Vathis: Ashes of the Forsaken

A New Beginning in the Ashes of the Past

The road stretched endlessly before them, a ribbon of dust and stone weaving through a world stripped of warmth. The sky hung low, overcast with storm-bellied clouds that never wept. Somewhere in the distance, the caw of a lone raven cut through the silence, a sound sharp as broken glass.

Aeron walked in measured steps beside Segirus, the man who had shattered his curse yet left him teetering on the edge of something far greater. The hunger was gone—no, not gone, merely dormant. A beast slumbering in the marrow of his bones, watching, waiting.

And beneath it, deeper still, something else stirred. Something older.

The ruins of the village lay behind him, but the memory clung like the scent of smoke in his lungs. He could still hear them—their voices, their screams, the wet gurgle of life being torn away. A chorus of the condemned, echoing forever in the vault of his mind.

He clenched his fists, nails biting into skin.

"You are silent," Segirus observed, his voice even, unreadable.

Aeron exhaled through his nose. "What am I supposed to say?"

"That depends." Segirus stepped over a jagged root protruding from the road, his movements effortless, flowing like ink spilled across parchment. "Are you mourning what is lost, or contemplating what comes next?"

Aeron scoffed, the sound bitter on his tongue. "What comes next? After what I've done?" He let out a short, humorless laugh. "I became a monster. I destroyed everything. And you ask me what comes next?"

Segirus did not answer immediately. Instead, he came to a stop, boots pressing firm into the dust. His robe billowed slightly in the dry wind, the embroidered runes woven into the fabric glinting like dying stars.

"Sit," he commanded.

Aeron hesitated, then lowered himself onto the cold ground, cross-legged. Segirus did the same, mirroring him. The paladin-monk's silver eyes glowed faintly in the dimming light, like embers refusing to die.

"Tell me," Segirus said. "What do you believe you are now?"

Aeron frowned. "...What do you mean?"

"You were cursed," Segirus stated, unflinching. "The hunger devoured you. But now, it has been severed—restrained. You have awakened something else. Something long buried."

He gestured to Aeron's arms, where faint symbols flickered beneath his skin, pulsing with a rhythm he did not yet understand.

"So I ask again—what are you?"

Aeron looked at his hands. They no longer shook. They no longer dripped red.

But the stain had not been erased.

"...I don't know," he admitted. "I'm not the same. But I don't know what I've become."

Segirus nodded, satisfied. "That is the first step—understanding that you are no longer bound to what you once were. But now, you must decide."

Aeron's jaw tightened. "Decide what?"

Segirus leaned forward, gaze sharp as a honed blade.

"Whether you become something greater… or fall into the abyss again."

---

The First Lesson – The Language of Power

The monastery stood like a corpse atop the northern cliffs, a relic of a forgotten age. Its walls, worn by time and whispers, bore the remnants of gods who had long since turned their backs on the world. Here, amidst crumbling stone and prayers carved into ruin, Segirus began his lesson.

"The first thing you must understand," he said, crouching to draw in the dust, "is that rune magic is unlike any other form of sorcery."

Aeron watched as Segirus's finger traced something impossible—a symbol that seemed to bend the air around it, warping the very fabric of existence. The lines glowed faintly, humming like the deep note of a cathedral bell.

It wasn't just a shape. It was a command.

Aeron's pulse quickened. The meaning of the rune pulsed in his mind, alien yet familiar, as if he had always known it but had simply forgotten.

"Unlike elemental magic, which draws from external forces, runes define reality itself," Segirus continued. "Each one is not merely a spell—it is a law, etched into the bones of the world."

The rune flared, and the air around them shuddered. The dust in the wind stopped, frozen mid-drift.

Aeron inhaled sharply.

"How—?"

Segirus smirked, tapping the symbol lightly. The moment his finger brushed it, the dust fell again, the world resuming its flow as if nothing had ever changed.

"This rune," he said, "is a warding sigil. A single word in the language of creation."

Aeron stared.

This wasn't magic.

This was rewriting the fabric of existence.

He swallowed hard. "If I write one… I can just activate it?"

Segirus shook his head, amusement flickering in his gaze. "If only it were so simple."

With a flick of his fingers, the rune crumbled to nothing.

"The power of a rune is not in the writing," he explained, "but in the will behind it. You do not simply copy the symbol—you must understand it. Shape it with purpose. Bind it with meaning. Otherwise, it is nothing but a hollow mark in the dirt."

Aeron exhaled slowly.

He had always been quick to learn—his mind sharp enough to see patterns others missed. And somehow, this… this felt right.

Like something inside him had been waiting for this all along.

"Show me another," he said.

Segirus chuckled. "Very well. Let us begin with the first law of the world."

And so, the lessons began.

---

Elsewhere… The Gods Stir

Far beyond the reach of mortal hands, deep within the black void where forgotten things whispered, something woke.

The chains that had bound him were broken.

A truth long buried beneath blood and lies had begun to stir once more.

The Rune Mage has returned.

And the gods took notice.

A voice, vast and hollow as the spaces between stars, rippled through the void.

"The seal is broken. He walks the path again."

Another voice, sharp as fractured glass, hissed in reply.

"This cannot be. The First Circle erased his kind. There are no more Rune Mages."

The void shuddered, silent as an unmarked grave.

Then, a third voice—older than ruin, colder than time—spoke.

"And yet… he lives."

Silence.

Then a command.

"Find him. Bury him before he remembers what he is."

And so, the darkness moved.

The hunt had begun.