Book One - Preface
"I summon Thee"
A light
A blinding light
A light so bright it shined through the worlds.
Until it shined upon a world so far away, so alien, compared to the others.
The light touched upon one man, it blinded him, turning his vision first white, then black, and then white again.
When he opened his eyes, he did not see the front entrance of his flat that he had stared at prior, instead gazed upon ancient builds falling slowly into ruin.
He realized he stood very close to a particular stone, one that had a sword of tree engraved on it. He reached out to feel it, only to realize that he was glowing in a bright light as a white cloak materialized on top of his clothes, it was embroidered with golden bands. It reminded him of a Viking style braiding.
It made his own Adidas clothing look even more unimpressive than normal.
"Oooh! You're here? Then the ritual actually worked?" He turned. Behind him stood a woman with beautiful red hair, she wore a golden armour in the same pattern as his cloak. To her back was strapped some kind of pole, a sword? An axe? In her hands she held a thing that looked a bit like a gun but very … decorative.
The woman cleared her throat: "Ahem… Oh Great Hero from another world! Thou has come so far to fulfil your role in our legend!"
"Say what now?" He interrupted but she kept talking
"For our kingdom stands on the very brink of ruin and thou-"
"Stop for a moment" He interrupted, louder this time. She looked him over curiously
"Are you really the great hero?"
"The what?"
"You don't look like the thee-and-thou type."
"I'm not. Where am I? How did I get here? And who are yo-"
"Found you!" It was a man in armour similar to the mysterious women, except he had a drawn axe and a shield with a clear symbol.
"Drat! How did an Emblian get here already? Stand back! I'll take care of him!" The woman said, pushing the gun like object into his hands and grabbed the handle on her back … it was a giant axe, it was likely about as tall as she was!
First, he had appeared wild and without technique, but as he had closed the distance he, while still appearing wild and reckless, was clearly trained in combat. 'The Great Hero' wasn't quite sure how he knew this.
The axeman came at the woman, axe raised high, "Die Askrian dog!"
He charged with shield first, the woman moved to bash it away with her handle, the man smirked and swung his axe in an arc above his head.
Somehow, he knew she wouldn't see it until it was too late
Duck and roll to the left!
She did it just after the thought left his mind.
She swung her axe wildly, using the speed for power, her axe cleaved through the mans side and he feel to the ground with blood gushing out.
"Whew. We took care of him." She turned back to him, her axe still at hand, and held out one hand to shake.
"My name is Anna. I'm the commander of the Order of Heroes. We believe that Heroes should live free. Our enemies, however, enslave them – the fiends. This realm has gateways to the worlds where Heroes comes from. Awakening, Birthright, Blazing, heard of them? There are many more!"
"I'm Kiran" they shook hands, "Was he one of those enemies?" Kiran said, carefully pointing to the bloody corpse
"Yes, an Emblian. The Emblian Empire invades those worlds and binds their Heroes to service. We fight for their freedom! That soldier was from the Emblian Empire, which will soon invade our kingdom Askr. I was desperate to help. I performed a summoning ceremony. And you just appeared out of nowhere. Lucky us! But there's no time to rest. We have to act fast if we're going to save our kingdom!"
Kiran said nothing, he just took it all in.
"First things first. I summoned you here with the divine Breidablik. That's the name of that relic there." She pointed a finger to the gun thing she had showed into his arms early. She then waved her arm as for him to follow, and having no other idea what to do, he did.
"According to legend, it fires something out of it, but it doesn't look like any bow I've ever seen. The legend calls it The True Key which, if raised high, will summon the Great Hero who can fire it. That's what I did. Legend also states that it can only summon The Great Hero while near that stone you saw up there."
"The one with the tree?" Kiran asked.
"Yeah I guess it looks a little like a tree. In any case, I raised it high and now you are here. So it's yours, I do you can figure out how to-" She was interrupted, but not by Kiran
"There she is! Get her!" It was another man in green armour and a shield with that symbol. He too was wielding an axe.
"Drat, more of those Emblian soldiers." Anna gripped her axe tight "You are not equipped to help me. You run while I hold them off. Take Breidablik and out of here Kiran!"
Kiran took a few steps back, as the two axe wielders charged at each other. Something about this guy was different, they way he moved. It was without the blinding anger of the other. This one had more training, was more experienced. Kiran shook his head. Where did those thoughts come from, but he somehow knew that they were accurate. Had this world travel or whatever granted him the ability to seize up those he looks at with a single gaze?
Anna and that soldier traded blows for a period, the soldier seemed to be having the upper hand, blocking all her slashes with his shield and her pommel with his axe. Her white clothes were slowly getting redder, as was his axe.
"Watch out!" Kiran shouted, having spotted an Archer in green within the ruins. Anna didn't hear him in time, and an arrow planted itself in her side
"Argh!"
Kiran saw the soldier raise his axe. So Kiran did the only thing that came to mind. He pointed his gun, er- Breidablik towards the soldier and pressed the trigger.
'She said it fires something, now that something better be useful.' He thought
As he pressed the trigger, something within his cloak glowed, and he just managed to spot a round orb in four colours, green, blue, red, and white – before it seeming become floating energy, gathered at the top of Breidablik, and shot itself. The came a bright light.
Kiran had expected many different things to come from the shot. But not this…
"I am Virion, the finest archer of the fairest of reals. Delighted to be of service." Said the man apparently named Virion. He had blue hair just past his shoulders and wore fine clothing with only his left arm in armour. He had a quiver of arrows at his side, and a bow in his hand.
"No talk! Help her!" Cried Kiran, hoping the archer would make it in time.
"I'll show you may fine new trick then!" Shouted the archer back, as he raised his bow with an arrow.
"Strike as thou night sky!" He shouted and the arrow disappeared when he fired it.
"Die!" Shouted the soldier as he brought down the Axe to kill Anna. Then he felt onto his back, dead.
Four black glowing arrows had materialized in varying places on his torso. The Archer, Virion, threw his hair with his hand.
"As fine as trick as I had hoped, naturally of course." He said satisfied. Kiran realized something, this Virion had not noticed the enemy archer!
"Virion, Archer behind you!" Kiran shouted, holding prepared to fire another shot with Breidablik
'If another one joins us, I'm sure we can win!' He pressed the trigger…
And nothing happened. No light came out, no hero, no… Kiran thought back to the orb
'Ammunition, of course' He was a fool.
Virion turned around, but the other Archer had already taken aim
"I got this!" Anna shouted as green energy started to swirl around her, and her axe glowed the same windy green entirely. She began running and moved a lot faster as well, as if some invisible wind was carrying her.
"Die Emblian!" She shouted as she brought her axe down upon the Archer who only registered that she was near him when her axe sliced his bow in half, and him across the chest. He fell down and didn't move.
"Anna!" Kiran shouted as he jogged over to her side, "are you okay? You're bleeding!"
"I'll be fine just," she coughed a little and wiped her mouth, leaving a small trail of blood on the back of her gauntlet, "help me get to that tower over there. We've got a healer there."
"Alright, fair lady. I shall carry you." Virion promptly stepped forward and took her arm from Kiran's grasp and slung it over his shoulder
"I was about too-" Kiran began but the flamboyant archer interrupted him
"Yes, but the short jog left you more exhausted than the battle left me. I'm sorry to say this but you don't look the most physical capable."
Kiran looked down, glad that his hood was still up. Virion was right of course, he had nothing but bad grades in anything physical.
"Led on Great Hero!" Virion said as he used his boot to push Kiran in the lead. Kiran would have expected the remark to sound sarcastic, but it sounded quite sincere.