Kael Varos — Age 13 Team Arclight's First Mission
I. Dawn Preparations — The First Steps of Seven
The Silver Road stretched before them like a ribbon of pale metal, catching the early sun and gleaming between low hills and scattered trees. Behind them, the academy and village shrank into a blur of rooftops and rooftops and smoke.
Ahead lay their first real mission.
Kael walked at the front, boots crunching on gravel, Valdyros perched on his shoulder like a disapproving, golden-eyed sentinel. The little dragon's tail flicked with every loose stone.
The mission parchment crackled in Kael's hand.
Mission: Escort caravan along the Silver Road.
Threat: Unknown corrupted beast.Notes: Attacked multiple caravans.
Originally rated D-Rank; quietly flagged as C-Rank risk after two teams returned injured.
Their "first easy mission" was anything but.
Lyria tightened her bracers and tied her hair back, eyes bright despite the tension. "So," she said, nudging Kael's arm, "ready to be real adventurers?"
Kael smiled faintly. "As ready as I'll ever be."
Ryven, walking a step behind, tried to shove another meat skewer into an already overstuffed pack. "I was born ready.
And hungry.
Mostly hungry."
Serin sighed. "You packed enough food for a siege."
"It's called preparation."
"It's called gluttony."
Nira walked between them, clutching her healer's satchel like a lifeline. "Can we… not argue before we meet the monster that's been eating caravans?"
Korran carried everyone's spare gear without complaint, a walking fortress with straps and bundles across his back. "The road is dangerous. We should save our breath for trouble."
Valdyros yawned, showing too many sharp teeth for something that size.
« At least you travel with competent fools, » he said. «
Many mortals walk into death with no talent at all. »
Kael rubbed his forehead. "That… was strangely encouraging."
« It was not. »
Lyria laughed softly; tension eased like a tight string loosening.
Team Arclight.
Their first step into the wider world.
And somewhere deep inside Kael's chest, the storm shifted.
II. The Guild Briefing — A Mission with Teeth
The day before, the guild hall had been a storm of its own.
Adventurers shouted across long tables. Tankards clanged. A bard near the hearth badly embellished a story about soloing a wyvern. Someone in the back yelled, "It was a chicken, Torren!"
Upstairs, in a room lined with maps and bounty posters, Guildmaster Vessa Rynn had stood over a table, orange hair flaring in the lantern light.
"The Silver Road problem," she said, tapping a dagger onto the map. "Fast caravans. Decent guards. Multiple attacks in the last month. Survivors report the same thing: something that moves like smoke and eats Source."
Serin's brows knit. "Source-feeding beasts are rare."
"Rare," Vessa agreed, "and usually culled by sacred beasts long before they reach trade roads."
Valdyros' scales prickled along Kael's shoulder.
« A Source-feeder that slipped past dragon sight… that is wrong. »
Vessa's golden eyes narrowed.
"Two teams have already come back injured. One refuses to talk about what they saw."
Ryven whistled low. "And this is supposed to be a D-Rank mission?"
"Officially," Vessa said. "Unofficially… consider it a C-Rank. Maybe more, depending on what you find."
She let her gaze sweep across the seven of them.
"Prove yourselves here, and you stop being 'promising students' and become something more. The kind of people this kingdom starts whispering about."
Kael held her stare and nodded. "We'll handle it."
Her smirk was quick and sharp. "Good. Don't die. It's bad for my reputation."
III. Along the Silver Road — Bonds and Footsteps
By late afternoon, the Silver Road glowed under a gentler sun, the stone inlaid with faint Source lines that pulsed softly like veins of light. Hills rolled away on either side, dotted with cedars and scrub.
Kael and Lyria walked at the front.
They talked quietly—of the village, of Eiran's early drills, of Valdyros' snoring, of the day everything changed on a bloody field in another life (though Kael only hinted at the last part, never quite naming it).
"Do you ever get scared?" Lyria asked at one point, voice barely above the crunch of gravel.
Kael considered.
"…Only when I care what happens next," he said.
Her cheeks warmed.
She bumped his shoulder gently. "Idiot."
Behind them, Ryven exaggerated Serin's posture as they walked.
