Chapter 3: The First Test & A Squad's Mistrust
Dawn bled a sullen grey light into the Obsidian Guard's tower. Kaelen hadn't slept. The phantom sensation of the grimoire's voice still echoed in his skull, and the pile of sand in the courtyard stood as silent, undeniable proof. He'd spent the rest of the night trying to replicate the feat, to no avail. The grimoire remained a cold, closed block on his cot, indifferent to his pleas and focus. The key, it seemed, required a specific kind of desperation to turn.
The door to the barracks slammed open, and Inspector Vale strode in, his grey robes flapping. His eyes immediately found Kaelen. "Well? Report."
Before Kaelen could speak, Garrison's rumble cut through the room. "He was out in the yard muttering to himself half the night. Woke me up."
"I… I opened it," Kaelen said, his voice raspy from lack of sleep.
All movement in the room ceased. Silas looked up from his corner, frost crystallizing briefly on his fingertips. Riven paused in the act of balancing a dagger on its point.
Vale's nostrils flared with excitement. "Show me."
Feeling the weight of their stares, Kaelen lifted the Unclassified grimoire. He didn't try to summon the same volatile emotions from last night—that felt like a lie. Instead, he focused on the memory of the voice, the chilling certainty of it. He thought of the will he'd poured out, not as mana, but as raw defiance. He pressed his palms against the cover and pushed with his intent, not his energy.
With the same dry gasp, the cover opened a fraction. The mirror-like first page gleamed dully.
Vale leaned in, breathless. "No mana signature. Not even a ripple. This is unprecedented." He pointed to a cracked flagstone near the firepit. "Attempt alteration on a designated target. The flagstone. Focus on a section."
Kaelen looked at the page. The void swirled, and the reflection shifted to show the flagstone, its network of cracks like a black spiderweb. The cold, intelligent presence was there, watching, waiting.
"DEFINE," the voice murmured, a silent tremor in his mind.
Last night, he'd defined something broken as dust. What was this? Solid. Whole, despite cracks. Connected. Foundation.
He focused his will, trying to impose a new definition. Separate. Fragment.
Nothing happened. The flagstone in the reflection remained stubbornly solid. In the real world, it didn't change. A headache, sharp and sudden, lanced behind his eyes. He grunted, his concentration breaking. The grimoire snapped shut.
Vale's eager expression faltered. "Inconsistent. Unreliable."
"Told you," Garrison muttered, going back to his massive whetstone, the screech of metal on stone filling the awkward silence. "Parlor trick."
"It worked on the stone outside," Kaelen insisted, frustration bubbling up.
"A smaller, simpler target," Vale mused, jotting notes. "Perhaps scale and complexity are factors. Or the required 'will' is exponentially greater. Not combat viable. Not yet." He snapped his notebook shut. "Regardless, you have proven basic functionality. The 'Unclassified' designation stands, but your immediate disposal is off the table. Congratulations. You are officially a liability we're required to manage."
The backhanded endorsement hung in the air.
"Management starts now," Riven said, suddenly standing right beside Kaelen. He hadn't seen her move. She tapped the cover of his grimoire with a fingernail. "If that thing's got a pulse, it means you're not just a waste of space. You're an active problem. And problems in the Obsidian Guard get solved one way: by being useful on a retrieval."
"A retrieval?" Kaelen asked.
Silas spoke from his shadow, his voice chilling the air. "Our primary function. The empire has… leftovers. Magical anomalies, cursed objects, failed experiments, and the occasional rogue mage too unstable or embarrassing for the regular squads to handle. We retrieve them. Or contain them. Sometimes the line is blurry."
"You're not going on a full op," Vale said sternly. "But you will observe. A simple containment retrieval in the Lower Districts. A hedgewitch has been using a corrupted Bronze grimoire to brew addictive euphoria potions. It's causing localized reality bleeds—patches where colors swim and sounds echo wrong. Low threat, but messy. You will watch how a professional squad handles a minor anomaly. Consider it your first lesson in what we really do."
Garrison stood, his bulk blocking the dim light from the window. "He'll get in the way. He'll be a weakness."
"Noted," Vale said, unmoved. "And overruled. He is part of your squad. His education is your responsibility. You have two hours to prepare."
---
The Lower Districts stank of boiled cabbage, cheap coal, and despair. It was a maze of leaning tenements and narrow alleys, a world away from the marble sanctums of the Selection. This was where Kaelen had grown up, where Bronze grimoires were considered a success story. Now he returned, trailing behind the three intimidating figures of the Obsidian Guard, feeling like a ghost in his own past.
The people here recognized the squad's grey-and-black insignia and shrank away, fear in their eyes. They weren't heroes here; they were the empire's clean-up crew, a bad omen.
"The source is in a cellar apothecary, three blocks down," Silas said, his breath frosting in the unusually chill air he carried with him. "Reality bleeds are strongest near the entrance. Garrison, you're point. Breach and distract. Riven, flank and secure the grimoire. I'll contain the environmental effects."
