Karzaia’s mother looked down at her unconscious body with a sorrowful look on her face. Unlike her husband, she was not of the clans originally. Rather, after the 2nd Zhi War, she was given over by her cultivator father as a hostage in exchange for one of his talented sons. She wasn’t seen as valuable by her family because of her Talents being those of a sorcerer, which required mana rather than qi to use. She had no real potential as a cultivator, so her value was nonexistent, even as ‘breeding stock’.

However, here, in Manthein, she was valued, her Talents seen as worthy, and she had even passed both the Trial and her own Journey in order to be officially adopted into the clan. Marrying her husband had been one of the happiest days of her life, finally finding a family who valued her.

However, there was one aspect of being Manthein that often pained her.

She was not allowed to raise her own children.

Manthein children were always raised by those other than their parents. That meant that she was never able to treat her own children as she would have in her birth family, smothering them with a mother’s love as she taught them the lessons she had learned in her life. The most she had been allowed was to teach her adult children sorcery and teach the young about the nations beyond the borders of the Nine Lands.

All her children knew she loved them, intensely and dearly, but they would never know her as a parent the way she had known her own, before they tossed her aside. Whether that was a burden or a benefit she was unsure of, but her agony as a mother was revealed openly at times like this.

Another of my children has come back to me wounded, and if she was awake, she would not accept comfort from me, due to the traditions, She thought sorrowfully.

Karzaia was clever and warm-hearted, but she was also the daughterthe Consort of Manthein understood the least. Something about the girl kept everyone around her at a distance, without any apparent intent on her part. Most thought it was her potential or her drive to succeed that distanced others, but Azrin Manthein believed it was something else… something intrinsic to her very being in a way even her potential was not.

Her analysis of the girl’s aura, now that she was unconscious and defenseless, only confirmed her suspicions… suspicions she had not truly realized she had until after Karzaia’s System Day. She knew her husband had hidden something from her about Karzaia’s Status, and the soul she saw through her True Sight Talent told her a great deal.

My great-grandfather’s soul is not even a hundredth as dense and complex as hers. She is an ancient soul in a new body, and my husband hid it from me, Despite these thoughts, she was not bitter. She knew her husband was protecting her from herself. Azrin’s dislike of the child-rearing traditions of the clans was known to him, and he had indulged her need to know her children more by allowing her to train them in magic when it was possible to do so without seeming frivolous.

The clans were unforgiving of those who went too far against tradition. Exile in the Nine Lands was effectively a death sentence, and it was also the most likely result if one pushed against tradition too hard. Not even a Clan Lord could protect his family if they went too far, especially when it came to the traditions of child-rearing. The reasons for the clans’ approach to it were apparent in the egalitarian society they created. Nepotism was nonexistent in the clans, and most considered themselves children of the clan rather than a specific family. It made for tight social bonds and a strong compulsion to follow traditional mores that was self-perpetuating to a ridiculous extent, looking on it from the viewpoint from a former outsider.

The thought of sending another of her children on their Journey caused Azrin’s lips to tighten. Of the dozen children she had that had already reached adult age, four had died on their Journey, despite all the preparations she had made to help them along in the background. The two years every clansman must spend outside the clan, traveling the world, were often deadly. The Nine Lands were a continent plagued constantly by beast waves, undead hordes, and vicious predators. Surviving outside a clanhold for even that long was a non-trivial task, regardless of one’s Talents.

Azrin’s own Journey had been horrific. She had traveled from clanhold to clanhold, wielding sorcery almost constantly just to stay alive, sometimes hiding for weeks as a beast wave passed. She could not even count the number of times she might have died.

However, though it was horrific, she also saw the value. Walking the lands without a clan to back one up was… enlightening. It was impossible to survive in the long term in the Nine Lands without a clan, and even the clans were slowly withering on the vine, their numbers slowly but surely decreasing with each generation. The mana concentrations were simply too high, and unlike qi, the growth of mana beasts was only limited by the amount of available energy.

