“E-Empress?”

In the cloying darkness, she was nothing but a silhouette with shining poison-green hair. The [Empress] shoved the [Guard] aside, revealing the stone door he’d been protecting.

“Please, Empress, no one’s been inside the temple in ages! Everything must be covered in dust! Let me call in a cleaning crew - “

“Silence.”

The [Guard]’s fingers went to his throat, any further words choked up inside him. After two-hundred years of serving the Imperial Palace, this was his very first time meeting the elusive Empress Ersenia! And he was making a fool of himself!

The door flew open, no doubt immediately recognizing the [Empress]’s supreme authority. She stalked inside with a single-minded purpose. He trailed in her shadow, unsure.

Twelve giant statues towered in a semicircle formation. Magical fire blazed in their hollowed eyes.

Though chipped and weathered, the stone figures radiated a profoundness which caused his soul to shake. He knew them. Everyone knew them. They were the twelve ancient heroes who ended the terrifying Age of Dragons and guided forth a new dawn: the Age of Man.

He quickly noticed that one hero’s eyes were missing their flames.

The man smirked down at him, a thousand mysteries in the curve of his lips. He wore the simple, dirty linen of a traveler as though it were the finest goldcloth, and proudly bore the strange glyph on the center of his forehead like it was a crown. The Prince of No Countries, he was called. The Vagrant.

Faces should look kinder without flames in their eyes, yet, somehow, he appeared infinitely crueler.

Empress Ersenia stared up at those empty, empty eyes. “Shit.”

//

Years later…

Beneath an evening-red canopy, a jackalope nibbled on a fern.

All was quiet.

Still.

And the shadows smelled sweet as rot.

A long ear swiveled, catching a faint noise. Then -

“Gotcha!”

The jackalope’s nose twitched - seemingly in amusement - before swiftly bounding off, leaving the young boy to crash uselessly to the ground. He shook bits of leaves out of his hair, red eyes sparkling eagerly. “Wait! Come back!”

The animal zig-zagged sharply around streams and fallen trees, fast as lightning. However, Raziel was similarly agile. He chased it deep into the forest. Every so often his fingers grazed the jackalope’s tantalizingly soft fur, but it always managed to twist out of his clutches. Raziel was so focused on his prize that he didn’t notice the woods darkening around him. He didn’t notice the way the trees grew gnarled, their leaves black around the edges. He didn’t notice the whispering.

He didn’t notice until he did.

His feet stuttered to a stop. At that moment, he wanted very badly to go back on his promise about being careful.

Raziel ground his teeth and lobbed a stone at the fleeing creature.

Catching a jackalope with his bare hands practically guaranteed that he’d be offered [Hunter] as his first class. [Hunters] were respected. Rich. He could scrape away any of his troubles with the edge of a gold coin.

The image of a smarmy white-haired boy flashed in his mind.

Sighing, Raziel turned back, twigs crunching underfoot.

He’d been so close. Closer than ever.

A few more months of practice, and Raziel would probably be able to snatch up a jackalope without it ever noticing him. But he wasn’t a little kid anymore. He was eleven. Any day now, he’d be saddled with his first class, whether he liked it or not.

“I’ll try harder tomorrow,” he vowed. If he even had tomorrow.

A crow’s cry caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.

The darkness behind Raziel smelled fragrant - heavy and overripe and squirming like thousands of little maggots -

He paused.

The twigs kept snapping.

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Raziel didn’t bother looking back. Immediately throwing himself to the side, he managed to avoid death by half an inch, antlers of violently compressed winds goring the space where he’d stood. A shriek furiously split the air. The creature was larger than a boar, with lanky, skeletal limbs, and long tattered ears. The glyphs in its eyes glowed gold with mana, bright in the scarce light. Raziel’s heart dropped when he saw the designation floating above the creature’s head: [Galefury Jackalope].

“Beast,” hissed Raziel, fumbling for the knife at his belt. He couldn’t fight a beast.

If he got himself eaten, his mother would be furious. Late for dinner - again?

All he could do was run. The beast was faster, much faster, but seemed unused to its own powers. Raziel’s last-second maneuvers caused the beast to dash into trees several times, giving him a precious few more feet of space between them. Still, no matter how cleverly Raziel moved, he couldn’t shake the predator, its breath shuddering in its ribs, cold and clammy and cutting on his skin.

Every part of him felt cold. Realizing he’d run back to the spot where he’d originally found the jackalope, he jumped into a nearby moss-covered log, and flattened his body against its sturdy walls.

Leaves crunched a few feet away. He held his breath, not daring to breathe.

The noises paused.

A scarred face peered into the log’s opening. Raziel’s knife flashed. A pink nose went flying, the [Galefury Jackalope] shrieking and screaming. The gold glyphs in its eyes shrunk to deadly pinpricks.

