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Kya Wise, North Hertfordshire College

February 2022

Long ago in a world that goes by the name Cliyiania on the continent called the Isles of clouds. Years ago, it went by a different name however, the memory of the inhabitants has been wiped of that name and what caused that event. The capital of the Isle of clouds was known as the Kingdom of Everday, it was not somewhere people often went. And those who lived in the capital went there in search of a more exciting life than they could get in the small towns and villages that were scattered around the continent. But after a while, most people gave up hope not finding what they expected and settled with the life they now had.

Everything changed when Daphne was born, her father, the King, raised her and she grew up to be a kind and spirited young princess who the people believed would change the kingdom for the better. When Daphne was around twelve the king made a horrible mistake and removed three items from a seal that held an evil darkness that had tried to take over Cliyiania a thousand years ago. A brave warrior defeated it and sealed it away hoping it would never escape. The reason the King took the items remains a mystery to this day but when the darkness escaped it formed a power so evil that not even the princess's power could defeat it. Everyone in Cliyiania was born with magic, but the princess’s was the most powerful magic anyone had seen in millennia. The evil power took form and called himself King Deimos, he came into the Kingdom of Everday where the palace resides. The princess fought alongside the royal guard, she'd practised fighting with them most of her life, the battle lasted many hours, but the princess was the only warrior left standing. Knowing this she bravely took on Deimos. The princess locked Deimos in a block of sheer ice, the strongest thing in the kingdom, but the princess knew that one day Deimos would break out of the ice. The king of Cliyiania was lost, trapped by the darkness, and never to be found. Three years have gone by since that day and this is where the story begins.

Near the western border of the continent looking out at the sea, there is a village called Lostcrest, it's small but always busy. It was, after all where the Adventurers Guild is. Travellers come from far and wide to join the Guild, being an Adventurer is one of the best-paying jobs in Cliyiania but in return, it is the most dangerous. The most common tasks given are escorting merchants, capturing bandits, or even slaying monsters though those are typically assigned to a group of Adventurers. Resting on a wall outside the Guild building is a seventeen-year-old girl named Athena she is a half-elf, half-dwarf and one of the fiercest and smartest warriors in the Guild despite only being four foot tall. She has snow white hair that starts to turn red halfway down her long ponytail and intelligent turquoise eyes that she has been told are the same shade as the ocean which she found ironic as she despises the water. She was making sure to double and triple check her backpack to ensure she had everything before the mission, map check, daggers check, blanket check, enough food to feed ten people check. Very little of the food was for her, most of it was for her partner Nyx who was standing next to her fiddling with his sword. She didn’t know how but he could eat over double what she could in a day, so the bag was crammed with as much food as she could possibly fit inside. She had learned by now that if she didn’t over-fill the bag, he would complain throughout the whole assignment. “Don’t you think you're overdoing it a bit Athena, it's only a one-day mission”, “of course he would think that?” she thought, he wasn’t much of a planner and often preferred a reckless, headfirst approach to situations.