They followed a dirt path no cart had touched in years.

Not by choice. The roads had ended miles ago. Here, there were only trails beaten down by ancient boots and abandoned maps. Roots had buckled the it in places, and the path shifted beneath their steps, old stone cracking. Above them, branches knitted together tightly, the last breath of early spring rustling through pale leaves.

The horse, silent and patient, followed behind them with the packs. It never complained, never balked, didn’t trust. It just walked. Sometimes, that felt like enough.

On the second hour, Aldric stopped to adjust his scarf. Half for warmth, half for comfort.
The wind had picked up. It always did this time of day. A dry crosswind from the north, tugging gently at his coat, then pushing.
Always pushing.
He didn’t know why it felt familiar.

“Keep pace,” Veylor called from ahead.

Aldric adjusted the strap of his pack and pushed forward. The compass in his palm hadn’t moved since they’d started.

That was either very good.

Or it meant nothing at all.

Day One

They stopped by a ravine that split the land like a scar.

A place where trees had fallen mid-growth, their trunks hollowed from within, spongy with rot, probably from disease. The horse refused to to step into the shaded hollow, its ears twitching. Veylor didn’t argue. They made camp above it, near a narrow ledge of rock that overlooked the trees.

Aldric started the fire this time. No magic. Flint and steel. It took three tries.
When the sparks finally caught, he sat back and watched it burn with the satisfaction of a man who’d won a fight only he knew was happening.

Veylor cooked a stew from a root he called milvra. Bitter, slightly sour, but not inedible if he added crushed herbs.

Aldric forced it down, then moved a few paces away to sketch a new ward loop into his journal. His hands were shaking. Not from fear. Not quite.

“Hand’s off,” Veylor said. He didn’t look up. “Your aether lines are crossing.”

“I know,” Aldric muttered.

He erased them. Drew again.

Then, after a pause, Veylor added, “You’ll get it. Eventually.”

Aldric didn’t reply. But he didn’t stop sketching, either.

Day Two

Fog.

Dense and dead and endless.

They woke to it. Slept in it. Ate beside it. It blanketed the world in grey until the trees became shadows, and shadows became threats.
Close things sounded far. Distant things felt like they were beside your ear.

By midmorning, Aldric’s foot caught on something soft.

He looked down.

Bones.
Fresh. Not clean.

He didn’t have time to process before the wet hissing came.

A thing emerged from the fog. Low to the ground. Coiled. Moving like it was underwater.
The way it moved made Aldric’s skin crawl.

A Vermal.

But not a Ridgeback. This one was longer. Its body coiled in three spirals, eel-like, but too rigid. Its skin glistened with something like slime. Its mouth was a vertical slit lined with teeth. The tips of its spine protruded from its sides.

“Kraus level?” Aldric muttered, backing up into stance.

Veylor’s reply was calm.

“One-point-six. Siltdive. Reflex predator, don’t let it circle.”

Aldric took a breath.

No panic. Not like before.

This time, he moved first.

“Radiance: Needles. Spread formation.”

Golden light erupted from his hands in a fanburst. Sharp spears of golden Radiance, fired not in a line but a scatter pattern. Three struck the creature’s flank. It shrieked, spasmed, but didn’t fall.

Instead, it dove.

Into the soil itself.

Like water.

It vanished.
And reappeared behind Aldric with a splash of loam.

He pivoted.

“Veil. Redirect.”

His experimental barrier flared to life. A rippling field, not a wall. More heat-haze than surface. The creature struck it mid-lunge, its momentum changed and spun sideways midair.

Perfect.

Aldric raised one hand.

“Grid.”

A sudden lattice of thin Luminance flared. Thick enough to define space, but with small gaps.

[Journal Entry #312]
Concept #9 — Grid.
Aegis, but not built to block. To shatter. Although grid stabilize the hostile Aegis, it spreads Radiance through the smallest allowable points. The gaps don’t strengthen the opposing defense, they disarm the opponent’s certainty. The shield prepares for a wall. Instead, it meets knives.

The Vermal slammed into it head-on.

Its skull cracked.

Then burst.

Aldric flinched as blood sprayed across the ground.

The Siltdive didn’t rise.

Aldric exhaled and dropped to one knee, breath hitching.

Veylor approached.

“You twisted its weight off-course. Clean.”

Aldric was panting. “I didn’t mean to. I just…”
He looked at his hands.
“...moved.”

“Instinct,” Veylor said. “Means the training’s holding.”

A beat.

“Next time? Don’t waste Radiance on armorless prey. That thing’s head was soft as fruit.”

