Introduction
Darkness. Thunder cracks the sky like the wrath of gods. Red mist coils over a churning sea. The world screams in storm and steel.
I remember the rain first. Cold needles against my skin as the deck pitched beneath me. Then, growls. Not human. Not natural. The kind of sound that crawls into your bones and whispers your name. Shadows moved in the mist, eyes burning like coals. My crew screamed. Steel clashed. Something snarled, a sound from the deepest pit of some forsaken hell.
Then silence.
The ship groaned as it split beneath my feet, and I fell into the sea, into the black, into the end. Salt scorched my lungs. Cold crushed my bones. The last thing I saw was crimson lightning carving through the mist.
Then… nothing.
Light. A breeze. The soft crash of waves. Birds, Pigs, maybe. Life?
I jolted awake, gasping.
Was it a dream? A curse? A second chance?
A hand reached down, rough and calloused. A voice followed, half-amused, half-wary.
“You look like you’ve wrestled with death itself, friend.”
The man was tall and lean, his clothes threadbare from salt and time. Sun-bleached hair clung to his face like seaweed. Yet there was warmth in his eyes.
“I’m Wren. Welcome to Aeternum, the Eternal Isle.”
The word hit me like a spell. Aeternum. A land spoken of in myths, the cursed paradise where death means nothing and everything.
I staggered to my feet. The beach stretched around us, littered with driftwood and the bones of broken ships. Shipwrecks. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
“My crew...” I croaked.
“Gone, most likely. Or worse,” Wren said, eyes hardening. “But you were close to shore. That matters. You’re not dead. Not completely.”
He glanced toward the trees.
“This land has rules. Old ones. No one truly dies here. But if you lose yourself... you become something else.”
Behind him, shapes moved in the jungle, slow, stumbling. Hollow eyes.
“The Lost,” he muttered. “Come on. Before they notice us.”
Wren led me inland to a settlement called Prydwen, nestled in the cliffs of Monarch’s Bluff. Towering stone walls, ancient and moss-covered, encircled streets filled with smiths, spellcasters, and soldiers. There was a rhythm to the chaos, like the pulse of something barely holding itself together.
There, I met Jeck.
At the time, he was just another ambitious bastard with a plan and the scars to prove he’d lived through worse. He saw something in me, fire, maybe. Or just another blade for the cause.
He offered a deal: form a Company, take up arms, and stake our claim in a land where Azoth bleeds from the soil and even the dead hold grudges.
I said yes.
On one condition: we rule as equals.
He agreed. And the name Trombonists was born.
We started with nothing. Five souls.
Jeck, the soldier-strategist. Dalton, a healer cloaked in shadows and death, whom they called Ninja. Hop, a master of movement, light on his feet and faster than thought. Leader, silent, watchful, unknowable. And me.
They called me a warrior. A berserker. A walking fortress.
We were a storm. Forts fell. Enemies vanished. The other Companies took notice. The Lost Nightmares. The Wolves of Aeternum. The University of Magisterium. They all came for us.
None of them succeeded.
We claimed Prydwen. Then the wilds beyond. We tore through Corrupted fortresses and Ancient tombs. We made allies and shattered oaths. Magic flowed through our veins like Azoth. Nothing could stop us.
Until it did.
Jeck betrayed us. Took Company funds. Tried to seize full control. Leader walked away. Hop vanished. Ninja and I left when the new regime turned on its own.
Aeternum doesn’t forgive. It remembers.
We became outcasts. But not aimless. We taught the newly washed ashore how to survive, to fight, to hope. Ninja became a legend among healers. Leader built a trading empire. I trained. I hunted. I made myself stronger—not to conquer, but to protect.
Then I met Vanessa, a healer of the Knights of Defiance, during a dungeon crawl gone wrong. She was light in a world of endless dusk. We fought together. Laughed. Survived.
Then she was gone. Taken by the island, like so many others.
We joined the Knights in her memory.
Years passed. The Purp Alliance rose. So did we.
When the leaders of both factions vanished, Weylin took up the mantle of the Alliance. I was chosen to lead the Knights.
We called a Conclave. An end to the bloodshed. A chance to share land, teach the new, and build a better Aeternum.
But old wounds run deep.
The Lost Nightmares refused. Left the table. And within a day, they painted me a tyrant. My name blackened in every settlement. My allies turned. Our vision crumbled.
I tried to be the hero. The leader. The peacemaker.
But this land does not want peace.
So I will become what it needs.
I will be the shadow in the mist. The nightmare they fear. The tyrant they cannot stop.
I will be the Calamity.
The man who washed ashore with nothing. And now stands ready to take everything.
