After the Fall of Earth

Chapter 1: The Curse and The Forest

The day started the same as every other day. I'd wake up in my tent and walk out to the army's mess hall to get some breakfast, the same group of friends always met me that I've had since we were little kids. We looked out for each other, no matter what we stuck it through to the end with each other. After eating breakfast we'd go get our gear on and head out on patrol around the place we grew up and on the edge of town. We only encounter bandits, goblins, and the occasional orc strangler. Nothing too big, but today we found it odd that there wasn't even a bandit trying to kill a farmer on the edge of town. Usually there was one trying to kill the same farmer, different bandit same farmer, and it was always to get the farmer's daughter who left the town years ago but even though she left the bandits never stopped coming. But we thought nothing of the absence of the bandits, but as we walked around we started noticing that we haven't seen any farmers, kids, or even farm animals. There was about four or five houses with farmers and their families living in the same area. Usually there is a small group of kids playing in the center of the houses and their mothers on the same porch talking and watching their kids and waiting to ask how our lives are since the day before. They were not there today and there was no trace of them. So we started back to camp, once we got back to camp we reported what we thought was odd to our commander and he said he'd check it out.

The next day we woke up and, to our surprise, people were missing from in the camp. Gone, without a trace of them even coming back to sleep in their tents. I started to think that it's odd that they just didn't come back without checking in with the caption first. I spoke up, "I need to speak with the College Of Myths." They all agreed without hesitation.

"I don't think that you should go alone Wrex." Farin said, "We don't want you to go missing as well."

I agreed with him, so I asked him if he'd like to come along with me. We set off to the College Of Myths to do some research on what might be going on around town. The College Of Myths is a place that every town has and it is full of knowledge about the mythical creatures that came out of no were. All we know is that they are all ready to kill each other and ready to kill us. Farin and I are best friends and have been since we both got trapped in an alleyway by some bandits and had to use metal pipes and broom sticks to fight for our lives and we barely escaped with our lives. The bandits were trying to kill us after killing our mothers and fathers and didn't want anyone to know who killed them so they ran us down and had their weapons in hand to kill us with, but thanks to a knight that was passing by at the time, we got to escape. The last time we saw the bandits was when the knight was killing them with their own weapons. The knight is dead now but he did take us in and raised us as his own children. That's where we found Farin's brother that went missing and our other friends. The knight trained us in the combat skills we each acquired.

As we reached the College we noticed that the scholars that usually roam around aren't roaming at all. Usually when we went up there to patrol we saw many scholars roaming about exchanging theories about random things. But they were not our side roaming, as we entered the main chamber, where all the knowledge is held. There were the scholars, they were vigorously reading books, and we assumed they were on what might be at work here. I looked at Farin and said, "Looks like they already heard what's going on in town, maybe they have a lead for us to follow."

Farin looked at me and said, "I highly doubt that they do, look at how frantic they are going through each book. That does not look like they know anything at all."

I looked around at the scholars and noticed it. "Your right Farin. That does not look like they know what it could be," I replied, "but that doesn't mean that they don't have a lead for us."

Farin looked at me and smiled and shook his head, he knew I was right about that. He knew how to read if someone was right or wrong easily. I think he picked it up from the knight. After studying to see what scholar looked the least frantic, we found one who looked engulfed in a book for research. We walked up to him and asked if he knows anything that might be going on. He looked at us and said, "You must not see the signs, disappearances without a hint of anything taking anyone, chaos in the College, people acting strangely. We are dealing with magic or a demigod or a curse or a demon. All of them are extremely dangerous. Tread lightly where you step. You might be next."