I woke to voices hissing at one another like snakes in long grass. My head pounded, the faint ringing of a headache climbing with each moment until I could hear little else. My limbs were heavy and unresponsive, as if I'd slept all night on every single one of them.

When I opened my eyes, I was greeted by cracked cobblestones, thick green vines and an upsettingly large centipede hovering on its many legs, feelers waving towards me. I cursed and rolled backwards, falling into a heap but at least getting some distance between me and the dreaded insect.

Now that I wasn't planted face-first on the ground, it didn't seem quite so intimidating as it scuttled away beneath one of the broken paving slabs – it was no larger than my thumb.

The movement had made me aware of one very concerning fact though; I was hogtied, arms and legs cinched together by thick rope behind my back. At least I could now see something other than insects and stone. It's important to look for a silver lining in all things, after all.

For a moment I simply rested there, arms crushed beneath my back like a turtle in need of flipping, gazing at the graceful arcs of the verdant trees far above. Then the voices came back into focus, and I realised I was in trouble. Perhaps the hogtying should have been my first clue, but I'd always been an optimist.

"He's awake," came a gruff voice, hidden somewhere off to my left and out of sight.

"Good," replied another. "This will be easier with him conscious."

A laugh then from a third. "At least the first bit. I'm sure he wouldn't mind getting out of those restraints, Janson."

"Ah, it's always me who gets volunteered! What a fuckin' surprise," groused the fourth and final voice.

Rough hands heaved me up until I knelt on the ground, hands pulled behind my back in a rather undignified pose, and then after a brief moment of pressure, I felt the tension ease and my hands were my own once more.

I flexed my fingers instinctively, rolling my shoulders and taking stock of any injuries. Nothing but some stiffness so far as I could tell. Great, things were looking up already. The same rough hands slapped me on both shoulders, and coarse and dirty hair – if my nose was to be believed – tickled my cheek as hot breath washed over my face.

"There's a good man – no sudden movements, you hear? We're a little jumpy, and we wouldn't want any accidents at this point, y'see?"

I could hear the grin in the man's voice, and now that it didn't hurt my neck to do so, I turned my head to take him in. Grimy, as I'd suspected from the smell. The man had the oily appearance of a bandit, black hair falling around his thin face without care. His dress was strange; chainmail over trousers and a thick shirt, heavy boots and a weapons belt boasting a thick cleaver and thin rapier on either hip. Atop it all he wore a deep vermillion cloak that pooled around him as he squatted on his haunches beside me.

He caught my eye and gave me an upsetting grin; all yellow teeth and wide eyes. It reminded me of a wolf. At least he wasn't drooling or slavering though, and he had no fangs to speak of. While it wasn't 100% confirmed yet, the chances seemed good that he wasn't a cannibal. There's that silver lining again!

"I got it," I said, voice hoarse. My throat felt raw and abused, much like the rest of me, but the man seemed to understand well enough. He stood and yanked me to my feet none too gently. Didn't stick the rapier through my ribs though, so things were still on the positive side.

"Come," he said, catching a hessian sack that one of his companions had thrown his way.

Two of them closed in, both tall and broad and looking like mirrors of one another. Twins perhaps, or at least brothers. The fourth man sat on a tree stump, whittling something with a small knife. I had time to take in his scarred face and grim visage before the sack was pulled over my head.

I tripped, but strong hands kept me steady, and I was frog-marched in silence for a few minutes. I didn't know what was happening, but the visible weapons and general demeanour of the men were more than enough to ensure my silence while I tried to process everything.

Where was I? Where had I been? There was a strange haze over my memories, and it didn't seem entirely the fault of the heavy ringing that still echoed around my head. When I focused on that noise, it almost seemed to slide to the forefront of my mind. It didn't get louder, but perhaps more… significant?

Just as I felt on the verge of something, chaos once more made my acquaintance.

A whistle cut the air, and I instinctively turned my head towards the noise. The man escorting me let out a sound somewhere between a squeal and a groan, and I stumbled as his support vanished in an instant.