Qi beasts were like the cultivators that hunted and were hunted by them. It took time and resources for them to grow, and even the worst qi beast wave was less than a tenth of the size of the average mana beast wave in the Nine Lands. However, in exchange, the strongest qi beasts were natural disasters far surpassing the strongest mana beasts, and they could pass along unique abilities to their descendants that a mana beast couldn’t.

Karzaia’s Journey would see her going to the lands across the ocean. Fan’ar had informed her husband of it only a few days ago, that he had obtained for her a spot in the sect that had sent him the cultivation manual. Azrin was ambivalent, despite the fact that it meant her daughter had a chance at the unbelievably long lifespan of a cultivator.

She remembered all-too-well the sectarian wars that plagued the other continents, often consuming hundreds of thousands of young cultivators in a matter of months. She also recalled the way her family abused those of lesser stature even if their cultivation was even. Without backing, she knew Karzaia’s life amongst cultivators would be as harsh in its own way as trying to survive in the wilderness of the Nine Lands.

At least she is going to Av and not my homeland. The Cold Rivers Sect will at least have incentive to protect her, given Fan’ar’s money and connections. My family would probably either force her into a marriage or have her killed, She thought bitterly.

When her daughter awakened, she would begin preparations for her Journey. Azrin would never be able to tell her daughter all the things she wished she could, but at least she had this time with her, even if the child would never know.

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Karzaia looked back on the imposing gray stone of Manthein’s walls wistfully from a distance. Like during her Trial, she held a spear in hand and was dressed in her repaired scale armor. However, the armor was not visible due to the heavy black fur suit covering her from head to toe, a wool mask concealing everything of her face other than her eyes. Without the warming enchantments built into the ground and walls of the clan hold, the Nine Lands were bitterly cold, as the imbalance between mana and chi created extreme environments. There was no snow, but the rivers were covered in foot-thick sheets of ice, and the non-evergreen trees were devoid of foliage.

This close to the clan hold, there were no beasts present, nor common animals. A few clansmen could be seen heading out to hunt or coming back from an expedition or their own Journey, but these were the exception.

Karzaia no longer wore a pack. Instead a small storage ring on her left ring finger contained the two weeks of food and forty coppers that were given to every clansman in the Nine Lands upon the beginning of their Journey. It also contained her blankets and her cultivation manual, though without the arrays in the keep, she would be unable to gather enough qi to do anything more than maintain her current cultivation.

Her destroyed spear was replaced with a staff of petrified wood, and she hadn’t been allowed to buy or forge a replacement. This was not unusual. Passing her Trial meant she was no longer entitled to freely use the resources of the clan to create her own equipment, and what little coin she had left had gone into the purchase of the suit and the staff. Petrified wood was easily created by sorcerers using the Time and Earth affinities, and it was popular for spear shafts, clubs, and staffs for its heft and durability when properly enchanted.

Naturally, she had infused it with her affinity, reinforcing its physical structure with both soul mana and soul chi, sacrificing a small portion of her cultivation base to give it a stronger affinity with the latter and provide a base for further enchantments later on. Thus, it was unlikely to break… a real concern since replacing it in the wilds between clanholds would be impossible.

The Journey would last – at minimum – two years. However, Karzaia’s Journey was destined to last quite a bit longer, as she had been ordered to report to the Cold Rivers Sect until she reached peak Foundation in her cultivation path. Before that, she would need to earn the coin for passage, as the Cold Rivers Sect lay on the continent of Ars to the west. The ocean journey itself would take almost a year, and the journey to the distant port of Daran’hei would take four months if she didn’t delay at all.

As it was, she would need to delve into Dungeons along the way and hunt beasts so she could earn enough money to occasionally stay inside clan holds, Waystations, or Road Towns. Surviving the wilds wasn’t guaranteed in the best of times, and on a Journey, it was almost guaranteed that someone who didn’t make use of the Dungeons along the way would end up dead. If nothing else, killing Beasts with one’s affinity was enough to quickly raise its tier when it was below 20, and Dungeons were a reliable way to do so regularly.

Even more, one of her goals in life had always been to take the Path of the Adventurer. She yearned to risk her life in Trials and Dungeons for the sake of becoming stronger, she desperately wanted to see pride in Fan’ar’s face when she returned and spoke of her journeys, and one day, she wanted to be known across the Nine Lands.

