The inside of the shack smelled like burnt parchment and lavender oil — comforting in a strange way, like incense at a funeral for something no one knew existed.
Dillion ducked under a row of hanging jars filled with flickering light and stepped inside. The floor creaked. The air shimmered faintly with mana residue. Everything inside felt… alive. Not magical in a grand, majestic way — more like a forgotten relic holding its breath.
Zren shuffled ahead, still slightly damp from his barrel ordeal.
“Mind your feet,” he said, waving a hand at a pile of rusted swords leaning against a coat rack. “The last apprentice lost a toe to that one. Argued with it. Long story.”
Dillion said nothing. His eyes darted from one corner of the cluttered shop to the next — crates of potion ingredients, loose scrolls rolled with colored twine, and a massive blackboard covered in illegible diagrams and stick figures labeled “Definitely Do Not Touch.”
The walls were lined with oddities: glowing feathers, cracked masks, pendants carved with Soul Mark symbols. On one shelf sat a pickled eyeball in a jar. It winked at him.
“Here’s the tour,” Zren said, spinning slowly like a drunk docent.
He pointed to a large display wall made of mismatched wood and bent copper hooks. Weapons hung from it: curved swords, staves, daggers with runes, and even a spiked whip with runes glowing red-hot.
“These are old,” Zren muttered. “Some were crafted before Eden got their claws into the system. They're… temperamental.”
He walked past a rack of armor — everything from padded vests to plated gauntlets, each tagged with tiny metal signs. “Most of it soul-bound junk, but a few still listen to new hands.”
Then he stopped in front of a large glass cabinet filled with scrolls.
Each scroll glowed faintly with a color tied to a Soul Mark — red, green, and a few with that deep rare black.
There were only two glowing blue.
Dillion felt it in his chest — a kind of silent dread.
“Blue Marks,” Zren said softly, following his gaze. “Not many of you left who make it far enough to learn spells. You’ll figure out why.”
“What’s wrong with Blue?”
“Nothing,” Zren said. “Except you don’t burn, and you don’t heal, and you don’t roar. You… calculate. Predict. Shape the battlefield without ever swinging the sword.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “And most kids want to swing the sword.”
Dillion was quiet.
Then Zren turned toward the far side of the room, where a crystal orb sat on a stand wrapped in silver wire and etched bones. The orb pulsed faintly — not like a light, but like a breathing thing.
“Now then,” the old man said, serious for the first time.
“Let’s see what you’re worth.”
Dillion hesitated. “What does it do?”
“It reads potential. Not just power, but… the shape of you. It’ll show us what kind of spark you have. Maybe even what kind of future you’re steering toward.”
He looked at Dillion through his foggy goggles.
“Place your hand on the crystal. Let your soul speak.”
Dillion swallowed — and reached out.
His hand met the orb.
The room went silent.
Dillion stared at the orb. “Do you do this for everyone?”
“No,” Zren said. “Most people aren’t worth the trouble. But you’re not most people. You’re a Blue Mark — and something about you smells different.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Now go on. Place your hand on the crystal.”
Dillion hesitated — then slowly reached out.
The moment his palm met the glass, the lantern above them guttered.
The temperature dropped.
The air grew heavy, thick with some invisible current that pressed against his chest. The crystal pulsed once — then again — and suddenly erupted with a wave of deep blue light, swirling like storm clouds in water.
Zren leaned in, eyes wide, goggles fogged. The orb spun faster, threads of silver light wrapping around Dillion’s arm like vines, glowing brighter with every second.
Then — a crack.
A single jagged fracture ran down the crystal’s surface.
The light vanished.
Silence.
Dillion gasped, pulling his hand back. The orb went dark again… but the mark on his wrist glowed brighter than it ever had.
Zren didn’t speak for a long moment.
Then he exhaled.
“Well now,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “You’re a strange one, aren’t you?”
The silence hung like smoke.
Dillion backed away from the orb, still catching his breath. His wrist tingled. The fractured crystal flickered faintly, as if uncertain whether it had finished reacting — or simply cracked under pressure.
Zren stared at it.
Then… blinked.
And with the suddenness of a man who had simply misplaced his train of thought, he turned on his heel and started muttering to himself.
“You know, back before Eden found this place,” he said, brushing dust from a nearby cabinet, “we didn’t measure souls. We listened to them. Watched the skies, the shadows they left behind after death, the way a person’s name echoed in stone.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He poked a jar of floating mushrooms with a stick.
