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Beyond the reaches of the farthest sea, and at the cusp of what some might call the edge of the world, standing just beneath the horizon and the setting place of the sun, lies the greatest city of any age.

The throne of civilization, the marketplace of culture across all the known world and beyond; the citadel not a man or creature could ever besmirch. A place of legend that even the angels themselves would only admire.

It is named Edelgrand. The center of everything.

Fashioned through the unending effort of each race of man and kin, marking the last and greatest golden age in the history of the first world. The age of our culture, finally rising above the oppression of the past.

Only through that grand alliance of the eldest Windwalkers, the highest of the orders of Shifters, and the bravest of travelers that once ventured through the world of dreams. Together, they birthed Edelgrand atop the graves of great dragons, crossing sky-piercing mountains and taming silver seas.

All the dreams of the world still live there, burning as beacons of hope, lighting the way forward through the night. It tightly holds onto those many lives, gathering all who seek to find a new way forward, and all who seek enlightenment.

Edelgrand, center of everything, its silver gates reaching the very clouds above, protects us. It shelters weary souls, steering civilization forward into an age of endless sunlight.

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“Oi- kid! What do you think you’re doing? It’s near dusk and those torches still ain’t lit!”

The boy looked up quickly, almost knocking himself over with the shock, his bleary stare directed up from the book resting on his knees.

“Wait- what?”

A scowling face greeted him, that of a middle-aged man with a badly shaven beard and matted, damp hair pulled across his scalp.

“Gotta pay attention to these things, kid,” The man’s voice was weary, rough from his age, yet clear enough to easily be picked up from a distance. “I told you to light the torches, alright?”

The area was nearly empty save for a rough-looking tent sitting in the center of the small clearing, a charred pit of blackened twigs and ash sitting before it, the depression half-filled with rainwater from the drizzle lightly falling.

Around the edge of the campsite, creating a barrier between it and the surrounding black pines, a ring of old posts sat still. Each post, although made from warped and nearly rotted wood, was painted over with bright silver patterns, randomly traveling downwards across their skin. Their tops were coated in ragged cloth, and though they keeled with age, not one seemed to waver beneath the slight wind that whistled throughout the area.

“Ah, sorry! I’ll… do it now.”

But the man had already turned away, absently lifting the flap of the tent and crouching down to the inside. He stopped for just a moment, glancing over his shoulder to reply.

“Don’t forget next time, Rush. You know what’ll happen to the both of us if you do-”

The boy nodded to the warning, rising from the severed log he had made his seat and leaving that thick, leatherbound book behind him.

The book was worn, filled with almost yellow pages and covered in old watermarks along with other, darker stains, but the light drizzle of the rain ran harmlessly off the surface of the paper. It seemed older than even the man in the tent, its thick cover was embroidered with tarnished silver, those winding patterns forming a circular emblem of a willow tree.

Reaching under the gray cloak hanging off his shoulders and into one of many strung pouches beneath it, the boy pulled out a worn flint and steel, turning to the closest post.

Multiple strikes later, the action made more difficult due to the overhanging drizzle, and the first of the dozen or so torches were lit. The boy quickly repeated the process until the entirety of the ring was complete, each torch burning strongly, even underneath the wind and increasingly heavy rainfall.

His stringy brown hair, multiple braids tied through it, was already wet from the water and stuck flat across his skin, matted bangs clumping in heavy strands as they fell over his squinted eyes.

“Alvo, I’m done!”

“Good! -Now get in here, and don’t leave that book out in the rain again!”

His eyes widened, head whipping towards the thick book still sitting on the wood, and he rushed for it quickly, movements jerking with panic.

After grabbing the book and holding it against his chest, hunching over slightly to shield it from the elements, the boy jumped into the tent. He was rushed, fueled by frantic energy, yet those old pages seemed completely unaffected by the falling rain.

With his soggy cloak dripping against the bottom padding of the tent, the boy smiled sheepishly as the man’s dark eyes turned to him.

“It’s fine, Rush, sit down. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

Although the boy still hugged the book against himself almost tenderly, he nodded and bundled up the gray cloak, setting it into one of the corners and dropping down onto his knees atop the remaining bedroll with a sigh, uncaring of the small puddles already forming around him.

