Once upon a time, the world was strange and wonderful. It was a weird and fantastical place. No one could tell what their level was or what their occupation was officially called.
You couldn't see how much effort you needed to reach the next level or even how close you were to getting to that next plateau. Animals and plants lived and died with no one the wiser to how powerful they were or might be.
People lived as they do now, in towns and villages and cities. The mages did not research as much as they do now. Spells were passed down from mentor to mentee instead and only rarely written down.
And then one day, Darkness descended!
***
"Wait, wait," Kenny held up one hand as he shook his head. He paused in the process of dumping black iron ingots into a medium sized box. "What do you mean by 'Darkness?'"
"It's the way the story goes," Lorelai protested mildly. She was sitting by the windowsill, nervously keeping watch.
Kenny frowned. Elehim sat by the sledge they were loading with what they could scavenge from the storerooms.
Whoever these Crossroaders were had dumped out everything on the floor into a dangerous mess. It hadn't helped that they'd also subjected the floor to the same prying and destruction as the rest of the house beforehand. In addition to metal ingots, half-finished weapons and various materials still in their natural forms, there were also the shards and chips of stone and concrete mixed in.
Kenny had already cut his fingers numerous times while trying to pluck out the ingots. He'd finally given in and just started dumping everything into boxes, doing a rough sort by item.
The sledge had been unnoticed in the ceiling. Perhaps whoever had invaded and mortally injured his Master, Master Odom, hadn't noticed it in the ceiling beams or had thought it part of the ceiling.
"Are you going to let me finish?" Lorelai turned to glance at him before resuming her guard duty. "All the stories begin like that. Well, the beginning ones, and then it's assumed that you know for the later ones."
"Fine, fine," Kenny grumped. "So, life was weird and awesome, and then the sun set?"
He smiled a little as Lorelai shot him another angry look.
***
Darkness fell! It blotted the sun. It blotted the moon. It blotted the stars and made everyone unhappy.
The elves of light began to despair. The elves of dark began to fight shadows that appeared in their realms. The elvenhood gathered to repel these strange invaders who sought to pervert their ways.
***
"Wait! Wait!" Kenny straightened up. "What do you mean by light elves and dark elves?"
"I mean elves of light and elves of dark," Lorelai shot back. "You've never met a dark elf before? There are so many running through Gunnan sometimes."
"There are not," Kenny replied, letting the chunk of raw cloud iron in his hand fall into a large box. "I didn't know that they existed."
"Then you're an uncultured idiot," Lorelai humphed. "I'm part dark elf, but I take after my father's side of the family. That doesn't mean that my relatives disdain me, though."
"You? Dark elf?" Kenny studied Lorelai from the top of her red hair to the tips of her metal capped boots. "Nope, not seeing it."
"It's just a bloodline, not an actual marker," Lorelai protested. She stood up from the windowsill. "Look, I try to keep it pressed down because I think it clashes with my hair sometimes."
"Clashes?" Kenny echoed, starting as Lorelai changed.
Her fair skin darkened to a dark parchment and her hair became even redder and wilder, resembling a burning flame more than the glorious sunset. Only her eyes remained the same.
"Glorious," Kenny muttered, feeling the blush start from the soles of his feet.
Lorelai threw up her hands and turned back towards the windowsill, but not before Kenny caught a glimpse of red across her high cheekbones.
A moment later, she was her usual self and back to her original position.
"Crossbreds all have two forms to access, and some have more. Most choose to look one way for the majority of their lives." Lorelai leaned her head against the windowsill's edges, staring outside. "I can't stay in Gunnan any longer, though. It's not that I'm not accepted, but I didn't actually ask permission before coming."
"You ran away from home?" Kenny asked. Somehow, after all that had happened in the past few hours, he was not surprised.
"Something like that. Dark elves don't usually leave the kingdom. We have a low reproduction rate, and the Great War really decimated the bloodlines." Lorelai shrugged bonelessly. "Crossbreeds are prized because we can produce more children when we occur. It's not like a guarantee that a couple can produce a kid just because one's not a dark elf, after all."
"That's, um," Kenny searched for the right words.
"It's nothing. Just an explanation," Lorelai said. "Now, the story."
Kenny wisely shut up.
***
Darkness fell! The elvenhood rallied to fight the invaders who perverted the True Ways.
But, yea! The elvenhood was pushed back by their foes.
First to fall was the Eldenwood, the trees hewn down and ground salted.
Next was Shadowrain, that misty land of fog and shade, lost forever to the Darkness.
The elvenhood pulled back to their borders and were joined by the orcling hordes who had come to join the fight.