“Now everything’s a number. Currency. Rankings. Predictable paths to predictable outcomes.” He stopped to glare at a sword that had begun humming under its own volition. “Even dying got cheap.”
Dillion stood still, unsure whether to speak.
Zren kept babbling. “They built their Centers, started hauling people in like tourists on fire. Soul Diver Experience! they called it. Said we were an undiscovered continent. I say: parasites with marketing budgets.”
He rapped the table with his knuckle and exhaled.
Then — as if waking from a fog — Zren turned sharply to Dillion.
“Now,” he barked, suddenly lucid, “how exactly do you expect to earn any Soul Gems without gear, skills, or spells?”
Dillion blinked. “I— I was hoping to find a way. Maybe a quest, or—”
Zren groaned, long and dramatic. “Hope. The currency of amateurs.”
He waved toward the scroll cabinet.
“You don’t walk through the wilds empty-handed unless you’re trying to get yourself harvested by beetle wolves or worse. You’ll need something. A spell. A charm. Even a basic soul-thread weapon.”
He rubbed his temples.
“You’re Blue. That means you’re weird. That also means the usual tricks won’t work. You don’t burn things. You bend them. Nudge reality. Delay inevitability.”
Zren’s eyes gleamed.
“And luckily for you, I’ve got just the thing.”
Zren shuffled over to the glass cabinet, muttering under his breath. He unlocked it with a key made from twisted bone and motioned Dillion closer.
“Not much for Blues these days,” he said, scanning the near-empty shelf of azure scrolls. “Most get snapped up by collectors or end up lost in raids. But…”
He reached in and gently pulled out a scroll wrapped in faded blue silk, tied with a cord the same color as stormlight. As he set it in Dillion’s hands, the parchment tingled — faintly alive.
[Water Manipulation – Rank 0]
Allows minor control of ambient water. Can condense moisture from the air. Generates small water orbs. Non-damaging. Grows stronger with use.
Dillion looked up. “This is it?”
Zren raised an eyebrow. “What, were you expecting a lightning storm? You’re not Red, kid. You’re Blue. You build — slowly. Carefully. This spell is subtle. Precise. Unseen until it matters.”
Dillion nodded slowly, unrolling the scroll slightly to see the softly glowing glyphs inked into its core.
Then Zren’s expression changed — just a flicker of something deeper in his eyes. A memory, perhaps.
“You know…” he muttered, scratching at his chin, “…the last boy to crack that orb of mine… wasn’t much older than you. Had a Blue Mark too.”
Dillion froze. “Who was he?”
Zren waved vaguely. “Name’s foggy now. Jerry? Jeremy? Something like that. Used to come around here all the time. Clumsy, poor, stubborn as moss. Could barely lift a mop, let alone cast.”
He glanced sideways. “But he had the same look you’ve got now. Like he was chasing something no one else could see.”
Dillion stayed quiet.
Zren patted the table. “He took this same spell. Water Manipulation. Thought it was useless. Now?” Zren chuckled. “They say he could drown an army with a flick of his hand.”
He turned toward a back shelf. “Didn’t stick around long once he got good, though. Fame’ll do that to people.”
Dillion closed the scroll, more carefully now. The weight of it had changed.
Not in mass. In meaning.
"Do you have a field book" Zren asked. Don’t lose it store your scroll in there and don’t cast it inside my shop, I have learned my lesson.
Zren watched Dillion roll up the scroll and store it with one eye half-open . Then, without ceremony, he plopped himself down onto a crate, reached behind him, and pulled a bowl from a cluttered shelf.
It was filled with something mushy and dark purple — possibly fruit, possibly fungus, possibly something with legs. Zren took a big bite, chewed thoughtfully, then pointed the chewed end of the fruit at Dillion.
“You know what else you don’t have?” he said, juice dribbling down his chin. “Gear. You think a scroll’s gonna help you when some forest crawler pounces on you with bone teeth and hunger in its gut?”
He waved his hand toward the rack of weapons near the door. “Look. Pick something. I’m not a charity, but I’m also not blind. You’re broke and blue, which means the world’s going to hit you first and ask questions never.”
Dillion moved slowly toward the rack, eyes flicking between the weapons. Most were chipped or aged — well-used and long-abandoned.
There were daggers with rune-wrapped hilts, curved swords dulled by time, a war fan with cracked steel feathers, and even an old slingstaff that buzzed faintly when he got too close.
He crouched to get a better look — and knocked over a crooked old spear, which fell sideways and hit something with a hollow clang.
