Prologue

To Make a Myth

1

It was a warm summer’s afternoon, on the 85th passing year since Priest Romij, in which a young Constantine Strada found himself being ushered into a cool, damp room beneath a giant orphanage.

The room closely resembled a dark dungeon, with similarities mostly attributed to the rough stone floor and surprisingly moist walls. The only light stemmed from several candles placed sporadically through the room, of which did nothing to improve the coldness surrounding the entire chamber. Even though the candles failed to improve this cold atmosphere, they succeeded in consistently flickering shadows across the room. In the end, the condensation along the walls seemed to work together with the candles, stalling the flicker of shadows into some weird form of a methodical dance. The chamber sent chills down Con’s back as he shivered and tried to shake the feeling. A crowd of fellow orphans began to push Con towards an empty seat as they all piled into the eerie room behind him. By the daunting looks on all of their faces, Con was beginning to think that he may actually be the optimistic one in this unfortunate looking group.

The doors to the chamber clanged shut behind three grown men as the rest of the orphans scuttled to their seats.

“Good afternoon!” boomed the largest of the three men, making several of the small children jump in surprise at such a loud voice. “My name is Master Weave, and I have been waiting a very, very long time for this day” he beamed across the room at all the orphans as he made his way up front, no longer able to contain his excitement, “For today, is the one day I offer all of you little orphans the chance of a lifetime”.

If any of the children were not listening before, Master Weave definitely had their full attention at these last words. He seemed to take notice of this sudden change too as he settled into a slightly more serious, calculating demeanor.

“For those of you that don’t already know, the life expectancy of an orphan in this choking city of ours is historically low. If the life of gangs or thieves do not snatch you up, then the jaws of the plague or the Hanging Tree surely will.” To emphasize these words, a slow smile crept across the faces of the other two men, making several of the orphans squirm uneasily.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” voice rising, Master Weave now had his arms slightly raised with his palms opened upwards, as if he was delivering the conclusion of some magnificent speech, rather than casting his jumble of unnecessarily fancy words towards a malnourished group of largely uneducated children… “I am pleased to offer you all an entirely new option, in which you have the chance to join our team and the quest to right all of these terrible wrongs spreading across our unfortunate land!”

Complete silence. On the other side of the room, the children found themselves exchanging confused glances, too afraid to voice their confusion out loud. Almost as if on cue, there came a cough from a brave kid in the back of the room, so perfectly timed that Con couldn’t guess if the cough was in fact real or just well-timed comedic relief from the long silence.

“Yes yes I understand it is all a bit much to grasp right away” Weave seemed a bit deflated at the lack of response from the crowd following his performance, “But no matter, you will understand it in time. My associates shall now help you prepare for the task at hand, for your test is already upon us!”

The two older man, now accompanied by an additional man and woman from a side room, began moving about the orphans counting heads and talking amongst themselves as Weave continued to speak. “You will now split into groups as you all race to be the first to complete the task. We have received word that our very own duke of Cumberland is in attendance of the festival this evening, along with the other million residents of this grand city no doubt.”

Snickers came from the adults as they made their way back towards the front of the room, apparently done counting them all.

“There are no rules tonight, except for do not kill or intentionally hurt anyone!” finished Master Weave, “and our task is over when someone can hand me the special jewel of our very own Duke. I hear he has it on his person at all times.”

Before any of the children could speak, one of the adults interrupted, “Weave we counted forty two in all, and there are eight girls amongst the lot.”

“Alright we will do groups of seven” Weave spouted automatically, “with a girl in each group except for the last group. Oh but remember!” Weave now shouted his attention back towards the kids, “I would hate to lose tonight if I were you, because in our line of work, we cannot have such things as ‘loose ends’ my wee little friends!” Master Weave turned back towards the man once more, “Let’s get them out.”

The adults began shouting and routing the children back towards the door in which they had first entered. Con was one step ahead however, his mind already reeling over what he must do. He sprinted up the stairs, out of the cold dungeon, and into the warm spilling light as evening slowly settled on the annual evening celebration of the 85th passing year since our dear Priest Romij.

2

Con’s father originally grew up in arguably the poorest part of southeastern Cumberland. Not wishing to find an early death, his father turned towards the only other path available to him, the military. Fortunately for him, he was above average in physicality and intelligence, and even more superior in loyalty, a weirdly scarce attribute in the city of Cumberland. It didn’t take long for Con’s father to be accepted into the Duke’s very own special tasks force, where he would eventually succeed into a lead position of Commander.

Thanks to his poor upbringing, Con’s father clearly did not want the same beaten path to fall in front of his son one day. Rather, he wished for his son to inherit as many choices, skills, and freedoms as he wished, so that when the day finally did arrive, Con would have the ability to choose his own way.

Surprisingly, Con inferred all of these things about his father, even at an earlier age than most people would have thought possible. Therefore, it was to no surprise that at a mere age of 5 years old, Con found himself learning how to play a strategic game known as “chess” under the scrutiny and supervision of his father.

“Chess, it is an excellent base for applying basic strategy and anticipation” Con found his father saying to him one rainy afternoon. “After going over the majority of the rules involved, what can you tell me about this game?”

“Ummm....” Con thought about the question for a moment, “besides what you’ve told me, it appears rather hard and... even harder to tell what will happen” Con managed to answer.

“Good, good” his dad replied, “yes it does seem hard to a beginner, but well done in recognizing that the game is indeed hard to gauge. It is hard to typically turn the tide of winning until the game is close to won.” His father smiled, seemingly pleased with Con’s answer. He looked back down at the chess board before asking Con his second question, “Stepping back from the rules to view the game from afar, what can you read about the game from your side of the board?”

