The glass bottle kissed Cyril’s forehead. He forgot the dream he was having. Some pleasant interruption from wakefulness, as the drink had promised to be. The bottle was empty and he had been sleeping on the floor. Both the result of a bad habit he’d picked up since losing his job.

Day had yet to break into his closet of a room. A narrow indentation inside the Runaway. Pushy seafarers separated Cyril from his baggage back in Loucester. All he’d taken on his person was coin and drink, both sadly depleted. Through the fog of the hangover, he discovered he was without his hat, a handsome (and expensive) accessory that he’d worn for two years.

The Runaway changed direction. Cyril’s empty bottle rolled over. A memory. Himself losing the hat to a gust of wind deep last night. An incident that had inspired the bender now punishing his head. Not that he needed much excuse to carry on like that these days. The rest of the night only returned in embarrassing fits and starts, with copious gaps between the moments of clarity.

Cyril examined the rest of his person. His hair, still shaggy and breaking out into stubble across his chin for he had left his razor in his baggage. Somebody (himself?) had slung his long coat over the vacant hammock occupying most of his cabin. His pants, his belt, his boots, all accounted for. The familiar slip of paper still rested in his pocket.

It had become a ritual, to read and re-read the letter. The pain lit his skin aflame. It set his mind on edge, the way he liked it. Free of the effects of malaise and alcohol.

Archwarden Cyril,

It is without hesitation that we thank you for your nine years of service with our esteemed guild, the Silver Dragon Order. Never was there a member of our corps that would not indicate you as being worthy of that esteem. Doubtless your work and manner have supported the legacy of yourself and our league.

It is with regret and sorrow that we must hereby relieve you of such membership as of this first day of the seventh month in the Age of Man, Year 186. We are confident that your next endeavor shall reflect your stature and capability, though we wish to have no part in it.

Regards,

Ricardo De La Joya, Chief Secretary of the Silver Dragon Order

The boss couldn’t be bothered to sign it himself. The only personal touch had been Cyril’s name in the address. It was the first time he’d ever been fired and the first time he’d ever had to look for a job. The pursuit merited nothing. Cyril sent letters of introduction to every guild on the Central Continent. He’d been lucky to even receive a formal rejection from these prospective new guilds. No doubt the brass at the SDO had soured his name for every outfit they could contact.

Working as a warden could be the most prestigious job attainable, if you were with the right guild. Independents and freelancers were untrusted, untested nomads. They were filtered out of proper channels and proper jobs until the only opportunities left invited a price on your head. As desperate as he was for work, Cyril didn’t think a life of criminality suited him. Only three weeks at sea carved a cavity in his heart. A hole that only imported wine, exotically-spiced game and penthouse suites could fill.

Now the scents of rot and salt plugged Cyril’s every orifice. Light flooded his cabin and vanished. Cyril blinked away the spots in his eyes. He stumbled for the portal outside, a narrow gap just big enough to reach his arm through to the outside world. He craned his head against the portal. His hangover protested, but it was worth it to see dry land.

Lyrique. A pit. Exempt from the eastern seaboard bluffs and attached to rocky shores. A mile of docks and shipyards tattooed the coast, narrowing into urban rows. The light had come from the torchhouses and another beam flooded his cabin. Already neighbors and sailors had been stirred from their sleep by the approaching continent.

Wooden shacks had long since replaced the imperious trees that had fenced the wild territory. Cyril had grown up with the shacks. More serious buildings, of red brick and gray stone, made up the background behind them. Round towers and five-story complexes and factories churned the land into what men wanted of it.

‘The Age of Man.’

Story goes that the first wardens only ever dreamed of the age of man. Anyone that tells you exactly what that means will say something different from the next guy you ask. Before it was the age of djinn and before that was the age of dragons. Wardens were meant to guard this delicate new age. To keep it from sliding backwards into the untamed eras where men were like cattle for dragons, or like toys to the djinn. To repel the monsters and gwyll that threatened the freedom of mankind.

Taking part in that responsibility is what inspired many wardens to join a guild. They could feel like old fairy tale heroes come to life. Cyril read the letter again. Measured it against Lyrique. He wondered which would have changed more, the town or himself.

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Closer still, he could make out the few bits he did remember of Lyrique. Old men still threw lines off the piers. The seven torchhouses, painted white and red all the way up to their peaks still illuminated the black waters. New buildings muddled Cyril’s familiarity. When last he left, Gwyllion Abbey was easy to find. He had watched it shrink with the horizon until it had become invisible. Cyril imagined the guild really disappearing with his departure, the way an imaginary friend fades as you grow old. Something remembered that leaves no evidence except the nostalgia.

