Soldiers of Lost Strength - A LitRPG story

on hiatus until my exams are over - 19/8 🥲 Eunos was set for a boring life. Having completed the school of magic, the next step in his life was to take over his father's job, working the forges and crafting swords. He didn't have a life, not really. He kept his head down, going about his business quietly. Nobody would notice if he was gone. Maybe with the exception of his father.  In another country on the other side of the continent, Jian was a popular girl, the daughter of the village headman, courted by most every boy in her humble village. She was taught the basics of magic, spoiled by her loving parents.  And then there was a bear. It foraged the forests for food, and never even had a thought in its entire life except for basic survival needs. Sleep, wake, and hunt for rabbits. It liked rabbits. Even more than honey, which the other bears seem to covet. It did not understand the appeal of honey.  Lastly, the fourth - a goblin. She did not have a name. For she was small and weak, made to stay in her own home while her betters hunted and got the best portions of the food they brought back. She was just a normal goblin.  Buried three times, a few hundred metres below a barren landscape, there was a castle. Filled in with dirt. Not that anybody cared or even knew about this particular structure. Curses have been layered over it millennia ago, curses that made the place forgotten to everyone and everything.  But there was a well-made spell ritual underneath. The circle flickered a few times, brightening and then dimming. It had no business doing so. It was impossible.  The ritual circle had a hundred places of power. But the measly mana that made its way to the ritual, it could only power four.  And so it did the best it could, and chose four people to become Bearls.