PROLOGUE

The Town of Kerrigan, Koga

4th Month, 9th Day, 24th Year, The Quiet Age

It was a chilly but busy night in the village of Kerrigan, a small little settlement located on the edge of the Violet River in the territory of Koga. Anywhere you went, the sounds of the villagers loudly celebrating at different establishments could be heard throughout the streets of the tiny hamlet. After a day of fishing or working the barley fields, many of the peasants found themselves merrily drinking in different resting spots around the village, trying to unwind from the physical labor they just finished. Kerrigan was below sea-level, so the oil lanterns that hung on each corner illuminated the streets for miles, making the village look like a shining beacon in the darkness. There was a group of children playing nearby before it got too dark, and they were so loud the noise of them having fun with each other carried out over the surrounding hills. At one bar in particular, a teenage boy sat at the counter having a drink, trying his best to ignore the feelings of jealousy that bubbled up from listening to the other kids. For a moment, the teen tried to recall a time when he used to go out and play, but eventually gave up when the bartender brought him another round from the back. He drained this mug more quickly than any of the one’s he had drunk previously, trying to push his thoughts deep down with the help of the alcohol. The rest of the other men stood around, laughing and having fun with each other, but the teenager mostly kept to himself as he enjoyed his beverage. When he was finished, he wiped the froth from his mouth and gave a small courteous nod to the man who had invited him along that night before getting up to go.

Iskul tried to stand, but the alcohol he had rapidly consumed was making it difficult for him to make any progress. The teen had run into some of the other fishermen at the docks this afternoon, and they had invited him to join in their festivities with a few rounds of Barley Brew. Iskul wanted to refuse, but it was a special occasion, so he ended up agreeing to have just one drink with the men. Before Iskul knew it though, more than a few hours had passed at the little tavern they had gone to. When Iskul realized what time it actually was, he started to panic. ‘Shit, I’m supposed to be home already,’ he thought to himself.

His father Uskan had always taken care of Iskul’s family financially by fishing on the Violet River. His dark hair, thick muscles and almond skin were the tell-tale signs that he was originally of Adballan descent, but none of the other townspeople ever seemed to care that Uskan was from somewhere else. Uskan was fairly well-liked and was active in the community as well, so the rest of the village greatly respected him. He enjoyed his booze a little more than most and wasn’t a particularly fantastic fisherman, but he was someone others could always rely on. It didn’t take long for him to become the leader of the village, which was a huge honor for someone who wasn’t from the town originally. Then, the storm came.

The storm was a monster of a typhoon, the largest the continent had seen in generations. Of all the storms Iskul had experienced in his short life living on the coast, this was by far the most violent one he could ever remember. The wind and rain battered the small town of Kerrigan for the better part of three days until the storm finally relented on the third night. The fisherman had all gone out the day before and none of them made it back to the docks before the rain started. A member of the village had woken up early the next day to survey the damage, finding a large number of boats washed up on shore, including Uskan’s. The rest of the villagers had scanned the surrounding areas but there weren’t any signs of survivors.

That was how Iskul became the primary breadwinner for the rest of his family, despite not being older than eight at the time. He had always dreamed of being like Uskan when he eventually reached adulthood himself, but his father’s disappearance had forced Iskul to grow up quickly and become an adult rather early. He took a job as a fisherman's apprentice with an older man named Eddy and got to work. Eddy had been close to Iskul’s father and was happy to help him get started, so Iskul abandoned his lofty dream of one day leading the village like his father in an effort to keep his family fed through the years. Iskul abruptly learned how to use a fishing rod and developed an aptitude for anything that concerned sailing almost immediately with Eddy, earning himself enough money to afford to fix up his father’s old ship and finally go out on his own.

Knowing that his older sister and mother relied on him to make money, Iskul didn’t want his night of fun to have any consequences on his ability to work the next day. He quietly paid his bar tab so the other men wouldn’t stop him from making a break for it, and slipped out the back door when he felt like no one was watching. Iskul hustled down the back alley and made a quick turn before coming to a stop. The first street that he had wanted to turn down was not the road home that he had initially thought it was. He was confused for a moment but felt quite stupid when he realized his error. When Iskul hastily made his exit, he had forgotten to include in his calculations that he went out the back door and not the front like he had intended to initially, which was the side closer to his home. Iskul stumbled around in the dark, trying to get his bearings but he could tell that nothing around him seemed familiar in that moment. He knew without any doubt that he was now hopelessly and completely lost. It didn’t help him that all the roads and houses had the same initial design with minor variances.

