Before Brimmah was a guard, he was a ghost in the streets of Elsem — ragged, hungry, and barely visible until iron-shod wagons of the recruiters arrived.
They swept up the children of the alleyways like refuse, shoving them onto a ferry that
pulled them toward the jagged silhouette of the Rune Academy.
The Academy was not a school; it was an anvil designed to break the weak.
In the Great Hall, some pupils traced symbols that manifest 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 boys managed to carve the Rune to shatter their weights and rose 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, and he survived the "Endless Climb", staggering up frozen
slopes with 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 nights, desperately scratching at the stones
beneath the waves, trying to force the runes to answer him.
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.
"Worthless," the instructors spat, dismissing him alongside the hollow-eyed failures.
They were left to rot in the corners of the yard.
When a kinder pupil tried to sneak them a crust of bread, the starving children turned
into animals, clawing and biting for a single mouthful.
The Principal 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 night.
Among the still bodies was the boy who had watched over Brimmah — 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 bled into one another — snow, rain, and blistering sun. In the streets, he sat
dejected, watching the world move on without him, until 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 weight to his ankle and sinking into water. 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 screamed for air, only cutting himself free and surfacing when the world began to fade.
No longer content fighting shadows, he began to challenge grown men — thugs and street fighters twice his size.
If the world had denied him Runecraft, he would carve his place with an edge.