In other words, for all her unique aspects and abilities, Karzaia was your typical child who wanted to make a name for herself, just like any other.

The edge between the lands held by the Clan Hold and the wilds was clearly delineated by dense forest, and once she entered, she would not be able to return to those lands until her Journey was over. It was for that reason that she lingered. Her parting with her caretakers had been bittersweet, as they all knew only a little over half of all those who passed the Trial survived their Journey. Karzaia herself was full of enough of the feeling of invincibility inherent to youth that she didn’t seriously think she wouldn’t survive as long as she gave her all, but the clansmen all knew that even the most talented could be slain by a single misstep at the wrong time during their first travels outside the clan.

So it was that the emotions filling the hearts of both had been greatly different, the young daughter of Manthein having full confidence in her own abilities, and her caretakers remembering the faces of siblings, children, and friends who had never returned. The customs of the clans made sense, because those that did return were much more capable than anyone below the rank of a knight or an inner sect member on another continent. However, it did mean that less than half of all clan children ever became adults. When half the people you grew up with were destined to die before reaching adulthood, it gave a new meaning to the concept of loss.

Karzaia’s first steps into the wilds came with the chill of being observed by something far more powerful than any mortal. She shivered and wanted to curl up into a fetal ball at the sheer pressure of the presence. The power, restrained as it was, that it was displaying without even showing itself was greater than her parents or the most powerful members of the Clan.

She knew there were ancient mana beasts that gained true self-awareness and formed territories that abutted those of humanity, but she had never imagined one would be so close. She had no doubt that this presence was that of one of the beasts in question, and if she had known, she would have made an effort to obtain a proper offering before entering the forest.

It never occurred to her to wonder why her fellow clansmen hadn’t warned her. The pressure of the gaze and her absolute trust in her people combined to make it impossible for her to figure out that she had been deliberately put in this position. Nonetheless, she set her shoulders in determination and walked forward, intent on making her way through the beast’s territory as quickly as possible.

And that was the first test every Manthein youth had on the day they set out on their Journey… the gaze of the Forest Guardian. Those that broke and surrendered their lives at the restrained pressure would become food for the Guardian, and those that continued onward would be acknowledged.

The Guardian was a grand green dragon who had settled in the area over one hundred thousand years in the past, and most of the forest was grown on its back, the roots gaining nourishment from its flesh and mana. In a very real sense, it was the forest, so it was only natural that it would detect anyone who entered the forest, the moment they entered it.

There was no malice in the creature. It had evolved beyond the point of needing malice or feeling any real hunger. Even the souls and flesh of those that broke no longer increased its power or provided nourishment, as they were too low in tier to satisfy it.

Karzaia would never know the creature simply had no interest in eating anymore or that if it had been much younger, it would not have bothered observing her before eating her whole. Even the cultivators of other continents would not dare to challenge the dragon. Its body was nearly invulnerable to energy-based strikes, and no cultivator still remaining in the Realm would be capable of harming it with physical blows.

The only being it had ever submitted to in its incredibly long life was the king who had once unified the continent, and it barely recalled that time, as it was still relatively young when the king perished.

The youngling smells nostalgic, It thought to itself as it observed Karzaia hurrying through its territory. It gently urged its subjects away from her path, something in its spirit not wanting to see her fall.

It found itself recalling memories so old that they could barely be called memories, imprinted in his soul but forgotten by his mind due to the sheer length of time he had lived. It recalled the dominant king who had ridden atop its back on the days when its sire was not available to be ridden. It recalled wars where it carried one or another of the king’s spawn at his request, the blood of thousands spraying across its scales, cooling them pleasantly during the heat of battle.

For the sake of those memories, it kept its testing of the young spawn to the bare minimum. It sensed the youngling would not perish from his gaze, in any case. The spawn’s soul was too dense for that.

When the youngling made its way into the forest outside the dragon’s territory, it returned to sleeping, its dreams now of times long past, when the world was different and the bothersome blue screens didn’t pop up every time a few centuries passed and its affinity improved.

