Not long before Frost Direshard was thrown from a bridge, he was lamenting the gravity of university fees.
University is fucking expensive, he thought, someone at the top is running away with a lot of money. Frost pulled a hood over his solid white hair and jumped down from where he'd been perched atop a wooden fence. The night conveniently obscured his features, and his soft steps made sure that no one would hear him coming. Anyone stupid enough to be out at this time of night deserved what was coming to them. Frost twirled the crowbar in his right hand and set off towards the bridge to find his prey.
The bridge in question was the one he'd read about in the paper earlier that day. Someone had gone missing in the very place he now walked. It would be the first of two tragedies to occur here, since the dead of night left it largely abandoned besides a car that would swing past every minute or so. It was the ideal place to rob somebody, like most places in the city at night. It was an even more ideal place to commit suicide, apparently. At least I'd die with a good view, he thought while overlooking the beautiful bay below that reflected the full moon above.
Frost slowed his steps as he started to hear distant chatter.
Two men were standing at the middle point of the bridge, shrouded in darkness and out of range of the nearest streetlight. Frost tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, walking at a slightly tilted angle to conceal the crowbar behind himself. He deliberately slowed down to a turtle's pace, pretending to gaze longingly over the lake as passerby so often did in the dead of night. It was this very action that had allowed him to catch so many off guard in the past.
The crowbar quickly became slick with sweat. He didn't know why, but he already felt like something was wrong. To alleviate the feeling he watched the stars glittering on the surface of the water. Imagining an unfathomably large universe above him restored his resolve. Cosmically insignificant. There's no reason to be nervous. In fact, to worry about anything at all is quite laughable. Frost tightened his grip and readied himself to strike.
"This should be the spot," one of the men was saying. He was bald, and wore a dark green beefy jacket that would probably serve as a buffer for any blunt or sharp strikes.
"Pass me the bomb, then," the other said. He was wearing a similar outfit, except he was younger and had more hair.
"You kidding? This is my favourite part!" The old man pulled out a small grey orb. Frost ascertained that it was some sort of explosive, but it certainly didn't look like any explosive he'd ever seen.
He couldn't help smiling watching this display. After all, it wasn't often that the people Frost robbed were busy doing something worse than he was doing. He'd relish in the opportunity to feel like a hero for once.
The man twisted the top half of the orb and leaned over the side of the bridge. "Should be about this angle…"
"How will we know if we miss?" The younger one asked.
"We won't be alive to figure it out."
True, Frost thought, cracking the bald man over the top of the head with the crowbar. They'd both been turned away from him, so it was quite easy to stalk up from behind. The man's head let out an almost satisfying crack and he thudded to the ground like a rock. Blood pooled beneath his head, and his eyes were rolled into the back of his head while his body started to convulse.
"All of your money, punk." Frost pointed his crowbar at the younger man. "Now."
The man stepped back and lifted his arms cautiously. "What in the realms between–"
"So you do speak English, great!" Frost jabbed the crowbar out threateningly. "Wallet. Hand it over."
But then something he couldn't possibly explain appeared in his vision.
[Akra Sharaki is activating an attribute: Weapon summon.]
What the hell? Words in vibrant white played across Frost's vision, casually informing him of an incoming attack. Nonetheless, he was almost too stunned to act.
Shshshshsh. Some space beyond corporeal reality whispered out almost silently responding to the man's call. The sound was like words sitting on the tip of a tongue, waiting to be spoken, wishing to scream. This sound was accompanied by an almost impossibly black tear in spacetime itself. It was crying, with bits of pure blackness dropping to the ground like tears. The man reached his hand into this hole and from it produced a weapon. A sword.
Its edges were etched with frost like it was stored in a freezer, but it looked like an ordinary sword if one ignored its means of production. The man kept one hand on it and fell into an obviously well practiced stance. He placed one foot in front of the other and let the blade fall to his side in only one hand despite the fact that it could take two. His body flowed with strange energy as he did it. Frost could somehow tell that it was the same energy as the black portal.
"You picked the wrong night to play hero, boy." He raised the sword, tip pointed at Frost like a wasp ready to sting.
