Chapter 60: Loot

  Ellowen lifted the first item from the satchel. It was a narrow silver band, its surface faintly rippled as though the metal itself breathed with the flow of mana. The runes etched into it shifted subtly, visible only when the light caught them at the right angle.

  Type: Ring

  Material: Silver alloy infused with muted duskstone essence

  Origin: Artificer-crafted, low-tier enchantment

  Description: The runes ripple lightly when mana is channeled, scattering any outward signature. The ring does not prevent casting but makes the user’s energy harder to pinpoint.

  Effects: Obscures minor elemental and skill signatures. Active or passive skills appear as general fluctuation rather than distinct usage. Perfect for keeping observation from settling too long.

  He placed the second item for Lance as well.

  Type: Bracelet

  Material: Woven cord with duskstone powder

  Origin: Simple artificing for concealment

  Description: The bracelet does not prevent spellwork or physical action but scatters mana outward, blurring attempts to read his power or presence.

  Effects: Obscures minor elemental signatures and skill traces. Allows outward mana to appear fractured or inconsistent, making casual observation unreliable.

  Perrin handed a second item to Aoife. It was a thin cord bracelet, almost unremarkable except for the faint shimmer of duskstone threaded along its length. It felt light, fragile even, yet the enchantment was enough to shift how her mana reached the outside world.

  Type: Bracelet

  Material: Woven cord with duskstone powder

  Origin: Simple enchantment, designed for travel

  Description: Scatters outward traces of mana, blurring attempts to read precise power or skill. Barely perceptible, blending with ambient energies rather than suppressing them.

  Effects: Mana signature reads inconsistent to others. Maintains full control of abilities while making casual observation unreliable.

  Finally, for Slade, Ellowen produced a narrow leather band, reinforced with thin copper threads. The markings along the band were subtle, etched in restraint sigils that seemed to shimmer faintly when the wearer’s body tensed in preparation for action.

  Type: Arm band

  Material: Treated leather with copper inlay

  Origin: Practical artificing, meant for discreet skill concealment

  Description: When skills or combat energy gather, the band smooths the initial surge, delaying outward mana feedback until deliberate action occurs. Observers can perceive results but not buildup.

  Effects: Hides skill activation patterns and internal power surges. Allows the user to act without alerting others to their preparation or potential.

  Ellowen set the items carefully on the small table before the children. “These are not powerful or rare. They are subtle, practical, and meant to let you move unnoticed,” he explained. “Use them wisely. They are tools, not shields.”

  The children tested each piece, feeling the faint hum of magic against their skin. Aoife’s fingers traced the duskstone threads as a flicker of awareness told her that any attempt to read her signature now would fracture and scatter, difficult to pin down. Slade flexed his forearm, feeling the band tighten lightly, as if it understood when he prepared to move. Lance ran a hand over the ring, noting the faintly cool pulse of frost essence, shifting in tandem with his elemental aura.

  “These will not keep you completely invisible,” Perrin added. “But they will keep you from prying eyes and info brokers pestering you should you attract too much attention when we reach the capital city.

  Ellowen added, “We will start moving again at first light tomorrow. We should arrive within two weeks at our current pace, but should we enter another city or find something interesting along the way we could make a pitstop or two. We have about three weeks give or take until the entrance ceremony.”

  Slade was the first of the three to speak, “Hey, how come lance got two?”

  Perrin just scoffed, “This kid.”

  _________________________________

  The days that followed were smooth and steady. The northern chill softened as they traveled southward, frost giving way to green fields that stretched toward distant hills. Trade roads widened. Traffic increased. Caravans passed with polite nods. Riders bearing guild insignias moved in pairs or trios, their armor catching the sun in flashes of silver.

  Inside the carriage, routine formed.

  Aoife practiced precise control, sending thin strands of mana through her bracelet and watching how the outward signature blurred. When she released a flicker of wind to stir the curtains, the air shifted naturally, without the sharp clarity that would normally accompany deliberate casting.

  Slade trained with stillness. He would sit motionless for long minutes, then gather strength in silence. The leather band on his arm warmed as it smoothed the surge within him. When he finally moved, there was no visible buildup, only sudden action.

  Lance experimented carefully. He channeled frost through the ring, then sparks, watching the runes adjust and ripple. The bracelet scattered the outward traces so that even to his own senses the energy felt distant and unfocused. It was a strange sensation, like speaking softly in a crowded hall.

  Ellowen observed without interruption.

  Perrin tinkered with small adjustments to the carriage wards, muttering to himself about efficiency and road vibration. A few days ago he also tossed that rune rock or whatever it was in some cupboard.

  Captain Darrow kept them on schedule.

  They made excellent time. Villages came and went. Rivers crossed beneath old stone bridges. Once they stopped at a modest city for supplies, and though curious eyes followed their group, no one lingered long enough to pry.

