Chapter One

Chapter One

It was time to get up.

Jeremy opened his eyes, passing from sleep to wakefulness in the space of a second. Dim sunlight peeked between his shutters, drawing a line across the dusty wooden floor of his small, one-room house. He sat up and got out of bed, already dressed, and moved to the center of the room. There, he proceeded to stand motionless for the next hour.

"I have a store near the eastern gate," he said abruptly to the empty house. "We sell everything you could want, at the best prices in Sequestrinous!"

As the sun continued to rise, the beam of light inched its way across the room until it was shining directly onto Jeremy’s face. He didn’t react at all, not even to blink. The sounds of the city waking up filtered in through the dusty stone walls as its inhabitants began their daily cycle. Voices and footsteps echoed up and down the street, a shadow occasionally darting in front of the window as someone made their way past Jeremy’s house.

It was time to open the store.

Turning, Jeremy made his way outside, not even bothering to close the door behind him. He was greeted by the gray cobblestone streets and looming buildings of Sequestrinous, just as he had every day for the past thirteen years. A chaotic tangle of roads wound and looped its way through the city, each of them lined with three and four story buildings that were all unique, and yet paradoxically nearly indistinguishable from one another.

Far in the distance, the city wall could be seen rising above the rooftops, standing nearly a quarter mile tall as it kept its inhabitants safely separated from the world outside. The sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky, and the streets were already packed as the townspeople flocked to go about their daily routines.

One of them was doing his best to walk straight through the wall of Jeremy’s house, his expression vacant.

Jeremy saw all of this without truly seeing it. His eyes remained fixed straight in front of himself, his face frozen in a mask of unenthusiastic contentment as he joined the throng and began to make his way through the city.

“Move along, citizen,” a guard said as he headed in the opposite direction.

“Good day to make some gold!” Jeremy said in response. Words were nothing more than noise that occasionally came out of his mouth. It didn't even matter if anyone was there to hear those noises, because there was no meaning behind them. No meaning behind anything.

He came to one of Sequestrinous’ town squares, where smaller merchant stalls had been set up. People congregated around the fountain in the center of the courtyard in groups of two or three, and the drone of a hundred monotone voices rose into the morning air.

Another townsperson approached him, and Jeremy stopped.

“Good to see you.” said the other man.

“I don’t have time for this,” Jeremy protested with no feeling behind the words.

“I hear there are bandits on the road to Raven’s Gate,” the man replied.

“You couldn’t pay me to care about something like that,” said Jeremy.

“So long!”

“Until next time,” Jeremy said, turning and continuing on his way. Almost immediately, he was drawn into another conversation.

“How have you been?” the other townsperson, a woman this time, asked.

“I hear there are bandits on the road to Raven’s Gate,” Jeremy reported.

A third person came to join them. “The Twin Sparrows has rooms for rent, and the finest ale in town.”

"I have a store near the eastern gate. We sell everything you could want, at the best prices in Sequestrinous!"

“I don’t have time for this,” said the woman, turning and leaving.

“Take care,” Jeremy agreed.

“Goodbye, then,” said the third man.

Another handful of “conversations” occurred before Jeremy managed to escape the square and continue down the road that led to his shop.

Sequestrinous was a gray city. Jeremy might have called it gloomy, if such a word had meant anything to him. Though the buildings around him were painted in various shades and hues, they all seemed inexplicably muted. It was as if the grayness of the streets and the distant city walls were the only colors that were truly allowed to exist here. Even the sun seemed to shine a slightly less vibrant shade of yellow when it passed over them.

What lay outside the walls, in the great, wide world of Nyr, he had no idea. Occasionally words would come out of his mouth that referenced something that either was happening or had recently happened, but he neither knew where that knowledge came from, nor what it meant, and it would all be forgotten again the moment after they had been spoken.

The sound of hooves beating against stone filled the air, and the crowd moved apathetically out of the way as a man made his way down the street on horseback, the gap closing behind him again the moment he’d passed. Even the horse seemed glassy-eyed, as if it were an animatronic following a predetermined course rather than the directions of the man on its back. It missed Jeremy by a scant couple of inches, but the young man didn’t so much as flinch.

He was nearly to his store now. Once he was there, he would open it and stand motionless inside while nobody bought anything. Eventually, the sun would go down and he would return home. Such was his life. It wasn’t a bad life. It wasn’t a good life either. It could barely be called a life at all. But it was the life Jeremy had been given, and all he could do was continue to live it, day after day after—

A savage hiss came out of a nearby alleyway, and a shape darted out into the road. The creature was nearly five feet long and covered in dark wet fur that stank of sewage and disease. A light blue box containing words appeared over it.

LEVEL 3 GOLIATH RAT

STATUS: ENRAGED

This finally spurred a reaction from the townspeople, who all cried out in terror in perfect unison before fleeing in different directions, their hands flung uselessly above their heads.

“Help! Guards!”

“Somebody do something!”

“Please don’t hurt me!”

“Help! Guards!”

The only one who didn’t run was Jeremy. As soon as the giant rat’s beady eyes locked onto him, he fell to his knees and held his hands up in front of his face.

“Somebody, please! I need help!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

He wasn’t actually afraid, just like he didn’t truly feel any of the emotions he displayed. There was just something inside Jeremy that told him this was what he was supposed to be doing. And since he was utterly incapable of doing anything except what he was supposed to do, he did so without question.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood that the rat was going to kill him. He even understood that it was going to hurt. He simply didn’t care—couldn’t care—and so he knelt there on the street, pretending to be afraid, and waited to die.

