This Story has been inspired by "Legend Reviving" - ChickenGodofDOOM
"Yep" - Talking
'Yep' - Thinking
Darkness. There was nothing but darkness. All-swallowing unending darkness towering over everything that existed. But despite the seemingly infinite nothingness the space was brimming with power and energy.
It suddenly began to vibrate, shaking with unimaginable might far beyond comprehension. Without any sign of stopping, the terrible shaking continued to grow stronger and stronger until it appeared as if the universe itself would fall apart. Reality seemed to bend and curve, just one step short of collapsing in on itself, yet the trembling did not stop.
A growl carrying the power of a thousand gods broke through the violent quacking.
Everything became still.
But it was already too late.
A big crack in the space penetrated the darkness with shining light, revealing a massive eldritch body of a beast not meant to be looked upon, and describing it would be impossible as its form changed constantly, distorting the space around it to an extreme degree.
For a moment there was no sound, no movement as if the flow of time stopped altogether. Then, the space around the beast rumbled deeply, causing the veil of distortion to vanish. An eye opened, gazing at the crack that radiated light.
It saw all, knew all. Nothing was hidden in front of this godlike being.
The Oldest One had awoken.
-A long, long time later-
After the Oldest One had been awoken from its slumber, it had observed the crack. The space around it was still dark and unending, not having changed in the slightest, but the universe hidden behind the crack had changed rapidly. It was fascinating to see such extreme change in the span of only a few million years, and the Oldest one had quickly found itself deeply interested, since it had been surrounded by nothing for as long as it had existed.
The place behind the crack was full of life and energy, and while it was exciting for the Oldest One, it was not the main reason for its interest.
No, the main reason was a certain planet on which life has blossomed at an unbelievable rate. Thousands upon thousands of souls came to life every day, each different and unique in their own way.
But that was not all.
The Oldest one could sense massive potential to manipulate the power of their universe in some of those creatures.
But the being was all-seeing and all-knowing. It was aware of the nature of those souls. So much hatred, greed, and selfishness and so few pure and honest souls. So much abuse and discrimination and so little kindness.
The Oldest One was a godlike entity but even he had preferences and feelings. Seeing this much pain in such a small place was not something the deity enjoyed.
His gaze flickered for the tiniest of moments and the space around the monster started to vibrate ever so slightly.
A feeling long forgotten emerged within it. A feeling of want. A feeling of desire. A feeling of longing.
The vibration increased ever so slightly.
The feeling went through its unfathomable body like flowing lava, slow and intense, a burning desire it did not understand.
What could it be?
And the deity realized what it was. It was a longing for entertainment.
If it had a mouth, it would have smiled.
The thought of a mighty beast like itself wanting entertainment was laughable. But it did not matter. Whatever it was that caused this need didn't matter. Nothing mattered in front of this feeling. The only thing that did matter was the fulfillment of this craving. And it knew exactly what would do so.
Its gaze once again flickered to the crack. Not to long ago a boy had been born with a potential so high that even the mighty god found itself impressed. Furthermore, the boy's soul held the perfect personality for what the god wanted. If only he could unlock this potential the deity's entertainment would be ensured, but taking one look at this boy's life was enough for the god to know that it would not be possible without any interference.
So, the god decided to help the boy out.
A tentacle reached through the crack and sped through the space, trying to reach the planet his future source of entertainment lived on. Not wishing to be seen by one of the other powerful beings in this universe, the god's tentacle moved very quickly. In the matter of a moment the appendage found its target, gathering a swirling ball of energy at its tip. Eventually, the tentacle pushed the ball into the boy's chest, not bothering to be careful since the boy wouldn't be able to see or feel it anyways.
Feeling satisfied with its work, the god retracted the appendage, eagerly watching the boy with something akin to excitement in its giant eye.
This would most certainly be entertaining.
"Oi brat! If I catch ya slackin' one more time ya ain't gonna get any food today!" A bulky man with a red vest shouted, the colored top showing his position as a guard of the mines.
Narlou frowned and stopped himself from shooting back one of the many colorful insults that he had learned during his time in the mines. The trouble wouldn't be worth it. Instead, he took a deep breath and swung his pickaxe down with more force than before, making the guard mumble something that sounded suspiciously like "ungrateful brats" Under his scruffy beard. The man he couldn't bother remembering the name of stared at him for a few more minutes before eventually turning away to shout at some other kids, finally leaving him alone.
The 17-year-old boy let out a huff of frustration and slowed down to relax his sore muscles. He was working very hard as far as he was concerned, so unless his mind got polluted by all the dust in those dirty underground tunnels, the guards could go fuck themselves.
'Bunch of fucking assholes. How did I even get here in the first place?' Narlou wondered not for the first and certainly not for the last time.
