There was the sensation of weightlessness, drifting freely in a void, tumbling. He woke slowly to a chaotic myriad of noises. There was the sound of wind rushing past him, the sound of his clothes flapping and armour plates chattering in the maelstrom. Past these, what he noticed first were the screams. His eyes snapped open as he came to. He was airborne, and he was falling. His voice joined the others as they plummeted downwards. The man flailed his arms, trying to steady his descent, craning his neck to try and search for the source of the other voices.

Below him was a thin, lanky figure, slack and silent. They were falling towards a lake. As he tumbled, he spotted three more figures; a pair of men and one woman. Her long blonde hair was blowing wildly in the wind. Their bodies were covered in strange, glowing red streaks, like grievous wounds bleeding crimson light. Above them he saw the edge of a rapidly receding cliff. The tail of what must have been an immense beast whipped over the side before disappearing from sight.

The voices of the three above him were silenced when their bodies shimmered, then suddenly burst into sparkling blue shards. Barely a moment later, there was nothing left of them. The Man voice was alone, a single screaming shout in the void. He tumbled far enough to see below him again. He saw the lake, rushing up to meet him. The man below him impacted the surface, shattering into the same bizarre shards and polygons.

Out of breath, the Man's shouts ended in a gasping cough. He'd just started to inhale when the breath was forced back from his lungs in a renewed scream of agony as a blinding pain filled his entire being. He spasmed, curling into a ball, and finally, mercifully blacked out before plunging into the water.

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Wet. Everything was wet. He'd finally stopped falling; stopped sinking; stopped drifting. His head was submerged as a wave rolled over him. Again he woke with a start as the wave tried in vain to push to him ever slightly farther onto shore. Coughing and sputtering, the Man opened his eyes once the water receded. He was lying on a beach. He weakly pulled himself forward on his elbows, out of the water and reach of the waves and flopped over onto his back.

How long have I been out? He asked himself.

Another round of ragged coughs prompted him to roll over onto his hands and knees as he retched up a mouthful of brackish water. Once he was confident his lungs were empty he pulled himself to his feet, wiping the sand from his face. In the distance, in the middle of the lake, he could see the cliff. It was a tall plateau high enough that he couldn't see over its lip. A long, winding path connected it to the shore far off to his left.

I…fell from that? The Man tried to remember.

He leaned forward and braced his hands on his knees, catching his breath and trying to sort out his muddled mind. The only sounds besides his own were the steady beat of the waves against the beach. He was alone. Standing to his full height, he turned his head to the right, then the left, looking for anyone else. There was no sign of the others he had seen in the air. His mind finally snapped to at the thought; he recalled how they'd disintegrated. Confused, he shook his head, noticing for the first time something in the edges of his vision. In the upper left of his field of view was a hollow horizontal bar. It was mostly empty, save for a yellow bar inside of it filling it to about a quarter. He reached for it, but whatever it was, it wasn't in front of him. The Man rubbed his eyes, then looked down, then up and around. The odd bar seemed to follow, like it was inside his eyes.

What is that? He closed his eyes. He could still see it.

He shook his head a little more before it dawned on him that the strange object cluttering his vision was the least of his concerns. He looked around again, surveying the area and trying to get his bearings. The Man was standing on a sandy breach that looked to ring around the entire lake. Behind him some distance was a smooth grey stone wall. It extended in all directions; wrapping all the way around the outer perimeter of the beach, all the way to the opposing shore on the other side of the plateau and back. His eyes followed the wall's upwards curve until he was looking straight up. What he'd originally thought was an overcast sky was the ceiling. Everything he could see was in one massive room. Hanging in the center of the ceiling was a softly glowing sphere that illuminated the entire area like moonlight.

Where the hell am I? The room must have been over two kilometers across. Am I underground?

With those questions asked, more followed. The Man felt a growing sense of unease in the pit of his being. Starting to panic, he started searching around again, finding nothing.

What is this place? The Man clutched at his head, starting to pace. The last thing I remember…is falling off that cliff. No…just falling. Think. Think think think. Think! Why was I up there? What knocked me off? The hell happened to those people?!

It was at this moment the Man came to uncomfortable realization. He didn't know much of anything, including the Man's name. Still weak, he dropped to his knees. He took another irritated swipe at the phantom bar still hanging in his view.