“Hm” this was a more challenging question, thought Con. He had no idea wh.... wait. “Our sides are both equal!” Shouted Con.

“Yes, well done” his father spoke a little softer to try and quell the uproar of Con’s answer, “the game assumes we fight on equal ground with the exact same amount and level of troops. Realistically, this is statistically impossible of course so never forget that. Now let us actually play the game.”

For the next hour, they played a very slow game of chess. Con quickly understood why the queen was the strongest piece on the board, with its ability to move multiple squares in any direction. However, Con needed several reminders throughout the game on how the knight could move, almost as much as how the knight could not move. Whose idea was it to make a knight the only piece on the board which had to move in an L-shape AND could jump over other pieces on the board? Con thought this was the most ridiculous concept of the entire game. But in the end it didn’t much matter, because Con found himself knight-less towards the end of the match. With only his queen left to protect the king, Con found himself backed into a corner by his father.

“Well Con, it was a good game. But now all you can do is move your queen to take the last hit from my pieces” said Con’s dad as he surveyed the field.

“I suppose you’re right” agreed Con as he reached out to make his last move.

“Hold on a second” as Con paused his motion mid-reach, “I want you to take note of one last key difference between this game and reality.”

“Alright, what is it?”

“Imagine this game is a real war, with you as the commanding king” his father studied Con carefully at these words, “and that the queen you are sacrificing is your mother.”

“Wait... what!?” sputtered Con, “that’s not fair at all.”

“War is never fair my son. In fact, life is not really fair either.”

“Well I won’t sacrifice my mother, so I will forfeit instead.”

“In this instance that does make sense” replied his father, “but what happens when the battle is tight, and sacrificing the queen is the only way to win?”

“I will pull out the troops and search for another way to win.”

“That is not a bad answer, but remember Con” his father appeared to be choosing his words more carefully than usual, “even if it is not your mother, everyone has a family. Every man in war has a mother, a father, a son, and each of these men will do whatever it takes to return home to this family of theirs.”

“Then why must we fight?” asked Rahn’s perplexed, five year old son.

“Why, because sometimes it is the right thing to do. To grow in this world, you must endure both failures and sacrifices.”

“No way, I would rather not grow and be able to keep the things I want” pouted Con as he crossed his arms and sank back into his chair with a frown on his face.

“Son.” His father now spoke to try and appeal more to Con on an emotional level than a logical one, “remember our talk the other day about bad people?”

“Yeah.”

“Never forget that, as great as this world may appear, there are always inherently terrible people in this world. Crazy people. People that sometimes are hard to recognize, but all they truly desire in life is to hurt others.”

“So how do I stop them?” Con’s voice cracked visibly under the overwhelming concern he now felt.

“You must grow smarter and stronger than them.” Rahn now had a tone of significance in his voice, for he understood that these were the important words that one day may influence Con’s choices. “Never stop learning, because only then can we hope to protect those we care about in their time of need.”

Con was silent following these last purpose-filled words from his father. With his face completely impassive, you would have thought he had zoned out staring down at the chessboard. Suddenly, Con reached out and grabbed his queen that still sat idle in battle. Rahn slowly smiled, expecting Con to have absorbed his words and realized the queen should indeed stand as the last line of the defense for the king in this game. However, Rahn watched with slight amazement as Con chose a different option. With his father’s eyes following closely, Con moved his queen straight across the board to take out his father’s knight piece, his final move of the game before Rahn’s remaining pieces took his king.

3

Deep down, Con knew that he would always do whatever it took to win, to learn. Winning, sometimes came in the form of losing. Growth, sometimes came in the form of failure. These were simple facts easily understandable to young Constantine Strada. However, not all lessons in life were as factual as he may have hoped. The hardest lessons in life were only gleaned through experience, by grasping what his father has called “the important virtues of life”, or something like that. Turns out that age did play a big factor in understanding virtues, a stick with which Con just couldn’t help but grab the short end of. But on the evening celebrating the 85th passing year since Priest Romij, as Con sat in a side alley listening to his group of orphans blubbering back and forth about how to complete Master Weave’s challenge, he began his first step towards understanding the fine concept of virtue. For Con, this first step was the realization that patience was perhaps the most undervalued virtue of all time.

“That is the stupidest idea yet.”

“How!? I don’t see you suggesting any fucking brilliant ideas over there, Samille.”

“Yeah maybe because I can’t get a second to think around here without you idiots trying to sacrifice half of our group!”

Initially, Con had believed he may be part of one of the better groups selected by Weave and his pals. But now… he was beginning to regret that thought had ever crossed his mind. They still had a good chance, but Con needed to wait for the perfect time to speak up. Since he was easily the youngest one in their group, Con had to make sure and grab everyone’s attention, otherwise they would never even make it out of this little alley.

“So we’ve decided that we obviously need a distraction, what should we do?”

“We can buy some explosives an...”

“NO, if we are doing explosives we might as well start a fire!”

“I think if someone is just willing to jump off a...”

“Oh Please! Like we could quickly hire a bunch of soldiers.”

Complete chaos, as Con had kind of expected amongst the groups. But he had seen his opportunity creeping closer, and now took advantage of it. Plus, Con didn’t think he would last one more minute next to these buffoons.

“Would all of you shut your gaping pie-holes!?” shouted Con, with as much confidence and grandeur as he could muster.

As Con had hoped, his outburst was so unexpected that the entirety of the group shut up and stared at him. Excellent, Con thought to himself.

“What do you want?” asked the largest kid in the group.

“What I want is for all of you to listen to me because I already have a plan to save us, “responded Con, still feinting extreme confidence, “and that is more than any of you can say right now.”

