The air in Grey-Roses tasted of copper and ash.
What had once been a vibrant market square was now a battlefield. Stalls overturned, banners trampled into mud, bodies strewn where trade once thrived. Steel rang without rhythm as two armies ground against one another.
Through the drifting smoke, the two sides were easy to distinguish: the disciplined, polished steel of Elsem soul-soldiers, armor gleaming even beneath soot, pushing relentlessly against the ragged, screaming desperation of the Grey-rose infantry.
At the center of the battle stood Leonhart Whyteleafe, a presence of calm amidst the chaos. His hands moving with the commanding grace of a conductor. Runestrings shimmered faintly around him — threads of pale light, barely visible, yet absolute in their control. They tethered him to the two constructs at his side: the hulking golems of stone brought to life by his Runecraft.
One surged forward through the battlefield, each step a tremor, each swing swatting armored men like bothersome insects. The other remained a defensive sentinel, its massive form shielding Leonhart from arrows and desperate lunges of enemies.
No one could reach the Master of Conjuration.
High above the square, bound upon an execution platform, King Jahseh remained slumped in his bonds. Only minutes ago, he was facing a lynching by his own people before the Elsemers intervened. Even now his ears rang with indistinct, overlapping voices of his life's regrets. Eyes buried under his bangs, he had already surrendered to death that he didn't even register the ongoing battle. Not until someone tugged urgently at his bindings.
"My husband is down there fighting for you." Abigail's voice cut clean through the fog in his mind. The shorthaired Queen was over him, undoing his bonds. "Do not waste his effort." She urged over screams of his dying men.
Jahseh's head jerked up, a flicker of will finally sparked in his hollowed eyes.
Below them, Leonhart still puppeteered his golems, commanding the battle.
One Grey-rose soldier, fueled by a final burst of defiance, planted his feet then launched a spear with deadly precision toward Leonhart.
It cut through the air, fast and lethal.
The closer golem didn't just block it; it reached down, seized a heavy, shattered market stall, and hurled the entire structure back at the man.
The soldier did not run.
He watched it come in destructive force, a faint, defeated chuckle left him as the world closed in.
But the tide was about to turn.
From an alley near a burning storefront, an old man stepped forth.
He wore no armor. No insignia. No weapon. Dressed like a common beggar but composed like nothing that belonged on this battlefield.
He lifted a finger. No Runestrings appeared, yet an arrow of pure, pulsing energy materialized. In this world, the manifestation of Runestrings always preceded the Runes they create.
When he released the bolt with a finger flick, it didn't fly true. It snaked. It wove through the melee, veered around obstacles, slipped past Leonhart's defensive golem.
It slammed into Leonhart's chest — right through the heart.
The Great Runemaster staggered. His breath caught in a wet gasp as he dropped on a knee. His golems shuddered, their movements turning sluggish in response to his interrupted focus.
Leonhart swept his gaze across the crowd, teeth bared in a snarl of agony, but the stranger was already gone — disappeared from the square like a ghost.
From that day onwards, the death of Leonhart Whyteleafe, Master of Conjuration — would impact Kingdoms just as his life did.
Under his reign, Elsem commanded peace through strength. Even the slums of Elsem were put to the machinery that turned lives into tools.
Long before his fall, Soul-soldiers swept ragged, hungry children off alleyways like refuse. Like other street kids, the shadow-eyed Brimmah was shoved into an iron-shod wagon. Then onto a ferry that pulled them toward the jagged silhouette of the Rune Academy.
The slums fed the Rune Academy.
And it in turn fed Runecasters to the military.
The Academy was no longer a school like it used to be; now it was an anvil redesigned to break the weak.
In the Great Hall, some pupils traced symbols that manifested glowing Runestrings, receiving the cold nod of an instructor. For the rest, there was only the crack of the lash.
Brimmah witnessed the "Drowning Test" turn the academy's bay into a graveyard. He remembered the weight of the stone chained to his ankles; the way the salt water burned his lungs as he sank. Few children managed to carve the Rune to shatter their tethered weights and rise to the surface, gasping and reborn.
Most simply thrashed until the bubbles stopped.
At the shore, some coughed out water, others remained still.
He survived the water, then survived the "Endless Climb", staggering up frozen slopes with a heavy boulder strapped to his back.
He pushed himself in secret, scribbling runes by candlelight until his eyes bled, while his only friend watched with a quiet, growing worry.
Brimmah would return to the bay alone at night, desperately scratching at tethered stone underneath the waves, trying to force runes to answer him until his lungs almost gave out.
He would run the mountain paths until his legs failed, ignoring his friend's pleas to stop.
But on Exam Day, not even a flicker of Runestrings appeared.
"Worthless," the instructors spat, dismissing him alongside other hollow-eyed failures.
They were left to rot in a corner like broken tools.
When a kind-hearted pupil snuck them food, hunger stripped away what little remained of dignity.
They fought for scraps. Clawed. Bit. Screamed.
Animals in all but name.
The Headmaster stood over them, chin high and robes immaculate as he sneered at the filth. "Worthless beings do not deserve to be fed," he declared.
By the time the ferry returned to take the "failures" back to the slums of Elsem, the ground was littered with those who hadn't lasted the long nights.
Among the still bodies was Brimmah's one friend — the only person who had cared if he lived.
Brimmah didn't weep; he was too hollow for tears. He stepped onto the boat, staring back at the Academy with a burning regret in his chest.
Seasons turned.
Snow. Rain. Heat.
In the streets, Brimmah sat dejected, while the world move on without him. Time passed without meaning.
Until the day a sword clattered onto the cobblestones during a drunken brawl.
His fingers closed around the hilt. The runes had rejected him, but the steel felt right.
He began to swing it — clumsily at first, then with a reckless obsession.
He would strap a heavy boulder to his back, mimicking the Rune Academy's "Endless Climb" while lunging and parrying until his legs gave out.
He would tie weights to his ankles and sink into the pond. In the silent pressure of his own "Drowning Test", he didn't pray for runes — he swung his sword. He fought the water, practicing his forms while his lungs burned, only cutting himself free and surfacing when the world began to fade.
No longer content fighting imaginary foes, he began to challenge grown men — thugs and street fighters twice his size.
If the world had denied him Runecraft, then he would carve his place with steel. And so he did before the packed crowds of Elsem's Coliseum, earning King Leonhart's recognition and even the station of a Knyyt. A Soul-soldier of recognised value.
That was how Brimmah became a guard in Elsem Castle.