He debated on going back to the bar or asking one of the other citizen’s for a hand but thought better of it. Due to the size of the village, Iskul figured that if he did ask for help, the next day would be filled with people who would be mocking him for his inebriation. The same could be said about returning to the tavern. Unfortunately, there was very little chance that the rest of the fishermen wouldn’t find out about his escapades. After all, you would have had to have been extremely drunk to get lost in a place this small. The village only had a population of about two thousand people. Its small size meant that everyone knew each other pretty well, and rumors tended to spread amongst the villagers quickly. He could practically hear the snide comments that his fellow dock workers would be making already.

As Iskul continued to walk, he could feel his equilibrium shifting and stopped briefly behind a nearby building to puke. He finished up and wiped the vomit from his mouth with his sleeve, before cursing himself for getting so drunk. When I get home, my mother is definitely going to kill me. He looked around for some sort of distinguishing marker that would help him figure out where exactly he was but between the darkness of the night and the fog in his head from the ale, nothing stood out to him as recognizable.

A rustling sound coming from the houses behind him caught his attention, and Iskul looked back towards the street he had just walked down. There wasn’t any sign of movement and the road was empty. Suddenly, a shadow appeared under the streetlamp all the way at the end of the block.

“Hello? Can I help you?” Iskul called out but the shadow didn’t move. After a few seconds; just as quickly as it appeared, the shadow was gone. “I must be seeing things,” Iskul muttered and turned to keep going.

Iskul could see a pretty woman walking towards him and did his best to avoid making eye contact out of embarrassment. The woman was one of his sister’s friends, and Iskul prayed that she wouldn’t notice him. He tried to hide the vomit that had dried on his clothes, and shuffled by her quietly. Iskul waited for her to get a good distance from him before finally letting out a sigh of relief. He dusted himself off and let out a small laugh when he was interrupted by a noise similar to a wet mop hitting the floor coming from the direction the girl went. Again, Iskul turned to look back down the street but it was completely empty. The woman he had just seen had seemingly vanished from the road without a trace. With his senses dulled from the alcohol; Iskul couldn’t see the pool of dark crimson that had accumulated at the gutter to the alley on his left, or the limp lifeless hand of the girl being dragged deeper into the darkness.

Suddenly a flash of movement caught Iskul’s eye and he turned to look down the road once again. The shadow slowly appeared under another streetlight; but this time, the shadow was much closer to the middle of the block instead of the end where it was last. Due to how close Iskul was to this streetlight, he could begin to make out the shape of the shadowy figure following him. The shadow looked vaguely human, but was a fair bit taller and thinner than any person he had ever seen. That wasn’t what stuck out to Iskul, though. The shadow seemed to have two massively over-sized hands, almost like it was wearing a pair of gloves that were several sizes too big. Iskul couldn’t help but stare comically at the strange entity as he attempted to work up the courage to say something to it.

“Do you need something stranger? Why are you following me?” Iskul shouted to the shadow but again, the silhouette just watched him without making a sound. With a grunt he turned around once more, but kept the corner of his eye on the shadow as he gradually increased his pace. When Iskul passed the next house down the street, the shadow slowly crept out of the spotlight of the street lamp and began following him.

A cold sweat began to form on Iskul’s brow. Iskul didn’t consider himself to be a coward, but something internally told him that he needed to move faster. The feeling of intoxication had faded quickly as his fear grew and the alarm bells in his head continued to get louder with each passing second. Without looking back, Iskul broke out into a brisk run. With a quick glance, he saw the shadow had also increased its pace to match his own. Judging from the sound of the shadow’s movements, Iskul could tell that it was slowly gaining on him. He rounded a corner and almost verbally rejoiced when he saw the local well that he passed every day on his way into the heart of the village. Iskul knew his home was only a few hundred feet from the well, so he resolved to sprint the last leg of his journey as fast as he possibly could.

As Iskul ran, something large landed on the roof right above him that caught his attention and sent more than a few clay shingles tumbling to the ground. Iskul could hear the steady clacking of the shadow running parallel to him, bounding over the clay tile roofs of the houses on the street. The sound of people screaming and shouting around the village started abruptly, and Iskul knew that something horrible was happening. He knew that he needed to get home immediately.

