Chapter 1: The Awakening
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	The wind howled through the chambers and galleries of the cave,
its eerie, ghostly song echoing on for eternity.  In the upper rooms of
the labyrinthine network, one could hear the harsh drumming of the
rain and the ear-shattering booms of thunder from the raging storm
outside.
	And in a chamber deep in the heart of the caves, she awoke.
	The storms sang in her blood - they always had, especially before
she had chosen to enter the ageless stasis sleep.  Yet their song had
been silent in her dormant mind, until now, when the call had become
too strong to be denied.
	She opened her sleep-weary eyes, adjusting to the dimly-lit
environment of the cave.  The woman raised one slender hand, in a
summoning gesture, but after a moment she lowered it with a barely
audible sigh.
	:My magic no longer works,: she thought.  :So what the Prophe-
cies said was true.  Our Esper kin have left this world, and with them,
the magic as well...:
	She looked around her, to the magically-sculpted niches where
she had stored her weapons and equipment, to the bathing pool, still fed
by the hot spring she had found prior to going into stasis.  The woman
rubbed her eyes, then reached over to a niche and pulled out something
long and slender, wrapped in black cloth.  She unwound it, revealing the
object to be a long, slender sword, perfectly sized for her, in a black
scabbard ornamented with gold.  She ran her hands over the familiar grip
and hilt, the grip itself wrapped with strips of black leather, the hilt
an unknown alloy chased with fluid-seeming golden interlace.  The pommel
of the sword was a perfect onyx sphere, polished and gleaming darkly in
the dim light.
	She pulled it from the scabbard, running her hands over the
smooth blade, feeling the runes etched into it.  Yet it no longer felt
the same to her, which was no surprise - with the Espers gone, it would
be foolish to think that the Soulblades would still function as anything
other than normal swords, though still of exceptionally high quality.
	With a sigh, she set the sword down and rose from her bier.  She
walked silently over to the spring-fed pool and removed her clothes -
first the strong yet impossibly light armor, enameled black and gold,
then her white shirt and leggings.
	She stood there, naked, by the pool, and she could just barely
make out her reflection in the steaming water.  She was tanned, and
lithely muscular, with a few pale scars here and there, so faint that
only she could tell they were there at first glance.  She knew that
by virtue of the stasis sleep she had not aged, but in her own eyes
she could see that within the deep blue depths was a somber maturity
she had never seen before.  Her long reddish-gold hair cascaded down
her back - she had loosed it from its customary braid before entering
the Sleep.
	She stepped into the hot water, relaxing on a bench she had
sculpted within the natural bowl of the pool.
	:I am awakened now, when I should have remained in the Sleep
until the Avatar of Darkness came for me,: she thought, watching
tendrils of steam rise from the water and fade up into the darkness.
:Why has this happened?  Something must be greatly wrong-oh, Avatar, I
wish I had read more of the Prophecies before I left-but now they are
lost, even as are my people... but there is something I am sure of.  I
must go out into the world again, and do the duty which the Avatar
chose me for - or die trying.: