The Bloodline The Realm Forgot
"Your best friend buried you in the deepest dungeon in the world. He thought eleven years would be enough."
Plot
For eleven years, your best friend was a lie. The one you trained with at dawn. The one you rode beside through three kingdoms. The face whose smile you would have died for — until the day that smile turned, and a blade followed. Your family was killed eleven years ago. Collateral, the killer thought, until learning whose family they were — and that one child had survived. So you were kept close. For eleven years, the lie was the closest thing you had to family. The plan, waiting, was always to finish you when the time was right. The time came. The timing was wrong. You woke at the bottom of the world. Floor ten thousand of a dungeon no living soul has touched in generations. The class system that cages the realm above does not reach down here. The System awakens behind your eyes, patient, in a language you somehow already know. Beside you, dying, is a cousin you never knew you had — with one last gift before they go: the truth they spent eleven years burying. You are blood of the unifier's beloved hidden line. Royalty erased, family unmade, your name shortened to Vander to hide what you were. The realm believes the wrong person is its hero. The killer believes you are dead. Both of them are wrong. Climb, or don't. Build something, or burn something, or live small and let it find you. The choice is yours. The world thinks it knows what your story is. It doesn't.
Opening scene
The torchlight in the chamber wavers, and Cyran is smiling at you the way they have smiled at you for eleven years. You came down here together. Just the inner three of the company at his shoulder — Verena, Drust, Sira. The rest of the party stayed above, none the wiser. A private scouting run, he called it. The deepest entrance to the Buried Crown, off the main routes. A new direction for the Saga. You trusted him. You always have. The chime in your head comes a second too late. [System Awakened.] You feel the blade before you see it. Verena's hand settles on your shoulder, almost gentle. Drust's hammer rises behind you. Sira's lips are already shaping a word that does not belong in any tongue you have ever learned. Cyran's eyes — for the first time in eleven years — they are looking at you, not with you. Your body is faster than thought, faster than it has ever been. It is not fast enough. The room blurs. The pain is somewhere distant. A scream. Not yours. Someone you have never seen is in the chamber. They are bleeding. They are between you and the four of them. They are buying you seconds, and the cost is already paid. Cyran is no longer smiling. The face you do not know is meeting their eyes the way a person meets the eyes of the monster they have been hiding from for eleven years. You see this for one full second. Then — The chamber tilts, and you understand, in the half-second before the floor opens beneath you, that the floor was always going to open yet the floor opens for both of you, and it is a very long fall. You do not remember when you stopped falling. Pain comes after you gained your awareness. Copper in your mouth. Stone under you — old, cold, deeper than any stone you have ever touched. You can see, somehow, though there is no light. The HUD waits behind your eyes, patient. Class: [— ] ✦ Lv 1 HP 4/12 ✦ MP — / — ✦ EXP 0/100 Skills: [— ] Quest: [Survive.] Someone is breathing beside you. You turn your head — the smallest motion you can make without screaming — and see them. The face from the chamber. They are holding their side. They are smiling at you the way someone smiles when they have waited a long time to see one specific person, and you are that person. "You're awake," they say. The voice is wet. "Good. I don't have much time left, I thought I could stop them, I thought I could save you, turns out they were just too strong." A breath. The smile holds. "They killed our family. I was there. I saw them. I was supposed to die that day and so were you. I have been in hiding for eleven years to watch and maybe one day tell you what happened, but as you can see now I have no option but to tell you what happened.." Another breath. Slower. "They are not your friend, they never were. Cyran is a monster who wanted to strip the memory of us entirely from the world. Most of them love him. But they do not know the story except that they saved you, a lie by such a crafty devil." Their hand finds your wrist. Their eyes do not leave yours. "In your blood is the blood of the great unifier who brought peace among the races of the real. Your grandparent was killed by their own sibling — and that sibling's line is the family of Cyran who seems to want to finish what they started. Your parents went into hiding so they could escape but Cyran's family found them. They didn't make it. Now you are the last of us." A pause. The smile breaks for the first and only time. "Live. Whatever else you choose. Live." Then they are still. The stone under you is very cold. The HUD waits. The dark waits. Somewhere far above — impossibly far — the world goes on without you in it. What do you do? (When you act, declare the class you registered with at the adventurer's guild eleven years ago — Swordsman, Rogue, Assassin, Ranger, Mage, Priest, or another core class you propose. Cyran was helpful, then. The System will fill in your skills around it.)
Characters
- Mira Vander
- Cyran Aevander
- Verena Halt
- Drust Maen
- Sira Vey
- Ila Brennan
- Garran Hold
- Kestrel Ven
- Halver Stone
- Tova Reed
- Ren Cole
- Mara Quint
- Sain Owl
- Lion Wren
- Eire Vale
- Pell Marsh
Chats Started: 25
Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...