The Crimson Crusade: Heroes Emerge - Chapter 1

A new day shone upon Claukwiths academy. This institute was famous all around the continent of Astrea, and it was because of the graduates. The graduates that came from Claukwiths had saved the world just half a century ago. The return of the Mind Flayer Empire almost occurred but was stopped by the former graduates. That was all a mere story in the end, and now it was time for a new set of heroes to emerge. In the academy's depths was the library, which was run by a Beholder named Oltrox. He was looking for his son Kraexon who had gone missing, However as a professor he was expecting the new class to arrive at any moment. So for now his search must be put on hold.

As the distinguished gates of the school opened, future students filled the courtyard. Students of many different races, Humans, Elves, Gnomes, Dwarves, Dragonborn, and even a few more exotic races like Tieflings and Goliaths. A man appeared to be floating above them, about forty feet, or so. The man was dark skinned and had white hair that was well groomed. He had mutton chops, and wore a rather antique-looking jacket that appeared to be made out of leather. He harshly barked orders at the students,

"Alright everyone! Stay in an orderly fashion around the courtyard, and do not enter the building!"

The students acted almost immediately, and they began to make a more orderly appearance around the man that floated so high above them. He continued,

"Now everyone, you will soon be let into the building. I need you all to immediately make your way to your assigned instructor; if you do not know their room number, or if you don't know your instructor then please check the bulletin board to the left of the main entryway."

The man turned around and began to walk up what appeared to be an invisible staircase; a door appeared in front of him, and he gave a wave to say adieu and walked through the door as it disappeared.

Students all made their way towards the entranceway that the man had motioned towards earlier, all of them giving out annoyed groans as they pushed past each other. One student however was catching more attention than the rest; there was a blue tiefling, adorned in rather shoddy leather gear with a pair of amateur-done eyebrow rings, with a hint of eye shadow and black painted nails. The strange looks he was getting was not helped by the large wooden bat that he was hauling around. The boy shoved passed the other students, who certainly weren't stopping him. He looked to be on the younger side; well on the younger side of adulthood at least, probably around sixteen to seventeen years old. He finally arrived at the bulletin board, and began to scan it almost as if he was searching for something that he didn't necessarily want to find, yet he soon let out a loud groan as he saw it, "Frey-Oltrox". Frey facepalmed upon seeing this, before looking around and noticing that most of the other students had already made their way inside of the school, on their way to find their instructor. Frey quickly took notice and looked back at the board to scan over who else would be taught under Oltrox; there were 5 other students listed. Frey simply turned around to face away from the school and took a a much-needed breath of fresh air. After taking a moment to simply take in the scenery he noticed what appeared to be a heavily armored Lizardfolk, scales of black covered his skin and he looked to be rather skinny for being dawned with such a large set of armor. After standing there for what felt like ages, staring at each other, Frey decided to make the first move in this engagement, walking forward with a smile on his face. If this was going to be a form of interaction, why not make it a positive one? Frey walked forward and gave the Lizardman a wave, which was returned not with friendliness but with a glare of the likes that Frey had never seen before. Frey introduced himself with a friendly smile,

"Hello, my name is Frey. It's nice to meet you. This academy sure is interesting huh?"

The Lizardfolk continued his glare, perhaps in an attempt to continue his look of menace, or simply because he didn't understand the common language. Nevertheless, Frey continued,

"So, did you come here due to an interest in adventuring as well?"

Upon Frey finishing, The Lizardfolk immediately gave a rebuttal,

"Listen here boy, I am not interested in your childish games."

The Lizardfolk began to float and pushed right past him; Frey stood there dumbfounded as to what just happened. The Lizardfolk scanned the same bulletin board as the other students, then turned around yelling at Frey,

"What did you say your name was?"

Frey yelled back his name, and the Lizardfolk made his way back over to him.

"It appears that we share an instructor, the name is S'kelt, S'kelt Nikor, make certain that you know it."

Around this same time a duo of two more people that appeared to be students made their way through the front gates and into the now baren courtyard. One was dawned in what appeared to be scavenger armor that one would wear in the desert, fit with a mask as well. The other was dawned with a set of leather armor, both of the people had an almost blood red armor. They both quite quickly made their way to the board before looking at one another, back towards Frey and S'kelt, and then quickly making their way over. The one that had a mask on spoke first, in an analytical voice

"You both wouldn't happen to be of Oltroxs' class would you?"