Raziel screwed his eyes shut, bracing himself harder against the log.

He should’ve stabbed it in the eye. Why didn’t he stab it in the eye?

Suddenly, Raziel felt like he was inside of a barrel being rolled down a mountain. Before he could wonder what was happening, a blast of wind shattered through the wood next to his head.

The beast’s cruel, gold stare met his own.

A stronger gale launched Raziel through the log and skipped him across the forest floor.

Through the haze of pain, he watched this creature of skin and ribs loom over him. The antlers were no longer windspun, but made of white bone. Gold smeared across its sclera like watercolor paint.

The beast had run out of mana, but that hardly mattered. Its claws dug painfully into Raziel’s sides.

“You aren’t following the rules!” spat Raziel, squirming. “I’m a mortal. Beasts shouldn’t be anywhere near the village. If you eat me then… then…”

For the life of him, he couldn’t remember why beasts stayed away from the village.

His face screwed up in rage.

It wasn’t fair! He scraped a fistful of earth and flung it into the [Galefury Jackalope]’s wounded snout, stunning the beast for half a second.

That was all the opening Raziel needed.

His knife found its mark. Blood sprayed into the air.

Raziel let go of the blade, his triumph at landing the hit evaporating as he scrambled to stop the deadly antlers from impaling him. Raziel’s heart-strike had been perfect. It would’ve killed anything. But his opponent was a beast, and beasts didn’t die so easily.

The [Galefury Jackalope] went berserk. Gritting his teeth, Raziel held on for dear life as the beast slammed him repeatedly against the ground, its freezing cold blood spurting out from around the knife. Raziel’s grasp on the blood-slick prongs started to slip.

“C’mon,” gasped Raziel, both urging himself on and urging the beast to die.

Eventually, impossibly slowly, it did.

The beginnings of stars shone above the Dark Forest like teeth. Raziel laid in the leaves with a very far away gaze until the wolves began to howl. His clothes felt stiff, like he was wearing plaster. Every part of him was mottled and aching.

The beast didn’t die because it was weak. It died because it was stupid.

If it hadn’t wasted all of its mana trying to blast him out of the log…

Raziel yanked his blade free from the [Jackalope]’s breast, turning his head against the icy splashes of blood. With all the fluid covering his eyes he nearly missed a peculiar sight.

A thin object glinting in the cavity.

Was that…?

No. It couldn’t be.

“It’s just a bit of bone, Raz,” he reminded himself. Still he reached inside the corpse, fingers trembling. “You aren’t that lucky.”

His nails pinched at the slip-sliding object, desperately trying to find purchase amongst the slimy webs of viscera coating the surface. Raziel’s heartbeat tripled in pace as his fingers mapped the item. Facing the beast itself had been less nerve wracking!

The object dislodged with a wet tearing - like a thing not meant to be taken.

The whole world held its breath.

Raziel reverently thumbed blood off the card’s face.

The [Galefury Jackalope] bounded across the surface in a dignified manner, plump and healthy. Glyphs glowed like suns in its eyes. [Level 1 - Galefury Jackalope], said the card. [Uncommon]. The object emanated a gentle, refreshing power, like silver bells swaying in the breeze.

Uncommon Ability: [Galeform]

Abilities: [Wind Blast] [Whirlwind] [Dash] [Counter]

And it was the greatest thing Raziel had ever seen.

//

“You’re late!” sang Raziel’s mother [Maid]. Her back faced him as she stirred a pot of fish stew.

“I said to be home before dusk, didn’t I?” The teasing in her voice poorly masked the seriousness beneath. “I nearly sent your cousin out to find you.”

Raziel grimaced, running a bloodstained hand through his stiff, clumpy hair. He was itching to jump out of his ruined clothes and into a hot bath. Looking over at his mother, who was nearly beating the pot with her wooden spoon, he set that desire aside. As if his mother would excuse him of the few remaining chores…

“Won’t happen again, I promise. Can I set the table?”

He dropped the [Galefury Jackalope]’s corpse in the entryway, careful to avoid squashing the shoes rucked up against the wall. If he got blood on the shoes, he might end up joining the [Galefury Jackalope] in the afterlife all too soon. Raziel’s battered ribs practically cried in relief when the corpse’s weight left him. Patting his pocket once more, he made sure the Beast Card hadn’t fallen since the last time he checked, which had been approximately ten steps ago.

Despite the horrifying experience, he was in good spirits. He had a card. He had magic.

Everything was okay.

Raziel eased his way to his mother and stretched up, fishing for the plates in their cabinet.

“What’s that smell?” she muttered, finally glancing at her son.

A horrified scream filled the Ravenbone household.