The man was smaller than his demeanor suggested, with thin limbs and a tightly pale face. His expression was filled with a self-assurity, however- the kind of confidence that let a person stick out their chest and raise their head while walking forward. It gave the man a presence to him, one that could be felt even while he sat huddled within the tent.

He nodded to the boy, a glimmer in his flinty eyes.

“Sorry Rush, but tonight’s gonna be rough, I think. Probably won’t get much time to read that book of yours.”

The boy’s expression darkened slightly, though he still nodded. He let himself fall onto his back, laying on the bedroll and staring up at the tarp of tough fabric above the pair.

Though the wind continued to pick up in strength and ferocity outside the tent, mercilessly lashing out at the ring of torches and the clearing within, the firelight did not waver. In fact, the fires seemed to almost grow in luster the more the elements tried to snuff them out.

The tall, leafless trees, each one with blackened bark and drooping branches coated in scars, swayed in that wind; their branches swinging like swords in the night, throwing themselves through the air in a chaotic dance, conducted by those wild elements.

The pair of travelers, still wide awake, let themselves listen to the chaos just outside.

Neither allowed themselves to close their eyes.

“...Hey, Alvo?”

“What is it, kid?”

“When’ll we be getting out of the Blackpines again? To the coast?”

“-A few weeks, maybe.”

“And then we reach the coast?”

“No. There’s a bit more after the forest, but not much.”

“...Not much, huh?”

“...”

“...It’s crazy. After so long… we’re practically there already!”

“No. Don’t let your guard down yet. We’re still in Spirit territory. We will be all the way until Cliffside.”

“...”

“...”

“Right. Sorry.”

Outside the tent, a mist began to swirl low to the ground, flitting at the edges of the still-burning posts, and carpeting the muddied dirt with a slow reach.

The rain receded, taking the violent winds with it, leaving a quiet, starless night.

Although his eyes felt heavy, drooping slowly over his vision, the boy bit his lip to stay awake- the man lying beside him quiet and still, breathing steadily and with purpose, eyes staring sightlessly upwards.

The sky above slept in a cover of total black, not a single pinprick of light visible there, not through the endless cover of the clouds.

Beyond the ring of torches, a lone figure shifted in the dark.

The land seemed almost devoid of life- muddy ground filled with small rocks, and gnarled, gray roots reached out from beneath the earth. Black pines filled the forest, each one scarred an almost burnt color in the light of day, and each one without leaf or color of any kind.

The pair traveled quickly, not exactly at a run, though each of their steps was filled with a purpose. Their eyes set low on the ground before them, not stopping to turn or watch the surrounding forest. After all, there was nothing to look out for yet, and certainly nothing to admire.

The man carried a large satchel tied to his back, leather strapping holding it in place as he took the lead, walking ahead of the boy. He moved with vigorous speed, long strides leading him further through the blackened trees as his breaths remained as steady and purposeful as the night before. In comparison, the boy behind him was already panting, legs shaking, and bright eyes blurred with exhaustion. His pack was just the same size as his companions, identical straps and cloth covers holding it together.

The boy’s steps began to falter, back hunched and thin, cracked lips open to reveal puffs of breath hissing out from grit teeth.

The thick, leatherbound book was tucked into a large pouch on his waist. The blackened symbol on the cover barely caught the light, reflecting into the air and off the charred trunks bordering their trail.

“Kid.”

He looked up from the ground, staring at the man who had stopped in front of him.

“You need to hurry it up. I don’t think either of us want to be here for more than we must.”

The boy couldn’t stop his vision from blurring, just barely. He lowered his head, hiding his gaze, letting out a small sigh of breath. It was too quiet to reach the man’s ears.

“Right. Sorry.”

They moved on.

And as the miles passed below their feet, the forest around them seemed almost unchanging.

The pair passed by the same blackened trees, walking over muddied ground, climbing over ridges covered in boulders, and wading through shallow rivers. There were no signs of life in that place; no birds sat within the treetops, no bugs flitted through the chilled air, no wildlife stalked through the undergrowth. The forest had died a long time ago.

Although the boy occasionally looked around, a wariness in his gaze that dramatically opposed his childish face, he mostly kept his vision planted on the ground beneath his feet. Neither of the travelers looked around for more than a moment, and neither of them showed any kind of curiosity. Their bodies had been long since washed of such exploitable things.

