A Shadow in the Mist

“Not all threats we face are from djinn or even Corruption itself. As always even before the Breaking our greatest enemies are own fellow men. The machinations of Kings still plague us as they via for power and the predations of man still roam the world preying on the weak to plunder them for their very lives.”

A letter from Sir Madison Miles discussing the rising threat of bandits following the Caswain War

Cain- Monday, August 5th, 564 AB

I woke the next morning and slid out of bed letting Aranea still sleep. I looked inward trying to see if I felt different now that I was a man in the eyes of society. I couldn’t tell if I felt any different, maybe more confident? I looked at Aranea’s golden hair spread out over the pillow and smiled. I could have been paired with an average or unattractive looking girl, but I hadn’t expected to be paired with someone like her. Her features looked to be made from porcelain, her hair spun from molten gold. Looking through the glass of the window I could see the sun just starting to rise. I pulled on my socks, undergarments, and trousers. My armor was still damaged, but I wasn’t likely to need it immediately.

I strapped on the leather armor and sheathed Achlys at my waist. The dagger dipped its top half heavier than its blade making it want to constantly dip and slide out of its sheath. I’d have to find a better way of carrying it around. Aranea stirred and sat up pulling the blanket up around her chest.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning…husband,” she said seeming hesitant on what to call me.

“You can just call me Cain,” I said.

“You can call me Aranea,” she said blushing as she slipped out of the covers.

She took a out a cotton white dress from the chest at the base of the bed she slid it on but couldn’t reach its buttons at her back. I went over and helped her button them up. She took out a corset next and I helped her fasten it as well. She brought out a blue overskirt and put it on to protect her dress and pulled on a cream-colored blouse.

I took her hand as we exited the wedding chambers. The sheets would need to be washed, a red stain marking it and our sweat permeated them. We entered the Church’s central chamber and went to the altar together kneeling as we gave our morning prayers. We rose together and went outside finding the commissary to break our fast.

My father approached out table and clapped me on the back. “I am proud of you son,” he said.

I rose and my father pulled me into a tight hug. “I need to return home to your sisters,” he said. “I will tell your older brother you’ve gone to the academy. Be well my son, I can tell you will already be a greater man than I.”

“I love you father,” I said embracing him back my eyes going wet.

My father released me and bent low over Aranea’s hand brushing it with his lips. She blushed but smiled at the attention.

“And you, young lady, take good care of my son. I want to see my grandchildren soon so you two better get started on that,” he said winking at the two of us.

Aranea blushed even deeper, her hand finding mine and I pulled her tight against me.

“We will,” I told him smiling back at him.

My father laughed loudly at that response but didn’t comment on it further.

I watched as my father saddled up. One by one brothers came wishing the two of us well and embracing as we bid farewell. I watched them ride into the distance feeling the comfort of Aranea’s hand in mine. We finished our breakfast and Aranea disappeared to gather her things. All my worldly belongings were already packed. My father had gifted me a horse, it wasn’t a Dire Steed, but it would carry both mine and Aranea’s weight easily on our journey to Mistwall. I looked to the south where the mountains rose into the sky, their peaks white even in the heat of summer and the mist rolling off them from the thousands of patches of Fog Land that were scattered across its slopes giving them the name.

I wondered what their names had been before the Breaking but whatever it had been it was lost to us now. Aranea returned carrying a wooden chest. I took it from her and attached it to our horses saddle behind where we would sit to not overbalance it. Sir Valren approached us, and I stood at attention.

“At ease Sir Cain, I’m not your commanding officer yet,” Sir Valren said. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“Then we will meet you at the town’s gates in half an hour,” Sir Valren said.

Mother Leora came out of the church and embraced Aranea. “Goodbye my little spider,” she said tears running down her cheeks as she kissed Aranea on the forehead. “May you be blessed with happiness and many children.”

Aranea smiled but also had a look of worried confusion on her face. “Is something wrong Mother?”

