A small chime from the worn datapad pulled Healer Torvin from his quiet contemplation. He’d been charting the lunar cycles against the erratic pulse of a geothermic vent, a task demanding his full, precise attention. Now, Elara’s voice, usually a calm, even murmur, had been brittle with an unfamiliar tremor. Relief? Triumph? He couldn’t quite place it. She’d thanked him, profusely, for the patient’s unexpected slumber. A strange sentiment, given the circumstances. Torvin thumbed the communication plate, its surface cool beneath his touch. Kaelen, the ‘lost cause’ from the northern plains, had been an enigma since his arrival. Two years of an unsettling, death-like stillness in the Hallow Halls, then a week of startling vitality. His eyes, once glazed, had held fleeting sparks of recognition. His limbs, initially slack, had stretched with a taut, predatory grace. For a week, he had walked among the ‘lost causes’ with the unsettling vitality of a storm-felled oak that refused to wither. Then, just as suddenly, the shift. Twelve straight cycles of profound, unbreaking sleep. It was as though he had plunged back into the earth, addicted to the very inertia he had so briefly defied. He rubbed a weary hand over his temples. An internal query scrolled across his mind’s eye: *Traumatic Cranial Injury – Aftermath Symptoms?* Yes, the official report read of a severe blow to the skull. Such injuries often left fractured echoes, manifesting in unpredictable ways. Yet, a persistent unease pricked at Torvin. This wasn’t typical. Kaelen's resurgence, though brief, had been too complete, too… vibrant. Torvin pushed back from his analysis table, the ancient wood groaning softly. He made his way to the annex where Kaelen lay, the air growing colder with each step. The ward felt hollow, silent save for the drip of alchemical solutions and the distant, rhythmic hum of Aethelgard’s life-sustaining generators. “Kaelen?” Torvin’s voice was a low murmur. “Can you hear me? Speak whatever comes to your mind.” A breath, thin and reedy, escaped the patient’s lips. “Se…” A faint smile touched Torvin’s mouth. “Yes, good. Just like that. Try again.” Later, the words Kaelen uttered in that hazy consciousness would haunt Torvin’s thoughts, a chilling premonition he had dismissed as the ramblings of a broken mind. *“Please… don’t wake up.”* Torvin walked down the empty corridor, the oil lamps casting long, dancing shadows. He rubbed his chin, furrowing his brows. Brother Lyra, the Sanctuary’s stern head, had given strict orders for Kaelen’s care, despite his status as a 'lost cause.' Lyra had spoken of Kaelen as an unfortunate ward, a distant kin. It was strange, the urgency behind keeping such a patient within the Sanctuary's most secluded wing, rather than a specialized healing House. Yet, Torvin’s duties, though demanding, offered unparalleled access to ancient texts and forgotten alchemical secrets – a reward too valuable to question such dictates. “Ah…” Torvin paused suddenly, snapping a finger, the sound sharp in the quiet hall. “I forgot to tell her.” The profound sleep, the miraculous recovery – these were but two facets of Kaelen’s rare affliction. The Scribes of old knew of it as the ‘Dormancy Blight,’ a rare, ancient malady of the spirit. It typically manifested as extreme lethargy, but the texts whispered of a darker phase: an unbridled surge of primal urges – hunger, aggression, a volatile shifting of temperament. A rare few experienced it, and fewer still survived it without permanent fracturing of the mind. “Still… he’ll be quiescent for now,” Torvin mused. Just one cycle. Nothing truly untoward could happen. He yawned, the weariness of long study finally claiming him. --- “Um hm hmm,” Elara hummed, the sound light and breathy, as she walked towards her small dwelling within Aethelgard’s outer ring. The tension that had bound her for the last several cycles, ever since Kaelen’s harrowing interrogation, had finally begun to loosen. She had escaped death, or worse, revelation, by the skin of her teeth. The fragile lie of her being his ‘Oath-Bound’ now rested, untouched, beneath the cloak of his unnatural sleep. A miracle, she thought, to be so thoroughly rescued from such a cruel trap. Her datapad whirred, authenticating her glyph-key, and the heavy oak door to her quarters swung inward. But the subtle shift in the air, the faint scent of disturbed dust and cold stone, snagged at her composure. A prickle of unease snaked up her spine. “What…?” *Dang. Dang. Dang.