"Look at me, I am Serin Vail, I was born with my spine perfectly straight—"
Serin didn't even look at him. "If you trip over a rock doing that, I will not catch you."
Nira walked beside Korran, studying tracks beside the road. "Those are wolf prints… and those… I don't know."
"Wagon," Korran said. "Heavy load. One wheel slightly warped. The rhythm of the ruts is uneven."
"You hear ruts," Ryven muttered. "Of course you do."
Valdyros dozed on Kael's shoulder, tail tapping occasionally.
It felt almost peaceful.
Which meant, Kael knew, it wasn't going to last.
IV. Caravan Camp — Fear in the Air
They met the caravan before sunset: five wagons in a rough circle, horses stamping anxiously, guards armor-dented and eyes haunted.
Merchant-master Jorah Tamm was a stocky man with ink-stained fingers and the permanent squint of someone who'd spent his life reading contracts and counting coins.
"Thank the Source," he breathed when he saw them. "We've already lost two wagons and three good men this route. Whatever's out there doesn't leave much behind."
He nodded toward his remaining guards.
Helda — scarred, sharp-eyed, with a sword worn from real use.Rusk — lean, jittery, with a spear and a nervous laugh.Dolsen — broad-shouldered, quiet, bow slung over his back, eyes always scanning the dark.
"We're ready," Kael said. "We'll hold the line."
Valdyros' tail stiffened.
« Something foul has lingered near this place, » he said, nostrils flaring. « The air tastes drained. As if the land itself was bled. »
The wind shifted, colder for no clear reason.
Kael's skin prickled.
Night was coming.
And something was waiting in it.
V. The Watches — Beneath a Sleepless Moon
They set their watches like they'd been trained.
First Watch — Kael & Lyria
Second Watch — Serin & Korran
Third Watch — Ryven & Nira
The campfire burned low, casting orange light over wagons and restless horses. Most of the caravan drifted into uneasy sleep.
Kael and Lyria sat side by side on a log, cloaks wrapped tight against the chill. Above them, the moon—near full—hung in a wash of silver.
"Feels different than training fields, doesn't it?" Lyria said.
Kael nodded. "Training doesn't scream when you make a mistake."
She watched him for a moment.
"Whatever happens," she said firmly, "we face it together."
He looked at her, at the cut on her shoulder still faintly scarred from Famine's blade in his dream of the future (though that hadn't happened yet in this life), at the way she sat ready to jump to her feet at any sound.
He nodded. "Together."
Valdyros, curled near the fire, lifted his head sharply.
« …Do you feel that? »
Kael stiffened. "What?"
« Not wind. Not beast. Something hollow. As if the world is breathing in… and not breathing out. »
The fire's flames flickered.
Then, with a soft hiss, they snuffed out.
Darkness fell like a dropped curtain.
VI. The Serpent of Shadow — Corruption Takes Form
For a heartbeat, the entire world seemed to hold its breath.
Then came the sound.
A low, slithering rasp.
A wet hiss that crawled along nerves.
Red pinpricks of light opened in the dark beyond the wagons.
Not two eyes.
Dozens.
"Up!" Kael shouted. "Everyone up!"
Guards jolted awake. Serin rolled from his bedroll straight into a guard stance. Korran grabbed his shield and sword in one fluid motion. Ryven nearly tripped attempting the same, then somehow spun it into a dramatic flourish.
Nira scrambled behind a crate, hands glowing green as she prepared a shield spell.
The thing emerged from the treeline.
It hit the edge of the moonlight and resolved into something halfway between nightmare and smoke:
A serpent, six meters long, body made of shadow-flesh that rippled like torn silk in water. Its head was too big for its neck, jaws hinged too wide, bone-white teeth jutting out at broken angles. Its "skin" flickered between nearly solid and almost transparent, as if it couldn't decide what reality to occupy.
Its eyes were pits of red hunger.
The Shadow Serpent.
The air around it felt thin.
Patchy.
Wrong.
Valdyros' wings flared.
« That is no natural beast, » he snarled. « Something has hollowed it out and filled it with Anti-Source. »
"Archers!" Jorah shouted. "Loose!"
