At the bottom of The Hollows was what the remnants of humanity called The Well of Valdis, a long since abandoned chamber that had drawn much darkness due to the nature of its existence as a desperate domain to revitalize the efforts of humanity’s survival and to refuse the fate of their now accursed existence. It was true, of course, that the apocalypse that they called the Inalienable Dreamless had damned humanity to a fate that was worse than death as harrowing monsters and vile demons now roamed the world before them with a hunger for destruction that could not be sated. But how far would humanity’s desperation take them? The answer lied in what remained in The Hollows’ darkest corners and deepest chambers. However, humanity’s darkest hour was not the only thing that existed in this well of sorrow, this pit of lost souls; for it was here on this day that the gods would look back upon humanity and in the mounds of corpses, pools of blood, and stench of decay that seven would reawaken as their lips once again gasped for air as the flinching pain of the death they had been absolved from would be their last clear memory.

The first to awaken had pink of hair and sapphire of eyes, her body face down in a pool of crimson. Only moments ago had she been lifeless as she laid in an everlasting purgatorial state, as she had for some amount of years. Her fists clenched in the shallow pool, grasping onto the debris of cracked stone that lied underneath, her body shaking painfully before she rose her head out of the pool in a painful gasp as the crimson water came flooding out of her lungs.

The girl continued to cough for some amount of minutes as her eyes widened, her body adjusting to its sudden revitalization considering the last thing that was felt was the battering of an enemy’s maul and the pressure of a metal-entrenched boot upon the neck as blood filled her lungs. The pink-haired girl remembered drowning, choking… and the blackness of death. But as her senses came back to her, painful as they were there was one thing she knew even in the haze of pain and confusion.

This place was nothing like the one she remembered losing her life upon. A death that to her felt like seconds ago.

…this isn’t right.

Before she could compose herself any further the sound of other succeeding gasps and murmurs of pain could be heard from all across the bottom of the chamber-like pit she had awoken within. A frown forming on her lip as she clumsily made to her feet, instinctively grabbing for a now missing bow in nervous anxiety.

Where am I? What happened to my bow? The battlefield I was on? Who dragged me here? Why?

She didn’t know what was going on. All she knew was that the chamber smelled like rot, looked abhorrent, and felt wrong. Her eyes shot down to that of a rusted sword that laid in the blood and filth-entrenched pool of water. She was little good with a sword, but she was trained in it as far as she could recall; if the shuffle of others in this abhorrent place was precedent of a battle to occur than she needed to at least be able to defend herself from harm. She may of have been an archer first and all things second, but she couldn’t be choosy considering what little she remembered and whereupon she had awakened.

She swiped the sword from the pool as she walked backward — back against the wall.

What in god's name?

The pink-haired girl took a moment to think. For some reason, she couldn’t recall it at first, which was a strange thing in itself. It was something that she should’ve known without a second thought yet here she was full of doubt, fear, anxiety, and ignorance. It took a moment, but she looked at the girl who approached her, holding the sword in her hands tighter and tighter with each step the stranger took. As the words came to her she took a deep breath to clear her nerves.

“Syrenia. My name is Syrenia.”

She could recall the memory of a woman calling out to her in a pulpit, surrounded by other women of all types. After awakening in a blank haze, it was refreshing to remember something considering the nothingness that had consumed her mind. A name was a start of putting the pieces in her head back together, and Syrenia knew that a start was a good thing to have. However, it seemed that the location she had awoken in did not have many more answers for her, or at least she couldn’t remember anything about the place she and this stranger found themselves in. It was a horrific place, with dark grungy water and the smell of rot and excrement; a place that no woman of any kind belonged in, even in death. She wished she knew of where she was in spite of such things, however. To be lost in such a place was an awful thing.

Her eyes were full of dread as she looked at the stranger before her. What she said next likely did not give the woman any peace of mind.

“I have no idea where we are.” She said, still coughing from the taste. “Though, I wish I did.”

Syrenia kept her eyes on the woman and the room as she another one of the “corpse’s” coming to.