Truly, the world was being nibbled away by the shadows, and then the Great Gift happened!
***
"What's the 'Great Gift?'" Kenny asked. He'd given up sorting the mess on the floor to rub Elehim's ears.
"It's what it is," Lorelai said, blinking blankly at him.
"Still clueless?"
"You use it all the time. We all use it all the time," Lorelai explained. She held up one hand. "Status!" She called out. "Display!" A pale blue box materialized in front of her, showing her name and level. The rest was blotted out.
"You can use the Display Panel!?" Kenny gasped.
"Everyone can, and why are you calling it such a weird name?" Lorelai asked. She sighed. "No, nope, nope, just nope. Pretend I didn't ask. Back to the story!"
***
And lo! The Great Gift happened, and the world expanded! New spells and skills were discovered, and slowly, oh, so, slowly, the shadows were pushed back.
Then it was discovered that they were looking for the Keys of Power. Somehow, the shadows had found a way to make their invasion permanent.
Before, they could only come through at certain places and at certain times, but with a Key, they could build a Pathway from their realm to ours.
They hunted and perverted five Keys before their plan was discovered. The Keyholders fought and managed to destroy two of the Pathways.
***
"Okay," Kenny interrupted. "What's a Key?"
Lorelai frowned at him, her eyes seeming to shoot sparks.
"You keep interrupting the story," she ground out.
"Because it doesn't make sense. How can shadows be deadly?" Kenny argued.
"Because they Corrode. You saw Master Odom. That happens when the Crossroaders Corrode someone," Lorelai explained. She studied her twiddling fingers. "There's no cure for corrosion."
"None," Kenny echoed, glancing towards the doorway and the bit of workshop visible beyond it. The chunk of ore in his hand fell to the floor.
"It's okay. Well, not okay, but he wouldn't want you to watch." Lorelai grabbed his arm as Kenny turned more fully towards the door. "Just let me finish the story, okay?"
Kenny nodded, relaxing just a bit.
***
The Keyholders held a meeting to gather the realms to fight. Even the Dragons participated.
In the end, with great sacrifice, they managed to close the last three Pathways. Thus, the shadows were banished from the lands.
Unfortunately, there were traitors who worshiped and willingly obeyed the shadows for whatever reasons. Some were zealots and some were just evil. Some were misguided souls.
But they were able to just barely open the way for the shadows to slip back into the land. They are fully committed to turning our kingdoms into lands ruled by the shadows and the Darkness Beyond.
They are the ones called Crossroaders because they seek to open the Pathways to Darkness.
***
"And that's it?" Kenny asked.
"It's a kid's bedtime story," Lorelai replied with a shrug.
"That's a scary bedtime story." Kenny bent down and retrieved the fallen ore.
"Really?" Lorelai tapped her chin with a forefinger. "I always thought it was rather thrilling…and that Crossroaders were just a myth."
"All myths have a basis in fact," Kenny absently said. It was a favorite saying of one of his cousins. The man was a conspiracy theorist menace, but fascinating to listen to.
"I never thought of that." Lorelai straightened up. "Are we clearing out the entire warehouse? Because I don't think they found what they were looking for in Gunnan and will be back."
"Hopefully not soon, and no, I'm not taking everything. Just the more important stuff." Kenny picked up one of the crates and loaded it onto the sledge.
"And how are you going to get it moving?" Lorelai walked around the sledge. "You need wheels and pack animals or something, right?"
"You live in Gunnan, and still you ask such questions," Kenny teased. "Up, boy," he told Elehim.
Elehim glanced at him and then jumped into the sledge, sitting on the driver's ledge.
"Need a hand up?" Kenny asked, shoving another box into the sledge.
"No." Lorelai eyed the sledge before nimbly jumping up next to Elehim. "I still don't understand how you're getting this out of here."
"Just watch," Kenny said. He loaded the last few boxes, wiping the sweat on his brow.
For a game, sometimes it seemed very realistic. He promised himself a quick shower after he got out of his capsule.
Kenny gave the rest of the storeroom a regretful look. There was still plenty of valuable ores scattered on the floor. Still, Lorelai had a point. While he had an inkling of what they might have been after, he knew that they hadn't gotten it if his guess was right.
He pulled himself up onto the driver's ledge next to Elehim. The dog whined just a little, shifting anxiously.
"It's okay, boy. We're going," Kenny soothed, patting the dog's head.
Then he looked at the door and took a deep breath. He still remembered the activation phrase.
"Let's go see the Wizard," Kenny said, wincing just a little.
The sledge lit up with a gold and red glow that suddenly vibrated. It turned emerald green before vanishing from sight.