  They made excellent time. Villages came and went. Rivers crossed beneath old stone bridges. Once they stopped at a modest city for supplies, and though curious eyes followed their group, no one lingered long enough to pry.

  It was in a smaller town two days later that they were permitted a proper stop.

  The settlement lay along a bend in the trade road, its buildings clustered close as if bracing against seasonal winds. Timber-framed houses leaned comfortably beside one another. A shallow stream cut through the town’s center, crossed by a low stone arch polished smooth by decades of use.

  Market day had drawn in farmers from the surrounding countryside. Carts lined the main street. Fabric awnings stretched overhead in stripes of faded red and blue. The scent of baking bread and roasting meat carried on the air, warm and inviting.

  Darrow allowed them an hour.

  “Stay within sight of the carriage,” he said evenly. “Two guards will accompany you. Do not wander.”

  Slade grinned as if he had been offered something far more generous.

  They stepped down from the carriage into a hum of voices and movement. For once, they wore simple travel clothes rather than anything that hinted at lineage or training. The concealment pieces rested quietly against skin and fabric, subtle as intended.

  Obviously, the lavishness of the carriage they arrived in, with their entourage of guards ruined their sense of mystique. Thankfully, they weren't the only odd ones out as wealthy merchants bore a similar retinue.

  Aoife paused near a stall selling skewers of glazed river fish. The vendor, a broad woman with flour dusting her sleeves, turned the skewers over a small charcoal brazier.

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  “Fresh this morning,” the woman said. “Caught upriver.”

  Aoife glanced at Lance. He nodded once.

  “Three,” she said.

  The woman studied them briefly, eyes flicking to the guards behind. “Travelers.”

  “Yes,” Aoife replied.

  “Headed south?”

  “For now.”

  The woman handed over the skewers wrapped in thin paper. “Road’s been calm. Better than last year at least. Bandits cleared out early spring.”

  Slade took a bite and burned his tongue immediately. He hissed, then tried to pretend he had not.

  The vendor laughed. “Always the young ones, too anxious to let their food cool.”

  “Not True!,” Slade protested, though his stomach rumbling betrayed him.

  Further down, Lance slowed near a stall displaying polished stones and small trinkets. Nothing enchanted, at least not strongly. Mostly river-polished minerals, bits of carved bone, simple copper pendants.

  An elderly man sat behind the table, spectacles perched low on his nose.

  “You have the look,” the man said without preamble.

  Lance blinked. “The look of what.”

  “Of someone who listens more than he speaks. A boy who fills his head with Curiosity."

  Slade snorted behind him.

  Lance glanced at the stones. “Do you find many who do not.”

  “Most talk to fill silence,” the old man replied. “Few listen to it.”

  Lance picked up a small shard of pale quartz. It caught the light faintly.

  “How much.”

  “For you,” the man said, “two copper.”

  Lance paid without bargaining.

  Aoife returned with a folded pastry dusted in sugar. She handed half to Slade before he could ask.

  They wandered further, the guards maintaining a respectful distance.

  At a bread stall, a young boy no older than ten struggled to stack loaves neatly. One slid off the edge and tumbled into the dirt.

  Slade caught it before it hit.

  The boy stared up at him. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” Slade said, brushing stray flour from the crust.

  The boy squinted at Slade’s arm. “Are you a fighter.”

  Slade hesitated only briefly. “Sometimes.”

  “My brother wants to join a guild,” the boy said proudly. “Mother says he is too reckless.”

  “That is likely true,” Aoife replied mildly.

  The boy grinned anyway.

  A pair of local girls approached cautiously, curiosity written plainly across their faces.

  “Are you from the north,” one asked Aoife.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it true it snows even in early spring.”

  “It does.”

  The girls exchanged wide-eyed looks as though she had described another world entirely.

  Lance stood quietly during the exchange, watching the crowd. The bracelet around his wrist scattered the faint hum of his awareness into something indistinct. No one seemed to look twice at him. No one lingered long enough to sense anything unusual.

  It was strange.

  Freedom within watchful bounds.

  At a cider stand, Perrin appeared unexpectedly at their side, holding two cups already half empty.

  “You are not causing trouble,” he observed.

  “Not yet,” Slade replied.

  Perrin sniffed. “Good. Keep it that way.”

  He handed Aoife a small wrapped parcel. “Sweetbread. Try it before Slade eats everything.”

  Slade reached for it immediately.

  They found a low stone wall near the stream and sat briefly, eating and watching townsfolk go about their routines. Farmers haggled gently over grain prices. A woman scolded her husband for overpaying for cured meat. Children chased one another between carts.

  It felt normal. Unremarkable. And that, more than anything, made Lance bored.

  He watched the water slide beneath the arch of the bridge. Watched sunlight flicker across its surface.

  “We should return soon,” Aoife said softly.

  Slade nodded, though he looked reluctant.

  As they rose and made their way back toward the carriage, a few townsfolk waved in passing. The vendor with the fish called out a farewell. The elderly stone seller tipped two fingers to his brow.