They barely spoke.

It was only when the light of the forest, already muted from the overcast sky, began to fade, did the man stop in his tracks and turn to face his companion.

The boy was red-faced, his shoulders still slumped painfully, his knees visibly shaking, and his eyes almost clouded. His face was blank of any emotion. The only sign of the rabid pain in his lungs was the slightly unsteady breaths released from his open-hanging mouth.

The man nodded silently as the two made eye contact and set down his pack.

“This seems like a good place to stop. Get out the torches- I’ll set up the tent.”

They got to work.

Setting down their packs in an open space of ground, as far away from any of the trees as possible, they quickly released a few straps and took out large bags and bundles.

The process was identical to before- after pulling out twelve wooden posts, each one separated into shorter pieces in order to save space, the boy hooked them into various creases, connecting each post back to its original size, and planting them around the area cleared of underbrush.

With a tent staked by the older man, and a fire set within a small dug-out pit, light began to quietly return to the space behind the boy’s eyes.

Silence filled the clearing besides the slight crackling as the pair unloaded a box filled with small green bars, each one rectangular, around the size of the man's hand. They took two and quietly folded the rest away.

But although darkness began to creep into the forest, shadows growing across the ground, the tension that grew within their shoulders throughout the day slowly began to disappear. The two travelers say across from each other, staring deep into the fire, cross-legged on dry earth.

The boy set his book on the ground in front of him, nearly opening it before wincing as he bit into the cold, brick-like bar in his hand.

“...Alvo, when was the last time I told you how much I hated these things?” The boy’s voice opened up the relative quiet within the campsite, a small smirk forcing his lips upward. “And when was the last time we got to eat meat, Alvo? Didn’t you say there would be some animals in this place?”

“...I said there was a chance we would find animals. But after seeing it all in person, it seems I was wrong.”

The man replied with a hint of hesitation in his voice, some kind of quiet melancholy that made him look downward, his words tapering off slowly. The tone quickly killed any levity that had sprung from the boy, and the smile on the young traveler’s face vanished as quickly as it had arrived, his mouth forming a straight, firm line beneath his eyes.

“-Keep eating, Rush. Let’s turn in before the spirits get here.”

“Right.”

Days continued to pass in the same manner; the pair traveling through that endless forest and resting in the night- but their slumped shoulders never raised completely, and the thin skin drawn across their faces only seemed to grow paler.

The nights passed sleeplessly, each traveler laying still beneath the tent, eyes wide as they listened to the silence of the forest, and the sounds of distant footsteps in the dark.

Neither spoke a single word during those silent vigils, and only during the early hours of the morning, when light again began to filter through the gray sky, did they allow themselves to sleep.

After waking was when they were at their worst, with grave demeanors and empty stares. Only the familiar motions of packing supplies and getting ready for travel, made muscle memory by that point, were what enabled them to stand in the mornings and continue on. Their dreams would haunt them for hours more, but the constant travel always served for good distraction.

Throughout every one of those days, however, there never was any genuine complaint. While the boy halfheartedly whined about the food, and the man raised his voice about his companion’s occasional laziness, their progress never wavered. Each one continued at their nearly inhuman speed through the forest, even when the days only grew darker, and the already meager supply of food started to honestly waver.

It was on the morning of one such day when they first encountered an irregularity.

An hour after first setting off from their last temporary campsite, the boy was smiling, the nightmares of sleep already shoved away from his waking mind. He even raised his voice to speak with the man walking in front of him, his eyes bright.

“How much longer, d’you think?”

He didn’t get much of a response, simply the normal silence that was expected from his companion, but his bright expression didn’t waver, merely turning his eyes away and towards the trees surrounding the pair.

“I’m glad we’ll finally be out of here- tell me about the coast again, Alvo! What was the ocean really like? And the Windwalkers! Tell me about them, will you?”

“...You’ve been reading that book too much, y’know? -I haven’t spotted a proper Walker in a decade. And I already told you it’s stupid to ask about the ocean…”

Although his brows furrowed at the lackluster response, the boy continued speaking.

