Chapter One: The End of It All
The Vast Glub was not as the name hinted. Not in the slightest. The Vast Glub sounds like the cry of an iceberg as it topples to the sea: harsh, cold, and quiet. For Bereni Timaha, the pulse of psychic energy that exterminated her race was not any of these things. It was a sun exploding in her skull, dazzling her pupils with unholy light before leaving her to gargle in her own olive green blood. It was warm, salty and wet, with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth armageddon could summon. The Glub was one final, bloody yelp of incoherence before the long dark.
She did not expect death to be quite this dark. As a mostly nocturnal species, trolls are used to living under the shadow of night, but this was something else. Nightime is the absence of light, but death is the absence of everything. There were no moons leering overhead, no lusii tucked in pockets of black. There was nothing.
Having no idea whether it was truly her final curse to languish in the eternal black, Bereni was still somewhat startled to find a light weaving toward her. Time seemed to vanish into the abyss, so she could not tell you when she first saw it, or how long it took to approach her. All she could say was that it entranced her; a golden light tracing through the darkness like dandelion fluff on a breeze.
" Hello?" She called out. It did not feel like she spoke, she didn't even know if she truly had a body in this deathly netherworld, but Bereni knew that she somehow sent a message into the void.
" Wait." The light hissed, its voice sounding like a thousand snakes scraping together.
Wait she did. Bereni watched the orb twine its way toward her, and as it got closer she made out more detail. The orb's center was creamy white, as if a cluckbeast's egg had been split in two, but it branched into slender golden filaments around the outside. When the orb was close enough to highlight her features in its gentle glow, pinched eyes and straight nose giving way to a strong chin, then again it spoke.
" Bereni Timaha?" Its hissing voice whispered. Filaments of gold waved rhythmically behind it.
" Present."
" You were victim to an untimely death." The orb wavered on the word untimely, like it was enjoying some grand joke only it understood.
" Well, I mean no offense, but duh. The Vast Glub killed all trollkind didn't it?" No response.
" Would you like to proceed?" It asked.
" To what?"
" What lies beyond."
" I don't have much option do I?" The orb dissolved into pockets of sundazzle, undulating around itself, and Bereni could have sworn it was wheezing a chuckle.
" Do you always answer with questions?" The orb teased. Bereni didn't bother to answer. After it settled into what resembled its former blob, the orb resumed speaking.
" There is another way," The orb didn't wait for her response this time. " In a happy chance of fate, there may be a second chance."
" I'll do it." Bereni would climb naked over a bed of rusty nails if it made her get another shot.
" So eager, little troll," Another wheezing puff erupted. " There are rules. There is a game of your universe, coined by its recent progenitors as Sgrub, which you must play to return to a state of living. It will not be the same as the original which caused the extermination of your people, however it will not be any easier."
" So I play this game and…"
" And if you win, you live."
" What if I lose?"
This agitated the orb. It bobbed, flickered, and light sprung from it it jagged shoots as it proclaimed,
" If you lose, you return here. There will be no passing on to the regular afterlife, no form of redemption should you fail. There is only you, alone in here, for eternity."
Bereni didn't even miss a beat: " Sign me up." It was only as the orb jeered a truly unsettling laugh, and began to fade into the murky black, that she began to think of the true consequences.
" Oh, I forgot to mention," The orb tittered as it disappeared, " You'll be playing with three other trolls as teammates."
The next thing Bereni knew was a tug in her stomach that meant she was falling.