A boy, around the age of six, is traveling in a pinewood forest full of snow. He is carrying a bunch of hardwood logs on his back to bring them somewhere.
The boy was on the verge of hypothermia but kept walking until he reached a northern village full of pinewood cabins, smoke rising from their chimneys. He walked past the cabins until he reached a bar with a sign that read, 'Nobody under the age of 16 allowed in.'
He chose to ignore the sign and entered. He threw the hardwood on the ground and called out a name—"Chird!"
A two-meter (6.5 ft.) tall man, dressed in heavy leather clothes and iron shoulder plates, approached him while grooming his fluffy beard. Chird said, "Oh, look at that. The boy survived. If you keep working hard enough, one day I might even start paying you with some bronze nickels."
The boy, with excitement in his eyes, replied, "Really? I might start getting paid?' Chird smirked slightly and said, 'But that'll take a few decades."
After a while, the boy had gotten some hot cocoa to drink while sitting at the bar. Then Chird said, "So, boy, we've known each other for a while now, and I've given you shelter in exchange for firewood. Now tell me boy, what's your name?".
The boy asked, "A name, huh? I guess I don't have one yet. Nobody has given me one, and I don't remember much of what happened before I met you, Chird. I really can't remember anything before the age of five, and when you found me those 15-ish months ago.", Chird answered with a smile across his face.
"I'll call you Schörl, it feels like a fitting name for a boy like you."
Schörl smiled, then drank some of the cocoa before it could get cold.
While he was drinking his cocoa, Chird asked if he had any dreams, like becoming an adventurer one day.
Schörl nodded and answered with excitement, "Of course I do! I want to one day become an adventurer well-known around the world, and then, one day, slay a dragon—not only to become a hero but also a dragon slayer!"
"Well, that's an interesting dream you've got there, kid," Chird said while chugging his beer.
***
The noon had turned into night, and Schörl told Chird that he was going out for a breath of fresh air because he didn't really like the smell of alcohol in Chird's bar, and the adventurers there were too loud for him to relax.
Schörl was walking through the village and reached the gates to enter the woods for a while, luckily, the guards knew him already and let him pass without an issue.
Schörl had wandered through these forests for so long that he knew them like the back of his hand. He walked to a boulder and knew there was a cave next to it that he had never explored before, so he jumped in.
'Damn, I've never been to a cave that smells this bad. I think I should just leave—there's nothing here, and my only light source is the little bit of fire magic I learned from Chird.'
The cave was dark and moist. Schörl thought he had gotten lucky that there were no monsters nearby.
Then suddenly, the boulder somehow fell on the hole before the cave's entrance, blocking Schörl's only way out.
***
"Aah, I'm never getting out of this shitty cave now!" Schörl yelled while furious. "I guess I'll just have to keep moving forward then," he muttered.
He kept walking and exploring the cave, expecting it to be like a maze. But somehow, it was very direct, as if it were a path he couldn't get lost on, yet one he could never change.
Schörl started to see light at the end of the cave, which was more like a tunnel than a cave. He began to run toward the light and then saw two paths before him—one bathed in light and the other pitch black, full of darkness.
He thought about going toward the light source but then remembered what Chird had said about monsters like goblins in caves usually setting up campfires to not only lure people with the light, but also provide their own source of light after hunting.
Schörl began to wonder if there was a chance of finding a rune in the cave by taking the path without any light.
Schörl was right. He saw more light by taking the dark path, but somehow, the light he saw appeared black yet still emitted light. It felt as though it didn't follow the rules of the universe—it was a rune.
Runes were a source of power discovered by ancient civilizations thousands of years ago. Nobody knows how they came to be or what created them, but it is known that they contained vast amounts of mana and could grant their users immense power, depending on the user's personality and elemental attributes.
Everyone has at least one attribute, and some even have two, like Chird, who had both fire and earth attributes. However, from what Schörl knew, he only had the fire attribute.
***
Schörl reached for the rune, but it felt strange. Even though he had never seen a rune before this one, it just didn't feel right—it felt like something else. When he finally touched the rune, it engraved itself onto Schörl's palm—something he had never heard of happening to anyone before.
'Usually, the runes just get a link of silk to the user, as Chird described it, then they are smithed into armors, rings, or weapons.' For some reason, this one was now a part of Schörl. He felt both warm and cold with it, and it felt as though it wasn't there at all.
Schörl saw the wall start to split, revealing a flowing waterfall that somehow wasn't frozen despite the freezing temperatures. Schörl walked through it, only to turn back around and see that it had disappeared into thin air.
'I guess I should head back to the village before monsters start hunting for the night.' Schörl felt more energized, and his flame control had improved so much that he could now create a fireball. He thought that the rune might have increased his mana pool, that could be also why it was now in his palm too.