1.1 Out of the Mist

General Summary

Day 1

  I come to consciousness face down in a stream, surrounded by seemingly normal mist. The mountains behind me reach up impossibly high - is that where I came from?   I am bruised and scraped up but mostly concerning is the bandaged mess of my left arm, covered in runes that have been carved into my flesh. I recognize the ones on my inner arm and hand as arcane. They follow the expected rules of enchantment and ritual. They are meant to build more powerful magic than can be accomplished otherwise, particularly the magic circles on my hand. The runes on my upper arm and outer arm are in a different language that I don’t understand at all. They’re messier and fresher, while the arcane runes are sensitive but already healing.   I meet Dal, a dark-skinned elven man who says he wasn’t expecting me. His military armor seems familiar but I can’t place it. I can’t place much of anything, to be fair.   He leads me deeper into the woods (the Wild Wood, he calls it) and we kill a bear to eat. I butcher it expertly, though I have no conscious memory of knowing how to do this. Dal also teaches me to slip through the shadows at an incredible speed with some sort of elven magic. That feels familiar.   He is an absolutely infuriating companion for someone with no memory. He is teaching me useful skills (which roots and berries are safe and which are not - like a berry with 4 leaves that is edible but a berry with 2 leaves that makes you vomit), but doesn’t have a straight answer for any of my questions. He would recognize me anywhere but he’s not allowed to tell me who I am. He doesn’t seem to grasp how intensely unhelpful that is, and how it is even worse to say something like “I will never abandon you, but I may not have a choice”.  

Day 2

In the morning, he agrees to answer some questions as long as he knows the answer and is allowed to tell me. He also gives me a notebook that I dropped! The first 20 pages have been ripped out and the rest is blank...but he swears he wasn’t the one who destroyed it.

• Do you know who I am?
• Yes
• Who am I?
• I know but can’t tell
• How old am I?
• Don’t know
• Do I have a family?
• Yes. They’re alive. Parents, siblings.
• We’ve spoken before?
• Yes, on the other side of the mountains
• Who were we to each other?
• Friends, allies
• Did we come here together?
• No
• How long have you been waiting?
• Don’t know
• Did someone tell you to wait here?
• Yes, you did. You sent me to wait, long ago. You told me that when you arrived, you’d need my help. I was to expect you to be weak and lost, near death. I don’t know how long it’s been since we parted ways. Probably years. I was the first of many to be sent
• Do we have any other allies?
• Many, maybe dead now
• What were we allies for?
• Gave our lives in service to another. Our Mistress’ battles are our own
• What is she like?
• Like steel. She’s the sword behind the candle flame. Cold, sharp, merciless. Warm, sheltering. To be her enemy is to face complete and utter destruction. To be a member of our household is to never know loneliness. To never be abandoned or forgotten. To never be without a place. For me, she was the stern commander who made me the warrior I was made to be. For you she was more than that. You were never just an arrow in her quiver. If you’re here it’s because she needs you here to do things that only you can do, in a place where she can’t be. You are her left hand. I move at your command, on her behalf.
• What do you know about my arm?
• Speaking to him in a stone hall, standing at the centre of a magic circle ringed with candles. There’s a knife between us and he’s holding my hand with both of his. On his forearm is a freshly carved magic circle just like the one on the back of my hand. He feels very vulnerable as he looks at me. “How long will I wait? And when will I see you again?” I say “I don’t know. But we’ll meet again, twice more” (nicely, with every ounce of reassurance I can, despite a dark cloud of doubt in my mind). A fleeting thought “I will see him again because I will it so”

This is a lot to take in. We had argued about the importance of one’s history in informing the present and I think this is a strong argument in my favour. This memory feels like purpose.   He takes me to a mound of mossy earth and stone, near a spring and some flowers. His spear stands at the head of the mound. It is his grave. He has been waiting so long that he has passed away and returned to wait because the oath he swore to me has held him here. When I am clenched with horror and ask if he swore this oath willingly, I am afraid of his answer and what it means about who I am.   He tells me he would not have done it if he hadn’t wanted to. It’s not a complete answer, but I will allow myself to be reassured. Now it is clear what “twice more” meant, and as the sun sets we know he will return to death once again, with only one more meeting between us in the future.   He touches my face and offers an answer I hadn’t expected to get,   “You and I once stood side by side against a creature of the deep that was rampaging the coast. I have never seen fire like the fire in your eyes that day. You didn’t rest for 3 days while we tended to the survivors. That is who you are,”   And then he is gone, leaving behind a map to a small human settlement and a word of warning: Humans are arrogant but fragile. They don’t know what ancient magic they have awakened. They will fear you, and you will need them.   As I sit in silence by his grave, it dawns upon me that long ago I had placed the circle on his forearm, but I didn’t mark the matching one on my hand at the same time. The circle on my hand is fresh, to my memory.   Dal didn’t give me a name, so I will name myself after the sun in the sky and the greetings he offered me: Morning.