No one gave Kaelen an order. He was just supposed to watch.
They turned a corner, and Kaelen saw it. The air in front of a rusted iron cellar door shimmered. It wasn't an illusion; the very texture of the world was wrong. The brown of the wooden wall behind it bled into a sickly purple. The sound of a distant shouting match looped on itself, repeating the same angry syllable over and over. A child's lost ball on the ground seemed to pulse with a faint, nausea-inducing rhythm.
"Minor perceptual corruption," Silas stated, his own Silver grimoire flipping open. A page glowed with soft blue light. "Spell: Frostweave Calm." He blew a gentle breath, and a lattice of delicate frost spread from his lips, flowing over the shimmering air. Where the frost touched, the colors stabilized, and the looping sound dampened to a whisper. It was like applying a cold compress to a fevered wound.
Garrison didn't bother with stealth. He strode forward, his own Bronze grimoire glowing with a steady earthy light. "Spell: Stonefist." His right hand and forearm rippled, the skin darkening and taking on a rough, granitic texture. He grabbed the iron door and, with a screech of tortured metal, ripped it clean off its hinges.
From the dark interior, a gurgling shriek erupted. A wave of multicolored, psychotropic mist billowed out.
"Riven!" Garrison barked, waving a stony hand to dissipate the mist.
"Already moving," her voice came from inside the cellar, though Kaelen hadn't seen her pass. She was a blur of crimson in the gloom. He saw flashes of steel, heard a thud and a curse.
Silas maintained his frostweave, containing the mist's spread into the street. "Kaelen. Observe the perimeter. Ensure no civilians wander into the bleed."
It was a make-work order, but Kaelen clung to it. He turned, trying to look vigilant, his Unclassified grimoire a lead weight at his side. He saw the frightened faces peeking from behind shutters, the quick retreats. He saw the distorted patch of street, now partially stabilized by Silas's intricate frost.
Then he saw the child.
A small girl, maybe six years old, stood at the mouth of an adjacent alley, mesmerized by the pulsing, rainbow colors of the contained mist. Her eyes were wide, her hand reaching out towards the pretty lights. She was steps away from crossing into the fringe of the reality bleed.
"Stop!" Kaelen shouted, sprinting.
The girl didn't hear him, entranced.
Kaelen wouldn't reach her in time. He skidded to a halt, fumbling for his grimoire. He couldn't cast a barrier. He couldn't create a force. All he had was that hollow, hungry book and a single, terrifying page.
He wrenched it open. The mirror-surface reflected the scene: the girl, the shimmering, frost-laced corruption, the alley. The ancient presence within stirred, interested.
"THE BLEED IS A FALSE DEFINITION. A WEAK STORY IMPOSED ON REALITY."
There was no time for philosophy. The girl's fingertips were about to brush the warped air. Kaelen focused not on the girl, but on the corruption itself. In the reflection, he isolated the shimmering patch. He didn't understand its magical composition. But he could define what it wasn't.
It wasn't stable. It wasn't natural. It was invasive.
He poured every ounce of his fear for the child, his own sense of being an invasive failure in a structured world, into a single, silent command of will.
BE GONE.
In the reflection, the shimmering patch didn't just stabilize; it un-wrote. It peeled back like a scab being lifted, revealing the normal, grimy wall and street beneath. The process was silent and absolute.
In the real world, a three-foot diameter section of the reality bleed simply ceased to exist. Not dispelled. Not purified. Erased. The frostweave lattice where it had been hung in the air for a moment before crumbling into meaningless ice dust.
The little girl's hand touched solid, normal brick. She blinked, the glamour broken, and stumbled back, confused and starting to cry.
Kaelen slammed the grimoire shut. A monstrous headache, ten times worse than before, exploded in his skull. He tasted copper, and a trickle of warm blood dripped from his nose. He swayed, vision swimming.
The fight inside the cellar ended. Riven emerged, holding a cracked, fungus-grown Bronze grimoire sealed in a lead-lined bag. Garrison followed, dragging a dazed, middle-aged woman with chemically dilated pupils.
Silas was staring at the hole in his frostweave, at the perfectly normal patch of wall where profound corruption had just been. He looked from it to the bleeding, pale-faced Kaelen. His frost-chip eyes were wide with something that wasn't fear, but profound, icy alarm.
"What," Silas said, his voice dangerously quiet, "did you do?"
Riven followed his gaze. She saw the erased zone, saw Kaelen's nosebleed. Her predatory smile returned, sharper than ever. "Oh, sparky. You didn't just watch, did you?"
Garrison dumped the hedgewitch unceremoniously onto the cobbles. "Report."
"The anomaly," Silas said, pointing a slender finger at the clean patch. "A segment of the reality bleed was not contained. It was… deleted. By him."
Garrison's stony face turned to Kaelen. There was no approval there, only deep-seated suspicion. "You interfered."
