It was a little after three o’clock in the morning when the warning bells on the east-side of Alarna rang and warned the citizens that a beast had appeared within the town walls.

The captain of the eastern guard had gotten up and dressed immediately, before he rushed out of this home. When he arrived at the scene, the situation had already been under control. Aside from the beast, he saw a dead woman lying on the ground, approximately thirty years of age, and a battered water source on a chain.

One of the guards that had been the first to arrive was waiting for him, ready to give his report. “Captain,” he greeted while giving a salute.

The captain nodded and his eyes fell on the beast. “A class two? That’s what I got up for at this time of day?” he said with a sigh.

While any beast would be a considerable danger to the citizens, the soldiers and guards were much more capable, thanks to their Callings. A class two wouldn’t require more than two or three guards to put it down and the captain would’ve even been able to handle it single-handedly. After decades in this line of work, very little faced him anymore. Anything below a class four wasn’t worth his effort.

“One casualty?” the captain asked.

“Yes, sir. And one survivor. We assume he’s the woman’s son, but he hasn’t spoken a word since we got here.”

“You were close enough to rescue someone? Good work,” the captain said absentmindedly while examining the scene.

“Actually, sir...” the guard started, “the response time was below average, because no patrol was in range. When we arrived at the scene, the beast was already on the verge of death. We basically put it out of its misery.”

The captain stopped in his tracks and looked at the guard before shifting his eyes to the beast. “How old is the son?” he asked.

“Fifteen, sir. A neighbor identified him as ‘Tomar Remor.’ He’s just had his ritual.”

“A Fighter then? Impressive,” the captain mused.

Any freshly baked Fighter that was able to injure a class two to such a degree was one you should keep an eye on. They would inevitably become one of the great ones.

“No, sir... apparently he’s a Researcher.”

“Ha! That’s a good one, Jara.”

“It didn’t mean to jest, sir. It hasn’t been confirmed, but word is that he is indeed a Researcher.”

The captain furrowed his brows and questioned the guard. Researchers are typically among the weakest of the weak. Even Handiworkers are oftentimes stronger if they get the right job. Blacksmiths for example often have an impressive amount of strength. That wouldn’t necessarily help them in a real fight, but it was better than nothing. It made no sense that a Researcher survived this encounter.

However, nobody had seen anything and the boy wasn’t talking. All they had to go on was a dead beast. Examining it up close, the captain noticed a small hole on the front of the beast’s body. Something had penetrated it’s flesh. Deeply. And the wound did not look like it had been caused by a sword or a spear. There was also a small knife sticking out of the beast’s throat, but that wouldn’t have done any serious damage.

“What happened to you?” the captain asked the dead beast in a low voice before getting up and walking off. He was headed in the direction of the eastern guard station where the boy had been brought to. As he walked past the water source, he noticed that the sigils were scraped up. This needs fixing, he thought.

When the captain arrived at the station, he saw Tomar sitting on a chair. He wasn’t moving and his hands and clothes were red from when he had held the bloodied woman's body in his arms.

“Hello. Are you Tomar?” the captain asked him, but all the boy did was stare blankly down at the floor. “I’m Captain Lera. Can you tell me what happened?”

“...”

“The woman we found, was she your mother?”

“...!” The boy twitched slightly, but didn’t otherwise react.

Just like the guard had said, they wouldn’t get anything out of him for the moment. Not while he was in this state. He walked over to another guard and instructed them to process the woman’s body and get the boy home with her belongings. They would attempt to question him again another time.

An hour later, the captain saw Tomar getting walked off. He still didn’t know what had happened, but for the first time in years, he was excited. By all appearances, it looked like, somehow, this boy had crippled a class two beast by himself. That should not have been possible for him. They also hadn’t found the weapon that caused the unusual wound on the beast. The only part of this incident that made sense to him was the dead woman. It wasn’t every day that something boggled the seasoned guard captain’s mind so. He was looking forward to investigating the incident further as he watched Tomar grow smaller in the distance.

***

“Sir, we have received a request from the eastern guard station. During the beast incident this morning a water source has apparently been damaged,” a priest reported to the High Priest.

“What!?” he responded, furious. “What did these inept guards do?”

“All we know is that half of the scripture sigils are missing. Apparently someone tried to fix this with chalk, but water and blood dirtied and washed them away partially.”

“Chalk? That surely didn’t happen during the fight, did it?”

“That is unclear, sir.”

“Whatever the case, get over there and restore the water source,” the High Priest instructed, exasperated.

“Of course,” the priest said before bowing and leaving the office. He then went straight to the water source after gathering the required materials to restore the sigils. It was already late in the morning and a few people were standing around the water source, trying to use it.