* The low, resonant chime of a perimeter warding-bell echoed from the Sanctuary’s hidden rear gate. It was midnight, and the sound was a chilling knell. Her blood ran cold. The bell only activated upon a breach. She rushed to her window, peering through the diamond-paned glass. Not merely a breach, but a rending. The heavy oak door, reinforced with wrought iron and warding runes, hung from a single hinge, splintered inward as if struck by a siege ram. The protective wards, meant to deter beasts of the blight-lands and unwelcome travelers alike, shimmered faintly, struggling to self-mend against an unseen, devastating force. “Where… where did he go?” Her whisper was barely audible. For more than thirty heartbeats, Elara scanned the moon-dappled grounds. A few ancient, energy-scarred lampposts flickered, casting sickly light on the winding, unpaved paths. Panic began to claw at her throat. She fumbled with her datapad, her thumb hovering over the encrypted contact for Brother Lyra. Kaelen’s powerful patron. Lyra would surely unleash the full weight of the Sanctuary’s guard if he knew. But to report it herself? It would entangle her further, draw Lyra’s sharp, scrutinizing gaze. He already suspected her too often of bending the rules. She shoved the device back into her pocket, shaking her head. Better to handle this herself. She tightened the ties of her healer’s robes, the rough linen a small comfort against her trembling hands, and sped out into the cool night. “Kaelen!” Her voice cracked, hoarse despite her efforts. The few scavenger-dogs that scavenged the outskirts of Aethelgard lifted their heads, their low growls answering her shout. Elara peered into the shadows, searching the narrow alleys between the old stone dwellings and abandoned shrines. Then, she saw it. A strange trace, scored into the soft earth. Not the distinct boot-prints of a man, nor the claw-marks of any known beast. It was a heavy, continuous furrow, as if something vast and powerful had dragged itself along, disturbing the very stones beneath. A trail left by the crawling of a colossal serpent. “He truly is… horrible,” she laughed, a dry, brittle sound at the sheer absurdity, the terror of it all. She turned, following the disturbing path. As she moved closer to the outermost edge of the Sanctuary grounds, near the wild, overgrown thorns that bordered Aethelgard, she heard a sound. A frantic, fluttering distress. Her heart pounded nervously, an ominous drumbeat against her ribs. She broke into a run, her breath catching in her throat. “Kaelen! Put that down!” she shouted, the words tearing from her lungs in shock. He was hunched over, his back to her, in the skeletal shadow of an ancient thorn-tree. But Kaelen was already chewing. His eyes, when he turned slightly towards the sound of her voice, were blank, unfocused, devoid of conscious thought. The muscles of his jaw worked with savage efficiency, tearing at something raw. He groaned, a guttural sound, and spat a piece of bloody flesh to the ground. Elara almost vomited. She swallowed hard, restraining the urge. A rooster, its neck broken, lay beside him, its feathers matted with gore. Her hands trembled, icy with horror. She was terrified of this man, who stood there nonchalantly, blood smeared across his lips and chin. This was the Dormancy Blight, fully awakened. His unfocused gaze, the raw hunger – he was not aware of what he was doing, lost in a primal haze, utterly out of touch with reality. “It must be difficult for you to move right now, Kaelen,” Elara began, forcing calm into her voice, a practiced performance honed over years of dealing with the delirious. “Why did you come out here?” She feigned worry for his health, her internal strategy whirring. She needed to re-establish the Oath-Bound lie, to reassert some semblance of control. “Let’s go back to the Hallow Halls. You shouldn’t be here.” Kaelen threw the remains of the rooster aside. It landed with a wet thud. His gaze, distant and unsettling, fell upon her. He stood in the deeper shadow where the moonlight barely reached, yet he seemed to loom larger, taller than before. He had crawled, she realized, not walked, the dust from the ground clinging to his sleeves, his leggings, his chest. When a sudden gust of wind blew, his tattered healer’s smock fluttered open, revealing the sharpened silhouette of his well-toned body. He was all taut muscle and sinew, an untamed power barely contained. Slightly dazed, Elara recalled the ancient lore of the Bloodwoods, the primal groves where trees wept crimson sap and grew thorns as sharp as obsidian daggers. He was like that, rooted in something profound and terrible, older than memory, splattered with a fresh kind of blood. He had always seemed touched by it, even in his long sleep. “Kaelen…” “Name…” “What?” Her voice was thin. “What’s your name?” His cold gaze rested on her, piercing, despite the blankness in his eyes. It was impossible to read his thoughts, to gauge the depth of the Blight’s hold. *Think, Elara, think,* she urged herself. She was at a loss for words. The lie, her carefully constructed shield, suddenly felt like ash in her mouth.

The Waking Blight