“No, my little spider,” Mother Leora said smiling. “It is just hard to watch a daughter grow up and leave the nest.” She turned to me, meeting my eyes. “Rember your promised to me, Cain Le’meer.”

“I will protect her with my life,” I promised her nodding in acknowledgement.

I helped Arana up into the saddle. She sat side saddle both her legs dangling off the right side. I mounted up behind her taking the reins and holding her against me with my other arm as we rode down the hill and through the town. Reaching the gates, we joined the procession of other horses. Sir Valren rode at the head with three other senior Wardens. The other two dozen Wardens were all Pages like me but only three others I could see had a Weaver riding with them.

I slowly moved through the ranks as we rode down the stone road towards the mountains.

“Excuse me Sir,” I said to one of the other senior Wardens.

“Yes?” he asked, turning around in his saddle to look at me a look of amusement on his face at my interruption. “I’m not a sir, call me Rineer.”

“Where are all the other Weavers,” I said.

He laughed. “These are noble son’s from the capital,” he said gesturing to the rest of my peers. “Unlike us provincials they don’t believe in taking Weavers at the start of their training. They’re more ‘enlightened’ then us simple folk they wait and let their children choose between themselves.”

“Then how do they get rid of their Corruption?” Aranea asked.

“They have what they call Companions,” Rineer said shaking his head. “They are Weaver whores employed by the nobility.”

Aranea looked shocked and he laughed again.

“Excuse my language, miss,” he said. “I wasn’t raised to be a Warden. I was a soldier until my weapon Ascended one day fighting a pack of djinn and decided to join you lot.”

“And the church allows these…Companions?” I asked.

“What city do you think this started in?” Rineer asked. “It rose up in Rome under the very eye of the Templars, they think their use of Companions makes them better than us, gives them choices about who they bond to.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Aranea asked.

“Would you want your husband to have slept around with half a dozen other women before marrying you and maybe always having some other woman in the back of his mind that he’d rather have then you?” Rineer asked. “This isn’t enlightenment it is merely the degeneracy of our generation.”

We fell back in the column giving the senior Wardens their space. Aranea moved her hands in spiral patterns, her face set in focused determination. I watched as golden thread slowly extended from her fingers twisting together as she used an ivory drop spindle and comb as she spun the golden light into a smooth strand of thread wrapping it around an empty wooden spindle. It took her hours and eventually she sagged back against me a look of triumph on her face.

“That’s amazing,” I said. “I thought you needed months of training after unlocking your core to learn to do that.”

“I’ve known the theory of how to do it my whole life,” Aranea said her voice full of joy but also exhaustion. “It’s harder than I thought it would be and more painful.”

She held up the spool of thread and I examined the glowing strands.

“How much corruption did it take to make that?” I asked.

“Almost everything in my core,” she said. “I got four-hundred XP from it though.”

“That’s good,” I said her words reminding me I had unspent Stat points. I pulled up my character sheet and applied five points to all my stats and twenty to my Agility bringing it up to seventy-one.

“Your very Agility focused,” Aranea said looking my character sheet over. “Shouldn’t you balance your stats out more?”

“I will,” I agreed. “But speed was the only thing that kept me alive in that last fight, once it’s at a hundred I’ll start working on bringing up my other stats in line with it.”

“I’m putting most of my stats into Will,” Aranea said. “I want to be able to defend myself with my skills if I get attacked by djinn again.”

I felt a shiver run through her as she remembered being chased and pulled her tighter against me. We continued riding down the road asking simple questions about the other person, favorite colors, foods and other little trivia. We stopped to camp a few hours before nightfall. I helped to set up the tents as Aranea and the other few women in our group prepared supper.

Our meal was just some quickly made biscuits served with sausage and wedge of cheese. I passed Aranea my wineskin to help wash our meal down. She took a sip and coughed but took a deep drink before passing it back.

“I’m not used to drinking spirits,” she said. “We only had it on feast days and Mother Leora was very strict about how much we were allowed to drink.”

