Chapter 1: The Black and White Forest 1

The plane of Aeterna was filled with a multitude of Kingdoms and Empires. In the center of the plane was an immense continent, tens of thousands of miles in all directions. It was surrounded by an even larger ocean, extending tens of thousands of miles further.

The most powerful and prosperous empires were located near the center of the continent. There, mages had a command of magic that bordered on the divine. Closer to the edge of the continent, however, the nations became less prosperous, less populated, and less advanced. In the far north was located an isolated state, known as the Bull Kingdom.

This kingdom was flanked on its northern and eastern border by nigh-impassable mountain ranges, in the south by a wide gulf, and in the west by the Endless Ocean. But even further north, deep in the Frozen Mountain Range, were a number of comparably temperate vales inhabited by tribes of people who scoffed at the southern lords and their knights. These people were hardy, fearless, and territorial. Theirs was a violent and typically short life.

But as ready as The Bull King's Legions were for battle, as eager as those northern warriors were to spill the blood of their enemies, there were places in those Northern Vales that even they were loath to enter.

One of those places was the Forest of Black and White, which took up the entirety of one of the smaller vales. No tribe had ever lived there, and few even dared to approach the mountain passes that led to it. It was a place of horror, of terrifying bedtime stories told to the children of the tribes. If they were not brave against their enemies and true to their friends, the wraiths and evil gods of the forest would come to take them in the night.

The vale was one hundred miles east to west and seventy miles north to south, and the Forest of Black and White covered almost the entirety of that land. The forest received its name from the trees of dark bark and brilliant green leaves, and the trees of pale white bark and deep, twilight blue leaves that are most commonly seen within it.

Many strange and otherworldly beings called the forest home, from the vicious beasts of flesh and blood to the spirits of ice, earth, and wind. But perhaps the strangest beings that lived in this forest were two men, a father and son pair, who built their home deep within the eastern reaches of the forest in a large clearing of purple grass.

The father was tall, well-built, and looked roughly in his mid-twenties—though he was at least a decade older than that. He had black hair, warm brown eyes, sharp features, and a straight nose. The son was a youth of sixteen, slightly shorter than his father and with a skinnier build. His features took after his father for the most part, except for his bright golden eyes.

The son, Leon, was dressed in a loose-fitting shirt made of dark green woven grass—a specialty of the nearest tribe—with brown leather pants and boots. He had a hunting bow slung over his shoulder, a quiver full of arrows on his back, and a knife at his leather belt. His father, Artorias, was largely dressed the same, save for a light brown fur coat and a longsword at his hip.

Artorias watched Leon as he tracked the beast they were hunting, an enormous stag large enough to feed them for several weeks. If Leon wasn't careful, this beast would have no trouble goring him with its horns or crushing his chest with a single kick. Luckily, his father was there, keeping an eye on him.

Without Artorias, Leon was certain he would've long been killed by the beasts of the forest. Artorias was a powerful mage, able to project magic outside of his body and use it to detect everything for miles around himself. This allowed the two to avoid the most dangerous beasts of the forest during the day. At night, however, they relied completely on Artorias' magic power and skill with the blade to fend off the nightmarish creatures that called the forest home. The power and strength of these nocturnal creatures made wandering the forest alone at night an impossible task for a mage as weak as Leon.

By virtue of his strength alone, Artorias had no trouble finding the stag they were pursuing, but this was a learning opportunity for Leon. He wanted his son to learn how to hunt, how to survive in the wild, but most of all, he wanted Leon to learn how to kill.