You awoke to pain. Not the sharp kind, no—this was a deep, miserable ache nestled behind your eyes, pulsing in rhythm with your heartbeat like a spiteful little drum. Your thoughts came slowly, dragged through mud and fog, and every attempt to remember anything only stirred fragments loose: towering lights that burned without flame, endless noise, faces without names, and a life that now felt distant enough to belong to someone else.

Then came the cold.

Damp stone pressed against your back while the stench of wet stone, rotten vegetables, and stale ale clung heavily to the air around you. For a long moment, all you could do was stare blankly at the dim strip of sky overhead and wonder why your memories felt like smoke slipping through your fingers. After a sluggish attempt at gathering your bearings, you came to a few miserable conclusions: you were alive—barely. You were dressed in ragged peasant clothes that smelled like someone had died in them a week ago, and judging by the pounding in your skull, somebody had probably tried to help you join the dead.

Groaning, you pushed yourself upright with all the grace of a dying goat and staggered toward the distant noise spilling in from beyond the alley. The moment you stepped out onto the street, several pairs of eyes landed on you, measured you, and dismissed you just as quickly. Merchants, drunkards, beggars—people with the sort of faces that suggested life had beaten them repeatedly and still wasn’t satisfied. In this place, one more half-dead stranger crawling out of an alley apparently wasn’t worth a second glance.

Somewhere nearby, someone laughed. Somewhere else, someone screamed. Everyone carried on regardless.

Welcome to Elistoria.

You have arrived.