Lore/Story Corrupted Memories: A Wynncraft Story (feedback Appreciated) (chapter 5 Has Been Posted!)

A young one-eyed mage wakes up on a carriage headed to Ragni with no memory of his past. What adventures await him in the province of Wynn?

Spoiler: Info

I was reading up on the lore, and came across Fruma, and how the mountains around it affect memories. Inspiration struck, and I wrote the first chapter of this.
This will be a story about a Mage character and his friends, and unlike Wynncraft woven into a cohesive narrative. Nothing ill meant, MMOs are meant to have hundreds of random plots that go nowhere, but I feel like the world has a lot of potential that's wasted.
I'll be using my own interpretations of the lore, along with some artistic licence (especially concerning the Corruption) so don't get your knickers in a twist if something doesn't line up exactly with the game.
I have a vague plan for where this is going, and hopefully I can stay motivated enough to get there in the end.
Enjoy!

Spoiler: Chapter 1: Awakening

I awoke to shouting.

“Wake up, recruits! Wake up, wake up!”

The owner of the voice, a female if I was correct, sounded ridiculously excited and loud. I heard shuffling around me, which I assumed meant that there were others she was also directing her orders at.

I opened my eyes groggily, sat up, and looked around. Then I started panicking. I was rather sure I should have more than one eye open, but my right one flatly refused to do anything. I lifted my hand to my face and tried to touch around the eye, but I felt nothing in my face and my hand told me the texture of my skin was wrong. It felt... charred.

Shit...

I was distracted from the eternal mystery of my facial features by another realisation.

I had no idea where I was. I was sitting in some sort of wooden carriage, tangled in a blanket. Through a gap I could see outside. We were in a valley, the mountains on either side reaching so far into the sky that I couldn’t see the top, the snowy mountain sides fading into a deep blue. It looked beautiful, but I had no memory whatsoever of falling asleep here. In front of the wagon I could see a middle-aged woman, presumably the one who woke me up. I think she was shouting something, but the combination of confusion and other noise kept me from noticing.

Then I had a realisation that horrified me more than my apparent lack of an eye. I couldn’t remember anything at all from before I woke up. Now that I thought about it, I marveled at how I hadn’t noticed earlier. I obviously had certain memories left, or I wouldn’t have known that I should have had two eyes, but where my mind should have been filled with memories of the past there was only a gaping void.

I opened my mouth to start shouting (a mix of questions and expletives), but was interrupted by the same voice I had heard earlier, having finally dropped her peppy tone.

“Everyone, calm down and SHUT UP!” The last two words hit me like a shock wave, leaving a heavy ringing in my ears afterward. The surrounding noise had completely stopped after her outburst. I realized it had probably been other people panicking too.

There’s no way she could have made that kind of noise herself. Must have been magic, I thought. Wait, how had I known that? Before I could think more about it, the woman started speaking again in a more quiet voice, having taken back her excited tone.

“Hi, I’m the Caravan Driver! You can call me Driver! I know you’re all confused, but I’ll try to answer most of your questions. I’ll be brief, but you can ask me more questions later. Is that okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, Driver continued.

“You are all citizens of the glorious province of Fruma. Our neighbors in the province of Wynn have been at war for centuries against a force called the Corruption, and you volunteered to be sent there to help! However, the mountains between our two provinces have an enchantment on them, making anyone who crosses them forget everything about their lives before crossing. This caravan is currently heading toward Wynn’s capital city, Ragni. Any questions?

The shouting started before she had finished speaking, descending into a cacophonous din within a few seconds.

“Stop talking.” Driver didn’t shout this time. She didn’t need to. Pointing at me, she said: “You! You didn’t start shouting! Ask me a question and I’ll see if I can answer it.”

I had a million questions, but I simply asked what was at the front of my mind.

“Who am I?” I noted my voice was a bit raspy.

She gave me a smile. “Sorry, I don’t know that. But I do know someone who does! You! Or at least you did. But before you left Fruma, all of you left messages and gifts for yourselves! I’ll go get them!” Driver walked over to the front carriage of the caravan and got out half a dozen sacks of various sizes before handing them out, one to each person, telling them their names as she went along.

“And this one is yours, Matt,” she said as she gave me a sack I noted had been the smallest of the bunch.

Matt. So that was my name. I tried saying it out loud, but I didn’t feel any recognition for it.

My curiosity took over and I opened the sack. Inside, to my dismay, was only a worn book and a length of wood about half a meter long. I looked inside the sack, even turning it inside-out, but there wasn’t anything more to find in it. I saw that most of the others had letters, presumably from themselves and loved ones they had left behind. I was rather miffed, but didn’t say anything.

The book was bound in leather and seemed to have been through a lot. I barely made out “Introduction to Magecraft” on the front. I started flicking through it, but paused. There was something written on the inside of the front cover. Unlike the rest of the text, it stood out clearly against the paper, like it had been added recently.

The only thing I didn’t want to forget.

I quickly leafed through the rest of the book for more messages, but there was nothing else except for a few notes written in the margins pertaining to the subject matter of the page.

I was starting to really not like the previous me. I was curious as to why half my face was burnt off, but I was apparently not getting any answers.

The other recruits were still looking through their things. I noted that each of them had gotten a weapon. The two girls sharing my carriage had a long spear and a bow, while the two guys in the other carriage had a bow and a dagger. I looked at the stick that had been included in my sack, turning it this way and that. It looked battered, probably as old as the book. A wand, most likely. The book must have described how it worked, but right now I didn’t even know how to hold it properly. I guessed I had known until recently, which would also explain why I recognized use of magic when I saw it.

