"Help!", "Somebody help me!" the sound of a young boy's desperate pleas for life rang and shot through the depths of the fifth floor of the dungeon. They echoed and reverberated through the hallways of rock, moss, and dirt, and anyone there would have heard them and the other sounds that came with them shortly after.
They would hear the thundering roars of some ferocious beast that chased the young boy, and the booming footsteps that crushed dirt and rock beneath, shaking the ground around it.
Sure enough, a young boy could be seen stumbling, sprinting, and jumping over small obstacles in the dungeon as he was chased by a three and a half meter tall creature that was a mixture of man and oxen. It had the head of a bull with curved horns that extended from it's head, ready to gore anything in their way.
It's face was contorted in a visage of fury and bloodlust, with saliva spraying from it's snarling mouth at every breath. Dark brown fur on covered it's humanoid body that was incredibly tough and had muscles seemingly chiseled out of stone that bulged and contracted as it chased the young boy.
The boy himself was of a slim stature, and had brilliant white hair that had been marred with dust and debris, and his eyes were a ruby red that contrasted oddly with his ghost white skin, giving him a look of a unique fashion not seen very often on young boys. His skin was smooth and unblemished directly in opposition to the monster behind him who had leathery rough hide.
The boy wore a simple gray cloth shirt over which hung a simple breastplate that covered most of his chest and shoulders, but offered little protection elsewhere. On his legs were black cloth pants that gave way to simple leather boots that were clasped with steel clasps. In the boy's hands were two shoddy steel daggers that were quite short and beginning to dull from constant wear and use.
The boy, still screaming his heart out was having a serious internal lamentation the whole time. He was protesting how unfair it was that he would die like this. That he would die without ever finding love. Without being a great adventurer that saves a beautiful girl in the dungeon. Without getting fame and riches. That he would die pathetically on the fifth floor with no one to help.
He should have listened to his adviser Eina when she told him of the dangers that lurked in the dungeon. That anything could happen.
And now the worst was happening, he was going to die a coward's death.
Thud.
He tripped and fell over a thick stone, twisting his right ankle in the process.
"No. No. Noooo!" Bell cried as he desperately scrambled to get up, scraping his knees and shins over the rough ground. The beast let out a roar of excitement and slammed it's massive fist into the boy's back as it used him as a way to slow down.
"Ack" The boy choked out as blood and spittle flew from his mouth, and he could hear his spine crunching and his bones turning into splinters. Rolling over several times as he was hurtled from the impact before slamming into the wall of the cavern passageway.
Slumping down paralyzed from the back down, Bell desperately tried to scream for help. For anyone to save him. It didn't matter who. He didn't want to die here. He wanted to live. His heart began beating at a pounding pace, but all he could do was keep hacking up blood as he awaited certain doom.
Then, something even more terrifying happened. The monster who had been a being of rage and destruction stopped moving and simply stood still, quietly and unmoving, like a puppet with no master. It just stood there looking at him. Gone were the roars of rage. Gone was the will to slaughter. Only the cold ghostly green eyes of the monster that seemed to be shadowed by a thick green mist remained.
The boy coughed out another mouthful of blood, and felt his body going cold to a realization. Minotaur's eyes were not usually shrouded with green mist. Something else was happening here. Something not right.
Wham!
From out of nowhere, the Minotaur pulled back it's right arm and slammed it's massive fist into the boy's chest.
The boy's chest plate was shattered to pieces as his ribcage crunched and cracked, sending splinters of bone into the boy's heart. There was no coming back from this.
Wham. Wham. Wham.
Over and over the blows came, and the boy had died long before the Minotaur stopped it's assault, followed shortly by being wreathed in a green flame that began devouring it's body inch by inch, before not even it's stone remained.
All that was left was a mangled pile of flesh, cloth and bone shards with blood painting the wall behind him was what was left of him.
That was all that was left of what had once been Bell Cranel.
Ais Wallenstein was somewhat worried about the sloppiness of the subjugation of the Minotaurs on the way up from the lower floors of the dungeon. Several dozen of them had been successfully defeated with little effort, but one had escaped, and was likely rampaging through the higher floors. The floors full of noviates that in no way could deal with such a creature.
When she arrived on the fifth floor and managed to hear the Minotaur's rampage, she chased it down, only to see it's last moments as it was devoured by a green flame that left nothing behind, and then the mangled remains of what had once been a human.
She had seen many things, and quite a few deaths, but seeing someone in this state was sickening nonetheless. She swallowed the small amount of bile that had risen through her throat and knelt down by the mangled corpse, hoping to figure out if the corpse had any identification in order to give her condolences to the family that had lost a son or daughter.
Bell Cranel felt a cold oily sensation drip over his body before waking up. He was groggy, but strangely calm. No. Not calm. It was more akin to being forcibly devoid of any emotions.