Boots pounded a staccato rhythm over the loamy earth and then a man screamed. The sickening sound of bone cracking overlayed it, and by then I'd managed to rip the sack off my head. What I saw was no comfort though.

The red-cloaked strangers that had… what? Captured me? Rescued me? I wasn't sure, and had no time to examine the troubling implications of my confusion because those strangers were currently busy dying. A woman carved her way through two of the cloaked figures with consummate skill and unceasing brutality.

She blocked a lunge from one of the twins, knocking aside the blade with a sword of her own as wide as my hand. In the same movement she kicked out at the man, her boot taking him in the chest and rocketing him into a tree a few feet behind. Her blade then slashed out again, lightning-quick, beheading the second man before the first could even crumple to the ground.

The man who had taken the kick wasn't in much better shape by the time his comrade had died. He rolled and coughed once before his neck was likewise severed with a precise chop of that unwieldy blade.

There was a brief beat of silence, and I just stared at the woman with wide, unblinking eyes for a moment, and then the undergrowth a dozen feet away rustled as the fourth man – the whittler – burst away in a sprint. The woman turned back to me, seemingly heedless of the runner, and a moment later I understood why.

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A squawk echoed out, cut-off brutally fast, followed by the rhythmic rustle of bushes being pushed aside as another man emerged into the clearing I stood within. Unlike the woman with the large blade, who took after her weapon in many ways – wide as a barn door and with features nearly as blunt as you might expect from one – the man that arrived was much less imposing. He was short, no two ways about it, and while he had a stocky build and walked with surety of purpose that spoke to a subtle athleticism, he was clearly beyond his middle years.

Not that he needed to be intimidating, given his companion. She loomed over me, even from across the clearing, and her expression was as close to a glare as one could get while still maintaining some plausible deniability.

I became abruptly aware of my breathing as the two people came to stand before me. It was fast, jittery, perhaps even a touch panicked if one wanted to be melodramatic. I didn't, of course, I wanted to be level-headed and calm in a situation like this. So, I put my best foot forwards and tried to speak.

"Hello," I tried, pleasantly. My voice did waver, but considering I didn't fall over or wet myself, I would count it a success. There was that understated optimism again. But in the face of the shining steel, the bits that weren't covered in blood and viscera anyway, I felt I had a good enough excuse to be just a little terrified.

The man quirked an eyebrow at me as he returned the greeting. "Hello, lad," he replied in an equally pleasant tone. "What are you doing out here, then?"

"I'm not sure, honestly," I said. He raised his eyebrow a touch higher at that, and I grimaced. "I… errr. I wasn't a willing participant in all this," I said, gesturing around vaguely at the four corpses, their blood splashed across ferns and tree roots.

"I can see that, lad," he replied with a kindly smile and a glance to the hessian sack on the ground near my feet. "Why don't we take a quick walk to somewhere less… ", he searched for a word, and then snapped his fingers as he finally found the one he was looking for. "… charnel. Come on."

With that, he turned and strode back the way I had come. It was an easy choice; stay with the scary woman with the big sword in a clearing with four corpses, or follow the kindly old father-figure down a little goat track. He was armed as well, of course, but his spear wasn't quite so covered in blood as the woman's oversized weapon, and he had a friendlier attitude, too.

"Take a moment, lad," he said evenly. "I'll have some questions for you soon enough, but there's naught to be worried about. Just a friendly chat, aye?"

I found myself nodding along as he spoke, the words strangely calming despite the bizarre situation I'd found myself in. I tried to compose my thoughts, to run through a narrative history of my circumstances up to this point and came up… blurry? Not blank exactly, but I couldn't for the life of me pierce the veil of confusion that lay over my recent memories.

I knew who I was, or felt like I did at least, but as for how I'd made it out here, and where 'here' even was, I couldn't be sure. I reached up tentatively but felt nothing amiss on my head. No weeping gashes or ominous holes for my brain to have fallen out of. Ostensibly, there was no obvious cause for my current amnesia, but-

I was interrupted by the old man; "Right, take a seat and tell me your story."