With nothing better to do, I decided to get started on the reading.

An hour later, I knew how to hold my wand and was ready to start practicing. I tried to get up from my blankets, but stumbled. Driver saw me and came over.

“Slow down a little, kiddo! The Fruma mountains aren’t nice at the best of times, much less after-” She stopped suddenly. “Right. Sorry, can’t tell you that. Here, let me help you down.” She took my hand and led me down from the carriage via some steps.

I must have lost my right eye soon before leaving for Ragni if I hadn’t adjusted to the lack of depth perception yet.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Driver asked.

The question caught me by surprise.

“I don’t think so.” My voice was still raspy, but it was getting better. Driver laughed.

“Listen. Don’t worry about all of this. I’ve brought dozens of groups over these mountains, and most of them have been just fine. You should get some practice on your magic before we get going again, by the way. Trust me, you're gonna need it.”

She let go of me and started walking away.

“Why do you remember?” I asked her. It had been bugging me for a while now. If the mountains took people’s memories, how did she remember everything?

Driver stopped walking and gave me a sad smile. “Sorry, kiddo. Wish I could tell you.” And then she left.

After what would have been the most unsatisfying answer in history if not for the rest of today, I turned around. More questions swirled in my head, but I needed to clear them out if I was going to be able to do this. I grasped my wand in my right hand. It was much lighter than it looked, which might have had something to do with the magic embedded in it. In any case, it was very easy to hold. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

I closed my eyes and cleared my mind as Introduction to Magecraft had told me. It was easier than I thought it would be. Although the questions remained, there wasn’t much else to take up space. With the distractions gone, I could feel the flow of mana inside me. With some effort, I directed it to my wand. While it was possible to shape it into certain forms, right now I needed to get the basics down. I opened my eyes, pointed my wand at a nearby boulder, and used it to channel a decent fraction of my mana as pure force.

I felt the force leave my wand. This wand was a horribly inefficient channeling tool, but the force was still visible in the air as a ripple of distorted light. When it struck the boulder, the boulder exploded.

That wasn’t meant to happen. The book told me that the amount of mana I had channeled, the boulder should have at most gotten a small hole in it! But the gravel raining from the sky said otherwise. I marveled at the almost tangible feeling of power. That felt good.

A gasp behind me told me I had an audience. I turned around to see the four other recruits gaping at me while Driver looked on with the same sad smile.

“Oops?” I said, with what I would later realize to be the stupidest grin of my life plastered on my face.

Spoiler: Chapter 2: Learning

I closed my eye and turned my sight inwards. Feeling my mana inside me, I directed a tiny amount of it up through my arm. I carefully lined up my wand to point at a largish rock in front of me, still not used to only having one eye, before pushing the spark through the wand.

The rock shattered.

Damn it.

I sighed. While I had tried to practice controlling my blasts, it was difficult to get them any weaker than this. I had made progress, given that the rock was still recognizable as having been a rock, but I still needed to get better. While huge explosions could be very useful in combat, unless I wanted to kill literally everyone in the area I hit I would need to practice with smaller blasts.

Still, it felt amazing to see rocks break like that. The sense of power I got from it, and the knowledge that it was my power, made me feel unbeatable.

I tried to concentrate in order to fire another blast, but a throbbing headache made itself known. I tried to think of how long I’d been at this, but came up blank. That was probably a good sign to take a break, I decided and headed back to the caravan.

After my display with the boulder earlier, the other recruits decided it might be a good idea to start training as well. After all, as Driver had said, the five of us were technically soldiers. As I crested the hill between me and the caravan I saw two of the other recruits, Heather and Max, sparring.

At first glance the fight might have seemed unfair. Heather towered over her opponent, probably more than two meters tall, and built to match. Her blonde hair was tied back and she had an expression of concentration on her face as she readied her spear.

In contrast, Max was tiny. He was well over a foot shorter than Heather, and probably only half as wide. His face showed a determined, but notably more relaxed expression framed by red hair, and he held his dagger at his side.

However, while the fight might have looked skewed toward Heather, the reality was anything but. I didn’t know much, but I was pretty sure that was not how to use a spear. I guessed that due to a spear’s length keeping one’s distance was a must, but Heather was swinging it at her opponent. As I watched she hit Max under his arm with the shaft of the spear, making him wince, but he responded by grabbing it and and using it as leverage to put his dagger to her chest.

“Oh come on! That’s like the sixth time you’ve won!” Heather said after Max had disengaged.

“No offense, Heather, but I don’t think you know how to use a spear,” Max replied.

“What are you talking about? You didn’t know how to use that stupid dagger when you started either!”

“That’s different. Yeah, I didn’t know how to use a dagger when I woke up, but once I started practicing it was like I’d been using it my whole life. Which I probably did, before. You don’t seem like you’ve ever used a spear.”

“But I must’ve used a spear before, right? Why else would I have one in my bag? I just need some more practice!”

“Fine. Your funeral, I guess. You might want to learn before we need to start properly fighting, though.”

“I will! And then I’ll beat your sorry ass!” Heather said before flinging herself at Max, spear at the ready. He sidestepped her, used her momentum to push her to the ground despite her far larger build, grabbed hold of her by the hair, and held his dagger to her throat again.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Heather! I hardly even needed to think about doing that and I still beat you.”

