A guttural sigh escaped Sir Garrick’s lips, a ragged sound that tore through the sudden hush of the forest. Kael watched him, a quiet tremor in his own hands. The beast lay still, its head caved in, a testament to Kael’s raw, earth-shattering power. He held no slingshot, only the calloused hands that had worked stone and soil since boyhood, now faintly glowing with residual telluric energy.
He approached Garrick, his gaze sweeping the crumpled form of the Knight-Captain. Dust coated the man’s ornate armor, a stark contrast to the verdant moss on the surrounding stones. Helping this knight, a man of Aethelgard’s upper strata, was a gamble. If Garrick were to speak of the quiet shepherd with monstrous strength, Kael knew he’d have to vanish into the deeper earth, leaving behind the only life he’d ever known.
Yet, a guest, even one who crashed through his solitude, deserved protection. Garrick, despite his wounds and station, had maintained a humble courtesy, an unexpected grace that Kael recognized.
“Are your wounds grave?” Kael’s voice was low, rough from disuse.
Garrick, however, ignored the question. His gaze was fixed, not on Kael, but on the mangled remains of the Chimeric Horror. A knot of unease tightened in Kael’s gut. The knight’s eyes were wide, a flicker of genuine terror there.
“Stand back!” Garrick rasped, pushing himself up, pain etched into his face.
No need for explanation. The headless body of the Chimeric Horror twitched. A sickly, pale green luminescence, like stagnant marsh gas, pulsed where its skull had been. Tendrils of this eerie light writhed, coiling upward, slowly reconstituting a spectral visage.
Then, with a shudder, the beast surged forward, a revenant horror. Kael instinctively moved, a surge of deepstone essence stiffening his muscles. He met the charge with a braced foot, a grunt escaping his lips as he channeled earth’s resilience. The headless bulk slammed into his leg, a repulsive force that jarred him to the bone, yet he held firm, pushing back.
The creature spun, disoriented by the unexpected resistance, and rolled several meters, its ghostly head dissolving and reforming in a disturbing loop. It landed in a heap, its spectral glow intensified, utterly unharmed.
“Undead spirits,” Garrick coughed, struggling to his feet. “They shed their mortal form. Physical blows are useless.”
“How then?” Kael demanded, his brow furrowed. His usual methods, the direct application of brute stone force, had clearly failed this time.
“They burn. Or shatter with pure essence. Light or fire!”
Kael stretched out a hand. He sought the warmth of buried magma, a geothermic pulse he sometimes felt deep within the earth’s crust. A faint shimmer, like heat haze above scorched rock, rose from his palm, trembling. It dissolved into the chill air, a wisp of vapor. No scorching flame, no purifying heat.
Garrick watched, a new understanding dawning in his eyes. He must have recognized the unique energy Kael wielded, the telltale sign that *Kael* had been the one to fell the creature initially, not with arcane fire, but with something far more primordial.
“Not just a raw burst,” Garrick advised, his voice strained. “Form it. Focus it. And cast it.”
Kael closed his eyes. Raw power he knew. But refinement? The city’s learned scholars spoke of such things, of disciplined conduits and structured intent. He wasn’t a scholar. He was a shepherd. Yet, Garrick’s words resonated. *Form it, cast it.*
A low hum began in Kael’s bones, reverberating through the earth beneath his worn boots. He reached deeper, past the surface loam, past the cold granite, to the ancient foundations, the solidified memory of the world. Not the brute force of a mountain, but the distilled essence of its core. A current, cold and bright, surged into his palms, coalescing into a shimmering, incandescent sphere. It pulsed with a pure, radiant light, like a star held captive in his hands.
Then, with a familiar gesture, the same focused precision he used to shape shards of flint or hurl a perfectly weighted stone, Kael thrust his hand forward. The orb of pure, incandescent earth-light shot from his grasp, a blazing projectile, striking the undulating spirit-head of the Chimeric Horror.
The impact was not a blast, but a searing, clinging radiance. The beast shrieked, a sound like grinding stone and dying wind, as the wrought light adhered to its spectral form. It thrashed, rolling in the dirt, attempting to extinguish the unholy glow by smashing itself against the rough earth. But the luminous essence, fueled by ancient telluric power, burned relentlessly, consuming the parasitic spiritual body.
Unlike Garrick’s ineffective sword strikes, this was a direct assault on the creature’s essence. It signified that Kael’s channeled power was, against this specific foe, unequivocally superior.
