The morning sun in Grandis did not rise with warmth, but with an icy, blinding intensity that rebounded off the white marble of the High Spire, reminding every inhabitant of the Sinks exactly where they ranked in the Imperial order. In the Outer Disciple's wing, the iron bell clashed with a discordant, violent rhythm. Aleric opened his eyes. They were an unremarkable brown, the fiery crimson of the previous night pushed away behind a psychological screen.
He stood up from his cot, his movements stiff and deliberate. He dressed in the coarse, gray wool of the Academy uniform—a uniform that was meant to be as invisible as the commoners who wore them. He went about his morning rituals, ignoring the boasting talk of the other students as they prepared their Auras for the day's lectures.
The morning classes were an education in ineffectiveness. Professor Vane, a man whose ego was proportionately larger than his pool of Mana, droned on about the "Weight of Majesty." He spoke of how a true mage had to have the presence to command the respect of the other races. Aleric sat in the back of the room, his quill moving in rhythmic, mechanical motions.
Aleric is taking notes on the power of the soul. In point of fact, Aleric is tracing the leak present in Vane's own style. This man is wasting six percent of his total energy output just to keep his voice ringing, Aleric thought to himself, his own eyes blank. A walking leak.
But as the bells finally tolled for the midday break—the Academy graciously allowed its "charity cases" a brief respite outside the walls for personal matters and physical labor—Aleric made his move. He passed through the giant white stone gates of Grandis with his head bowed. The guards didn't even bother looking at his scroll of identification. They didn't need to; he was just another gray-robed rat scurrying out into the world in search of a copper coin.
Once clear of the Academy's immediate sensory radius, Aleric quickened his pace. He navigated the winding alleys of the Middle District, moving toward the soot-stained brickwork of the Lower Sector. In a narrow, shadowed corner behind an abandoned warehouse, he performed a quick, practiced transition. He shed the gray wool and donned the thick, crimson-dyed cotton. He pulled the hood low and adjusted the cloth mask attached to his adventurer clothes, ensuring it covered the lower half of his face.
And then, he took the breath that initialized the Auditor.
As the mask sealed against his skin, Aleric released the mental locks he had maintained all morning. The dull, mundane brown of his irises dissolved like smoke in a gale, replaced instantly by the piercing, luminescent Crimson that defined his true nature. The world did not just brighten; it reorganized into a grid of variables. With his eyes now active, the glow bled through the eye-slits of the cloth, casting a faint, predatory light upon the inner lining of his hood.
He moved toward the Adventurer's Guild, a brutal structure of black iron and jagged stone. This was the processing center for the Empire's biological assets. Upon entering, the first thing a person encountered was the "Taxonomy Board," which listed the three primary functional designations the Guild used to manage its freelancers.
Aleric scanned the board with his glowing eyes. Guardian-types were the static defenders, the "walls" paid to stay in one place and bleed for the city. Merchant-types were the logistics officers, responsible for the transfer of goods—the oils and crystals mined from the deep earth to fuel the Spire—through dangerous zones. Finally, there were the Hunter-types—the mobile harvesters whose purpose was to enter the wilderness, track the wild creatures, and bring back the raw, nutrient-rich meat and hides of the beasts to feed the ever-hungry populace of Grandis. It wasn't a title of honor; it was a job description that marked one as a replaceable "Utility Unit" in the Guild's ledger.
Aleric pushed open the heavy inner doors. The interior was a cavernous hall filled with the roar of a hundred voices and the thick, iron-scent of fresh blood and raw meat being weighed on massive iron scales.
Aleric walked toward the registration desk, where a woman with a scarred face and a mechanical copper arm was sorting through iron plates.
"I would like to register," Aleric said, the words echoing through the cup and saucer.
The woman looked up, her glass eye whirring as it struggled to "read" him. All she saw was a low-level, faint signature, because his eyes were hidden by the depth of his hood. "Another student playing hero? We don't have a classification for 'Suicidal Scholar,' boy. Choose one."
"Register me as a Hunter-type," Aleric declared.
The woman dipped her pen in the black ink in a jug, her copper limbs humming as she readied the parchment. "Very well. Now, what's thy specialty? I need to know thy combat type for the insurance ledger. Art thou a Swordsman? A Spearman? Or perhaps one of those delicate Mages who hides behind a shield as the beast devours his allies? Speak up, Hunter. I don't have all day to stand around and figure out how thou planest to dispatch a bear."
She sized him up from head to foot, her face a mask of contemptuous indifference. Aleric regarded her calmly, his Crimson Eyes blazing with a steady, analytical intensity beneath his mask of calm. He noted how her copper arm was ever so slightly askew. He noted the weaknesses in her desk design. He noted how her mana was concentrated in her eyes, straining to gauge his level.
"I am a Generalist," Aleric answered, his voice calm and steady. "I have learned the ways of the blade as well as the theories of the magic. The end justifies the means, so if a spell or a blow is required, the end is the same: the creature is rendered harmless, and the meat is saved."
The woman snorted, scribbling onto the iron plate. "A generalist? That is a fancy word for someone who is 'good at everything' and a master of nothing. Usually, that means thou art the first to die because thou dost not know whether to draw a sword or cast a spark when a wolf is at thy' throat. But fine, I'll list thee as a Universal Combatant. It makes no difference to me."
She scribbled the details with a practiced hand. "And remember, the Guild only pays for the prime cuts of meat. We don't buy bruised flesh or mangled hides. If thou art truly 'good' at everything, thy' cuts should be clean."
"The quality of my harvest will be... exact," Aleric replied.
"Name?" she asked.
"The Auditor," Aleric said.
The hall went momentarily quiet. A few veteran mercenaries turned their heads, their muzzles or beaks twitching in amusement at the strange name.
"The Auditor?" a man at a nearby table laughed, a scar-faced human with the plate of a Guardian-type. "What art thou going to do, boy? Count the bear's claws? Check the beast's tax returns?"
Aleric turned his masked head toward the man. Beneath the hood, his Crimson Eyes blazed with an icy intensity, the red light spilling out from the eye-slits like twin embers. The man's laughter died in his throat as a primal fear took hold of him. He didn't know why, but looking into those red voids made him feel as though his very life-force was being scrutinized for errors.
"I am going to ensure that the debt the world owes is collected," Aleric said, his voice cold.
The woman behind the desk slammed the iron plate onto the wood. It was etched with his new functional tag: Hunter-Type (Copper Rank) - The Auditor.
"There. Thou art officially a cog in the machine," she said. "Current bounties for beast-meat are on the board. Don't die in the first hour; the paperwork for a deceased freelancer is a waste of my time."
Aleric took the plate. It was heavy, a physical anchor for the identity he had created. He didn't look at the bounty board. With his Crimson Sight, he could already sense the "instability" in the Mana-field miles away toward the Blackwood Sector, where the larger creatures were beginning to migrate.
To the Guild, the Blackwood was a dangerous zone where beasts were aggressive and unpredictable. To Aleric, it was a biological data-point that needed balancing.
He turned and walked toward the exit, his crimson robes swirling. The laughter that followed him was now hollow and nervous. These men believed in the "Heavy" Aura—in the loud, wasteful display of power. They were managers of a bank that was already bankrupt, and they didn't even know the Auditor had just opened the books.
As he stepped back out into the soot-heavy air, Aleric looked toward the dark treeline of the Blackwood. His Crimson Eyes scanned the distance, picking out the jagged, erratic signatures of the creatures waiting in the dark.
"Thy' lions have had their day," Aleric whispered, his eyes glowing like embers. "Now, the spider begins to weave."