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Karzaia could feel when the beast’s attention was diverted. It was when she went from the vibrantly green forest whose leaves didn’t fall even in winter to a forest with sparse foliage and deep drifts of snow. The land around her felt almost lifeless compared to the forest the beast made its territory, but this was an illusion created by the sheer vitality the ancient dragon lent to the plants rooted in its flesh.

She came to a stop at the foot of a twisted, gnarled oak and climbed into its limbs to rest and consider her immediate future.

The Trask Dungeon is within two days travel of the western edge of the forest, but it is primarily full of goblins. The dungeon spirit isn’t generous with the drops, either… She thought, recalling information from the clan’s archives.

The Azure Crystal Trial a week’s journey to the northwest is said to be able to grant new affinities and awaken bloodlines if you do well, but it is meant for people at Tier 10 or higher. Best to avoid that until I’ve delved a few dungeons and increased my tier, She continued, her eyes closed but her affinity’s tentacles of soul mana weaving throughout the area, allowing her to remain aware of her surroundings.

She was at Tier 6, a fact that she had discovered after exiting the Trial. Apparently that was normal, if you killed the boss monster of the Trial of Manthein. Some sneaked past it, while others put it to sleep with alchemical poisons… there were any number of ways to succeed. The requirement was that the Trial-taker had to either kill the boss or get past it to the exit.

At Tier 6, her ability to utilize her Talents had increased significantly, telling her why it was the first threshold. It was almost a doubling of her ability to use the affinity, and Fan’ar had told her that that kind of increase was standard for each of the milestones at 20, 40, and 100.

Before reaching Tier 6, the range of the sensing ability she’d created had been only two dozen feet, but now it could now extend up to fifty feet if she strained at it. Her forging had also grown easier, though it was still as painful as before… and she could create larger objects. Her sense of how an object was put together when she was reinforcing it had grown sharper and more detailed, as well.

The only aspect of her Talents that hadn’t increased was her tempering. The trauma from her wounds had not been sufficient enough to push it over the edge, though she could sense that she only needed a little bit more before it evened out with her other Talents.

Not that she was in a hurry. The cost of increasing her tempering got higher with each level, and it was already at the point where simply punching, kicking, and slamming her shins into iron plates didn’t produce sufficient trauma to increase it. A barbed whip coiled up in the bottom of her pack was the answer to the problem for the near future, but Fan’ar had told her she would need to begin exposing herself to elemental extremes to level it after 10. Apparently, all tempering abilities reached that point at level 10, which was why many people stopped actively tempering themselves at that point, mostly because the levels of pain and trauma necessary grew exponentially after that.

She thought of his advice, to enter the Caverns of Burning Stone once she reached level 10 in her tempering and expose herself to the intense heat there until she could survive the magma pools. After her affinity broke the Tier 5 ceiling, the limitation on her ability to level up Soul Tempering was removed entirely, as it was at Tier 6 that a person’s body began to become one with their affinity in truth.

She frowned as several mana beasts came within range of her senses. She had yet to decide where to head for first, but she decided to set that aside for the moment. She wasn’t stupid enough to split her attention between a pack of beasts and idle thoughts that could be considered later.

She closed her eyes and sent out more ‘tentacles’ of her affinity, wincing as the pain of its use grew worse, Six canine beasts, one of them significantly larger than the others… a pack of forest wolves with an alpha?

It was troublesome to consider, as four-legged beasts of the same level were generally more dangerous than the ones that walked on two feet in a natural setting. In terms of simple physical ability and the potential for affinity manifestations, they inevitably outclassed the demi-human types.

Too much for me to handle without a better defensive position, She concluded. Arrogant belief in her own power was one of the few teenage flaws she didn’t possess. The Trial of Manthein had beaten the last of that out of her when the drake had nearly ended her life.

She considered her options before pulling a coil of rope with a lead ball at the end out of her ring. She began swinging it in a circle, building up speed before she tossed it toward a nearby, much taller tree, jerking her wrist at precisely the right time to cause the lead ball at the end of the rope to curl around the limb. She then leapt off of her current perch and swung out over the forest floor until she hit the tree’s trunk feet-first. She then began to climb, getting as high in the tree’s limbs as she possibly could before they began to protest her weight.