“What gives you the right to think your plan will work?” asked the girl named Samille, as she stood up out of the dirt. A couple of the other orphans murmured and nodded in agreement.

“Because my father was head of the Duke’s old army, he taught me to win in these situations, and he showed me the ins and outs of the courtyard here too.” The orphans exchanged glances, clearly surprised by these facts. Of course, if they knew that half of Con’s words were bullshit then they would never listen.

“You can hear my plan and decide for yourself if it is good enough Samille” Con continued to address their group, “now, which of you have been in the courtyard before?”

Reluctantly, two of the boys in the group slowly raised their hands.

“Good, anyone familiar with the Duke’s caravan or personal guards?”

No one raised their hand to this question.

“That’s fine, that leaves just me then I guess.” Con spoke these words to help lift the worry off of their faces as much as to remind them why he was in charge.

“You two who know the courtyard” Con continued his address once more, “go together and find out specifically where the Duke is right now. We need to know how many guards there are, how far apart they stand, what kind of shelter hides the Duke, which direction they are headed in, what they ate for breakfast, everything. Go now and meet back here in thirty minutes, go.”

The two boys looked at each other, paused, and then turned to take off into the growing crowd inside the courtyard.

“Who has good eyes?”

“I do sir” quickly replied the smallest boy of the group. He had fuzzy brown hair and beady looking eyes, the kid reminded Con of some kind of rodent... and he meant that in the nicest way possible.

“Fantastic my friend. You will stay here with me. Samille I need you to persuade some of the crowd to tell you where the Duke will congregate and when. The older crowd may remember the habits of the Duke. Make sure you get a couple of similar answers before calling it good, I’ll wait here for you.”

Samille nodded once and was gone, Con made a mental note to always make sure that she was on his side, if they all made it out of this.

“Okay, so you guys” Con turned to the last two boys of the group, “take these ten gold coins that Weave gave us and go try to get as many cheap distractions as you can.”

“Roger boss” replied one of the boys, before they grabbed the coins and slunk off into the crowded streets.

Con took a big breath and finally relaxed a little, happy that he was able to send their group out with minimal pushback. He hoped they all would make it back within the next half an hour, but more importantly that they would actually be successful with their immediate assignments...

Turning back to his last companion in attendance, Con found the small little mousy-boy staring intently at him, a huge eager smile spread across his entire face. Gods, this kid must have been rather unappreciated growing up, thought Con. He is clearly proud to have been chosen for any task, and he even chose himself... Even given the current state of affairs they were all in, Con couldn’t help but feel bad for the kid.

“I’m Con, what’s your name buddy?”

“You can call me Mouse!” No way was that a coincidence, “nice to meet you!” Mouse spoke as he vigorously shook Con’s hand numb.

“Awesome, awesome” replied Con, shaking the feeling back into his hand. “What makes you think you’ve got good eyes Mouse?”

The kid deflated a little at this question, almost as if he figured Con would doubt his abilities, “well... I mean I think I have good eyes.”

“It’s all good Mouse, just take your time and explain it to me” Con patted the boy’s shoulder a couple of times reassuringly.

“Okay, well yeah I’ve always thought I had pretty good eyes. Whenever we would play games I would always win because I could see better than everyone else...”

“Great, I was only wondering Mouse. I know you have great eyes, I just wanted to make sure that you knew it is all.”

“Oh” Mouse started to smile again as the understanding spread across his face, “I get it.”

---

It didn’t take long for Samille to return. When she did, Con was surprised to find no smile of contentment on her face as he had expected. Unlike most of the orphans, her own pride wasn’t going to get in the way of their task. Samille was focused, a valuable asset in their time of need.

“How’d it go?”

“Great, I was able to find a few of the same answers from some oldies out there” Samille replied rather enthusiastically, “did you want me to show you where the Duke will be?”

“Yeah, let’s head...”Con stopped as he noticed the two boys emerge from the crowd, headed towards the three of them.

“Here!” one of the boys dropped a bag at Con’s feet. He was so out of breath that he had his hands on his knees now, taking gasping breaths of air before speaking again, “we nicked as many distractions as we could possibly fucking nick.”

“Says you Ferrin” spat the other boy, who Con just realized was in worse shape than the boy who had dropped off the bag, “I told you we could have managed one more of those dealers before they caught on.”

“Are you shitting mad!?” spewed the first boy again, apparently named Ferrin. Both boys were now down on all fours, coughing and gasping for air as if they had just finished sprinting through the entire city. For all Con knew, they may have actually done just that. After another burst of coughs, the boy Ferrin continued, “we barely made it away from that GIANT dealer Roman, and he looked the slowest of them all! Why would we have pushed our luck even more?”

“Cause I had a good feeling about it” replied the second boy, apparently named Roman. Roman was now kneeling upright, hands on his hips, looking smug as if his words proved a point.

“A good feeling!?” now there was a little anger rising in Ferrin’s voice, “if I had followed you in the past every time you had a good feeling, I’d be a poor dead bastard with my head in a fish bowl!”

“Stop shouting at me!” anger was rising in Roman’s voice now too, “and why do you always have to bring that up, it was one time okay!? Besides, she was probably lying about the fish bowl anyways.”

“She wasn’t lying dumbass, I saw fishbowls in her kitchen! Giant fishbowls for God’s sake!” to make his point, Ferrin shoved Roman down into the dirt before he could stand.

Roman now popped up, back onto his feet, covered in the brown-orange dirt. He sprung up into a crouched position with his hands raised for a fight. The sight was quite comical Con thought, Roman strangely resembled a large cat stalking its prey.

It was now Roman’s turn to shove Ferrin into the dirt, as he spat back at him, “well I didn’t know that, so get over it already!”

