Lai Misuna grew up in a small farming village outside of Larjyn, in the nation of Chaya. The Misuna family had a reasonably large livestock farm and orchard, which Lai and his older brother Grav spent their childhoods learning to tend. A bridge collapse under their cart when Lai was 15 left both of his parents dead, though his brother miraculously survived. In the time since, Lai has taken on many of the farm chores and begun to prepare to take over the farm, even handling its responsibilities entirely himself during the many long trips Grav would make to sell the farm's wares. Grav consistently told him that he shouldn't do so -- that he had a greater destiny in the world -- and had always smiled wistfully and refused to discuss further when Lai asked him why he would say such things.
When Lai turned 17, Grav took him aside and took him to a room in the farmhouse he'd never been to before -- filled with odd things. He took out and showed two of them to Lai -- a ring that had once belonged to their father, and an heirloom sword passed down from an ancestor. "These are your birthright, Lai," he said. When pressed for more, he told Lai about the astrological reading their parents had received when Lai was still too young to speak, of which he knew just three points: that Lai would journey beyond the edges of the world; that he would stand atop the world as all eyes looked to him; and that he would usher in a new age of existence. Lai was shocked, but dismissed the story as an invention of a charlatan -- or Grav's over-active imagination.
Lai took to wearing the ring, but insisted on staying on the farm, courting a village girl, and preparing for an uneventful life. The sword he left hanging in a place over the farmhouse's mantle. Then, when he was 21, the unexpected happened.
A creature, a horrific nightmare beast of misshapen limbs and cold winds, came rampaging through the area. It tore through the center of the village, killing many (including Lai's paramour), before descending on the Misuna farm. Grav, working out in the fields, had only time to look up and scream before the creature was on top of him. Lai, inside the house, heard, and seeing the sword upon the mantle, snatched it up and ran outside. Facing the creature, his heart pounding, his brother's body lying on the ground, he screamed and charged....
...to no avail. The creature batted him away, breaking his arm and five ribs in the process, and swiveled around to stand over him. He could feel its cold breath in his face as consciousness slipped away. The last thing he saw was a flash of green light... then darkness. When he awakened, he was alone in the field, and neither his brother's body nor the creature was anywhere to be seen.
Now, Lai is alone in the world, and the only lead he has on what has happened to his life is the location of the mysterious fortune-teller who his parents visited once, long ago....
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