He had been here for as long as he could remember, and he was pretty damn sure that this place was only for the worst kind of criminals. Well, criminals and children without any parents that had been tricked into owing them a shit ton of money.
But he was neither of those two. Narlou was no goddamn criminal, nor had he been scammed.
'Whatever, it was not like complaining is gonna make the situation any better.'
He suddenly felt a familiar shiver run down his spine and he clenched his teeth in fear. The quickly paling boy didn't know how or why, but after years of working here he had developed an almost instinctual warning mechanism that let him know about incoming pain. Sadly, this instinct was screaming really fucking loudly right now.
CRACK
The cracking of a whip was the last thing Narlou heard before he fell to his knees, an excruciating pain that he was very familiar with erupting from his back. The pickaxe dropped out of his hand and hit the floor with a loud clang, though Narlou didn't even notice that as his mind was filled with cries and shouts, begging for the pain to stop.
"What did I tell ya about slackin' eh?"
Narlou slowly looked up at his tormentor through thick tears to see the face of the guard who had previously been shouting at him staring a hole into him. He didn't look angry or disappointed, no, he looked delighted.
He was so fucked.
"I-I'm sorry." The brown-haired teenager said through gritted teeth, lowering his head to appear more submissive. He hated submitting himself. There was nothing he hated more than submitting to those arrogant bastards that made his life a living hell, but he knew what would happen if he didn't.
He could hear the man bending down, shivering in disgust and still lingering pain as the guard's mouth stopped right next to his ear.
"Normally I'd just give ya no food, but today I'm feeling a little generous. Come to my room tonight and I'll give ya all as much food as ya want." It took all Narlou's willpower to not vomit right then and there. How could a person have such a disgusting breath?!
Of course, he would not come to the man's room. He didn't even know where the guy lived, and the promise of food was not worth the pain and humiliation of getting raped.
The teenager could finally feel the man move away from him, apparently satisfied with the teens silence. He waited until the man was out of sight before he slowly forced himself up again, flinching violently as the pain came back with double the intensity. There was no doubt that this would add another scar to his already large collection.
"What I wouldn't do to get out of here." He mumbled under his breath, only to jump back in shock as something appeared in front of his face.
"The fuck?!"
He quickly covered his mouth with wide eyes, but the guard didn't come back to punish him for his outburst. A quick round of self-insults for doing something so stupid later, Narlou turned to that floating… thing with unhidden curiosity.
It looked like window with something written on it, but it was floating without anything to hold it in place. Never in his live had Narlou seen something like that. He knew magic existed, but this didn't look like any spell he heard about in stories from the older people here. No, it didn't look like magic at all.
He continued eyeing it with suspicion for a moment before he started to read the message on it, the pain all but forgotten.
Hello Narlou!
You have successfully unlocked the Support System!
I am here to help you on your journey and make sure you grow strong and powerful. This can be done by leveling up, increasing your stats, completing quests and of course good old training!
You have been granted some additional starting stats to make the start of your journey smoother!
Here are your current stats, good luck on your journey!
Name: Narlou
Age: 17
Level: 1
Stats:
-Strength: 15
-Agility: 14
-Dexterity: 17
-Mind: 20
-Sense: 13
points: 0
Rank points: 0
Magic: none
Inventory: empty
His red eyes stared at the window in disbelief.
'Tha- How… What?'
Too flabbergasted to even form a proper sentence, Narlou instead focused his mind on filtering through the load of information that had somehow just entered his head.
Strength showed how overall strong he was, meaning how strong he could punch, how much weight he could carry and so on.
Agility showed how fast he was as well as how good his reflexes were. Agility also included the level of his eyesight.
Dexterity represented how much damage he could take and how strong his general resistance was. This included things like immobilizing spells or temperatures.
Moreover, Mind showed how strong he was against mental attacks and how well he could think under pressure. This included things like charms or hypnosis.
Lastly, Sense meant his understanding of his surrounding, people's nature and attack sensing.
He would get points by completing quests or leveling up. He could then spend those however he wanted. Training would directly increase the stats.
A bright smile slowly spread on his face once he finished swallowing all the information and excitement started bubbling up in his chest. Was this for real? If this was true than he could finally escape from this place!
His excitement suddenly came to a halt as his brain caught up with the situation.
Narlou had always been a careful person, and while he had never received proper education besides learning how to write and read, he was pretty damn sure that something like this didn't just happen out of nowhere. If there was one thing he had learned during his time in the mines, it was that nothing came for free.
'So whoever gave me this clearly wants something in return. Well, if it's even real in the first place. But I have nothing that they could want. Or do I?'
He rubbed his chin in thought.
"Eh, whatever. I'm not gonna complain about something amazing like this!"
A quick look around showed that no guard was near him, and his smile widened.
'Time to test this thing out!'
