Chapter 1: Chapter 1

“I can see the train coming.”

My eyes widened, and I looked up from the book in my lap. 

“Really?” I asked. Squinting, I tried to make out the form of the train in the distance. Beside me, Lena peered out of her binoculars, leaning over the iron rail along the plain flat roof of the library. I could hear the clicks of shifting cogs within it as she turned a dial. “Gimme those.” My fingers nicked the bulky set of binoculars from her hands, pulling it up to my face. After a bit of twisting the gears and adjusting the lenses, I spotted the thick black pillar of smog pouring out of the barren trees to the east. 

“I see it,” I murmured. “So you think there’ll be more sentinels today?” Looking over to my right, I found her glaring daggers at me. “What?”

“Those are my binoculars, Feli.” She snatched them back away from me, and I watched in a pout as she peered through them once again. You drop them one time, and suddenly, she never wants you to touch them again, I mentally complained.

My eye darted between her and the far approaching train. “Well?”

She shrugged as she continued to watch the distant dark smoke that slowly approached our small town. “How should I know? I reckon if more were gonna come, they’d have come with the ones yesterday. You’re the one that insisted we sit up here watching.”

“But the train comes every day,” I argued. “Why would they all crowd into that small train car at once when it would be more comfortable to come a few at a time?” Part of me felt the logic wasn’t particularly sound, but I was hopeful regardless. Not a lot happened in this town. We simply weren’t far enough out in the Deadlands for much of anything interesting to occur. 

Lena watched on in silence for a moment before replying, “They could have just added more passenger cars if they needed room.”

“Mmm, maybe.” My eyes flicked over to her once more. “Let me see!” 

With a sigh, she handed the binoculars back to me and I brought them up to my eyes. “They’re still a ways away. Not much to see yet besides trees,” she commented. “I don’t know why you insisted on this anyway. We’re not kids anymore, you know. I’ve got things I could be doing.” I ignored the scowl I knew she was giving me as I watched for peeks of the train out across the dead-looking forest. Despite its appearances, the woods were definitely alive and dangerous. 

“What ever happened to your sense of adventure?” I mumbled.

“It died a year ago when I turned eighteen and my parents told me they were putting me in charge of the town’s finances,” she deadpanned. 

I dismissed the comment with a casual wave of my hand yet still couldn’t help but smile. It was a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.  

Gradually, the train approached, until it finally made its way to the town’s small station. The train itself wasn’t anything new to me. It came by every day, after all. The interesting part was the small passenger car that sat up near the front in place of the typical tanker car. Much like the tanks, it was outfitted in thick plates of steel: protection against any dangerous beasts that roamed the wastes. The passenger car didn’t even have windows, meaning the interior likely got suffocatingly hot in the warm sun. I wondered how they dealt with it.

A hand from my right grabbed onto the binoculars once more, pulling them out of my grip. I gave Lena an annoyed glance as she began to look through them once again, but didn’t complain as at least the train was plainly visible now, cooling down at the station as black fumes from the burning lesei continued to pour out from it. 

“I bet they’re here to hunt some strong monster. Maybe the hunters actually found something near the town,” I pondered. “Or maybe they’re here to track down some dark sorcerer hiding deep in the wastes! I bet he’s got some evil plot to destroy the capital, and unleash a massive contagious curse unto the world.” I stared off into the forest, and a small smile crept up my face. The thoughts of setting out on a journey to fight the cursed sorcerer and bring peace back to the nation danced through my mind. Now that would be an adventure.

“Nah, I told you. They’re probably here for something mundane and stupid, like taxes. You read too many fanciful stories.” 

I huffed at my best friend. “No sense of adventure.” 

“Although…” she trailed off, and I glanced back toward the train. 

A group of people were in the process of exiting, several of them loading bags onto the back of a long flat mechanical cart, or moto, as people had taken to calling them. I squinted but couldn’t make out any real details. “What is it?” I asked, putting a hand across my brow in an effort to see better. 

“I think… I think they brought a sorceress,” Lena said dazedly. 

My eyes widened once more and I scanned the group as well as I could from the distance, hoping to spot the cursed woman. Yet from the distance, their figures were just too blurry to make anything out beyond the fact that they did indeed appear to be more sentinels. The massive shields were unmistakable. 

