Ward stumbled through the dark. As the seconds passed, the pitch black fog closed in..
He kept his eyes focused on the blue lantern in the distance, "it's going for her.." he thought to himself.
"Why?" He reasoned, "I was right here.. it should have attacked me.."
His feet pounded the ground as his mind struggled to cope with the situation, "Why?.. it's a monster, it should have just attacked me on sight... wait...
What if it can think?" A chill went down his spine. It was one thing to fight and kill monsters, they were for the most part stupid and lifeless.. But to fight something that was intelligent...
"I can't think about that... Obviously, it can reason.. It must have seen Liza sleeping and thought she was an easier target.. It makes sense.. It can take her out first then come for me..."
Ward slipped into an icy coldness as he ran. His emotions faded and reason came forward to replace his anxiety, anger, and panic...
"Maybe her lantern will work on it.." he thought, "But then it probably would have run away to begin with.. it wouldn't dash towards her.. But I don't see the floor guardian, did it flee?? No.. then the fog would have lifted right?? Plus, it was coming towards me..."
Eventually he burst into the clearing where Liza was sleeping. He heard her before he saw her, "get the **** away from me!!" She yelled, her voice loud and angry.
Ward was relieved.. Slightly... "she's alive.. but still, this fog.."
The black smog was so thick he could only see the remnants of the blue lantern. And clearly, Liza had picked it up because it moved around in the dark..
"Liza!" Ward yelled, "it's the floor guardian!.."
"Yeah no shit!" She yelled back, the fear present underneath the anger..
Ward held his staff out and approached the light slowly.. "
"Wham!" He felt something metal and hard hit his head and light flooded his vision.
"Ow!" He yelled, "it's just me Liza!"
"Shit sorry Ward.. get up.. we gotta go!" He felt her hands pulling him up by the shirt, and a moment later the two were sprinting through the dark..
No matter how far they ran, the fog didn't lift..
Ward was thinking as they ran, "clearly the lantern has some effect on it.. that must mean it's a spirit or an undead of some kind.. But it doesn't make it flee, it seems to only keep it at bay.. The lantern also doesn't help with the fog..."
Ward got an idea then, and began to whisper to Liza...
...
*huff.. huff..* Dane ran as hard as his legs would allow.
He wasn't sure how long he had been running.. maybe thirty or forty minutes.. His senses told him where to go to avoid others and monsters..
He ran like a deer being chased by a hunter.. He ran like his life depended on it... and it did...
He had only been with the Old man for a week, but his heart was heavy.. The Old Bastard didn't say much, and sometimes purposefully tried to be mean... But underneath it all, Dane could see he was a genuinely good guy.
"You better survive old man.." Dane said, gritting his teeth..
..
*drip..drip..*
Something wet fell onto the hard earth below. It kept a steady rhythm, akin to the dripping of water from a tree after a heavy rain..
The source was a person.. They held the spot where their arm used to be. In front of them, a pale figure held the arm in a white handkerchief, a wicked smile on their face..
"Ah! Thank you for the gift good sir, I will treasure it.." They said, bowing to the old man..
"Just get it over with.." the old man said, before coughing up some blood..
"Now now.. you are a terrible liar.. your eyes tell me you aren't ready to die.. on the contrary, I think I will stay right here.." The figure laughed. They stood mocking the old man, waving his amputated arm around..
"tsk..." the old man thought, "I had a Trump card off this bastard had only come closer.. I don't know who they are, but they are stronger than me in every way...
This is it then... years and years in this hell and I die to 'this'... And I never even finished training the kid..."
The Old Man closed his eyes then, and fell silent..
"Hmm no fun.." the figure said, throwing the arm in the dirt. They put away the handkerchief with a quick flick of the wrist.. oddly enough, there was no blood or dirt on the cloth.
"I suppose that is the way this scene ends then.. Shall I go see how the boy holds up? Being young, he must have a lot of.. endurance.." The figure's eyes grew narrow. They were clearly trying to provoke the old man, but he just remained still and kept his eyes firmly shut..
The figure yawned, and as soon as they began to move the small dagger towards the old man's throat, he opened his eyes.
The figure, unsurprised, merely put their hand back to the side and put the other on their waist..
