“It seems like I will be bothering you guys again”

The Stranger kicks open the Castellanos’s household to find the man of the family, out cold, his children poking him with a stick. Looking around, she can see a sack he was definitely going to take with him, around it is several magical artefacts and the charger. The man wanted to help, even if it placed him in harms’ way.

“You still haven’t changed, all these years” The Stranger mutters.

“What did you say, miss?” Alessio couldn’t catch that, his sister remains quiet.

“Nothing, you kids continue to look after your father, he seems really tired”

“No, mom just knocked him out” Alessia said as if it was the most natural thing.

“Does she do that often?”

The twins think, ‘hmmmmm’, they look at each and nod in unison.

‘You had found a great partner there’, the Stranger thinks to herself. Turning around, she finds herself facing with a steel blade. The Blind man stands there, coldly, gazing into her eyes. How old is he? 40? 50? Quite an achievement, especially for a hunter of beasts.

“Your license, now” He said coldly.

The Stranger is going to crack a joke or two but decides against it. This man will cut her down for it. Make sense, facing the unknowns long enough and one learns to not take any chances. She pulls out the Diver license from her pocket. The man puts the sword away, but his eyes are still filled with caution.

“What is that?” The twins asked.

“Ah, this thing, it shows that I am someone who tend to wander into strange places” The Stranger leans down “Like Runelands for example, well, mostly Runelands”

Alessio seems to be deep in thought, trying to remember something. His sister proves to be the model student this time “Is it the dangerous areas that keep appearing out of nowhere”

“Kind of” The Stranger gives her a pat and the girl lights up with a sense of accomplishment.

With no rhythm or reason, these Runelands appear throughout the world, sometimes they stay, sometimes they move like a deadly fog. Mutating everything within, the Runelands churn out monstrosities, those that the Knight of Matah and the Blind Order vow to destroy. The source of the Runeland tends to be something or someone with a strange rune, hence the name. The Divers are those who delve into the Runelands mostly to find Rune-touch artefacts or to destroy the sources.

All Divers suffer from mutations and have the same end. They all lose their minds and get cut down by the Blind Order.

With eyes like the Stranger, either she is a Diver or a monstrosity that must be purged. But even this Blind veteran couldn’t see through the forgery. The woman should really drop the forger a few gold coins next time she drops by.

“Excuse me, but what business do you have with my household”

The Blind man turns around to see a woman, a mother with scarred lips holding onto a machete. She is no stranger to drawing blood and hesitation had left her years ago now.

“Quit your tone, Claudia!” The mayor appears out of nowhere from behind her “Can’t you see he is a hunter from the Blind Order!”

They are easy to spot, the first generation that is. All of them have a scar on their forehead, filled with metal. This ritual renders the Blind Order unable to use magic of any kind asides from charged artefacts. But it also makes them immune to whatever lurk within the Runesland, the unknown deities that plague the world.

Completely ignoring the mayor, the hunter approaches Claudia “Did the monster get anyone?”

“Yes, one, his brother was with him” The housewife answered “They are both quarantine in the guard barrack”

“Good, do they leave behind any blood?”

“Yes, a trail, but no one has approached it” Claudia continued, behind her the mayor is trying to say something “Inside the blood are strange creatures, my children recognise them”

When the raiders broke the barrier with their spear, the same creatures spilled out of the broken weapon. But those seemed to be more mature than these parasites, now all dried up and dead. Nevertheless, the hunter will have to burn them all, starting with the dead man.

“Take me to the guard barrack” He said coldly.

Jumping in front of Claudia, the mayor chimed in “And I will take you there, this way sir”

This hunter is no doubt a high ranker among the Blind Order, someone worth appealing to. Before they leave, the two are stopped by a question.

“I sent a young lad to ask you guys for help, where is he?” The Stranger leans at the door, her hat tips down.

“Yesterday a knight arrived at an Order barrack, on death’s door. He talked of raiders welding stranger artefacts and so I came here” The hunter answered “And no, I didn’t encounter anyone on the way here”

“Don’t worry about that, we will send out a search party for him” The mayor jumped in.

“No” The Stranger, the Blind hunter and Claudia all replied instantly.

“Oh… ok then…” The mayor seemed unaffected “Anyway, this way sir hunter, this way”

“That young man, your son. He is a thousand time the man that you are” Claudia grunted, he gave up easier than she had expected.

“Does it matter” The mayor glared at her “I’m the one still standing here”

“I guess not” The woman turns away, she needs to attend to her husband.

Entering the house, Claudia is relief to see he is still where she left him. Telling the children to wash up, she lifts his head onto her lap. Stroking his hair, the wife wonders if she used too much force. But well, it was his fault, always so ready to charge into danger like that.

It certainly brought her back to the day they met.

___

Mages tend to be locked in their tower, their interactions to the outside world kept to a minimum. But sometimes, the students are let out to town, meeting the people that their magic will serve. Although it is mostly to keep them from going insane from the isolation, there are enough precedents already.

It was a sunny day that the teenage Mordia got to breath the fresh air again in years. Strolling down the street with his roommate Bruno, the two had to hold back from spending all of their allowance at once. Last time they spent everything at once to buy a shoddily craft statue. It still made for nice decoration in their room devoid of anything else. The duos were quite popular thanks to that even.

This time, maybe they would get some candies or even some hot food.