Dolsen loosed three arrows in quick succession.
They flew true—
—and passed through the serpent's smoky body as though it were fog.
The serpent turned its head toward Dolsen.
Its jaw unhinged further, stretching with a wet crack.
It struck.
Dolsen dove aside; the serpent's head slammed into the wagon behind him. Wood blackened and crumbled where its teeth bit—the Source lines carved into the wagon's frame went dead in an instant, sigils fading like snuffed embers.
"It's eating the enchantments!" Serin said. "Anything with Source—"
"Then don't let it touch you," Kael snapped.
The serpent whipped its tail.
A wave of shadow crashed through the camp—Snuffing embers, dimming crystals, making Nira's green shields shudder.
Helda charged it with a roar. "Over here, you void-sick leech!"
Her blade met the serpent's body.
For a moment, it met resistance—Then her sword glowed sickly as the serpent's flesh turned to vapor around it, drinking in the Source reinforcement along the steel.
Helda ripped her sword free—breath short. "It's draining me when I hit it!"
Lyria thrust out a hand.
Wind blasted from her palm—a compressed arc of air that slammed into the serpent's midsection.
This time, it staggered.
"Non-Source strikes work better!" she shouted. "Its feeding is slower on raw force!"
"Ryven!" Kael barked. "No huge explosions—precision fire only. Korran, with me!"
"On it!"
Ryven snapped his fingers. Small, tight bursts of fire danced along his fists, controlled instead of wild.
Korran planted his feet in front of Dolsen and Jorah, shield raised.
The serpent lunged.
Kael moved.
Lightning flared along his legs.
He Flash Stepped, reappearing at the serpent's flank, wooden practice blade cracking across its head with a thunder-backed strike.
The impact rattled through the serpent's body—shadow rippled, form destabilizing.
It whipped back around with unnatural speed, jaws snapping.
Kael ducked under the bite—felt cold air brush the back of his neck.
Lyria threw another wind blade—this one angled low, severing one of the serpent's shadowy coils. The sliced section evaporated with a scream that sounded like metal being torn in half.
Ryven dashed in, fist wreathed in tight, focused fire, and slammed it into what passed for the beast's ribs.
The serpent shrieked—flames clung to its form, eating away chunks of its smoky flesh.
"It does burn!" Ryven yelled. "Oh, that's satisfying."
The serpent reared back, eyes blazing.
Then it did something new.
Its body thinned, stretching into near-transparency, and it slammed itself into the ground—
Shadow spread outward like a stain, racing across the earth.
"Move!" Serin shouted. "Don't stand on—"
The shadow under Korran's feet erupted.
A tendril of serpent-body shot up, jaws snapping at his throat.
Korran twisted, shield raised—the teeth scraped across the metal, leaving black, Source-dead lines along the rim.
He grunted. "That… felt wrong."
"It's under us now," Serin said.
"It's splitting itself. We need a core."
"There!" Lyria pointed.
Amid all the shifting shadow, one section of the serpent's body remained consistently darker, slower to dissolve and reform. Its "heart."
"Kael!" Valdyros shouted. « Strike the core. But do not unleash your full storm. Your blade cannot bear it. »
Kael's fingers tightened on his sword.
He felt the storm rising anyway.
Familiar.
Hungry.
He Flash Stepped again—Appearing above the serpent's densest coil, wind from his palm lifting him the last few inches.
He brought his blade down.
Lightning surged, unbidden.
Steel glowed white-blue, edges shuddering as power flooded into it.
Tempest Fang tried to form—Not fully, not stable—Just enough light and force to scream.
The blade met the serpent's core.
For one instant, everything went silent.
Then—
BOOOOM.
Light and shadow detonated outward in a sphere.
The serpent exploded into black smoke, fragments of corrupted energy shrieking as they burned away. The blast flattened grass and sent everyone stumbling back.
Kael dropped to one knee, chest heaving, hand numb and throbbing.
His sword was ruined—wood cracked, metal along the edge spiderwebbed and flaking.
Nira rushed to him. "Your hand—! It's burned—"
He looked down. Red welts traced his fingers where lightning had crawled too far.
"I'll live," he said through gritted teeth. "Is it gone?"