Iskul could see his front door getting closer and he felt hope wash over himself briefly. As he crossed the gate that marked the start of his property, the front wall of his house exploded. The blast lifted him off of his feet and threw Iskul clean across the entire yard. Debris from a large part of the front wall smacked him in the side and he forcibly rolled hard into the branch fence he had built around the perimeter of the property with his sister. His entire chest hurt him, and Iskul was sure that the blast broke a few of his ribs.

He carefully reached down and lifted up his sweater to survey the damage, nearly vomiting at the sight that greeted him. A piece of wood roughly the size of Iskul’s fist was embedded in his abdomen, just a few inches over from his belly button. Iskul violently coughed and blood leaked like a faucet out of his mouth onto his clothing. Once the dust had settled, Iskul could only recoil in terror at what he was looking at. A horrendously large monster stood in the destroyed home and held the crumpled body of his mother and sister in one hand. The monster was easily the most grotesque thing Iskul had ever seen. It had its skeleton on the exterior of its body and a deformed head that looked like a court jester’s hat and a human skull had been crudely smashed together. Iskul had heard stories about different types of monsters in his past, and a particularly gruesome tale about a monster that looked just like this came to mind. The monster had brutally killed fifty people with its bare hands. The name of the monster slowly formed in Iskul’s head. It’s… a fiend. “R-Run, Iskul…” his mother Madeline stammered out just as the fiend clenched its fists, crushing the two women into chunks of fleshy viscera that flooded out between its fingers. His mother’s head had been between the fiend’s knuckles, so Iskul could see her horrified facial expression as her head literally burst from the built up pressure exertion. Blood hemorrhaged out of his mother’s mouth and nose like the juices leaking out from a punctured grape. Iskul could only scream in agony while the fiend watched his torment, smiling wickedly.

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Is this how I die? Why is this happening to us? What are monsters from the forsaken realm doing here? The questions endlessly bounced around Iskul’s head, distracting him from the horror in front of him. Iskul desperately tried to pull himself to his feet, but his legs refused to listen to the instructions coming from his brain. Behind him, the shadow that had been stalking him previously leapt down from the roof into the courtyard. Even with the darkness of the night surrounding him, it was obvious to Iskul that he was staring at a ghoul. Iskul could feel something wet running down his cheek and carefully reached up to wipe his face. He looked down at the tears in his hand and the yard around him slowly vanished from his perception, until a repetitive noise coming from the fiend made him snap back to reality.

It was a noise that sounded purely evil, and Iskul realized that the monster was laughing at him. The fiend seemed to relish in the fact that its actions had caused Iskul emotional suffering. Iskul just wanted to curl up into a ball and give up, but the droning of the fiend’s laugh brought him back to reality. A white-hot burning adrenaline permeated throughout his entire body. He almost swore he could feel it course through his muscles as one thought repeatedly came to his mind. Revenge. Suddenly, Iskul didn’t care if he died. Nothing else mattered to him. He decided right then and there that he’d pay these monsters back tenfold for what they did to his home. His suffering had turned to a blind rage, and it only took a moment for that rage to light a fire in him unlike anything he had ever felt before.

“HOW DARE YOU LAUGH AT ME, YOU TRASH DEMON!” The fiend’s expression changed briefly, clearly confused by the sudden change in Iskul’s demeanor. The monster took a step backwards and slowly stopped laughing.

“SO, MY PAIN IS FUNNY TO YOU, HUH? IF DEATH BRINGS YOU ENTERTAINMENT, JUST YOU WAIT, CLOWN. I’LL SHOW YOU SOMETHING TRULY ENTERTAINING!”

Iskul pulled himself to his feet by using a rake to prop himself up that he kept by the gate for taking care of leaves and doing the yard work. Iskul stood with the fiend in front of him and the ghoul directly behind, holding still while the rest of the town was being destroyed. Finally, the ghoul made its charge. Out of the corner of his eye Iskul saw the ghoul dive towards him, swinging its extended claws at the back of his head.

Fine. If this is where I go, I’ll at least take some of you with me...