Dry lungs that had not tasted the noxious air in decades were suddenly and violently filled. Desperate intakes of the putrid atmosphere pumped into that ragged body, dragging it kicking and screaming back into the violated world of the living. Rebirth was not a gentle thing for Helvete Solon. It was not the spawning of a new life but rather the rejection of one's peace in the afterlife, forcing it back into a damned plane of existence that it did not wish to live in.

Helvete's bloodshot eyes snapped open as he took in another deep, choking breath. There was a pressure on top of him. Something keeping him from drawing in a full breath that made Helvete panic. In that brief moment of terror, Solon let out a horrific, bestial roar. A sound so ferocious and inhuman that one would never expect it left the lips of a man. He thrashed against the carcasses of long dead man-things, rolling one over his grim-caked face so that it's broken body was dashed against a nearby flesh mound. Solon struggled against his lifeless adversaries, fighting tooth and nail to free himself from that prison of corpses that pinned him down.

In that brief rage, Solon felt the visceral phantom pain of his final moments. That strike of a spear in his heart played within his soul and within his gut. Like some psychotic theater production of the mind, Helvete saw the flames that consumed him right down to the seared marrow. The bodies piled atop him brought back brutal memories of chains and ropes pulling down on his limbs, pinning him in place as an awful play was acted out on his ravaged form.

These memories appeared for but a few, precious seconds. They faded when Helvete managed to wriggle himself free, his lungs allowed to suck in panic-ridden breaths once again. The blessing of freedom allowed Solon to calm his raging heart. Helvete rose into a crouch, his fingers grasping at a rotting woman's hair for support. No longer in danger of suffocating, he could finally take note of his surroundings.

This...this was not his home.

There were no trees. No grass, no fields, no animals. No chirping of the song bird and no lapping of river waters over cool stones. Fields of colorful flowers and rolling hills were replaced by crucified bodies and piles of the dead that reached into the sky. High walls of stone surrounded Solon on every side. Solon immediately felt a rush of anxiety and claustrophobia. The stench of excrement and rotting flesh made Helvete's guts churn, and he felt a distinct desire to vomit. No food rose up in his throat to join the hot, acidic bile that Helvete choked back down.

"What is this place-space?" The druid whispered, his voice cracking.

Other sounds reverberated off the walls and knolls of mortal remains. More voices, much like his own. Solon was not the only thing alive in that hellscape. Instead of a rush of joy at this revelation, all he felt was fear and terror. It was a deeply rooted instinct. "Man-things." He muttered quietly. Deciding it was best to retreat, Solon slowly climbed down the pile of corpses he had awoken on. Nearly slipping several times, it took the crouching forest dweller some time to reach a more stable ground. The 'floor' of more tightly packed dead was easier to traverse.

There, at the bottom of his mountain of carcasses, Helvete found something strangely familiar. A pulsating light, hidden underneath a blown out torso. Swiftly he reached down into the pooled blood, grasping the source of the light. It was sharp and hard, like a jagged rock. Solon tugged at it and found that it was firmly stuck in place. The energy that radiated through his hand on contact with it only enhanced Helvete's curiosity. Glancing about in search of dreaded man-things, Solon began to dig. He drug away bodies and broke at flesh and bone until he had cleared away the surrounding rubbish from his desired object.

It was a dull green gemstone, broken and dirtied, and it looked to be attached to something. Helvete pulled the object from the ground, wrestling free a long, wooden staff. Seven feet in length and with a shaft darkened and seared by flames, Solon felt an odd comfort with it in his hands. A comfort, and...a power. Strength that his aged arms did not know filled his body. A singular word played in his mind as he looked down at the tool. "Oakheart..." The staff's name, perhaps? An incantation of some sort? Or was that his name? Solon was entirely unsure.

His gaze drifted back to the pit he had dug out. Another object had been knocked free from the tightly packed sea of cadavers. Helvete inspected the satchel. The leather was worn and stained with blood, and several holes dotted it's surface. Rummaging through the pack, he found shards of broken glass and- oddly enough- birdseed scattered about inside of it. Two vials of the seed remained intact, though the rest must've been shattered or lost.

