The Church of Zu’en baked under the sun, its white bricks glowing as though nourished by the light.
Most of Bramblebog had a particular look. Cottages perched on stilts above murky ravines, giving bogfolk an easy roof to fish mollusks from. The nicer shops were a patchwork of wooden planks, nails, and spit.
In comparison, the church was downright majestic, and no small part of why Bramblebog’s villagers delighted in religion.
“Supposedly, this place was here long before the True Families established Bramblebog,” said Kindred. Raziel’s red eyes flicked to her, then back to the church. “The white stone isn’t local. It’s a mystery how someone dragged this much of it here and why.”
“Are you sure the [Priest] isn’t here?” asked Raziel doubtfully.
“Father Linus bought fresh flowers and then headed for the inner village. He’s making a housecall.” Kindred thrummed like she carried a storm under her skin. “C’mon!”
Throughout Raziel’s life, he’d always been the instigator. Once he knew what he wanted, he cared very little how anyone else felt about it. Normally what he wanted was on the wrong side of dangerous, thrilling, and crazy, so he’d become accustomed to fielding off rejections and worried glances.
For the first time, Raziel was on the backfoot, and it made him very uncomfortable.
The ‘are you sure about this?’ choked in his throat like bitter acid but he refused to be a killjoy.
Kindred might be older, but she wasn’t braver than him.
The inside of the church was shadowed and cool. The white bricks were slick from the humidity. Raziel noticed that glyphs had been roughly hewn into each brick. A vision came over him of the glyphs filling with glowing mana, but he shook his head to dispel it. This was Raziel’s first time inside the church in years. His parents went for funerals, weddings, and other occasions. Unfortunately, Raziel simply couldn’t stand being in an enclosed space with the whole Wealcroft family.
A large, weathered tome sat wide open on the pulpit. The yellowed pages were crammed with small lines of text.
This was the only full copy of the Sacred Book in Bramblebog, and you could only look through it with the [Priest] hovering over your shoulder. Unless, of course, you snuck in when the [Priest] wasn’t around.
Kindred and Raziel went to the pulpit. Looking out at the sea of pews, Raziel imagined himself giving a sermon to a room crammed with villagers.
“What do you know about the Sacred Book?” Kindred’s eyes swept quickly over the pages.
Wrinkling his nose, Raziel tried to recall one of the sermons he’d attended. “It’s a long story about the Great Immortal Zu’en. He says that mortals are the purest form of being, and that he personally protects and cherishes us.”
“Yeah, sort of. That stuff is around five pages long, but they're Father Linus’s five favorite pages, so that's all he talks about. I’ll tell you the truth. The first half of the Sacred Book is mainly ancient history, but the last half is full of instructions for alchemists. Card recipes, class progression paths, guides on ascending levels…” said Kindred. “You want to know about magic? Here. The information has been under your nose this whole time. Most people only listen to Father Linus, and don’t bother reading the Sacred Book itself, even though he’ll let you if you ask.”
Raziel looked up at his cousin in awe.
“Hey, Raz…” said Kindred. “Were you lying about killing that [Galefury Jackalope]?”
In response, he flicked open his knife, showing her the blood rusting along the edge.
“But your soul isn’t even awakened yet.” She squinted suspiciously at him. “Veteran [Hunters] can’t kill beasts - so how could you, a little kid? If you found a dead beast somewhere and hauled it home, just tell me, I won’t laugh at you too much.”
He bristled. “I’m classless - for now - but I’m not weak. I don't know why our [Hunters] can't kill beasts, it's pretty easy. Killing the [Galefury Jackalope] was a piece of cake. I bet I could take on any Level 1 beast with my hands tied behind my back.”
“Or maybe the Dark Forest isn’t as dangerous as everyone says. If you can play around in there and kill beasts then how deadly could it be?”
He glared at her, then his breath caught as he stumbled over. Kindred had pushed him off the dais with a calculating look.
“What was that for??”
“Just reminding myself how weak you classless are.”
“I wasn’t ready!”
She waved him off. “Forget it - read this.” Kindred pointed to a certain passage in the Sacred Book.
Scowling, Raziel returned to the pulpit. The small text seemed to blur together in his head.
Kindred stared at him.
“Raziel, read it.”
“...”
“Raz!”
“The Great… Imm-or-tal… al-ch -”
“Gods, you are such a stereotype. I’ve met three year olds who can read better than you!”
“I can read! I’ve just never seen these words before!”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Kindred palmed her forehead. “Scoot over, I’ll read it out to you. I’m skipping over all the boring parts.” Again, her gaze zipped across the pages with incredible speed. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Uncommon-Grade variations of the [Jackalope] beast: [Six-Eyed Jackalope], [Majestic Snow Jackalope], [Undying Jackalope], [Kingsbane Jackalope] … [Galefury Jackalope].”
Raziel counted over sixty different Uncommon-Grade [Jackalopes] on the list. Higher on the page, the number of Common-Grade variations was even larger. It seemed the rarer a beast was, the less variations existed.
“Best Spell Cards to merge with a fire path [Jackalope] Beast Card… No…Upgrading the rarity of [Jackalope] Beast Cards… Okay, here,” said Kindred. Her every word fanned Raziel’s hunger, and he very desperately wished had a better grasp of reading. “Pricing guidance for Uncommon-Grade [Jackalope] eyes in the Deathblade Soul Market, Year 2309 of the Midsummer Phoenix’s 3rd Dynasty. Fresh - 6 crowns, Three Days Old - 2.5 crowns (20% loss of potency), Week Old - “
Raziel asked intensely, “Where’s the Deathblade Soul Market?”