Frost, in response, just handled his crowbar like a rapier. "Maybe."
He double-stepped forward. Clack clack, masterfully stepping over the body of his friend. Frost advanced at the same time with unfounded confidence. The man thrusted the sword, but Frost batted it aside with the crowbar. He slammed his full bodyweight into the man and slapped him in the side of the head with the crowbar as he fell off balance. He fell to the side, but caught himself on the bridge's railing and gave a feral growl of pain.
Then he recovered, almost immediately in fact. Did Frost just get lucky when cracking his friend? As he was thinking this, he took a most likely lethal sword thrust through his abdomen. The sword was drawn back just as quickly, leaving Frost to stumble away in unimaginable pain. His mind was racing, his breathing slowing. Before he knew it his body got weak and his knees hit the ground. He coughed blood.
That's bad, right? That means something serious was damaged… I'm going to die! But he couldn't bring himself to feel fear. This was what he deserved, right? He'd always been lucky, and yet everyone and everything turned its back on him eventually. His parents, his friends, the orphanage, the world, Vera, and now the luck that had kept him safe all of these years. Damnit, damnit, damnit!
"Not so cocky now." The man stepped forward to look down on Frost. "You'll die. And for what? A wallet? People on this planet are so damn simple minded, it makes me laugh." He shrugged. "And I don't even have any of your stupid money! Was it worth it?"
"Shut the hell up…"
"What was that?"
"Shut up!" Frost boomed. He thought one thing in what he presumed would be his final moments. If I'm going to die, I'm fucking this guy over first! He stood up on impossible strength and charged.
He tensed up as if expected to be slammed again, but Frost was going for a different target. He desperately lunged forward, belly flopping onto the ground. The small grey orb was taken into his hands and cradled. The metal was quickly stained with the fresh blood on his hands. When the man approached, Frost held it out to him threateningly even though he had no clue what it could do. "Back!" Frost yelled, smiling slyly.
The look on the man's face was a mix of concern and terror. "Alright. Let's think about this now…" He said
In response, Frost heaved with the last of his strength and threw himself into the air. He curved his back, recalling the high jumping skills he'd practiced well in highschool. It allowed him to effortlessly clear the railing of the bridge that was specifically designed to prevent this exact movement. Just as quickly he disappeared from view and plummeted toward the bay below, disappearing into the darkness in a flash of white hair.
"No!" A voice called over the railing. The man's terrified face quickly grew distant.
Frost fell. He reached a hand upward toward his life that was slipping away. Twenty years of age and dead. No one would remember him. What kind of life had he lived, and did it have any purpose at all? I was so worried about money that I didn't even enjoy living. Still, he was a practical man that knew there was no purpose in going out with a scream of terror. He closed his eyes and prepared to let the bay claim him
The wind beat against him, hair flowing wildly around like an inflatable tube man. He clutched the orb to his chest with the last of his strength and braced his body for an impact that never came. Instead, he found his momentum redirected in a flash of vertigo and blackness. His back was level with the ground and he was almost flying for a moment. In the next instant he hit it, bouncing and flipping over himself until his back slammed against something hard and let out a dangerous crack. He slumped down, certain that he'd broken something important in the process. "Dear god…" He murmured.
He rolled his head back and gazed at unbelievable scenery. His back was against a tree in the middle of a field. The grass was green and rustled by gentle winds. The temperature here – wherever here was – was perfect. The sky, too, was almost impossibly blue.
A strange sensation gnawed at the back of Frost's head as he fell into stunned silence. A solitary thought was fighting hard against the constraints of his mind, gripping for freedom. He let it go, and watched as words just like the ones from earlier played across his vision.
[New traveller registered. Welcome to the Void, Frost Direshard]
Behind the words, just as his vision started to go black, four men could be seen walking up the hill. Two of them bickered, one left, and that left three of them standing over him. Frost felt utterly powerless. He tried to mutter a word, but nothing came out. All he could do was stare into the face of the young-ish man that was looking down at him with a devious expression. He had an insignia on his jacket. Somehow, he knew that these men did not intend to help him.
Frost Direshard lost consciousness.