The tavern, ‘The Rusty Cog,’ clanged with conversation and the smell of stale ale. Elias found a corner, the rough-hewn table scraping against the floor as he settled. His fingers traced the scarred wood grain, a faint echo of the oak’s life humming beneath the grime. He needed information. A mug of bitter brew bought him a few minutes with Elara, the server, her movements quick and practiced among the jostling patrons. “Blight-creatures?” Elias asked, his voice low, almost lost in the din. “Are there official bounties?” Elara paused, balancing a tray of steaming stews. Her eyebrows rose. “You don’t know? You’re green as moss, aren’t you? Bless your heart, dear. You’ll want the Guilder’s Hall. Central district. Ask for the Guild-Master’s Clerk, he handles the postings.” A faint smile touched her lips, a glint of amusement in her eyes. Guilder’s Hall. Guild-Master. New names for ancient functions. Elias nodded, filing them away. He felt the city’s pulse, a chaotic thrum far removed from the quiet heartbeats of the Scourlands. Here, ambition smelled like iron and sweat. “And the Spark-Seekers?” he ventured, recalling murmurs from the Ironway Quarter. “They hunt these creatures?” Elara’s smile faded, replaced by a weary sigh. “Aye, some do. There’s a belief, you see. That if you fell a blight-creature, you can draw its raw essence, spark your own inner fire. Become a Weaver yourself.” She shook her head, her gaze drifting to a group huddled near the hearth. “Lunacy, most say. But desperation fuels many a fool’s errand in Oakhaven.” Someone clapped a hand on Elias’s shoulder. He flinched, the sudden touch a jarring intrusion. A deep tremor ran through the floorboards, a barely perceptible ripple from the man’s weight. Elias’s senses sharpened, a quick scan of the man’s being. Not a threat, not yet. Just a rough presence. “Lena, now, you’re just cynical!” The voice was gravelly, hearty. “It’s no superstition. I’ve seen it. With my own two eyes, mind you.” Elias turned. The man was burly, mid-forties, with a wild beard and eyes that held a surprisingly sharp intelligence despite their bloodshot appearance. His name, Elara mumbled, was Kael. Behind him, three other men stood, equally robust, armed with crude pickaxes and heavy bladed hooks. “Midan, you’re alive!” Elara exclaimed, a note of surprise in her voice. “Didn’t you think I’d be?” Kael boomed. “Not until I’ve got a spark of my own, eh?” He grinned, revealing gaps in his teeth. Elias pulled his shoulder back gently. Kael’s hand dropped. “My apologies,” Kael said, not sounding very sorry. “But tell me more of what you spoke. Of sparking the inner fire.” Kael’s grin widened. “Ah, a curious one! You’re thinking of joining the hunt, lad?” Elias felt the dormant power within him, the slow hum of the ley lines deep beneath the city. He tasted the metallic tang of earth, the grit of forgotten stone. These men sought a stolen spark. He carried a furnace. Kael explained, his voice loud. “Weavers absorb the raw power from these creatures, grow stronger. So too can ordinary folk. The essence, you see. It awakens what sleeps.” His cronies chimed in, boasts of three creatures felled. Elias’s stomach tightened. Three? The scavengers outside the city had been formidable enough. These men were either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish. “Has one of you… sparked, then?” Elias asked, a genuine question. The tavern burst into laughter. Kael included. “Only four true Weavers in Oakhaven, lad,” Kael chuckled. “The Guild-Master, and his three Wardens. If one of us had managed, we wouldn’t be stuck here, scraping by.” His men grumbled agreement. “Nearly died several times, we did. No easy feat.” So few Weavers. Elias understood then the lament of the elders, their whispers of a world losing its connection to the wellspring. He sensed a desperate hunger here, a city built on the bones of a magical past, yet starved for its essence. Kael’s gaze sharpened, falling to the small leather pouch Elias carried. “What’s your weapon, then? You look a bit thin for a beast hunt, no offense.” Elias reached into his coat, pulling out a smooth, river-worn stone. Not a slingshot, but a polished skipping stone, carefully chosen, perfectly balanced. He often used it for focus, a tactile anchor. He presented it, expecting scorn. Instead, Kael’s eyes lit up. “A stone-thrower, eh? Aye, the wear on that… you’ve practiced. What size do you favor?” “About the size of a pigeon’s egg,” Elias replied, surprised by their reaction. “Plenty to crack the skull of a burrow-beast or a sky-rat!” one of Kael’s men declared. Elias realized. They spoke of the smaller, less corrupted creatures. Not the horrors that prowled the true wild, the ones born of deep-earth blight. “Join us, lad,” Kael offered. “We could use another eye, a steady hand with a sling.” “No,” Elias said, a quiet refusal. His path wasn’t theirs. Their quarry was small. His own, still undefined, felt vast and ancient. Kael shrugged, a flicker of disappointment crossing his face. “Pity. But the offer stands, should you change your mind.” He turned back to his drink, his men settling around him. Elias collected a key from Elara and climbed the creaking stairs to his small room. The floorboards groaned beneath his weight. Lying on the narrow cot, he heard their voices filter through the gaps below. “Kael, why bother with that twig of a lad? He’d be useless.” “Right. One swipe from a beast, he’d crumble.” The mocking notes were clear. Elias had heard them before, in the villages on the Scourlands’ edge. He exhaled slowly. He was no stranger to the two faces of desperation. He felt no sting, only a quiet understanding. *People.