“A sorceress? Are you sure? Why would they bring one of the cursed here?”

Lena shrugged. “Dunno. Why do they allow the cursed to do anything?” she asked rhetorically.

I shuddered. To think that one had actually come to our little town. I wondered briefly if she was perhaps only recently cursed? But then, if that was the case, what use would she be as a sorceress? No, chances were the curse had likely already blackened her soul. It was well known that ‘sorcerer’ was simply a more neutral name for those who’d been cursed. They were really nothing like the mages in older fictional novels, heroic spellslingers that fought off the creatures of the wastes. Real sorcerers certainly had strange and mysterious magic. But it was at a steep cost. The curse corrupted them until in both body and spirit they were an avatar for evil. 

How and why they had emerged in the past couple of centuries, I hadn’t a clue. Though there were certainly plenty of interesting rumors. Some of the more vocal townsfolk were certain it had to do with our continued growth and reliance on technology. That perhaps we as a people were the ones truly cursed. 

“Wonder what kind of curse she’s got,” I pondered. Each was said to be different. Glancing over to Lena, I eyed the binoculars still pressed against her face. “Let me see.” 

“Not a chance,” she said, pulling away her binoculars and standing. 

“What? Why not?” I stood as well with a peculiar emotional swirl of annoyance and confusion. 

She looked at me with a frown. “Because you are just going to get yourself in trouble somehow. Forget I said anything about it.”

“But—”

“No buts. I’ve got things I need to get done. I’m sure I’ll find out what's going on later anyway.” Her finger poked into me as she said, “Stay. Out of. Trouble.”

I huffed. 

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“I know you’ve got stuff you need to be doing as well, Feli. Certainly something more important than sitting up here on top of the library reading books.” She turned and walked toward the steps down the side of the building. “Oh, and I’ll be back later on. I want your opinion on the dress for my wedding.” With a wink, she hopped down the steps, binoculars in hand. 

I grumbled and looked back to the train once more, where the large flat-bedded moto was rumbling steadily down the street on its metallic wagon-like wheels, several sentinels riding on top. 

“No sense of adventure,” I muttered.

I spent several more hours reading and looking out at the train station, before finally making my way down from the library roof. Sneakily, I eased down the stairway past the second floor and to the first, where the library resided, stepping over the spots I knew would make the wooden boards creak. If I could make it out of the building, I’d have free reign of the town, unburdened by the responsibilities of our little library home. Reaching the bottom stair, I looked through the open doorway out into the rows of books. I just needed to make it to the exit, and I’d be free. With a gentle step, I moved into the library.

“Oh, Felix.” A hand grabbed my shoulder from behind and I jumped out of my skin. “I was just looking for you. Been up reading on the roof again?”

I turned and looked up to my spectacled father before giving out a sigh. Mission failure. 

“Yeah.” I nodded. 

He gave a winning smile that couldn’t help but bring a smile to my own face. “You mind watching the library for a bit this evening? I was going to head out for a while, get some errands done that I’ve been putting off.”

“Sure.” How could I say no to that face? “I wasn’t doing anything but reading.” I definitely hadn’t been planning on going out in search of a cursed sorceress. Definitely.

With a small rub of my head, he said, “Good, I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Ahead of me, he wandered off through the library to the exit. It was tempting to simply wait for him to be several blocks away before continuing my plan to sneak out. He’d be angry and annoyed, which I knew I could deal with. I was supposed to be taking on the responsibilities of the library from him in the next coming years. It was that look of disappointment I knew he’d give me that I truly dreaded. 

So instead of leaving, as I desperately wanted to, I put it off for later and spread open my book once more. Books were a form of comfort for me and I liked to keep one on my person. It felt too strange to not have one at my side. Perhaps it was a stroke of luck that I was born the son of a librarian. Certainly, others would say so, considering how much I liked to read. I loved the stories, the ability to escape into another world. Yet in truth, what I wanted more than anything was to be someone else. To go out into the endless wastes and explore the mysteries of the world. 

