Chapter 1 Preview

Chapter 1

A Long Time Ago….

Crono could hear the rustling of the wind through the trees and a few birds chirping in the distance but there were no signs of civilization. She saw a narrow path to one side and headed for it but stopped when a blue-skinned imp jumped out in front of her. That explained why she didn’t recognize where she was, she was on a different continent. She knelt down to ask the short creature if it had seen her friend but it ran up to her and kicked her in the shin. Crono yelped more in surprise than pain and jumped back. She heard a rustling sound and two more of the creatures appeared from behind the trees, all with menacing smiles on their faces. Crono remembered her sword and pulled the wooden weapon out knowing that it wouldn’t do much damage but it was better than nothing.

One of the imps rushed at her from behind and rather than swing her sword she kicked out a leg, catching the little guy in the neck with her heel, possibly killing him but definitely taking him out of the fight. The other two looked a bit surprised by the action and approached her with a bit more caution. Once on either side of the redhead they leapt at her at the same time. Crono caught one of them in the side with her sword but the other got ahold of her hair and yanked on it violently, sending her the ground as she tried to grab at the blue bandit. The evil creature continued to pull on her hair and as she had no clear shot at it, rolled over onto the imp. It flailed a bit as her weight pressed down on him but when she used her legs to bounce her body up and down she could feel the breath leaving him quickly. Eventually his grip loosened and she was able to scramble back to her feet. The imp was a bit slower in recovering and Crono was able to strike down with the sword as hard as she could, causing a sickening crack to echo throughout the area as she broke its skull.

Crono caught her breath from the impromptu fight and then beat a hasty retreat figuring it would be a good idea to get to a town as soon as possible. Crono found a stream and started following it, expecting that it would eventually lead somewhere but along the way she was accosted by a second group of imps. Rather that stick around she let her long legs carrier her away from the assailants, thinking that she had made the right choice by picking a short pair of heels to wear that day.

It only took a few minutes of travel before Crono found the forest ending and after running out into the open she turned to see if anything had followed her. She stood with her weapon clenched in her hand, breathing heavily while she listened for the signs of movement but all she could hear was the normal noise trees would make. She slid her sword back in its sheath and continued away from the woods at a more leisurely pace. In a short while she reached the outskirts of a town and though she didn’t recognize it something about the place seemed familiar to her. As she drew closer and started to see several people walking around she was surprised by how many clothes they were wearing. One woman was completely covered from neck to foot in a heavy, billowing dress with a cloth hat to boot and as the townspeople caught sight of her, Crono could see they found her as equally strange.

Crono stopped by an inn at the edge of the village and tried to find out where she was. Seeing that the majority of the population was Human she knew it couldn’t be Medina, but after she was finally able to pry out of the innkeeper that she was in Truce she couldn’t believe it at first. She stood outside and looked around at the buildings, none of which looked too familiar, but the placed that they sat was identical to the arrangement of the Truce she knew. The pathways, rather than being paved, were dirt or cobblestone, the town square was nowhere near as manicured as she remembered but it was in the same spot she remembered it to be.

While she was trying to calm herself down to figure out what was going on a woman walked up to Crono with an angry look on her face. She was even more concealed than the others, with only a hole cut into the heavy white and black clothing around her face. She started yelling at Crono for being an affront to god, using arcane words like ‘harlot’ and ‘whore’. In the middle of her rant Crono recalled hearing about people like her, so-called nuns who thought it was their job to go around and stop people from having fun for some reason. The woman suddenly grabbed Crono by her hair and started pulling her off somewhere and Crono fought back immediately. Not wanting to harm the woman, Crono slapped her as hard as she could in the face. The nun let go of her hair and dropped to the ground holding her cheek.

Crono was about to admonish the nun for what she had done but she looked around to see a few of the villagers walking in her direction with menace I their eyes. Either they were just as mad about something as the nun or Crono wasn’t supposed to hit a nun no matter what. Deciding that standing and fighting would be a very bad idea Crono found herself running for a second time that day, not stopping until the town or its people were out of sight. When she finally stopped Crono bent over and held herself up by her knees but she was too exhausted to hold that position for long and fell over onto the ground. She rolled over onto her back and sucked air into her lungs until her body had recovered enough for her to sit up. She looked around to find that she was in the middle of nowhere but far off in the distance she could just make out the top spire of the castle reaching up towards the clouds.