“That doesn’t mean everything’s all gone, though. Who knows? Maybe there’ll be something left by the time we get there, right?

He heard a sigh from up ahead and sped up to walk side by side with the man. The boy looked up with a mock-annoyed expression, his lips pursed even with his eyes sparked playfully.

“Listen- I’m just trying to be a little more optimistic… you know-”

But both of them stopped, and the boy cut off his own words as he stared at the ground before him.

The forest was filled with those blackened, leafless trees, branches crooked and sharp like thorny brambles; it’s ground, bereft of any kind of greenery, was muddy and dark, cracked boulders commonplace and not a single bit of vibrancy to be seen. It was safe to say that the forest was a dead place- one that hadn’t held a slip of life within itself for a very long time.

The corpse that lay on the ground before the two travelers, old enough that most of its flesh had rotted away, clothing tattered, was a testament to that fact.

“...Rush, check it.”

Although previously frozen in no small amount of shock, the boy instantly began moving at those words, crouching down to his knees and inspecting the dead body in front of them.

Not much could be seen from the mostly skeletal corpse, though looking at the remaining clothing, and the bits of metal armor still lashed onto sections of the body, it seemed to have been an adult male. The winged inscriptions on the metal were reminiscent of the old fiefdoms of the north coast, though the last of those civilizations had fallen long ago.

A deep, jagged slash cut across the front of the skeleton’s chest piece, and straight through the visible ribs beneath.

As he leaned over the body, the boy raised his voice.

“Well, this guy’s been dead for a while. Most likely, since the Merging- after all, he’s clearly a priest.”

The boy was calm, his face composed. After taking the short moment on the ground to rest from the hike, his breathing had slowed, and his eyes quickly began to fill with an inquisitive light. He spoke less to the man standing above him and more to himself, his thoughts uttered aloud even while sorting through years of the miscellaneous knowledge absorbed in self-study.

The man answered him, speaking in a calm but rough tone.

“Good- you’re speaking sense. But think, kid; there’s no guarantee he was a priest.”

“But then, how do you explain it? This guy’s clearly been here for a long time, probably long enough to be from before... And in that time, he would’ve risen, or at the very least, been buried in sediment from the elements.”

“You’ve been reading that book of yours and traveling with me for enough time besides- you should be able to think of another reason.”

“Um, I guess something else might be keeping his body from Rising? And protecting it from the elements?”

“Right.”

“But what could that be?”

“C'mon kid. The only outside force that could protect someone from rising would be…”

“-A trinket?”

“I’d hope so, because if it’s true, then it might still be on the corpse!”

While speaking, he raised an eyebrow at the boy, motioning with one arm to the body below them.

The boy sighed, but immediately got to work without complaint, unhesitatingly digging around the old corpse, and looking through any remaining pouches he could find, though eventually he raised his voice in a question.

“I’m confused, though. This guy’s been laying here a while, so why hasn’t anything come and wrecked his body, or something? A non-mage would have gotten their bodies taken away by monsters or something.”

“Trinkets can do anything. Hiding from monsters could be another effect, though I might be getting… optimistic.” He said the word with a faint hint of disgust. “Hurry it up, will you?”

The boy didn’t respond, leading the man to look over his companion's shoulder at the desecrated corpse.

“Fine. Just grab whatever you can see that’ll be useful, if you can’t find the trinket. -Those pauldrons look pretty decent.”

The boy nodded silently.

“Got it.”

It was hard work, pulling the skeletal remains up and into an angle where the comparatively small boy was able to pull off the remaining bits of armor. The worn straps occasionally caught on a small part of the rest of the corpse, which took a good amount of tugging and pulling to get loose.

But after a few minutes, the boy had strapped any good-looking pieces of metal onto the back of his pack.

“Alright, I’m good to go.”

“-Sure there's no trinket?”

“Don’t think so. Must’ve just been a priest.”

“...Just a priest, huh?”

The man grunted, shrugging his pack onto his shoulders and stepping over the skeleton without another word, continuing down the trail at the same quick pace. He walked lightly, as if they had never even stopped.

The boy followed soon after, not a second look spared behind, footsteps padding down through half-dried mud.

Far above those two travelers, away from the body and past the slightly swaying branches of the black pines, the gray sky darkened, and the rain fell once more.

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