The Last Orellen

### Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Elph Of The Desert

Erberen Desert, Kingdom of Kashwin, The First World Elph of the Desert The flesh of the shine lizards was deadly poisonous. Elph knew it with a bone-deep certainty that baffled him. Shoving his feet into the muddy trickle of the stream and wriggling his toes in the warm water, he watched the nearest lizard curiously. Its entire body would fit in the palm of his hand, and its silver scales gleamed bright in the sun. “If I eat you, I’ll die,” Elph told the lizard. It blinked at him. “Why do I know that?" He tilted his head from side to side. "Are you important?” He thought the lizard must be. After all, it was the first thing other than his own name he felt truly sure of. Elph had woken fifteen sunrisings ago in the ruins of a house, in the ruins of a village, in the middle of this hot, dry landscape that was somehow familiar and not at the same time. The house was little more than shattered mud bricks and broken reeds. Only a single wall was left standing intact. When he called for help, nobody answered. A feeling in his stomach, like water sloshing in a pot, told him that this was wrong. Somebody should have answered him. The village was supposed to be full of people, wasn’t it? Elph wasn’t supposed to be alone, was he? He couldn’t remember. Maybe it wasn't the empty village that was wrong. Maybe it was him. His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been sick or screaming, and his clothes were stiff with dried blood that didn't seem to be his own. Among the scattered bricks of the house, he found a doll made of straw that caused him to weep. He had plucked it gently from the ground and begun rearranging the straws of its skirt before he even thought to question his own actions. As tears ran down his face, washing away some of the dust, he decided he must know the doll. Surely, someone wouldn’t cry over a damaged toy they didn’t even recognize. “You must be mine,” Elph murmured to the doll. "What happened to us?" She didn't answer. Now, he wore her around his waist, strapped to a leather belt he’d found amidst a pile of the scoured white stones that were arranged all over the village. The stones made Elph more uncomfortable than anything else in the ruins. They made him stay away from the village, except at night, when the sounds of the desert began to feel dangerous. “What do you know about the stones in the village?” Elph asked the shine lizard, watching its tail twitch. They were old friends now, since this dirty rivulet of water was where he spent his days. But the lizard was no more talkative than the straw doll. “Since I can’t eat you. I’ll probably starve to death.” He had found food in many of the destroyed houses--clay pots full of grain, oil, dried fruit, and even sweet alcohol. But it would all run out eventually. Food didn’t last forever, and he couldn’t remember how the pots got filled with food in the first place. You have to buy it, don't you? In the center of the village, there was supposed to be a place where you handed coins to a person, and then that person poured grain from a bag into your pot so you had food to eat. Or maybe that was wrong. When Elph thought too hard about the people who must have lived in the village, his stomach sloshed. Once or twice, it even spilled over, and he vomited onto the sun-cracked earth. So he didn’t think anymore if he could help it. He decided he would hold on only to the certain things. His name was Elph. He had a doll. The flesh of the shine lizards was deadly poisonous. That was enough. Night fell again, and Elph headed back to the village. He crouched in the wreckage of the house that might have been his, huddling against the lone wall. He ate a handful of dried apricots and salted nuts. He drank alcohol from a jug so large that he had to wrap his arms around it to lift it. The stinging stuff spilled all over the front of his shirt and down his chin. He even inhaled some of it, and his nostrils burned for a long time after that. But Elph didn’t care. It made him feel warm. It made him dizzy. It made it easier for him not to think. He slept. He woke. He slept again. And for many days after that, it was only Elph and the desert around him and the shine lizards on their rocks. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. If other people had once existed, he decided, they didn’t any more. Cottage of the High Sorcerer Megimon Orellen, Lowing Swamp, The Second World Megimon missed being wealthy. Perhaps it was unbecoming for a mere sorcerer who was lucky enough to have made it across the threshold to Avorlan. But still…being poor was every bit as terrible as he had imagined. His house was in a swamp , for goodness' sake! And it wasn't even one of the nice, mana-rich swamps of the southern regions. Lowing Swamp was a little accident of nature in the second world, a place that was devoid of real power but still full of life thanks to the climate. And all of that life, from plants that stank of rot to mosquitoes the size of fruit bats, was ugly and unpleasant. After