Seventy years ago, in the fragile peace of the Age of Six Tribes, came the Tormenta to wash us all away!

  It was the first of five great Catastrophes that decimated the mightiest clans and strongest empires in our continent of Levelas! Even our connection to the Pure Ones, the gods who long ago gave birth to us Folks, was cut like worn thread, leaving us to drown in floods of warm rain!

  Then came the sickness, the hunger, the twisted mutants of nature, and finally, them: the monsters from another world, the Dwellers, dressed in brass and the skins of slain innocents, vicious and invincible!

  We hoped for salvation, but who could help us? The foxes who conquered the north were broken, the huge weapons that poisoned the very land to the west became nothing but junk, and even the Old Ways our heroes and saints relied on to maintain balance just couldn't match the danger! No, no, those tragedies would only gather beneath our feet, then germinated like a seed into—

  The shittiest game of dice in the history of the world.

  The fly hovering over Francies' ale could tell you where this farce lead. Guffawing so loud it rivaled a thunderstorm in sheer painful might beckoned the three unfortunate victims of the evening in following suit. Maybe they could get away with sulking, but no need to risk it.

  After all, participation made the center of the whole world itself happy, and that's what mattered, right? He cackled, he slapped the only good table at the only tavern left in the village like it had been made for spanking, and he bagged Francies' supper for the third time this week. He never ate the meals warm, if he ate them at all.

  "And that's a wrap up, me thinks!" the tyrant édipos said, tossing tampered dice up and again, "Can't lose one, it looks! Lucky day if I've ever had any."

  From the farthest end of the table, ever squinting Anton giggled a hollow sound like he had bet his entire life-hood, despite being the best off loser today, the bastard. "C-can't really compete, can we? Yah're the champion at Liars."

  Besides him, Mina, the single huntress who could bear the tyrant's stench from closer than a yard gave a crooked smile. "B-but did we really need to go so high stakes again? Little Francies is going to bed with his stomach gurglin' again."

  Always the charmer, that woman. Heart of gold and sincere pleas mattered little to the Amazing Eddy though, whose cheer didn't end as he stood up, chugged his drink in one turn of the cup, and tossed a handful of her own green coppers at the sighing tavern keeper.

  "Oh, but what's the fun without some loss? Besides, Little Francies here ain't so little anymore, is he? He can play with his friends." édipos slapped his shoulder with the same cajoling friendliness of a solid branch falling from ten meters above, mercifully not dislocating his shoulder this time.

  "Y-yah, ain't so little anymore." Francies' words tasted like bile, but what other options did he have? "Just going to have to dine mouse and weeds again, that's all."

  "Atta boy! Now that's why I love ya!"

  No goodbyes, not an inkling of shame on his square face, nor a single acknowledgment of the silence trail left in his wake, édipos walked off in the same satisfied ignorance he arrived with, leaving the other peons around them to their pitying glances. Thirty seconds later, and an invisible weight was lifted from the room, conversations gone quiet flowing again.

  Not that they needed to wait. Eddy made for a merciful "commander of the guard" so long as he was in a good mood. What did he have to fear? At a glance, you would say everything. He was just a couple fingers taller than Francies, who had never been a tree amidst the reeds so to speak, not particularly broad or bulky, only so good a fighter as to know that the pointy end of the stick was the stabby one, with a reputation filthier than a latrine to boot.

  But in the village of South Lateno, everyone knew everyone, so everyone knew édipos Ponte. He was special. He was untouchable.

  A truth as simple and easy to swallow as life itself, wasn't it? The three of them exchanged glances. With maybe three bent coins shared between them now, they did the only thing they could: drank their last drops in silence then went home.

  The final irony is that they would have a very pleasant evening today.

  Above them, a sky of golden and muddy gray roiled like a sheet full of snakes, but decades of experience had taught Francies that was just what calm looked to the Tormenta, and with no signs of rain to come they were left with a fresh breeze and spectacularly bright night, the kind where you could almost see under your nose without some convenient fire by your side.