“Shut up! I just need to train more!”

“He’s right, you know,” I interrupted quietly. “I didn’t even know how to hold my wand at fir-”

“Shut up!” Heather shouted at me and stormed off.

Max sighed and turned to me. “You’re Matt right? Pleasure to meet you.”

He held out his hand and I took it.

“Nice to meet you too,” I said.

“Hey, what’s got her so mad?” I turned around to see the two bowmen, Ava and Drew, come out from the copse of trees where they had been practicing their archery. They were both rather short, with Drew being the stockier of them. Ava had her long black hair tied in a braid.

As I turned around, Ava flinched.

“Have you guys had any luck relearning archery yet?” Max asked.

“Yeah, loads. Why?” Ava replied, eyeing me. Or more accurately, the right side of my face.

“Heather hasn’t made any progress on relearning how to use her spear, and she’s being too stubborn to realize it,” Max told her.

Ava chuckled. “Sucks to be her, I guess.”

“I don’t think it’s that she’s bad at it though. She seemed to have good technique, but her spear really didn’t complement it.”

I added, “We think she’s gotten the wrong weapon somehow.”

“Huh. Hope she manages to fix that,” Drew said. He looked thoughtful for a second before cracking up. “Would probably be funny to watch though.”

Max frowned, but kept silent as Drew and Ava headed off toward the caravans where Driver was snoozing. He sighed. “Great. I don’t have a sparring partner now.” He turned to me. “Do you mind filling in?”

I winced. “Sorry, I’d kill you.”

Max laughed. “You could try!”

“No, seriously. I haven’t figured yet out how to properly control my attacks. If I hit you, you’d die.”

Max’s laughter dies down. “Ah. You meant it like that.”

We stood there in awkward silence until I decided to follow Drew and Ava, leaving Max alone.

---

“Hey, kiddo!” I looked up to see Driver walking toward the carriage I was sitting in. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” I replied, not looking up from Introduction to Magecraft.

She laughed. What was it with her and her laughing? “Just checking up on you. We’re setting off in an hour, so be ready to leave by then!”

Then she walked off. I would have been more polite, but I was currently reading about healing magic, which I felt trumped pleasantries in importance. I was trying to learn a healing spell the book told told me was very simple, but if too much mana was funneled into it... there was an illustration of the effects. They were not pretty. I thought I had the theory down, but I really didn’t want to try it out unnecessarily.

A few minutes later I decided to try something else. I wouldn’t make any more progress on the spell without practice, but that was out of the question at the moment. As I flicked through the book, looking for something useful to learn, I glanced up and saw something lying on a shelf. An idea came to mind as I grabbed it and headed out. I needed to talk to Max.

---

Heather was practicing with her spear in the forest. She was holding it wrong and she knew it, but no matter how much she fiddled with it the spear never felt right. She tried a stab, but it just felt awkward.

This wasn’t right! She was a warrior! She knew how to fight, she just needed to figure it out!

In frustration, Heather tried to throw the spear at a tree. It flipped around in the air and hit the tree sideways, clattering to the forest floor.

Heather screamed her anger at the sky.

As her voice was running out, she heard a thunk behind her. Turning around, she saw that something had somehow been dropped there without her noticing anything. She went to see what it was, and was surprised to see it was a small metal hammer.

Heather tried to pick it up to look at it closer, but as her fingers closed around the handle, something clicked. Heather marvelled at the feeling, swinging the hammer around. She knew what Max had been on about now. This felt, while not perfect, far better than the spear had been.

She laughed with delight.

Further away, Max and I watched her swing the hammer around with a look of absolute glee on her face. Max gave me a thumbs up and we both slipped away back to the caravan, leaving Heather to enjoy her newfound weapon.

---

Half an hour later, the caravan was ready to leave, but Heather hadn’t come back yet. We were just about to go get her when she came out of the forest, still holding her hammer. The spear was nowhere in sight.

“What’s got you so happy?” Max shouted.

“Shut up!” Heather yelled back before getting into a different carriage. With that, we set off toward Wynn and whatever lay there.

Spoiler: Chapter 3: Goodbyes

Something I quickly learned about horse-drawn carriages: They are slow.

We’d started driving many hours ago, and the sky was just getting dark, but it felt like we’d hardly moved any distance at all. Heather had gotten impatient, run up to the front carriage and asked why we were going so slowly. Driver had laughed and told her that the horses would tire out if they went any faster. Heather was currently sitting on the outside of her carriage, cradling her hammer and looking bored. Max was inside the carriage, having switched with Ava a few hours ago. Heather had forgiven him for beating her after the first time we stopped, when she had soundly beaten his sorry ass with her hammer.

Meanwhile, Drew, Ava, and I were in the other carriage. Ava was still rummaging through her sack. She’d gotten dozens of letters from herself, and was still trying to work through them all.

I was sitting at the back of the carriage, alternately leafing through Introduction to Magecraft’s chapter on elemental infusion and watching what barely qualified as a road pass by. I heard some shuffling behind me as Drew came and sat next to me, joining me in my boredom.

“Hey,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Drew.”

“Nice to meet you, Drew,” I said almost automatically, still staring at a rock that had made the carriage jump. After a few seconds, I added “I’m Matt.”

It seemed like Drew had expected me to carry on the conversation, as he proceeded to sit next to me in silence for several minutes.

I was in the middle of reading about the properties of elemental fire for the third time, still not taking it in, when he asked me, “How are you?”

“Fine,” I replied.

