AN: And here we'll start the adventures of the heroine with the most unimaginative name in the world! Not to be confused with the Heroine of Brogsbard, the Heroine of Firstgrasp, the Heroine of... Well, not to be confused with any Heroines except the Heroine of Falconreach! Being that this otherwise would just rehash the game, there are definitely going to be some divergences. Later. For now, Gorrillaphant!

The world of Lore was a beautiful place, but dangerous, too. A noble girl's father often warned about the dangers that various monsters posed, but then she thought, that's why there are heroes. Someone there to stand up for their fellows, to battle against evil, someone with legends behind them and a destiny ahead of them. She wanted to be a hero.

So she ran away from home. The city was in the sky, however, and posed quite a challenge to leave. But then, a hero is nothing without determination. She had once killed an evil dragon... by accident... but that only counted when it needed to, and she was certain that with the right training, she would go far.

Oaklore gained a new recruit, but one that was often distracted. The girl did well enough to defend the keep from sneevil invasions, but she was a dreamer at heart. Every day, after her training, she would go out to a cliff overlooking the other half of the Oaklore Forest and gaze. Not at the trees, or the clouds, but into the future, or what she wanted it to be.

It was on this cliff that her adventure would begin.

One day, she was dreaming of battling an evil necromancer, when suddenly a great red dragon swooped out of the clouds and passed the cliff. She panicked and scrambled to her feet as the dragon landed before her. She drew her sword, it ducked its head. But obviously not in fear.

On this dragon's back was a beautiful woman carrying a large, ornate black box, and a little red moglin, which shouted his greetings. He hopped off of the dragon and began to look about, then back to the lady.

"The path is clear, priestess!" he said.

The priestess gracefully stood, box in hands, and nodded to the recruit. "Please pardon us, friend. We're only passing through."

The recruit stepped aside, letting the two pass. The dragon drew closer to her, as if to examine her, before shaking his head and flying away. She wished he'd said something. Something to indicate whether he was friend or foe.

Sheathing her blade, she began to make her way back to the keep, wondering who that priestess was. She was barely very far from the cliff when she remembered that there was a sleeping gorrillaphant by an old log. She knew the forest's creatures well enough to keep from waking it up, but-

The recruit received a face-full of red fur as the moglin was thrown in her face. She plucked the moglin off of her face, scowling, but an angered roar in front of her told her she didn't have the time.

"Listen, furball," She said, "We don't have a lot of time, but your priestess is in danger."

She set the moglin down beside her, drew her sword, picked up a rock and threw it at the gorrillaphant, as hard as she could. "Hey, big bad and ugly! Attack me instead of that innocent priestess over there."

It turned and charged for the recruit, who dashed to the nearest tree for cover. She hadn't exactly thought this through. It charged nearly five times (each time she jumped to another tree), before she got an idea.

She ran in front of another tree, sheathed her sword, an began waving. "Yoo hoo! Over here!"

The gorrillaphant snarled, and dashed for her. The recruit jumped aside and listened to the sweet, sweet thud sound the gorrillaphant made when it headbutt the tree and fell unconscious. It could have gone better, but what done was what was done. The priestess was safe... and strangely, completely unharmed.

"Thank you for saving me, brave knight." the priestess said, "May I know the name of my hero?"

The moglin piped up, rather confused. "But priestess, you said her name was Heroine and she's going to-"

A sigh from his taller companion told the moglin to shut his pipe. "Twilly..."

"Alas, we are out of time. Good knight, I must ask an important favor of thee. Would you please let your captain, Rolith, know that we will be taking the shortcut?"

The recruit nodded. "I don't see why not."

The priestess smiled. "Good. I am certain we will cross paths again."

Twilly, apparently not knowing what was good for him, spoke again. "Especially since she'd going to take the Black Dragon Box and-"

"Twilly."

Then, they left, stepping over the old log and continuing on their path. The recruit shook her head, and started for the Keep. Somehow, she doubted her day could get any stranger than this.

I'm sure you can imagine that she was very, very wrong.