  No reason to lower their guard regardless, treachery always caught you with your pants down. Each of the three departed with a torch in hand, quiet as graves until the weather worn shacks of the village began to disperse into small farms of withering vegetables, another year of decline for their crops.

  Mina kept alert, ears perked high above her brunette bun. In a place like South Lateno everyone knew everyone, in no small part thanks to the "blessings" of their kind.

  "I can't believe Eddy just walked like that! Gorged on our hard earned coin and left!" She said, ears punctuating with anxious twitches every other word. "Aren't we all hares here?! Where's the consideration on that animal?!"

  Indeed, folks here were mostly all Long Ear, the three of them included, with their furry namesakes ready to catch gossip and large feet to run free and spread it far. Hopping to the front, Francies said: "Don't know why you still bother showing up, Mina, he never goes looking for you."

  "He's been pesterin' Len so often the poor thing nearly scrambled for her things in the dark of dawn! Can you believe it?! Thought he wanted some attention from the girls, but I guess he has a keen nose for wealth, that's all."

  Anton, thin and pasty Anton, looked positively furious. "T-that man has a wife! We were guests at his weeding above the spine of holy Apodon, may their shell always succor us, he wouldn't dare covet another!"

  "If only! What a poor, sweet thing she is!" Mina said. "If only she could rail her husband in like yours railed you, eh Ants?"

  They stopped at a crossroads, close to the road. Francies looked around himself, noting how few flames he saw in the distance. Dangerous lack of care, when even half of their dozen member militia couldn't be bothered to work, more so for Mina and him who would take the path north and into the woods.

  "I-I hope she doesn't. I-I already had enough with her almost starting a fight with him in broad daylight." Anton swallowed out loud.

  "Somebody has to." Mina said. "Better be sma't about it, eh? He's a little tough, yeah, but he's folk like any other with two arms, two legs, and a soft face, what does he have that we don't?"

  He fixed his round spectacles. "An Invitation."

  Silence.

  Seconds later, Mina sighed. "Welp, better head home, unless you want the wifey storming our drinkin' hole armed with pans and pots."

  "Y-yeah, never again." Anton bower once to each of them. "Sorry Mina, Francies, have a restful night. Times been strange, we might not have many of those left."

  They watched his torch diminish south, to a quaint cottage all the way down on the swell of a hillet, no farm or animals of their own but they did tend to their neighbors'. Sweet nothings and reassurances reached them with the wind before he was tucked in nice and cozy between four solid walls.

  "Man, what a downer," Mina said.

  "If he doesn't watch out, he's going to end up just like us." He agreed, and both turned the opposite way.

  There was a solid walk from the main village to its more isolated, clustered half, the rickety commune where the hunters, the lumberers, the butchers, and the drifters gathered, but if he could make the journey dragging carcasses half his weight he could do it tipsy and miserable too.

  Some would say sleeping in the woods was roughly as bad as sleeping on the street, but there was some safety here. People rested late and light, lost in the haze of buzzes and calls from the curling, spiraling trees and thirsting, thorn ridden bushes, the constant noise alone making for the uncanny quiet of the village.

  They had reached the line of the trees, the point where the path narrowed to guesswork and was always covered in grasping roots, when Mina cleaned her throat. "What about you, Francies? Something has to be done about it, agreed?"

  "What about me?" Francies shrugged. "Pardon, but I don't think we can do anything about it right now, can we?"

  Soon, if not already, they would be within hearing of others. She knew, but didn't seem to care. "There has to be somethin'. Did ya hear about Petron, the farmer?"

  He had to mull the name a little before it connected to something. "Oh, the one who got nearly beaten to death?"

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  She nodded. "For tellin' 'im to fuck off and go do 'is job when he was in a funk! Might never tend well to 'is land again. An' Loon before that, who got stripped naked an' prostrated in front of 'is family for spitting near 'is foot! That's not the Eddy we knew back when we were kids."

  Back when there still were kids around, even. Always a bit bossy, willing to throw fists when pissed off, to say things he didn't think then double down later, but there was some level of virtue to him. A lot of his attitude got better once he wasn't the biggest boy around anymore, for all the loss of weight to throw around made him obviously bitter.