A few minutes later I decided that this pathetic excuse for a conversation had gone on for long enough, and to try to repair it. I had little better to do.

“Have you ever used magic?” I asked Drew.

“Can’t remember,” he replied.

“Oh. You should try, it can be really useful.”

“Okay.”

And with that, the conversation resumed dying a slow death. Eventually I came up with something else to say.

“That tree looks like a top hat.”

I never said I thought of something intelligent to say. To my surprise, Drew laughed.

“Yeah, it does!”

“How do we even know what a top hat looks like?”

“I have no idea.”

“I guess we must have known about them… before. It’s weird how some information sticks around and some doesn’t.”

“Yeah.”

And then our conversation lost any momentum it had. We sat in silence for couple more minutes until Drew said, “Top hats are weird.”

“They are,” I said.

We talked like that for hours. Brief bursts of discussion of utterly random things intermingled with minutes of awkward silence while watching the road pass by under us. Resuscitating the conversation on the brink of death every time.

It was a nice feeling, having a friend.

---

I watched from a carriage as the trees slowly moved past us. The sun was shining into the valley for once, and the way it made the trees glow was absolutely breathtaking, only slightly spoiled by the way the road was making the carriage shake. The sun itself had been beautiful too at first, but I’d learned that looking even in the vague vicinity of it with only one eye was not fun.

We had been on the road for three days now, only stopping to let the horses rest and to sleep, and we still hadn’t gotten out of the narrow valley us recruits had woken up in. I’d made progress in reducing how much mana I used in my spells, but I still wasn’t close to a low enough level that I’d ever use it with allies nearby. I had tried some other spells I’d found in Introduction to Magecraft, but none of them were any weaker than my basic force spell.

I lost my train of thought as the carriage stopped. Strange. We’d started going again just an hour ago, so there should have been no reason to stop now. After a few minutes of still not moving, I jumped out of the carriage and walked up to the front of the caravan. Drew took my lead and followed me, and Ava followed the both of us.

In front of the head carriage there was a huge wooden gate, in the middle of a stone wall covering the entire width of the valley. It looked like it had been there forever, standing far taller than even the highest of the trees with its stone weathered and cracked in places, but still looking like it could hold back an army.

Driver was arguing with a group of guards in chain-mail armour. I took in their appearances with some interest. Both were men, covered in metal except for their faces. On their chests they had some symbol I didn’t know. What struck me most was that they seemed intimidated by the short woman standing in front of them. I noted that Heather and Max were already here.

“What do you mean we can’t pass?” Driver said with a note of frustration in her voice.

“W-what we mean, m-miss, is that we have orders to not let anyone but new recruits pass through the gate. From g-general Hammond himself!” One of the soldiers stuttered.

“Why then? I am the Caravan Driver. I have always been allowed through here, Steve,” Driver said with an impatient tone.

“W-we don’t know! He didn’t tell us!” Steve replied quickly.

Driver sighed and turned to us. The two soldiers seemed to only now notice that there were more people than Driver. A twinge of annoyance flared up when both of their gazes gravitated toward my face. This was apparently going to be a regular thing.

“Listen up, recruits! These numbskulls aren’t letting me pass, and I’d really prefer to not escalate this diplomatic incident further than it already is. So you’re gonna have to walk the rest of the way!”

Ava and Drew groaned.

“Oh, toughen up!” Driver said, her smile back on her face. “You’re soldiers! You can handle this! It’s not even that far. Now go pack everything you need to bring with you, because I’m taking everything else with me back to Fruma!”

---

Half an hour later, we were ready to go. I’d had very little to pack, just my sack with Introduction to Magecraft stuffed inside it and my wand. In terms of clothes, I only had the one robe I was wearing. I would have had more if my previous self hadn’t been an utter idiot, but I guessed that I’d have to make do. Meanwhile, Ava had trouble carrying her sack due to how full it was. She said it was only important stuff, but I could swear I had seen a dress in there. I didn’t blame her though. It was important to her, and she was reluctant to leave anything of her old life behind. I’d have brought everything too if I had anything more.

We watched the caravan head back along the way we had come, having already said goodbye to Driver. It was strange, knowing I would probably never see her again. I had gotten used to only knowing about five other people, and now one of them was gone. I glanced over at the two soldiers by the gate, who still seemed tense. Once the caravan was a sufficient distance away, they visibly relaxed and led us to a smaller door to the side of the gate.

“Sorry about all that,” Steve said.

“She freaks us out,” continued the other guard.

“Why?” asked Max. “She’s really nice.”

“We’re not allowed to talk about it. Wynn and Fruma have a weird relationship, and that’s all you need to know.”

With that, Steve knocked on the door, which promptly opened to reveal a rather cosy room on the inside of the wall. The two guards led us through a few rooms with the occasional guard, finding their way through the labyrinthine corridors inside the wall with ease. The wall was much wider than it had seemed on the outside, taking us a few minutes to get through.

“I don’t expect you remember anything about Fruma?” I was surprised to see that Steve was looking at me when he said that.

“No.” I answered candidly. Steve groaned.

“No, of course you don’t. Why do I even ask anymore.”

We arrived at another door, which the other guard opened to let us out the other side of the wall.

“Just continue on the road and you’ll find Ragni. Signs are everywhere, you can’t miss it. Oh, and welcome to Wynn.”

