Alistar woke up with a start, his head pounding with a terrible headache as he immediately fell into a fit of coughing. He was somewhere in the forests outside of Distan—he knew these woods well enough to recognize this fact—but he had no idea of the exact location. He was lying at the fringes of a small clearing, his naked body covered in dirt and soot. The ground was scorched in most places, with the trunks of the surrounding trees burning strongly in large swaths. With the amount of fire in the area, if he hadn’t been lying on the ground with his face pressed against the dirt, he’d surely have suffocated amidst the dense screen of smoke.

What…what happened?

It seemed as if somebody had attempted to put out the various fires that had popped up in the area, but evidently they had persisted to the point of swallowing up several trees. Nobody else was around, leaving him wondering how his current situation came to be. His mind groggy and his head pounding, he decided that his first course of action should be to leave the area lest he get caught up in the expanding conflagration.

It took him several minutes to crawl to a safer area, during which time he noticed a long trail of large footprints leading off into the forest with significant gaps in between them. Whoever else had been here, they must have been a very tall individual.

Still coughing from smoke inhalation, Alistar propped himself up against a tree and belatedly decided to put out the forest fire lest it spread farther and grow into a larger problem. Raising a hand and summoning large tendrils of moisture up from the soil beneath him, his stomach sunk and an alarm bell sounded in his mind as he almost immediately lost control of the spell.

My magics…why can’t I use my magics?

He closed his eyes and focused on the surrounding area, relieved to find that his magical awareness was still in its usual state. Even so, it was important to note that all of his limiters were missing along with his clothes, which meant that he should have been able to cast any of the spells in his repertoire with subconscious ease.

How did I get here?

After raking his brain for a few moments, a string of nightmarish memories suddenly flooded through his mind like cascading waters that had just broken through a failing dam.

After a morning of passion with Lessa on the grounds of the estate, he had gone to visit Aglain in order to ask him some important questions. At that time, the tortured man had accidently come into contact with Alistar’s ancient crystal and, rather than using it to break free from the cave that had served as his dark and desolate prison for over five centuries, the disgraced hero had chosen to commit suicide.

That’s right, he thought slowly. Aglain of Lahn, the greatest and most controversial hero in humanity’s history, had killed himself earlier that day.

Alistar froze as he recalled the man’s erratic behavior, Aglain’s chilling tone ringing through his ears like the toll of a sombre bell.

The curse of immortality can’t be broken.

Alistar wretched again, recalling the ominous light that had left Aglain’s body and entered his own. He grew tense as he remembered the indescribable pain that had followed the unexpected development.

You’ll understand after you—once you experience it for yourself.

A terrible sense of horror took root in Alistar’s heart as he recalled the endless stream of teary-eyed apologies that had left Aglain’s mouth at that time.

“Don’t think about it,” he told himself with a shaky voice.

Patting his body down to see if there were any irregularities in his physique, Alistar was surprised to find that, not only was he in perfect physical condition but his swordsman’s aura was still fully intact. Why, then, was he unable to use his magics?

Pushing himself to his feet, he expanded his magical awareness to its limits and sensed the distant energy imprint that he had long since left on the county’s southern walls. Judging from the distance between him and the imprint, his current position should be quite close to the Winding Road, particularly the stretch that connected Distan to the other areas of the kingdom.

He left the area where the forest fire was slowly taking root, careful to avoid any creatures that might pose a threat to him by relying on his mental perceptions. It wasn’t until he finally reached the road that more of his muddled memories returned to his mind. He had been here earlier, had stumbled onto the loosely-cobbled pathway in his delirium after fleeing from Aglain’s cave. At that time, he’d encountered a long caravan of people, many dressed in clean white robes with countless others outfitted in riding leathers and the equipment of warriors. Horses, wagons, oval-shaped banners—it must have been the delegation, he realized.

Remembering what had happened after he’d fallen into their hands, he began to hyperventilate from the trauma that had formed at that time. A minute later, he managed to calm himself down by running through his reliable meditations, at which point he recalled waking up in the clearing that he’d just left behind only to find that he had been completely paralyzed and placed in the centre of a large magic circle that had been drawn out in the dirt.

He’d been subject to some sort of forbidden ritual, for it had been frighteningly evident that the devious energies at play during that time had belonged to an unknown branch of dark magic.

The church, using dark magic?

He recalled Aglain’s fate and all that the man had told him about the founder of the Lucian Faith, Saint Limnin. After what he’d just gone through, Alistar’s previous suspicions and skepticisms had solidified in his heart. The church was a corrupt and evil entity, of that he had no doubts.

His mind had been a mess at the time of the ritual, so he only remembered bits and pieces. There had been other children there, all paralyzed as he had been and likewise arranged at different points within the magic circle. Based upon his fragmented memories, they had served as some sort of sacrifices to power the spellwork, of which he had been the focal point.

What had they done to him, and why had they felt the need to do it?

He didn’t quite recall the faces of any of the delegation members, but he was sure that there had been at least a dozen present at that time. Worried that his capture had had something to do with his lineage, it had taken all of his concentration to maintain the advanced alteration spell that he passively relied on to hide the true appearance of his eyes. When he’d finally snuck a glance at those around them, there had been an Inverted man in their midst. No, there had been two, hadn’t there?

There had also been a very tall man with broad shoulders and an authoritative demeanour, likely the one that had left behind the footprints that Alistar had followed to the Winding Road. This man had tortured him, ripping his limbs from his body with combustion magic that caused his flesh and bones to burst apart like the agitated embers of a smouldering campfire.

“How…?”

Alistar stopped in place and stared down at his arms, clenching his hands into fists and then unfolding them in an experimental manner. Hadn’t he been killed? As he’d lain there dying, he recalled a terrifying scream that stole away his sense of hearing and then a sudden flash of fiery light. After that, blackness.

Aglain’s tortured expression flashed through his mind, as well as his claims that the curse of immortality couldn’t be broken.

What have you done to me, Aglain?

Fearing the accuracy of his suspicions, Alistar resumed walking until several minutes later when he discerned countless plumes of smoke rising skyward in the distance. They were coming from the direction of Mayhaven.

Fueled on by a sudden sense of worry, he suppressed his confusion and broke out into a rapid sprint just as his ears were met with the muffled sound of an explosion from far off. By the time he reached the gap in the walls that made way for the Winding Road to continue on into the county, a fresh plume of smoke was rising up to chase after its predecessors.

What was going on?

His eyes widened as he saw that nearly all of Mayhaven was on fire, steps quickening when a tremendous pillar of flames suddenly tore into the sky at a diagonal angle from somewhere within the town.