The atmosphere inside the Shattered Reach did not circulate like the one found in the valleys occupied and populated by humanity. It was thick—tasting like old copper and the cold, breathless vacuum of the stars. Above, the dual moons provided a silvery luminescence to the landscape made up of broken earth and suspended rocks. The violet mist found inside the canyons looked like stagnant clouds because of the moonlight. In the Shattered Reach, the rules found inside nature are brittle—where rocks the size of cottages floated lazily because the flowing, uncínematicblood of the earth suspended them up there.
Aleric Thorne posed, still and unmoving, at the precipice of the jagged ravine. To the naked eye, he was simply another average student at the rarified institution, one with decent prospects, but far removed, far removed, still, from the storied scions bred by the Great Houses. Even the average student appeared ambitious, one with skills that ranged from adequate and moderate, and had requested leave pending personal training exercises. Behind the mask, the world had been stripped bare, devoid of corporeal form, and his eyes had opened, the brown color fully and utterly replaced with the shining, hungry color known as red.
Crimson Sight was active.
From this standpoint, "Shattered Reach" was a pulsing network of Mana Flow. The former beheld "the jagged veins of energy that reached up through deep channels in the ground" and "the 'Static,' an unaltered mist that lingered about crevasses like a ghostly fog." Aleric was not searching for shapes or an image. Aleric was searching for abnormalities. And amidst the twisted, petrified oak tree that had been long dead behind him, he saw "a 'Cold-Point.' A section where the Mana Flow was being unaturally suppressed."
"Do not struggle, boy, and thou mayest keep thy tongue," a voice rasped from the gloom.
A figure emerged from the shadows, dressed in leather garb dyed a dark red, akin to the color of dried blood. He donned a predator-bone mask and carried a specially designed capture nets infused with paralyzing manaversal fibers. He moved with an uncannily smooth gait, a product of a man honed to the silence between heartbeats – a tracker for hire. He did not consider Aleric a threat but rather a middle-tier student at the prestigious academy – competent enough to be useful, but lacking the potency to prevent being snatched up like a hare at a hunt.
"Thou art coming with me," the tracker breathed, his net humming in his hands like a hunting spider. "My masters have many questions about thy recent activities, thy walks in the vicinity of the docks. You have a rather singular ability to be in locations where gold goes missing, hmm?"
But Aleric did not. Instead, he pinpointed its location as specific coordinates of mathematical values contained in its representation of the mana mesh. "To try and abduct a ghost is an inefficient use of resources," he spake, and his voice was low and chiming.
The tracker rushed forward. The man was a blur of crimson as he moved at a pace intended to overwhelm an average student's senses before he or she would even have time to draw a weapon. The man threw out a net, and his mana threads stretched out like a spider's web to prevent Aleric's magic.
Blink-Transference.
In a flicker of movement, Aleric vanished. The capture-net swept through empty air, clattering harmlessly against the stones where Aleric had stood a microsecond before.
The tracker skidded to a halt, his bone mask tilting in confusion. He spun around, but the target was gone. Then, he felt the cold, sharp press of steel against his jugular. Aleric had reappeared directly behind him, his posture as upright and calm as if he were standing in a lecture hall, his blade already drawn and resting against the man's pulse.
"Three slashes," Aleric whispered.
He did not swing his arm. He simply focused his red gaze upon the tracker's legs.
From his burning irises, three bursts of concentrated force erupted. There was no light, no projectile to parry. There was only the sudden, violent scream of the atmosphere being torn apart as vacuum-sealed mana-blades sheared through the wind. The ground beneath the tracker's feet was carved into deep, jagged trenches, and the man's tendons sheared with surgical precision.
The tracker collapsed with a throttled cry, his $aura$ shattered by the atmospheric displacement. He lay in the dirt, his legs useless, looking up at the youth in the crimson cloak with eyes full of newfound terror.
Aleric looked down at him, the red light of his eyes casting long, bloody shadows across the stone. "Art thou of House Valerius?"
The tracker gasped, blood bubbling behind his bone mask. "No."
"Then why art thou here?" Aleric's blade pressed harder. "Who sent thee to seek a student of the Academy?"
"They. they know," the tracker wheezed. "They suspect thee. the one who took the mana crystals from the Valerius grotto. They said. thou art the culprit. I was only. to bring thee back alive."
Aleric's face continued to hold a mask of ice. He waited for more, but the tracker just gazed up in terror, a man drained of all knowledge. "One slash," Aleric said, with a swift, surgical motion of his eyes, ending the tracker's life with a heart-beat.
Rather than hiding the body within the void, he cleaned the blade with the piece of fabric and observed the body with a glimmer of chilly interest. He understood the type of environment the Shattered Reach represented, where the violet mist would disintegrate the body and any potential evidence within a few hours. Keeping such a trivial and changeable element within his inner void wasnot needed.
He turned toward the depths of the wilderness, but his mind had already begun a frantic audit of his recent actions.
It makes no sense, he thought, his brow furrowing as he deactivated the Crimson Sight. I played the part of the average student. I hid my true capacity. There is no physical ledger, no witness, and no mana-trace that places Aleric Thorne at the docks or the grotto. How could they possibly suspect me of such a high-level heist?
The more he analyzed the variables, the more the logic broke down. Even more disturbing was the information itself. The mana crystals were a secret of House Valerius—illegal, unregistered smuggling.
How did they even know Valerius was smuggling mana crystals when they're not of Valerius? Aleric wondered. If they are not of that House, they should be blind to the internal theft of contraband. To know of the theft, they had to monitor the outside of the Valerius accounts. To suspect me. it speaks of a leak I did not calculate.
He replayed every second of the last forty-eight hours, searching for the missing link; however, the calculation came up empty. He was the master of variables, but he was working with incomplete data.
"I cannot solve it," Aleric whispered to the violet haze. "The 'Why' is a corrupted file."
He looked toward the jagged peaks of the deeper Reach. He was no longer just a student; he was a D-Rank adventurer with a target on his back. If he remained to find the answer, he would be hunted by more trackers. Moving forward was the only reasonable path. He would leave the unsolvable question behind and move into the wilds to grow strong enough that the mystery no longer mattered.