The order from the High mages was clear. To the Protect the world, the Marked Children must be erased. But with no clear way to kill beings that might be more than human, the kingdoms descended into barbarism. The methods of "purification" became horrors whispered in taverns.
In the coastal kingdom of Stormvale, knights took the marked infants far out to the ea on fishing boats. With heavy hearts of hardened souls, they would toss the small, silent bundles into the churning, waves. The sailors said the waters there became unnaturally cold and that strange, lights could sometimes be seen swirling in the depts at night.
In the harsh lands of Obsidian Hold, efficiency was everything. They dug a deep dark pit in a forgotten canyon. The Marked Children were simply thrown into the shadow below. No one ever checked to see how long the silence lasted.
I the blasted lands of Ashenvale, a great iron pyre was kept perpetually burning. The Marked were consigned to the flames, their strange eyes outshone by the fire that consumed them. The people of Ashvale believed only pure fire could cleanse a corrupted soul.
All of this was happening while the kingdoms were under a different, more visible attack. Every fifth day, as regular as a poisoned heartbeat, the Dungeons of Despair would spit out their monsters. This put immense pressure on the night and soldiers. They were not just hunters of children, they were also the front line of a war against creatures that seemed to be made of shadow and hate.
Adventurers' Role
This dual pressure created a void, one quickly filled by a new breed of warriors known as Adventurers.
To help with this overwhelming threat, guilds of adventurers began to be form. These were brae or desperate men and women, former soldiers, hunters and those with a little combat skill who would take contracts to protect villages or hunt smaller monsters that the army was too busy to handle.
They quickly learned the strange rules of these new horrors. The monsters did not carry treasure items. When killed, their bodies did not last. They decayed at an unbelievable speed, turning into black sludge and bone within two days. The adventures also noticed something important, which was that the sunlight seemed t had no effect on the monsters while they were alive and moving. But once a monster was dead, if its body was left in the sun, it would rot away in hours instead of days. This led the mages to a theory, "the creatures feared the rising sun, even if it didn't them directly".
This explained why most attacks happened at midday, when the sun was high but starting to decline, or during the night.
The guild became a vital source of information. They mapped the locations of the dungeons and described the different types of monsters that emerged. They sent these reports to the king and the mages hoping it would help. But there was one thing no one had managed to do, explore the dungeon deeply.
The mages had tried during the four free days between the monster waves, they sent armed expeditions inside to explore the dungeon but the dungeons were not safe. The tunnels were dark and twisted, filled with strange sticky webs and a feeling of dread that made it hard to breath. Monsters, different forms the ones that came out to attack, lurked in the shadow inside. No expedition had ever made it past the first large hall. They were always slaughtered or forced to retreat with heavy losses. The deep darkness of the dungeons remained a complete mystery.
The Waves of the Marked
The marked children were not born every day. Their arrival came in waves, just like the monsters from the dungeons. Across all kingdoms, a wave of these special births would happen.
In the barracks of the Knights of the Sacred Blade, they would watch for the signs.
"Another village midwife report, Captain," a young knight, Ser Eldrin, said, his voice tight as he held out the scroll. "Silver-eyes, in the northern hamlet. A girl."
Captain Rykard didn't look up from the whetstone gliding along his sword. The rhythmic shhh-click, shhh-click was the only sound for a moment. "Then stop gawking and form the detail. The wave is upon us. There is no time for rest."
Elian hesitated. "Sir… the family are druids. Peaceful. Must we…"
"Must we what, boy?" Rykard finally looked up, his eyes like chips of flint. "Must we do the duty that keeps our walls standing? The magic of the Marked is a corruption. It calls the beasts from the shadows. Would you have their blood on your hands because you felt a moment of pity?"
"No, Captain," Elian whispered, his gaze dropping.
"Good," Rykard said, his voice softening to a deadly calm. "Then remember: sentiment is a luxury. Our armor is discipline. Our shield is resolve. Now go."
No one knew why this happened, but it meant the knights had periods of intense, horrible work hunting babies, followed by periods of waiting for the next tragedy. The one thing that made the hunt easy was the children's eyes. Their glowing violet, silver, or amber colors made them impossible to hide.
A Knight's Rebellion and its Price
Not every knight in either kingdom was comfortable with this duty. In the emerald forests of Sylvarath, the veteran knight Ser Landon received his orders.
He found the family in a small clearing a druid couple, their faces etched with a grief they had been expecting since the moment their daughter opened her silver-eyed gaze upon the world. The mother, Clara, clung to the bundle, her tears silent. The father, Varis, stood before Landon, his hands clenched, not in threat, but in desperate supplication.
"Please, Ser Knight," Varis whispered, his voice raw. "She is just a child. She has hurt no one. We can hide her. We can protect her here, deep in the woods. The old magic can shield her."
"You know the law," Landon interrupted, his own voice sounding hollow and foreign to him. He had to force the words out. "If I do not take her, another will. Captain Rykard himself, perhaps. And he will not be… gentle. He will burn your grove to the ground on principle."