Ferrin pounced back, and soon enough the two boys were a whirlwind of dust and dirt in the shrinking alley. Con found himself just standing there, hands at his sides, helplessly watching the fight unfold. He noticed Samille and Mouse helplessly watching the two boys as well. Mouse held an expression of complete worry over the fight, where Samille’s face revealed total confusion but with maybe a slight hint of amusement. Con realized that disregarding the importance of Master Weave’s task, this scenario would be hilarious.

“Uh, should we stop them...?” asked Mouse, in more of a pleading voice than a questioning one.

“Honestly, it’s probably best that we let them work through it” answered Con, “plus, I’m a little curious who will win.”

Mouse looked even more worried at these words. Samille smiled and nodded in agreement, neither of them refusing to look away from the whirlwind of dirt right in front of them.

The tussle did not last long. It abruptly ended with both boys lying next to each other, flat on their backs, visibly breathing heavily as their chests bounced up and down.

“Are you done yet?” Con asked sarcastically.

“Yeah. We’re done.” gasped Ferrin.

“Good. What’s in the bag?”

“Oh we got some good stuff in there boss” it was now Roman’s turn to reply, “we nicked some smokers, poppers, and Ferrin thinks he may have even snatched a boomer.”

“What!?” now it was Con who did the gasping, “where did you get it??”

“Found it on the last big guy” replied Ferrin from the dirt, “hence why he chased us so well I think.”

“Yeah ya think?” laughed Samille.

“Wait so what’s a boomer?” asked Mouse, looking around with a confused look on his face.

“It’s a type of bomb” explained Con, remembering his dad’s words from one of their hundreds of lessons, “it’s super illegal cause of its loud booming noise and crazy flames that it makes.”

“Wow” said Mouse, the confusion on his face now replaced with awe.

“Yeah, wow is right” replied Con, “grab the bag, let’s head up to the roof so we can get a look at this festival.”

The five of them headed into the nearest high-rise building. With the festival going on, they weren’t surprised to find no one in their way to the roof. They filed up the several flights of stairs together, across multiple landings of residential living area, and then burst through the heavy door and onto the rooftop.

For the last couple of years, Con had always joined his father every year in looking out over the festival from the top of a building. Even so, Con was certain his enjoyment of the view would never diminish as long as he lived. Once again, he found himself filled with awe at the spectacular view.

Hundreds of people moved across the open courtyard in front of the orphans. There were so many vivid colors in celebration of the festival that the picture reminded Con of a vast sea of grass, but with a mirage of different colors, dancing in the wind. The smell was delicious, consisting of spiced drinks and seasoned meats wafting up through the air. Disoriented noise was all that could be heard from up above the buildings. But Con realized that if he was listening carefully, occasional bits of laughter would make its way above the common rabble. Vendors ran amuck throughout the entire courtyard. After waiting all year long, this evening was the best chance for them to sell their goods and services. Countless vendors were screaming and waiving merchandise and food in the air as they persuaded the crowd to make a purchase. All the while, performers were stunning the crowd to make a promising tip, with stunts ranging from fire breathing to crazy acrobatics to dangerous animal standoffs.

In theory, the festivities should have created one giant madhouse. But with every city guard on duty, along with the whole city seeking enjoyment and escape from their daily troubles, the insane circus melted away to mold a perfect contusion called a “festival”. Mixed together with amazing weather on a sunny afternoon, what could possibly happen to ruin such a perfect occasion?

But Con knew the answer, it involved himself and a convenient bag of distractions sitting right at his feet.

Coming back to his senses, Con acknowledged that the rest of the crew were still lost in thought, all of them caught staring at the amazing view with looks of awe written on their faces.

“Quite a view” Con claimed, glancing sideways at the others.

“Whew, I’ll say” sighed Mouse.

Either Roman or Ferrin whistled dramatically from the far side of the group.

“Mouse, is that tree out there close to the center of the courtyard?” asked Samille, pointing out over the festival towards a bushy tree about a hundred yards or so away.

“Yeah I would say so” responded Mouse as he squinted at the tree in the distance, “actually I’m certain of it, I can see the statue of Duke Lereno poking up near it, and I’ve heard they just put up that statue in the exact center of these grounds.”

“Excellent” said Samille before turning towards Con, “all the reports I got earlier state that the Duke continually makes large circles through the square that always seems to come back close towards the center of the courtyard. This is also typically where he chooses to take his break for the rest of the festival.”

“Perfect” responded Con in a confident yet appreciative manner, “at least we know which direction to head in now.”

---

Just minutes later, the entire group was reunited on the same dirt where they had first found themselves united. For only being apart nearly half an hour, their little band of misfits looked pretty beat up and tired already. Con knew they needed to move quickly if they truly wanted a chance to succeed.

“Alright scout boys, tell me all you know.”

The last two boys were still panting, having just returned moments before from seeking out the Duke’s caravan, as ordered by Con. The boys looked at each other before one decided to answer.

“Well, it took a while to even find the Duke...”

“That’s a good start. So what did you find?”

“The Duke travels around in some kind of small carriage pulled by a couple of horses. Only there are no doors or sides, just a roof.”

“Good good, and the guards?”

“What about them?” now the second of the boys felt the need to chime in.

“...Uh like how many were there? What did they do?”

“Oh!” the boy now seemed to understand why Con would even bother asking, “eh I would say a lot, maybe like twenty guards or so.”

“Did you count them by chance?”

“No... wait, well I tried to but it was hard to follow them and count at the same time.”

“How far apart are they from each other?”

“The guards seem pretty relaxed, half of them stand together talking. Otherwise I would say they stand about five to ten feet apart, and don’t stray too far from the Duke either.”

“That’s promising for us at least” summarized Con, “anything else you can tell us guys?”

