Fredrik Waters was a human sheep farmer in Dirheim.

Life was hard but manageable for me until a

few weeks after my 28th name day. I had only been married to my darling Dunja for a couple of
weeks when it all happened…

Life had always been a bit boring, the only good memories I have of my childhood is when my dad
taught me how to fight. You see, he had been in the Imperial Guard before he was injured. He had
become a bitter old drunk in the years that followed, the only moments of sobriety were when he
would take me outside and teach me to fight with ‘’swords’’. This stopped when my mother passed,
and he spiralled out of control until one morning he was just gone. His ravaged corpse was found in
the wood’s weeks later.

Being a sheep farmer in Dirheim, there are more than just wolves after sheep around there. This and
the training my father put me through, which I continued after his death, have made me quite fit
and stocky. I don’t think I would have survived this long if it wasn’t for these.

Then that night came…

It was a night like any other, I had come home from a long day in the field, Dunja had made a lovely
mutton stew and we spent the evening talking whilst I helped her mend some of our clothes. In the
middle of the night, we were shaken from our bed by a massive explosion outside the house. I
looked out the window to see green flames coming out of the paddock. My first thought was about
the sheep, I told Dunja to stay in the house whilst I went out to investigate, grabbing my staff on the
way.

The paddock was surrounded by my beloved sheep, all dead and burnt. In the centre of the carnage,
a huge swath of earth was just gone, leaving a hole that pulsed with green light. I crept closer,
feeling a weird pulsating heat emanating from within. My skin prickled all over, I could feel a sense
of wrongness in the air, but I couldn’t help but keep moving forward.

The first thing I noticed was that the green light was coming from a large boulder surrounded by
strange growing mushrooms that moved and changed as I looked at them. The second, the boulder
was in what appeared to be a room that was clearly made by someone or something, smooth stone
of some type I didn’t know surrounded the room.

A noise behind me made me turn around and, to my horror, two of my dead sheep were standing
behind me. They looked at me with the most horrifying ‘unsheeply’ smile filled with rows of needle
like teeth. I watched frozen as the wool sluiced off them and spindly spider-like legs pierced out of
their bodies. The shrill scream as they charged me still haunts me. With some stroke of luck, the
ground beneath my feet gave way just as they were about to hit me and I fell into the room, losing
my staff to the gloom. Now defenceless, all I could do was to get up and back away from these
monsters, their eyes now poking out the sides of their heads on stalks. Another stroke of luck as I
backed into something. This something was some sort of stone altar and with a quick glance I saw
what looked like a sword on top of it. Without a second thought I reached behind and grabbed the
hilt…

Next thing I knew I was in some sort of room, dark, small and with bars on the one and only window
peering into the void. As I looked from the window, I saw a dirty, wild-looking man with an unkept
beard wearing rags looking very surprised at me.

‘’What the f…’’ he began to say from cracked lips.

In the next instant, I was back in the underground room with the mutated sheep charging me for a
second time. Without thinking, I drew the blade, feeling the rush of something up my arm, and side-
stepped the first ‘’sheep’’, smoothly removing its head from its body. Instinctually continuing the
movement, I brought the sword down into the second ‘’sheep’’, plunging the blade all the way down
to the hilt, shoving it from the blade with my boot noticing how pretty the sword itself was.

Before I could look around, I felt the floor rushing towards me and all I could do was think ‘’oh
shit…’’ before the darkness took me.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the dark room. I was on the floor as the old man was
looking down on me and eye could see that his ears were pointed, making me instantly wary of him.

‘’You’re dying, young human’’

‘’Who are you?’’ was all I could manage in that moment.

‘’There is no time for answers now. You have but moments and the queens’ men will be coming as
we speak.’’ He glanced at the heavy wooden door in the corner of the room as he said this. He put
his hand on my head, it was shockingly cold, and muttered ‘’cursed, infected.’’.

Cocking his head to the side, he looked at me puzzled.

‘’Not of this world? Where are you? What year is it? Shit! No time. I can help you.’’ He paused,
looking me straight in the eyes ‘’When you wake, take the sword, and plunge it into your heart.’’

‘’I will die!’’ I could hear the panic in my voice.

‘’You will die anyway, this may work’’

‘’May?!?’’ I was astounded at how casually this elf told me to kill myself.

‘’No time, you go.’’ The elf said as he stood and turned to the door.

I could hear keys in the lock as my vision faded to nothing.

I woke again in the hole too nothing but pain wracking my body as waves of blisters, pulses and pops
crossed my skin. As I looked at my hand holding the sword it changed along with the pain, shifting
first to green and scaly, then to slender and feminine, to some sort of twisted claw, then back to my
own. The pain was unbearable, and I knew that this would be my end. I had no choice, my only
chance was to do what the elf had said.

I pull myself onto my knees. As I grab the hilt in both hands, runes along the blade begin to glow.
With one last deep breath I plunge the blade deep into my chest, only stopping when the hilt hits
against my ribs. There was no pain, there was nothing, only darkness.

I was awoken by rays of sunlight creeping in through the hole above me. As I got up, I noticed the
boulder no longer glowed green and the sword was nowhere to be seen.

Confused about what the hell had happened, I started to climb back out of the hole. When I reached
the I saw the back door to my house had been torn of its hinges. My first thoughts were of Dunja, I
started to run to the house and as my hand closed the sword appeared out of thin air in my hand. I
didn’t have time to think about it more than a quick “what the hell?”.

As I reached the back door, I was horrified to see Dunja’s mutilated corpse on the kitchen floor…
Over the next few weeks, I discovered a few things about my newfound abilities. I discovered that I
could summon the sword to my hand and dismiss it at will with a little practice. I also discovered that
I could change my appearance at will, I discovered this when I was weeping over my wife and my
body started to distort and I became the likeness of my late wife. I started seeing things on the edge
of my vision and when looking into darkness. I also discovered that I could see shades, these are
fragments of the deceased that still remain in this world. They don’t seem to be able to see or hear
me though. This was torture when I saw the shade of Dunja but could do nothing about it. In my
dreams I often return to the dark room with the old Elf, the majority of these times the Elf is asleep
but once, the day after the death of Dunja, he was awake and explains that I have been cursed and
infected and that the sword is the only thing keeping these at bay. Without the sword the mutations
within my body would be out of control and I would likely end up a bloody blob on the floor. He did
mention that with practice I would be able to gain some control over these mutations and shape
changing abilities and use them to my benefit.

I spent the next few weeks after this ordeal exploring my abilities, gaining significant control over the
sword, being able to summon it and dismiss it with a mere thought. I was also able to gain control of
my shape changing, however, I was limited to only being able to change my form to that of
something similar to my body shape, four limbs and one head kind of thing.

The townsfolk started to get curious after a while and began to enquire into our wellbeing. I made
the choice to burn down the house and fled as I didn’t have it in me to tell them the truth and I
couldn’t think of any plausible explanation as to what happened.

A few days after fleeing my life, I was stopped by mage hunters on the road. It was no surprise to me
when they declared me a witch and attempted to arrest me. Without even thinking, the sword was
in my hand and the first mage hunters head was no longer attached to his body. The second mage
hunter was further away and levelled his musket at me. Without even knowing what I was doing a
curse escaped my lips and all the shades in the area rushed the mage hunter and started pulling him
apart.

As I stood over the corpses of the mage hunters, I wondered what else I could possibly do with these
powers. Taking anything useful from then, a chain shirt and a shield, I carry on with my travels, not
really knowing where I am going…