Scent of hearth-smoke and spilled ale clung to the rough-hewn beams of the Wayfarer's Respite. Kaelen sat in a quiet corner, a plain meal of stew before him, observing. His gaze tracked the movements of a robust hearth-tender named Elara, her hands swift and practiced with tankards.
He had need of knowledge, a resource scarce outside Aethelgard’s boundless shelves. For a single coin, Elara offered a few quick words.
He learned to locate bounties on the strange, blighted creatures of the plains. One simply sought the Ledger Keeper at the Citadel Wardens’ Guild.
“You don’t know what a Citadel Wardens’ Guild is?” Elara’s laughter was bright, unburdened. “You truly must be from beyond the Stone-Spine, friend.”
Her giggling explanation followed. The Guild: a sprawling edifice in the settlement’s heart. There, local governance took root. Ledger Keepers: scribes in the employ of the local steward.
Night had claimed the sky. A visit would wait until dawn. Gathering more precise details was a task for fresh light.
“But why seek the blight-creatures?” Elara’s brow furrowed slightly. “Are you a Veil Weaver too?”
“A… Veil Weaver?” Kaelen’s voice was a low murmur, a scholar’s query.
“Those who hunt the creatures, hoping to gain power. To become Channelers.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping. “There’s a common tale, a superstition, they say. Kill a blighted beast, absorb its essence, and awaken the spark.”
Many dismissed it as mad frontier ramblings. Yet, enough risked their lives, driven by desperation, or a thirst for something more than their lot.
As Elara spoke, a heavy hand clapped Kaelen’s shoulder. He flinched, a subtle tightening in his frame. Ancient instinct, long suppressed, stirred.
“Elara, girl, that’s no superstition. It’s truth.” The speaker was a man, mid-forties, perhaps. Unkempt beard, wild hair. But his eyes, Kaelen noted, held a surprising, stark clarity.
“Rhys, you’re alive!” Elara exclaimed, a mix of relief and exasperation in her tone.
“Did you think a few beast-spawn could fell Rhys?” A rough grin. “Not until I become a Channeler myself!”
Three burly figures emerged from the shadow behind Rhys. Trail-hardened men, armed with long spears, bows, and a massive hammer that looked more suited for quarry work. These were Rhys’s sworn companions.
Kaelen subtly shifted, dislodging the hand. Rhys recoiled, a blink of surprise in his sharp gaze.
“My apologies.” Rhys inclined his head slightly.
“No offense taken. You spoke of becoming a Channeler by hunting blight-creatures?” Kaelen’s curiosity, a scholar’s persistent need for data, outweighed his usual reticence.
“Ah, so you’re one of the curious ones, lad?” Rhys’s grin widened, a flash of shared ambition.
He began to explain. Channelers, he claimed, drew power from the blighted. Normal folk, by hunting and slaying these creatures, could also absorb their essence. He’d seen it, he insisted, witnessed the transformation.
“That’s why the four of us brave the plains. To bind that spark.”
“We’ve felled three already!” one of Rhys’s men boomed, his chest puffed with pride.
“Close to the breakthrough, we are,” another added, a fervent gleam in his eyes.
Three of these creatures? Kaelen remembered the raw, untamed force of the bandit leader, warped by the blighted plains. The thought of three such encounters, survived by these men, sent a chill through him.
“Three? Has one of you become a Channeler, then?” Kaelen asked, his voice even.
A burst of laughter erupted from the common room. Elara, Rhys, and his companions joined in.
“Hardly!” Elara wiped a tear from her eye. “Here in Oakhaven, only the Steward and his three Wardens possess the Gift. Four Channelers, for a settlement of thousands.”
“If one of us gained the spark, we’d simply channel its power to the others,” Rhys stated, a hint of weariness in his voice. “Truth be told, we barely survived those hunts.”
Four Channelers, Kaelen mused. A faint echo of a complaint, a forgotten lament from Aethelgard’s hushed halls, surfaced. The scarcity of true power, the world’s quiet yearning.
Rhys’s gaze drifted to Kaelen’s travel-worn satchel.
“You hunt blight-creatures, you say? Your gear seems… sparse, for the wilds. No weapon?”
“Weapon?” Kaelen’s fingers went to his pocket. He pulled out a smooth river stone, no larger than a pigeon’s egg. He rotated it between his thumb and forefinger, a quiet hum of Anima Mundi, unseen by others, connecting him to the earth.
He expected mockery. Compared to their crude steel, a stone was nothing. But Rhys and his men merely exchanged intrigued glances.
“A sling-stone, then?” Rhys observed, his gaze sharp. “Smooth. Balanced. Used often, by the feel of it.”
“Could crack the skull of a burrow-blight, that size,” one of the companions muttered, impressed.
Kaelen understood. They sought the weaker, less predatory blighted creatures. Those mutated from small prey, easily felled, perhaps. Not the monstrous entities born of apex predators, like the one that had twisted the bandit leader.
“Care to join our hunt, lad? We could use a steady eye.” Rhys offered, a genuine invitation.
“No, thank you.” Kaelen’s refusal was soft, yet absolute. His goals diverged. To reveal the Anima Mundi’s true nature would be folly. To hunt such minor threats, a waste of his burgeoning power.
Rhys shrugged, a fleeting look of disappointment crossing his features. “A shame. But the offer stands, should you change your mind.”