Clara stepped forward then, her eyes pleading. "Then look at her! Just look! Tell me you see a monster in her face!" She pulled back the swaddling cloth. The infant gurgled, her tiny hand waving, and her silver eyes shone with an inner light, reflecting the canopy above. They were not eyes of corruption, but of starlight.
Landon's breath caught in his throat. 'By the Light,' he thought, his resolve cracking. 'She's… beautiful. She's just a baby.'
"I see a child," Landon said, his voice barely a whisper. "But my orders…"
"Your orders are wrong!" Varis insisted, but without anger, only desperate hope. "The land does not fear her. It sings to her. Can you not feel it?"
The parents did not fight. As Landon took the child, their resistance vanished, replaced by a deep, profound sadness that shamed him more than any anger could. It was the look of people watching a natural disaster unfold, helpless to stop it.
As he rode toward the collection point, the baby's silver eyes stared up at him, calm and trusting from within the sling on his chest. He could feel the faint, warm weight of her against his cold armor.
'She trusts the arms that carry her,' his mind screamed at him. 'She doesn't know they are headed for a pyre. What have we become? Monsters in polished steel, hunting the most innocent of all?'
His stomach churned. Captain Rykard's words echoed in his head: "Mercy is a luxury, Landon. Sentiment, a crack in the armor through which the whole kingdom falls."
But another voice, older and quieter, spoke from his heart as he looked into those silver pools: 'Is this truly protection? Or is it just slaughter wrapped in a banner of duty? When did we decide that to be strong, we must first be cruel?'
He couldn't do it. He pulled hard on the reins, his horse skittering to a halt at the crossroads. One path led to the collection point, the other deep into the untamed woods.
"What am I doing?" he muttered to the silent trees, his knuckles white on the reins. "This is treason. This is my death." He looked down at the child, who had curled a tiny fist around the leather strap of his armor. A wave of protective ferocity washed over him. Then, with a surge of resolve, he answered himself, "No. This is justice."
He turned his horse toward the woods, rode deep into the heart of the druid grove, and left the child at the entrance to a sacred stone circle, whispering a quiet prayer to any listening spirit. "Guard her. Please. I can do no more."
He thought his act of mercy was a secret. But the Order of the Sacred Blade had spies everywhere. A fellow knight, Ser Gareth, ambitious and cold, had followed him at a distance.
Days later, Gareth stood before Captain Rykard. "I saw it with my own eyes, Captain. He did not just leave the child. He gave her back to the wild magic. He spoke to the trees, calling our duty 'cruelty.' His treason is without doubt."
Captain Rykard himself came to Sylvarath to make an example.
Ser Landon was arrested in the training yard, surrounded by his comrades. He was stripped of his armor, the clatter of each piece on the stone floor a sound of his utter disgrace. He was put on a public trial for treason and endangering the kingdom. He was found guilty in minutes.
As the sentence of death was read, a commotion came from the back of the crowd. Varis and Clara, the druid parents, pushed their way to the front, their faces pale but determined.
"Stop!" Varis cried out, his voice cutting through the formal silence. "This is wrong! He saved our daughter!"
Captain Rykard turned a glacial gaze upon them. "You dare speak here? The parents of the abomination?"
"He showed us mercy when your law showed none!" Clara shouted, tears streaming down her face. "Punish us if you must, but let him go! It wasn't his fault! We begged him! We placed this burden on his conscience!"
Landon, on his knees, looked at them, his eyes full of a sorrowful gratitude. "No," he said, his voice firm. "The choice was mine. You asked for your child's life. A request no parent should ever have to make. Do not burden your hearts with my fate."
"You see?" Rykard said to the assembled knights, his voice dripping with contempt. "The corruption of mercy. It makes allies of our enemies and traitors of our knights. The sentence stands."
In the courtyard, standing on the scaffold, Landon looked at the faces of the knights he had served with for a decade.
"I showed a child mercy!" he cried out, his final words ringing in the cold air. "Is that the crime for which I die? When did that become treason? Look into your own hearts! You know this is wrong!"
His words were met with stony silence. Captain Rykard leaned close, his voice a low growl meant only for the condemned. "You did not show mercy, Landon. You showed weakness. You valued one life over the security of thousands. And the shield of the realm," he said, stepping back and raising his voice for all to hear, "must be without cracks."
The axe fell. The message was clear.
After this, the few other knights who had doubts buried them deep. In the barracks that night, Ser Eldrin, the young knight from the first scene, stared into his ale, the image of Landon's headless body seared behind his eyes.
'He was a good man,' Elian thought, his hand trembling around his tankard. 'He was the best of us. And they called him a traitor for showing a child kindness.' He took a long, draining drink, forcing the thought down, locking it away in a dark corner of his soul. 'But the Captain is right. There is no room for good men. Only strong ones. I must be strong.'
Their hearts grew colder to survive in a world that had lost its own.