One of these days I would, I told myself. I’d set off on a grand adventure, leaving this small town behind with a sword in hand and a wide grin on my face. Being Felix was boring, a simple dull existence of watching over a library until I grew into an old man and had children. I shuddered. No, I’d become someone else, someone new who went out into strange lands seeking the joys of a life of adventure. 

But then, I thought of the saddened face my father would make, and I sighed before starting back at the top of the page I’d left off on. 

The bell jingled as the library door opened, interrupting the story of a daring knight trying to woo and juggle two different ladies. Looking up, I expected to see one of the regulars that often visited the library. To my surprise, two men I’d never seen before stood in the entryway. Shining plates of hardened steel covered their legs up to just above their knees. Above it was a stylish black gambeson with several buckles up its length. It began just below where the steel along their knees ended and went up to hug their neck. Around their waists were thick belts holding their sheathed one-armed swords, and on their backs sat the iconic large shield of the sentinels. The dark metallic trim looked worn and chipped, indicating that it was an object with frequent use. The only thing missing was the steel helmet from their heads, which instead sat hooked to their side.

Their eyes traveled across the library as though scanning for threats. As they met mine, I quickly ducked my face behind my book. 

“W-welcome in!” I attempted to shout out, my voice notably weaker than intended. 

They likely nodded or perhaps chose to ignore me entirely. Either way, they said nothing and the soft clang of their steps met my ears instead. When I looked up once more, the two of them had already moved down one of the handful of tall aisles, obscuring them from view. Part of me was utterly exhilarated to have two sentinels here in the library. They were a rare sight for our small town, and one of my dreams had always been to join their ranks. The other half of me worried that they might break our rather rustic ladders, which were quite necessary to reach the higher up books. 

I paled at the thought. Father would kill me. Or he’d certainly be rather annoyed at least.

I scrambled out from my chair and around the desk, turning back briefly to snatch the large book I was in the middle of reading, before quietly scurrying toward the aisles near the doorway. Peeking down one of the aisles, I made sure not to nudge the tall ladder to my right, in case its wheels squeaked. 

No one stood between the two rows of books, yet I jumped and nearly let out a squeak of my own as I heard them begin to chat not far away. 

“This is really all the books this shithole has to offer?” a gruff voice scoffed out quietly. The shelves weren’t as full as they could have been, but there were still plenty of books around to read, I thought. I winced as I heard a plated boot kick into something. Slowly, I began making my way toward them once more. 

A somewhat deeper voice responded, “Be glad there’s a library at all. Many towns this far from the capital have none. It is, after all, only by the grace of the Emperor that they exist at all.”

I frowned for a moment, wondering what the Emperor had to do with it. I’d never recalled my father mentioning the Emperor at all when he talked of how he’d started this small library not long after I was born. With a shrug, I continued to listen, having unfortunately missed part of the conversation in my moment of distraction. 

“Well, I’d certainly rather be back there than here. If not for that cursed sorceress, we’d be back home by now,” the gruff man ranted. “And I don’t care what you say, I know she’s up to something. I can feel it. The cursed wretches are always up to something nefarious.”

“Yes, yes, you said that all the way here. And yet nothing has happened. The Praevus knows what he is doing.”

“Yet. Yet, Baldorn. But that snake has wormed her way out of the capital for some reason or another, and it’ll be our heads on the pike when she succeeds. Either by her own hands or that of the Praevus. The fact is, something must be done to stop her.”

I knew it, I thought with a smirk. The sorceress was indeed up to no good. The only thing to do now was to find out exactly what. Luckily, I’d always fancied myself a fairly good spy. If anyone could figure out this mystery, I was certain it was me. 

A curious thought flashed into my mind. Could it be possible that this would become my first great adventure, the thing that would set me on the path to exploring the world, solving mysteries, and stopping evil plots to destroy the Empire? I was reminded of a quote in the great Tome of Sealvor: ‘One might try to avoid their destiny. But sometimes it is destiny that finds you.’ …or something like that. I struggled to remember the exact phrasing if I was honest. The point was, this was clearly the work of fate! This was my chance to do what I’d always wanted to do: to become an adventurer. A confident smile crossed my lips. 

From my side, the deep-voiced sentinel cleared his throat. Glancing over, I found him staring down at me, his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. My smile became strained as our eyes met.

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