For as long as he could remember, he was the only human in the land of Lead. The landscape of Lead was that of a permanent aftermath. Everywhere you looked it was like the war between Mortals and Demons had just ended. Crumbling cities, mass graves and the burnt out remnants of destroyed forests. Most, if not all the Mortal races had been killed off or forced into hiding. The orcs had struck up a treaty with the demons, the dwarves had dug deep underground and even the proud elves had long since gone into hiding in their massive World Tree, Arbordia.
The remnants of the human civilization was called the Badlands, an area rife with turmoil and roving bandits and demon militias, vying for power for their lords and dukes in the broken down buildings and manors that were still left standing. The soil had been poisoned years before, and the forests were full of terrifying monsters.
His earliest memories were of a mother bear-wolf, one of the most terrifying of monsters, she had probably found him after his parents had been murdered by demons. Or maybe she had killed them herself, and took pity on their child. It's not like he could have asked her.
When he was five summers old she took him to see their bones. She had kept them inside a small den, hidden away in the forest of the Badlands.
He was around ten summers old when she joined his parents in the afterlife. She was just gone one morning, succumbing to old age underneath the bough of a pale oak. After crying for a few hours,he went about taking her pelt.
Maybe it would seem barbaric to some, but he had learned never to let anything go to waste in the Badlands. He couldn't bring himself to use her for food however, even though a part of him knew he'd regret it one cold and hungry night.
There were a lot of things he just knew. Like how to skin a kill, how to cook and purify water. He also knew some words in the mortal languages and had learned to read from extrapolating that knowledge. Everything else he had learned, like the history of the war, from the ruined books and scattered accounts left in diaries of the deceased.
When he was younger he used to have lots of dreams about living in a lit world, where even the night was almost as bright as day, and you met humans on every corner.
In those dreams he had an Arcana Stone like the Spiritcasters in his books, the kind that would let him hunt and stay warm as easy as a flick of the wrist. He had learned a lot, but those kinds of abilities weren't the ones you learned from a book, at least not one in a crumbling old building. They did have stories that kept his dreams alive, however.
Though, they were probably the wishful thinking of a lonely human, who might just be the last of their kind.
Especially the lights, the sky in the Badlands was constantly overcast. He had seen the sun maybe once or twice in the fourteen years he spent in the Badlands, and both times it was much too bright.
Four summers after the mother bear-wolf had passed, and her children had all moved on to claim further and deeper parts of the forest for their own, he was left all alone. But that all changed one day.
While he was out checking his traps, near the old ruined castles, a large black hole had opened in the sky.
Now that might have been strange to someone who wasn't from the Badlands, but he was used to the demons doing weird Spirit and military experiments. As long as he stayed out of sight, it wasn't his problem in the least.
Nevertheless, he kept his hand on his weapon, a gruesome looking dagger with brutal edges and a skull engraved in the hilt. He had had it with him for almost as long as he could remember and it had served him well. It had lain with his parents' bones when the mother bear-wolf had taken him to their resting spot.
That was how he spent most of his days, checking traps, skinning kills, and staying hidden from bandits and demons alike. For four summers the nameless boy survived totally alone, not speaking to another living soul except the few birds that still called the Badlands home.
It was a life, he didn't know any other, and he wasn't sure he wanted to try leaving.
He didn't have any maps and mother bear-wolf had never taken him outside the Badlands, she hadn't even let him get this close to the castle when she was alive. He was about to learn that she probably had decent reasons.
The floating rift had opened even further, covering the entire visible sky, with green tendrils creeping down towards the ground.
He minded his own business, collecting the meager amounts of herbs that were still near the castle, filling up his rucksack, one had pilfered from a fallen bandit.
When he looked up from his task to scan the horizon, he realized one of those green tendrils was headed right for him.
His eyes went wide and his heart dropped, he needed to run. Nearly dropping his rucksack, he began to sprint towards the treeline, hoping to get lost amongst the rotting wood. He bobbed and weaved under and through the dying and dead trees.
In his panic, he stopped paying attention to his footing, and tripped over a root, crashing head first into the trunk of one of the massive oaks.
His forehead hurt, and it felt warm and wet when he touched his skin, looking at his hand confirmed he had opened up a cut on it. He started wiping the wound with a piece of cloth he had salvaged, and then remembered why he was running in the first place.
His head pivoted, and he saw the green chain that looked like symbols or characters from a language he didn't know, twisting through the air down towards him.
Then, it curled about itself wrapping into a large ball before glowing brighter and brighter until the green became almost white. Then the ball exploded outward and blinded him in a beam of bright green, revealing a dark shape inside that began plummeting to the ground.
He barely had time to cover his head before it landed on top of him.
"Ouch! Fuck!" After gathering himself, rubbing his head from the pain, he inspected the object that had fallen. It was a wooden box of a dark red color with silver hands fitted to the top, acting as the lock.
"What the hell is this…" Talking to himself had become a permanent habit due to the endless solitude. He flicked the tips of the fingers up, allowing the lid to slide open.
Inside was a large purple stone with a black cord affixed to it with a noose-like knot. Something akin to smoke seemed to twist and curl inside the amulet.
"Whoa…" He reached down and grabbed it, holding it up to his eye. There weren't many things that were beautiful like that in the Badlands.
