Side Story I Chapter I: Somewhere In Hudra - The Story Of An Elf Outcast

(Most side stories are still directly related to the plot.)

It's dark. I can't see. This prison of darkness has only one thing that's keeping me from going insane. It's the sound of the carriage's occasional noise when releasing magic  throughout the back end.

My name is Freia, and I'm an elf. A tree elf, or so I heard from the humans who took me captive. 

(2 days before.)

In a dense forest, multiple tree elves are gathered around, sitting on sturdy tree branches on the towering trees. One of them, is not. She is on the forest floor, and is looking up towards the elves lying down.

"Yo, Freia. Did ya get the Mana Grasses we asked for? Better hurry up, or we'll throw away your necklace!" A blonde headed elf says as he plays around with a valuable looking accessory, twirling it around his fingers.

"No! Please! I'll get some! Just... give me time!" Responded Freia. 

"Better hurry up, or we might get second thoughts and just throw it away." A female elf says. 

Freia scrambles out of the forest opening nearby, panicky, as she almost stumbles multiple times. With tears in her eyes, she hurriedly looks around the nearby grassland to scour for Mana Grasses.

Freia is described by the tribespeople as an outcast. Born with two differently colored eyes, although this itself is usually considered a blessing, it immediately shifts into a curse when the colors of her pupils are dyed a shiny golden in the left and a dark black in the other. 

Her constitution is also pictured as frail. Since birth, she was given a necklace, heart-shaped, and holding an almost transparent greyish-white jewel in the middle, with ornamental carvings around it. The person who gave her this necklace is currently unknown. It was found on her neck while asleep in her crib, shortly after her mother died. 

During the moment Freia was asleep, she heard a voice in her dream, saying words that she didn't understand when she was younger. 

Unable to piece the unclear words , she vaguely remembers them spoken like this. 

"Fre...ia.... jewel..... shi..ne... mi...nd"

The only four words she could remember were "Freia, Jewel, Shine, Mind" in that order. She knows that the jewel would shine, but she doesn't know what the word Mind's use there is. 

Throughout her childhood, she was treated as an outcast and often bullied by her peers. Although it didn't escalate further, with the adults' bias judgement towards her, she obviously couldn't act up or fight back. She took it all quietly. 

As far as she knows, that necklace has had the effect of keeping her happy everytime she caressed it. Whenever she was sad, a certain warm feeling would emanate from it, and it would always keep her calm.

This, of course, leads to some problems. The other children, after seeing her attached to the necklace, often made attempts to steal it, and would often succeed. It was only ever given back with a throw after making Freia do whatever the other elves wanted.

Now this seemed like any other day, and even though her necklace was stolen, she felt a somehow attached feeling towards it this time around. She didn't want to be separated from it. 

And while she was picking the Mana Grasses, she was kidnapped by multiple humans and taken captive. 

Now this leads back to the predicament in which Freia is currently in. For the past two days she has been locked inside a pitch black carriage, her two hands locked in place by a strange instrument that looped around her wrists, and wouldn't budge however she tried. She was only ever fed once a day. Separated from her necklace, she began to consider ending it all by bludgeoning her head against the tough walls of the carriage, but even that didn't seem like it would work, as she was too tired to move. 

Many times she tried to destroy the walls with magic, but even that didn't seem to work. The walls seemed to absorb magic particles the moment a trace of it was emitted from her. 

A few seconds later, a voice could be heard inside Freia's mind.

"Freia, dear. Don't give up."

Great. Now she's gone insane, and has now started hearing voices in her head.

"That's very rude. I'm here to help you!"

"He..lp?"

"That's right! I, The True Goddess Of Nature, can help you. O' gentle maiden, I'm very sorry to have let you endure all this suffering. If you like, I shall lend you the power to defeat your enemies!"

"Ple...ase..."

In that moment, all the pain Freia was feeling instantly disappeared. Even the hunger, the headaches, everything.

"How does it feel? Let me introduce myself. My name is, da-da-da! Gaia! Yep! The Goddess Of Nature, Mother Nature, and the Human's Continent was named after me. Although the names for the two of them seems like they should be flipped. Hudra seems like it cares about nature more."

"Gaia? As in the Goddess Of Nature?!"

"Yep! Ope, let's save it for later! Now that you're strong enough, let's destroy this carriage and get back!"

As Gaia said this, Freia could feel waves of power moving through her body. Feeling like her body was about to burst, Gaia instructed her on what to do.

"Now, your body is healthy, let us start. Feel Krodoa's energy, you who is loved by nature!"

"I will escape! Overgrowth!"

The right eye of Freia, dark as the abyss, had now turned as golden as it's neigbour. With both eyes shining bright in the darkness, Freia chants a spell, and in that moment, outside the carriage, the various plants of the forest begin to entangle around the carriage, unrelenting in it's grip. Vines from the nearby trees extend and further increase the grip on the vehicle, until it can no longer move. The leaves from the trees fall off and onto the roof of the carriage, each one seemingly ignoring the hard metallic roof, passing through effortlessly, as if nothing was there. Then more plants begin to strike at the door of the carriage, almost effortlessly destroying it in a few bashes. More vines extend towards the criminals driving, and pull them out. Suspend mid-air by the plants, Freia, exits out of the now broken door at the back, and at that same moment, all the humans' necks are broken, without giving them the time to scream or plead. 

"That was wonderful, my dear! You have the natural aptitude for this! But do remember, never take from nature more than it can produce. That's the meaning behind your two eyes. One, the golden pupil to your left, symbolises the beautifulness of nature, and two, the one to your right, the dark pupil shows what happens when the bounties from nature are abused, the balance is destroyed, and nature dies. Never take more than needed, and give thanks to Krodoa for it's help."

"Thank you, Mother Gaia. To Krodoa, I thank you for your assistance."

"Great! Let's introduce ourselves again! I'm Gaia, the True Goddess Of Nature!"

"I'm Freia. Pardon me, but "True" Goddess?"

"That's correct. Let me explain to you everything that happened."

Gaia explains to Freia about the Fake Gods who forcibly replaced them, and are now ruling with different identities to their own. 

"That's terrible. Has your power diminished?"

"You're right. Ever since they took our places, they also absorbed most of our powers along with it. Will you help me, as my apostle, to defeat the False Gods' apostles and remove them from this world?"

"I will devote myself to serving The Goddess. You have saved my life. I will continue to serve you for as long as I live."

"Oh, you're too humble. Now then, shall we get back? For our first mission, I was thinking we go to Gaia, the continent. Although this may seem contradictory as you were being taken to Gaia in the first place, it was as a slave. Once there we will meet the God of the Mind and Goddess of Light's apostles....."

As Freia walked off, now confidently, she talked with Gaia, who now lived inside her mind, while going back. 

And this, was how the first apostle of The True Goddess Of Nature was created.