Always Together
Book 1 of The Wayward Hero Trilogy
by Faelandaea Dravin
30 chaptersen-US
Death was only the beginning of Faelandaea Dravin’s greatest adventure. After a heroic sacrifice on Earth, fifty-year-old Faelandaea is granted a second chance by Persephone herself. Reincarnated into a vibrant fantasy world as his own twenty-year-old roleplay character, he possesses the combined mastery of a bard, mage, and rogue. But power comes with a price. His magical resonance is so immense it threatens to consume him before he can even understand its rhythm. When a fanatical cult known as the Covenant of the Veil begins severing the ley lines that hold the world together, Faelandaea must find allies in the chaos. Joined by a disgraced paladin, a fierce druid, and a brilliant artificer, he embarks on a desperate journey toward the Royal Magic Academy. Together, they must stop the resurrection of the Archon—a shadow entity capable of unmaking reality. As the cult's leader eyes Faelandaea as the ultimate vessel for darkness, the former Earthling must bridge the gap between his weary experience and his youthful new form. In a world where magic is bleeding out, can one man from another world find the harmony to save it?
- Fantasy
- Portal Fantasy
- Dark Fantasy
- Quest Adventure
- Magic Academy
The Last Performance
The highway stretched before me like a ribbon of fading light, the sun bleeding crimson and gold across the horizon. My hands rested easy on the wheel, the leather of my gloves creaking softly with each adjustment. In the rearview mirror, I caught glimpses of myself—the black cavalier's hat with its dramatic plume, the crossed baldric heavy with its collection of trinkets and flasks resting in the back seat, the hint of deep red satin beneath black leather armor.
I looked ridiculous.
I looked magnificent.
The Renaissance festival was two hours behind me now, but I hadn't bothered changing. Why would I? The drive home was part of the experience, part of the slow descent from fantasy back into the mundane world of bills, responsibilities, and the ever-present reminder that I was fifty years old and still playing dress-up on weekends.
Fifty.
The number sat in my mind like a stone. Half a century of life, and what did I have to show for it? A meager apartment in the city, a job that barely paid the bills but didn't inspire passion, and a closet full of garb that let me be someone else for a few precious hours each week.
But gods, what hours they were.
I smiled, remembering the afternoon. The character I played—Faelandaea Dravin—was everything I wasn't in real life. Charismatic where I was reserved. Bold where I was cautious. Magical where I was... well, decidedly not.
The character was a beautiful mess of contradictions: a rogue's cunning wrapped in a mage's power, delivered with a bard's flourish. No pistols or black powder for Captain Dravin—he wielded magic instead, casting illusions and charms with theatrical gestures while his fingers danced across the strings of his Kravik lyre. The nine-string Viking harp with its raven engravings had cost me a small fortune, but the look on people's faces when I played it while spinning tales of adventure and mischief? Priceless.
I'd spent the day weaving through crowds, the white fox tail at my belt swishing with each step, the staff in my hand topped with its crimson-furred effigy drawing curious stares. I'd flirted with merchants, traded riddles with children, and performed an impromptu concert near the jousting arena that had drawn a crowd of nearly a hundred people.
For those hours, I wasn't a fifty-year-old worker with creaking knees and reading glasses. I was ageless. Powerful. *Alive*.
The crystal sphere atop my staff caught the last rays of sunlight from where it rested in the passenger seat, scattering tiny prisms across the dashboard. The silver-gray fox tail attached just below it swayed gently with the motion of the car.
My phone buzzed in one of the many pouches at my belt. Probably Sarah from work, wondering if I'd finished the quarterly reports. I ignored it. Faelandaea Dravin didn't deal with quarterly reports.
The city lights began to appear on the horizon as dusk deepened into night. The transition was always jarring—from the carefully maintained illusion of the festival grounds to the harsh reality of concrete and steel. But even here, I held onto the fantasy a little longer. The Gothic aesthetic of my character translated surprisingly well to the city's underground club scene. During the off-season, I'd wear variations of this same outfit to the goth clubs downtown, where the dramatic flair was appreciated rather than questioned.
It was nearly ten o'clock when I pulled into my apartment complex. The parking garage was mostly empty, my boots echoing against the concrete as I gathered my things. The staff, the lyre carefully secured in its case, the swords crossed on my back—I must have looked like I'd stepped out of a fever dream or a very elaborate video game.
The elevator ride to the fourth floor gave me a moment to study my reflection in the polished doors. The black leather armor fit well, each plate curved to my form with deliberate precision. The crimson satin shirt beneath glowed like banked embers in the fluorescent light. The cloak draped from my shoulders, its frayed edges whispering of imagined storms and long miles.
For a moment—just a moment—I let myself imagine that it was all real. That the magic was real. That I was really the character I played, stepping between worlds with ease.
The elevator dinged, and reality reasserted itself.
My apartment was on the street-facing side of the building, and as I walked down the hallway, keys jingling among the various trinkets on my baldrics, I remembered I forgot my wallet in my car. I turned and headed back down to the street, and as I exited the building, that's when I heard it.