Kael narrowed his eyes, pouring his will into the radiant energy. The light pulsed, intensified, eating away at the greenish aura. Thirty agonizing seconds crawled by. Finally, with a last, desperate wail, the spectral form convulsed, then collapsed inward, consumed entirely. The Chimeric Horror’s body, now utterly devoid of life, turned to dust, scattering on the wind.
Both Kael and Garrick let out simultaneous, ragged breaths.
“Is it truly done?” Kael asked, a strange exhaustion settling into his limbs.
“Yes… For now. Absorb the residual essence. Unless you wish for more of its kind to find their way here.”
Absorbing the essence was unsettlingly simple. Kael stretched a hand over the dust where the beast had been. He pictured inhaling something invisible, drawing it into his core. A faint, ethereal mist, the same pale green as the spirit, flowed from the ground, seeping into his skin, chilling him to the bone.
It was a sensation entirely new, profoundly alien. A growing density, a silent hum of awakened potential, settled deep within him. Not just strength, but a subtle, unsettling transformation. A thrill, both eerie and exhilarating, shivered through his entire body.
“That… that was your first time absorbing a creature’s essence?” Garrick’s voice was barely a whisper.
“It was.”
“Unbelievable.”
Telluric power usually grew with age, a slow, natural process. But to absorb it directly, to claim the essence of a felled creature, was how one accelerated that growth. Garrick’s mind raced. The power Kael had displayed, untutored, unrefined, yet utterly devastating – it was solely the fruit of his innate strength. If his potential was measured by the natural limit of his inherent power, then Kael’s capacity was truly extraordinary.
Garrick cleared his throat, his posture subtly shifting. “I fear I have been remiss, young master. May I inquire after your lineage? Your house?”
Kael stiffened. He felt an uncomfortable clenching in his stomach. The sudden deference, the shift in Garrick’s tone, chafed. He didn’t want to see this proud knight humble himself before him, not like this.
“Your wounds first,” Kael murmured, deflecting. “Then we speak.”
Garrick’s brow still bled, a jagged claw mark from the beast’s earlier attack. Blood trickled down his temple, staining his dust-smeared face.
---
“Agh…”
Garrick winced as Kael gently pressed a poultice of crushed leaves to the wound. Kael’s small, secluded dwelling, carved into the very rock face of the Silent Peaks, held a few basic provisions: dried herbs, strips of clean linen. He wrapped the wound with careful, steady hands.
If only his manipulation of the earth extended to the flesh. He could mend a cracked stone, but a torn scalp? He’d once tried to soothe his mother’s aches with a channeled warmth, but healing another had drained him utterly, leaving him trembling and weak. To close Garrick’s wound would consume him, every last drop of his telluric essence.
“My apologies, young master. To think I would burden one of your evident standing with such a menial task.” Garrick’s voice was still laced with that unsettling politeness.
“I’ve told you,” Kael said, his voice flat. “I’m no master. Just a shepherd, living alone. My father was no lord. I hardly even know his name.” His gaze, usually downcast, met Garrick’s, sharp with a quiet frustration. *Don’t treat me like that.* The message hung heavy in the air.
After a brief, silent exchange, Garrick sighed, a faint smile touching his lips. He lowered his head in a gesture of concession. “Alright, alright… I’ll cease my questioning for now.”
A small, involuntary huff of amusement escaped Kael.
“Still,” Garrick continued, his gaze thoughtful, “why does one with such power, a wielder of deepstone essence, labor as a shepherd in this desolate place? No offense to your calling, but it hardly seems suited to your gifts.”
It was the inverse of Kael’s earlier question, a mirror to his curiosity about Garrick’s presence in the wilds. Kael couldn’t answer with the same quiet pride Garrick had shown for his knighthood. He felt no pride in shepherding.
“It’s a long tale.” Kael began to speak, his voice detached, recounting the years spent in the Silent Peaks. He spoke of the strange awakening of his abilities, the earth’s pulse calling to him. He spoke of his mother’s hushed warnings, the terrifying stories of Aethelgard’s nobles, their endless rivalries, their casual cruelty, how they might ensnare a talented child for their own ends.
Garrick listened, nodding slowly when Kael finished.
“She was a wise woman,” Garrick affirmed, his voice soft.
“You think so?” Kael’s eyebrows lifted, surprised. He’d expected Garrick, a man of such evident status, to scoff, to dismiss his mother’s fears as peasant superstition.
“Nearly two decades past,” Garrick began, his eyes unfocused, gazing at a distant memory. “House Theron, whom I served, clashed with the formidable House Volkov. Of three thousand Theronian knights, over nine hundred perished.”