She looked down, and sure enough, the pack of wolves was now circling the tree she had first climbed, sniffing at the point where she had scrambled up the trunk. If she had a bow, she could have started sniping them, but even that would be foolish, as the alpha’s unnaturally bright red fur probably indicated the existence of an affinity-based ability.

Normally, beasts didn’t develop an affinity before they reached the second stage of their evolution. The average beast at the second stage was roughly equivalent to a soldier at Tier 10, meaning the alpha was, at the very least, the equivalent of four tiers above her in power.

The wolves were all about equivalent to or weaker than Karzaia, but their bodies were specialized as fast and strong predators, meaning that simple calculations of power were only a vague indication of the actual danger of the four-legged beasts. So she waited patiently, silently as the beasts searched around the other tree, the alpha’s sharp and intelligent gaze constantly shifting from point to point as he searched for potential threats to his pack.

While the wolves were looking into the branches of her former perch, they never really searched the other trees. She was downwind from the wolves, so it was unlikely that her scent would waft in their direction. Moreover, she was high enough in the tree that none of the wolves other than the alpha could reach her. The alpha… well, she was fairly sure a dart of her affinity to the head would disable him if he made a try for her, though she was pretty sure she didn’t have the density of power necessary to kill him with one without spending a half hour or more forging it in advance.

Suddenly, Karzaia felt a new presence enter the range of her ability. This presence was much larger and ‘denser’ than the wolves… to the point where she felt a premonition of death at its passing. A moment later, all the wolves save the alpha were splattered across the trees and a demi-human female with pale white skin, bone ridges on her temples, and a single pitch black horn emerging from her forehead appeared, a clawed hand grasping the throat of the alpha.

Karzaia felt a chill run up her spine at the sight, for the creature below was one type that every clansman knew to avoid.

A Fallen Oni.

In the past, the Nine Lands were home to nine unique races. After a great king conquered the Nine Lands, the races intermingled until their bloodlines combined into the people of the clans known today. One of those nine races was the Oni, a species of humanoids that could be recognized by the horn emerging from their forehead.

Unfortunately, a terrible event sometime after the king’s death cause an imbalance between chi and mana in the Nine Lands, and the few pureblooded Oni who remained were reduced to beasts as a result. The Oni’s bodies were adapted primarily to the use of chi, so when most of the chi of the Nine Lands vanished, their bodies and minds were starved of sustenance until they went mad. Over time, the maddened Oni adapted to the use of mana, but by that time, their intellect had been reduced to the level of an orc or a hobgoblin, and they were constantly driven by berserk battle rage to kill anything they saw.

Even the least of the Fallen Oni were the equivalent of a Tier 30 existence. They were monsters who could slaughter an entire town in a few minutes, and Karzaia could sense this female was far above the average, dwarfing even her father in power.

As she watched, the Fallen Oni opened her mouth and tore out the throat of the alpha with her sharpened incisors, drinking deeply of the affinity-laced blood with an entranced expression on her inhumanly beautiful face. Karzaia remained utterly still, even ceasing to breath as she kept her eyes unfocused, careful not to look directly at the creature, lest it sense her gaze. Unlike the wolves, it was unlikely the Oni would fail to notice if she was stupid enough to focus her gaze on it.

Moreover, Karzaia could feel a throbbing in her chest, a pulsating need that made her want to take what the Oni had for her own. She was confused by this need. It felt alien to her spirit, while resonating deeply with her body. She had never felt such a disparity between her body’s emotions and those of her soul before.

If she had a deeper knowledge of the world, she would have known it to be the Call of Bloodlines. She, like most clansmen, possessed numerous bloodlines from the ancient races, even if almost all clansmen either looked elven or human. The fact that she had access to chi only made the Call more intense for her.

However, the density of Karzaia’s soul was such that she was able to sit there silently, enduring as her flesh tried to seek an awakening that would doom her, one way or the other. For no true Oni could survive without Falling in the Nine Lands.