"A child was about to walk into it!" Kaelen gasped, wiping his nose, the blood bright on his hand.
"And your solution was to use an Unclassified power you don't understand on an anomaly you don't comprehend?" Silas's tone was scathing. "You could have unraveled the girl's soul. You could have expanded the bleed. You could have attracted something from the deeper layers you just opened a door into."
Kaelen's blood ran cold. He hadn't thought of any of that. He'd just acted.
"He saved a civilian," Riven countered, though her tone was more intrigued than defensive. "Messy, stupid, and brave. Interesting combo."
"It is not a combo we can afford," Garrison rumbled. "We operate on control. On known quantities. He is an unknown variable. He makes the mission unstable." He looked at Kaelen with finality. "You are a weakness. And in the Obsidian Guard, weaknesses get people killed. Not just you. Us."
The walk back to the tower was silent and tense. Vale was waiting, his eyes immediately noting Kaelen's bloodied face and the squad's grim expressions.
"Well?"
Garrison spoke first. "He used his power. Unauthorized. On the field."
Vale's eyebrows shot up. He listened as Silas gave a cold, precise account of the deletion. The Inspector's initial excitement morphed into a frown of deep concern.
"You manipulated ontological stability without a framework," Vale muttered, scribbling furiously. "This is… this is leagues beyond turning stone to sand. This is direct engagement with corrupted magical phenomena." He looked at Kaelen. "The headache? The epistaxis?"
"It felt like my brain was trying to push out of my skull," Kaelen admitted.
"Psychic feedback. Your will, your sense of self, is the fuel and the lens. You are not channeling mana; you are imposing your narrative onto reality. The strain is mental, not physical. Overuse could lead to dissociation, identity fragmentation… you could lose the boundary between what you define and what you are."
The clinical diagnosis was more terrifying than Garrison's blunt threat.
"He stays in the tower," Garrison declared. "No more field ops until he has control. If ever."
Vale hesitated, then nodded. "Agreed. Training and study only. We must map the limits before he breaks himself or something irreplaceable."
That night, back in the drafty barracks, the divide was palpable. Garrison ignored him completely. Silas regarded him as one would a dangerous, malfunctioning artifact. Only Riven approached, tossing him a clean rag for his nose.
"Don't let the glacier and the boulder get to you," she said, her voice low. "They see a tool that broke on first use. I see a tool that's sharper than the box it came in. Sharp tools just need careful handling." She leaned closer, her scent of steel and ozone in his nostrils. "But Silas isn't wrong, sparky. What you did today? That wasn't magic. That was editing the world's source code with a rusty knife. Next time, the cut might be in the wrong place."
She left him alone with his throbbing head and his cold, hungry grimoire.
Kaelen lay on his cot, staring at the smoke-stained ceiling. The forbidden hope from last night was now tangled with a thick vine of fear. He had a power that could erase corruption, but it could also erase him. He was in a squad that saw him as a liability. And he was bound to a book that spoke in the voice of an ancient void.
He opened the grimoire again, with effort. The mirror page showed his own exhausted, blood-streaked face. The intelligent lights in the void behind his reflection seemed brighter.
"YOU TOOK A FRAGMENT OF A FALSE TALE AND UNTOLD IT," the voice echoed, a hint of approval in its dryness. "THIS IS THE PATH. BUT TO UNTELL GREAT LIES, YOU MUST FIRST FORGE A WILL THAT CANNOT BE DENIED. YOUR WEAKNESS IS NOT YOUR MANA. IT IS YOUR DOUBT. SHED IT."
"How?" Kaelen whispered aloud.
"DEFINE YOURSELF."
The page went dark, reflecting nothing.
In the shadows, Silas watched Kaelen talk to his book, his frosty eyes narrowed in calculation. He pulled a small, personal journal from his robes and began to write in elegant, precise script.
Observation Log: Subject Kaelen, Unclassified Bearer.
Event: First field exposure, unauthorized anomaly engagement.
Effect: Localized ontological deletion of a Class-1 Reality Bleed. Cost: Minor psychic backlash.
Assessment: Power is potent, intuitive, and fundamentally amoral. It does not distinguish between "corruption" and "reality." It only enforces the user's will. The user is emotionally driven, untrained, and possesses a potentially catastrophic lack of self-preservation. He is not a teammate. He is a walking paradigm crisis.
Recommendation: Continuous isolation within the squad is advised. If control cannot be established, termination may become a necessity for dimensional stability. The Curator's Guild's fascination is a significant liability.
Silas closed the journal. Across the room, Kaelen finally slept, the Unclassified grimoire clutched to his chest like a child's nightmare toy.
And in the deepest archives of the Curator's Guild, far below the capital, a different page turned. An alarm, silent and centuries dormant, registered a pulse of "Unmaking." A file, labeled in a language forgotten by history, glowed with faint, ominous light. Inspector Vale's report was not the first to be written on the phenomenon. It was merely the latest.