“Almost a third,” Kael murmured, picturing the scale of such loss.
“More tragic still, everyone I held dear was among that third. My closest brothers-in-arms, my wife, my only son. All lost. I alone survived.” Garrick’s face was a mask of complex emotions, a profound, weary sorrow that settled like dust on ancient stone. Kael could only guess at the depth of it, a sorrow perhaps as profound as his own when his mother had faded into the earth, yet amplified by the scale of it.
After a long, heavy silence, Garrick cleared his throat, a subtle shift in his demeanor, and met Kael’s gaze. “Your mother’s wisdom was true, for many. But in one aspect, she erred. The gift you wield, young Kael, far exceeds that of a mere knight.”
“Does it?” The words felt unreal, distant.
“It shames me to say, given my current state, but I am considered a capable knight, well-versed in the arts of war. Yet, you felled a beast that would have taxed me beyond measure, and you did so without ever properly absorbing the telluric essence of your kills.” Garrick paused, taking a slow sip of the cool spring water Kael offered him. “That caliber of ability, Kael, marks you as noble. Not merely one of lesser rank, but of the upper echelons.”
Kael scoffed softly. Years of his mother’s quiet warnings, years of believing his talents were merely that of a knight’s son, had deeply ingrained his perception. Or perhaps, Garrick simply overestimated him.
“My mother said my father was a knight. Could she have… been mistaken?”
“Exceptions exist, Kael, as with all things in this world. Not all children of towering parents reach the sky. Sometimes, a geomancer of noble lineage is born to a knightly house. Or a noble family might produce one less capable than a common soldier. Rare, these cases are, but they happen.” Kael thought of the carpenters in the nearest village, a short couple whose second son, tall and burly, bore a striking resemblance to a wandering woodcutter. Life was rarely so neat.
“For this reason, Kael, I believe you should descend from these peaks.”
“Why?” Kael asked, a prickle of something he couldn’t name—excitement? fear?—stirring within him.
“Because humanity requires more. More nobles, more knights. We are not yet the masters of this world. Chimeric Horrors, yes, but also the ancient races, the non-humans, pushed to the fringes in the old ages. They stir, Kael, waiting for a chance to reclaim what they believe is theirs. And all the while, our noble houses squabble, waging petty wars against each other. A strong, virtuous noble, such as yourself, is desperately needed. One more soul might tip the balance.”
Non-human races. Kael had only heard whispers of them in his mother’s ancient tales, fantastical beings, as unreal as gods or demons. Yet, for Garrick, a man who had seen war and death, they were a tangible, lurking threat.
“Besides,” Garrick continued, his gaze earnest, “it’s a waste, Kael. A waste of such extraordinary talent, to live out your days herding goats. You’re not truly content, are you, living as a shepherd?”
Garrick must have recalled Kael’s evasion earlier. Kael remained silent for a long moment, then gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
“Your mother’s fears were understandable,” Garrick said, his voice softer now. “But largely unfounded, for one such as you. Ordinary knights might live a precarious existence. But even the great houses extend a measure of respect to their fellow nobles. And for one with your gifts? There is no question.”
“So I wouldn’t be… dragged off by some house against my will?” Kael asked, the ingrained fear of his mother’s warnings still a cold knot in his stomach.
“Absolute guarantees, Kael, exist only in the bedrock itself. Life is not so steadfast.”
A torrent of thoughts raced through Kael’s mind. A part of him, an adventurous spark he’d long suppressed, yearned to believe Garrick’s words. Yet, the deep-seated dread of Aethelgard’s rigid, treacherous society, nurtured by a lifetime of cautionary tales, refused to vanish. These conflicting emotions, ancient fear against burgeoning curiosity, created a heavy, tangible tension within him.
Garrick, observing Kael’s internal struggle, remained silent. He sat patiently on the rough cot, his bandaged form still, waiting. Minutes stretched into a quiet eternity within the stone-hewn dwelling. Finally, Kael spoke, his voice low, a tremor of determination in its depths.
“What could I gain, if I descended?”
Garrick’s weary face eased into a genuine smile. He had seen the flicker of decision in Kael’s eyes, the quiet resolve to venture beyond the familiar stone. “That, Kael,” Garrick replied, his voice firm, “depends entirely on what you desire. Wealth, renown, power… or perhaps, even family, true companionship, a purpose beyond these Silent Peaks. The world below offers all these things.”