“Let’s go buy that sugar thing that Mark bought last time” Bruno suggested, couldn’t hold back his saliva from drooling.

“Nah, let’s get something better!” On the corner of his eyes, Morida could spot a building filled with people “Why don’t we check out this ‘tavern’ thing!”

His friend agreed wholeheartedly. Entering the place, it was filled to the brim with people, dining and drinking. A dining area was no strange sight but the two were overwhelmed by the atmosphere of this ‘tavern’. It was drilled inside their heads that the wasteland outside was filled with nothing but misery, but in here, people were enjoying themselves, drinking to forget their dismal lives. Even those who were depressed had more energy to them than any hall in the academy.

“This place is amazing” Bruno commented.

The people noticed the two mage-in-trainings, but they looked away and continued on with their businesses. Magic users were a sore sight for them. But the two mages, oblivious of the malice toward them, ventured in.

For some reason, no one wanted the two to sit nearby. Mordia and Bruno walked around with the chairs, until they found a table with only one person, a girl with hood.

“Can we sit here?” Mordia asked.

“Whatever” The girl said, looking up.

Her face shook the mages. She was only around their age and yet the difference between them was bigger than any canyon. Unlike the girls at the academy, this stranger was unkempt. Her hair a mess, tied by a rubber band, the lips all cracked with a scar running to her chin. But this girl was different from the rest of the townsfolks as well. Her eyes were weary, they were older than any academy’s professors, more experience than anyone in this town.

“What’s your name” Mordia asked nervously.

“Claudia” The girl answered then sighed before continuing “Castellanos”

Sitting down, Bruno tried to ask her all sort of questions. The girl simply brushed them off but that didn’t deter the young mage. Meanwhile, Mordia simply looked at her with curious eyes. The barrage of questions were stopped by a very angry tavern keeper.

“Stop bothering her” He grunted menacingly.

“But why” Bruno completely missed all of the threatening body language aimed at him. He didn’t understand, the girl didn’t ask him to stop herself.

“You people wouldn’t understand” The tavern keeper sneered “Anyone, what are you two having. If nothing that get out of my establishment”

The two mages ordered water and sat there. It was so strange, their water was always crystal clear. But here, the liquid in the two cups had a brown tint to it. Downing the content in one gulp, the two looked at each other.

“Wah, they have flavour water out here!”

As the mages were fawning over the dirty water, the girl stood up. It was time for her to leave for one last ride. The tavern keeper noticed her trying to sneak out.

“Hey, where are you going!” He asked worryingly.

“To finish the caravan line to the woodland” She answered.

“How! Everyone is dead, you are the only left!” The tavern keeper tried to stop this madness. Under unprecedented heavy assault by the whole of the Fisherman, the venerable Castellanos caravan was down to one girl left. Her parents, her uncles, her aunts, her brothers and sisters, her cousins and nieces, all gone. The rest of the people in the tavern joined in to stop her from this suicide trip.

“Yes, everyone is dead and what, they gave their lives so the cargos could reach here unscathed” Claudia pulled her hood down “I am here, the Castellanos caravan is still here and we never fail to deliver”

“We can’t let you do this to yourself”

The people started to surround Claudia, they would restrain her. How hard could it be, she was just one girl. They were wrong.

After giving some of the men purple eyes, the girl drew her machete “I won’t let any of you stop me”

“You brat!”

The air turned sour, the people were still going to tie her up. But now, their intention wasn’t one of altruism anymore. The tavern keeper had to break up the crowd.

“There, there, let’s just stop all this and let the girl go”

As he approached Claudia, however, the man immediately grabbed at her machete. More came in to help him but they were all blown away by a shockwave. The mage Mordia stepped in, unable to sit still. Even he knew what she was trying to do was stupid. But that fire in her eyes, one that he had never seen before. The young mage didn’t want something like that to go out.

“I won’t let you stop her!” He declared. Bruno was surprised, he didn’t know the mild-mannered Mordia could raise his voice like that.

“Do you want to help that girl kills herself!” The tavern keeper said “You mages know no…”

“She won’t die” Mordia cut him off “Because I will go with her”

The whole tavern was uncharacteristically quiet. They didn’t want to go against a mage. The gears turning, they returned to doing whatever. All hint of worry gone without a trace. Mordia certainly didn’t expect such a heel turn.

Bruno came over to his friend side.

“So you are leaving, huh. The professors would be furious”

“You aren’t going to stop me” Mordia was surprised. He worried that this place had rubbed off his friend. But of course, that wasn’t the case.

“Nah, I know that look of yours, no one could stop you” Bruno felt rather jealous, he could never be that passionate about anything. Such a strange thought, that Mordia and that Claudia girl would have something in common “Anyway, shouldn’t you go, she is nearly gone now”

“EH!”

Mordia turned around to find no one behind him. It took him a while to catch up to the girl. How did she move so fast, so mysterious, a special wasteland technique perhaps? He asked if he could come along and the girl didn’t object.

Claudia was surprised by that choice herself, he didn’t this mage to tag along. That was why she wanted to cut him off. This was the Castellanos caravan, ran only by the Castellanos.

And yet, when he asked with those bright eyes, she couldn’t turn him down. Claudia sighed, to think she would spend the rest of her life with a mage, during the last ride for the Castellanos caravan as well. That thought proved to be correct, although the girl grossly underestimated their time together.