Iskul waited for the right moment and pivoted just barely out of the strike. Using all of the strength that he had from his anger and years of wrangling the thrashing giant cods of the Violet River, Iskul unleashed the hardest blow he could muster to the side of the ghoul’s head. A tension released in his muscles that felt like a small explosion. Thwack! The tines pierced into the monster’s skull and a wet metallic puncturing sound echoed throughout the yard. The ghoul was killed instantly. The tines of the rake were made of crude iron; a particularly easy to make metal that doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, making it a material used in most basic farm tools. How did I just do that? What was that power? Unfortunately, Iskul thoughts would have to wait. Iskul pulled but it didn’t matter how hard he tried; he couldn’t free the stuck rake from the dead monster. The strike was so powerful, the rake was now completely embedded into the ghoul’s skull. His anger and adrenaline washed away as he desperately tugged on the handle. Finally, the wooden shaft snapped from the effort and Iskul was sent tumbling. Pissed about losing his weapon, Iskul gave up trying to free the rake with a resounding kick that sent the corpse of the ghoul flying a few feet away.

Iskul turned to see that the fiend had gotten serious when it observed his successful retaliation against the ghoul. The monster let out a thunderous roar and suddenly rushed towards him at full speed. The monster had a look on its face that Iskul could only describe as down-right murderous, and it made the teen's blood curdle. Now without any weapon to defend himself, Iskul leapt over what was left of the fence and tried to flee from the fiend as fast as he possibly could. As he ran this time, the bells of the village’s church blared out in the night and Iskul could hear the screams of villagers fighting or being killed. This was clearly no small-scale attack. The entire population of the village was being meticulously massacred. He ducked down the next alley that intersected what was left of the surrounding neighborhood with the abhorrent fiend right on his heels.

The fiend roared and Iskul couldn’t help but quickly glance back. A pack of ghouls had answered the call and had joined the chase. The sight was enough to almost make Iskul almost give up, but he mentally gathered himself and kept going.

Up ahead, a house had been destroyed and its wooden supports lay all over the dirt road. An oil lamp must have fallen nearby, and a massive inferno abruptly formed in the middle of the street in front of him. The rest of the road was blocked with more debris. Well, they're probably not kind enough to give me the time to go around, Iskul sarcastically thought to himself. Without hesitating, Iskul covered his face with his elbow and leapt over the fire. The flames licked at his exposed skin and he could feel the heat as he flew over the burning support beams.

He hit the ground on the other side and landed on something slippery which caused him to lose his balance and fall. Iskul tumbled to his hands and knees, and it took him a second before he realized what had caused him to tumble. Iskul tried his best not to vomit again but relented after the smell the corpses of the two children he knew from the neighborhood reached his nostrils. They lay mutilated a few yards away from him, causing a pool of dark crimson to flood over the dirt by Iskul’s feet. The monsters behind him howled, and Iskul noticed that the ghouls who were chasing him had recoiled in fear when they got too close to the fire. They howled in anger, before leaving to find a different way around. The fiend didn’t follow the ghouls but began looking for a better place to cross the flames instead.

The blaze in the street had caused the area to become illuminated, and Iskul desperately tried to get his breath back for a moment by hiding behind some crates while different scenes of chaos and calamity played out around him. In one place, a few men were trying to fight and run from a pack of ghouls but were being brutally cut down while they tried to flee. Another man sat on the side of the road cradling his freshly amputated leg as he shouted incoherent nonsense at the sky. A woman screamed, and Iskul glanced over his shoulder at the sudden outburst. On the other side of the street a pack of hell hounds had found poor Mrs. Putty hiding inside her home and were now playing a game of tug-of-war with each of her limbs while she howled in what sounded like absolute agony. There was a terrible snapping sound like bark being torn from a tree, and the five beasts separated to each wolf down their part of the prize. One of the beasts held the woman’s arm from about the shoulder down in its jaws. Iskul could only watch in stunned silence as the beast sauntered off while wagging its tail quite happily, looking exactly like any other dog who had just been given a tasty new treat. Besides the hell hounds, the rest of the monsters who weren’t causing their own carnage seemed to be gathering up the surrounding human corpses into a pile in the center of town for some reason.