establishing a small cottage for himself, arraying the proper spells around it, and purchasing a decent collection of books, Megimon couldn't even afford a set of robes that were up to the local standard. He'd been learning to embroider mana himself in the evenings, but he might as well have worn rags for all the pitying looks he earned when he ventured out in public. The poverty stung even more than usual lately. His great-great grand nephew kept offering him large sums of money in exchange for his help with the recent family trouble. If only a few chests of gold could have fixed matters! Coin and jewels from the first world were more worthless than a barrel full of de-winged pixies. Talent was currency here, and Megimon didn't have enough of it. He'd first arrived in the second world nearly fifty years ago, full of hope and swagger. But here he was in a swamp, stuck circle farming energy for twelve hours a day just so that he could afford to buy halfway decent tea for himself and his assistant. And Lutcha--a one-winged pixie of blessedly mild temper for her species--was once again clucking over the quality of said tea while she brewed some for both of them. “Shameful,” she said, spinning her small green fingers over the steaming tea bowls to call the ambient mana into them. “How you expect to become a Magus drinking this swill, I don’t know.” “The path to the third world is a long one,” Megimon grumbled. “You’re not on the path,” the pixie said with a snort. “You’re off by the side of the road gnawing at the weeds like a cow. You’ll die before your three-hundredth birthday at this rate. I hope you’ll remember to include me in your will.” “I will do no such thing, you expensive menace.” “And there you go again. Stupid human…thinking a pixie’s services ought to come cheap.” You’re only half a pixie , thought Megimon. But he’d never say it. Lutcha’s magic was unusually stable for a one-wing. Acquiring her services was the only real bit of luck he’d had since ascending to this magical plane. “What you should have done, if you’d any sense at all, was wait until you'd reached the peak of your sorcerership before coming to Avorlan. At least. Should’ve taken up a bit of demon summoning if necessary to boost your magic and trusted to the gateway to cleanse you of a little sin as you crossed over the threshold. But nooooo…you were too precious and pure for anything like that, and now you’re the weakest adult practitioner in the whole second world.” The pixie was about the size of a human toddler, too small to reach the top of Megimon’s work desk. She levitated the tea bowl over to rest on the dark wood beside one of the amplifying constructs he’d been tinkering with for months. He stared down into the bowl. The tea looked like any standard black tea from his former life, but it smelled like power. “I’m sure I’m not,” he said, a little disturbed now as he pondered Lutcha’s words. “Not what?” “I’m sure I’m not the weakest in the second world. One of them, perhaps. But I’m not the weakest.” The pixie, sitting on the floor with her spindly legs crossed, paused in the act of sipping her tea. “Well,” she said after a moment’s thought, “at the very least I shouldn’t have been snide about it.” “What? You mean I am the—” “The point for you to take away from all of this is that you should spend your time in study and magical contemplation,” said the pixie, “instead of gallivanting off to help your descendants every third minute. And you should buy better tea for my sake if not your own.” “It’s not a small matter I’m helping them with. There’s a very real risk that they’ll be wiped out.” “Poor them,” said Lutcha, without a trace of sympathy in her voice. “You just don’t understand humans,” said Megimon. “We don’t eat our own young if they’re born without power or skill.” Lutcha clucked her tongue. “That’s why so few of you make something of yourselves. Anyway, if you want to waste your time playing savior, your little tracking bauble has been going off for a couple of days now.” “What?” said Megimon, looking around in confusion. To his shock, the space on the bookshelf where he’d been keeping the Disc of the Sacred Fate was empty. “Lutcha!” “I threw it in the flycarp pond,” said Lutcha. “Nasty, noisy thing. I thought it would stop me from hearing that racket at all hours, but unfortunately, I’m attuned to it now. It’s ringing away. Must have found another dead child for you. How many is this now?” “Nine hundred forty-three,” said Megimon, standing up from the desk. “If it’s been damaged, I’ll rip off your wing and feed you feet first to a crocodile.” Lutcha's eyes, iridescent and faceted like an insect's, shone suddenly bright. "I would hold onto you," she said in a cold voice. "And I would drag you into the belly of the beast with me." Megimon stared at her. "Have fun finding lost souls and stuffing them into corpses!" the pixie said, her temper switching to chipper in an alarming instant. "Bring me back a present! I'd like a kitten. Or a goat." "I brought you a kitten last time, and I never saw it again. So no ." # A few minutes later, Megimon stepped out of