Wind pushed through the portal, rattling the dismissal notice in Cyril’s hand. He remembered his hat disappearing into the darkness and suddenly remembered he was smiling when it happened. Cyril pushed his hand through the portal and released the letter. Wind greedily snatched it. Cyril had suddenly decided he didn’t want to read its words ever again.

The ship would soon pull into harbor. More and more men began shuffling outside of Cyril’s cabin. Tardy sailors preparing to dock. Cyril nestled into the coarse hammock. With any luck, he could cheat another hour of sleep before stepping foot into town. More sailors were moving outside, haphazard steps on the wooden deck. Then a crash. Then a few more.

Then a scream.

Cyril untangled himself from rope and fell into the same position that he awoke.

“Gwyll!” More men screamed. A child somewhere too. “Monsters!”

The Runaway was a three-mast galleon, sporting as many decks and white sails. The transport carried cargo and passengers from the Central continent to the West. The journey was advertised as full of danger, including “inclement weather, navigational predicaments and sea monsters.”

As a consequence, wardens were invited to take passage at a reduced price (the only way Cyril could afford the trip on his new income of nothing) or work as salaried security. The deal is usually just a convenience for traveling wardens. Gwyll and monsters are attracted to places of high emotional activity. Moving targets are less commonly affected. It also means that wardens don’t tend to see these threats coming.

Cyril pushed his way through the back-and-forth throngs of people. Panicky sailors buzzed about, looking for something to do. Passengers were urged back into their cabins and needed little convincing. Moving through the wild crowds and scarcely-lit annals of the Runaway was proving difficult with Cyril’s hangover.

He heard another scream from above and stopped moving. “Stand back!” he shouted. The people around him froze for a moment and gave him space. It had been three weeks since Cyril had attempted any sorcery. And he contained no Gwyll inside himself. He looked up at the wooden ceiling, trying to gauge its thickness.

With a start, Cyril exploded from the deck and crashed into the one above, merely cracking the material. His headache redoubled and the crowd around him remained frozen. His failure captivated the lot of them.

“Okay, okay,” Cyril bent his knees and tried again. “Sorry,” he said, before leaping off of one foot and successfully crashing through the deck above his head. Planks and splinters went everywhere. One sailor was tossed on his ass.

“Where are the monsters?” Cyril asked. His leap had not breached the deck of the ship. It had, evidently, silenced the sailor. The warden decided he had one more floor to ascend.

Cyril erupted through the ship’s main deck. He arrived near the aft mast and could look over the faintly illuminated carnage. One of the sails had been torn in two and the thick cloth dragged along the surface of the water. A few people, fewer than Cyril would’ve liked, were putting up a fight. The rest seemed only capable of watching or running. Darkness obscured the specifics until Cyril could get close.

Reddish tentacles sprang from deep shadows. Each tendril swung for the lives of sword-bearing seafarers. Cyril deflected the blows, feeling each slap score his limbs. The sailors didn’t flee.

Between this monstrosity and them stood a stranger, broad-shouldered, raven-haired, unwavering after a beatdown that would have absolutely ended the lives of several normal men. Cyril’s gray eyes studied the monster.

Gwyll are intangible spirits of nature mutated by the emotional energy born from human feeling. Their danger and their form vary endlessly, but that danger manifests if they inhabit a physical host. Humans can be difficult to possess, but other living hosts are much easier. In this case, a gwyll had possessed an octopus or a squid or something. It perverted the animal’s natural form into something suited for killing humans. For devouring their flesh and consuming their emotional energy.

Only near the end of the age of Djinn did they unleash monsters on the world. Where before, spirits were said to be harmless, if not mischievous, aspects of the natural plane. The natural spirits were incubated in the elements of the world. The injection of emotional energy perverted these nature spirits. It made them hunger for the life force of humans. This mutation gave them the tools to hunt it too. The old Djinn ensured humans would suffer the consequences of defying them long after the end of their reign.

The monster attacking the Runaway appeared as a writhing nest of tentacles, all coiled around a hidden core. Dismembered humans floated like islands in the syrupy sea of blood around its position on the deck. Any human loss was a failure for a warden. Cyril would not fail twice.

The tentacles moved like flexible spears, carving unpredictable paths through the air and towards Cyril. He did not wait for them. Cyril severed the suction-tipped spearheads from their limbs. Mana, emotional energy, surged in his arms and his strength was enough to dismember the monster. Black ooze, not blood, leaked from each new wound. More tentacles made to kill him and he diligently dispatched each attack. Finally, only a few were left, still tangled about its ugly, bulbous head. Blank, dark eyes studied Cyril. He fought the urge to wretch.

Cyril gathered his own emotional energy, his own mana, and delivered the power into his legs. The octopus monster made its final assault only too late. Cyril forced his boot through the fleshy, vulnerable head and pulverized it. The tentacles went limp. There was no clear rule on how to kill a monster. But when it stopped trying to eat you, you could say the job was done.