There was something in the air, not quite good, and not quite evil. However, most scholars believed this to be true about most everything since the time of the god war during the third age. Humans, such an odd race, they are a rather weak race, especially when considering the monsters that surround their villages, the gnomes with their obvious superior magic and technical skill, the dwarves with such stunning ingenuity and innovation, or the trolls and cousin ogres with their pure strength and size. There are also the werewolves with their heightened strength and hunting skills, and even the vampires in Morytania. It is truly a mystery as to how this race, the humans, were able to flourish and grow at such an exponential rate and keep their control over Gielnor, however, every day it seems that more and more humans enter this world, most of them determined to be accomplished adventurers.
May had heard of Misthalin, and its tiny town of Lumbridge where most of these adventurers start out, yet she had never seen it for herself. She would often go down to Burgh de Rott and listen to the stories of the adventurers that would help the humans escape from her grandfather's gasp. Up north through the swamp, and across the river was supposed to be a wonderful world crawling with fierce monsters, beautiful cities – very unlike the ruins of her castle and the nearby town. She longed to visit caves, that weren't already flooded, giant rocks called mountains, and all the other wonders that she would never be able to experience here on the far edge of the world. She sighed looking out over the swamp from her balcony. It was a nice night, with a full moon and brisk breezes, if she dared, she could easily fly out and go visit the swamp at least. The servants would be known to laugh about the careless human adventurers that thought that they could take on the swamp, and a group of blood-thirsty vampires. Perhaps she could meet one, perhaps she could save his life and maybe, just maybe, she could go beyond the River Salve and start a new life for herself.
She hated being the granddaughter to Draken, no matter that she was secretly the true heir to his throne should anything happen to him, and she couldn't stand the prospect of spending eternity in this castle without ever stepping foot in the outside world. She'd been outside before yes, but always in secret, and never beyond half of the swamp. Burgh de Rott is the closest to other civilizations as it gets. She went back inside and changed into more suitable clothing. Off came her black and lavender dress and on went her dark grey leggings, a tight, long sleeved v-neck shirt and her knee high boots. She grabbed a black cloak, an ivory dagger, put on her grandmother's diamond necklace, a ruby ring, locked her door and jumped off her balcony onto the ground below. Almost immediately, as if they could read her mind, two guards were rushing to her. As sleek and silently as she could – which by human senses was as undetectable as still air – she moved into the shadows. The lesser vampires were no match to her superiority and they quickly moved on, scolding themselves for their supposed hallucination.
May continued in this fashion until she got to her usual boundary. The tree with the rope bridge to where the silly Myreque lay in wait for someone to aid in their quest looked just the same, but the lands beyond looked much more welcoming and like a home she'd never known. Taking a deep breath May stepped forward, beyond all that she was familiar with and all that seemed precious to her, she stepped forth into the great unknown.
It didn't take her long to make her way up to Canafis, the land of the werewolves. She'd see a few remains of unlucky human adventurers and had put together a bit of a collection of armor, weapons, and other various items that she couldn't really use or had no knowledge or experience to use. Fortunately for her there was a general store in which she could sell and therefore she had a nice sum of twenty-five hundred coins. The store keeper tried to sell her items, but everything seemed pointless. A bucket? Whatever would she need that for? He did look at her odd when she came in, maybe he was testing her to see if she was human or not? Which was best to say? Who was this werewolf to judge her like that anyway?
She got out of that store with a bag full of coins and quickly headed to the bank across the village square. When she walked in she didn't know if she should just walk right back out. There, right there in the flipping bank a human adventurer was fighting a giant wolf in human clothing, no doubt a transformed werewolf. This adventurer was garbed in green cloth that looked awfully scaly and uncomfortable to wear, he was shooting the werewolf with arrows from across a broken table – no doubt from other similar battles – and the werewolf was trying helplessly to get a hold of the adventurer, too enraged to notice he could probably just go around the table. The werewolf looked pretty bad though, blood was dripping from places where arrows obviously pierced him, but fell by his feet. The archer knocked another arrow and with one more strike planted an arrow right in the wolf's abdomen, killing the poor beast. May was frozen where she was. Suddenly, humans didn't seem quite so nice or peaceful. The werewolf was defenseless and still the adventurer killed him!? The adventurer then took the bones of the felled beast and went outside. Out of curiosity, May looked out a window and watched as the adventurer gave the mighty werewolf a burial and was even kind enough to say some blessing words from the Book of Balance.