I blinked and did as he asked, checking to make sure the broken cobblestone I chose was centipede-free before sitting down with crossed legs. "I… "

We stared at each other for a moment, expectant brown eyes meeting my own wide-eyed confusion, and his face softened slightly. "How are you feeling, lad?" he asked quietly.

I breathed a heavy sigh, the words hitting me hard for some reason. My smile, when I showed it, was crooked.

"I've been better, I think."

The old man smiled back at me. "I should hope so, son. No man wandering the wilderness butt-arse naked and covered in blood should be having a good time, by my reckoning."

I laughed. Honestly, it was a very fair point, and the absurdity that I'd not really noticed my state of undress in amongst all the confusion of the last few minutes only added to my laughter. Of course, there was a notable touch of hysteria in there, too, but I figured it was probably warranted right now.

The man's chuckle was small in comparison, but it seemed genuine. "Right, well. Questions," the man began, sighing and leaning back. "Guess I'll start us off. What's your name?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. I gaped like a fish for a few more moments, frowning at my complete inability to answer. What was my name? "I… don't know," I answered with confusion.

He stared at me for a few long moments, and then we were interrupted by the big woman appearing from the forest, arms laden with what looked to be clothes. She threw the pile at my feet and turned away, giving me my privacy. A bit late, but a nice gesture, nonetheless.

I seized on the distraction, clothing myself in worn, belted trousers, socks and sturdy boots, and a woollen shirt several sizes too big. It must have belonged to one of the muscular twins, though it was thankfully free of their blood. I then wrapped the vermillion cloak around my shoulders to complete the ensemble. If it wasn't for the bone-splitting headache that seemed to climb in intensity with each moment, I might even have felt a little comfortable.

"How is it that a man is found in the company of a notorious mercenary band, far from their homeland and somewhere they very much should not be, completely unable to answer questions about himself?" The man asked, seemingly rhetorically. "I'm not a betting man myself, but that strikes me as deeply suspicious."

While I was grasping for a response, and grappling with my disturbing lack of memory about, well… everything, the old man turned to his companion.

"Good idea with the clothes, poor lad was shivering," he said, in a different language. "Anything on the bodies?"

The woman grunted and shook her head, replying in that same language a moment later. "Nothing, but that's not surprising. Say one thing for the Crimson Lions: they're professionals. What are they doing out here though? Why are they still hunting us?"

The old man shook his head, then cast a glance my way. "Perhaps he knows. He's shut tight as a clam though. I can't decide if this is a masterful act, or the man's gormless as a goat."

I fidgeted quietly, trying to pretend that I couldn't understand them, but listening intently all the while. It was hard to do through the growing pain, my vision beginning to white out at the edges whenever I turned my head, so I just kept it down and focused on breathing through the nausea.

"Is he the one we're here for?" the woman asked, raking her eyes across me like she was assessing a lamb for the slaughter. "He doesn't have the look of a calamity-scale threat."

"Aye, that he doesn't," the man replied. "We've been wrong before though, and appearances can be deceiving. He's weak as a kitten to my senses, but there are other paths to power than those within the purview of the system."

"Perhaps we should just kill him and be done with it?" she asked, and my head jerked up involuntarily. The man raised an eyebrow at that.

"I know you hate the Lions, lass, trust me, I know. But we can't just kill anyone associated with them. Besides, he seemed to be a prisoner of some sort, so it would hardly be fair. We'll wait for Nathlan."

No more than a minute of awkward silence later, in which I frantically tried to hold down my breakfast after the sudden movement moments before, a gangly man burst from the undergrowth to my right, doing a double take when he saw me, but orienting on the other two after a moment.

"Something tripped my perimeter ward. Closing fast, at least five separate bodies… "

The rest of what he was saying was drowned out by a rising tide of ringing noise, like someone had shoved a hundred church bells into my head and rattled them around for good measure.

I didn't notice when I hit the ground, having toppled from my seated position. I didn't notice the surprised exclamations of the three as they turned to watch. I didn't even notice as the old man shot across the space between us in a heartbeat, catching my head before it hit the cobblestones below.

All I knew was the strange information overlaying itself directly on my mind.

System integration beginning.

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