Aldric looked up, grinned through sweat. “You’re welcome.”

Veylor didn’t answer.

But he handed Aldric water.

At night, Aldric sat by the dying fire. The wind had gone quiet. Veylor sat nearby, cross-legged, sharpening a knife that didn’t match any of the ones he wore.

“Hand me a rock,” he said.

Aldric blinked. “...A rock?”

“Palm-sized. Preferably smooth.”

Aldric stood up, walked a few steps, and returned with a dull grey stone.

Veylor took it, held it in one hand, and pressed the flat of the blade gently against it.

Then the stone cracked.

Not shattered. Sliced.

Clean. Diagonal. As if it had never been whole.

“What did you—?”

“Essence edge,” Veylor muttered. “No Luminance. Just control.”

Aldric chuckled, “Show-off.”

Veylor turned the knife in his hand.

“You put Essence along the blade. But don’t add any velocity, you’ll slice your fingers off if it slips. Just compress motion into a vector. Every micromovement adds pressure, and in a two-dimensional plane, the pressure approaches infinity.”

A pause, as if Aldric was waiting for Veylor to say some more.

“Explaining with a concept that vague is not helping.”

He handed Aldric the knife.

“Try it.”

Aldric did. Steadied his breath. Focused. Drew Essence inward, as if drawing thread through a needle.

Nothing.

The blade did nothing. The rock didn’t care. He tried again. And again.

Eventually, Veylor sighed. “You’re moving your arms. You should be still. You’re holding breath when you should be breathing. You’re thinking about cutting instead of letting the blade cut.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Exactly.”

They didn’t try again that night.

Day Three

The fog hadn’t thickened yet. Dew slicked the roots, and strange birds with rust-red feathers watched them from the branches.

Aldric turned a pebble over in his palm.

He exhaled. Rolled his shoulder. Let the Essence gather low in his wrist.

“Don’t force it,” Veylor said. “Just let the blade want it.”

He slashed at the air.

The pebble cracked.

Not cleanly. It looked like it had been smashed against another stone, but the break was there.

Veylor nodded once. Just confirmation.

“Try again later.”

By midday, the compass moved.

They were two-thirds of the way through a hill climb when Aldric noticed it. A shift. Tiny. Just a hair off.

He stopped.

Held it flat.

The needle turned.

Not east anymore.

South-east. Barely. A sliver.

“Shifted?” Veylor asked, already slowing.

Aldric nodded.

“Just a little.”

“Good.”

They followed the new angle. Left the trail. No regrets. The new path led through a patch of long-grass prairie where war relics rusted underfoot. Old steel spikes and pylons half-buried in loam. Dominion stuff. Forgotten.
They passed a shattered mask once. Red, bone-shaped, chapel guard issue. Aldric didn’t touch it.

A few steps beyond that, Aldric found an old Dominion flare inside a rusted compartment. Still intact.

He held it up. “Think it works?”

Veylor didn’t even glance. “Probably. Don’t test it.”

Tyrenor would’ve tested it.

Aldric stored it in his coat.

They slept that night in the hollowed remains of a broken siege engine. The frame curved overhead like a ribcage, except half its ribs were snapped off. The other half still stood, left to rot.

By the fire, Aldric found himself humming the broken melody he’d tried to play on the recorder a few days ago. Just the rhythm. He didn’t notice at first. Then stopped.

Veylor didn’t comment.

But Aldric saw him stare at the fire for a long time after.

That night, Aldric didn’t dream.

Or if he did, the dreams didn’t stick.

Day Four

The land dipped.

Valleys became into cracks in the hills. The trees thinned, slowly.

And by noon, they reached a crest.

The wind picked up again.

And there, just past the curve of the next ridge lay the city.

Calvain.

It was a carcass.

Its walls had buckled inward in three places, like someone had pushed too hard. Towers leaned sideways, caught mid-fall by fate or something worse. Ivy ran like veins through every arch, every crack, through the bones of what had once been grand temples.

They stood there for a long time.

Neither spoke.

The compass needle had gone still again.

Locked.

Aldric slowly raised his hand and traced a circle in the air. An advanced scanning Resonance.

“Trace.”

Lines spread from his fingers. They traveled over the earth. Down the hill. Toward the city.

“Show-off.” Veylor muttered.

“Not if it’s necessary.”

And then—

Snap.

Three strands shattered.

The rest dissolved.

Aldric’s breath hitched.

Interference.

Something was still down there.

“Is that…” Aldric asked.

Veylor didn’t answer.

He stared at the city for a moment longer.

“It is.”

Aldric swallowed.

And together, without speaking again, they began their descent.