Chapter 1

A Chapter by Fairy

In which new friends are found

The room was dark, the torches flickering dimly across the faces seated around the table. Tensions had been running high all evening.

As the head of defense for the Kingdom of Valo, Ayel spoke first, breaking the silence, “We have to tell them it’s over.” He says, voice dripping with resignation. “Sign the truce forms with Nox, we can’t win this war.”

There was silence from the man sitting across from him, his back turned toward the head of defense as he briefly considers the proposal. “I have a better idea.” The man finally stands, turning to face the assembled council, answering with the chilling calm he always exuded, “I will sign the papers.. but, I will also merge our kingdoms.”

Shocked by the suggestion, Ayel shakes his head. “No, sir. That will not work! The people of Valo no longer trust Nox, and Nox hates our people! Neither side will agree to it.”

“I’m well aware, Ayel. But, they will agree, and I will see to it that they do.” The other man responds calmly, hands folding confidently over his abdomen.

Ayel frowns. His entire job was to know the best way to go about things.

Across from him, Jaelynn---the minister of economics---interjects. “There’s no viable way you can definitively ensure they’ll agree.” He states boldly, seeming unaffected by the current drop in temperature.

“He’s right,” pipes up Marvin---the minister of Foreign Affairs---who sits back in his seat leisurely, “you may be powerful, but you can’t force a country to like us.”

“Are you doubting my intelligence, men?” the man alludes with a sudden burst of what Ayel can only perceive as cold anger.

Ayel blinks, a wave of nervousness hitting him. He would never dare to challenge his Lord in such a way---all that would earn him was an early grave. “N-no, sir, I would never.. We were just saying--” he hesitates, trying to make sense of the unexpected course this conversation had just taken.

However, before he can finish his sentence, Ayel is interrupted by the unnervingly calm voice of his master, “I’m well aware of what you’re trying to say, gentlemen.” The cold, calculating voice says calmly. “And, of course, I’ve thought of that already. I have it all under control.”

Ayel blinks. “But.. how are you going to manage--?”

“Hush.” The man interrupts again, turning until his hazel eyes meet the steely blue gaze across from him..

“All we need for it to work.. Is a clean slate.”

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Akari wakes up at the crack of dawn, tired, but she needs to get to work. She works at the local inn; The Scarlet Tavern, so she had to get up early to get ready and go in time to finish cleaning the tables and washing the counter and dishes before opening.

She gets up and dressed, brushing her hair, pulling it back into a hot-crossed bun, and finally applying some light makeup. So, dressed in her typical bishop-sleeved peasant blouse and homemade pants that tied below the knees, she stands and leaves her house.

She walks through the street, savoring the last of the warm sun of summer before the chilly autumn sets in, eyes tracing the bustling streets. Living in Whitebridge was good. Jobs paid well, the currency was easy to carry, everybody was kind and thoughtful..

Akari has to sidestep as two giggling children come careening around the corner from the apothecary---a girl with curly raven-colored hair and a deep blue sundress, and a little boy with a toothy grin that betrayed the gaps in his teeth, and a pair of lime green overalls, screaming and giggling as they chased each other. Their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Widdershire, stroll after the children, calmly conversing with one another as they walked arm in arm.

She passes a wall covered in posters and fliers---job listings, business advertisements, contact requests, an infographic for relocation to Spider Lake in case of an emergency.

Yeah.. that last one was newer. After the war between the Kingdom of Valo---her home---and the Kingdom of Nox, where the Norix lived, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty going around. So, the royal family declared that if an emergency situation were to happen, the survivors should go back to Spider Lake, where a survivor’s camp would be set up in a good, open area within the mountain walls to the far west of the land surrounding the lake.

She’s pulled out of her reminiscence as she passes through the vendors market, which was always somehow more crowded than the rest of the city at any given time of year, and the dull roar of countless conversations drifts through her ears. Some man trying to barter with a vendor, a little girl eagerly trying to get her moms attention about a dress she’s found, a woman slowly counting her iron curils for a nice sunhide matchbox as a line grows behind her.

That’s Whitebridge for you; full of life, families, and the center of the trading industry. There were lots of shops and businesses here, given it was a traveling stop as well as a community-centric place. The Scarlet Tavern, for instance, was a hotspot for travelers weary from the long road, typically between Sunhill and Spider Lake, seeing that the water from Spider Lake was the only one that could put out coallinet-wood fires, and the only guaranteed-safe road between the two places went through Whitebridge.

Finally, she reaches her workplace and enters, ready for another long day. Thankfully, her shift ends at 6.

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As Akari leaves the Tavern, the sun was still quite high in the sky. She begins her normal trek back home, but something feels.. Off. She can’t quite put her finger on it. So, she plays it safe and decides to take the emptier road that runs along the edge of the local farmland.