There was a fuzzy feeling all over his skin, as if he were being rubbed with velvet several times a second, but it soon passed. Looking around himself, he was somewhere dark. All around him were candles of a red wax, and underneath him was a large circle of a misty black ink that he lay upon. There was nobody in the vicinity, yet a cold breeze blew over him, causing him to shiver.
The room he was in was a large wooden room with simple gray wallpaper and no furniture other than a chair on the far left wall of the room, upon which sat a human skull gently burning with a dull green flame that didn't seem to be burning the chair.
He was alive?
That couldn't be. He had been killed by the minotaur and turned into a bloody paste. He had felt his insides turn to mush and his bones splintering. Yet now he was alive.
Cold and somewhat unfeeling, but alive nonetheless.
Sitting up, he looked down at his body.
He was wearing his simple gray shirt and black pants. Also, his boots were laced nicely. At his waist were his two sheathes for his daggers, but his chest plate was gone.
Then, from over by the chair, he heard an old man's voice.
"Welcome back to the world young Bell" The man's voice sounded out, smooth and slippery, yet not wholly unlikable. It felt like one of an old shopkeeper looking at his wares and talking affectionately to himself.
His head jerked instinctively to look at who it was, but there was nothing other than the oddly burning skull.
"Who?" Bell asked, but it barely came out, as if his throat was filled with sawdust and he hadn't drunk for several days. It was hard to annunciate, pronounce or speak properly, and it took him several seconds to realize that his throat was very relaxed, as if it hadn't been used for days in itself.
"Take your time. Breath in. Breathe out" The skull said, it's jaw slightly opening and closing with each word, before it hovered up from the chair and floated patiently in front of him.
"Coming back to life always has it's side effects. Thankfully, this is your first time, and those side effects aren't very potent" the skull continued, floating in front of Bell, and he was almost certain that the skull gave a small amused barely audible chuckle.
Bell, who still wasn't capable of feeling fear, shock, hesitation, sadness, or happiness, just accepted it. Not being able to feel or think clearly was already effecting him in many was he wasn't cognizant of.
He did just so, and after a few moments of slowly breathing, the feelings began to return to him, as the warmth of the summer began to fill his body.
"Ahhh...I can see the life flowing into your body already. If you had taken much longer, you might have become a zombie" The skull chuckled as it looked at Bell with a look that if it had flesh would be a pleasant smile.
Bell, now full of emotions, tilted his head curiously with a slight fear at the skull that was floating in front of him.
"Who are you and how did you bring me back to life?" Bell asked. He had never seen a floating talking skull before, and it was really creepy. However, didn't look or act hostile to him. In fact, quite the contrary. Also, it brought him back to life and was talking to him like a teacher might their prized pupil or perhaps a friend.
The skull chuckled again, bobbing up and down with each chuckle.
"Where to start? Where to start?" The skull said animatedly with a liveliness of an old man recounting his golden days. Then, it stopped bobbing as a hit of inspiration came to it.
"I am Vel, an old man long past his glory days. You see, I was once a God, but I died. Very sad I know. But I didn't let that get me down, and I came back" The skull chuckled as if it had overcome some great hurdle. It stopped in thought before speaking up again with a warm tone.
"I was a friend of the man you call your grandfather you could say. Me and him go way back. Though I don't know if he considers me a friend" The skull bobbed side to side in thought before going silent.
"Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, your grandfather. Right. I used to play little pranks on him, and he didn't like it very much. I remember one time he got very mad at me and we got into a little tussle. Oh those were the days" the skull rambled before stopping and sternly speaking.
"For reasons I can't divulge right now. I need you alive, or well, not dead to be more precise. So don't feel bad about dying a couple times. Have fun. Go all out. Do what you want, and I'll be here to bring you back. Though it seems that bringing you back has taken up much of my power and I'm not able to remain in this world much longer" The skull finished, before looking around him and nodding in some conclusion only relevant to it.
"It was nice to finally meet you Bell. Let's do this again sometime" The skull said while bobbing happily in the air, before vanishing into thin air and leaving only memories and a slight warmth behind.
Bell just sat there confused and overwhelmed. The summer heat was hot on his skin, yet he still felt slightly cold. This was all so overwhelming and straight out of some tale or storybook from his youth.
Then one thought filled his mind. His Goddess must have thought he was dead, and he needed to show her he was alive. She must have been very upset.
"Hestia!" He shouted out and shot up. Looking around he found a closed wooden door with a brass handle. Running up to it and opening it, he found himself face to face with a shaded back alley that was closely hung together by shingled roofs, barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast in.
Turning back to see the building he just got out off, all he was greeted with was the stone wall of a building behind him with no traces of a door whatsoever.
AN: To any D&D players who got the hints I've been dropping about who this Vel being is, Yes it's exactly who you think it is.