  No one followed.

  No one pressed for information.

  When they climbed back into the carriage, Darrow gave them each a measured look, as if confirming all pieces had returned intact.

  The door shut.

  The carriage hummed to life once more.

  Behind them, the small town receded into the distance, its noise fading into the rhythm of wheels against the road.

  For a brief hour, they had simply been travelers.

  _________________________________

  Far to the west, where the land flattened into wide amber plains broken by veins of dark stone, another carriage moved beneath a different sky.

  The air there carried heat even in the early season. Wind rolled unhindered across open grasslands, bending them in long shimmering waves. Herds of beasts dotted the distance like scattered stones, watched by mounted riders who wore curved blades and layered cloth instead of plate.

  The carriage itself was nothing like Lance’s.

  It bore no gilded trim, no polished crest. Its frame was reinforced with ironwood ribs and wrapped in thick leather panels dyed a deep rust-red. Instead of etched wards humming quietly beneath the chassis, visible glyphs were burned directly into the metal brackets. Not delicate work. Brutal, efficient, functional.

  Four massive steppe-bred horses pulled it at a steady pace.

  Inside sat a girl who did not look like someone traveling to a ceremony for a new school.

  She looked like someone being sent to war.

  Her name was Kaelis Varyn.

  Her hair, black as soot, was braided tightly back from her face. Her skin bore faint pale lines along her forearms, scars not from accidents but from ritual binding. At her collarbone rested a small iron medallion etched with a sigil that did not glow, yet seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.

  She sat upright despite the long hours of travel.

  Across from her sat her guardian.

  Marshal Torvek Varyn, her uncle, though no one outside their clan would dare use the word casually.

  He wore no ceremonial armor. Only hardened leather reinforced at shoulder and chest, a heavy cloak pinned with a single iron clasp shaped like a broken sun. His presence filled the confined space more completely than the girl’s ever could.

  Between them lay a weapon wrapped in oilcloth.

  It was not hers yet.

  Not fully at least.

  Outside, the plains shifted.

  The road here was little more than a hardened trail carved by trade caravans and seasonal migration. Dust rose behind them in low plumes. Riders flanked the carriage at a distance, silent and watchful.

  Kaelis stared at her reflection in the small steel mirror fixed to the inner wall.

  “You are restless,” Torvek said without looking at her.

  “I am ready.”

  “Readiness and restlessness are not the same.”

  She did not answer.

  The wind struck the carriage in a long steady gust. The glyphs along the metal brackets flared faintly, absorbing kinetic force before it could rattle the frame apart.

  “You understand what this gathering means,” Torvek continued.

  “Yes Uncle, We have been over this hundreds of times. I am to make friends with strong people and make a name for myself and our clan blah blah.”

  His lip twitched.

  _________________________________

  Smoke curled into the sky long before High Guardian Rynel reached the rise. The acrid stench of charred wood and burnt grain stung his nostrils, carried in ragged plumes across the plain. The wind swept over flattened fields, carrying with it ash and the faint metallic tang of scorched stone.

  Below him lay the village. Not a roof remained intact. Timber frames collapsed inward, thatch reduced to embers. The market square was a blackened scar, and the chapel at its far edge had been reduced to splintered beams. Nothing moved. No smoke from cooking fires, no cries from frightened children, only the low hiss of dying flames.

  Rynel’s hand tightened on the reins. He had been dispatched to retrieve Eryndor Thale, a confirmed legendary class holder whose presence had been monitored carefully for years. The journey had been routine, a month to get here, not a single danger outside minor bandits or roaming feral wolves. He was a Tier 7 Rare class holder, not much gave him much danger outside of dungeons.

  Now though, the quiet was deafening.

  He dismounted, signaling his six guards to fan out. Each moved with practiced precision, boots crunching over ash and splintered wood. They scanned for survivors, attackers, anything alive.

  And then he saw him.

  Eryndor Thale lay in the center of the square, sprawled across the cracked stone. His small body twisted and contorted. His hands were splayed at his sides, and his open eyes stared blankly at the clouded sky above. Tear marks striping down his ash covered face.

  The faint glow of his class mana signature, the aura that should have marked him as extraordinary, was gone. Extinguished.

  A young boy, a twelve year old legendary class holder. Dead, with nobody around to pay for their actions.

  The guards, having found no traces of anything significant, circled around their commander.

  He rose slowly, looking over the ruined village. Ash drifted past him like snow, settling on broken beams and blackened stones. Somewhere beneath the rubble, the lives of innocents had been consumed in the same instant.

  “Send word to the Council,” Rynel said finally, voice hard and low. “Eryndor Thale… is dead. And this village has been annihilated.”

  The guards nodded grimly. Their silence spoke volumes. Cruelty towards such a young child and a massacre of what was once a peaceful village.

  Rynel’s gaze fell once more on the boy. He rustled his hand within his chest, taking a glowing rock, he crushed it with all his might.