The Grim Adventures of Callen and the Incredible Origins of Resonance

My fingers wrapped around the leather-bound hilt— and the world dropped away.

Time slowed, the flames, the screaming — all of it blinked out instantly and I was back in the white void.

A single chair sat in the center.

“Hey, Ash,” Callen said, stepping out of the whiteness with an easy grin.

My chest was still heaving from the run, my knuckles screaming in pain.

“Callen?” My voice cracked. “I found Sid’s shield but it’s not working…none of it is working.”

Callen took the massive sword from me, casually resting it against his shoulder. “Yeah, I saw. The time’s come to learn about the true origins of Resonance.”

My chest tightened. Origins? I thought he didn’t know.

Callen crouched down so we were eye-level.

“Back then,” he started sounding almost nostalgic, “dungeons were just dungeons and we celebrated heroes like saints. And the Church still believed .....that one day the prophesied hero would save us all.”

I swallowed hard. “Yeah… I remember you saying you weren’t that hero.”

“I wasn’t.” His grin faded. “Because, Ash, I was never a hero to begin with.”

My mind stuttered. “What? But you were....”

“For four weeks, right?” Callen’s voice was quiet now.

I nodded.

“Do you remember how I was summoned?”

I opened my mouth but stopped because I didn’t.

“That makes no sense. How did you become a hero, then?”

Callen ran a hand along the white wall, smiling faintly. “That’s a long story. It started five years ago…”

The void shifted, and suddenly we were standing in the barracks training hall. The smell of oiled steel and wood hit me.

“…when I was still living in Bronze. Rovers were spreading like wildfire, so the powers that be decided to do something about it. One such power was Shekha Izzah.”

His voice softened when he spoke her name.

“She was a combination of beauty and power like I’d never seen. The best swordfighter in the kingdom, better even than Jacques. It was Shekha who formed the Platinum Champions, a tournament across all Rings. The winners would train under her to stop the rovers. Hundreds entered but only five were chosen.”

SNAP!

The void shifted again, and we were inside a dungeon. Six figures fought in the distance — A younger Callen ran forward with a spear.

“Back then, I didn’t even use a sword. Didn’t need to do cause we had her….”

I watched Shekha leap forward, cutting through three beasts in one effortless motion.

“The five of us ..... Kryxx, Rhennmar, Velma, Rocky, and I ..... we all looked up to her. None of us knew it then, but she was one of the First Six.”

I blinked. Kryxx? Velma? Even Rhennmar? All Platinum Champions?

“It was around that time when Hero#17 was summoned. We tried to recruit him but he turned out to be useless….”

“If I remember correctly, he was killed during a raid?”

Callen shook his head. “That is the official report but Shekha believed he was murdered.”

“Murdered? By who?”

Callen’s expression hardened.

“You know him as the Orchestrator. But Shekha called him....Arisu.”

My mouth was wide open. Arisu, one of the first six, the one who was supposed to be dead.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Callen said. “Why didn’t I tell you before? Because I couldn’t risk it .... not until I knew Ryder and CIX weren’t working with him.”

“And now?”

“I’m ninety percent sure we can trust them. Besides, if they were working with Arisu, they wouldn’t be dead.”

That wasn’t as comforting as he seemed to think.

“But why did Shekha think it was Arisu?”

Callen’s eyes darkened.

“Before his supposed death, Arisu was searching for hosts for the Elemental Entities. He theorized that by collecting all six hosts, he could create a gate, back to their world.”

“These hosts are heroes, right?” I said, realizing.

I thought of Keiji in that dungeon before I passed out. I saw a notification about being a fire guardian. That must be the hosts Arisu was searching for. But if that was true, then the merging dungeons may not be accidental as we thought.

“Yes. The heroes dying so quickly after being summoned wasn’t a coincidence. Arisu was experimenting, testing them. You see, hosts are chosen by the Entities. I don't know the criteria but it has something to do with the merging dungeons."

So, I was right. The moment Keiji killed the Guardian, he became a host. 

“What happened next?”

Callen’s jaw tightened.

“Then came the Leviathan Nest.”

The void flickered again, turning red. They fought but then Shekha got impaled by the Leviathan’s twin horns straight through her side.

“That day, the Church sent us to a Great-tier dungeon, a tier we weren't prepared for and disaster struck. Rocky died and after Shekha stayed to buy us time, she too fell.”

His voice cracked just slightly.

“I should’ve run with the others but I didn’t. I felt this intense pressure, like someone was holding me back, steering me toward her sword. I picked it up and had an instant connection.”

I blinked. “You mean… You could use resonance, too?”

“Not like you,” Callen said with a shake of his head. “I couldn’t speak to Shekha after she died, but her movements became my own. Showing me where to strike. I killed the Leviathan that day, taking its horns as a prize. The Church eventually found out and offered me a choice…to become a hero. I wanted to honor Shekha’s sacrifice and investigate the Church from within. So I said yes.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “But where does Arisu come back into this?”

“To make the long story longer,” he started. “After faking my summoning, four weeks later….I would meet Arisu himself, only he was pretending to be someone else.”

"Who?"

My heart pounded, anticipating the answer while enduring the wait.

"His name was Draken.”

*****

On the other side of the Palace, Thomlin whistled as he walked. The corridors were too quiet. No guards in sight. All over the walls were pictures of beasts that had been captured and skulls of those killed.

“Not creepy at all,” he muttered.

The path widened into a vast golden door with the Palace sigil on it.

“Let’s see what’s behind door number three.”

He pushed.

The sound of the door swinging open echoed like thunder.

And there he was — Draken.