A crown was a special coin made of gold, and worth over a thousand marks. He’d never seen one in real life. If his dad hadn’t destroyed the [Galefury Jackalope]’s eyes, that one item would’ve made the Ravenbones one of the richest families in Bramblebog.
In the Deathblade Soul Market, the eyes would’ve been worth six whole crowns!
“Dunno,” admitted Kindred. “Somewhere far, far away. Your beast’s eyes were definitely magical, otherwise they wouldn’t be worth so much money.”
Raziel’s heart rate quickened. “How much do you think a [Galefury Jackalope] Beast Card is worth?”
“Why? Did you get one?” She laughed to herself. “Let’s see… only one in a thousand Uncommon-Grade [Jackalopes] leave their card when they die. Wow, terrible odds. And they’re worth… wow.”
“How much?”
“7,500 crowns,” she said quietly. “For that grade, only the [Kingsbane Jackalope] is more expensive.”
Raziel struggled to master his expression. Luckily Kindred was still staring at the page. If people found out he had the Beast Card, they would kill him for it. 7,500 crowns was a lethal sum of money.
“What’s the most expensive Beast Card?” he asked quickly, trying to cover up his lapse.
“[Dragons],” she said. “You know how there are three types of cards: Beast Cards, Spell Cards, and Martial Cards? Well [Dragon] Beast Cards count as all three in one. The Sacred Book doesn’t even offer a price for them. They only say that if you find a dragon egg, the Deathblade Empire will give you ten million crowns for it.”
“Ten million? Just for an egg?” he said faintly. “[Dragon] Beast Cards must be worth even more than that.”
“The rules are different with [Dragons]. If you bond with a [Dragon], they can give you their Beast Card. No death necessary.” Her pale green eyes were soft, almost kind. “If you’re interested in [Dragons] then you should really learn how to read. The Sacred Book talks about [Dragons] almost as much as it talks about Great Immortal Zu’en.”
Raziel ran a hand through his hair. “Only the Wealcrofts could probably afford a [Dragon].”
“How rich do you think the Wealcrofts are? I bet buying a [Dragon]’s toenail shavings would bankrupt them.”
“Why are you so interested in [Dragons]?” he asked. “Do you have ten million crowns stashed away somewhere?”
“Oh, its because of the rumors.”
“What rumor?”
Kindred shrugged with a wolfish smirk. “That there’s a dragon egg hidden in Bramblebog, of course.”
“...”
“People think beasts stay away from our village because we don’t use magic. But isn’t that silly? The minute a beast gets hungry, it’ll follow its nose to the closest source of fresh food. What would stop a predator from attacking a group of defenseless humans? Only a bigger predator. [Dragons] are the apex predator, and the Sacred Book says that dragon eggs emit an aura which causes all other beasts to run in fear.”
“That’s ridiculous. Wouldn’t we feel its aura too?”
“Maybe we do. If we’re around it all the time, we might’ve gotten used to it.”
Raziel’s mouth worked speechlessly. How could there possibly be something as interesting as a dragon egg in Bramblebog?
“It’s just a conspiracy theory. Don’t get too worked up over it.” Kindred went back to the beginning of the book. “Do you want me to read you the ancient history of our world? It goes back thousands and thousand of years -”
A strange feeling had come over him, something he couldn’t articulate properly. Even as his nostrils flared, and his lungs pumped air, a part of him desperately felt as if it couldn’t breathe. He felt like he was suffocating. The Church’s white walls felt too small. Bramblebog felt too small. Everything suddenly felt claustrophobic.
Where was he?
Where was this Deathblade Soul Market, where goods were bought and sold in gold crowns? Suddenly, he wondered if Great Immortal Zu’en had felt this way about their world, like it was painfully small. Why else would he have ascended out of this world, never to be seen again?
Raziel wanted… he wanted to leave.
He cut off Kindred’s stream of babble.
“I think I’m done for today.”
She paused. “You aren’t. I haven’t even started on alchemy yet. I’ll give you the short version, okay? As humans, it’s extremely hard for us to transmute our mana into a specific state, but if we focus our mana through a card - “
“Later,” begged Raziel, holding his head. “Please.”
A flash of irritation crossed pale green eyes. “Fine.” She closed the Sacred Book and hopped off the pulpit.
“Kindred - “
“When I first read the Sacred Book, I spent so many hours in front of it that Father Linus had to drag me home,” she said with a snarled lip.
When no good response came from Raziel, she stalked out of the church.
He did care about this stuff.
In fact, he cared far too much. Raziel felt like he was being consumed by a firestorm, one which would steal him away from everything that he’d ever known. He wasn’t ready. He knew himself, and he knew that if he learned more, he’d never be satisfied with life in Bramblebog again.
Even his [Galefury Jackalope] Beast Card felt like ash in his pockets. Only 7,500 crowns?
What was that compared to a [Dragon]?
He wanted.
//
A musty school bag dropped down by Verminta’s feet.
“Is this seat taken?”
She glanced up, shocked to see a familiar pair of ruby red eyes. When Raziel hadn’t come to class yesterday, she figured he’d given up on school for good. He was so overwhelmingly far behind everyone else that she doubted it was even possible for him to catch up.
Verminta blurted out, “What are you doing here?”
Raziel sat down at the empty desk, putting his feet up on the chair in front of him. On the other side of class, Olster and his crew whispered and laughed, pointing at him. However, there was a fierce determination in Raziel's eyes that she had never seen before. He didn't look Olster's way. His focus was totally trained on the blackboard.
“I’m going to learn.”