And with that, Steve closed the door, leaving us alone. I took in the scenery. The Fruma Wall had been situated at the lip of the narrow canyon-like valley we had been in since waking up, which opened up into a much wider valley on this side. The sun was properly showing here, bathing the crop fields in a golden glow. Various houses placed haphazardly across the valley, and there were many of them on the ledges of the mountainsides for some reason. A path snaked through the valley, eventually going around a bend in the valley to the left.

I jumped as I heard unfamiliar sound. I looked down to see some sort of small white-feathered bird with a yellow beak and no wings. No, wait, it had wings. They were flush with its sides. It made that bizzare sound again. I was like an anatheropterix’s squawk, but also different. I looked back to see the others still looking around, except Heather, who looked bored. Another one of the birds had walked up to Max, who was petting it with a smile on his face.

In the end, Ava took the lead.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

She started walking, a bit slowed due to the weight of her sack, and the other three and I followed her.

“I can take some of the stuff in your sack,” Max offered.

Ava sighed in relief and promptly gave him her whole sack. He tried to give her his in return, since it was much lighter, but she had already started walking again. Without saying anything I took Max’s sack, put mine in it, and threw it over my shoulder. Max gave me a grateful smile before the both of us ran to catch up with Ava, Heather, and Drew.

We were off to Ragni.

Spoiler: Chapter 4: Liars

The sun was going down past the valley rim as we walked down the rough dirt road to Ragni, fields of wheat to either side. Ava was out ahead, impatient to arrive. She was going quickly, but was frustrated by how us others were lagging behind her. Max and Heather were walking next to each other at a slow pace, with Max still slowed down by Ava’s bag. While Max was stronger than Ava, her bag was still rather heavy. I was getting used to Heather’s height at this point, but I still found it humorous to see her tower over Max like that. At the back were me and Drew. He had quickly realized that he got burned quickly in sunlight, and had put up the hood of his cloak to avoid it. I had found that just walking was incredibly boring, so I amused myself with occasional bursts of conversation with Drew.

“What does my face look like?” I asked him suddenly. “I haven’t had a mirror to check it.”

“The burned part?” Drew replied. “I dunno. Like part of your face got charred and melted off.”

“I wonder what caused it,” I said.

“I dunno.”

Silence returned before being broken by a loud clucking.

“Do you recognize these birds?” I asked him, referring to the weird white anatheropterix-like birds that were wandering around pretty much everywhere in the area.

“No.” He answered. “What do you think they’re called?”

“Bet they’re called something ridiculous. Like grooks.” I said, just keeping my laughter in. Drew was less successful.

“Hello there!”

I was surprised by the new voice. I looked around and saw an old man in one of the fields, coming toward us. He looked to have been tending the crops before greeting us, judging by the equipment behind him.

“You must be the new recruits from Fruma!” He continued.

“Yeah, why?” Ava answered.

“The sun’s going down. If you go to the right at the crossroads up ahead you’ll find a village to spend the night in.”

“Thanks,” Ava said before frowning.

“Why are you telling us this?” Drew asked.

The farmer shrugged.

“You’re new here. You looked like you needed some directions, and the inn there’s free for Ragni soldiers,” he said before going back to his crops.

Ava looked thoughtful.

“It is getting pretty dark. We probably won’t get to Ragni today, so we’ll need a place to sleep unless we walk through the night.” She said, half to herself. She turned to us. “Okay! Let’s stay the night in that village! Any disagreements?”

Heather spoke up, “I’m not tired.”

“But I am. And I bet the others are too.” Ava countered.

“I can confirm that.” Max said. Heather glared at him.

“Let’s put it to a vote!” Ava suggested. “Everyone for continuing raise your hand.”

Only Heather put her hand up.

“Then it’s settled. We stay the night at this village, and continue to Ragni in the morning.”

And with that she turned around and resumed walking, the rest of us following her.

About half an hour of bored trudging later we came across the crossroads the farmer had been talking about. The road split in two, with a sign in the middle showing the way to Ragni down the left path and to what I presumed to be the town, Borlouc, down the smaller right path. We went right, with Heather following reluctantly behind.

---

“It’s getting pretty dark,” I said. The sun had gone down hours ago; it didn’t help that we could hardly see the sky due to the forest we were walking through, having left the grook plains behind a while ago. “We should have reached Borlouc by now.”

“We’ve got to be close now! It’s probably just over this hill!” Ava replied with a stressed voice. She rushed to crest the small hill ahead of us, a fair bit higher than the surrounding trees.. As she reached the top she visibly deflated.

Damn it, I thought.

As the rest of us reached the top, we saw why she’d had the reaction she did. There was no village in sight, and the path, illuminated only by the stars, kept going through the thick forest as far as we could see.

“We must have taken the wrong path somehow!” Ava exclaimed.

“How?” Drew asked her, a little annoyed. “There weren’t any wrong paths to take!”

“Trust me, you’re exactly where you need to be,” a female voice I didn’t recognize said.

I turned toward the source of the voice to see a group of people standing only a little bit down the hill from us, but it was too dark to see them clearly. Suddenly a light flashed. It wasn’t very bright, but my eye was adjusted to the darkness and I was forced to avert my gaze. After a few seconds I looked up to see a bald man with a large nose holding a wand aglow with a soft white light. Next to him stood a short-haired woman in leather armour, wielding some sort of jagged sword.

Behind them were half a dozen other men and women, all carrying weapons at the ready.

“Your possessions or your lives,” the woman said with a smirk.

Shit.