In time, the Fallen Oni moved on, after devouring the remains of the wolves in their entirety, its hunger seemingly endless. Karzaia remained still as the pulsating core of need within her chest eased gradually, occasionally surging in a near-sentient attempt to force her to pursue.

This was another reason why encounters with Fallen Oni rarely went well for clansmen. The desire for a bloodline awakening was inherent to their bodies, almost impossible to resist. Those who fell to that desire when facing a Fallen Oni were doomed, and the act of resistance itself often created enough hesitation that even the most powerful clansman might find himself being eaten alive.

She had bitten through her lip during her attempts at self-restraint, only the fact that she was downwind from the Oni saving her from it detecting the scent of blood. Blood trickled down her chin and soaked through her mask, exposing her to the bitter cold of the outside air.

Using her affinity, she forcibly created a seal over the wound before searching the area to the limits of her ability, No more beasts… and the Oni is long gone.

She sighed with relief before returning to considering her course. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for the night, since the sun was already falling below the horizon.

There is a Trial to the north in Fantenheim that can be challenged by any Tier, perhaps I should consider challenging it, The Fantenheim Trial was a popular one, for it was a Trial that tested one’s quality of character rather than their fighting abilities. A good percentage of those that went in died, but those that came out, often came out with rewards exceeding those of the average combat Trial.

Karzaia removed her mask and tried to squeeze the blood out, sighting with irritation when her efforts failed to have much effect. Reluctantly, she exchanged it for another facemask, this one partially made of metal, meant to filter out toxic fumes rather than simply protect against the cold. The reason she didn’t like it as much was because it was uncomfortable to wear, even though the protection and warmth it provided was of great value to her, given that it wasn’t safe to start a fire.

She closed her eyes and fell into a deep meditative state, circulating her chi through her meridians. Using her new Talent, she ‘convinced’ her soul-infused chi to dissolve the filth that inevitably built up inside as she cultivated in the poor environment of the Nine Lands. Normally, the impurities would be sweated out, but, using a technique she had found in one of the manuals in the Manthein library, she forced her body to expel it through her saliva.

She pulled down her mask, exposing her mouth, the cut on her lips from where she had bitten them slightly swollen and reddened. She spat a clump of black material down to the forest floor, her lips twisting as more impurities befouled her tongue. She continued the process of cleansing her meridians for almost an hour, spitting out clumps of impurities every few seconds, before her saliva ceased to exude the putrid matter. She then took a mouthful of water and swished it through her mouth before spitting one last time, cleansing her mouth of the last of the awful flavor.

She replaced her mask and settled down on the limb, ignoring the notification that told her the Talent had risen in level to 2. This time, the meditative state she fell into was a fugue meant to allow her to sleep while her affinity senses remained active, and she dozed through the rest of the night.

______________________________________________________________________

She came back to herself the next morning to find that the forest floor was covered in beetle-type beasts, clamoring as they feasted on the bark near the base of certain trees. The tree she was in was being chewed on, and she narrowed her eyes as she realized her affinity wasn’t picking up anything from the beetles whatsoever.

These things don’t have a soul, and their bodies are only partially animate, She thought. The ‘spark’ of life in each beetle was only slightly more powerful than a stalk of wheat or an ear of corn. As such, her mind had automatically dismissed their presence as irrelevant when it touched upon them during the night.

If I slept on the ground, I would have been eaten alive, She thought with a small chill running up her spine.

Another part of her was glad that she’d had this experience early in her Journey. Her confidence in her use of her affinity to detect the world around her might have caused her death at a later date if she hadn’t encountered the beetle swarm.

Still, it’s a surprise that they don’t climb the trees… and they only seem to be eating the non-evergreens… Realizing that, she pulled the weighted rope out of her pack and used it to move to a nearby evergreen to wait for the swarm to leave.

She watched in horrified fascination as most of the trees in the area fell one by one, the swarm devouring them at a terrifying rate. In the distance, she could hear screams and roars, as well as the sounds of explosions and lightning as various beasts encountered the swarm and struck back at the voracious creatures.