As he began to empty the bag of useless things, Helvete discovered another item that piqued his interest. An amulet of silver, rusted and grimy, with a chain that looked like it had seen better days. Solon could make out what appeared to be letters upon it's surface, though they were too scratched and damaged to be made out. This item, like the staff before it, carried traces of power. It was far, far fainter within the necklace, however. Helvete drapped the satchel over his shoulder and the amulet about his neck, happy with his findings.

Now he needed to get out of here.

Helvete attempted to sneak around toward the exterior of the well, planning to search for an exit. His awkward, doubled over gait made for a slow and quiet crawl through the fields of fallen men. Fate's hand was as cruel as ever, however; for on his way forward, Solon found himself face to face with one of those man-things he had heard earlier.

He reacted quickly, bringing the pilfered staff around so that he could hold it defensively before him. "Stay away-back!" Solon hissed. "No fight-hurt. Fight-hurt bad, very bad."

Young fire, burning in a tenebrous pit. A flame which birthed from the lost and irrecoverable past to give life anew. It moved, searing and scorching through the black as it expelled waves of colour and light; for once lit, it would not be extinguished until death consumed it offering.

The fluttering of eyelids, still sealed shut, signalled the time to once again rise. They feared to open, feared to look upon the world with a sense of enthusiasm, for it was the scent of the dead which was recognised by young Audhild. The wet smell of rotting flesh and the sickly taste that swirled through the nostrils was inescapable, uncontrollable, and forcibly consumed by those who had awoken. A pulse of instinctive energy erupted from deep within the woman's gut, a contraction of vomiting reflexes that produced no more than gaseous air. Century old taste of maggots and bacteria.

An alien scream flowed from her lips as her body reared awake. Eyes torn open, the pants of hysteria, the adrenalin which slumbered for so long kicked Audhild with a medicinal high that could almost send her back to the depths of death. Her mind had forgotten everything that once was, but her body was not so complainant. Without thought, without hesitation, Audhild climbed through the seas of corpses that laid upon her unfortunate soul as she rose to the summit of flesh and bone. It had become a birth of life through the gift of death — a reaper's failed task, or a god's forsaken gift.

"Hvor er jeg?" Words muttered from a language unknownst to even her as she surveyed the hills of tarred blood.

"Where am I?" She repeated, finally clearing a section of intellect with much needed logic and curiosity. Expressing the confusion to demand an answer from whatever benevolent being that happened to be watching over them at this point in their life. As though it was the will of the universe Audhild heard the subtle sounds of voices from afar, resonating through the pitch void to her sensitive ears.

"Who goes there?" She bellowed, husky and full of might as she dropped to her knees in a scampering forage for any form of suitable protection. A blade, a bone, even flesh to throw would be better than nothing, but the more she searched the more she found which was not suitable to her needs. Her hands brushed over every surface in a panicked frenzy as two names snuck their way into her thoughts...

Oyen & Stohl...

Audhild froze. For the first time since awakening the Skogarian woman had recollected some form of memory. The most insignificant of drops in the ocean of the past, but enough to remind her what it once felt to be human.

"Where am I?" A third time for asking the same question, but this time she was awaiting an answer. Too many questions were formulating inside her head, and none had been truly answered... all except that she knew she had somehow been reborn.

Syrenia allowed the snow-haired woman take lead, speaking and interacting with the others that had risen.

It wasn’t that Syrenia didn’t know or want to engage the individuals in front of her, but it was more out of the fact that her head was still cloudy and everyone speaking felt like a sort of overload of noise and sensation. But she looked to them, putting their faces to memory, or at least the best she could. She wondered if she could trust them. Any of them. How could she given the only thing they had in common was ignorance and the fact they all were unequipped to deal with whatever might laid above on the floors above. She took a light breath before she looked to the group before her as suggestions of moving upward and checking for others were made. She looked to the last of the stragglers, a woman of blonde and porcelain, though it was hard to tell through all of the filth and debris.

“That is a very good question.”

Syrenia thought about the question – about the circumstances of their presence in a queer and alien place. It was one she personally would’ve liked to know the answer to.

“But I think it would be wise… to see if we can all remember our names and introduce ourselves before we venture furthur.”