Only Heather and I had our weapons out. The others had theirs in their bags, and only Drew was carrying his own bag. I looked over to him, but he seemed to be too paralyzed in fear to be able to get his bow and arrows. Heather looked ready to smash the bandits’ faces in, but I didn’t like her odds against all these people without any armour. I might have been able to beat these bandits, but certainly not without killing most of them, and I didn’t want to do that for a variety of reasons. Not to mention an archer would probably shoot me before I managed to take them out, and I didn’t know any defensive magic.

Letting them take our things wasn’t an option either. Even if the rest of us were willing to part with our things, which I was quite sure we weren’t, there was no chance that Heather would give them hers without a fight.

A second later I got an idea. A ridiculous idea, but I thought it might work. I took a deep breath, disguising it as a sigh.

“Highwaymen. Just my luck.” I said with an exasperated voice, hoping the bandits wouldn’t pick up on the light shaking in it. I noticed Heather move, but Max held her back, eyeing me.

“Shut up and give us your things, and no one will get hurt,” the bandit leader said threateningly. She raised her sword and stepped toward us, followed by her minions. “Don’t try to pretend you can beat us, Scarface. Drop your wand. Now.”

“I’d hoped not to have to kill anyone today. I’ve hardly had any sleep.” I continued, trying my best to keep my voice steady, even a little bored. It didn’t go very well, and I had to suppress a at my bad acting.

The leader dropped her smile and readied her sword for a strike. “Don’t try to bluff us, you little-” She was interrupted by me sending a blast of red-tinged force her way. I had poured a significant amount of mana into the spell, but hopefully it would do the trick.

The blast passed through the crowd of bandits without hitting anyone, only passing within a few meters of the leader.

The leader turned back to me and sneered. “You mi-”

I resisted fistpumping as the spell hit the forest behind them. Dozens of trees were blown apart and far more were set aflame by the elemental fire I’d infused into the spell. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to aim properly, but I’d hit exactly where I had intended to. As the bandits gaped at the devastation I had wrought, a small orange mushroom cloud billowing up from the crater where my spell had hit, I spoke again and pointed my wand at her, the air around the tip distorted by the power of another spell, ready to fire.

“Leave me and my friends alone, and I won't kill you all.”

I tried to keep a relaxed-sounding voice, but a bit of adrenaline crept into it, making me sound almost giddy. The leader looked at me, anger and fear in her eyes, before ordered her men to flee into an intact part of the forest.

I won’t lie, that felt incredible. I looked at the raging forest fire surrounding a crater the size of a house. I remembered the look of fear in the bandit leader’s eyes. How they all had run.

That was me. I did that.

I started laughing. That feeling…

I felt invincible.

I turned to my friends, still laughing. To my surprise, they looked at me in horror. I was confused for a second, but then I noticed that only Drew was looking at my face, and the others were looking at my stomach. I looked down to see a feathered shaft sticking out and my black robe reddened with blood.

“Oh,” I said calmly before collapsing on the ground as the others rushed toward me.

Spoiler: Chapter 5: Title pending

I awoke slowly, gradually ascending from the depths of unconsciousness. I lay there for a while before eventually getting bored. I tried to open my eye, but was forced to close it again because of the light. I sat up and tried again, this time letting it adjust to the light. I was in a building, I could see that much. Wooden. On a very soft bed. Light was shining in from a small window situated above my feet. I was forced to lie down again by a sharp pain in the back of my head.

“Hey! He’s awake!”

I looked toward the voice, seeing that Max was sitting next to my bed.

“What happened?” I asked. “Are we in Borlouc?”

Max snorted.

“Turns out Borlouc doesn’t exist. That farmer was probably working with those bandits to lure us into a trap.”

“Where are we then?” I paused as I remembered something and looked down at my stomach. There was blood everywhere, but not a wound in sight. “And what happened to that hole in my stomach?”

“After your little show with the bandits, Heather thought it would be a good idea to pull that arrow out. That just made it worse, and we ended up running back the way we came for an hour with Heather carrying you until we found a house. Luckily the villager living here knew some healing magic.”

Max leaned closer to me and dropped his smile.

“Please don’t pull something like that again. You were very close to bleeding out. I’d much rather lose my stuff than a friend.”

“Do you really think Heather would have gone along with that?” I replied.

Max chuckled. At that point Drew, Ava, and Heather walked in, Heather having to bend down slightly to fit through the doorway.

Ava charged at me and enveloped me in a hug before backing off.

“Thanks for saving us,” she said sheepishly. “I’m sorry for leading us there.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “We all chose to go that way.”

Heather gave me a look.

“Except Heather,” I corrected.

“I told you going that way was a bad idea,” she said with a hint of smugness.

“It was, but not for the reason you said,” Ava told her.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Drew stood in a corner, saying nothing. Then a man walked in. At least, he looked somewhat like a man. His head was far taller than anyone else’s I’d seen, and completely bald apart from a thin band circling the back of his head. A single huge eyebrow sat right above his eyes. His most distinguishing feature, though, was his nose. It was incredibly large, and drooped down in front of his mouth.

The man caught me staring at his nose, looked at me, and grunted. I quickly looked away.

“I’ll excuse you this time, boy, but you’ll want to learn not to stare at a villager’s nose in the future,” he told me, annoyed. “My name is Gelford, and you have me to thank for your life.”

“Villager?” I asked. I knew the word, of course, but the way he had said it made it seem like it had some further meaning. Max had mentioned it earlier too.