A scream.
A lady on the sidewalk was screaming, pointing at something in the street. I followed where she was pointing.
The scene unfolded in that strange, crystalline clarity that comes with adrenaline. A girl—couldn't have been more than sixteen—stood frozen in the middle of the street, her phone glowing in her hand, earbuds in her ears. She was looking down, oblivious.
And bearing down on her, headlights blazing, horn blaring, was a delivery truck.
The driver was slamming on the brakes, but it was too late. The distance was too short. The speed too great. As someone who was once a truck driver I knew all too well how far a truck needed to stop.
I didn't think.
Faelandaea Dravin didn't think—he *acted*.
I ran. The staff clattered to the pavement. My boots pounded against asphalt. The world narrowed to a single point: the girl, frozen like a deer in headlights, death rushing toward her in the form of several tons of steel and momentum.
I hit her with my shoulder, wrapping my arms around her and using every ounce of momentum to throw us both toward the sidewalk.
She flew clear.
I didn't.
The impact was... strange. I'd expected pain, but what I felt was more like a profound *wrongness*. A sensation of being unmade, of all the pieces that made up "me" suddenly deciding they didn't want to be together anymore.
I was airborne for a moment—actually airborne, the ridiculous plume on my hat streaming behind me like a comet's tail. Then I hit the pavement, and the wrongness became everything.
Darkness rushed in from the edges of my vision. I could hear screaming—the girl, I thought, and maybe others. The driver. Sirens in the distance, growing closer but not fast enough.
Never fast enough.
My last thought, as the world faded to black, was absurdly vain: *At least I looked fantastic doing it*.
---
Death, I discovered, was not what I expected.
There was no tunnel of light, no parade of life's greatest hits, no St. Peter at the pearly gates checking his clipboard. Instead, there was simply... transition.
One moment I was dying on a city street in full renaissance festival regalia. The next, I was standing in a garden.
Not just any garden. This was the kind of place that existed in myths and dreams—where every flower bloomed in impossible colors, where the air itself seemed to shimmer with barely contained life. Pomegranate trees heavy with fruit lined paths of white stone, and in the distance, I could hear the sound of running water.
"Well," a voice said from behind me, rich and dark as turned earth, "that was quite the performance."
I turned.
She was tall—taller than me by several inches—and beautiful in a way that made my chest ache. Not the soft beauty of spring flowers, but the terrible beauty of winter storms and deep places beneath the earth. Her hair fell in dark waves past her shoulders, crowned with a circlet of pomegranate flowers and seeds. Her dress seemed to shift between the deep red of fresh blood and the black of rich soil, never quite settling on either.
But it was her eyes that held me. Ancient eyes. Eyes that had seen empires rise and fall, that had witnessed every death and rebirth since time began.
"Persephone?," I breathed, and somehow I knew it was true.
She smiled, and it was like watching spring break through winter's grip. "You know me. Good. That will make this easier." She gestured to a bench beneath one of the pomegranate trees. "Sit. We have much to discuss, and I'm afraid your time here is... limited."
I sat, still too stunned to do anything else. My hand went automatically to my chest, expecting to find the crushed ruin of ribs and organs. Instead, I felt only the smooth leather of my armor, the soft satin beneath. I looked down. I was still in full garb, right down to the white fox tail at my belt.
"Am I dead?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Very much so," Persephone confirmed, settling onto the bench beside me with inhuman grace. "The truck driver is currently having a breakdown. The girl you saved is unharmed, though traumatized. And your body is being loaded into an ambulance, though there's precious little they can do for you now."
She said it so matter-of-factly, without cruelty but without particular sympathy either. The Dread Queen of the Underworld, I remembered. In some traditions, she wasn't just Hades' wife—she was a power unto herself, capable of granting souls new life or condemning them to eternal torment.
"So what happens now?" I asked. "Do I get judged? Weighed against a feather? Ferried across a river?"
"So many questions." Her smile widened slightly. "But no. Your fate was decided the moment you chose to act. Selfless sacrifice, true heroism without thought of reward or recognition—these things have power, even in death. Especially in death."
She reached out and plucked a pomegranate from the tree above us. With a casual gesture, it split open, revealing seeds like rubies. "You spent your life dreaming of other worlds, didn't you? Playing at being someone else. A rogue, a mage, a bard—all wrapped into one dramatic, chaotic package."
I felt my face heat. "It was just... a hobby. A way to escape."
"Escape," she repeated, tasting the word. "Yes. Escape from the mundane. From the ordinary. From the slow march toward irrelevance and death." She offered me the pomegranate. "What if I told you that escape could be real?"
I stared at the fruit in her hand. Everyone knew the story—eat the food of the Underworld, and you could never leave. But I was already dead, wasn't I? What did I have to lose?
"What are you offering?" I asked carefully.
Persephone's expression shifted, becoming something more serious. More regal. This was the Dread Queen now, not the spring maiden. "A world," she said simply. "A world that exists in the spaces between myth and reality. A world of magic and monsters, of dragons and fairies, of adventure and danger. A fantasy Renaissance, if you will—all the pageantry and wonder you've been playing at, but *real*."