* He thought. A pause, then Kael’s voice, softer now. “He reminded me of myself, once. Out there, with nothing but a stone and a prayer. Wouldn’t last a week.” “You’re too soft, boss.” “Who’s arguing?” Elias closed his eyes. The world was indeed full of shifting shadows and unexpected pockets of light. --- Mornings in Oakhaven tasted of soot and industry. Elias ate the inn’s sparse breakfast – thick, dark bread and a thin, watery broth – then made his way to Guilder’s Hall. The building loomed, a squat, grey stone edifice in the city’s heart, its entrance a maw swallowing streams of citizens. He felt the dull ache of the old ley lines running deep beneath its foundations, a muted resonance against the clamor of the modern city. He navigated the bureaucratic chaos, past an elderly couple squabbling over property deeds, past merchants haggling with clerks. The air vibrated with complaints and requests. He found the Guild-Master’s Clerk, a man with a perpetually pinched expression, behind a high counter. The Clerk looked him up and down, a dismissive glance that scraped Elias’s patience. “Bounties? Blight-creatures?” the Clerk sniffed, as if Elias had asked for a handout. Elias simply stood, observing the man’s stiff posture, the brittle line of his jaw. He kept his own wellspring of power a secret. Revealing himself now would invite either undue reverence or a suffocating request for service. He sought only knowledge, a quiet hunt, then a swift departure. No need for the city’s entanglements. “Don’t touch it. Read, then return.” The Clerk pushed a heavy vellum ledger across the counter. Elias’s fingers skimmed the page, feeling the faint, ancient magic infused in the ink itself. Descriptions of blight-creatures filled the columns: appearance, size, known habits, last sighting, bounty. Weaker mutations, he noted, required live capture. More aggressive, human-threatening beasts could be killed, their remains brought for verification. “And be warned,” the Clerk droned, without looking up. “Accidentally kill one, you still bring the carcass. If a Warden doesn’t dissipate the resonance residue, it breeds an Echo-Wraith. Abatement of such corpses is law. Neglect is death.” Elias remembered the desiccated husks in the Scourlands, the pall of unnatural silence that hung over them. The Clerk’s warning etched itself into his mind. He understood the danger of corrupted remains. His earth-sense confirmed it: a lingering malevolence in the land, a corrupting influence. “These more dangerous ones…” Elias began, gesturing to a particularly vile entry. “Do the Wardens not hunt them?” The Clerk scoffed, a dry, humorless sound. “Wardens maintain order! Protect against true invasion! They haven’t the time for common pest control. That, lad, is for drifters. Like you.” Elias’s gaze fell to the entry he had noted: ~~~~ **Ironwing Scavenger** A variant of the common crow, its feathers hardened to razor-sharp obsidian, capable of deflecting missile attacks. Known to dive from high altitudes, dropping these lethal quills. Preys on small animals and unattended children near the city’s industrial fringes, scattering their remains as an act of ritualistic cruelty… ~~~~ *Protectors of humanity*, the Weavers were called. Yet the official bounty ledger spoke a different truth. A bitterness settled in Elias’s gut. If power meant turning a blind eye to such suffering, then what was the worth of the spark? He returned the ledger. The Clerk grunted. Elias turned, leaving the cacophony of Guilder’s Hall behind. He walked towards the city’s edge, the clang of industry fading, replaced by the persistent, hungry cries of the gulls. The ordered stone of Oakhaven gave way to cracked cobblestones, then to scarred dirt paths leading to the neglected wilderness beyond. *Time to begin.* He found a secluded copse of gnarled oaks, far enough from the last visible dwelling. The Ironwing Scavenger. Preying on children. He closed his eyes, drawing on the ley lines beneath his feet, reaching with his stone-sense. “Sense avian. Corrupted.” A sudden, overwhelming rush of sensation. Hundreds of tiny heartbeats, rustling feathers, sharp clicks of beaks, a frantic pulse of life. Pigeons nesting in the rooftops, sparrows flitting through eaves, crows perched on the skeletal arms of dead trees. The noise was deafening, a chaotic chorus of mundane avian life. Elias recoiled, the surge of unfiltered information a dizzying assault. He severed the connection. *Too broad.* He thought. *The ley lines are too scattered here, too many layers of forgotten resonance and mundane life.* He tried again, focusing his intent. “Sense avian. Blight-tainted. Carnivorous.” Nothing. Or too much, indistinguishable from the background static. The subtle taint of true blight was lost in the sheer volume of ordinary life, the pervasive corruption of the city’s forgotten past. He needed a clearer signature. A sharper focus. He stood, feeling the rough texture of the ground, the deep, silent hum of the earth beneath his feet. The Scavenger would not hide forever.

Soot and Spark