1 An Awakening

Silas wasn't a Demi-God, he didn't look like a Greek Hero, but he was still considered eligible. What he was though, was a one-man game development team, his partners were mostly silent, merely putting their name on the finished product and reaping the benefits.

Videogames, novels, movies. They took so long to get out and that was where he got his money. Paid salary, or paid hourly, sometimes he was only paid when the gig was done with!

Thankfully small and larger companies outsourced bits and pieces of their game to be tailored, edited and have their systems polished by career professionals. Though this just added onto more of his personal projects and workload that he already couldn't handle.

He longed for the days where he would stare at the clock in the middle of class. The days where he would go to the cafeteria of his High School and see all of his friends, colleagues, and enemies in one place.

Though painful memories came to mind as he thought about this as well. The girls he liked, the ones who hardly noticed him, and the ones that did for a brief amount of time. Let's just say he didn't have the best of luck with people, at least in high school, in which he graduated from at sixteen.

That almost entirely changed in College, he became more outgoing and personable. At the same time, however, mid-way through, he decided to focus on his studies to keep his priorities straight.

Sadly, that had been a mistake. Eventually, he blocked everyone out just to finish and soon found that friends and other people had pursued different interests. Alone, he was alone.

Without people to bother him, work had taken over everything. His third wish to establish roots had become more of a fantasy than an actual reality. Working on otome games didn't exactly help either, but it seemed those focused around a darker nitty-gritty reality fit his tastes.

Dark Fantasy novels filled his reference cabinet, figurines of giant spiders and mutilated monsters on his shelves. His job made sure he stayed at home most of the time, so he always ordered these things online.

Then one day, he was commissioned to put together a Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Game. That became his focus near-instantly, putting other projects on pause, hiatus or completely dropping them to pass onto another group.

His passion sunk into the game that would've been known as Archiac Worlds Epiphany. One day, two days, three. Silas continued on without sleep, hardly drinking water and half-assing meals.

That was until finally he finally decided to lay his head down on his desk, for a quick nap. That was all he had to tell himself, that it would only be a nap. The darkness came subtly, there was no pain, just peace.

The World had gone quiet for a time. It was refreshing, the sound of the cars outside his apartment and the cicadas buzzing had finally been drowned out by what felt like an eternity of slumber. For the first time, there were no thoughts, no dreams, just equilibrium with himself.

Silas never thought he would feel this way after leaving home to get a better education, to get a better job, and to try establishing roots in the world. He had gotten the first two things down, even had himself an ongoing career. The only horrible part was the endless hours that felt like a death march, the lack of sleep made his job nearly impossible to finish on time.

A cold wind drifted over an alter covered in demonic runic characters, isolated in the forested Mountainous Region of Hisq, and Silas's eyes shot open from the chilly touch of something that felt near unnatural.

Without warning as he became aware of his surroundings, his eyes were seeing triple of everything. Silas could hardly make out a single tree. His senses were assaulted by new smells that burned his nostrils, he could smell the metallic scent as blood began to trickle down over his upper lip. "Aaaah..." A light whimper left his lips, his ears were ringing from the pressure and it was excruciatingly hard to breathe.

Withdrawing, he slipped off the side of the altar and face planted into the dirt layered in dark green sheet moss. Everything went black again, but there was a serious sense of throbbing in his head this time.

"I definitely hit my head..." He uttered as he regained consciousness a few minutes later, running a hand through his dark chestnut hair, his hazel-green eyes staring up towards the foreign sky.

It appeared the assault had ended while he was unconscious, allowing him to question himself, "Where is this place...?" Sitting up, he brushed the moss and dirt off his face and slowly stood up.

The first thing he noticed was that he was no longer wearing plush striped pajama pants or his lucky black tee. He was wearing what appeared to be plain shit colored trousers, leather ankle boots with a hardened sole and a hooded leather patched black shirt with two belts covered in empty pouches.

"What am I wearing...?" One of his brows drooped down as he explored the pouches and clothes he now wore. They weren't horrible in quality, but they weren't what he was used to.

Pealing the trousers forward, he pursed seeing he was wearing no underwear. Letting it seemingly snap into place, he huffed. "At least it had some form of an elastic band, this is some kind of prank... No, I don't know anyone, this can't be a prank." His eyes scanned the surrounding area to see just forest and Mountains towering above the trees. His chest was beating out of his chest, every bit of his body was telling him to be cautious, his hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. It was clear even though he couldn't see the danger, it was most definitely there.

"You... You..." A feminine elderly voice called out to him.

Turning on a dime, Silas narrowed his eyes on the Altar then towards the tree behind it. At first, he saw nothing. "It was probably just the--"

"I am not the wind, young man." Huffed a figure that was blending in with the tree to the point that not even someone with almost perfect vision could see them.

Nearly jumping out of his skin before raising a brow, a sturdy looking female elf stepped forward from a nearby tree, like an illusion her skin began shifting to a natural shade of ebony.

Despite the elderly voice, she didn't seem at all old.

"Definitely an Elf," Silas observed the nude individual. Judging by her appearance, she matched that of a wild elf. There were twigs hanging off of her as well as paint patterns that allowed her to easily blend in with the back of dark wood trees.

The older woman continued to approach him, making her way around the altar. She seemed relatively unphased by his capacity to deduce her as an Elf, or a member of the Fay.

"You have heeded the call of the Goddess?" These words rung out her lips like the beginning of a symphony, there was deeply engrained hope in these words.

"Perhaps..." Silas had no idea what she was talking about, but perhaps if he went along with this, he'd find out a bit more how he got here. So he did just that, went along with it.

"The Prophecy has finally been answered! We've been waiting for so long!"

Raising a brow at her saying the word 'we' as in plural, his eyes drifted about.

"There are more of you here... Waiting?" The man was feeling rather intrigued by the idea of being the center of a prophecy created by a bunch of delusional elves.

She flexed her gaze at him, scrutinizing him closely, before stepping away. "No, not anymore. The other guardians of the Altar have long since died. I am the last one left..."

Silas watched as she turned away, clutching at her chest as she continued talking, but this time in a tongue he did not quite understand. Honestly, it sounded like a bunch of gibberish rather than harmonized words.

His gaze drifted back towards the Altar that he had woke upon.

There were three things there that weren't present before. A sword with a notched end, a silver orb the size of ping pong ball and a book, all needly resting against the altar surface.

Parting his lips, Silas went to say something only to turn his head and look at a withered and dead face of the elf who had just been talking not too long ago. Her eye sockets were empty, her black hair had become scraggly and white, her skin was cracked apart like bark. One of her ears was missing, something that he failed to notice beforehand, or had been hidden by illusions.

She wasn't an elf and her face was a few inches away from his own.

"You... You... Have you heeded the call of the Goddess?" Her mouth didn't move this time as she spoke, it sounded as if there was someone inside her throat, speaking for her.

The sense of danger hadn't gone away, if anything, he didn't know where it was coming from until now. "You make terrible first impressions, you know?"

He watched as the creature's lips curled into a disgusting and vile grin, liquid rot pouring out from behind its gums. The smell, it burned his nostrils just as it had done when he woke.

Silas lunged forward, diving into a roll, narrowly avoiding its outreaching arms. He grabbed the sword from beside the altar and turned to look to the creature once more. Fear shot through his system, a tingling sensation crawling over his skin. "What exactly are you?"

It spoke again in a lowly voice, "You... You... Have you heeded the call of the Goddess?"

A chill ran down his spine as he heard these words repeat. It wasn't something he was expecting to hear for the third time. Was it some sort of undead? His eyes flickered to the rot for a split moment, before he knelt down and picked up the orb.

Just as he did, he felt an energy surge through him that he didn't recognize, suddenly the orb was gone and that hand was empty. With one glance at the book, then to the woman, he reached out and grabbed it as he made a run for it as he dropped his body just enough to do it.

"I am the last one left! I am the last one left! AHAAHAHAAHA!"

Silas could hear it screaming and laughing, he could hear its feet crush twigs and kick up the moss from the dirt. He could tell it was gaining on him, his legs weren't carrying him very far.

He felt as if he'd die if he turned around. So he pushed and he pushed. For almost a half-hour he was running on his own fumes, his stomach growling as he lamented over the half-assed last meal before coming to this world.

This was the most exercise he has had in about six years. His feet already hurt, his knees started to click and buckle in every long stride.

That's when he slid across the ground, knowing he couldn't keep running and turned around with his sword swinging along with one hand. It had been like intuition, he knew exactly when and where to strike, it was a sixth sense of sorts.

CRRRRRRRACK!

The Blade's notch was stuck in the side of the creature's head, but while it stopped moving, it didn't collapse to the ground. Its arms were outstretched towards his face, unmoving.

The thing's fingers were sharper than knives, its right bicep and left forearm were exposed bone. Rotting flesh was seen everywhere across the body of the thing.

"What the heck!" Silas cried as he slammed the unmoving dead to the ground and continuously brought the weapon down on its head. He was afraid it was going to get back up, pounce on him, pull him apart... Eat him. He had no idea what its intentions were, he didn't want to know.

"Fuck! This! Shit! Die!" He didn't stop cursing, he just kept going and going, sending chunks of ancient skull and thin hair in all directions. Liquid rot would soon be pouring out of its exposed gullet once the head was no more.

Soon he came to a stop and leaned back, looking to the book he had swiped earlier. It was leather-bound with strange words written on it. At first, he couldn't read, but after focusing the words seemed to reform and align themselves in perfect English.

Still trying to catch his breath, he lipped the words that were on the front cover.

Perplexed by the words, he spoke them aloud, "Grimoire of the Unblessed... By Ein Lumbrig...?"

Silas looked to the dead body once more and raised a brow. It wasn't moving, rather happy for that, he turned his gaze to the book cover once more.