“Careful!” Zren barked.
Dillion turned.
The fallen spear had knocked over Zren’s strange bowl — the one he had just been eating from. It rolled onto its side with a low metallic ring and came to rest at Dillion’s feet.
Only now that he was closer, Dillion noticed something strange.
The bowl was silver, heavy, and wide — but shaped with two subtle handles at the sides. Its bottom was slightly curved inwards, like the inside of a shallow dome. Engraved faintly along the rim were waves — not decorative, but carved like flowing water, looping endlessly around its surface. Where a crest might sit at its center was a hollow socket, empty — but clearly meant to hold something.
It wasn’t just a bowl.
It was a shield.
A missing Soul Gem?” Dillion asked, crouching beside it.
Zren was already licking juice off his fingers. “Aye. The old thing was soul-bound to a courier-mage. She used water like a sculptor uses clay. Shielded herself with storms, crashed waves through enemies like they were driftwood. That gem socket was the heart of it — She would let the shield breathe with her soul.”
He tilted his head.
“Then she died. Shield stayed quiet ever since. Until now.”
Dillion slowly picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, but not burdensome. As his hands gripped the handles, he felt it — a tug, subtle but present, like the whisper of a tide pulling at his thoughts.
Even without the gem, it hummed at his touch. Like it recognized him.
Zren raised an eyebrow. “You feel that?”
“Yeah.”
Zren blinked. “Huh.”
Dillion stood, turning the object in his hands. “This… this is yours?”
Zren shrugged. “Was.
Maybe still is.
Hard to say.
It’s one of those things that likes to be found more than it likes to be owned.”
Dillion looked down at it again, feeling the quiet pulse of energy beneath the surface. The waves carved into it shimmered faintly in time with his own Soul Mark.
“You feel it?” Zren asked, suddenly serious.
Dillion nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Then take it,” Zren said, waving him off. “It’s yours now. Maybe it always was. Just don’t eat soup out of it. That’s a mistake.”
Dillion nodded, cradling the shield close.
“Thanks.”
Zren gave a tired smile. “Go on, then. The road’s waiting. And something tells me… you won’t be walking it quiet for long.”
Dillion very thankfully with a bow said his goodbyes with Zren, as the cooky old man walked into the back room waving goodbye.
The old door creaked shut behind him as Dillion stepped into the twilight air.
The village was quiet now. Distant torches flickered in iron sconces, and the sky over Stillgrove blushed purple with the last light of the sun. Crickets had begun their chorus, and a low wind rustled through the grass behind Zren’s crooked shack.
Dillion moved toward a clearing near the tree line — somewhere quiet, private.
He unrolled the blue-wrapped scroll gently, the faded ink glowing faintly as the glyphs shimmered to life. As he read, something in the back of his mind stirred — not a thought, but a rhythm. A shape.
The scroll didn’t just describe the spell.
It taught it.
The flow of water, the pull of moisture in the air, the stillness before control. Dillion felt it all settle into him like memory rediscovered.
He extended his hand.
“Water Manipulation,” he whispered.
At first, nothing.
Then — a tremble in the air. Tiny droplets floated upward from the nearby grass, swirling lazily into his palm. They condensed, weaving into a small, perfect orb — no larger than a marble, but pulsing faintly with energy.
He stared, wide-eyed.
The orb hovered, cool and serene. His fingers moved, and it followed like a leaf in gentle current. He could feel it — delicate, responsive, almost alive.
A small grin pulled at his lips. His first spell.
And then something else happened.
The shield on his back warmed. Not hot — but present. Alive. As if responding to the spell, to the magic in his hands.
His Soul Mark pulsed beneath his sleeve.
He held out his hand again.
The Soul Gem manifested above his palm, floating with more confidence than before. Panels unfolded beside it, glowing with clean blue light.
Name: Dillion Rogers
Soul Mark: Blue
Level: 1
Skills:
-
Water Manipulation (Rank 0) (Level 0)
-
Shield Guard (Rank 1)
-
Shield Bash (Rank 1)
Dillion stared at the screen, breath catching.
Three skills.
The shield hadn’t just reacted — it had bonded. And in doing so, it had awakened something dormant inside him.
A guard. A bash. Defense and precision. His path was starting to form.
He closed his hand, and the Soul Gem dissolved into blue mist.
The water orb fell gently to the grass, soaking into the earth.
Dillion took a deep breath and looked back toward the faint light of the village.
For the first time since arriving in Sora, he didn’t feel completely lost.
He felt… ready.