Horrified, Iskul stumbled backwards only to have a pair of razor-sharp talons rip into the boxes right where he had previously been hiding from above him. Iskul looked up, and the black leather wings of a gargoyle could be seen gliding away from him. He watched as the gargoyle flew upward, circling the night sky before diving down on another target. Iskul could see a child trying to crouch under the gargoyle's swipe, but the talons of the monster caught the neckline of his sweater. Iskul could only stare dumbfounded as the gargoyle lifted the boy into the air, further into the darkness of night until they could no longer be seen by the human eye. A few seconds later, a mound of bloody flesh struck the ground next to him with a wet thud. Iskul couldn’t help but notice parts of the sweater he had just seen wrapped around what was left of the child’s destroyed corpse. Iskul couldn’t help but shiver as he thought about how that had almost been his ending.

Finally, the fiend who had been chasing Iskul found a spot where the flames had fallen relatively low. The monster carefully crept across the fire as it crossed towards Iskul. Seeing this, Iskul made a mental note of the odd behavior the monster exhibited. Are they scared of fire? Iskul thought to himself as he watched the fiend’s strange behavior. Iskul then plotted an imaginary path through the developing carnage and waited for the moment where he'd leave his hiding spot after he finally felt resolved enough.

A man across the street suddenly jumped out a second story window in an effort to avoid the monsters within his home and landed rather awkwardly, shattering his leg in the process. The pack of hell hounds were distracted by the sudden noise and leapt into the yard where the man had broken the glass, causing a symphony of screams to echo out from the poor villager. Using the opportunity, Iskul crept along the wall and waited a moment under an overhang for the gargoyles to pass again before returning to his sprint. The fiend must have spotted him making a break for it, and it wasn’t long before it and the group of ghouls were back on the hunt.

I need to get to my boat! As his feet smacked the pavement, an idea started to slowly form in Iskul’s head. In mid-sprint, Iskul grabbed one of the oil lamps that the village used as streetlights and headed for the docks with the group of monsters still giving chase. Without slowing down, Iskul grabbed at any hay or straw he could from a pile next to a small animal enclosure with his free hand. He knew he would only have one opportunity to get this right, and if the timing was even a little off he was most likely as good as dead. Do I even deserve to live through this? Everyone else is… Iskul shook his head and tried to stay calm. If he was going to get out of here, Iskul knew he couldn’t afford to think like that.

Iskul eventually reached the docks and began to hastily put his plan into action. Iskul placed the straw down onto the dock in the right places and got to work as fast as he could. He had only been able to prepare a few seconds when he saw the group of monsters closing in on him in the distance. He waited until the ghouls were as close as possible, and then broke the oil lamp against the dock post.

The dry straw kindling Iskul had gathered during his run instantly caught fire, and the boards between him and the ghouls had a huge inferno roaring within moments. The ghouls stopped just inches from the flames and screamed at the prey just out of their reach. Iskul knew he didn’t have time to celebrate, though. Using the few seconds, he had been afforded, Iskul freed his boat from the dock and began pushing off. At some point while he was shoving the vessel a bit deeper into the river, the fiend finally arrived at the docks behind him. Just like Iskul predicted, the fiend did not want to let him get away. The giant monster began looking for a way to get across the fire again. A part of the boards didn’t seem to be burning as badly as the rest of the dock, and the fiend tried to cross the wall of fire right at that particular spot. Iskul could only smile as he watched the fiend fall for his trap.

As the fiend stepped down onto the boards, there was a horrible groan from the metal supports as part of the dock gave way underneath the monster. Iskul had left the boards in place on purpose but untying them left them basically unable to support any substantial weight. Seeing the monster’s behavior earlier; Iskul had put very little kindling in that area, so these boards would seem like the safest place to cross. The problem was timing the lighting of the fire. If Iskul had been too early, the fire could have burnt through the boards he loosened before the fiend had arrived at the spot. A second too late and the ghouls would have ripped him apart.

The fiend let out a horrible scream as it plunged into the rapids below. The ghouls who had seen the fiend fall stopped to look at their leader for a few seconds, before turning and running back towards the village. Iskul used the opportunity afforded to him to leap into his boat and untie the last knot that anchored the boat to what remained of the dock. He carefully rowed the boat into the current and let the river take him. After the ghouls had gotten out of his sight, Iskul opened the sail of his boat and covered himself with a tarp, hoping the gargoyles weren't still lurking somewhere above him. He watched as Kerrigan got smaller and smaller in the distance, until all that remained was the smoke from the burning houses and the silhouettes of the large leathery creature that circled the night sky.

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