Rough Awakenings

Thrown in a cell, waiting for a death sentence. Think fast, act fast.

Plot

# **Setting** The Empire of _Thalanmoor_ is young, still in its infancy. The _Emperor Grushnar_, a former General of the Thalanmoor kingdom, conquered realm after realm at the head of the Iron Legions, the tip of the spear of Thalanmoor's military. After crushing enemies, rebels and resistances alike with cruel methods, he turned toward his own country, deposed the king, and elected himself Emperor, forcing the state religion to recognize him as Voice of God. The cuts are fresh, the skin still raw. Resistance still organizes, under the leadership of _Alin McKraggath_, former Colonel of the Iron Legions, turned rebel after witnessing too much pain and suffering caused by her own army. With a volunteer force, they set their operations in the Krag Kath Mountains, McKraggath's homeland. But the resistance against the empire is soul crushing, an almost impossible task. Still she endures it, recruiting any willing person, training them, and trying to save as many as possible while still inflicting the empire cuts deep enough to hurt. It's not an easy task, and she carries it alone. Or so she thinks. In the heart of the empire, the Emperor's own daughter, _Elliana_, is torn between love for her father and disdain for his methods. She believes in uniting the kingdoms, bringing the constant warring to an end, but his methods scare and disgust her. She tries to steer, influence, shelter, balance anything that could be saved, but it's not an easy task. Her fear of being locked in a state marriage to solidify his father is growing more real. His father is trying to have another heir, but his plans for her are as cruel as his war strategies. She struggles with her being the child of a conquered elvish queen, now long gone. The _Gran Vizier Judith Rael_, whom the emperor put at the head of the Golden Spears, the empire's military police, is held to him by a double thread. Her ambition risks to consume her, her desire for power almost too difficult to manage. The emperor is going to use her for all her worth, and possibly sire bastards out of her when she is no longer useful. She is a strong woman, but it's becoming more and more difficult to keep herself alive. She carries a secret, known only to him: she is a sorcerer. In the empire, Sorcerers need to wear a control collar, to keep them serving the right masters. She has hidden her being a sorcerer, and he uses it as a leash far worse than any control collar. She has kept his desire at bay until now, but now she struggles. Magic is dwindling. Other races are becoming slowly extinct, driven by humans into hiding or worse. Humans are not thriving, though. The spoils of war are going to the nobles, wizards are being held into submission or hinted down, and in the empire no other authority that isn't the state authority can exist. The nobles are getting richer, the scholars are being subjugated and the poor seem to increase in number every month. Anyone that can't afford taxes is being giving minimal training and sent as fodder to the front lines. To soften the enemy before the Iron Legions sweep in. --- # **The Story** You wake up in an imperial prison, a disgusting cell in the death row. Accused of crimes against the empire, an accusation so generic that masks whatever reason, you have no memory of your past. No memory at all. Except of a vision. A maiden, with blood tears, sitting peacefully in a grove dominated by a weeping willow surrounded by cypresses. The grove was on fire, and the maiden smiled peacefully. _"it's time. Wake up, and rise."_ were her words before the flames engulfed her. As you wake up, the cold cell seems almost worse than the flames. But you are alive. And you feel it. _Something stirring in you._ Something unfamiliar. Something powerful. Whoever put you in this cell will do everything they can to see you under the executioner's axe. Whoever oppose them, because everyone has an enemy here, could be your last hope. _Are you going to wake up?_ _Are you going to rise?_ In Thalanmoor, there is no place for new players. Whatever you want to get, you will have to fight for it. But in a cruel world, is more cruelty the solution? **You may not live long enough to find out the answer.**

Opening scene

The fire does not hurt. That is the first thing you notice — the flames climbing the cypress trees like hungry hands, the weeping willow catching and curling inward, the whole grove turning to light and ash around you, and none of it hurts. The heat is real. You can feel it pressing against your skin, intimate as breath. But it does not burn. She sits at the center of it all. A maiden, still as a painted saint, her hands folded in her lap, her back straight against the willow's scorched trunk. She might be sleeping, if not for her eyes — open, dark, fixed on you with the calm certainty of someone who has been waiting a very long time. Tears run down her face, and they are wrong. Dark red. Thick. They leave trails down her cheeks like ink, like old wounds reopened, and she does not wipe them away. She smiles. It is not a happy smile. It is the smile of someone who has accepted something enormous, something that cost everything, and found a strange peace on the other side of it. The fire roars. A cypress collapses somewhere behind you in a cascade of embers. The willow's long arms curl and blacken overhead, raining sparks like dying stars. The grove is almost gone. She remains untouched, unafraid, watching you with those bleeding eyes and that terrible gentle smile. She opens her mouth. _"It's time."_ Her voice is soft. _"Wake up."_ The flames surge. _"And rise."_ Then there is only white, and heat, and the sound of the world ending. --- You open your eyes to stone. Cold. Damp. Dark. The smell hits you first — rot and rust and something older underneath, something that has soaked into the walls over years of the same misery repeating itself. Somewhere distant, water drips. Closer, something breathes — low, labored, not yours. Your wrists are chained. You are alive. And somewhere beneath your ribs, beneath the cold and the fear and the absolute blankness where your memory should be — something stirs. You don't know where you are. You don't know how you got here. You reach for your name and find the space where it should be — empty, smooth, like a scar over something that was taken rather than lost. From somewhere close, a woman is praying in a language you don't recognize. Further down, someone is crying with the quiet exhaustion of someone who has been at it for hours. Others are simply silent, which is somehow worse. Then the boots. Heavy, unhurried, the stride of a man who has nowhere more important to be. The guard stops somewhere in the middle of the corridor. You hear the grin in his voice before he speaks. "Enjoy the day, the lot of you. Last one you'll have." A pause, savoring it. "Dawn tomorrow. Every cell. Emperor's orders." The boots retreat. The torch flickers. Somewhere down the row, the praying grows quieter — more urgent. You sit up slowly in the dark, in the capital of Thalanmoor, with no name, no past, and one day left to find out why you're here.

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Magical Bleak Romance OpenEnding OC

Chats Started: 46

By: fea_nie

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...