Chapter 1: The Graveyard
THE CATALYST OF QUORALIS
CHAPTER ONE
The sun hung low, a pale dim eye squinting through a veil of bruised clouds. It offered no warmth, only a sullen, diffused light casting long distorted shadows across the barren lands. The air was thick and heavy making every breath a burden. A stagnant smell lingered. Then a silhouette of modest color emerged from the grey brush. A wanderer appeared, wearing a dust-colored cloak patched with matted animal skins; beneath the hood, a face of white bone and deep carved unflinching eyes. Draped over his faded green tunic, a small leather satchel that bumped against his hip, and he carried a staff of hardwood, its surface worn smooth by time.
The land was a carcass strewn out. The trees were jagged pikes, their bark stripped and the wood beneath bleached white like old bones. At his feet, the ground bled. A thick lifeless tar seeped from the cracks, shimmering with an iridescent corruption. It carried a thick greedy scent of rot, coating the roots and pooled in the hollows of the rocks. A corrupted rainbow on a decaying canvas. The traveler lowered his staff into the muck. It clung to the wood, reluctant to let go. When he lifted his staff, the black slime stretched into thin, gripping strands before snapping back into the slough.
To anyone else, the land was just dying. For him, he saw it for what it was, Scornshade's infection. A bitter corrosive weight, ignored and left to fester. Draining Quoralis of all its goodness.
A low, rumbling wheeze broke the silence. In the distance, a massive shape lay in a depression. It was a crag, a large herd beast with shaggy coarse fur, known to peacefully wander the grassy lands. But now it was a ruin of flesh.
Its breathing was shallow, rattling in its chest, its eyes wide and milky staring at nothing. The wanderer approached the creature. He knelt in the muck, ignoring the way the black strands reached for his cloak. He leaned in close to rest a soothing hand on the beast's snout, not to stop the sludge, for he knew it could not be helped, but to bear the weight of the silence with it. The crag's large eye met the wanderer gratefully. Its breath slowed in the calm presence for the animal's final moments of terror.
The black muck converged on the beast, climbing. It moved with a low angry growl. Thin, dark tendrils of the sludge crept up its legs, coating the fur in a lifeless shell. Where the sludge touched, the flesh sagged, devoid of color, drained of vitality. The crag's sides rose and fell in a somber rhythm, the darkness tightened around its ribs with every breath. The creature let out a long, shuddering sigh. The light in its eyes flickered one last time before the rising of its chest halted.
The silence of the wasteland rushed in to fill the void. The sludge continued to crawl over the creature's still form, sliding up the neck, and congealing over its mouth. In moments, the beast was gone, submerged beneath a glistening black coffin. The wanderer rose unhurried. The ooze settled and the surface hardened into a dull, matte crust. He looked up. The horizon was littered with the hardened black tombs, a graveyard of the lives that once roamed the land.
Beyond the horizon, the towering peaks of Draktharn Hold stretched out to the east. The home of the Kaelgroth.
A gust of wind swept through the dying forest, carrying the dry clattering of skeletal branches. The inky puddles rippled, the surface shimmering with the stolen light of the setting sun. The traveler adjusted his grip on his stick. Turning from the entombed crag, he checked his gloves, and pulled them tight over his hands, ensuring nothing was exposed.
He set his gaze on the mountains, his gait rhythmic and just. Facing forward, unblinking. The apathetic scornshade bubbled softly, hungry and impatient.
END OF PREVIEW
The journey continues...