Our story begins on a sunny afternoon, with birds singing, Lunatics hopping around, and many brave adventurers, traveling the world in search of glory. Though trouble was always easier to find for some reason. Anyway. All of that, of course, couldn't be witnessed, in the deepest, most dangerous mines of Einbech, where one particularly desperate adventurer, was trying to refill his empty pockets with some money that was given for all the valuable ore and monster cards found in this place. We are going to meet him very, very soo-
-"JUST DIE ALREADY, YOU LITTLE MENACE!"
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, a young, aspiring hunter named Morgan, sent another arrow flying towards a little ragged teddy bear caught in an ankle snare, which he successfully dodged. Again. The bear scratched the back of its head, eyeing all the arrows sticking out from the ground around him. Morgan could swear that the bear was taunting him. Don't judge a man… well, a bear by his size, he thought. When he first heard of this place and its inhabitants, he was sure that, as he himself said, he would rock this place. And with every wasted arrow that these damned bears dodged, it was getting more and more embarrassing.
The next arrow turned out to be lucky though; it hit him right in the middle, and with a quiet thud, the teddy dropped his tiny hammer and fell down, the small body starting to slowly merge with the ground underneath.
-"This…this is horrible!" The hunter leaned on his bow slightly, sighing, a bit disappointed that the bear didn't drop anything of value. "Three of them…That's all I managed to kill so far! And it's been hours since I entered these mines." He rubbed his stomach and thought about the small jar of honey that he got from one of the bears before. Morgan would gladly deal with its contents to stop his tummy from complaining, but reminded himself that it's the only food he had with him, and until he finds at least five more pieces of Elunium (which turned out to be quite a challenge), to cover up the expenses of getting to Einbroch in the first place, he wouldn't leave.
Morgan stretched and fished out another ankle snare from his backpack. Not that he was afraid of the monsters lurking this place, but there was a lot of toxic gas flying around, apparently so toxic that it formed its own, angry form, along with some weird enchanted ore called Obsidian flying around, so a lot of them attacking at the same time turned out to be rather bothersome. Luckily he wore extra thick boots today, say what you want but those things bite hard.
Deeper into the mines he went, gradually noticing that it got more difficult to breathe with every minute. Wondering if he suddenly became claustrophobic, Morgan tried to whistle something to keep himself entertained. When breathing became such a problem that he had to stop and rethink his path, Morgan had to find something to lean on, or else he would get sick. Black smoke enveloped him, sending Morgan into a cough fit, making his eyes water. Dizzy and disoriented he turned away, trying to cover his mouth. Still leaning on one of the wooden planks that helped supporting the walls and ceiling, he chuckled.
-"Wow, I never thought I'd get so tired that it would be difficult to move" He looked at the ground, gradually regaining his senses and tilted his head, blinking at the strange round shadow that covered most of his standing place. That's a strange shadow. He thought. Wait…
Just now he realized that everything around him was buzzing and vibrating, the black smoke that gave him such a hard time actually…had a source. A huge, rusty and round source, at which Morgan could do nothing but stare. It looked like a huge iron ball with feet and it was making a horrible noise that made the hair on the back of his hair stand. Thankfully the creature didn't seem to notice him, which gave him an opportunity to quietly move backwards in order to avoid meeting with it face to face."RSX-0806", those words engraved onto its side were the last things he saw before stumbling and falling on his behind, which was followed by a loud "Ow!".
When the RSX turned around, raising its huge saw, showing off the whole monstrosity of what this great machine was, a bright ray of light suddenly came from behind it, which hit Morgan's eyes and made him yelp in surprise. Instinctively he moved further back, covering his head: The roar the machine made was unbearable, his eyes stung, and frankly, he was scared. But curiosity shunned fear deeper inside and made him turn his head to look. It's not every day you get to see something this huge and not be ripped to pieces at that very moment. Morgan squinted, trying to understand what was going on over there, but the smoke and the light mixed together made it impossible to see what was going on. Suddenly he felt a jolt of such force that it made him fall on his back, he could swear he heard someone screaming, but was too confused to make out the words. Pressing his back against the walls of the tunnel for safety, he hugged his knees and waited for whatever that was happening, to be over.
Gradually the bright light disappeared, the vibration that felt more like an earthquake by now calmed down, and the black thick smoke was slowly fading away, revealing a figure standing a bit away from where Morgan was shakily trying to stand figure turned out to be a white haired man that looked like… a monk? No, a champion. Yes, it was a tall, but not particularly strong built champion, that stood above the dark remains of the RSX. His clothing was still white, despite the dirty environment, which meant that he surely wasn't traveling by foot to get this far. What was curious about him, was that he didn't even break a sweat it seemed, which looked kind of comical.
-"Empty again. Darn it, it's the sixth one this week!" He rubbed his neck and glanced over at Morgan, finally noticing him. "Are you okay? Did it hit you?"
Walking over to the stunned hunter, he dug in his pocket for a bit and threw something at him. Apparently conscious enough to catch whatever the champion had thrown, Morgan looked down and was surprised to see a small Yggdrasil berry lying on the palm of his hand.
"I don't need it anymore, but you look like you might. Well, carry on with whatever you're doing in here, this thing won't be giving you any trouble for a while."
Still looking at the berry, Morgan suddenly felt a power surge, his head stopped hurting and his sight cleared. He realized that he got a blessing from the unknown champion before he teleported and left Morgan alone in the deserted tunnel. Suddenly getting what happened, he jumped to his feet, looking around
-"H-hey, wait—" But Morgan was too late. The champion took off and it was unlikely that he would appear here any time soon. A bit disappointed, Morgan picked up his belongings that got scattered across the floor and headed back in search of other, less horrible monsters. The Yggdrasil berry he was still holding, felt cool and soft in hand. That was his first time ever holding one, and it felt weird. This whole day was weird.
Back to the upper levels of the mines, Morgan wandered aimlessly for another half an hour, before deciding to call it a day. He got lucky, and 10 newly acquired pieces of Elunium lay safely in his backpack. Everything seemed to be normal again, and the only reminder of the stranger that killed that monster was the berry Morgan carefully put in his pocket. Taking a butterfly wing from his inner pocket, he glanced around for the last time.
I didn't even ask for his name.
Morgan sighed again and squashed the wing in his hand and threw the dust down to his feet, letting it teleport him back to where he came from. He needed a shower badly.