Frey nodded, with a new spark within him, these two seemed to be at least a little friendlier than S'kelt. The two then introduced themselves, first was the one equipped with the more scavenger-like armor,

"You may call me Blut"

then the human with the leather armor,

"And I’m Leo."

Frey smiled and introduced himself back as well, before being interrupted by S'kelt,

"I hate to interrupt your lovely introductions, but I do believe that we are missing 2 of our compatriots."

Leo quickly responded,

"Maybe they've already made their way to Oltroxs' class."

Blut, and S'kelt both agreed, nodding their heads; Frey on the other hand shuddered at the thought, obviously attempting to prolong the visit to see Oltrox for as long as possible. However this eventually had to come to an end, and the party made their way inside the building. The school's hallway was mostly marble with what appeared to be rooms on either side every ten feet; after walking about one hundred feet they reached a large open room, with a spiral staircase to their right, a continuing hallway in front of them, and a large doorway that was shut to their left.

"Well this is rather magnificent wouldn't you all say so?"

S'kelt asked the group. In no short time, Blut responded,

"It certainly is different from where I and Leo are from."

Frey quickly turned, eyeing up both Blut and Leo.

"You two knew each other before this?"

S'kelt let out a laugh, which caused a sense of surprise in Frey,

"I thought it was rather obvious that they knew each other. I mean have you not taken a moment to take in the designs on their armor?"

S'kelt asked and Frey rolled his eyes. Silence filled the room, and the group noticed that all the students had left the hallway, presumably to go to their instructors' room.

The Silence was eventually filled with the sound of footsteps; it sounded similar to hard leather smacking across the tiled floor. The party's eyes soon landed on the source, which was revealed to be the man that was barking out orders in the courtyard. He soon reached them, and the harsh tone of his voice cut the tension in the room like a sword, "What are you all doing still roaming the halls?"

The entire group appeared to at the very least be surprised, and at the very most extremely intimidated. Leo decided to be the first to respond to the man,

"Sorry sir, we appeared to have gotten just a little turned around. Could you point us towards Oltroxs' room?"

The man's firm posture soon relaxed, and he pointed towards the door that was next to the spiral staircase,

"Right down that way son."

The party thanked him and made their way down the stairs that were awaiting them as the door opened. The trek down the staircase was more ominous than anything. The walls were a great juxtaposition from the remainder of the building, the entire stairwell appeared to be made from some sort of old stone brick, that had been poorly stacked along the walls; a set of vines had begun to grow all across parts of the wall which in turn caused a strange amount of moisture within them. As the group grew closer to the bottom of the humid staircase an audible humming became more and more apparent, and they eventually reached the end of this tight spiral staircase, with a large wood-iron door awaiting them, similar to the one that you'd find at the entrance of a dungeon. Another bout of silence came in as the group stood at the bottom of the staircase with seemingly no one wanting to open the door. Frey seemed incredibly nervous, his brow beading with sweat; S'kelt soon spoke after a small bout of silence apparently noticing Frey's general fright,

"Oh come on Frey, don't be scared of meeting new people."

Upon finishing this he opened the door, and pushed Frey in first, with the others following soon after. The others followed them in, Leo with a look of confusion on his face. The room that the party arrived in wasn't what they were expecting; this wasn't some dingy dungeon; the room was a half circle that was similar to a balcony, made of boreal wood. Bookshelves lined the walls, and there was a large vault door to their far left. There were rails equipped to the balcony and to their near left and right were staircases going in half spirals downwards, yet the main draw of the room was a large desk and chair that overlooked whatever lay below the balcony; sitting in the chair was a Beholder an eyeball and about six-eight eyestalks off of it. The humming that was emitting into the large fleshy ball with a large stairwell appeared to have come from the Beholder who had yet to notice the new group of students standing just eight or so feet behind him. The humming continued as the party stood there with shocked expressions on their faces, all except for Frey, who had a look of fear and anxiety more than anything else. The sound of running then filled the room, drowning out the humming from Oltrox. The culprit for the stomping soon revealed themselves to be a white tabaxi with black spots, two different colored eyes, one blue and one purple, the tabaxi wore rather revealing clothing with something akin to a piece of cloth covering a majority of their chest, and cloth draped down their legs, and a crossbow was mounted to their back. The tabaxi soon waved, and let out a loud,

"Hey Oltrox, it looks like the others are finally here!"