Ok, don't panic. He thought. Take a deep breath. Take a few. Ok, now think…what have I got on me?

He looked down at himself. He was wearing what looked like mostly leather armour, with a dull grey breastplate and wrist guards. There was a metal scabbard with no sword on his right hip, and a six inch dagger sheathed handle down under his left collar. On his left side was a pouch with a pair of roughly palm sized crystal bricks. He dug them out, inspecting them curiously. One was blue, and the other was a peach-ish yellow. Both had some metal gilded around the edges in an interesting pattern. He puzzled over them for a moment, but couldn't think of what they might be, and put them back into the pouch.

He patted himself down, but didn't find much of anything else on his front. On his back, his belt had what felt like room for two knives, but only one was present. Pulling the remaining knife out, he saw it was a four inch throwing knife of simple design. Standing back up, he returned the knife to its place.

I look like I was geared up for a fight. He looked back down to his empty sheath and felt the missing knife slot on his belt. Guess I found one. Who was I fighting? Why?

He looked over his armour again. Am I some kind of soldier, or something? That doesn't sound right.

Standing in a completely enclosed space, it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night. He was starting to wonder what time it was when he caught site of a display in the bottom left of his vision reading '06:30 pm'. As if to confirm its purpose, the number ticked forward to six thirty one. Like the other bar, it just seemed to exist in his field of view.

Well that's…convenient. I have a clock in my head. Pretty sure that's not normal.

By this, he could presume that everything floating in his vision had some purpose, but other than the obvious clock, the bar's use still escaped him. The Man had no way of investigating it, and could tell he wasn't going to accomplish much else standing on a barren beach. He started searching along the wall for any sort of exit or destination. The most obvious landmark was the winding path connecting the plateau to the shore. While he couldn't see anything over the lip of the landmass, a vague memory of his glimpse of a monstrous creature on top of it made it a less than appealing destination. He thought he saw something in the wall near the path's beginning. The Man squinted his eyes, spotting a door. With only one real option, he set off towards it.

While walking towards the door, he noticed he'd completely dried, despite not having been out of the water long enough for that to make any sense. It was a confusing, though welcome comfort. Any further thought that might have been put into it was belayed as he neared the door. It was much larger than expected. The sole visible exit was composed of a double door twice his height and three meters across. It was made of redwood, with wrought iron beams framing it. Each door had a hanging iron loop for the handle. The Man reach took hold of one and pulled.

The doors opened inwards. He'd only grabbed one handle, but once pulled, both sides opened on their own. Beyond was a vaulted circular antechamber with openings into three equidistant corridors. Each was a few meters wide and as tall as the door, made of limestone and lined with torches. The corridors stretched far enough ahead of him that he couldn't see the ends of any of them, or where they might lead. The area around him looked like the inside of a castle, but without any windows it was still impossible to tell if he was indoors or underground.

Great. He thought. The Man walked into the center of the room, peering down the three paths available to him.

"Hello?" He called out. "Anyone there?"

Only his echo answered. He flinched as the doors closed behind him with a loud report. Without knowing where he was or where any of the corridors led, puzzling over where they might go proved a fruitless endeavor. Getting claustrophobic, The Man took the middle path straight ahead and made his way. Torches were ensconced every few meters on the walls, forming the only visible landmark and gauge of distance in the winding corridor. He came to a fork in the path. Both sides were completely identical. He chose to head right, reasoning that he could always come back and try the left path if he needed to. Twenty minutes and several twists and turns later the Man was no longer sure he could find his way back to the first fork, let alone the door. He stopped at a four way crossroads, somehow even more lost then when he'd first started. For what felt like the fifth time, he desperately searched himself for anything that might be useful in finding his way out of this labyrinth. He opened the pouch on his left, again only greeted by the two crystal bricks. He'd just fastened the clasp back closed when he thought he'd heard something.

The Man held his breath, listening intently for anything. A moment later he heard it again; a footstep. He reeled around, trying to figure out which direction it was coming from. He closed his eyes, letting his ears guide him, and was rewarded with a sense that the footfalls were coming from his left. He turned and started down the corridor.

"Hello?" He called out as he got closer, breaking into a sprint. "Is someone there?"