---
Later, a room key from Elara in hand, Kaelen ascended the creaking stairs. He settled on the straw mattress, the murmur of the common room drifting up through the floorboards. Voices, muffled, yet clear enough.
“Rhys, why bother with that scrawny scholar? Wouldn’t last a single skirmish.” That was the biggest of Rhys’s companions, his voice a low growl.
“Aye, one solid knock and he’d weep for his mother,” another scoffed.
Kaelen felt no sting. He had heard such judgments countless times. Aethelgard scholars were rarely paragons of physical might. He simply sighed. People judged by what they saw. It was a familiar, predictable pattern.
Rhys’s voice, deeper, followed.
“Tsk. Reminded me of my younger days. Too green, venturing out with nothing but a prayer. Ten lives wouldn’t be enough for that.”
“You’re too soft-hearted, hyungnim.”
“Who says otherwise?”
Kaelen closed his eyes. The world, indeed, was a tapestry woven of both kindness and cruelty. He sought neither. Only truth. Only purpose.
---
Next morning, after a breakfast of coarse bread and thin broth, Kaelen departed for the Citadel Wardens’ Guild. A formidable four-story structure stood at the heart of Oakhaven, a steady hum of activity emanating from within.
Citizens moved through its grand hall, some arguing over lease agreements, others petitioning for local reforms. Kaelen navigated the bustling crowd, his quiet presence like a ghost among the vibrant throngs, until he found the Ledger Keeper in charge of bounties.
“State your purpose.” The man, middle-aged and paunchy, regarded Kaelen with overt disdain. Another academic, perhaps, or a naive wanderer.
Kaelen merely requested the bounty list for blighted creatures. He considered, for a fleeting moment, revealing a flicker of the Anima Mundi, a silent assertion of authority. The Ledger Keeper would crumble, no doubt. But then the questions would begin. The special treatment, the forced hospitality, the endless political dances. Aethelgard had taught him the crushing weight of bureaucracy, even without magic.
No. Better to remain unseen, unheeded. To complete his task and depart.
“Don’t take it. Read it, and return.” The Ledger Keeper thrust a parchment toward him. Kaelen’s eyes scanned the document. Detailed descriptions of blighted creatures: forms, sizes, peculiar traits, last known whereabouts, and the rewards for their demise.
Weaker blights, those less aggressive, fetched rewards only if captured alive. More dangerous ones could be slain, their twisted remains brought back as proof.
Weak blights often showed minimal mutation. Their corpses could easily be confused with ordinary beasts. Frauds were common.
“A caution,” the Ledger Keeper warned, his voice sharper now. “Even if you slay a blight-creature by accident, do not abandon its carcass. Bring it within the walls. If the Wardens do not disperse its lingering essence, it can twist into a grave-spirit, a far worse horror. Abandoning such a corpse is punishable by death in Oakhaven. Remember this.”
“Understood.” The warning resonated. Kaelen had seen the dark potential of untended decay, the lingering corruption of unnatural death. Aethelgard’s deepest archives held accounts of such things. He committed the words to memory.
“Some of these creatures seem beyond the grasp of ordinary folk. Do the Wardens not pursue them?” Kaelen asked, genuinely perplexed.
The Ledger Keeper scoffed, a dismissive sound. “You think they have such leisure? The Wardens uphold peace within the walls, defend against invasion. Hunting blight-creatures falls to vagrants like you.”
Kaelen’s gaze drifted back to the parchment.
~~~~
**Shadow-Wing**
*A raven-like creature, its feathers partially replaced by hardened, obsidian-sharp blades. Capable of deflecting missiles and launching razor-feathers from high altitudes. Preys upon small animals and unattended children near the settlement’s periphery, devouring them and scattering their remains…*
~~~~
If Channelers truly served as humanity’s bulwark, should they not prioritize such hunts? Yet, the world outside Aethelgard seemed to care little for such ideals. He felt a quiet, bitter ache. The Anima Mundi stirred within him, a silent counterpoint to the bureaucratic indifference.
Leaving the Citadel Wardens’ Guild, Kaelen moved toward the edge of Oakhaven. Buildings thinned, giving way to the wild, sun-baked plains.
‘Let the hunt begin.’
He ensured his solitude. Then, he focused on the blighted creature detailed in the parchment: the Shadow-Wing. A raven that fed on children.
“Whispers of the Wing.”
He extended his awareness, not through sound, but through the subtle currents of the Anima Mundi, seeking a disturbance in the localized spirit of the land. Hundreds of minute vibrations pressed in upon him: the rustle of common raven feathers, the distant cries of hawks, the faint, earthy pulse of nesting birds.
He winced, a ripple of discomfort across his mind. The sheer volume of ordinary life, the multitudinous *anima* of the common ravens, overwhelmed his perception. He drew back the probing awareness. The method was too broad.
‘How to filter?’
He sought only the blighted. ‘A bird with a twisted essence, a corrupted flow of life-force.’
He tried again, refining his intent, seeking a dissonant chord within the natural harmony. The Anima Mundi remained silent on that front. The ‘presence of magic power,’ as they called it, seemed to not be a direct filter for the Anima Mundi’s more elemental senses.
Next, he tried a more direct approach: ‘Those who have partaken of human flesh.’ This time, a startling number of faint resonances sprang forth. Too many. Scavenger birds, no doubt, feeding on ancient battlefields or neglected graves. Not the active predator he sought.