Prologue

Orario is the place of adventurers and gods, a magnificent city who's pride stretches far into the heavens. It's size dwarfs any other city and it's sheer power makes it a city-state on it's own. It is truly the resting place of power within our world, where the strongest gather and rise. Those looking to improve themselves, no matter the occupation, all travel to Orario searching for self-metamorphosis. The ultimate expression of this growth, then, is the gift of the Gods.

Falna, the blessing of ascendance.

A few marks and glyphs, made sacred by drops of divine ichor, that change the experiences of the blessed into nothing less than superhuman powers. To shatter steel with only a fist, to survive the poison of a Cockatrice, and to cast hailstorms of fire: these are the feats of those blessed with the ability to change their own fate. These are the adventurers of Orario's Familias, the strongest mankind has to offer. Those few able to survive and grow from the seemingly eternal dungeon beneath the city, to find riches and fame undreamed of.

And yet, they are not the only ones who delve into the inky blackness of the Dungeon, seeking all it has to offer. Men and women who journey without the blessing of the gods and have to fate-changing power but their own two hands. They believe, with enough effort and with enough will, that they can achieve even a small fraction of a Familia's accomplishments. That somehow, despite all odds, they can become a hero.

Spitting in the face of logic and reality, seeking to sit on the same level as the Gods' chosen while biting the hands of the divine.

Those poor deluded fools.

Every time those rare madmen delve into the cavernous maw, they fail to return. Crushed to a paste, choking on some toxin, or merely bleeding out cold and alone: they lose their lives in naive fantasy. They leave behind no one to mourn them, no grieving widows and no bawling children. They had nothing to lose and yet, still lost.

How bleak. How hopeless. How pitiful.

These were the thoughts of every Orario citizen at one point or another, whether they saw someone try to become an adventurer without a god or saw a sheet-clad gurney pulled from the Dungeon.

When the Gods first descended, however, this thought was held by few and far between. The legends of heroes like Gilgamesh, Argonaut, and Beowulf still stood stark in common memory, great heroes who slew and saved without the blessing of Gods or the will of the divine. People who relied on only their cunning, strength, and wit to carve their names into the annals of history.

As deaths persisted and grew in number however, the tide began to turn. Those world changing heroes were no longer staking claims with only human ambition, instead propped by ichorous ink. The slaying of a great beast no longer came from one woman, rather her familia led by an impossibly charismatic God. Heroes were no longer, replaced by adventurers: stagemen and celebrities in a divine play.

At some point in time, the formation and official stance of the Guild backed this up: that those Unblessed were simply not allowed to enter the Dungeon. It was too dangerous; even if they did come back, the reward would be far too little for so great a risk.

The Dungeon and the surrounding city was no longer a place to have an adventure, rather, it was a resource to be extracted profitably and efficiently as divinely possible. A business manual, not a storybook.

And yet, some still dare to draw and write in their books, to craft stories of epic might and mystery from naught but the creativity of the human soul. To experiment and try new things, learning all they can from the unnatural world. To forge forth with only morals and will in search of their next break.

To adventure, to be heroes.