Chapter 1: Arrival

Timeline Position: Past
Era: 1st Century STT (Since Time-Traversal)
Year 87,001 ORT (Old Rebalyrion Time)

King Kronalyrr Sympa the First, Third King of the Rebalyrion Empire, groaned as he pushed himself up from the ground. He looked around him blearily, rubbing the gunk out of his eyes. When he could see clearly, he looked around him in wonder, as he was beset on all sides by an enormous jungle. He heard a rustling sound, and slowly turned towards the offending noise. What he saw nearly stopped his heart cold.

His beautiful wife, Jacquelyn, was crumpled on the ground, shivering uncontrollably. Kronalyrr stood up on shaky legs and promptly collapsed to his knees, forcing him to crawl over to his wife’s prone form.

When he got over there, he gently grasped her shoulders and gave a gentle shake.

“Wake up, my dear. We’ve arrived!” There was no response, however, just more shivering.

Kronalyrr shook her a bit harder, and repeated what he’d said a bit louder, a tad more frantic now. When she still didn’t wake up, he very carefully picked her up, and leaned against a tree. He cradled her against his chest, murmuring soft, comforting words, rocking her back and forth. He looked up, and saw the sun was directly overhead, shining with a soft yellowish light. He looked around him carefully, scrutinising the foliage in detail, trying to see if he could find anything he recognised. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see anything in the dark shade of the thick jungle, causing him to shuffle his wife around until she was comfortable, but not on him, so that he could take a closer look at the vegetation. He knew that even though him and his wife were immortal, they could still die of starvation and other causes, such as predators, terrain, or even infection from the slightest scratch. They may be immune to all disease, but unfortunately, that didn’t include infection from injuries. First things first, however. Night would soon be upon them, and they needed shelter from the elements and unknown wildlife. Thus, he set off in a circle around the clearing, looking for branches and large leaves.

By the time he had returned to his wife, he had gathered a ridiculous amount of branches and leaves, with the branches hovering in a large pile over his right shoulder, and the leaves doing the same over his left. This was due to having Ka’frund, or Telekinesis. He quickly put up a shelter next to an unusually large tree, at least compared to the surrounding trees. He tied it all together with some vines he had found while out collecting materials, and the shelter was finished. He quickly but gently moved Jacquelyn into the shelter, laying her down on the bed of leaves he had made. Kronalyrr checked the daylight outside, and saw it getting dark. He hurriedly gathered everything they had, which wasn’t much, just a large knife made of carbon steel, with a leather grip, and the clothes on his back. By that time, it had truly become night, so he went inside and laid down beside his wife, to try and sleep.

Falling asleep proved much more difficult than anticipated. The night time noises of nocturnal animals and insects were abrasive on the ears, and drove Kronalyrr mad with exhaustion. There was a rolling boom of thunder way off in the distance, foretelling of a massive storm on its way to make life miserable. He could hear the hoot of owls, the buzzing of various insects, and the wind. The ever constant wind. It drove him up the figurative wall, so he decided to go out and get a breath of fresh air. He crawled out of the makeshift shelter, standing up and cracking stiff joints and soothing his muscles. He looked up at the sky, and was pleasantly surprised to see an incalculative amount of stars. He tried to see if he could recognise any of them, and found that he couldn’t, at least not yet. There were only a small amount of stars visible, when you take into consideration that he was in a small clearing.

There was a sharp crack behind him, and he whipped around to stare at something behind the shelter. It seemed to be a person, but the silhouette vanished before he could call out to them. He looked more closely, walking over to the spot in a crouch. Kronalyrr looked down, and saw where a twig had been broken by someone stepping on it. He searched the area around the twig, finding nothing but dirt and leaves. Then, there was another loud crunch directly behind him, and as he started to turn, there was a hard thud to the side of his head, and he blacked out.

When Kronalyrr awoke, he tried to wipe his palms across his eyes, but found that his hands were tied behind his back, and his legs were also tied. He wasn’t gagged, however. He looked around, noticing that he was still in the clearing, it was the middle of the day, and his wife was tied up across from him. She was awake, and their eyes met. Her gaze flicked to his right, and he glanced that way, trying to see what she was looking at. What he saw shocked him.

There was an altar, engraved with blue runes seemingly glowing. On closer inspection, however, the lines were clearly painted on. There were three humanoid figures, roughly 4’5” in height, giving him a good 2 feet on them. When they threw back their cowls, it was revealed that they were young women, but unlike most of the women from his former Empire, these were obviously warriors, since he could see they each wore a short sword, a circular shield, a metal-studded leather breastplate which followed their curves, and metal greaves attached to leather leggings that did a fair job of protecting their modesty. They were just staring at him, ignoring his wife.

“What do you want? Let my wife and I go!” He demanded.

They continued to stare at him, but he noticed confusion showing in their eyes. He realized that they didn’t understand him. Who are these people? He mused. Strange. They look just like us, just shorter, but don’t understand the common tongue. Maybe if I try ... He spoke the Royal Tongue, and that got him the reaction he was looking for.

“Do you understand me?” Kronalyrr asked hesitantly.

“Y-yes, we do. I was not expecting you to know our language. How is it that you know how to speak it?” The middle warrior asked curiously.

“Your language? Goddess above, help me with this.” He muttered. “Well, before we get to that, I feel introductions are in order. I am King Kronalyrr Sympa, King of the Rebalyrion Empire, and this is my wife, Jacquelyn Sympa. Together we ruled our Empire for thousands of years, before it all fell apart.”

The three women shifted and sat down, confusion and curiosity warring across their faces. The warrior on the left motioned towards herself, “I am called Alleria, the one sitting next to myself is Muneras, and the last one goes by the name of Una. We are sisters. Together, we form the Tri’deri, which means Three Warriors. We wander the earth, searching for unnatural occurrences. One such as yourselves.”