a portal into the world of his birth. He stared up at the sun, blazing almost white in the sky overhead. He suddenly remembered, with an odd mix of pride and nostalgia, that this same sun had once been too bright to look at directly. Before he'd set out on his journey to greatness, he had only ever seen the lifegiving star out of the corner of his eye. To stare directly at a power much greater than your own was to blind yourself. But now his eyes beheld it as easily as they did the chaotic waves of magic rising from the ground like a heat shimmer. Strange , thought Megimon. Was there always a convergence on the outskirts of the Erberen? He had never actually visited this part of the world, but he thought he should have read about a place of power like this during the course of his studies. In his hands, the Disc of the Sacred Fate was ringing insistently. "Fine, fine..." Megimon sighed. "Let's find the soul and get on with it." In the distance, he saw the outline of a small settlement. That would be the most likely place. He shook the last few drops of pond water from the disc and shoved it into his flowing white robes before setting off. A spell speeded his steps. Megimon was sure this job would be done quickly, and he'd be back to his cottage before the bowl of tea on his desk went cold. After all, that was how it had gone the other nine hundred and forty-two times he'd done it. The family handled the more awkward and complicated parts of this nasty business. By now, Megimon's role in the process was more habit than hard work. Of course...the other nine hundred and forty-two times the high sorcerer had come to this world to steal a soul, the owner of it had already died.

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### Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Lizards

The shine lizards had no tails anymore. Instead of sunning themselves on the rocks, they hid in their burrows, peering out at the boy who hunted them. They had not known to be afraid of him before. He had visited them often in the past, and he did not smell like a predator. His scent was that of the desert wind, and why should they have feared the wind? Then, three days ago, something had changed. The wind had come for them. Clumsy at first, he had grabbed and pawed at them, catching one or two of the slowest. He'd ripped their tails from their bodies before releasing them. The lizards learned to fear him. They ran. The wind ran faster. He ran until he caught them all, every last one. The thoughts of the wind were unfathomable. His next actions were beyond their ken. So the lizards trembled in their burrows, staring with nervous yellow eyes as he dried their stolen tails atop their favorite sunning rock. He sat by the stream, toes dug into the mud as always, and when the night came this time, he did not leave. He did not sleep. He only stared off into the desert or up into the vastness of the night sky. When morning arrived, the lizards watched him collect their silver tails from the rock. They watched him swallow them one by one. # Elph lay on his back in the stream. It was just deep enough for the tepid water to run into his ears. The feeling was not unpleasant. It deafened him in a way that made him almost calm. The sun, arcing toward noon, shone down on his face. He closed his eyes. Then, he lay the damp straw doll on top of his chest, crossed his arms over it protectively, and waited to die. He had lived for months alone in the ruins of his house with no memories. A few days ago, that had begun to change. He had started to know all the things he didn’t want to know. He had started to feel all the pains he didn’t want to feel. He had suddenly understood so much about himself, and all of it was unbearable. He feared that the hungry thing would come again. He feared it would reach inside his soul again...to twist and use and take. Most of all, though, he feared waking up in the morning to discover a few more terrible truths about what had happened here, to everyone and everything he'd known and loved. Elph was not a brave boy. He did not want to be. He wanted to be erased. The flesh of the shine lizard was deadly poisonous. Maybe there was a reason that was one of the first things he'd been sure of after he'd... Maybe knowing about the lizards before he knew anything else was a sign. But Elph couldn’t bring himself to kill the creatures. His hands shook, and he vomited when he thought of doing it. Nothing else could die because of him. Then, a few days after the memories began their torturous return, a lone welcome one appeared in his mind. A man with a thick black beard and kind, bright eyes smiled down at a group of children sitting by the fire in the village center. He told them a story about the lizard god who lived on Mount Sayar in the distant heart of the Erberen. “To become one of the gods, a soul must escape the death fate intends for you twelve times,” said the man. “No one is meant to be an immortal. To defy the natural order, you must be willing to suffer greatly. The lizard knew all of this, for she was the cleverest of reptiles. And so, each time the death god found her and struck with his terrible golden blades, the lizard sacrificed her tail. She’d magicked it to twitch, like a snake in its final throes, and the god of death was tricked just long enough for the swift lizard to make her escape.” Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Eventually the lizard in the story escaped death so many times that she became a god herself. She lived on Mount Sayar now, and the death god had fallen in love with her. The shine lizards were their offspring. A solution to Elph’s problem had presented itself. He’d originally intended to eat only a single tail, but then he worried it might not be enough. Perhaps he deserved to suffer a long and painful death, but he didn’t want to. He wanted the death god to come for him as quickly as possible. And maybe, just maybe, since he had spared the lizards’ lives he would be taken away to the place where the others had gone. Elph remembered the others now. His mother, with her gentle, calloused hands His father, who laughed more than any man in the village. His sister. Fanna. She was eight. A year younger than Elph. He had tried so hard. He had tried to protect her. And because he had tried to protect her, she had died last and worst. Something monstrous had been inside him. Maybe it was still there, lying in wait. Elph hoped that the god of death's golden blades, those razor-sharp circles, would be strong enough to kill the monster, too. He trembled a little, his breath coming faster at the thought of dying even though he had chosen it. For a long while, nothing happened. Then, the first pain struck. It was a vicious cramp in one thigh, so agonizing that Elph’s eyes snapped open and he screamed, floundering in the muddy water. He sat up and beat on his leg with both fists, gasping, willing it to stop. “No, no, no!” he cried out in wild panic. He hadn’t known it would hurt this much. His parents and the other adults had never described the death the poison would bring to its victim. They had only assured him that it was certain for anyone who ate one of the lizards. Before he had mastered the first pain, the second and third came. His feet spasmed, one right after the other. He shrieked and stared at them in horror as they twisted, the toes and arches curving gruesomely. “Stop!” he screamed in terror. “Stop it!” Nobody can hear you. “Daddy! Mother! Please .” They’re dead. “Help me! Help!” They begged you, too. And you killed them. A strange wind howled over the Erberen for most of the afternoon, carrying the dying boy’s screams for miles. But the village was an isolated one. There was no help to be had. “Saints of the third heaven,” Megimon said hoarsely. He stared down at the twisted body of a young boy. “He’s still alive.” When Megimon first found him, he was sure the child was a corpse. Then he heard the faint, pained wheeze of a breath. He had no idea what to do. He had come here to collect a wandering soul. He was not in the business of stealing the spirits of the living! Besides that, the Disc of the Sacred Fate had been set to very specific parameters. That it had found this poor child meant something was wrong with the device. It was likely his soul wasn’t even the right type for the rehoming process. That damnable pixie . Lutcha must have done something to the Disc besides throwing it in the pond. The child needed healing, but Megimon was no healer. He was a scholar of spatial magic, especially portals and interplanar navigation. He could mend a skinned knee, but this was far beyond him. It looked like Kashwin’s Sting, and from what he knew of the infamous poison, there was no cure. Fortune had obviously forsaken this child. If he’d only fallen with his face in the shallow water, he would have drowned before suffering such a gruesome death. And if a peak-level sorcerer skilled in the healing arts had found him, instead of Megimon, he might have been saved. Had he stumbled upon a dying boy fifty years ago, Megimon would have known who to take him to at least. However, he wasn’t sure if there even was a healer in the first world right now who was powerful enough to reverse this much damage. That left only… Well, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad option. He looked around at the vacant desert. The villagers from the ruin nearby appeared to have been dead for months, and there weren’t any other settlements in the area. Not within a few leagues certainly. And there was hardly any plant life to speak of, so he wouldn’t need to worry about the taint spreading. “Hold on, boy,” said Megimon, pulling a long strand of misshapen crystals out of his robes. “If you can live a little longer, you might yet grow up. And you’ll get to meet a pixie, too. You'll have a frightening story for your grandchildren to disbelieve one day.” The sorcerer muttered curses to himself while he set up the summoning circle, wincing every time the child let out a weak sound of pain. Lutcha had placed Megimon in this dreadful predicament. She could be the one to get him out of it.

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