“Nope sorry, I think that’s it” said the first boy again, “so what’s the plan?”

“Thanks for the info, boys” replied Con, “as for the plan... give me a minute to think of one.”

“What!?” yelled Ferrin, “I thought you had a plan!”

“Well I do, but I just received this info so I need to think it all through” Con tried to explain calmly to the group.

“Con, we’re running out of time” said Samille rather urgently, “we need to move now.”

“Alright alright, sheesh” Con looked around before picking a long stick up off the ground nearby, “hang on tight ladies and gentlemen, and listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.”

And so Con began to intricately draw the courtyard into the dirt. He first outlined the courtyard with careful lines, then gradually sped up as the picture took shape. All the while, Con was coaching every aspect of the festival that the group should be aware of. Ignore all vendors by never looking their way, that way the group can go unnoticed through the festival. Always be aware of any guards nearby, use your peripherally vision to help catch sight of the red guard uniforms. And other little factoids that may help the crew get through this task potentially unscathed.

From start to finish, it did not take long for Con to finish outlining his plan in the dirt while detailing the role of each individual person. Con felt pretty smug towards the job he had just completed, as he stood over the dirt drawing, admiring his work while he now held the stick out in front of him like an expensive cane. “Alrighty” Con sighed a little to himself “it’s not a bad plan, but now I just need the crew on board with me for this.”

But the group said absolutely nothing. They all just sat in the dirt, staring at the map, the group forming a loose circle around all of the intricate lines of the courtyard.

“...So what do you guys think?” asked Con.

“What do I think!? I think you’re insane!” barked Samille.

“Yeah, mad but brilliant” added Ferrin looking sideways at Roman, “this may be the greatest piece of work we have ever done.”

“I guess we don’t have any other choice at this point but to accept your plan” admitted Samille, finally looking up from the dirt to speak her final opinion directly to Con’s face, “I just hope you’re the bravest person we’ve ever met, otherwise we’re as good as dead.”

4

Con had in fact been very brave in tough situations before, more recently than he would wish to remember actually. Times of unwanted sacrifices. Sacrifices, so many sacrifices. And why?

But these sacrifices were already piling up, especially for one as young as our own Constantine Strada. So it was only natural that Con found himself continually reflecting and asking the question of “why him?” To his knowledge, Con had never done anything wrong, at least deliberately. He had never sinned or cursed the Goddess, whom Con had been told created all that is. Why then, did bad things happen to him? Con had never asked these questions, and always appreciated life with his whole being, until that day the war found its way into the city of Cumberland.

On that very same day, Con had found himself enjoying a wonderful sunny morning while taking a stroll down to the river. The Sterlen River snaked widely through the entire city, and even reached all the way down to the sea. On the nice sunny days, merchants would gather along the bank of the river in anticipation of people walking by, out enjoying the weather. For this very reason, Con made his way towards the river, chewing sparingly on a delicious yellow apple. After all, it wasn’t very often that his father would give him an entire day off from his studies.

By midmorning, the crowd began to bustle around the merchant tents, enthusiastically examining the displays. Late springtime bloomed a beautiful array of colors in the surrounding trees. The overall picture was so nice, it was a mystery how it didn’t attract even more people than it already did.

But on this specific morning, Con knew right away that something was different. As he strolled down the street, he realized that there were far too few people bustling about. The amount of customers typically more than doubled the current population on a beautiful day such as this. So where was everyone?

Strolling further up the street, Con soon found the answer. Even from a distance, people were visibly heading into a packed side alley. Con pushed his way through to find the alley way poured out into a huge open square. Amongst all the tall surrounding buildings, the square appeared even smaller than it was. This lingering effect made it easy for everyone to focus on the man, standing above everyone else, using some well-placed crates to look out over the hundreds of heads.

The man was oddly dressed, wearing a blood red pointy jacket and pants over some sort of black clothing. A dozen or so men surrounded this man, all carrying swords and wearing variations of blood-red colored clothes as well. At first glance, this strange bunch resembled an overzealous religious group that occasionally sprang up across the land. However, the dangerous religious type never dressed as well as these folk did. Nor, Con realized, did the speechmaker appear to have any form of scriptures or artifacts handy to help coax an audience. What on earth was this?

This man in charge waived his arms around in a very passionate manner as he addressed the crowd, using careful and powerfully practiced words.

“...for the curtain has been pulled over your eyes for far too long my friends!” the strange man claimed to the people, “now tear it away, open your eyes to the world of today! Join us, join the rebellion and let us unfold the secrets of the past together.”

At these words, a few people began to trickle up towards the men in red. Even with the loud disapproval from the crowd, the men were given red jackets and a sword if they wished.

“Excellent excellent” the strange man waived the newcomers forward, “don’t be shy, deep down we all...”

“What’s going on here!?”

The crowd right beside Con quickly parted, letting a squad of city guards walk up to this bizarre red group.

“We heard someone was conspiring against the law of the land, what’s going on here?” asked one of the guards, hand on his sword as his eyes quickly darted around the unusual scene.

“Give me a minute and I’ll show you” laughed the strange man in red, turning his attention back to the audience, “you see ladies and gentlemen!? We are a divided land, I ask that you join us, not just for my sake but for yours. Put on the color red and you will not be harmed. Only together can we final...”

“Get down, that’s an order!” yelled the guard, moving towards the red colors. At this motion, the men in red drew their swords, causing the city guards to draw their swords in retaliation.

Uh oh, Con thought to himself. Time to go.

He made his way back towards the alley, watching everyone around him entranced by the sudden commotion. Only instinct and his father’s lessons pulled Con towards the exit, remembering how easy it is to become trapped in a bad situation.

