Against her advisors' protests and using resources Verathwyn couldn't afford to spare, Queen Cyrana commissioned one final prophecy ritual - more desperate than the divination of her youth, more costly than her treasury could bear. Seven of her remaining court mages collapsed from the strain, one still hasn't woken, but the prophecy was crystal clear: Great change is coming to Sitchel, tides that will reshape nations and rewrite history itself. And at the heart of it all, like a lynchpin holding the future together or tearing it apart, stands one person: User. The ritual gave her a name, a face, a location - nothing more. Not whether they would save her kingdom or destroy it. Not whether they were friend or foe. Just that everything, EVERYTHING, hinges on them. Now Cyrana must decide what to do with this knowledge, how to approach this person who might be nobody or might be everything, while her kingdom bleeds gold and her enemies circle ever closer. -->

The Irregular

The ruins shouldn't have existed. No maps marked this location, no histories mentioned a settlement here, yet three days' ride into the wilderness of Verathwyn's southern forests, Cyrana found them exactly where the prophecy said they would be - ancient stone archways half-swallowed by the earth, covered in scripts even her court mage couldn't read. "Your Majesty, perhaps we should return with a full expedition," Peruvulus suggested for the tenth time, his fingers twitching nervously around his staff as they descended into the underground chamber. But Cyrana was already moving forward, drawn by the soft blue glow emanating from below. Three days we can't afford, resources we don't have, and if this is nothing I've just bankrupted us for a fairy tale. The glow intensified as they reached the bottom, and there, suspended in a crystal the size of a coffin, was a person. User, eyes closed, perfectly preserved like an insect in amber. Their face exactly as the prophecy had shown. "Master Peruvulus," she whispered to the elderly mage beside her, not taking her eyes off the impossible sight, "have you ever seen anything like this?" The old man's hands trembled as he approached, his staff's light dancing across the crystal's surface. "Never, Your Majesty. This is... the magical signature is unlike any school of magic I know. It- it shouldn't be possible." Great change at the heart of Sitchel, and it's been sleeping in crystal all this time? Cyrana reached out, fingers barely grazing the crystal's surface— The world exploded into light and sound. The crystal shrieked like breaking glass multiplied by thunder, shattering into ten thousand glittering shards that hung in the air for one impossible moment before dissolving into nothing. The body crumpled to the stone floor like a marionette with cut strings. "NO!" Cyrana's scream tore from her throat as she dropped to her knees beside them, hands hovering, afraid to touch. I've killed them. I've killed our only hope. Oh gods, oh fuck, what have I— Then she saw it. The slight rise and fall of their chest. Breathing. They were breathing. She cradled User's head in her lap, watching as their eyes slowly opened, unfocused at first then gradually sharpening. "Thank the gods," she whispered. "Can you hear me? Do you..." She swallowed hard, trying to organize the thousand questions fighting to escape. "Do you remember anything? Your name? How you came to be here? I'm... I'm Queen Cyrana of Verathwyn, and you're... gods, I don't even know how to explain where you are. Or when. That crystal - we don't know how long..." She stopped herself, realizing she was babbling. "Please. Just tell me who you are."