Elena traced her fingers along the rough stone walls of her cottage, leaving trails of frost in their wake. Magic had become as natural as breathing to her now, but its constant use left a toll she couldn’t hide from her family. Her daughter Maya watched from the doorway, quiet as always, clutching the worn stuffed dragon Elena had enchanted to warm itself on cold nights.
“Another hunt?” Maya’s voice wavered, barely a whisper.
Elena nodded, adjusting the crystalline staff strapped to her back. The bounties had kept food on their table these past months, but each venture brought her closer to the dark portal that pulsed like a wound in the fabric of their world. “Just a short one, little spark. The King’s scouts reported lesser wraiths near the eastern woods.”
Her husband Thomas emerged from their bedroom, his blacksmith’s apron still on, smelling of iron and coal. The worry lines around his eyes had deepened since the portal appeared. “The royal treasury paid out yesterday. We have enough stored away now. You don’t have to—”
“I do,” Elena cut him off gently. “Every monster I don’t stop is one that might find its way here.” She didn’t add what they all knew: that the bounties weren’t really about the gold anymore.
The portal had appeared six months ago, a tear in reality that leaked shadows and nightmares into Archwynd. The King’s scholars were baffled, his armies overwhelmed. It was the kingdom’s sorcerers who stood as the last line of defense, and their numbers dwindled with each passing week.
Elena kissed Maya’s forehead, then Thomas’s lips. “I’ll be back before moonrise.” The same promise she always made, the one that grew heavier each time.
Outside, the autumn air bit at her cheeks. Elena pulled her enchanted cloak tighter, the fabric shimmering with protective runes. The eastern woods loomed ahead, their ancient trees now twisted by the portal’s corruption. Somewhere in their shadows, wraiths waited—souls torn from their bodies, transformed into hungry specters by the portal’s dark magic.
As she walked, Elena’s thoughts drifted to the scroll hidden beneath her bed, the one containing a forbidden ritual she’d discovered in the royal archives. A way to close the portal, perhaps permanently. The cost would be steep: the ritual required a sorcerer to bind their own life force to the tear, sealing it with their final breath.
She’d memorized the incantation weeks ago but couldn’t bring herself to use it. Not yet. Not while Maya still needed a mother, while Thomas still reached for her in the night. But with each passing day, the portal grew stronger, its influence spreading like poison through the land she loved.
A wraith’s screech pierced the air, snapping Elena back to the present. She raised her staff, frost crystallizing along its length. The creature emerged from between the trees, a twisted thing of shadow and pain. Behind it, two more materialized, their forms rippling like smoke.
Elena’s first spell struck true, freezing the lead wraith solid. The second spell shattered it, and she felt the familiar weight of a bounty token materialize in her pouch—the King’s magic acknowledging another kill. But as she turned to face the others, a chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with her frost magic.
There, in the distance, visible through a gap in the corrupted trees: the portal. It had grown since she’d last seen it, its edges reaching out like grasping fingers. And through its swirling darkness, she caught a glimpse of something massive stirring, something that made the lesser monsters seem like mere scouts in comparison.
The remaining wraiths closed in, but Elena barely noticed them. Her hands trembled as she cast her spells, her mind fixed on the scroll beneath her bed, on Maya’s smile, on Thomas’s embrace. Soon, she would have to choose between being a hero or being there to see her daughter grow up.
For now, though, she fought. For her family, for Archwynd, for one more day of normal life before that impossible choice had to be made. The wraiths fell to her magic, three more bounty tokens joining the first, but Elena took no satisfaction in their demise. She knew, with a certainty that settled in her bones like winter frost, that time was running out.
As promised, she made it home before moonrise. Maya was already asleep, her enchanted dragon clutched tight. Thomas said nothing when Elena held him longer than usual that night, but she felt him trembling too.
Tomorrow would bring more monsters, more bounties, more impossible choices. But tonight, Elena was simply a wife and mother, storing up memories like precious gems, hoping they would be enough to carry her family through whatever darkness lay ahead.
Finis
Can you save the Land of Archwynd? It will take more than a willing spirit and a fight to survive the dangers that lay siege to the realm… success requires strategic decision making and decisive action. Monsters. Traps. All forms of fell evil you will face. If you are up to the challenge, head over to the Armory and pick up your copy of Archwynd. And then put yourself to the ultimate test of good versus evil.