More soldiers in red were trickling into the square from all sides now. One of these men brushed right passed Con, eyes focused on the guards, as this man in red drew his sword. The speech-giver was now screaming at the top of his lungs, he surely recognized that his time window to talk was rapidly shutting.

“...And as first degree in this act of war against the city of Cumberland.... witness the power which your council wishes to shy away from!”

With these words, Con watched the man atop the crates pull a shiny, metallic stick from inside his coat. The world seemed to slow down as the man steadily aimed the stick at the nearest guard, visibly braced himself as if from an impact, and pulled the trigger.

The square erupted with a deafening roar as smoke erupted from the edge of the shiny object and blasted the targeted guard backwards into the crowd. The force of the weapon appeared invisible, until Con realized to his horror that the guard had visibly taken damage. The blast had not only sent the guard sprawling, but inserted a giant wound in his chest that disgustingly sprayed surrounding witnesses. “Holy shit”, Con thought to himself, “the man had some kind of magical portable bomb launcher!”

It was definitely time to go.

Fighting broke out all over the place, highlighted by the faint screaming heard between all of the swords clashing. Terror gripped the crowd as people instantly began shoving and grappling in all different directions, everyone attempting to flee all at once. Thankfully, Con had already been near an exit when all went to shit. He managed to squeeze his way out as another deafening blast rocked the square full of people. Finally able to move, Con jumped out from the alley way and back into the street of vendors. Unfortunately, Con realized that he truly had only succeeded from leaping out of the bowling pot, and into the fire.

Actually, if we are trying to be completely accurate, it was in fact several very large fires. About half of the merchant tents back along the river were currently on fire, while a whole building appeared to be going up in flames not much farther down the cobblestones. More of the red coats must have been waiting for a sign, because they now lined the streets, fighting with scattered pockets of city guards.

Panic gripped Con like the weight of cold, hard stone. If the war had spread throughout the city... then these men in red may go after his parents, for they supported and worked for the Duke...

Con took off sprinting down the street, suddenly oblivious to the attention and danger this may draw to himself. He ran forever, blurring past fight after fight and explosion after explosion. Con ran until he finally staggered into the sleepy little suburban of where his family lived. He stopped briefly to lean against a building, hands on his knees, as Con barely managed to stay on his feet while he gasped for air. Slowly but surely, terror began to climb back into his chest as he realized that this sleepy suburb was no longer sleepy as it once was.

Wind was now beginning to blow smoke through the city from all of the fires, creating a perpetual haze. Con tried not to think about all of the destruction raining around him, but it was becoming increasingly hard to focus and maneuver through the chaos. Occasionally, someone came running out of the smoke, but just to disappear moments later. Faint screams could still be heard, even over the rooftops.

Con frantically looked around for his parents as he turned onto the street where his home stood, although it didn’t take long to figure out that his home was now on the list of burning buildings too. The rebels must have already moved on through this part of town however, for none were in sight following all of the surrounding destruction. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways, Con was no longer aware of what was going on around him. All he could see was the burning house, it filled his entire vision. Con now inched his was slowly up to the front door, already sure of what he would find inside. Only the need for clarity propelled him forward.

Sure enough, with smoke billowing all around, Con walked right up to the threshold of his old home. He now had a direct line of sight into the front hallway, with the front door now lying at his feet in scattered embers. It was here where our young Constantine Strada first tasted the evil in the world, as he stared at the bodies of his parents’ burn away with the rest of his life.

5

Master Weave passively surveyed the evening’s festivities from atop one of the highest buildings around the famous courtyard. Standing almost half way down one side of the entire festival and directly above the path of the Duke’s caravan, Weave could not have found a more perfect spot to oversee his orphans’ activities. But this wasn’t saying much, considering Weave was in fact the one who had picked the lookout spot that he now occupied. The point is that Master Weave took every precaution in preparing this evening. This included the viewpoint stakeout, and ensuring that he and his team would not be disturbed atop the roof. Now all that was left to do was to calmly wait and observe the choices of young children attempting his task.

“Master Weave?”

Weave had heard Barca approaching on the stairwell below. However, he was surprised to hear him say “master”, for Barca typically used this title to address Weave only in important or rather respectful moments. After all, Barca was his right hand man in all of this.

“Yes Barca?”

“Sorry to disturb you, but I have all the reports you wanted so whenever you are ready...”

“Right now is fine thanks, let’s hear what you’ve got.”

Barca carefully shut the door behind him before joining Weave. Both of them now looked out over the festival crowd as Barca began his report.

“Just warning you, but the groups are already worse off than I had personally anticipated...” said Barca, taking a cautious pause before continuing, “just an hour in and we technically have lost four of our seven total groups, as you and I had previously discussed.”

“Yes I was afraid of that, so what happened?”

“Well firstly, two of our groups tried to collaborate in order to get an edge over the other groups... however, they ended up in an all-out brawl with each other. So of course we sent them back to the orphanage for breaking the rules.”

All Weave could do was shake his head, “and the others?”

“Ah yes, well one group tried to bribe the city guards... so they were taken in. And it turns out that the fourth group was sold out as well. They tried to bribe a well-known thief... so they were obviously taken in too.”

“Wait, you’re suggesting that one should never trust a thief?”

Barca cracked a smile at Weave’s rhetoric, “yes a peculiar accusation I know.”

“What do we know of the remaining groups then?” continued Master Weave.

“Honestly, we still aren’t that sure. We know of the group that got caught by the guards trying to make a quick, first move on the Duke. So with half of their group gone, it looks like they are still recovering...”

Weave let out a small sigh, “so we really have only two groups left?”