"Tell me your name.." The Old Man said
"Oh?.." the figure said, "why should I do that?" They pushed aside their hair and straightened their tunic. All the while the old man stood shaking, his arm bleeding profusely.
"Just a dying wish.. I'll know who to get revenge on in my next life.."
"Ah! I love that!" The figure said, "I'll tell you.. My name is Sophos, pleased to make your acquaintance"
The tall person bowed deeply. It was regal, and clear that they were used to the action..
The whole thing was so bizarre and unsettling to the old man, but he didn't have time to worry about any of that..
"Now are you going to make one last hurrah? One final stand? I would so love to see it.." Sophos said.
"Nothing of the sort.." the old man said. The last thing he was going to do was give the freak what they wanted..
"So be it..." Sophos said, frowning.
All that followed was a flash, and the old man saw the world spin.. then his head hit the ground..
"what..." he thought.. Then he realized he was looking at his own decapitated body..
...
A young man moved through a dark wood. He knew the place well, and to others he was considered a veteran...
He had seen many others move on, to the third trial, but he was not ready... Rather, something kept him there on that second floor trial: The Ravagers and the innocents.
How many years had he dashed through the wood? How many times had he clashed with that devil of a woman and her cadre of demons???
He wasn't sure.. It had become a sort of dance, a grand play between the two. She would instigate the fights: kill people, kidnap innocents, attack him in the middle of the night..
He would retaliate: save the hostage, kill some ravagers, make his own vain attempts at breaching their encampment...
No one wanted to join him.. Those that were powerful enough quickly moved on. The Second Trial was difficult, but not difficult enough to warrant more than a few years of one's life...
At that point, it had been ten for him...
Ten years of war... And he was alone.. The few times he had recruited others, and began to train them, they had been murdered...
He had learned a few things overtime.. He got more powerful, yes, but more than that: he aged.. and the woman and her demons didn't...
This became more apparent after about 30 years of the fighting.. he had wrinkles, and grey hair.. But she... she didn't seem any older than 20 or 25 no matter how much time passed...
And second: The Ravagers wanted to stop people from passing the trial...
They came off as mindless psychopaths... But there was something more going on... He just wished he knew what it was...
Back then, the sky was just as grey... But behind it all was light... It was a time when he could smile.. When he could laugh... The sky had never really changed, the grass had always been dead..
The only difference was a single thing he had lost:
Hope...
As the old man's decapitated head lay at the feet of his own body, he could see the light behind the grey.. He had one fading thought before his world came to an end:
"That kid... That kid will go places..."
...
Dane stopped dead in his tracks...
Something was wrong.. He felt it in his heart, and more so in his gut. His instincts were screaming "something happened.. something bad.."
He couldn't tell you how he knew it then, but he did: the old man had died...
Dane grit his teeth hard and pounded his fist into a tree. He felt the rough bark scrape his knuckles, and the sharp pain that followed.
"Damnit! Damnit old man! You really had to die on me..." he thought. The tears came a moment later, and he fought hard to make them stop.. But he just couldn't...
It wasn't the first time he had experienced death.. It was omnipresent in the Fain.. But also he had experienced it in his world before..
His grandparents, cousins, his own younger sister.. But he was younger then.. He had less of a connection to any of them, bar his sister...
Something about having a close friend die, to be murdered, and all the while he ran away and couldn't do anything about it..
He stood in the cold and visualized the figure... Tall, pale skin, regal clothes.. He memorized every detail he could remember..
"Some day, I'll pay that person back.." he furrowed his brow and wiped the tears from his eyes..
He began to walk again when something far overhead made him look upwards.
"What is that?" He thought.. the presence felt familiar, and a moment later he could see a rectangular object falling from the sky. It 'felt' like the old man's presence.. confused, he reached up and caught the book as it slowly descended..
Dane looked at the cover.. He wasn't sure he could read or understand the letters, but they seemed to speak directly in his head in the old man's voice:
"Koh" it said boldly on the front.
Further down, near the bottom of the cover in smaller font he read,
"Everything I know on it.. Survive you brat.. Don't try and avenge me, you'll die idiot.."
Dane clenched his fist and looked back over his shoulder,
"Don't worry old geezer.. I'll be sure to survive.. I don't know if I can keep the other promise though.. Someday, I'll pay back your murderer."
He then sharpened his senses again and began to walk, the book in hand..
...