We retired to our tent lying next to each other. Neither of us felt comfortable enough to be intimate with the other with this many strangers around us. I held Aranea against me enjoying the warmth on the cool summer night. My sleeping roll did little to cushion against the ground. We drifted off to sleep waking to the warmth of the rising sun.

We ate a small breakfast of leftover biscuit and jerky. I helped Aranea into the saddle as we carried on down the road.

“Have you been to Mistwall before?” Aranea asked me.

“Once,” I said. “When I was seven my father brought me through there.”

“Why?” Aranea asked.

“I am a bastard,” I told her. “My mother was a Weaver in Casway, she took in my father when he got stuck behind enemy lines during the last war. He was close to saturation and she was a widow, nine months later my brother and I were born.”

“You have a twin?” Aranea asked.

“Had,” I said memories of the storm and our house burning flashing through my mind. “He and my mother died during an ether storm. My father heard about it and took me home with him, that’s when I passed through Mistwall.”

“I’m sorry,” Aranea said. “I didn’t mean to bring up something like that.”

“Your my wife,” I said shrugging. “You should know these things about me.”

“Is Le’meer a noble house back in Casway?” Aranea asked me.

“Not to my knowledge but I don’t remember my mother ever talking about her family,” I said. “Most people shunned her because she aided my father during the war; they felt she was a traitor to the kingdom.”

“Why did she do it then?” Aranea asked.

“We are humanities shield against the djinn,” I said quoting my father. “We aren’t meant to serve Kings or Queens, we serve the Voice and protect people, not take lives.”

Aranea didn’t respond to that as we rode on the mountains to our left as we used the old road. The old roads were all damaged and their stones had all broken, but they were still well marked trails for ease of traveling. They had been created by our ancestors before the breaking and whatever they were made of had stood the test of time and many centuries well enough.

We approached a section of the road that ran adjacent to a Fog Land the ruins of massive buildings our ancestors had lived in visible above the tree tops their stone and metal frames covered in vines and moss. Sir Valren gestured for us to dismount; I slid out of the saddle and helped Aranea to the ground.

I walked over to where the senior Wardens were all standing as me and the other Pages awaited instruction.

“Sir Le’meer,” Sir Valren said. “Come here and tell me what you see.”

I moved next to him and surveyed the forest in front of us. The Mist would normally block any line of sight into the trees, but I could see through it perfectly. I was only aware of it being there as a shimmering haze in the air. I could see several wagons and horses deep in the tree line near one of the ruins.

“I see a camp in the Mist,” I said. “Could it be Fell Men?”

Rineer laughed. “This close to civilization? Fat chance of that, no those will be run of the mill humans, bandits probably. Probably got a lookout up in that ruined building somewhere, they will have seen us but they don’t know we’re Wardens yet.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

Sir Valren sighed. “I only have three Mist Wardens in our entire company here, you, Sir Rineer and Sir Haldred although he’s a Page and untested.”

“We got enough masks for everyone to breath but only three people that can see,” Rineer said. “I’ve heard you’ve already fought some djinn, quite a few judging by your level.”

“Before we assault their base,” Sir Valren said. “I want you and Sir Rineer to sneak in, your primary goal is to see if they have any hostages and if they do free them. Any damage you can do without being detected will also be appreciated. Don’t get spotted either of you, we can’t see what’s happening so won’t be able to back you up if you get in over your head.”

You have been invited into a party. Accept?

Yes/No

“This is for when we get into combat,” Sir Valren said. “I don’t want to accidentally kill you with friendly fire if I have to come in there using all my skills.”

I accepted the party invite from him. I was still in a party with Aranea but that left me three more space in the party I was in still. You could be in multiple parties at once so Sir Valren would probably organize everything while Rineer and I were in the Mist and get us all into a Raid group.

Rineer handed me a mask and air bladder. I took it keeping the fact I could breathe in the Mist to myself. I took the mask and nodded following Rineer towards the tree line. I looked back to see Aranea watching me with a look of pride on her face. I turned back to the Mist sliding on the mask as I stepped into it.