“Uh yes. But one group does show some promise. They appear to have made a plan and will be moving this way anytime now. The interesting part is that our guys say the youngest of the kids is in charge somehow, goes by the name of Con?”

“Hm that is interesting, I wonder how he managed to take charge” Weave answered while scratching his chin in a pondering manner.

“Oh but it gets even more interesting. I had to send a couple others to help track the last group. This group has been split up the entire time and seem to be actually tracking the other groups! They don’t appear to even have a plan, and on top of it all the girl is in charge... what do you think about that?”

Weave couldn’t help but laugh before responding, “well I don’t know what they are quite up to, but it could be a smart tactic on their front. We may get a decent show up here after all my friend.”

Barca smiled at Weave’s answer, “yes indeed we may. I’ll be right back up after I give one last check on our guys below.”

Weave nodded and turned back to his thoughts as Barca departed from the roof. Despite the fact that most of the orphans had already failed, Weave found himself still pleased overall. Not only did they make attempts at the Duke, but there was still a chance for a group to succeed. From his current viewpoint on the roof, Weave could see Duke Lereno and his caravan were beginning to congregate more so around the center of the large square, as was the festival custom. Hopefully Con and his group stood a chance at stealing that jewel, Weave thought to himself. Not only for the sake of the task, but as a message to the traitorous Duke for siding with the rebellion. Weave had known for some time now that, for whatever superstitious bullshit reason, the Duke’s jewel was believed to represent the “Rightful Ruler of Cumberland”, or something like that. The jewel had now been passed down a fine line of the current Duke Lereno’s family lineage. And soon, Weave would test the belief behind this stupid jewel to the fullest.

“Soon enough, my dear Duke, we shall replace your myth of longevity with a myth of our own. I like to call it, the new longstanding myth of guilty fear, you little bitch” Weave snickered to himself, watching the Duke’s red caravan draw even closer towards his location.

6

Con stood in the center of the festival, casually leaning against the statue of Duke Lereno as he munched on a red apple, recently swiped off of a nearby fruit stand. Overall, Con felt pretty relaxed considering how alert he was to his surroundings. He recalled another lesson he held in high regards from his father which included the ability to make decisions, then act on them in full confidence. There should be no regrets in life, Rahn had explained to Con on more than one occasion. “All decisions made in life, are the best of our current abilities mixed together with our experience of the current circumstances. Failure is only natural, in the end all of our decisions may not have been the best. But remember, adaptation is also considered natural. So where failure may be considered natural, the absence of adapting is considered unnatural. Fail, but only if you can learn from it.”

A faint whistle came from up in the tree nearest to Con. He took the time now to glance up into the face of Duke Lereno’s statue.

“Welp, that’s my queue your majesty.”

Con spat on the feet of the statue, tossed his apple core over his shoulder, and saluted up into the nearest tree as he began walking away. Mouse, keeping lookout up in the tree, noted Con’s acknowledgement of his signal before beginning to climb back down the tree.

Now that the plan was officially in motion, Con began to feel the excitement bubbling up inside of him. He had anticipated loving the thrill, but he was surprised to find no unsettling nerves inside of him at all. After all, why be nervous? Besides what may happen if he were to fail... but no need to worry about that just yet.

The plan was, generally, pretty straightforward. From the top of the tree, Mouse signaled the whole group to start moving once the Duke’s caravan was approaching. Now Con watched as Roman, Ferrin, and the two other boys began hoisting a large crate up onto their shoulders via two large planks of wood stationed directly underneath the crate. The boys would now set course to walk across the path of the Duke’s caravan, where Samille would be waiting with their stolen bomb. Once Con and Mouse created their distractions using poppers on the guards, Samille would light up the crate with a fiery distraction of her own. Con could then easily slip back around to get the jewel. For added measure, Roman and Ferrin were going to make sure and include some of their own distractions. In the end, Con expected little resistance left between him and that jewel. Not a bad plan, in his opinion.

Looking back as he walked, Con couldn’t pick out Samille in the crowd, but he knew she was there, waiting at the point of intersection, concealing a rather large and illegal orange bomb on her person somewhere. Con was now it position with Mouse, watching the Duke and all of his guards march past them. Their crate and the Duke were drawing closer together, both Con and Mouse now pulled out small handfuls of poppers in anticipation of their distractions. It was about to go down.

“Con... where’s the crate?” before Mouse finished asking his question, Con had realized the same thing. Something was wrong.

As they looked at each other, a loud scream floated over the crowd, “Con!” It was Samille.

“Shitballs”, cursed young Con. He frantically looked around as if to find either a miracle or the crate sitting beside him. He didn’t find either.

Thinking fast, he turned and handed his poppers to Mouse, “here take these and count to sixty. If I’m not back, make enough distractions for both of us.”

Con took off running in the direction of Samille and the crate. Once again, he found himself in panic mode. It had been such a good plan, but didn’t even get a chance. What went wrong?

“CON!”

He heard Samille’s voice, a lot closer to him than he expected. Con turned to find her rushing up to him, panic written all over her face.

“Con, a pack of guards stopped the boys! They are asking about the crate...” Samille sputtered, eyes wide and full of plea for help.

“Shit okay okay, where did the guards come from though?” as Con asked, he saw the handful of guards standing in front of Ferrin, attempting to get answers out of him.

“I think they are on break from duty right now, they must be reserves for the festival because they came out of the barracks when they saw the crate going by...”

Think Con, think. Any second now Mouse was going to start distracting the rear guards. The caravan was already almost on top of them. Four of their guys were now caught thanks to some stupid guards that he had failed to account for. Damn it, Con thought to himself, what were the fucking chances that the few guards on break in the whole festival happened to have been right next to them. He should have noticed the town center guard barracks was stationed right here. Not that it mattered anymore because the few guards in the barracks were now outside, leaving the building empty... and completely exposed…

“Give me the bomb” demanded Con.

