Chapter 1

  Another Day In Hell Paradise

  “Not this again”

  Fay once again found himself kneeling with his arms chained to the floor. For the predicament he found himself in, he was calm.

  “Wonder where he's at, usually he's here by now”

  As if summoned by his word, the faceless man in his knightly regalia appeared before him. Undergoing the same routine as every time before, the man began to motion with his hand as if he were speaking to him.

  While Fay could not understand a word the man was saying, Fay knew he was speaking with great passion the way he thumbed his own chest, his hand occasionally extending to point at Fay.

  “How many times do I have to tell you I can't hear a damned thing you are saying?”

  The man could obviously understand him just fine, as he had stopped his grandiose speech and hung his head, shaking it from side to side in a slow, disappointed manner.

  “Look, it's not like I'm not trying here. Wish you could at least get these chains off me, they are inconvenient as all hell”

  Looking down at chains and then up again at the man, Fay did not know what to make of them. It was not every night, but it was hardly a sporadic dream at this point. his pondering was cut short. He heard the sound he had come to dread the most since these lucid dreams became all so common.

  “Fayyyyy…… wake upppppp…..Fay……FAY”.

  “Ah shit” Fay said slowly as he let out a sigh.

  Before Fay opened his eyes, he already felt the pain in the back of his head where he had hit the cold stone floor of his room after being tipped from his place of slumber. He sprung from his prostrated position on the floor and threw his fist at the only person who would be so cruel as to wake a person up in this way.

  “Hey now, isn’t this routine getting a little old, Fay?” Said the man standing in front of him, his hand gripping the punch Fay had thrown at him.

  “If by routine you mean getting pulled out of my sweet dreams and getting my ass kicked first thing every morning, that decision is entirely up to you. You know you can wake someone up easier right, Ridley?” Fay said through gritted teeth, his fist still attempting to break through his assailants' stonewall defense and pay him back in kind for his aching head.

  Ridley was a Beast Hunter, and a strong one at that. All humans possessed a blessing from the sun, what they called a piece. However, not all pieces are created equal. The stronger the soul, the stronger the piece. Strength was the way of this world. Those with exceptionally strong pieces were commissioned by the Sol Empire to hunt the beasts that inhabited the world and protect humankind.

  “Why are you two always so lively in the morning? If you two don't knock it off, I will come in there and make you!” Tima, Fay’s grandmother, yelled from the kitchen.

  “Sorry!” Both troublemakers yelled back in unison.

  “Wait, the hell am I apologizing for? This is all your fault” Fay said, throwing another punch aimed at Ridley’s face with his free hand.

  “You better knock it off or she is really going to come in here” Ridley said with a bandit-like smirk as he easily caught Fay’s second strike.

  With both of the boy's fists in his hands, Ridley spun him around and wrapped him in a hug. With no effort at all, he lifted him off his feet, dragged him kicking into the kitchen.

  “I caught a live one for you today Tima, you better toss him on the fire quick or he is libel to tear this whole place apart” Ridley exclaimed carrying Fay into the kitchen like a hunter carrying his score.

  “I swear you boys are always the same, stop roughhousing and come eat your breakfast” Tima said with a sigh.

  Ridley set Fay on the ground, and slowly released his hold on him like a ringmaster uncaging its beartiger. Once Fay was unleashed and he had taken a few steps back, Ridley took his seat at the small wooden table in the middle of the room in Fay and Tima’s small shack. Fay joined in suite, albeit still not completely over what had become his daily routine with Ridley.

  Satisfied with their behavior, Tima set to bringing out the meager breakfast of stewed oat grains she had prepared for the two.

  “I'm sorry it's not much in the way of taste or size. Although you are always welcome here Ridley, I do wish you would eat at the barracks with the other Beast Hunters. I worry that you will stop growing, you are only 25 years of age after all” Tima said, setting the small wooden bowl in front of him.

  Ridley took the small splintered bowl, and with closed eyes made a circle with his hands at his chest and extended them out towards the bowl. A common sol prayer among the people of the empire. After he had sufficiently prayed over his meal, Ridley spooned a heap of the oat stew into his mouth.

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  “Dn’t wry abt mi Tma, ths gys athe barriks dont kn-” Ridley began to say before he began to choke on his breakfast.

  “Sun above boy, how many times do I have to tell you not to talk with your mouth full?” Tima shouted, quickly drawing a cup of water from the cracked urn next to the wood stove and handing it to Ridley.

  “Ha Ha Ha, sorry Tima. What I was trying to say is that those guys at the barracks don't know what they are missing here. Your cooking is loads better than anything they could offer me at the barracks, and if I don't come to collect our sleepy-headed courier every morning, the guild would fall apart.” Ridley said before pausing.

  He twirled the wooden spoon in his hand before lifting his head and scanning the small shack he sat in. To say the shack was rundown would be putting it nicely. The rotting wooden walls and cracked stone floor looked as if they would crumble at any minute, and aside from the small shabby table, wobbly chairs, and moldy feather beds the two slept on, there was no other furniture. Taking the splintering spoon and bowl in his hand, and looking at the cracked water urn, Ridley began to uneasily speak with his head hung.