It took almost half a day for the swarm to pass through… and when it was gone, all that was left were the evergreens and the scattered bones of beasts lying atop bare earth.

She shivered as she came down from the tree and looked in the direction – straight west – that the swarm had gone in, North to Fantenheim, it is.

She started jogging to the north, desiring nothing more than to put distance between herself and the swarm as it devoured the landscape.

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For the next three days, Karzaia traveled through forest and snow-covered plains, slaying beasts as she could and breaking them down into materials as she went. Many times, she had to hide when larger packs of beasts approached her kill sites, and at other times, she had to flee because a beast was too powerful for her to handle.

It was a mark of how well she was trained that she could tell the difference with relative ease, and, though she didn’t know it, the first week of her Journey was significantly smoother than the norm for Manthein younglings. Those that survived the baptism of the green dragon’s attention were the tougher and more capable children of the clan, so they were unlikely to get themselves killed before reaching the first settlements. However, most at least took a few wounds or lost a finger or two, leaving them with scars and trauma that would haunt their dreams for some time to come.

The worst trouble Karzaia had after leaving the stripped forest was when she ran across a large serpent in hibernation and woke it up, causing it to lash out at her – more in irritation than out of any desire to eat her. The resulting brief confrontation left her with a number of bruises, and it was only because a lucky dart of soul energy pierced the creature’s brain that she was able to make her escape.

It was then that she confirmed what she had suspected previously. Unlike the Trial beasts, whose souls were fragmentary or nonexistent, the best her soul darts could do was temporarily daze a beast that was above her in tier. The serpent managed to regain its balance within seconds of her escape, and it was only because it was winter that the creature decided not to pursue, instead returning to its magically-warmed burrow to slumber the season away.

The town of Fatenheim was situated on the border between Manthein and Kalhaz territory, at a point where the border dipped deep into the ‘body’ of Manthein’s territory… a remnant of an age of war and mutual conquest that was so long in the past that even history no longer recalled its name. The only reason the stone-walled town existed was because of the permanent Trial that lay within its borders, and most of the people within its walls were younglings on their Journey, adventurers, or exiles from the clanholds who had settled into a role maintaining one of the sparse settlements that lay between the clan capitols.

Karzaia’s approach and entrance to the town went unremarked, for the people there were mostly disinterested in one another. If members of clans with bad blood were to encounter one another, it would lead to bloodshed if they knew. Adventurers who sought out a Trial were only interested in preparing, and the exiles were only interested in selling the equipment and supplies that both sides needed. It was tradition not to bring matters of clan into Trial or Dungeon settlements, and all children who went on their Journey were told not to mention their clan until they had returned successfully.

The town itself differed immensely from what Karzaia was familiar with. Manthein’s homes were stone cottages, many of them carved out of the side of the mountain. Even the most humble of structures in Manthein were made primarily of stone, with slate tiles for the roofs.

Fantenheim’s structures were obviously temporary ones, with dead wood from the forests tied together to make huts that looked like they would leak during a rain. This was unsurprising when Karzaia thought about it, as no town this small would survive even the least of beast waves. It was likely it was destroyed on a regular basis, then rebuilt around the Trial.

There were exceptions, where clay bricks had been placed around a dug-out pit, then wooden slats placed overlapping at an angle to let rain and snow slide off to the ground. These were mostly businesses, of which there were about a half dozen, including a smithy, an alchemy shop, a large inn, a tavern, and a trading post.

Karzaia entered the inn without much hesitation, walking up to the counter at the front. The inn was only a single-story above ground, but there appeared to be at least one floor below the base, meaning it was larger inside than it seemed from the outside. An aging woman with the features of a Cavarel clansman sat behind the counter and greeted Karzaia as she entered.

“Welcome traveler. On your Journey?” She asked, looking happy to have a new customer.

“Yes. This is my first stop,” Karzaia answered with a nod, removing the mask covering her face with some relief.

“Well the fee is four coppers for a night, five if you need a meal. I suggest you spend some time working the small dungeon beside the Trial before you leave. The drops there are easily gained and turned into coin at the trading post,” She suggested.

