Elaine stomped angrily through the worn-down streets, her pout growing with every step.
"Stupid idiots…" she huffed under her breath.
Before long she reached the doorstep of a shabby inn. The name, crudely etched into the wood beside the door, read:
"HARGETTE'S KEEP."
Elaine pushed the door open without a second thought, only to be met by an orchestra of raucous noise and clattering mugs.
Miss Hargette's inn was always busy, no matter the time of day. Elaine didn't really mind—it was lively, and most of the uncles and aunties inside were kind to her… for the most part, anyway.
As if on cue, she was greeted at the door by a rowdy band of drunkards, all grinning wide, their flushed faces glowing with ale.
"If it isn't little missy! What're ya doin' here?"
"Little Elaine! I've got a whole new batch of bracelets for ya! Swing by me shack and I'll pamper ya right up!"
Elaine returned their greetings with practiced politeness before slipping past them, weaving her way deeper inside. She was here for one reason only—her older brother.
Draven often worked at Hargette's inn, repaying their stay by helping out whenever he could. Their mother had been against the idea at first, but when she learned it was his way of showing gratitude, she finally relented.
It didn't take long to spot him.
"Another round here, lad!"
"Two more fresh ones this way, sir!"
Elaine wrinkled her nose as she pushed through the stinking crowd, following the calls meant for her brother. The men's "sir" and "sire" weren't spoken with respect—they were meant as mockery, though Draven never seemed to mind.
Her brother had always been peculiar. He swore that one day he'd become a knight—a mundane knight, at that. He insisted that the Sigiled "cheated" and "took shortcuts." Even Elaine found the idea laughable. The Sigiled were humanity's finest—godlike figures who defended the Six Bastions from the ever-looming threat of the Aghorath.
Though, as Mister Rykard often reminded her, not all of them used their gifts to protect. Some chose instead to harm and take.
Truth be told, Elaine barely understood such things. She only parroted what she had heard.
At last, she spotted him: a tall, slender boy with hair black as midnight, gliding from table to table, scribbling orders and mopping up spilled ale.
Elaine's face lit up. "Dravey!"
In truth, she adored her older brother—though she often wished he weren't quite so strange.
Draven's head lifted at the sound of her voice. His bright blue eyes, sharp as cut glass, pierced through the chaos until they landed on her.
"Elaine? What are you doing here?" he asked, though his hands never slowed in their work.
"I'm looking for Elly, but I don't know where he is," she replied, trailing behind him.
Draven arched a brow. "Eldric? You know he doesn't like playing outdoors… or playing at all."
Elaine grinned. "Yeah! I'm gonna read books with him!"
Draven chuckled as he jotted down a table's order. "You can't even read, silly."
Her grin faltered for only a moment before returning brighter than ever. "Then I'll get him to teach me!"
"Sure you will," Draven scoffed.
Elaine puffed her cheeks, stamping her foot as her voice rose into a squeaky shout. "I will—!"
But before she could finish, a plump hand seized her by the collar. She was hoisted into the air, eye-to-eye with an angry, round-faced woman with a halo of curly yellow hair.
"You're filthy!" Miss Hargette bellowed. "You're getting a bath this instant, young lady!"
Elaine's pout crumbled into frantic tears. "Nooo, Miss Hargette! I'm sowwy!"
The entire inn erupted with laughter. Even Draven, despite himself, couldn't help but laugh as his little sister was dragged off toward the baths.
---
Eldric was quite the strange child, even he had no disillusion of otherwise. He wasn't interested in others his age, preferring to stay on his own instead. While his sister laughed and played in the mud and dirt with other children, he opted to stay inside.
And by inside, he meant tucked away in the local athenaeum—the fancy word the townsfolk liked to use for the library. Usually you'd require a pass to use it's prolonged services. However, luckily for him, the person running the athenaeum was none other than the gallant mustached fellow himself—or mister Rykard, as he'd come to know.
Currently, he was sat next to a tall, dusty bookshelf, holding a book so heavy that most kids his age woudn't be capable of lifting it in the first place.
But Eldric wasn't an ordinary child, in fact, he was anything but. It seemed that, as a byproduct of manually circulating the strange essence found beneath his bloodstream, his body had become abnormally exceptional.
Eldric had the strength of a full grown man, as a mere five year old child—closer to six, but it didn't really matter.
