The forest is alive with whispers.
Not the kind that rustle the leaves or stir the branches, but the ones that crawl beneath your skin, curling into your mind like tendrils of smoke. You can't recall how you got to this place, only that it feels like waking from a dream you can't remember—
heart pounding, breath shallow, senses sharp.
It is dark here, darker than the deep halls of your home, where velvet curtains and gilded tapestries once draped the walls. But this isn't your home. You are far from the warmth of the hearth, from the ringing of the bell towers, from the sound of your name spoken in reverence. Here, there is only silence between the whispers—the kind of silence that presses heavy against your chest and makes you feel like you're drowning without water.
You've been walking for what feels like hours, maybe days. Time has lost its shape. The world around you is a blur of black and green, the ancient trees towering like sentinels watching your every step. Their twisted branches reach overhead, blotting out the sky, leaving only thin slivers of moonlight to guide your way.
You stop. A figure stands before you, cloaked in shadow, its face hidden beneath a hood too deep to see into. You can't tell if it's human or something else entirely, but it doesn't move. It simply waits.
"Vous savez pourquoi vous êtes ici."
The voice is smooth, resonating through the heavy air. The words echo in your mind, though you've never heard them before. You understand them, nonetheless—You know why you're here.
But the truth is, you don't.
You open your mouth to speak, but the words die on your tongue. Something inside you stirs—a memory? A feeling? But it slips away before you can grasp it.
The figure raises a hand, pointing deeper into the woods. A path, faint and barely visible, stretches out in front of you, winding into the darkness.
"There lies your burden," it says, this time in a language you know, though the voice never wavers. "Follow it, if you seek the truth."
The figure disappears before you can respond, evaporating into the mist like a ghost.
For a moment, you stand frozen, your mind racing. You clutch at the pendant hanging from around your neck, its cool metal strangely reassuring against your palm. It's all you have left from the life you once knew—a life that feels so distant now, as though it belongs to someone else.
Taking a breath, you step forward, feet sinking into the damp earth. The forest closes in behind you, the trees swallowing the path in shadows. But you don't look back. You can't. The whispers are growing louder, urging you onward, promising you answers for questions you don't yet know to ask.
There is no turning back.
In the depths of your soul, you sense something is watching you, waiting for you to make your move. And as the darkness coils around you like a cloak, you can't help but wonder… is it fear that drives you forward? Or something far more dangerous?
The whispers speak again—this time softer, yet clearer, almost as though they come from within your own mind.
"He who seeks the truth must first walk through the shadows."
You don't know what the truth is. But you know one thing for certain:
The Forgotten Realm has awoken… and so have you.
The prologue sets the tone for the rest of the novel: an unsettling, mysterious world filled with ancient secrets, where the narrator's journey begins with uncertainty and a sense of destiny. The whispers, the enigmatic figure, and the forgotten realm all hint at the larger story to come, drawing the reader into the dark and dangerous world of the Forgotten Realm.