"Have you never seen a werewolf or something? Why are you watching him burry the monster?" asked a female voice from behind her. May quickly shot around to look at a girl clad in full dark blue armor and was carrying a medium sized, curved blade of the same material. She had a full helmet on so May couldn't see the girl's face, but she didn't seem very old, if anything, she was probably the same age as May, sixteen. May was so frightened at this point she didn't know what to do, fortunately the girl just continued talking. "Wow, a diamond necklace and a ruby ring!? You must have a sugar daddy! Let me guess, he dragged you out here so that you'd be the first person to see his ransack of the Barrows?" she said.
May shook her head no. "A-actually, I'm new here… I think I got lost on my way to Lumbridge…" May said half truthfully, hoping that this girl would believe her story.
"LUMBRIDGE!? Wow, you're a long way from Lumbridge, noob, where were you coming from? Who ever gave you directions sucks," she said. She had no idea though.
"Ummmm, I don't know, I was lost then too," May said quickly, hoping that this would just add to the girl's confusion. The girl put a hand to her metal chin and began to think to herself. Suddenly she clapped her hands.
"Okay, I'll help you out. Afterall, you might prove as a useful companion, tasks can get soooooooo boring! By the way, my name is Hacker Blue, but you can just call me Blue," she said, offering her hand to shake. May took it, with renewed vigor and a smile on her face.
"I'm May, just May," she said. Blue started to laugh.
"You really are a noob! Alright, first things first, we need to get you to Lumbridge so you can learn your way around this world, apparently those schlubs at Tutorial Island didn't do crap for you," she said. She allowed May to put her money in the bank, not forgetting to ask where she got it. May said she found somethings on her way here, but forgot to mention what probably killed the adventurers who originally owned the equipment she sold. Blue led May back to a great, white architecture that seemed so forbidden she actually had to stop.
Stricken with unexplained fear of the structure she started to shiver. Blue eventually noticed that no one was following and turned to see May wide eyed staring at the building with a large amount of fear running through her. Blue walked back to May and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're not from Lumby or Tutorial Island are you?" she asked. It was pretty obvious, but she had never heard of adventurers not being from either Lumbridge or Tutorial Island. May heard her words but could not respond. Not only was the fear of being found out and taken straight back to her family, but she was also terrified of a building by the mere sight of it. Suddenly a man clad in simple brown robes came out of the building humming to himself and looking at the bleak landscape that Blue and May were leaving.
"Ah, what a splendid day to return to the realm of our merciful founder Saradomin, I hope you know better not to return to these cursed, unholy places," the man said. Something about the man allowed May to get her act back together. She was offended. Sure, she didn't like being cooped up in Morytania, but it wasn't horrible. She regained her composure just in time to hiss lightly at the man. Back at Meiyerditch, people dressed so lowly did not speak so lowly of others, even of other inanimate objects.
"Drezel, do you know of any adventurers not starting in Lumbridge?" Blue asked out of curiosity, surely her little discovery wasn't the first of its kind. How very wrong she was.
"Actually, dear child, Saradomin had chosen Lumbridge to be the divine start for all who choose to roam and adventure in this world. None but the common folk are born elsewhere," Drezel replied. May couldn't help but think what a load of bull crap that was, she was no where near "common folk!"
"Alright, that's what I thought, just checking, are you alright May?" Blue asked. Filled with pride and anger in her, the fear of the building suddenly couldn't touch her and she walked right into the trap door that allowed her to travel the land of Misthalin and to the rest of her dreams with a new friend by her side.
Author's Note:
I am really just putting this story out on a lark to see if people actually like my writing, so constructive criticism would be amazing. I actually want to become a physicist, but I would not mind publishing fiction novels in my spare time to make a bit of extra cash XD. Needless to say, this is not really my best work, nor is it really dear to me. I will update it occasionally, but I am currently working on three other stories at the same time that mean a lot more to me so updates might be few and far between (not excessively though, I do like the way this is going). Thank you.
P.S. This is my very first published story.