She bit her lip, thinking. She had remembered her name, so perhaps all of them were the same? Even if they didn’t, the smart thing to do, as far as she could deduce, was to understand each other to the best they could before they ventured into a twisted dungeon. Syrenia looked at the swirling pool of liquid on the floor that she had awoken in. It still smelled as awful as it did when she woke up in it, like that of dirt, excrement, blood, and muck. She was surprised her stomach could stand it. Perhaps that meant her body was used to it? Like she had been here for some time? It would make sense considering this did not look like the battlefield she barely remembered. The battlefield that she remembered albeit barely so.

“My name is Syrenia. That’s all I can remember. I believe I’m skilled with bow and sword… but things are hard to recall.”

It was soon made clear that many of the man-things had survived whatever massacre took place here. In a graveyard of unrelenting death there still stood a few too resilient to die. Helvete found little comfort in the appearance of several man-things, however. He knew not why, but merely to look upon them made his guts churn. Flickering embers in his belly flared red hot for reasons unfathomable to the druid. They could not be trusted. Nothing could- not in this blood-soaked pit of madness.

Helvete's pleas for nonviolence were answered by the tender, shaken voice of a younger woman. Her words offered some meager comfort in an otherwise terrifying situation. Surrounded by strange man-things and standing in a mass grave was enough to set anyone on edge, with Helvete's amnesia only compounding the bleakness of it all.

A terrible scar about her neck drew his agitated gaze, piquing a small bit of curiosity in him. 'Strange-weird,' Helvete quietly wondered,'Would kill most man-things. Would kill this thing, too, yes-yes. How strange-weird indeed.'

"Ah...yes-yes..." He spoke in a slow drawl, still working to process all that was happening. "Very good. No fight-hurt. Fight-hurt very bad." He was glad to know that he wasn't in any immediate danger. Not from the people around him, at least. Someone had still tossed him into this place, and killed all of those man-things. Someone very bad.

As Solon was just managing to calm himself down, a mighty bellow slammed against his ears. A woman more akin to an angry oxen was screeching furiously from atop a mound of broken bodies. The angry cries of the obvious warrior caused Helvete to scamper backward in a low crouch, his body kept close to the ground as he brought his staff about before him. A wordless hiss was his only verbal response to the berserker's screams for answers. Not only because he found her dreadfully terrifying, but because the druid had no answers to give.

More man-things descended from the hills of corpses, all of them as confused as the last. No one seemed to have any idea where they were or why they were here. Five man-things and Helvete still breathed among the many hundreds of fallen.

Many questions, no answers; that was all they had.

A few had a determination to act, however. The only man man-thing that had joined them spoke rather strongly of escaping this dreaded pit of despair. Helvete was inclined to agree. The longer they spent here, the more likely they were to run into whatever monster-beast had tossed them in here.

The young woman with the scar about her neck wasn't so keen to leave right away, however. She wished to stay and search for more survivors among the dead. Solon was of a split mind on that one. On one hand, Helvete felt a strong desire to agree with her. Staying and searching for at least a short while sounded like the right thing to do. Yet, on the other hand, Solon was afraid of what they might encounter if they lingered here for too long. It was not an easy choice to make, so he stayed quiet, allowing the rest to speak their minds first.

Before that discussion came, however, another spoke up. The one that Helvete had seen conversing with the neck scar woman before he had scampered into view. She thought it wise for them to introduce themselves before they continued. Knowing the names of his temporary companions sounded like a good idea. It would make it simpler to address them, when the need arose.

"You don't remember-recall either, man-thing?" His brow shot up as Syrenia mentioned that she was suffering from the same amnesia that afflicted Helvete. "Strange-odd. Very strange-odd indeed." The old man muttered to himself, a hand letting up off the floor to run through his stark white beard. "This thing is Helvete." He shifted his hand down to beat against his chest. "I am one with the Wood. Very good-great with Forest magic, yes-yes." Solon proudly proclaimed. That was something he had felt the moment his fingers wrapped about Oakheart. It was a part of him. He could feel it's presence radiating through his very marrow, filling him with power.