  “Speaking of falling apart” he said before raising his head to look at Tima.

  “I wish you would let me do something about this place, Tima. This is no way for an old woman of such wisdom and compassion as you to live”.

  While his words had the hint of a joke, his voice was high pitched, a quirk Ridley often displayed when talking about something that made him uncomfortable.

  “You know my position in the guild, sun above, I am the only A ranked Beast Hunters in this small little village. If you would just let me, we both know that I could arrange you an estate with ten servants and five maids, you would never-”

  “Enough with that,” Tima said, cutting the young man off.

  “I am not some helpless old lady. I know that you come around every morning to make sure I am doing ok with Barron gone, but your company is more than enough. We are fine just where we are. You don't need to do anything more than continuing to liven this place up” She said with her hand on the young man's shoulder.

  At the sound of his deceased’s name, Fay felt a twinge of pain in chest. Barron, Fay’s father, was a Beast Hunter, and was special even among the special. He had been an S ranked hunter and war hero of the fifth beast war, and he was once in charge of the small village of East River where he lived with Fay.

  After the war, Barron was appointed guildmaster of this small town tucked away in the mountains, and met Fay’s mother. Fay did not know much of his mother, she had died during his birth, and he was still a child of only 10 when Barron was killed. Tima did not like to discuss the dead, and Fay, not wanting to upset his grandmother, never pushed the issue further.

  “I know Tima, but I need to do something, it… it was my fault Barron was killed after all. If…if I hadn’t slipped…if I was stronger, Barron would have never had…. He was the strongest, that beast was no match for him…. I, he-” Ridley said, the sentence dimming to a whisper as he spoke.

  Tima’s grip tightened on Ridley’s shoulder, tears falling from his eyes.

  “Now you stop that” she said, now on her knees pulling the boy into a hug.

  “I made peace with that a long time ago. That boy was a Beast Hunter and died like one, and that is exactly how he wanted it. It was no more your fault than anyone else's, by the natural order, it was his time. Our small little lives are determined by nature from the moment we are born. The sun is a reminder of that order boy, and don't forget that. What do you think he would say anyway if he heard you talking like that? There wouldn't be enough skin in the world to save your backside!” Tima said softly as she let the boy go from her embrace.

  Ridley wiped the tears from his eyes and let out a small hoarse laugh.

  “He was a mean old son of a bitch wasn’t he?” he said, still chuckling to himself.

  “You’re right Tima. I will let it go for now, but I do wish you would reconsider” he said as he slowly resumed his meal.

  “Less than an hour after dawn and you are already in tears. So much for the so-called Champion of East River” Fay, who had been silent as their exchange unfolded, said with a hint of a grin on his face as he poked at Ridley’s side.

  While there may have been some truth to what Ridley said, Fay held no grudge against his fathers former protege. It was Ridley who had gotten him his position as guild courier after Barron’s death, a move Fay was sure was Ridley's attempt at atonement for his self-perceived fault. What Tima had said was true as well. They did not have much, but the two were happy, and in a world where the looming threat of evisceration at the hands of a beast were ever-present, it was more than most possessed.

  “I wasn’t crying you little shit, the steam from the stew got in my eye.” Ridley said, shoving Fay from his seat.

  Fay hit the floor for the second time since waking up, and this time accepted the cooling embrace of the stone and stayed on the floor.

  “Sorry!” Ridley said as he arose to help Fay from the ground

  “Sun above, can’t you learn to control that monstrous strength you lionape, not everyone gets blessed with a piece like yours, and us normals are not built for this” Fay said as he took Ridley’s hand and was yanked to his feet.

  Fay, once again a victim of Ridley's strength, rotated his aching shoulder that had nearly been ripped out of socket from Ridley’s so-called help. Fay moved his hand over his heart, the feat of strength by the lionape a reminder of his own inadequacy. Being the son of an S ranked war hero and being born with a weak, but possessing serviceable piece was one thing, but Fay’s piece was unusable.

  He conjured it to imagine in his mind, the small contraption still a mystery to him. Its small curved handle that grew into a hollow cylinder was stark white, and the gold covered rotating cylinder affixed in the middle of the contraption with its loop connecting the handle to the straight cylinder was unlike any piece he had ever seen.

  Although the object was completely foreign to him, it felt like there was a component of it missing in his heart.

  Not all pieces were instruments of war, and due to the humans long integration with magic, some even allowed humans to harness the mana in the air through their piece. Ones piece and its ability did however, does mean a great deal, and often determine one's profession. Herod, the town black smith was only a smith because his hammer piece allowed him to conjure and control fire. In Fay’s case, with his useless piece, finding something that paid well was difficult. Although he would never admit it, if it wasn’t for Ridley's appointment to the guild as a courier, Fay would be in a much tougher position.

  “By the sun’s light, Fay we are going to be late!” Ridley’s declaration had snapped him out of his thoughts and he quickly rushed to get dressed.

  “Bye Tima, I can’t wait for dinner tonight!” Ridley yelled as he dragged Fay, who was still trying to get his shoes on, out of the small shack.

  “Work hard you two, and you be safe now Ridley.” Tima yelled back at the two as the pair disappeared down the road towards the guild.