The footsteps stopped, but nobody answered him. A moment later the footsteps resumed, louder. The Man found this unusual, just starting to feel uneasy about what he was heading towards when the target of his attention rounded the corner directly in front of him. The Man nearly ran right into it before he could stop, surprised. In front of him stood a green skinned lizard easily a head taller than him. It was unclothed, save for a pair of iron bracers and greaves. Clutched in its left hand was a menacingly large cutlass. Hovering over its left shoulder was a bar nearly identical to the one floating in his peripheral vision; partly different because it was full and green. Above its head was a red icon, over the words 'Salamander Soldier'.

The Man slowly started backing away, reaching for his dagger. "H-hello?"

The creature puffed up its chest in a deep breath and let loose a loud screech. It leapt forward, slashing with its sword. The Man stumbled back in a panic, not quite far enough. The tip of the cutlass swept through his chest. He looked down, expecting to see his organs spilling out, but saw a bright red streak where he'd been hit. The bar in his vision emptied by a fraction and turned from yellow to red. The Man continued to step backwards, drawing his dagger, but it was comically small compared to the creature's weapon. With another screech, the lizard advanced and swung again in a downwards chop. The Man sidestepped out of the way, and the blade made a deafening clang against the stone floor. The lizard swept his cutlass at him in a horizontal strike. Without thinking, the Man took a defensive stance and brought his dagger up. Its blade glowed blue, and deflected the beast's strike. After a moment's of feeling completely rigid, he tried backing away again, but his sidestep had placed the wall behind him, which he bumped into in his retreat.

The creature's sword swept left at his head on a return swing, which the Man narrowly managed to duck under. He could feel ground stone silt fall onto him as the sword scratched across the wall behind him. The lizard slapped its tail against the floor, almost as if agitated by its failure to connect its blows, and raised its cutlass in preparation for a savage downwards blow. Before the blade could begin its arc down, the Man sprang forward, driving his shoulder into his opponent in a tackle. The two toppled over together.

The Man recovered first, and leapt on top of his foe, stabbing his dagger into its chest. The creature wailed, but otherwise refused to die. The dagger left the same red marks on it as its sword had left on him; the same marks he'd seen on the others before they'd shattered. The Man withdrew the dagger and stabbed it again, repeating the motion with a frequency spurred by panic. If it weren't for the lizard's wailing, he couldn't tell if he was having any effect on it. Unable to use its oversized sword on him while he was still on top of it, it clawed at him with its off hand. The Man withdrew the dagger from its chest and stabbed to the side, spearing its wrist on the blade. The Salamander Soldier reared its head back, howled and bit him, clamping its jaws onto his shoulder. With a jerk of its neck it threw him off.

He flopped across the floor, losing his grip on his dagger. He could hear it skitter somewhere out of view. The bar in his view emptied to a red sliver and started flashing. The Man had just gotten back to his feet as the creature started advancing on him again. He reached behind him, grabbed his remaining knife, and threw it. It flew forward, straight into the lizard's chest. The creature stopped, shimmered, glowed as if lit from within, and shattered, bursting into gleaming shards. Free from its host, the throwing knife clattered to the ground.

I'm alive! He thought, shaking from the sudden adrenaline rush. He quickly patted himself to make sure he was still whole. What the hell was that thing?! I need to get out of here!

He was given pause when there a quieting beeping tone and a translucent flat square panel appeared in front of him. He regarded it curiously; it listed information about XP earned and Col gained, thought didn't do anything to explain what either meant. The Man was still staring at it when it disappeared a moment later.

What's an XP, or a Col? He pondered. Doesn't matter. Wherever I am, it isn't safe and I'm certainly not welcome here. First things first.

He couldn't see where his dagger had slid off to, and found himself really wishing he had a sword to go with his scabbard. The Man was reaching down to retrieve his throwing knife when he heard more footsteps. He looked back over his shoulder; a pair of the Salamander Soldiers rounded a corner of a nearby crossroads, no doubt attracted by the commotion of the fight. An angry hiss announced a third lizard approaching from the other side of the junction.

"Shit." The Man didn't bother backing away, turning and bolting into a full sprint.

With a collective braying screech, the creatures gave chase.

Author's Notes: I hope you like long fics and OCs, because this is going to be a long fic full of OCs. With that tautology out of the way, I hope you enjoy Ergo. Reviews are welcome and appreciated.

Edit: Came back and touched up my prologue a bit; with my chapters rounding an average of 8-10k words, this felt a touch short, even as a prologue.