Chapter Text
Chapter 1 : Awakening
There I was, enveloped in darkness. It was cold, and yet hot at the same time. I must be running a fever. What happened? The last thing I remember was sawing through a small pipe with my drill saw.
Oh. Now I remember. A chill ran down my spine as I recalled the blood. The blade broke. I knew being cheap about my tools was a bad idea. It was the first thing I learned about machining. I probably should have stuck to more simple metalworking like forging and welding.
“Now I’m dead, or dying.. Waiting in this black void until my consciousness fades to nothing. But wait, I feel like my consciousness is actually… improving.” The metaphorical fog was lifting and I was able to think more clearly. Before I couldn’t remember anything, even though I used to boast of the effectiveness of my photographic memory, but now I could recall things in much better detail than before. My consciousness hadn’t fully recovered yet, but it was getting there, then I noticed the heat growing stronger.
“Ewigeliebe, God of life, please grant this weak body renewed vigor to return to my family and bring glory to their name.” I heard the voice of a child, faint like the voice in the back of one’s head when thinking to oneself in a crowded room. One who sounded really smart for his age. He couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old but he talked with such sophistication. He sounded like he was at death’s door.
“I’m not this god of life you speak of, but I would help if I could. Sadly, due to my own circumstances, I don’t have a body to help you with.” I said with sympathy from the bottom of my heart. I didn’t know his circumstances but he was clearly not long for this world.
“I hear a voice from beyond. My time is truly ending. The voice seeks a body just as I asked Ewigeliebe, god of life, for help. Surely this is no coincidence. I only hope that you can find your way back to father before the fever takes you as well. I shall leave you all that I have to my name, as well as my name, Waldemar. Please bring greatness to my father’s name,” the boy spoke with much enthusiasm for someone giving up on life. I had to stop him.
“No, don’t just throw away your life. Stay strong. Never give up, never surrender!” I shouted into the back of my mind at the wavering voice but was only met with silence.
The fact that we met in this darkness likely meant that we were both heading the same way, but maybe I could have saved him by pushing him back his own way with some words of encouragement. If only I’d have been quicker. I didn’t want to blame myself but I feel like if I hadn’t spoken up he’d have probably summoned the courage to fight back whatever was taking his life. A fever he said…
A few short moments passed and my consciousness strengthened to a point where I could feel my body again. “Maybe we weren’t heading the same way after all?”
I felt so heavy, so hot, and yet so cold at the same time. I slowly opened my heavy eyes as a chill ran up my spine. I felt something on my face, so I struggled to lift my arm to remove it. “What, leaves?”
I looked the leaf over before noticing my hands were really tiny. It quickly dawned on me that I was now Waldemar. Suddenly, as I came to that realization, a flood of memories assaulted my mind. At first it was painful, but when I realized it was the child’s memories, I simply relaxed and allowed myself to recall everything he knew. Carrying on his memories was the least I could do.
It looks like I was reborn into a world of fantasy and magic. I live in the poverty stricken Duchy of Adalfarus, the lowest ranking duchy in the Kingdom of Yurgenschmidt. Our duchy only exists as a buffer to hold off, or slow down the savages that call the rainforests home. I am the first son of currently the only wife of the archduke, Sigeberht Adalfarus. Due to such a dire lack of nobility in my home duchy, my father was forced to tarnish his name and marry a laynoble as the rest of his family was slaughtered due to a civil war.
My father was spared of the purging simply because he was tested and proven to value his honor above his family. Instead of death, the king decided to remove my father’s honor and everything else he held dear and force him to devote the rest of his life to regaining it all.
A 4 year old child shouldn’t be forced to endure such a story. They could have at least waited a few more years. It looks like at the time of his death, Waldemar was the age of 6, so I am now a 6 year old child lost in the jungle in the middle of autumn. It appears the savages chased me through the jungle as I got too close.
I am the only child my father was able to produce with a laynoble and due to the outright bullying the king did to my duchy in exchange for my father’s survival, he could scarcely afford to keep Waldemar alive with feystones. The temple was barren due to the lack of nobles in the duchy, so that simply wasn’t an option. Since the jungle crept through clusters of the duchy, the savages seemed more prominent than feybeasts. What little feybeasts existed in the jungles, the savages either killed or tamed to fight us.
The savages… They have many strong warriors and few shamans, but their shamans ride powerful feybeasts. They offer their mana directly to the feybeasts rather than killing them for their feystones. In exchange they receive a powerful lifelong companion that is more of a match against our knights than any ordinary feybeast of the same kind.
