Chronicles of the Untalented

There was no sun to rise.

Only the pale haze of ambient gloom stretching across the sky like a worn shroud. The kind of sky that made it feel like time had stopped altogether. Beneath it, Silas and Velira slipped out through the rust-bitten city gates, barely acknowledged by the guards.

No one said goodbye.

No one ever did when someone left the walls.

Silas gripped the straw doll the priest had given him. It crackled faintly in his hand, dry and brittle—like it had waited years just to fall apart. His fingers wouldn't unclench.

Velira walked beside him, lantern in one hand, her other curled loosely at her side. She didn't need a chain for her effigy. Their bond was quiet, invisible—and firm. Her steps were brisk, but not rushed. They didn't talk. There was no point in voicing the obvious.

They were being sent to die.

Not a mission. Not a request. A soft, silent execution.

Minutes passed like hours as frostbitten fields gave way to harder ground, each footstep crunching against frost and brittle roots. Velira cast a side glance at Silas. Something about him had felt... off since they left the cathedral.

A faint thread of mana pulsed through her effigy, sharpening her senses.

She blinked.

His heart—it was racing. Thunderous beneath the surface. But his expression stayed calm.

Too calm.

He hadn't told her what he was feeling. Which meant he didn't know how.

But she understood. It meant one thing.

He felt it too.

They were being watched.

---

The lake arrived far too early.

Like they had stumbled into it, rather than reached it.

A basin of still, dead water nestled in the earth like a wound that never healed. The stone around it was cracked and ancient, remnants of a time before this city, this world, forgot what warmth meant.

Silas stopped at the edge and exhaled.

Velira asked gently, "What is it?"

He didn't answer right away. His eyes lingered on the waters like they might speak.

Then: "The priest's presence… it followed us all the way here. I could feel it. Demonic. Watching."

He tapped the straw doll once with his knuckle. "It's stopped now. The feeling's gone."

Velira's voice was bitter. "So they weren't just tracking us."

"They were waiting," he said quietly.

She let out a dry chuckle. "You know, we used to steal scrolls and mock their sermons. I thought that was going to get us killed. Guess I wasn't far off."

Silas smiled faintly. "You always said I was too impulsive."

"And you always barged into my house at the worst times."

A small, flickering ember of warmth in their voices. But it vanished quickly, smothered by the stillness of the lake.

---

They made camp by the water's edge.

The earth was layered in soft frost and old stone—the remains of something forgotten. Silas brushed off one flat surface, revealing a faint circular pattern etched into the rock.

A ruin. Old magic, long extinguished.

Velira guided her effigy into the shallows without a word. Water path sigils on its body began to glow softly as it began filtering the corrupted water. Faint pulses of blue light rippled through its limbs.

Silas gathered dry reeds and cloth scraps from his pack, sparking a small fire in a dish of hammered iron. Not much warmth, but enough light to keep the dark at bay.

They sat close, neither quite looking at the other. Both listening.

The wind didn't blow.

There were no insects.

No birds.

Only silence.

Until there wasn't.

---

It wasn't a noise, at first.

Just a shift.

A wrongness.

Then, at the edge of their firelight, glints of movement. Eyes—dull and yellow, like coals buried in ash.

Velira stood up slowly, her breath sharp in her throat.

Silas was already rising, body rigid. Hand on the hilt of his sword.

The figures emerged slowly.

Hellhounds.

Gaunt, skeletal things with ragged fur and too many teeth. They didn't snarl. They didn't rush. They circled. Patient. Hungry.

Velira's voice was hushed. "They're real."

Silas muttered, "Upper novice tier, maybe worse… There's too many."

She glanced at him. "So this is the part where we die?"

"Looks like it," he said, almost too calmly.

And then—

He laughed.

Not from amusement.

From somewhere darker.

Something fractured.

"Come on, then!" he shouted into the dark, voice sharp and wild. "Let's see if your teeth work on me!"

Velira turned, startled.

The firelight cast strange shadows on his face. He looked… different. Not just older.

Unhinged.

He lunged before she could stop him—kicking one hound in the jaw with brutal force, sending it sprawling. His effigy followed without instruction, slamming another beast to the ground, hard enough that its ribs cracked like dry wood.

Two fell. But the others hesitated.

And that was enough.

Silas pivoted, blood smearing his knuckles. His grin was wide, unnerving.

"I may not win," he hissed, "but you're all going to bleed."

The effigy moved again—on its own.

Not by command.

It launched itself at the alpha, limbs coiled tight, and slammed it into the ground hard enough to shake the stone. The body didn't move again.

The other hounds backed away, unsure.

And then the hunger returned.

Silas saw it in the way the effigy crouched beside the corpse. Saw its fingers twitch toward the fallen body like it wanted to eat it.

But it didn't move.

There were no circles. No materials. No refinement prepared.

Not yet.

But it wanted to.

Silas could feel it.

Velira stepped beside him, panting. "That thing… your effigy…"

He didn't answer.

He was staring at the corpse. At the faint blue-black energy still leaking from the hound's broken skull.

"I think I understand now," he murmured. "Why the orb rejected me. Why my effigy isn't like the others."

Velira tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

He turned to her slowly, eyes sharp.

"I wasn't cursed. I was cleared. A blank slate. No path… means no restrictions."

She didn't speak.

And Silas smiled, faint and strange.

"It can take in anything. Any magic. Any essence."

Then, softer.

"It's hungry."

The hellhounds finally began to slink back into the dark.

Silas didn't chase them.

He just stood there, hands still trembling, breath thick in his lungs.

Velira said nothing. Just watched him.

Something inside him had changed.

Not just his power.

Not just his mind.

His self.

He was still Silas.

But not quite the one she knew.