My heart—did I still have a heart?—began to race. "Why?"
"Because that world needs you," she said. "Or rather, it will need you. I cannot tell you more than that. The future is not mine to reveal, and some things must unfold as they will. But I have seen the threads of fate, and I know that you have a role to play."
She leaned closer, and I caught the scent of pomegranates and fresh earth. "I am offering you a second chance. A new life in a world where the magic you've pretended to wield is real. Where the character you've crafted can truly exist. But understand this—it will not be easy. You will arrive with nothing but what you carry. No home. No friends. No knowledge of the world you're entering. You will have to find your own path, build your own life, earn your own place."
"But I'll have magic?" I asked, hardly daring to believe it. "Real magic?"
"Real magic," she confirmed. "The abilities of a rogue, a mage, and a bard, all combined. Incredibly strong, though you'll need to learn to use them properly. Everything you've imagined, everything you've pretended to be—it will be real."
She held up a hand before I could respond. "There is one more thing. You died at fifty years old. That is too old for the adventures ahead. I will return you to twenty—young enough to build a new life, old enough to have wisdom."
Twenty. Gods, I couldn't even remember being twenty. The energy, the resilience, the sheer *possibility* of it all.
"Why me?" I asked. "Why not someone younger, someone who is from this type of world who—"
"Because you understand stories," Persephone interrupted. "You understand drama and performance and the power of narrative. You understand that life is not just about survival, but about *living*. And because when the moment came, you didn't hesitate. You saw someone in danger, and you acted. That is the kind of person that world needs."
She stood, and suddenly the garden seemed to grow darker, more vast. The Dread Queen in her full power, ancient and terrible and beautiful. "So I ask you, Faelandaea Dravin—will you accept this gift? Will you step into the story you've always dreamed of living?"
I looked down at myself. At the ridiculous, wonderful garb I'd died in. At the black leather armor and crimson satin, the trinkets and baubles, the fox tails and feathered plume. I thought about my apartment, my job, my ordinary life.
I thought about fifty years of dreaming.
"Yes," I said. "Gods, yes."
Persephone smiled, and it was like watching the sun rise over a battlefield. "Then go, Faelandaea. Go and find your story. And when the time comes—when the world needs you—I trust you will be ready."
She pressed the pomegranate into my hand. "Eat."
I bit into the fruit, and the world exploded into light.
---
I woke to birdsong and the smell of grass.
For a long moment, I lay there, eyes closed, feeling the sun warm on my face. My body felt... different. Lighter. Stronger. I flexed my hands, and they responded with an ease I hadn't felt in decades.
Slowly, I opened my eyes.
Blue sky stretched above me, dotted with clouds that looked like they'd been painted by an artist with a generous hand. I sat up, and the world spun for a moment before settling.
I was in a field. Wildflowers in colors I'd never seen before—blues that seemed to glow, purples that shifted to silver in the light—stretched in every direction. In the distance, I could see a forest, the trees impossibly tall and ancient.
And I was still in full garb.
Every piece of it. The armor, the shirt, the cloak, the hat. The staff lay beside me, its crystal sphere catching the light. The lyre in its case. The swords crossed on my back. Even the white fox tail at my belt.
But it felt different now. The staff hummed with power when I touched it. The swords seemed to whisper promises of speed and precision. And when I stood—gods, when I stood, I felt *alive* in a way I hadn't in years.
I looked down at my hands. Young hands. Smooth skin, no age spots, no arthritis. I touched my face and felt firm skin, no jowls or wrinkles.
Twenty years old.
[System Notification: Character Initialization Complete]
[Character Level: 1]
[Class: Hybrid (Bard/Mage/Rogue) - Unawakened]
[Experience: 0/1000]
The notification flickered in my vision like a welcome screen, then faded. Level 1. A complete novice by system standards, though I had fifty years of lived experience and whatever knowledge Persephone had baked into my new form.
It would be interesting to see how those two things interacted.
I laughed. It started as a chuckle and built into full-throated laughter that echoed across the field. I was twenty years old, in a fantasy world, with real magic, and absolutely no idea what to do next.
It was terrifying.
It was *perfect*.
I picked up the staff, feeling power surge through it and into me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could feel it—knowledge that hadn't been there before. Spells. Abilities. The skills of a rogue, a mage, a bard, all woven together into something new.
I had no home. No friends. No knowledge of this world or its dangers.
But I had all the tools I needed.
And for the first time in fifty years—no, twenty years now—I had a real adventure ahead of me.
I adjusted my hat, settled the staff in my hand, and started walking toward the forest.
Faelandaea Dravin had a story to write.
And this time, it was going to be real.
The Road to Somewhere
The forest was closer than it had looked from the field—or maybe my new twenty-year-old legs just carried me faster than I expected. There was an elastic, effortless spring in my stride, a complete absence of the dull, grinding ache in my knees that had been my constant companion for a decade. My lungs pulled in the thick, ozone-scented air without…