"You saw Lady Celestia on your way back?!" said Saelwyn, the librarian's elven assistant. The recruit was told to go voice her concerns to Loremaster Maya, and as Maya was busy cataloging the library, Saelwyn was the girl to talk to. At least she was paying her full attention... unlike a certain someone.

"Yep. I told Rolith, and he sorta... waved me off. Told me to tell Maya."

"Do you realize how important this is?!" Saelwyn said, scowling. "Whatever is in that box is extremely valuable, and something a lot of people would kill for."

The recruit paled. "B-but... Captain Rolith wouldn't listen to me!"

Saelwyn took hold of the recruit's shoulder and dragged her out the door, despite her pained protests. When they were a foot away from the captain, Saelwyn yelled "SIR ROLITH!"

"Ow!" he said, holding a hand to his ear. "What is it, Saelwyn? Please tell me you have a reason for yelling at me this time."

Saelwyn nodded, a hint of a smirk on her face. "She saw the priestess, Lady Celestia. Lady Celestia is taking a shortcut through the forest. And you sent her to Maya."

Rolith faced paled and his eyes widened. "T-the priestess? A-Are you sure?!"

Saelwyn nodded. "Fits the description. White hair, black eyes, standard priestess travel robes, and a priceless dragon box."

"And she's not going to stop here at the keep?! Where on Lore is she going?" Rolith yelled at the recruit.

"I don't know!" She said, "She never told me!"

"Listen to me, recruit. Listen. These forests are crawling with bandits that are looking for her. And you're the only soldier we have who both knows them well enough to keep from getting lost and has some idea where the priestess might have gone. Your mission today is to go protect her from anything, or anyone, that might do her harm. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yessir!"

Rolith turned to the assistant librarian. "And Saelwyn! Seeing as you are experienced in magic, you are going to protect the recruit."

Saelwyn scoffed. "Lovely." she said, "Well, you don't have to tell me twice. Let's go, heroine."

The recruit glared at the elf. "I have a name, you know."

"I see little point in remembering it, so I don't."

"I think she went this way. See, about a century ago, a wood-cutter cut down this huge tree, and it fell the wrong way. He didn't realize it would be too heavy for anyone to move, so he sort of just left it there, and people had to walk around it. Eventually, the path just changed course. The log has long since rotted away, but there might still be a few skeletons where it used to be."

"So the priestess took the old foliage-covered path?"

"Probably. Falconreach is a two-day walk using the normal path and only half a day's walk on this one, so maybe that's where she-"

Saelwyn covered the recruit's mouth. "Shh! Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Came the muffled reply.

"Listen..."

They were quiet for a moment, then they heard a man's voice. "Give the box, and we'll kill you quickly."

The mage and the recruit ran as fast as they could, following the direction of the voice, and they stumbled upon a clearing. There the priestess was, with Twilly behind her, protecting the box, and a rather haughty-looking thug holding an ornate sword to her throat. The priestess turned her head to look at the recruit, and the thug followed her gaze.

"My heroine!" The priestess said, "We must defend the box at all costs!"

The recruit drew her blade, and glared at the thug. "Look, punk, I don't know who you are, but you'd better-"

The thug's booming voice left the recruit's ears ringing. "My name is DRAKATH! I am the leader of the Darkwolf Renegade and the rightful ruler of this land."

Saelwyn smirked. "You're a criminal? I'm shocked, really."

Drakath continued. "That box is the key to my throne, and there's no way I'm letting a peasant like you keep it from me."

The recruit assumed a fighting stance, scowling. "Peasant? Do you know who I am?"

"DIRT!" Drakath said, "Now stand down, or, like the trash you are, you will be blown away by the winds of my great destiny!"

The recruit was seething with anger. "I was just sent to protect the priestess, but you just made this personal! Bring it on!"

Two of Drakath's lackeys jumped down from the tree tops, and Drakath immediately began barking orders at them. "Get the elf- The loud-mouthed squire is mine!"

The bandits moved to apprehend Saelwyn, but their bark turned out to be worse than their bite. In only a few minutes, they lay defeated at Salewyn's feet. Against Drakath, Twilly and the recruit weren't doing so well. The recruit only had so much training with a sword and had only spent so much time on solid ground. The moments when she had an advantage were the moments that she was trying to regain her footing.