Gelford sighed exasperatedly and rolled his eyes. “Frumans…”

“Ho-” I began before being interrupted by Max.

“Villagers are an intelligent species living in Wynn alongside humans, having arrived in the continent a century ago from another one.”

“Thank you, recruit. I do despise having to repeat myself.” Gelford said to Max. “Now, you were very lucky to have been injured rather close to me. I am one of the few people in the Ragni Outskirts who knows healing magic, and you would not have survived going much further.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome, I’m only happy to help new recruits. Now, when will you be leaving?”

“We’ll be leaving as soon as Matt is back on his feet,” Ava butted in.

“Ah, good. He will be a tad disoriented, but he should be good to go within a few hours.” Gelford replied. “For now we can only let him rest.”

With that, the other recruits filed out. Max stopped in the doorway and looked back at me for a second before going with the others, leaving me alone with Gelford.

I saw my bag on the floor and reached out, planning to read for a bit to make use of the resting time, when Gelford spoke up again.

“What are you?”

I was taken off guard by the question. “Excuse me?”

I looked up to see Gelford staring at me with an analyzing look.

“Your friends told me what you did, but I heard that explosion of yours from here. That kind of power does not come to novices. It is not your wand, I checked it and there was nothing special about it. Incredibly inefficient, being honest, making your feat all the more impressive. So tell me, boy, what are you, and how do you have power comparable to mages who have been doing nothing but honing their power for centuries?”

I opened my mouth, about to say something along the lines of how it couldn’t be that special, or I’d probably already had training in Fruma, but paused. Those bandits had been terrified of me, and they’d had their own mage with them, who was far older than I was. And Introduction to Magecraft said nothing about the levels of power I had casually achieved.

“I don’t know. I’ve had that power since I came here.” I answered him.

Gelford sighed.

“Of course not. That damned memory barrier.”

He stood up and turned to leave, but turned his head as he was walking out.

“I’d be careful if I was you. Great power very rarely comes without a cost.”

And with that, I was alone.

---

A few hours later I was able to stand up, and then we left. Notably, everyone was carrying their own weapons now. The incident with the bandits had taught them to be prepared or suffer the consequences.

Gelford had pointed us back to the road to Ragni, and within the hour we were back to the crossroads. The sign the Borlouc was gone. I tried to strike up a conversation with Drew a few times, but he looked very apprehensive and they fizzled out within seconds. I eventually let us walk in silence.

Hours later, we reached a gorge. The road ended with a dead end leading right up to it, and looked to continue on the other side. In the gorge below were the remains of what had once been a bridge.

A sign stood right by the road, reading “BRIDGE OUT. WAY TO RAGNI THROUGH THE MINES.”

“You guys think this was why the caravan got stopped?” Max asked.

“Might have been,” Drew replied. “But why were they so secretive about it?”

“Never mind that!” Ava said. “Let’s go through the mines!”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” Drew said.

“What other choice do we have here? Jumping?”

“Maybe Matt knows some spell that could get us over?”

“I don’t,” I interjected. The Introduction had referenced so called Movement Spells a few times, but hadn’t actually contained any due to the perceived danger to novice mages.

“See, Drew? We go through the mines. Any objections?” Ava looked at us, but no one had any objections.

Drew kept quiet, and Ava led the five of us back along the way we came until we found a sign pointing to the mines.

---

The mine entrance wasn’t particularly exciting. It was little more than a cave mouth in the side of a cliff, with a wooden barricade put up in it, and a large tent outside. Three guards in armour stood in front of the barricade, spears in their hands and bored expressions on their faces. I decided to pull up the hood of my robe to conceal my scar. I was tired of dealing with it by this point.

As we approached, the middle one, a woman, saw us and perked up.

“Recruits! Where’ve you been? You were expected here yesterday!” she told us when we got close.

“We got sidetracked.” Ava replied. That was technically the truth, I guess.

“Never mind, never mind. We have more important things to deal with. I’m afraid the mines are impassable at the moment. The Corruption has spread there, and now it’s filled with undead. You’ll have to wait until we’ve cleared them out.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the Corruption?” I asked. Driver had mentioned it at one point, but hadn’t gone into any detail.

The guard looked at me for a second, her eye twitching, before closing her eyes and breathing heavily. Her two fellow guards laughed at her reaction.

“Caesar, Marcus, shut up. As for you, I am not dealing with this. You’ll be briefed in detail once you get to Ragni. For now, just know that it’s a force from another dimension that creates hostile undead.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You get why we need all the help we can get?” she said, a hint of condescension appearing on her face for a second. “In any case, you should wait here until reinforcements arrive in a few days.”

“Can’t we fight our way through the zombies?” Heather asked. She sounded almost excited.

The guard hesitated for a moment before answering.

“Well, maybe. The undead here are weak because of the early stage of Corruption, but you’re rookies! You haven’t even got proper equipment!”

“We can defend ourselves.” Ava insisted. “We know how to fight. We’re still soldiers, right?”

The guard looked hesitant for a moment before sighing.

“Fine. You can go. We can’t come with you, but I’ll give you directions to Ragni. Wait out here.”

With that she entered the tent, leaving the five of us with the two other guards, Marcus and Caesar.

“Ava, this a bad idea,” Max said. “We should wait, it’s just a few days.”

“What are you talking about? It’ll be fun!”

“Stop being stupid, Ava! Risking our lives over shaving a few days off our journey? Fun?”

“I’d also prefer to not put myself at risk of death for no reason,” Drew added.