Karzaia hesitated, then put down five coppers from her spatial ring, asking about the dungeon, “What kind of monsters are there?”

“Mostly goblins and orcs. Goblins drop copper fetishes and crude iron weapons. The orcs drop their meat and various tools of low quality. Not much in the way of chests unless you fight the boss, which I don’t recommend,” She replied.

“Why?”

“It’s a High Ogre. Damned thing is nine tiers above the rest of the monsters in the dungeon. It isn’t something someone just through their first Trial should be facing head-on,” The aging woman explained kindly.

“Why are you so helpful?” Karzaia asked quizzically.

The innkeeper cackled in amusement, “Heh, I used to be where you are standing. I tried to walk the Path of the Adventurer until I lost my foot during a beast wave. I know all the mistakes a youngling can make, because I made them myself.”

“… you didn’t return to your clan?” Karzaia asked quietly.

The woman slowly shook her head, “You shouldn’t ask questions like that outside a clanhold, girl. I’m not offended, because I know better than to expect sense out of a child, but a lot of the people here would draw a blade if you asked them.”

“Forgive me, please,” Karzaia said, honestly apologizing for her mistake. She needed to remember this wasn’t the clanhold, where the clansmen were willing to answer questions from a child regardless of their content.

“As long as you understand. I’m not the type to get my back up about this kind thing, but that doesn’t mean I’ll answer. Here’s the key to your room. The first symbol and number indicate the floor, the second the room number,” She said, tossing a brass key the size of her hand with a wooden tag attached to Karzaia.

Karzaia caught the key and examine the tag, finding an arrow pointing down with a 2, then a 7 spaced out to the right, “The second basement, room 7?”

The woman answered her muttering, “That’s right. Sorry there isn’t anything available in the higher floors, but this is a busy time of year. Nothing to do in winter but hunt or attempt the Trials, so we usually get a bunch of adventurers living out of here while working the dungeons this time of year.”

Karzaia shook her head, smiling slightly, “I’m just happy to have a place to sleep with a roof over my head. If I hadn’t slept in a tree, I would have been eaten by that swarm of beetles three days ago.”

“… did you say a swarm of beetles? Did you see where they went?” The woman asked intently, her expression grim.

“They headed straight west, and I came from three days south of here,” Karzaia answered, unsure of why the woman was so intent.

She sighed with relief, “If they are headed out that way, at least we don’t have to worry about them. I feel sorry for the people out that way, but nothing is worse than an attack of devourer beetles on a town without walls.”

“Devourer beetles?” I queried.

“The worst type of beast… one that has nothing valuable even if you kill it and is almost impossible to kill without wide-area destructive sorcery. If you leave one alive, there will be millions inside a week, and they devour everything except the evergreen trees wherever they pass,” She said sourly.

“You sound like you’ve dealt with them before,” Karzaia remarked, interested but also badly desiring a few hours of sleep safe under a roof.

“Three times… twice this town was wiped out by those things, all the adventurers and kids on their Journey like you killed in a matter of hours. I only survived because I hid on the lowest level and blocked off the stairs with bricks. Everyone outside the lowest floor died screaming,” She said, obviously reflecting on bitter memories.

Those things are as scary as I thought… I’m glad I didn’t follow them, Karzaia thought with some relief.

“Anyway, meals are anytime between nightfall and the turn of the day. Any later and you’ll have to take breakfast instead of supper,” She warned as Karzaia began to take the stairs down to the lower levels behind the receiving desk.

“Thank you for the advice and the hospitality,” Karzaia said, giving her a weary smile before continuing her journey to find a bed.

The room she was assigned was plain, a simple bed with a straw pallet in the corner, a water pitcher on the nightstand beside it, and three hooks bolted to the stone walls for hanging clothes and gear. For the first time in almost a week, Karzaia stripped herself of gear and clothing, revealing her body briefly before she changed into a smooth green wool one-piece dress.

She lay herself down on the bed with a yawn, burrowing under the heavy quilt atop the pallet. Soon she was snoring gently, the built up exhaustion from the first leg of her Journey knocking her out entirely now that she could relax in truth.