Valdyros hovered slightly above the ground, eyes narrowed, sniffing the air.
« The serpent's form is destroyed, » he said slowly. « But… the corruption that made it— »
He went still.
The wind died.
So did every insect sound, every rustle of leaves.
As if the world had decided to listen.
VII. The Air Grows Wrong — The Horseman Arrives
Nira had just begun to wrap Kael's hand when Valdyros' scales lifted one by one, like a living bristle.
« …Child. »
His voice was tight.
« Something is coming. Not Source. Not beast. Anti-Source. This stench… I have not felt it since the Age of Shattering. »
Kael's pulse spiked. "Anti-Source… like the Architect's opposite?"
« The mark of the Anti-Architect, » Valdyros hissed. « This serpent was only a leaking wound. The blade that made the wound… is almost here. »
The campfire, recently relit, sputtered—
—and went out again, as if snuffed by an invisible hand.
The temperature dropped.
Breath misted in the air.
The moonlight seemed thinner, as though eaten at the edges.
Footsteps approached.
Slow.
Dry.
Wrong.
Every instinct Kael had screamed don't move and run at the same time.
From the treeline, a figure stepped into view.
VIII. FAMINE — The Hollow Mask
He was tall. Too tall.
Cloth hung from him in ragged black folds, fluttering in a wind that no one else felt. His frame was almost skeletal—limbs long, joints slightly too sharp, like someone had sketched a man and then stretched the lines.
A mask hid his face.
Bone-white.
Elongated.
Carved like the starved skull of some animal, cheekbones hollow, jaw long and thin. Empty eye sockets burned with a dim, sickly yellow light, like candles flickering in a tomb.
Around him, the air did not ripple with Source.
It curdled.
Every nearby sigil, charm, and ward dulled as he passed.
Jorah's breath hitched. "W-What… what is that…?"
Valdyros' wings flared, trembling.
« Run, » he whispered, an edge of primal fear in his voice Kael had never heard before. « Child, do not fight him. That is no mere corrupted mage. That is the work of the Anti-Architect's hand—one of the Horsemen. »
Kael's hand clenched around his ruined sword.
Lyria stepped closer, fingers brushing his sleeve.
Serin drew both blades, eyes narrowed, but even his confidence flickered.
Ryven's flames sputtered, almost going out.
Korran raised his shield, knuckles white.
Nira's hands shook too much to form a proper sigil.
The figure tilted its masked head.
When he spoke, his voice sounded like bones grinding together, like a rusted hinge moving for the first time in years.
"You burn bright…"A pause."…little spark."
He took one step forward.
The earth where his foot landed cracked in a spiderweb pattern, the ground itself recoiling.
"Stay back, demon!" Helda shouted.
Before anyone could stop her, she charged—sword raised, eyes blazing with the desperate courage of someone who'd already buried too many friends.
"Helda, no—!" Kael shouted.
Valdyros roared.
« FOOL! HE IS DEATH WALKING—RUN! »
Famine moved.
There was no wasted motion.
One step.
One blurred arc of his arm.
No light.
No flashy strike.
Just… inevitability.
SHHHK.
For a moment, Helda stood in front of him, sword half-raised.
A thin, perfectly straight red line bloomed diagonally across her torso, from shoulder to hip.
She blinked.
Her sword slipped from her fingers.
Then her body slid apart along that line—Upper half slipping from the lower—Blood fanning across the ground in a horrifyingly graceful arc.
The camp erupted in screams.
Jorah shouted something wordless.
Rusk dropped his spear.
Dolsen fell to his knees.
Nira clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide and wet.
Ryven swore, voice shaking.
Korran took an involuntary step back.
Lyria's fingers dug into Kael's sleeve. "Kael…"
Famine slowly turned his mask toward them.
Those hollow eyes locked onto Kael.
He lifted one bony hand, fingers trailing a dark, smoke-like residue that made the air ache.
"You," he whispered.
The word crawled along Kael's nerves like ice and fire both.
Famine took another step forward.
"You come next."
Lightning exploded around Kael—
Raw, furious, uncontrolled.
The storm inside him woke with a snarl.