"Hello, son of the Great Gray Wolf." A calm, feminine voice emanated from the stone, feeding directly into his mind. "I've been waiting for- Hey wait do-"
"Ahhh!" He dropped the rock back into the box instinctively, and the voice stopped.
After a moment, he steeled himself and reached in to grab it again.
"Are you done freaking out now…?" The voice sounded almost whiny.
"Uh… Yeah… Sorry…" He was pretty sure he was having some kind of mental break, maybe he had hit his head so hard he had knocked out and this was all some dream.
"You, like, totally ruined my whole thing. I was gonna roleplay it for you. Anyways, you hit the jackpot today buddy. This girl is a Legendary-Class Arcana Stone! Feel free to give me some fanfare." The voice laughed cheerily as he wiped the rest of the blood off his face.
"Legendary… Item…? I-I don't understand."
"Well yeah I guess that makes sense, you've been here a long time. Do you remember anything from before you were here?"
"Before I was here…? No, I've always lived here." A few flashes of the dreams he used to have when he was younger circled in his mind. But never long enough for him to latch onto anything.
"Bummer, I figured that might be the case. Well it's a good thing you have me now, buddy. I'll take care of you." The amulet flashed in his hands.
"Take… care…? This is a lot." He put the amulet back in the box, no longer feeling like he wanted his mind to be an open space for conversation. Closing the box, he tucked it into the makeshift rucksack he had crafted from assorted animal pelts.
Then wrapping the cape he had made from Mother Wolf's fur around himself, he shook his body like his brothers and sisters had to rid themselves of cold or wet, and headed back into the forest.
Once he reached his den, a hole in the ground at the base of a large tree, he clambered down and pulled the hatch crafted of branches packed with mud and leaves over the top.
Then he carved out a hole in the sidewall, making a spot for the box in the den with a sharp branch he kept for defense by the entrance.
The ornate case began to rattle and shake in the alcove on the wall. Whatever it was, it clearly wanted attention. He deliberated for a bit before opening it again, and grabbing the amulet.
"Jesus Christ! Come on dude, I've been waiting so long to talk to someone, please stop putting me in the box!" The voice begged, almost sounding on the verge of tears.
"Uh sorry… I'm not… Used to talking to people…"
"Yeah, I noticed! So are you gonna put me on or what? I can't exactly bestow upon you my super secret gifts if you don't wear me!" There was a bit of a tight edge to her tone.
"Put you on… Gifts…? Uh, I don't know…" Putting on a talking necklace with a smokey motif seemed iffy at best, and coupled with her desperation seemed like a pretty bad idea.
"Yeah! I can boost your skills and stuff, it's a crazy good buff. Nobles and adventurers alike would kill for a chance at me!" Definitely desperate.
"The only skills I have are as a hunter…"
"Well whatever, I'll boost your senses and tracking abilities then, maybe even give you tool and weapon proficiencies, you can even get a subclass when you get more Ore. Look, just put me on, okay, please?" Her tone was more familiar to him now, sad and lonely. The overall tone of most of his life.
"F… Fine… But if this backfires I'm turning you into scrap…" With great trepidation, he put the necklace on, and as soon as he did it felt like his entire body was going through a pizza oven. He barely had time to wonder what a pizza oven was before he blacked out.
A couple hours later he awoke on the dirt floor of his hideout, the necklace no longer around his neck. His mouth tasted like iron, and the musty smell of the rotting roots that he previously had gotten accustomed to was now overpowering.
{{ ARCANA STONE ACQUIRED. MAJOR ARCANADEX UNLOCKED. MINOR ARCANADEX UNLOCKED. HEALTH BONUS: ZERO. SPIRIT BONUS: ZERO. STAMINA BONUS: +20%. THE HANGED MAN ARCANA ADDED TO MAJOR ARCANADEX.}}
The words appeared on a screen in front of him.
"What.. did you do to me…" He moaned, through the pain as he pushed himself up into a kneeling position, looking for the large pendant. There was no response.
{{SET HANGED MAN ARCANA STONE TO CURRENT MAJOR ARCANA?}}
"Wait, does that mean I-I'm a Spiritcaster now?"
{{ARCANA STONE: CREATED FROM LOSS OF SPIRITCASTERS LIFE, AN ARCANA STONE IS WHAT REMAINS. BEING BORN WITH AN ARCANA STONE DENOTES EXISTENCE AS A SPIRITCASTER. BENEFITS SUCH AS MORE OVERALL STAMINA, SPIRIT AND HEALTH COINCIDE WITH POSSESSION OF ARCANA STONE OF ANY CLASS, ALONG WITH AN INABILITY TO GET SICK. BEINGS ALSO OBTAIN THE ABILITY TO SPIRITCAST. IN RARE CASES, OBTAINING A PREVIOUSLY OWNED STONE PASSES ON SKILLS OF A PREVIOUS WIELDER.}}
"Spiritcasting!? Y-Yes, set Hanged Man to current Major Arcana!" The nameless boy said before he could fully think it out.
{{THE HANGED MAN ARCANA; SACRIFICE, WISDOM, INTUITION, DISCERNMENT. NEW BASIC AND ADVANCED SKILLS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO YOUR LOADOUT.}}