“Wait what?” Samille fumbled below her clothes to pull out the large orange ball.

“Good, now light it.”

“What!?”

“Light it Samille! Hurry.”

She pulled out the metal sparker that Roman and Ferrin had so graciously supplied to the group, with a little thievery of course. Samille’s face revealed how flustered she felt, but Con could tell she was still focused as she began to light the fuse.

“Just get the jewel” Con finally answered, gently holding the bomb while he waited for it to light, “as soon as the bomb goes off.”

“Okay” replied Samille as the fuse lit and began sparkling all over Con’s sleeves, “you’ve got about ten seconds Con...”

Con took off running once again, this time a little more frantic thanks to the lit bomb in his hands. All he had to do now was make it to the empty barracks before time expired. Since Weave had restricted the use of violence against people, the group had agreed upon using an empty crate. With that gone, Con would just have to use a whole building for a distraction.

Con purposely went streaking past his group, the guards, and the newly apprehended crate. Holding the bright orange bomb aloft, Con couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at all of the attention he was drawing. Even Roman and Ferrin both dropped their jaws in disbelief, watching him zip by as he made a beeline for the barracks. All the while, Con was quietly counting and knew he was already out of time. With only a couple of seconds left, and about twenty feet to go, Con launched the bomb with as much loft and accuracy as he could muster. Time slowed just enough for all the heads in the crowd to turn and watch the bomb soar straight through the front doors of the guard barracks.

Con’s bright smile managed to stay mostly intact even as he was thrown to the ground from the fiery explosion that rocked the entire courtyard. Those around Con who were not immediately thrown to the ground, found themselves staggering to stay upright. The guard barracks already glowed a fierce orange inside, with flames licking at the doors and windows as if the building had come to life. People began to panic and scramble away from the area, with only a few brave souls moving forward to try and contain the fire.

Getting back on his feet quicker than most around him, Con turned around to find another beautiful scene unfolding. The Duke’s caravan was in complete chaos. Half of the guards were running towards the barracks, while the remaining guard detail appeared to be under attack. Only they were in no real danger, just greatly exposed to the humiliation his group of orphans were stirring up. Several guards were currently chasing Ferrin in circles, who appeared to be wearing the red helmet and jacket of one of the guards. The other boys were scrambling to throw as many miscellaneous items from the crowd in the direction of the Duke. Mouse was some distance away from the other guys, but running away from a pack of guards while occasionally throwing a popper over his shoulder. The whole scene was fantastic.

Emerging from the chaos, Samille ran towards him with an outstretched hand clenched tightly into a fist.

“Con Con I’ve got it! I’ve got the jewel!” Samille’s smile stretched from one side of her face to the other.

“Brilliant Samille! Hurry and let’s get out of here” Con replied, whistling loudly to alert the group that it was time to run for the hills, or more specifically, the orphanage.

As was previously agreed, Con and Samille both fled the courtyard without waiting for the others. They made it a couple of blocks before Samille slowed into a jog and could not contain her excitement any longer.

“I can’t believe we pulled it off! I mean it’s not that I doubted you Con, but it just seemed so impossible you know!?”

“I know Samille, we all did very…”

“I mean seriously, we just bombed a guard barracks for shits sake! And now Weave won’t be able to kill us!”

“Yes, it was truly…”

“You should have seen the look on the Duke’s face! I mean he didn’t notice me of course because he was staring at the burning building and all the crazy around him…” Con couldn’t help but smile listening to Samille’s excitement, even though he couldn’t get a word into the conversation. She was right after all. They had succeeded over the other groups and managed to save their own lives. Con felt extremely satisfied with the outcome. He wondered how Master Weave would react to his plan though, hopefully he would be willing to look past the bombing and…

Next thing he knew, Con tripped over something he hadn’t seen, and immediately ate shit into the dirt.

“Arrgghhh” is all Con managed to grunt, as he pulled his face out of the ground to glance back.

The culprit was a rather long rope, each end held by an orphan he recognized from the room below the orphanage. The pair of orphans each squatted behind large barrels, but now got up and began coiling the rope. They must have been hidden, then pulled the rope so they could purposely trip them!

Before Con could stop it, a large boy sat down directly onto his back and began wrestling the jewel from Con’s grip. It didn’t take long before Con was deprived of the very jewel that he and his group had worked so hard to obtain.

“Sorry about this…” the larger boy muttered to Con before climbing off of his back.

“Evelynn!” the boy now shouted back in the direction he had come from, holding the jewel up high, “look what I got!”

Con heard the footsteps approach, but felt too ashamed to look up just yet. He felt a person tying his legs together with a rope now. After all of the hard work…

“Why thank you Dominic, she is a very pretty specimen. And who do we have to thank for winning Weave’s task for us?”

Con, unable to completely admit defeat, slowly turned his eyes upward from the dirt. What he found was the most terrible, yet beautiful girl he had ever seen in his long seven years of life. This was the orphan who was responsible for stealing Con’s glory. Evelynn looked to be a year or two older than him. She had naturally straight blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, above average symmetry in her face and features, and she stood with her eyes fixed on Con, holding the prized jewel out in front of her so that the sapphire gem dazzled the brilliant sunset through its transparency. Con hated every inch of her for this.

“Shy? No matter, we got what we needed” explained Evelynn, exciting laughter now emanating from her surrounding group.

And with that, Evelynn turned and fled the scene with her group, their laughter echoing down the buildings. Con didn’t move. It’s not that he couldn’t move, but what was the point?

His group had lost the task, and now Master Weave would make sure that Con paid for it with his life.