Oltroxs humming stopped as the beholder began to float, and then turned to face the group. His appearance from the front was far less intimidating, having a warm smile, he began to greet the party with warm introductions.

"Ah hello, you all must be the group I was assigned. Well, I know that this library is a bit more detached than the rest of the rooms, but nevertheless, I hope you can make yourselves at home. Your rooms are just down the stairs there."

The group was then able to finally get a view of what this balcony overlooked, which appeared to be a large open room, with a roundtable, and chairs that could hold up to 10 people. Detached from this was a straight hallway, and off of the large room was another large dungeon door. Blut spoke,

"Well thank you, sir, I'm sure this will prove to be quite useful in our escapades."

Oltrox gave another warm smile, before speaking again,

"Now you all I would like you to meet another member of your party."

He motioned one of his eyestalks over to the Tabaxi, who up until this point had been messing around with some kind of clay container that was holding a powder. The Tabaxi gave a nod before revealing her name,

"You can call me Boot!"

She went for handshakes with all of the party, each of them giving rather limp responses in comparison to her quick and fast handshakes. Oltrox turned back towards his desk and sat within the chair; he appeared to be working on some sort of contraption similar to a goblet; he had a book to his right which appeared to be in some strange language that no one who walked past him could understand. As the group made their way down and into the hallway, Oltrox shouted from the banister

"Oh you're welcome to any room except for the first one on your right."

Each person went ahead and chose their lodgings, Frey choosing the second door on the right, S'kelt choosing the first room on the left, and Blut, and Leo chose the second and third rooms on the left respectively which appeared to be connected to one another through a door, and Boot had already chosen the third room on the right, next to Freys.

S'kelt entered the room, it heavily juxtaposed the outside rooms, not being made of mahogany wood, but a stone; it was barren with nothing but a bed. He laughed to himself, and said

"Now this is something that I can get used to…"

S'kelt began to pull things out of a bag that he had on him, a couple of banners that were aligned with black and green art. He also pulled out a bundle of 3 chitinous needles, and stuck them to the wall, before sitting down and taking off his giant set of armor; he placed it onto an armor stand before pulling out less heavily armored chainmail, but still a good piece of armor. Frey entered his room and looked around it appeared that all of the rooms had the exact same layout, a single twin bed that was placed in the corner. Frey had come with basically nothing but the leather clothing on his back, and the hulking club. This was odd because everyone else had at least carried a small haversack with them, Blut had walked in with a big bag, and Frey had caught a peak at Boot's luggage, which was a giant bag. Frey took a deep breath, and then fully turned to look in the direction of the locked room. He placed the large wooden club on his back before crouching down towards one of the stone blocks and attempting to grapple it. His hands were searching for something, and eventually, it was found. He gently pushed in, and a stone was fully pushed through the wall. Frey went prone and reached his arm all the way through it, he felt the other side of the wall and began to pull the stones out. After about ten minutes he successfully pulled about 6 stone bricks out and crawled through. Frey carefully placed them all back in their spots, and then took in the room; it was a gothic room that had quite a lot of leather and an incredibly nice bed, a double bed instead of a twin. Frey walked over to the bed and laid down on it, taking in a deep breath, and smiling

Boots' room had already been mostly done, she had placed a tapestry on the wall, with the symbol of Sune the god of light. She also had a set of crossbow bolts that were placed inside of a standing quiver on the ground, the crossbow itself was equipped to the wall. She had some kind of religious idols placed around her room as well. Come to think of it, Boots' room looked the most like a normal room as if she carried all her belongings here. She also had these incredibly large vases each with writing on them.

Blut and Leo both entered their rooms, they pulled out drapings that were clad in a strange red symbol. Blut had come with a rather large supply of weaponry, to be more specific, two rifles, one lever action, and the other a musket; he also had a revolver with the phrase "Big Iron" engraved on the side. He pulled out some pieces of wood, and with the stone brick on the wall, he was able to make a weapon rack, where he hung his two rifles. Blut had also taken off his desert-like leather and cloth, and draped it across the armor stand; the helmet also came off, and was put on the armor stand which revealed his scaly black and steely, and revealed him to be a Dragonborn. Leo walked in,

"Ah Blut, glad to see you've decided on this room."

Blut simply nodded as Leo fully entered the room. He had taken off his leather armor as well with both now having cloth on, it being much more comfortable. Leo had placed his sword away and only has a shortsword, that quite frankly is more akin to a dagger than anything equipped.