“Stupid thing!” one woman said, kicking the broken water source lightly before walking off, heading for the other square further south.

“Good Morning,” the priest said as he approached the remaining citizens and the cube. “May I have some space?”

They stepped back from the water source, but stayed within view range. Some annoyed, some curious. The priest examined the sigils on the cube and raised a hand to his mouth in an attempt to hide his surprise.

From time to time, children would play around with the water sources. Some drew sigils or sigil-like pictures on the water source and in rare instances some would dare each other to remove the sigils. When the latter happened, and the water source stopped working, the kids would usually panic. More often than not, they would then try to fix the sigils with whatever they could find without telling their parents. Like chalk. However, with how complicated and unusual the sigils looked, the children would inevitably fail and flee the scene of their crime. It would then be on this priest to fix the scripture.

In this case, however, whoever had tried to restore the sigils, had done a remarkable job. About three-fourths had been scratched away entirely, and half of the sigils had been redrawn with chalk. The remaining fourth seemed to have been removed accidentally during this morning’s incident.

It appeared that the chalk sigils had been drawn before today, and since the temple hadn’t received a request to fix the water source earlier, this must’ve meant someone had actually fixed it. Had they used waterproof paint, the priest thought, we would’ve been none the wiser.

However, when he asked the onlookers about it, they said the chalk hadn’t been there the day prior. That the cube had been adorned with the usual blue paint the last time they saw it.

Upon closer inspection, the priest noticed that one sigil was different from what it should be. He didn’t recognize this variant, as it was not found on either the water sources or the ritual platform.

Curiously, he restored all the missing parts, but kept the one chalk sigil as it was. He then tried to use the water source, but nothing happened. He laughed to himself for having thought that someone might have actually found an unknown sigil. Silly me, he thought.

Following that failed test, he restored the scripture properly and made his way back to the temple, while the citizens started getting water and made their way home. After just a few moments, he heard people curse at the water source again. “Why is this stupid thing empty already!?”

***

A boy was kneeling in front of a tub, scrubbing a dress in a futile attempt to clean it. Two girls approached him from behind. The younger of the two hesitated for a moment, before embracing the boy in a tight hug from behind. He didn’t react, however. The other girl stepped up and knelt down beside him.

“Tomar, why are you washing that?” she asked him.

“It’s dirty,” came his response in a whisper as he kept scrubbing.

She put a hand to his arm and he slowly came to a stop, still staring at the red-tinted water with the dress in it. They sat like that for a moment, before the girl spoke up again. “Come with us,” she said before getting to her feet and picking up the tub.

He looked up at her with a blank expression before he also got up, the younger girl letting go of him. She then took him by the hand and pulled him along as she followed her big sister.

They went to the girls’ home, where they made him lie down on one of their beds. Both were concerned for him, but the younger girl was especially worried. She wanted to help somehow, but didn’t know what to do.

“Will he be okay?” she asked.

“He will be. But we need to give him some time,” her sister said, as they listened to a quiet sobbing through the closed door.

***

“Your majesty, I have an update on Mr. Remor,” a young man told the king.

“That’s sooner than I had anticipated,” King Hertar said with light astonishment. It had been just yesterday that he had instructed his subordinate to start an investigation on the boy and his ritual. He knew his men were capable, but it still came as a pleasant surprise.

He leaned back in his chair and straightened his suit. “Do we know more about his Calling now?”

“No yet, sire. My apologies. However, he was involved in the beast incident yesterday morning. The detailed report from the guard station just came in.”

The king had received a preliminary report right after the incident, but all it had said was that the beast had been put down and there had only been one casualty. They even had a survivor. A good outcome, all things considered.

“Was there more to it?” he asked.

According to the new report, the beast had appeared near a water source and a middle-aged woman had been killed. She was later identified as Phiona Remor. Her son Tomar had also been at the scene, but had survived the attack. Curiously, the report stated that it hadn’t been the guards who defeated the beast. All they had done was finish it off after they arrived. Nobody knew what exactly had happened. Nor did they know who or what had injured the beast.

“Mr. Remor was questioned,” the man continued, “but he didn’t speak on the incident. The guards brought him home after his mother was processed.”

The king fell into thought. First the failed ritual, and now this... Everything about the boy was suspicious. Yet there hadn’t been any signs of him being a Mad One yet. On the contrary. The guard captain believed him to be the one who brought the beast to the brink of death, which might have saved lives. Most curious.

“Any word from the High Priest yet on why he didn’t inform us of the failed ritual personally?”

“Yes, sire. He said he believed the situation had been resolved with the redetermination and that he didn’t see a need to report it.”

“The nerve,” the king said under his breath. “We need to keep an eye on Mr. Remor. And keep up the investigation.”

“As you wish, your majesty.”