After nearly ten minutes of walking, and just a block from her house, she’s violently yanked from her thoughts when a deafening BOOM shakes the ground and air around her, causing her gaze to snap up with alertness, looking around for the source of the quake.

What she sees chills her to her very core.

A giant shockwave hurtling towards her. She looks around frantically as it nears, ever closer, and she runs, diving into a drained irrigation ditch as it passes over her. Laying there, she could only scream as she’s nearly ripped from the bottom with the force of the shockwave, but her screams were nothing more than a whisper under the roaring, violent surging maelstrom of winds above her.

She lays there as the devastating rush of wind whirls above, breath picking up with panic. She squeezes her eyes shut apprehensively as she tensely waits out further calamity.

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After gods know how long---it was probably five or so minutes, but it felt like an eternity at the bottom of that ditch---the shockwave settles, finally, and disappears. She hesitantly opens her tightly shut eyes and listens.

Nothing.

She stands up shakily and quickly stumbles out of the ditch, her ears ringing deafeningly despite the silence that now surrounds her. She looks around, tears of grief welling up in her eyes. Everything was destroyed.

The buildings had been reduced to rubble, the streets were on fire, the sky was filled with ash, bits of flesh and blood and bone were sprinkled across the street like a gruesome, macabre mirror of the night sky---boy and girl, young and old, healthy and sick, all conglomerated together on the cobble road, visceral and nauseating to the eye as it blends with the bits of residue from each and every devastated home that was strewn about the place.

Her face turns a delicate shade of white as she sees the ruins that were, just minutes ago, full of life, and families, and visitors, and.. and that was her home. And everyone..

No. No. Everyone couldn’t be gone.. SOMEONE had to have survived as well. It couldn’t have just been her left, that was mathematically improbable.. right? RIGHT?

Akari drifts frantically from rubble-pile to rubble-pile, sifting through scattered wood and stone, calling out for.. any response. Any at all, person or animal. It wasn’t until she was slightly lightheaded and dizzy from the ash-filled air that she finally stopped and forced her breathing to slow.

The ringing in her ears had, by this point, finally lessened in intensity, which was when it finally hit her.

The overabundant SILENCE.

No people. No pets. No wind. Not even crickets.

It shouldn’t have been possible. None of this should have happened. But, now, the gravity of the situation hits her.

She was now completely and utterly alone, with not even the birds to keep her company.

Everything familiar and safe was gone. Where is she to live now? How is she supposed to properly lay to rest all the broken---if whole at all---bodies of her community? Her friends, family, neighbors? She hadn’t the slightest idea how to even begin to process this devastating loss.

For now, she dazedly supposes, it couldn’t hurt to try and collect some things from the rubble of her house. She staggers away from the debris of whichever home she was standing over, drifting over to where her own had been, and carefully maneuvering through it so as to not to step on anything sharp.

She eventually stumbles on a large merchant’s travel pack covered with dust and soot, but otherwise still usable. She picks it up, brushing it off and shouldering it, before going around the rest of the trashed home, picking things out and placing them in her backpack---an ornate hairbrush gifted by Akari’s grandmother, a couple still-good ceramic cups, a ragdoll that her mother gave her, a sunhide matchbox, an old beat-up---but still functional---tent, a travelling bedroll, and a few other things.

She then goes and gingerly settles back down in the ditch, travel pack clutched to herself as she ponders on what to do now. She gazes up at the dark, ash-filled sky as she thinks.

Perhaps I should go to Spider Lake... I remember there being a lot of resources there… and isn’t that where the..? I can’t remember. I’ll just go and see if I remember there.

Finally, when the air has slightly cleared, though still filthy enough to be slightly suffocating, she pushes herself to her feet with a tentative sigh and makes her way across the smoking remains of her city in the direction of the lake, marking the start of her long journey there.

As she crosses the rubble, her steps falter to a halt in surprise at one of the collapsed houses as she spots an Eliksir kit, the glint of a few potion vials scattered buried around it. She steps over a fallen support beam and crouches down. Shockingly, none of the glass was shattered, not even cracked.

“These must have been dipped in chancellor serum quite a few times..” She passively muses aloud to herself. She picks them up and finally opens the bag, in which she’s surprised to see the travel cauldron and coallinet wood still inside it as well. She puts the matchbox she found in the rubble of her house into one of the inner pockets and closes it, looping a ribbon she had found through the handles of the Elisker kit, tying it to the shoulder straps of the travel pack and finally standing back up. With that final addition, she resumes her trek to Spider Lake...

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Akari reaches the lake long after the sun had gone down, so she finds a nice big clear spot and sets up camp as best she could in the darkness. She sets up her tent, places her bedroll, and she sets down her bag.