Ava huffed. “We’re late as it is, and it’ll get us some combat practice before getting to Ragni. Imagine what they’ll say when they find out a group of new recruits fought through here by themselves! That guard even said that the undead are really weak here.”

“We don’t have a deadline, Ava. We aren’t in a hurry.”

“I’d don’t know about you, but I’d like to get to Ragni sooner rather than later. How about a vote? Everyone for waiting?” Ava said, turning away from Max. Max and Drew raised their hands.

“There we go,” Ava said, a smile on her face. “L-”

“Everyone for going through the mines now?” Max asked, interrupting Ava.

Ava looked a bit miffed at being interrupted, but raised her hand along with Heather.

I suddenly realized they were all looking at me. The tiebreaker.

I was conflicted. One the one hand, the mines were probably dangerous and unnecessary. On the other… I got to fight undead. I thought back to the bandits. The explosion. The mushroom cloud of fire. I wanted to exert that power. My power.

“Through the mines,” I said.

“Told you!” Ava whooped.

“This is a really bad idea,” Max told me.

“I’m powerful, and you guys know how to fight too. We can handle some zombies,” I answered as the female guard came back out of the tent, holding a map.

We were finally getting close to Ragni.

If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer unless the answer involves spoilers.

This is my first proper writing project, so any feedback is appreciated. What you liked, what you didn't. Is my writing good? Bad? how could it be better? What's your impression of the characters? Are they interesting? Boring? If so, why? Anything helps, positive or negative. Thanks!

 

The way how you implement the amnesia without actually mentioning the amnesia is an unexpected and spectacular writing in my eyes when I read it, will you make more?

 

I like it
It’s nice

 

Thanks! I might continue this if I get a good idea for where to go next. I have a few ideas, but I'd like them to stew a bit before continuing.

 

So, my only question is, are you basing the recruits off the different classes (in the story the mc being a mage and the other recruits in the caravan being other classes) if yes, there is five recruits... so I’m confused

 

Not all the recruits are planned to be important. While they all belong to a certain class, they don't represent a certain class. I have at least one from each class so I can pick and choose who I want to use later (I'll probably use the male archer for example), but there's not meant to be some sort of fifth class or anything.

 

Ah, thanks for clearing up

 

Chapter 2 is up! Feel free to post any feedback you have.

 

Chapter 3 has been posted! Again, any feedback at all is really appreciated, please post it here if you have any, good or bad.

 

Chapter 4: "Liars" is up! If you read it, please post your impressions of what's good and bad.

 

very interesting. i like lores and something similar

 

Thanks, I'm glad you like it! Was there anything specific you liked? Was there anything you didn't like, that you think could be better? I'm trying to improve my writing, so any feedback helps!

 

Chapter 5 is up! Less action in this one, and more character stuff.

Again, I'm grateful for any feedback on the story. Enjoy!

 

Very good start I only have two comments/criticism. one the use of strong language seems a bit excessive you could likely easily be able to use more descriptive language. To tie into this, although you have a very good use of diverse vocabulary, it seems that the scenery is a bit under described. While You are able to see this story clearly in your mind we cannot, making it your job to accurately and engagingly portray the picture to us.

As for continuing the story, the lore by grain describes Fruma as "the populous homeland of the human race in Wynncraft, led by powerful magic wielding monarchs. These magical capabilities were withheld from the general population, and were considered far more powerful than that of Wynn's."

Again to quote Grain, now from his lore on the twains

"Often when a gifted child is born to the world, they are feared, and often hidden, abandoned, or worse. However, Marius Twain, an immensely old wise warlock sought these children, and gave them shelter in his family manor, located in a secluded pocket of land where they could seek refuge."

since you have given Matt such powerful magic and magic is virtually outlawed in Fruma, Given Matt's personality and his possessions he is likely an outlaw in Fruma and even have committed great atrocities there. Why he is on the caravan to Ragni, could be that he was running, and posed as a recruit to get away and the others did not know his identity on the way there. How his face got so burned, is a decision I will leave to the writer to decide.

None of these ideas need to be implemented at all, I will leave all the decisions to you the writer

One last suggestion Is to try to use a more ordered formatting of paragraphs to make reading easier. although it is rather hard to do that on here as I have found out.

I hope this helps you, I will follow this and watch it grow.

Captanredbeard

 

Thank you! I'll try to be more descriptive in the future.

On the lore and Matt's past in Fruma: Don't worry, I've thought about it, but that's spoilers right now. I will say that due to us knowing very little about Fruma, I have made my own interpretation of it.

 

Put this in suggestions!

 

Excuse me? Why should I do that? It's a story, not a suggestion.

 

Yea to put the story in the game some how!

 

Yeah, no. Just no. Although I'd be honoured if they did, they're not going to put my learning-to-write project in the game. They're just not. There isn't a scenario I could think of where putting this in the game would be a good idea, and I doubt I'll ever even get on their radar anyway. Asking for it to be put into the game seems like the most pretentious, stuck-up thing ever. "Hey I'm writing a fanfiction of your game could you put it in the game please?"

I am pleased you seem to like it though. Thanks.

 

If you want help I can be your editor (Though I don't do it as a job or hobby, I know enough to make what is here look like a novella.)
If you don't know what an editor is here is an explanation.
Editor: noun. A person who tells an Author (you) to make changes to your writing to make it look nicer have better formatting and grammar, and tells you that you have told something totally wrong and it needs to be changed.

If you take up my offer please message me instead of posting a reply.