Finally, Drakath knocked her to the ground, about to give the finishing blow, when Saelwyn rushed behind him and electrified him. He fell to the ground, and Saelwyn helped the recruit up.

Drakath got up to his knees, scowling at the two. "Impossible! You got lucky this time, mage!"

Saelwyn crossed her arms and shrugged. "I'm actually Saelwyn. This is... I don't really care what her name is. I just call her Heroine."

"Hey! I wanted to talk smack!"

"Fine. We'll start over."

Heroine cleared her throat. "Luck had nothing to do with it. And the name is Heroine. Remember it!"

Drakath sneered. "Oh, I will. You can count on that."

He stood and threw down a smoke bomb. When the smoke disappeared, he'd vanished, the box with him.

"Crap!" Heroine said, "Did he take the box?"

The priestess stood and shook her head. "No, actually, a sneevil took it while you were busy smack-talking.

"Why didn't you say something? Saelwyn asked.

"Well, you two were really on a roll. I didn't want to interrupt. Regardless, the box must be recovered. Twilly can lead you to Falconreach. There, you may be able to find some sort of lead."

Saelwyn nodded to Twilly, but turned to the priestess again. "And what about you? What are you going to do?"

The priestess took a moment to think, and then gave a gentle smile. "I know I can trust you to find the box, so I will teleport home and have some tea. Good luck!"

True to her words, Lady Celestia vanished, leaving the three alone.

Heroine turned to Saelwyn. "If she could just teleport away, why was she here in the first place?"

"I think I know who that box was for. Lead on, Twilly."

The walk through the forest took most of the night. It shouldn't have taken so long, but there were many delays; such as Heroine panicking and trying to go back to the keep when she realized she'd forgotten to tell the captain where she was going, being ambushed by Darkwolf Renegades that demanded revenge for their leader, and having a bear set on them by a little blue moglin. After that last encounter Saelwyn marked Heroine's left arm with a protection spell.

And so it was nearly sunrise when they got to the bridge. Heroine and Twilly were exhausted and wanted to stop, but Saelwyn ushered them forward.

"Falconreach is just across-"

Saelwyn noticed the water below the bridge was bubbling. It took barely a split second for a three-head hydra to crash through the bridge, destroying part of it and sending rubble everywhere.

Heroine shielded Twilly from the rubble, but she wasn't ready for the first hydra head to attack. She was hit with gallons of high-pressure water, and while it hurt, she was more awake now.

Saelwyn stepped back. "You're the heroine. Slay it."

"Are you crazy? I'm only the heroine because you kept forge-"

The hydra, not wanting to wait for its meal, lunged for Heroine, but she jumped forward. Avoiding the other two, Heroine dashed to cut off one of its heads. She succeeded, but that just made it more angry.

The second head lunged for Heroine, and she ducked and sliced through its throat. All that was left now was the biggest head, and that one would go so easily. More water came gushing out of the hydra's throat, and while not as powerful as the first blast, still knocked Heroine off the bridge. She dropped her sword into the water below and hung for dear life. Twilly tried to help her up, but a twelve-ounce moglin could only do much to pick up an armored 137-pound girl.

There was a blinding flash of light, and the hydra fell into the water below them. Minutes passed. Heroine's grasp was slipping. But just before she slipped off the bridge, Saelwyn grabbed her hand and hoisted her up.

"What took you so long?" Heroine said while Saelwyn was busy magicking the hydra's corpse into the bridge gap, "I almost died!"

"Pardon me for busying myself with the beast's destruction. I thought you could save yourself. But then, wouldn't this be the second time I've saved you? Ironic, really."

Heroine was left speechless as Saelwyn crossed the bridge.

Saelwyn turned around and smirked. "But as far as we're concerned, you killed it."

Not as fantastamazing as I'd hoped it would be, but oh well. I spent three days on it. Anyway, if you find any mistakes I may have missed, by all means, shout it out. Sometimes people don't look at the review page and if you guys help me scour out the errors I'll look good.