything).

And a lute, with the letters "B-A-L-D-R" fluently scratched on.

Baldr... People who own stuff would carve their name on something they owned... Unless my former self was a thief.

My hands pluck a small tune that felt familiar, but it was the first time I was hearing it. It was comforting. 

I sigh, "Well... I guess I do know how to play then, that crosses off the thief idea."

I looked at the back of the lute again scanning over the word, Baldr again. I snapped my fingers in the air,

"From now on, my name is Baldr!"