That’s how I got here. I was chased by a shaman. I hid in a hole for two days, and then got lost for another 3. I drank from a river when I was thirsty, and ate fruit when I was hungry. Now I’m lying on the ground burning with fever. I have to steel my resolve or I will never make it out alive. If I reverse the direction of every footstep I took, I may be able to use my photographic memory to return home, but it will take at least 3 days.
I steeled my resolve, and attempted to push back against the fever. The fever gave way pretty quickly and completely vanished in an instant. “What’s going on? Could the fever have something to do with how I feel?”
I didn’t know much about the fever, except that it would subside when father touched my forehead with feystones. Maybe they were used to cure the fever temporarily or maybe something bigger was at work. I didn’t know much so I decided to put that thought on a back burner. I needed to find a way out of the jungle.
I started recalling my steps as I sat up only to find a savage standing before me, watching with an intrigued expression as he stood next to a white wolf with massive fangs as tall as a person. First thing I noticed about him was how his skin was a light red color. It wasn’t sunburn, his people spent their lives in the sun so I could only assume they naturally evolved to have reddened skin, like a permanent tan. From what I gathered from Waldemar’s history lessons, all savages had this darker skin color. The man himself was thin with all of his muscles apparent. It made him look like a malnourished person who also worked out a lot. His hair and beard were long, gray, and shaggy. He wore a tattered loincloth and his body was covered in a strange paint that seemed to glow faintly in the dark. With my skills of deduction and a calm demeanor, I deduced that his markings displayed his accomplishments, like some indigenous tribes from earth. He also held a gnarled staff adorned with many stones from feybeasts.
I sat there reading the room as best I could, trying not to make any sudden movements. I knew that if he wanted me dead, there were likely many ways for him to do it, but instead he just watched. It was then that the man opened his mouth, “Unless you have aged many years in a few days, you are not the boy from before. Who are you, returned one?”
I looked over to the wolf feybeast then back at the man and replied, “My name is…. was Benjamin Crowley, but I have decided to give than name up and take on the name of Waldemar Adalfarus, to honor the one who gave his life so that I may live again.”
The man stroked his beard and mused, “Then you are an awakened one. It is said that your kind emerges in few numbers every several millennia when the stars align to give new life to the dying. You will need the juruve to survive. Follow me awakened one, and we shall teach you our ways so that you can go on to bring great change to the world as all awakened ones do.”
I nodded reluctantly as the man turned to leave, then struggled to return to my feet as I followed. I then voiced my complaints as I began letting my guard down, “My muscles feel stiff and hard to move.”
The old man replied casually, “Your mana has hardened, awakened one. It is difficult to determine where mana hardening will have the greatest effect when one experiences death. Sometimes it is the blood, sometimes the muscles. Sometimes even the eyes. I hear your people can develop a juruve too, but due to your methods, only the ones who make the juruve can use it. We allow our feybeasts to fill the ingredients with mana. The feybeasts know more about mana than any man, if only they could speak to us. The knowledge they could share is boundless.”
I nodded in understanding. The juruve. Vague memories of the juruve entered my mind. I knew nothing about it but its name and importance. It was absolutely vital to anyone who had a close brush with death.
Before long we came to a village where two equally shaggy but much more muscular men stood guard. “High Shaman La’Ong, you brought a noble child with you? What were you thinking?” one shouted, in quite distress. They both looked rather similar aside from facial features and their markings. It looks like the savages all keep their brown hair and beards long and unkempt. They all seemed to have the same red eyes from what knowledge I’d been given by the child that came before. Their height and build seem to be similar based on their diet and professions, and their clothing was all simple and native.
The other joined in, “He will bring the wrath of his people with him to our village. Our women and children will be slaughtered!”
La’Ong then hushed the two by raising his finger, “Silence, Ka’Non, Ga’Fen. This child is an awakened one. He may yet bring peace between our peoples.”
Their eyes shot wide at the mention of my nature but then turned to one of sheer rage at the mention of peace. The one on the left, which I could only assume was Ga’Fen judging by the direction of La’Ong’s eyes when addressing the two then voiced his concerns “Peace? peace? ! His people will never settle for peace. They want our land, and our lives. They take and take until nothing is left. Are you saying he could change the very nature of these devils?”
La’Ong simply nodded in response and waved his hand to gesture them to move out of the way before walking passed as he spoke, “Do not underestimate the power of an awakened one. I have a juruve to prepare.”