  The day Eddy disappeared, both had been there with the search parties. Most wanted him battered and bruised, since he had carried off a lot of good quality gear from the barracks before vanishing, but they were worried. Francies had never met the widow, but the idea of leaving her without living family motivated him through long days in the roughest parts of the forest, to go farther then was reasonable for common folk like him.

  A couple weeks later, he gave up on finding him alive and hunted for the beast who took him instead. Worse had come to worse, and whatever peace revenge would bring was better than coming home with his hands empty.

  A month in, and one morning he saw a brass colored blur slinking across the brush, and turned around. Dweller. Nothing he could do about those.

  What a happy ending, then, when the man just swaggered back in like nothing happened.

  Except, he came back wrong.

  "You ask me what I think, I think you've been having dangerous ideas." Francies whispered.

  Mina took a deep breath."I don't wanna go too far. We get a bunch of us, lure him to the woods, give him the what for..."

  "You'll end up in the same mess as the last bunch of wannabe soldiers." He shrunk. Silhouettes danced above their heads, clacking fingers in mocking laughter. "Better drop it while you're still ahead, he ain't folk no more."

  Incandescent light poured from cracks and window slants ahead. In theory, every house here should be built safer than the village affair, Closer to where the stray hungry beasts are likely to break through clay brick and wooden door for morsels. In practice, who had the money for quick, quality work? It was all plank shacks and raised tents. "Rickety" had been a compliment.

  Both of them lived at the edge of this mess, he by necessity, she he had no clue why. She was well liked enough to make absurd plans in the open without the risk of leaking where it wasn't meant to. Meanwhile, he couldn't wait for this conversation to end.

  "Guess that's where we differ. There has to be enough person there for us to sway, there has to be." She stretched her back side to side, before glancing his way. "But I guess I ain't have my old ways with you anymore, do I? One last question though."

  "Sure. You run faster than me anyway."

  "Asshole. In a year or so of Eddy leaving you hungry, you think you'll be more inclined to help me?"

  The look she gave him was piercing. Nearly made his ears red to the tip, but she wouldn't like to hear the real answer. "Then is then, now is now, and now I think you're gonna get a lot of good folks hurt, or worse."

  "Drat, right what I was trying to avoid. Oh well!" She sighed, and frolicked over snagging ground like it was a flat meadow towards her own shack. "Sleep tigh', Francies! Remember what Anton said!"

  "Anton is a paranoid coward! Sleep well too, and try to think your bullshit a little more through next time!"

  "Like a baby!"

  Any farther, and they would be screaming at each other, another good way to get needless trouble on your plate. Knowing she would hear it perfectly well, he sighed, she was just too good, that one. Him, he preferred to keep his head down most of the time.

  Maybe that was exactly what made him such a good flunky. No back bone meant no spine to break, but also an endless source of entertainment and cold, filled breads, or whatever other part of the process édipos enjoyed most to have his kiss-foots calling him in the middle of the day.

  Not for much longer. Good ol' Eddy would have to go looking for another jester soon.

  Smiling, he went home.

  ------

  The shack he had lived for the past five years was less of a home and more of a shelter. It kept the wind and the rain out, and was a convenient storage for the hides he sold, so what did he care if it stank of death, or if under the light of his torch a dozen shadows slinked into various crevices?

  He set it by the scone near the door, and inspected his belongings. Unsold goods littered along old rags he wore until yesteryear, broken tools he never had the courage to toss away, a bag he didn't know had been chewed full of holes, trash he wouldn't need or want. Everything with the slightest amount of value he had already packed up in a sack, save some provisions.

  His leather hunting gear, he had no chance of changing from. His precious boar-spear rested on his mattress, ready for the coming moment.

  "Just a little more," he cooed.

  Leaving completely unnoticed was going to be impossible. Instead, he aimed to draw as little attention as possible, a doozy when the sound of softly tip-toeing was like the ring of the church's bells, the rustling of cloth on wood planks like a gale.