His skin never seemed to bruise or blemish, his eyes were sharp, his memory stuck like glue, his reflexes faster than they had any right to be.
Not to mention, he had gotten a lot more proficient with using his impermeability, or "phasing" as he decided to call it.
Instead of his entire body simply phasing out of existence, he could pick and choose which parts to turn incorporeal—slip a hand through a wall, sink his legs through the floorboards. Quite a nifty ability, even if it did have certain limitations.
He couldn't phase through most living things, lesser organisms such as insects could be passed theough without much problem. When attempting the same with anything higher on the food chain, he'd feel a strange static resistance fight his intruding body. The higher on the evolutionary chain, the greater the resistance.
Regardless, the book in his hand was quite the peculiar kind. It was Navy blue in color, with gold accents and fancy gold writing serving as it's title. Not to mention, that it absolutely refused to open, similar to how all books regarding the Sigiled behaved.
Upon deeper examination, Eldric guessed that, to get inside the book, one had to supply it with essence, or ether as he had learned it was called, he'd heard it secondhand from some boy whose uncle's aunt once knew a Sigiled who guarded the city walls.
The title was quite boring for how opulently it was written. "Basic Knowledge Pretaining To The Sigiled".
Why would such a mundane text be completely off limits to anyone who wasn't part of this niche group of people? Eldric didn't particularly know, nor did he particularly care.
The issue of directing his ether outwards had turned out to be much harder than he initialy expected. It was no where as intuitive to him as using his own ability.
So for the past year, he would come to the athenaeum every day, grab a random book of similar nature, and phase into the locked attic for some privacy. People wouldn't really suspect a mere five year old to be a mighty warrior of the Sigil, but his mother would have his head if he took such chances.
It took him four whole months to learn how to extend his ether outwards, another four to learn to direct it towards the book, and another four to have percise enough control, allowing him to navigate the intricate mechanism responsible for keeping the book shut.
"What a pain…" he muttered, sighing. His voice still sounded strange to him—high, childish.
And so, with a deep breath, Eldric reached into his very being, drew out his ether and expertly led it through the unseen lock mechanism.
In just a few seconds, the book glowed slightly, and parted open. A small spark appeared behind Eldric's eyes, as he turned to the first page of the book.
Then his face fell. The first page was empty. So was the next. And the next. And the next.
"What the hell is this!" Eldric stood up furiously, bumping his head on the dusty bookshelf, and spreading a large grey cloud throughout the room.
He had ended up making quite a ruckus, causing mister Rykard to investigate.
A rattling sound hit the lock of the door, prompting Eldric to think fast. He quickly phased into the bookshelf, hiding amongst the dusty scriptures and rotten wood.
Mister Rykard peered into the room, his mustache seeming especially remarkable that day. "Hm... What's that book doing on the ground?"
He walked inside the room, having to hunch down in order not to bump his head on the attic's roof. He picked up the book and neatly slotted it right above Eldric's head. A handsome smile crossed his gallant face. "There we are."
Mister Rykard turned around and strutted away with a hum, locking the door behind him.
Eldric could finally breathe again, he quickly exited the suffocating book case and reached for the scam of a book he'd been reading.
"There's no way that's it... There has to be something! I am not letting a year's worth of effort go down the drain!"
Eldric gripped the edges of the book with relentless Irritation. "Fine. You want my ether? You can have it!"
Eldric's eyes started giving off an eerie hue, as if space itself around them had started to distort. His veins grew large and pulsing, covering his forearms in a tapestry of coils and snake-like shapes. It looked like a single paper cut would've caused him to die from blood loss.
He was pushing his ether to it's limit, trying to completely saturate the damn book. Eldric had almost reached exhaustion, when something finally happened. The words on the page manifested, they seemed surreal.
They were a pitch black, not because of their coloration, but simply because of the absence of light in the first place. The letters seemed to jitter in place, as if being forcefully held down by the thin fabric of the page.
"Of course..." Eldric sighed and tiredly looked at the the written words. Only for his eyes to widen once more. The words on the page did indeed include basic knowledge Pretaining to the sigiled, a very specific Sigiled at that.
The first section of the page read:
Name: Ethan Hale / Eldric [Redacted]
Age: 5 years, 10 months, 3 days, 14 hours
Race: Human
Stigma: Voidborne
Stigmata: [Nihilic Veil]
Class: Acolyte
Insignias: [Redacted]