Ever since the first sightings, people began claiming they had seen something else.
A giant in the hills, a serpent in the sea, something moving through the trees. Most of the time, it was nothing. Rumors spread easily, and with the sky already changed, people were quick to believe anything.
Villages argued, travelers exaggerated, and some lied for attention. But every now and then, an entire frontier village would say the same thing.
"It passed over us."
They never described it the same way, but they all agreed on that part. In the outer settlements of the Aurethian Marches, farmers stopped going out before sunrise. They spoke of shadows that moved across the fields without sound.
"It wasn't like clouds," one said. "It was too smooth."
Most dismissed it as fear.
Along the coasts of the Zytherian Dual Crown, ships began returning earlier than usual. Fishermen did not argue with each other, which was unusual on its own.
"It crossed the horizon," one said.
"How?"
"It didn't rise or sink. It just moved across it."
No one had a better explanation.
In the Khargrun Deepholds, reports were quieter but taken more seriously.
Scouts spoke of moments where sound behaved incorrectly.
"No echo."
"That's not possible underground."
"I know. That's why I reported it."
The incident was recorded, then left unresolved.
In Sylvaria, the response was different.
The elves did not spread rumors. They compared them.
Elyndra listened without interruption as the reports were brought to her.
"They are calling it an observer," the mage said.
Elyndra's eye remained fixed upward.
"Does it act with intent?"
"No."
"Then the name is premature."
"They believe it is watching them."
Elyndra closed her eye for a moment, then extended her magic.
Fifty meters... Nothing.
"...Then it is not something within our reach."
As weeks passed, the reports became harder to dismiss. Not because they increased, but because they began to align.
A village in the highlands reported something overhead. A coastal fleet described the same shape later that night. A patrol in the plains marked a similar sighting by position, not appearance. They were not seeing the same details, but they were looking at the same thing. One account stood out more than the others.
"It didn't feel like it was there for us," the man said. "It just moved through."
That detail spread slowly, but it remained unchanged. By then, most people had stopped trying to name it. Whatever it was, it did not behave like anything they understood.
And it did not seem to notice them at all. That, more than anything, unsettled people. If it were a beast, it should have hunted. If it were a spirit, it should have lingered. If it were anything known, it should have acted.
This did none of that. It appeared, moved, and was gone. Then something changed. Not everywhere, not all at once, but enough that the stories no longer sounded the same.
In a frontier village near the eastern plains of the Aurethian Marches, the watch did not argue that night. They did not mistake it for a shadow. They did not compare it to clouds. They saw it clearly.
"It's lower." "Too low." "It shouldn't be that low."
It did not pass over them. It slowed. The shape was wrong. Not flowing, not shifting like something alive, but rigid. Edges where there should have been none. Lines that held their form against the night.
"It stopped."
No one moved. No one spoke after that. A child pointed upward.
"There." "I see it." "So do I."
For once, there was no disagreement. The next morning, the village was still there. No destruction. No signs of struggle. Nothing taken. But no one continued their routines.
Fields were left untouched. Doors stayed open. Tools lay where they had been dropped. And at the edge of the village, just beyond the last house—
The ground had been disturbed. Not torn apart. Not crushed. Pressed. As if something had stood there.
Tracks were found, but no one agreed on what made them. Too even to be an animal. Too deep for a person.
And they did not lead away. They ended.
By the time word reached the nearest outpost, the story had already begun to change. Some said it was a beast that came down from the sky.
Others said it was something worse. Something that had come down… and stayed. No one could confirm it. Not yet. But for the first time since the sightings began,
People stopped looking up. And started looking around them instead.
Somewhere above Keros, unseen in the daylight, Something adjusted its position. And this time, It did not move on.