  He took dried food from the pots in his pantry, cringing at the clacking of lids. He filled his waterskins with grog, water taken and boiled from the nearby river as he couldn't handle the rust tang that never fully left the rain's. He hesitated, gulping dry, before retrieving a satchel of red herbs from beneath a loose board, and popping a leaf into his mouth.

  People usually drank these as tea when they needed the extra energy, which he hate since childhood, but compared to the raw thing? It was nectar. The plant went down like sticky clumps of thin bark, leaving the aftertaste of a heel to the nose.

  Done, he sat down, and waited. He promised himself he wouldn't fall asleep, but that was moot when anticipation left him feeling like an exposed nerve.

  It called for him. So loud it now reached into his dreams.

  Eddy had been a kid like any of them, long ago. Rough, when he had the size to back his boasting, too fond of calling the shots when nobody liked his ideas, but he was just folk. Somebody you could talk to, could convince, and at worst could coerce.

  Time passed, the gap in size closed, and for all he liked to feel powerful the dangers crawling through the woods where too much for his taste, so militia he became. A good life for the sulking brute, Francies always thought, afforded him the respect somebody who sneaked through life with more bad blood from a bad childhood than hairs on his ears.

  When he disappeared, few were surprised, nobody spared any tears. A couple weeks and the bodies of a few good people later, the chief of the militia called the hunt over and the stolen equipment as good as gone. General sentiment was that the whole event had been a needless, costly sham, so outside those who knew him before there was a palpable relief in the air.

  Less so when the corpse walked back in through the front door. Same square face, same wide eyes, same short feet he hated talking about, but if you knew him it took a glance to tell it wasn't the same person. Forget the armor made of mud colored bone covering him head to toe, the steel hatchet that glimmered even in the dark, the knapbag full of riches, he walked like he had never tumbled a day in his life, always grinned like he was high off his kite, quipped like the world's weariness had run itself panting chasing him down.

  Took maybe a week of celebration before good ol' Eddy wanted to call the shots again, and this time he wasn't asking. The wise smelled the foul from afar and stepped away looking down. The ones who didn't? Well, édipos didn't kill them, or even hurt them that bad.

  Instead, he humiliated them. Who knew he could now hop faster and farther than all the other hares, or that he could twist and faint with the grace of a dancer, or batter an arrow from midair? they learned when they fell on their asses trying to shield a light blow, passed out trying to keep up with his step, got a decapitating blow to pass so deliberately close they saw the Father-Mother in the beyond between blinks.

  Guards tried to show him up, hunters, groups of farmers. Everybody could tell what happened to him, but for some reason so many refused to believe. The challengers only trickled down when he started making himself useful, getting rid of a couple beasts them hunters struggled with or running the occasional Dweller off, his nature made obvious to the idiots.

  Maybe the idea that such a blessing could reach this far from the bigger, badder kingdoms sounded ludicrous. Maybe the idea that such a curse could hit this close to home was too dreadful.

  Either way, édipos had never hidden where he had gone, nor what he been given.

  "Invitation," Francies whispered, the word so heavy it deafened. His heart raced, eyes darting in search of skulking figures peeking through the gaps in his walls. He just had to see it one more time, make sure it was real.

  The process was soundless. A square of shadow was born in front of his eyes, quickly unfolding into a rectangle, gaining depth, then unrolling like a scroll. White as milk ink blotched into the paper, flowing in impossible directions until several words were formed.

  Francies was a passable reader, on a good day. These words though, he could read without pause or difficulty.

  "To ye, miserable and forsaken.

  "Light absconded, ways crippled, crowns festered.

  "Our sorrow floods your land. No succor will be found.

  "We offer ye a final wish, at the end of our Game.

  "Come ye to holy Cilifus, where Heaven awaits those who reach.

  And at the bottom left corner, shrunken as if cowed:

  Francesto Lobas Lagos, Rank I Initiate

  He looked to the south. Behind flimsy walls, behind twisted mutant nature, from the depths of the boonies of a ruined kingdom, he could still feel it on the back of his skull, a constant drumming like the rumble of thunder, summoning him at every hour of the day, harder to resist by the second.

  Far away, the Tower of Cilifus called its newest Guest, and he knew it would not be denied.