The stars were all out, littering the sky with soft white specks against the deep, navy blue backdrop. The moons were out, small with the shape of leering, mocking grins. Her stomach rumbles, and she shifts with discomfort. It was too dark to get food now, so she’d have to wait to explore for food until the morning.

So, she gets into her tent and slips into her bedroll. She lays there for a couple minutes, just listening to the chirping crickets and the breeze in the leaves, before finally closing her eyes, and eventually, after hours of being kept awake by the horrors of the day, she manages to fall asleep.

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Akari wakes up not too long after sunrise. After several minutes of grappling with the fact that this was now her reality, she gets up out of her tent and looks around. Her stomach rumbles angrily again, demanding sustenance, but she was too distracted to really think about it. She felt that something was going to happen today, but she didn’t know what. This was bothering her, since the last time she felt this, well.. the bombs went off.

She ponders what to do that day as she sits there and gazes out across the lake at the trees. Finally, she decides to explore the area, as she had no other plans and still desperately needed to get food somehow. So, she stands and wanders over to the treeline. As she wanders, she picks up a big pointed stick---one roughly her height---and decides to take it with her.

She walks along the treeline, making sure to keep her camp in sight, until she makes it to a tall brick tower, hidden behind several weeping willows and tall alpines, which she had surprisingly not spotted prior.

Akari stepped over to the door and warily glanced around, before hesitantly knocking softly on the wood. After around fifteen seconds, she heard movement behind the door. After another.. two or three seconds, the door opens a crack and one hazel eye peeks out at her from behind it.

She blinks at it a couple of times before speaking. “Uh.. Hello?” She realizes her voice is raspy from lack of water, and she awkwardly attempts to clear her throat. The person just stares at her for a second before the door closes. She feels a bit taken aback before she hears the quiet, almost hesitant slide of a chain, and the door opens all the way, revealing a semi-tall, lanky man in long, dark robes. He had rather short, light brown hair and a pleasantly clean-shaven face. He wore a classically pointed hat---a traditional item that was gifted to magic users that have graduated from training---which was perched precariously on his head as if placed there in a rush.

He looks mildly confused, and appears to be on guard as he stares silently back at her. After several moments, she actually realizes she, herself, was staring and clears her throat again.

“I’m, uh.. Akari.” She stumbles over her words, her tongue feeling unnaturally heavy.

The man nods. “I’m Mumble. Um, Mister. But--! Feel free to call me Mr. M.” Akari nods.

“What business brings you here?” Mister Mumble questions, his cautious, probing eyes boring into her.

“I’m, uh, you see...“ She takes a deep breath and begins to explain. “My hometown was.. blown up? And I felt the need to come here, so I did, but.. I don’t know why.” She pauses. Was she overexplaining? Probably, but she couldn’t seem to stop talking now. “I don’t know why I’m here, I’m sleeping in a tent, my home’s destroyed, and I’m pretty sure nobody I knew is alive anymore.” She feels the hot sting of tears in her eyes, threatening to spill over as the words come to a stop.

She looks up tentatively at Mr. M, who was just staring at her, and she shifts uncomfortably on her feet. Finally, he slowly, thoughtfully nods. “Please, come in.” He says as he moves out of the doorway, allowing Akari to step inside, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

“T-thank you..” She mutters as he closes the door behind her. She looks around the room she entered into and figures out pretty quickly; This man is, as she figured earlier from the hat, a high-ranking certified wizard. He gestures at a couch.

“Take a seat.”

Akari nods and complies disconsolately. Mr. M sits in a chair across from her and just stares for a moment.

“Please excuse my poor manners, I’m not used to company.”

Akari nods in considerate acknowledgement, but remains silent.

“Now, if you haven’t already gathered, I am a wizard. I practice spells and make potions. If you would like to know anything, please feel free to ask, for it may help you on your journeys, whatever they may be. While you think, can I offer you some tea?”

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Akari leaves Mister Mumbles house around the time the sun sets, but stops the moment she steps out of the door. Now that she was back outside and.. slightly less dazed, she finally notices what’s hitting her ears.

The sounds of wildlife. The gentle breeze rustling the leaves of the trees, the soft tweets of songbirds getting ready to sleep for the night, crickets musically chirping with the set of the sun, even the fish leaping out of the nearby lake just to dive back under the water's surface. Just.. so full of life.

Her vision blurs as she recalls the silence that had haunted her from Whitebridge. This was such a vast change.. she hardly even notices the sting in her eyes or the blur in her vision until her legs were weak from her uncontrollable sobbing.

Finally, after however long of just standing there and crying, she sniffles and wipes at her eyes, her legs still shaky but carrying her regardless. She makes her way back to her tent and slips into her bedroll, the events of the last two days weighing like thirteen metric tons on her conscience.

And, just like that, she finds herself out cold.

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