The air in Stonefall always carried the scent of damp earth and woodsmoke, a comforting aroma to most, but for Kaelen Vorlag, it was a reminder of his own stagnation.
He sat on the splintered steps of his family's dilapidated forge, the rusted sign above his head swinging in the wind, groaning a tired lament. 'Vorlag Dragon-Forgers,' it read, the elegant script now faded and chipping.
The title was a cruel joke, a relic of a time when the Vorlag name was synonymous with power and prestige, a lineage of masters who could manipulate aetherial essence to bind with dragonic bloodlines, creating peerless weapons and armor. Now, the forge was cold, and Kaelen was a ghost haunting its ruins.
The source of his family's shame was a curse he carried in his very soul: a shattered cultivation core. While every child in the realm of Aerthos was born with an innate core, a vessel for the world's omnipresent aether, Kaelen's was a useless, broken thing. He could feel the aether, a faint, humming presence all around him, but it was like trying to pour water into a sieve.
The energy would enter, only to dissipate instantly, a fleeting warmth that left him colder than before.
It was this condition that had led to their family's ruin. His father, a once-renowned Dragon-forger, had been crippled by the shame of having a 'coreless' son. The business withered, their reputation eroded, and his father eventually succumbed to a quiet, consuming despair. Kaelen was left alone, a living monument to his family's failure, a pariah in a village where a person's worth was measured by the strength of their aetherial flow.
Today, the sting was particularly sharp. The village was abuzz with preparation for the coming 'Aether Harvest,' a rite of passage where youths demonstrated their cultivation progress.
The square was filled with vibrant banners and the excited chatter of children and parents. Kaelen watched from the shadows of his forge, a knot of familiar dread tightening in his stomach.
"Well, well, if it isn't Kaelen the Coreless."
The voice was a grating sneer, and Kaelen didn't need to turn to know who it was. Torian Vex, a boy a year his senior with a cultivation core that was, by all accounts, exceptionally bright. Torian was a mirror of what Kaelen should have been: confident, strong, and brimming with aetherial arrogance.
"What's the matter, Vorlag?"
Torian continued, stepping into the dim light of the forge's entrance, two of his lackeys flanking him.
"Scared to show off your... well, nothing?"
He punctuated the last word with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Kaelen remained silent, his gaze fixed on the dirt floor. He had learned long ago that words only fueled Torian's cruelty.
"Don't ignore me," Torian snapped, kicking a loose rock that clattered against the forge's bellows.
"My father says your family's broken-down forge is an eyesore. Says we should tear it down and put up a proper training hall.
A place where real cultivators can hone their skills."
A flicker of defiance sparked in Kaelen's chest.
"This forge has more history than your entire bloodline, Vex,"
he murmured, his voice low and strained.
Torian laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "History? It's a monument to your family's failure. Your father couldn't even manage to give you a working core, let alone forge a decent blade. He died a worthless lump, and you're no different."
That was too far. Kaelen's head snapped up, his eyes, usually placid, burning with a furious green light. "Don't you dare talk about my father."
Torian's smirk widened. "Or what? You'll hit me with your overwhelming lack of aether? What are you going to do, Vorlag? Throw a rock? Or maybe you'll try to cultivate a single shred of dignity." He took a step closer, pushing a finger into Kaelen's chest. "You're a parasite on this town. A wasted life."
The provocation was deliberate, a calculated cruelty designed to shatter Kaelen's composure. He knew it, and yet the humiliation and rage were overwhelming. His fists clenched, and he felt a desperate, futile surge of energy the phantom sensation of aether, a brief flash of warmth that vanished as quickly as it came. His body, starved of the cultivating energy that strengthened others, felt brittle and weak.
Just then, a commotion in the street drew their attention. A traveling merchant's cart had broken a wheel, spilling crates of exotic goods.
Aetherial cultivators, even young ones, could simply use a gust of wind or a pulse of energy to lift the cart, but no one moved. The adults waited for the children to show off their skills, a small spectacle of power.
Torian puffed out his chest. "Watch and learn, Coreless," he boasted before striding toward the cart.
He closed his eyes, his body glowing with a faint blue aura. With a grunt of effort, a small gust of wind swirled around the cart. It shifted, groaned, and then settled back with a thud, the wheel still firmly broken. Torian's face flushed with frustration. He was powerful for his age, but not powerful enough.
The lackeys snickered, and Kaelen felt a fleeting sense of schadenfreude, but it was quickly replaced by a profound emptiness. He saw the aether, the shimmering blue threads that wove through the air, just beyond his reach. He could feel what Torian was trying to do, a vague, distant echo of the technique.
He could almost will the cart to rise, if only his core wasn't a gaping void.
He saw a solution in his mind's eye, a perfect, elegant manipulation of the surrounding energy, but his body was a useless instrument.
As the crowd of villagers began to murmur and drift away, disappointed by the lack of a spectacle, Torian turned back to Kaelen, his face twisted in a sneer. He walked over, picked up a fist-sized rock, and held it out.
"Here, Vorlag. Let's see you try. A simple air-push. Come on."
He taunted, then threw the rock at Kaelen's chest.
Kaelen caught it reflexively, the weight of it heavy in his hand. He looked down at the mundane object.
A rock. Useless. He could do nothing with it. It was the absolute, total futility of it all that broke something inside him. The years of scorn, the grief for his father, the burning shame of his own existence it all converged on this single, insignificant moment.
Without a word, Kaelen turned and walked back into the shadowy interior of the forge. He didn't hear Torian's parting insult. He just kept walking, past the cold, silent hearth, past the rusted tools of a forgotten art, to a small, hidden chest in the back. He opened it, revealing a small, folded map and a single, faded journal.
His father's.
The journal contained sketches of intricate aetherial matrices and notes on the lost art of Dragon-forging. But on the last page, there was a desperate, scrawled entry.
Whispering Peaks. Rumored to hold a cure. A legendary 'Heart' that can restore a shattered core. A fool's hope... but a hope nonetheless.
Kaelen's hands trembled as he touched the words. A fool's hope. Yes. But it was the only one he had. He thought of his father's final, defeated words, the last time he'd looked at Kaelen with that mixture of love and profound sadness.
Don't chase a ghost, son. It's too dangerous.
But what was his life now if not a ghost?
He looked at the map, then at the cold forge, and finally at the open doorway, where the sun cast a long shadow. He wouldn't be like his father. He wouldn't let this shame define him, not anymore. He didn't care about the risk, or the impossible odds, or the scorn of a world that had already judged him.
With a newfound, steel-like resolve, Kaelen Vorlag folded the map, slipped it into his tunic, and without a single glance back at the place of his torment, stepped out into the dying light of the afternoon, his gaze fixed on the distant, perilous silhouette of the Whispering Peaks. He would find a cure, or he would die trying. Either way, his life as a coreless pariah in Stonefall was over.