If he really had so much more strength than before then surely the pickaxe would weigh a lot less than before, right?
To test out his theory he went to grab the pickaxe from the floor, but as he bent down, anxiety started to worm into his thoughts. What if this was not real? What if someone was just playing with his mind? This was the chance he had been waiting for his entire life. It needed to be real!
He finally picked the tool up with a pounding heart, and his mouth fell open in shock. It was really true! The pickaxe was much easier to hold up! His excitement quickly changed to determination, his red eyes seemingly on fire with conviction.
'Tonight, I will leave this hellish place!'
-Nighttime-
Narlou sat in the corner of his tiny room, his knees close to his chest to keep himself as warm as possible. While he now had higher resistance to temperatures it was still very cold here, which was probably due to the location of this mine. From what he knew this place was called "The Delverhold" and was the most northern location of Noxus, being very close to the Freljord border.
But that was not what he was thinking about right now. No, Narlou was thinking about what to do after he left this place, because he didn't dare to think about the possibility of not getting out of here tonight.
He knew that it was impossible to wander to the north since he would just freeze to death without proper clothing. He had also heard that Ionia was to the east of Noxus, but since an ocean occupied the space between the nations, he also cancelled that option. That only left two options. One was to go west in hopes of reaching Demacia, but he had neither money for a trip nor any experience in surviving in the wild.
So, that only left the last option which was staying in Noxus for the time being. He knew that people sometimes came here to trade food and other stuff, which meant that there had to be a city not to far away. He didn't like that option very much, but there was little else he could do.
With that decided Narlou stood up, making sure to stay as silent as possible.
He was ready to set his escape plan into action.
The teenager was about to open the door when another window suddenly appeared in front of his face.
Quest alert!
Objective: Successfully escape the mines
Bonus Objective: Escape without anyone seeing you
2nd Bonus Objective: Get revenge on Guard Berum
Reward: Food and water for a week, 5 silver coins
Bonus Reward: a weapon of choice
2nd Bonus Reward: 1 Level up
"So that's what his name was." Narlou thought with slight amusement.
The rewards were exactly what he needed and while the 2nd bonus objective was quite risky, he couldn't let such an opportunity pass. Furthermore, he had no idea how to level up other than from quests, so this was something he needed to do if he wanted to get stronger, and he definitely wanted to get stronger.
Swiping the window out of his vision and steeling his resolve, he opened the door and walked outside, embracing the fresh and cold air.
'Let's do this!'
Narlou felt his heart pound in his chest as he stood in front of Berum's door. He found it after silently looking around the place for a few minutes and now that he finally found it, uncertainty was crawling through his mind. Sure, with his updated stats he was pretty sure that he was way stronger than the average person, but that didn't mean that the guards were weak. They, for all he knew, were highly trained people who had lots of experience in fighting, or they wouldn't be here, right?
His unruly hair bounced around his face as he shook his head, trying to clear his mind. His plan was good and even if the guards were more experienced, he had the element of surprise on his side.
Steeling his resolve once again he knocked on the door, ready to set his plan into action.
The door opened slightly, and the familiar face of his personal nightmare peeked through the gap.
"Ayy Narlou, I knew ya would come! Step in my friend!"
Narlou complied and entered the man's home, and the smell of alcohol and sweat filled his nostrils. The man led him to a chair in the corner of his room, on which Berum promptly sat down.
"What are ya wating for lad? Kneel down or I'm gonna make ya!"
The teenager did just that. He knelt in front of the chair, his muscles tensing. This was the moment he'd been waiting for!
Berum, being the idiot that he was, started taking off his dirty shirt first, and Narlou waited until the fabric covered the man's vision before he struck. A popping sound could be heard as he punched into the man's crotch with all his newfound strength. He would have loved to hear the mans cries of pain, but there was no time for that. Instead, he quickly shot up from his kneeling position and covered Berum's mouth with one of his hands while the other took a fist-sized stone he had found on the way here out of his pocket.
Luck seemed to be on his side because Berum's arms got entangled in his shirt which gave Narlou just enough time to smash the stone into the man's head. The fat man immediately stopped thrashing around and went limp. Narlou waited for a couple of seconds just to be sure that the man was dead, before relaxing his body.
A sigh of relieve left his lips as he removed his hand from Berum's mouth, and the dead person's head fell to the side without the support of the teenager's hand. Narlou's eyes suddenly found the now empty and lifeless orbs of his victim, and his breath hitched in this throat.
He had killed a person. He had well and truly murdered a person.
His vision suddenly got blurry, and his breaths became shallow. No matter how evil this person had been, no matter what things this man had done, he was still a human being just like him! How did it make him any better than the asshole he had just murdered?
Narlou sat down. Breath in, breath out. In and out. Slowly but surely his mind cooled down.
