Book 1, Destiny

Chapter 1, The Beginning

Carn, City of Traders! Its many vendors selling everything from jewellery to clothing, Sellers of fine silks and weapons littered the streets. Stalls selling exotic spices from the eastern lands, meat fat dripping from the many spits hung over many fires. A drink vendor advertising his juices to the hustle and bustle of the streets, a famous bar selling the best wine and beer that even royalty comes to drink it (an eastern prince, currently half-drunk over a fire, is a prime example. He is also suddenly very very poor as a cunning pickpocket stole a small fortune from the young man's clothing*). There is a shop for everything in the Desert City.

This cunning pickpocket was Arain, who had lost his loot almost as quickly as it was attained as a gang of lowly thieves robbed him. He himself had to resort to stealing from a young age to survive. Arain had precious few possessions he hadn't stolen including a silver filigree locket of his mother's, a leather satchel of his father's (which he used to hold multiple bits and bobs), and a chest, which was made of a rare and unobtainable wood covered with carvings that seemed to tell stories all of their own. He didn't steal it, apparently it had been in his family for generations. It was never opened, as it couldn't be, countless people have tried, including himself, but it stayed locked as always.

After being bashed up again he ran back into a small shack where he lived, it was nothing much, just a chair, a table and a little rug on the floor where he slept. His treasure box was safe under a loose floorboard, he checked it now, and having been satisfied with the results, he locked it again and lied down on the rug, he was tired, although it was but midday.

*The prince was last seen trying to beg money from a lava giant, who was resting in a nearby hot spring, it didn't end well.

He reread the parchment that lied on the table, it told of the beast that began terrorizing the city a few weeks earlier and of people flocking away, leaving in the famous airships that used to transport them. The Docks were deserted now, even the soldiers left taking their great warships with them. Thieves ran wild, stealing what they could, and the remaining merchants barricaded themselves inside their houses with a year's supply of food.

Then suddenly, a crash of a building and a high-pitched scream signalled another attack. Arain prepared to run down into a cellar by stuffing his safe box and his belongings into a sack, but something stopped him, he had a sudden lust for something he didn't understand, he took the sack and ran out into the streets.

He ran, faster and with more purpose than ever, towards a large house near the centre of the city, he knew nothing about who lived there, except for the rumours of strange voices, sounds and lights emanating from the very topmost room of the house.

Judging from the direction of the noise, the Beast was close, too close. Seconds later the Monster burst through a nearby building, timber exploded everywhere and for probably the hundredth time, he was scared.

Frozen in fear, Arain stood but metres away from the door of the house. The Beast eyed him curiously, it was taking the human equivalent of a run-up*, and as it pounced, something grabbed his arm and he was pulled inside the run-down building, and as he was he hit his head on something round and awfully strong, and he was knocked out. The Wolf-like monster had closed its eyes in that crucial split-second, so it seemed to it that its prey had vanished. Confused, slightly injured and disoriented from the impact, it limped away back to where it came from. Which could have been anywhere, it was a surprisingly sneaky creature for a 20-foot-tall beast with glowing eyes and tracks the approximate size of a car tire.

*A run-up is just our word for giving our leap a little extra force, of course unlike humans the Beast had no word for this "little extra force" so for it the action could only be described as "a sort of sprint followed by a type of forward jump used to go over things better".