The goliath rat screeched in rage. It didn’t know where it was or how it had gotten here. In fact, it didn’t remember anything from more than ten seconds ago, when it had suddenly found itself in that alleyway. All it knew was that its belly was painfully empty, the bright yellow ball in the sky was making it feel like it was on fire, and that something was telling it to kill the cowering human in the middle of the street. Baring its fangs, it lunged at him and—

There was a sharp whistle in the air, and pain erupted between the rat’s shoulder blades. It screeched in agony, stopping in its tracks half a foot away from Jeremy, who didn’t move an inch.

“Silverwing!”

There was a flash of silver light, and suddenly a woman was standing between Jeremy and the rat, her right hand wrapped tightly around the gleaming silver dagger that jutted from the rat’s back. She ripped it free, flinging droplets of dark blood over the cobblestones, the motion sending her dark blue cape billowing out behind her.

The rat recovered quickly. Blood poured from the wound, but like Jeremy, it lacked the ability to care. Turning its attention to the cloaked woman, it threw itself at her, jaws open wide to sink its teeth into her soft, tender flesh.

“Binding Blade!” she shouted. She held out her silver dagger just as the blade began to glow, and spun with it. The attack slashed directly through the goliath rat’s face, but instead of cutting it, a circle of white light appeared around the sewage-encrusted beast. The rat froze in place as suddenly as if it had been turned to stone.

The movement sent the woman’s long, curly black hair flying through the air behind her. Her olive skin, glistening with sweat in the morning sunlight, contrasted sharply with the short, bone-white horns that poked up through the wide brim of her hat, which was the same shade of blue as her cloak. She wore fingerless black gloves that reached all the way to her elbows, and a sleeveless black dress that came down to mid-thigh.

The legs that emerged from the dress’ hem seemed normal at first, but a few inches above her knees, thin gray fur began to grow. It continued down to her ankles, and instead of feet, a pair of small cloven hooves danced beneath her as she fought.

She spun again, and another box appeared above her head.

MIRANDA JACKDAW

LEVEL 18 THIEF

(CAT BURGLAR)

“Somebody, please! I need help!” Jeremy screamed again.

Moving with the vengeful, fluid grace of a whirlwind, the woman slashed another dagger across the rat’s throat. This one had a blade as black as obsidian, and it trailed a glowing blue afterimage in its wake. Blood spurted from the new wound, but before the rat could squeak in dismay, the woman thrust out with her right hand, driving the silver dagger up through the rat’s chin and into its skull. The goliath rat shuddered as it let out a weak gurgle, and then collapsed onto the street.

The moment it stopped moving, a cloud of green, glowing mist rose from its body. It was small, maybe about the size of the woman’s fist, but she didn’t bat an eye when it zipped across the distance between them. It passed through her skin like a ghost walking through a wall, and for a second her chest glowed from the inside out with its unnatural green light.

“That was a close one,” the woman said, the glow fading even as she spoke. She twirled her daggers the way a cowboy would twirl his guns, and they vanished in a pair of blue flashes. She turned to look at Jeremy, and her face lit up with a smile. “Are you okay?”

Just like that, whatever was telling Jeremy to scream and cower disappeared, and he got to his feet, his expression as placid as ever.

“You saved my life!” he exclaimed. “Thank you so much!”

The woman adjusted her hat and walked across the street to him. Her hooves made a soft click with every step, but Jeremy just stared at his rescuer’s face, unblinking. Uncaring. When she was closer, he reached behind himself and took the coin purse that was hanging from his belt. It hadn’t been there just a moment ago, but that hardly mattered.

“Here’s some gold,” he said, shoving the jangling bag of coins toward her. “It’s the least I can do after you saved me!”

The woman paused, the smile melting from her face.

“You still don’t remember me,” she whispered.

“I have a store near the eastern gate. We sell everything you could want, at the best prices in Sequestrinous!"

“I hate seeing you like this, Jeremy,” she said, taking a step closer. Reaching out, she cupped his cheeks in both her hands. He didn’t react. “It’s been so long since I’ve been able to talk to you. The real you. I know you’re in there somewhere. Say something to me!”

“I hear there are bandits on the road to Raven’s Gate.”

The woman let out a long, sad sigh, hanging her head in defeat.

“Here’s some gold,” Jeremy said, still holding the bag of coins out toward her. “It’s the least I can do after you saved me!”

Gently, the woman pushed his hand away. “Keep it. I don’t need your money, Jeremy. I need you.”

He stood there, saying nothing. The woman stared at him for a few seconds, uncertain, and then leaned in and kissed him.

“I’m going to fix this!” she whispered. “I promise! I only have a few runs left. Father Lancaster can’t keep saying no forever!”

“I own a store near the—”

“Just be careful until then, okay? The mobs are starting to grow bolder. I don’t want to come back and find out you’ve been eaten by a rat or ambushed by goblins.”

She took a couple steps back and the silver dagger reappeared in her hand with another blue flash. Drawing it back, she flung it out over the rooftops.

“I love you, Jeremy,” she said. “If you don’t remember anything else, please just remember that. I love you. Silverwing!”

With that, she vanished in another flash of light.

Jeremy just stood where she had left him, the bag of coins clutched in his hand, and stared silently at the spot where she had just been. With the goliath rat dead, people began to trickle back out into the street, walking around the bleeding, stinking corpse as if they didn’t even see it. Jeremy still didn’t move, even jostled as he was by the other townspeople.

To say he was thinking would have been an overstatement, but the unexpected turn of events had caused a sort of stutter in the script that he unconsciously followed day in and day out. For the first time in thirteen years, he didn’t instinctively know what he was supposed to do next.

Finally, another box appeared, this one above his own head.

JEREMY FAULKNER

LEVEL 0 NPC PARTNER

“Right. I’ll follow you, then!” he agreed, and jogged after the woman.