Reginald De Wran, Valhiem's Director of Advanced Magical Development, stood with his hands behind his back upon the hilltop, looking with his perpetually stern gaze onto the epic scene of the city of Valhiem. A city that had been advanced on by a gargantuan military army of The Witch Queen. Such a monumental force of evil. Such numbers. And yet they had set upon the city with very little notice.
It was as The Academy had predicted: The Witch Queen would learn that The WellSprings were malfunctioning and that teleportation between cities was not available. All reinforcements had gone north of the
Fortress of Fornost; the most tactically key location that seperated East from West. Any call for aid would likely be met with too late a reply. Doom was lurking for one of Mytheria's most central economic hubs. And the army that had come to Valhiem was clearly not to imprison the city. It had come to wipe it off the map.
She's played her hand well, Reginald thought with disdain. He did not let fear cloud his thoughts. Nor did he let it cloud his concetration on his current task.
"Director Reginald, sir," came a voice of one of his advisors. The gnome, Reginald, had a presence so much more powerful and larger than his actual body. He did not turn from his pose. His advisor would know he was listening. "Every soldier and scout we have sent into The Mazy Hillocks has not returned. We have even lost contact with, the adventurer party,
The Flail."
"Useless," Reginald spat. "All of the powerful adventurer parties have been sent north to Fornost, leaving Valhiem full of the Gold and Silver Tier riff-raff. Good help is so hard to find."
"We cannot afford any more losses here, or our academics will be left without a bodyguard."
Now Reginald turned from his hilltop view of Valhiem, noting with grim displeasure as Lizard Cavalry Units of the enemy were riding around the city outskirts to surround the place and make sure that any evacuation of the Valhiem citzenry would not go unpunished. His ice cold gaze fell onto his subordinate. It seemed that they would not find the corpse of the adventurer known as Arthur Baker. Well, at least they had located the other.
"Very well," Reginald ordered sternly. Then looked to the wizard contingent he'd brought along on the expedition. "Lay out the corpse of Clive Michel. We will begin immediately."
It was about this time that one of the wizards was courageous enough to stammer his concerns about what they were about to do.
"Director. Are you sure about this? Ressurection is highly illegal without expception. Punishable by death," he explained. Not that anyone here needed that explaining to them. Much of the Dark Domain Source Spells were illegal or highly regulated. But this was Dark Domain
Galactic-Tier Ritual Sorcery. A
giant no-no. "We are committing the highest of crimes by going through with this."
The President of the Academy and The High Septum, Areleth, had used their security classification to employ the
Code Readers to look into the
Wellsprings and figure out who, what, where and how Second Chance had appeared in this universe, and where their path had taken them. It had become their theory that these people who claimed they were from another world had something to do with some kind of drastic measures taken in
Capitol City - some kind of top-secret plan that invoked Universal-Tier Ritual magic only written about in the oldest tomes from
The Mythic Age. But something must have gone wrong.
And with that theory, and no way to confirm it, due to the Wellsprings limiting communication around Mytheria, Valhiem's top brass had no choice but to take matters into their own hands. Clarissa Shields, Director of Reasearch and Technology would continue to study the mysterious cube that Second Chance had brought to her, and desperately hope to figure it out enough that it might help them in the Witch Queen's coming seige. Reginald, Director of Advanced Magic Development, would try to recover the 'damaged goods.'
But he would not explain himself to a subordinate.
"You are not paid to think or ask questions, Melery." Reginald turned to the other wizards. "Have the spells been prepped and charged?"
"Yes sir," was the answer in unison from all four of the best wizards in his department.
"Then let us begin."
And so, spaced out around the exhumed corpse of Clive Michel, Hero from the Sky... Five wizards, Five for the Quinity, Five to represent the Domains except Dark. Dark would be represented by the corpse. Dark Domain Source would be the conduit for everything.
The ritual began. There was no going back. Without a pardon from the Emperor himself, they would all be trailed and executed for this abominable crime of defying the cycle of Life and Death, defying The Quinity. Defying Source itself.
And Clive Michel would awaken.
Somewhere miles and miles north of Valhiem, the Diamond Tier famous party, True Grade had set up camp. Chatting, cooking, preparing magical trip wires around the camp so that there would be no need for a watch and all could sleep well.
"So this loudmouth is stood on a table, actually taking credit for killing Aurok the Maneater." The deep voice of Braxus represented his 6'6" massive frame of hulking muscle. "And there are others in the tavern actually confirming his tall tale, saying that the Source Code spoke it true, and they got the reward from the Guild."
"Must've been pretty powerful. I wonder why his party isn't being sent to the frontlines. Maybe it was some low-Platinum party that just got lucky. What did you make of him, Braxxus?"
"I cast identify and I swear, I've seen stronger Vodka's made with pisswater."
Everyone chuckled. Glee John Artorius, the party Druid did too. He was one busy cooking. He was also one of the more thoughtful and less ego-driven in his party. And this didn't add up. Just like someone else, he'd met in Valhiem, who didn't add up either. Adam Phillips, he remembered. How could he forget? It wasn't everyday you bumped into a unatural prodigy who was so unbelievabley talented, it made one question the laws of the universe. "Hey, Braxxus?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you get the name?"
"Umm... yeah. Punk always introduced himself as
'Zell Brooks - tell your friends.'"
Wesphalia laugh was musical. "I kinda like him. Sounds like an asshole," she commented.
"Yeah, that's your type," Glee jeered at his friend. Then back to Braxxus. "But I was talking about the name of the party he was with."
"Oh... ummm... oh yeah - Second Chance."
Glee dropped the ladle into the pot and looked at Braxus. "Really?"
"Why, you know them?"
Glee recovered from his sense of surprise and continued to cook. "Well, gather around children, it's storytime with your favourite Druid."
_____________________________
The legend of Second Chance was just beginning. The heights such a legend would go, had yet to be determined. But considering that Diamond Tier parties - the strongest adventurers in Mytheria - were now telling campfire stories about them... it was clear that Second Chance were something truly special.
Ivar
Dark Cloud
Zapdos
Snowdrops
Teyao
Pyrrhic
Ariana Grey
Izurich
Lewascan2
... ... ... 