After a few minutes he finally stood up and dusted himself off. His body felt weak, and his mind was still reeling from the shock, but he needed to get out of there as soon as possible or the guards would notice Berum's absence.
The cool air gave him a much-needed distraction as he stepped out into the cold night.
Deciding to focus on his mission for now, he closed his eyes and listened. The boy could make out some chattering here and there, supplying him with the location of the other guards, and he nodded to himself.
'Let's go.'
"What was that?" A man asked as he held his torch higher, trying to locate the sound he just heard.
"What was what?" Another man asked, chewing on some food as he looked around.
Narlou held his breath and pressed his body against the wooden wall that separated the mines from the outside. He only needed to cross this wall to get out since he couldn't go through the heavily guarded gates. Unfortunately, two guards had appeared just a few meters away from him on the other side of the tent he was currently hiding behind.
"Come on man, my feet hurt, let's just go to our rooms and tell the boss that we found nothing." The chewing man said as he swallowed the rest of his bread.
A minute of silence followed until the other man finally answered.
"Alright."
Narlou waited until he couldn't hear their footsteps anymore before he allowed himself to breath. The fresh air was like a blessing to his sore throat, and he greedily gulped it down. Luckily, because of his high Dexterity stat, his stamina recovered quite fast. His red eyes scanned the area and combined with his high sense stat he felt that he was save for now.
Not wasting any more time Narlou jumped as high as he could (which was pretty damn high with his agility stat being at 14) and just barely reached the top of the admittedly small wall, pulling himself up. Looking around, he saw a guard coming his way from his left side. Panicking, Narlou was about to jump back down again when his stats came to mind.
With his high agility stat, he had better eyesight than the average person, meaning the guard wouldn't be able to see him right now. With that in mind Narlou quickly moved to the other side of the wall and jumped down, ignoring the slight pain in his left ankle as he hit the rough earth. Not even waiting a second, he sprinted into the surrounding forest, the shadows of the night swallowing him up.
The guard on the wall never noticed the red eyes staring at him from within the trees.
Narlou's breath was ragged as he stopped running. Even if he had managed to escape, he had never been one to unnecessarily risk something, especially something as important as his freedom.
He sat down on the dirty forest floor and finally payed attention to the windows floating around him. The first window he looked at contained a message telling him he completed the quest as well as all the bonus objectives.
Food and water for a week has been added to your inventory.
5 silver coins have been added to your inventory.
'But how do I open the inventory?'
His silent question was answered by said inventory window popping up in front of him like the quest windows would always do, and sure enough, his inventory was now filled with food, water and 5 silver coins.
'So i just need to think about it, good to know.'
Swiping his inventory away, he focused on the next window, telling him to choose one of the weapons at display.
'Ah right, the first bonus reward.'
He looked through the list for a while, finding various weapons, some of which he had never even heard of, until he finally decided to take a long, curved knife that looked very sharp. The knife suddenly appeared in his hands, startling the teenager a bit, but he quickly got over his shock and lifted it up to swing it around a bit, his eyes widening at the perfect weight and length.
It was as if the knife was made for his hands.
Wanting to experiment a bit, he willed the knife into his inventory and pretended to still have the knife in his hand, swinging at a random tree. While swinging he called the knife back into his hand and sure enough, when he reached the tree, the knife was stuck in the trunk.
"Wow, that's useful!"
His eyes finally glanced at the last window belonging to the quest rewards, telling him that he had leveled up.
'So, I get 5 points every level.' Narlou thought as he glanced at the window showing him his stats, which he had opened just like he had opened the inventory.
He would've loved to spend them right now, but he'd keep them in case he needed them for a specific stat later.
Finished with the quest rewards and his stamina recovered, Narlou was ready to move again when he noticed another window at the edge of his vision.
You have absorbed the essence of the person you have defeated!
You are closer to leveling up.
Note: The essence you absorb becomes stronger or weaker depending on the enemy you defeat.
"That's how I can level up!" Narlou exclaimed excitedly.
This was perfect for getting stronger! He could not only gain fighting experience but also become stronger just by fighting.
'But why do I want to become stronger?'
Narlou pondered on the question as he continued to move, silent winds ruffling his locks and cooling his sweating skin.
He thought about all the different times he had wished to escape the abuse of the guards, about every moment where he wished to have some kind of power to defend himself. His mind went to the pitiful faces of the other kids there every time he walked past one.
"I want to make sure I'll never get treated like that again! I want to live my life and explore the world, I want to meet people and I want to help those who need help!" He concluded for himself with a proud smile.
Narlou felt determination bubble up in his chest.
'That's right. I will make sure that people don't have to suffer like I did.'
He would try to make this wretched and twisted world a better place, but to do that he needed to become stronger.
Much, much stronger.