A story in the papers
Time and space were truly meaningless to the Shadows that Watched. If a place existed, then the shadows watched it. It could be anywhere at any time. Having finished following the girls, it saw the city for an entire month and was done with it. This time, it watched a different town.
Basra is just south of the East Citadel, a city famous as the meeting point of four continents. Travelers from Blarheim, Bleikheim, and Myrkheim all arrive here from either the East Citadel or the South Citadel. An exciting city and hotspot for the information trade.
Nearly 50 years ago, a certain man established the Center for News Export here. He grew it into the 2nd largest news agency in the world. Now with his son at the reigns, it deals in both high-quality journalism and popular “hot” news. The diversity of the city causes its tourism industry to thrive with extravagance and exoticism. Still, the city is rife with discord. CNE reports on it all.
The CNE office was a 42-floor rustic brick building, the centerpiece of Jay St., near the edge of downtown. Just before lunch, the building is buzzing with work. Stories are prepared in the morning and approved after lunch. A young man in a drab suit and his brown curls tucked under his trendy hat was the only reporter in the manager’s office before lunch.
“Boss, I’m telling you, this ain’t gonna be a one-off story. Something is brewing over there and we need to be on top of this before anyone else.”
Mr. Peaches, who was usually called Jonsee, was a young reporter and a bright star in the company. Everyone knew he could get a source for anything from anywhere, but his bets didn’t always play out as he expected. He was a gamble and it was his boss’ job to mitigate that risk.
“This about Stonefarm, yeah? Listen, I don’t know who your new source is, but they’re a kook. Wannabe overlords pop up from time to time and start a little bit of trouble. If you want to waste your life chasing petty squabbles, do it somewhere else.”
I have first-hand accounts passed along by merchants. They don’t dabble in baseless rumors. I doubt The Branch would risk his reputation on gossip.
Jonsee was confident in his source, but The Branch was cautious. Jonsee can’t risk losing him to win this fight.
“This isn’t something so mundane. It’s the start of something big. My instincts as a reporter are screaming at me. Whoever breaks this story will go down in history.”
“Geez, kid. Get your head out of the clouds. We can’t be worried about history, we have a job to report about today.
The boss is talking about a recent vigilante. The “innocent” people he’s talking about are just petty criminals. There isn’t much room for vigilantes in Midgard. If a city’s crime gets out of control, it’s seen as a failure of governorship and the central council steps in. We don’t even get supervillains here since there are enough powerful guilds to discourage them. So-called superheroes are only found in remote territories and the frontiers.
Despite all this, there’s a kid, an arachnomancer, going around fighting crime. He’s likely some local who watched too many movies about adventurers but couldn’t get parental permission to join the guild. The boss wants to frame him as some kind of street punk that the guards can’t arrest. Keep the story going for a few months and sell a bunch of papers.
“Get Beetle to write that story. He loves that kind of thing.”
“Beetle’s an idiot. You’re the only one that can do this.”
There was something gnawing, tugging at Jonsee. He had no guidance skill and no higher power was giving him direction. This was an instinct he was born with, one demanding he run off to Thule immediately, his job be damned.
His boss must have sensed something was wrong and made a play to keep his most popular reporter around.
“Look, you do this story for me and you can take a couple weeks off after the story is done.”
His boss wasn’t leaving him with much choice. Even if he left right away, he wouldn’t get much new info. He needs to be there for the next development. Take this job, save money, follow new leads. After that, he can go to the source.
“Deal.”
The shadows were drawn into this particular building. It felt a strange kinship with reports and the like. Knowledge flows like a river carrying secrets downstream. It had luckily found a friend to follow.
Some months later, Jonsee’s buddy in the church would let it slip that there was more to that event than was made public. Jonsee would then go on to track everything connected to Stonefarm and would one day pen the famous Hero of Stonefarm.
The shadows enjoyed all the chaos that followed.
A story from the barracks
The South Citadel is a minor territory on the southernmost point of the central continent. Despite being the point of entry for Blarheim, it’s little more than a garrison and a waypoint for those heading to Snake-Horse gate.
There would normally be no reason for the Shadows to come besides following the reporter tracking rumors. Something had caught its attention and now it was searching the citadel for the strange man.
The shadows had been searching for long enough that the seasons changed and the citadel was busy preparing for the Midsummer Celebration. Today, the Shadows are watching boring soldiers, hoping for that particular man to appear.
The soldiers the shadows watched were two large northern men stuffed into modern plate. Their pale skin was painted with vibrant colors and they decorated their uniformed armor with fur, feathers, beads, and other trinkets.
Speaking in a thick accent that smoothed the consonants, the two soldiers gossiped about the recent rumors. The older man was becoming tired of his compatriot.
“The commander’s from Bruunheim, yeah? Go settle your curiosity by bugging him.”
“Not happening. I’m staying away from him as much as I can.”
“Don’t stress your pretty hair. Our small unit isn’t going to get deployed all the way over there for some small squabble.”
“Unless it really is one of them. The entire army would have to go fight.”
“Not this again. The last one was killed over a decade ago. The Death Frost was the last lord, there won’t be another.”
Fourteen years ago, a Dark Lord appeared in the southernmost lands. He splintered the Nahrain Empire in his attempt to become a Pharaoh of Darkness. He appeared suddenly, brought down a reckoning of undeath, and was then defeated in a year.
“If an unknown lord can show up like back then, why not again?”
The Cold Lord was the first to appear in a century, after most had figured them long gone. Many had assumed the necromancer was only in hiding, while others argued that more could appear if mankind was not diligent.
“They’re more than that. Imposing. To look at one is to die. There’s no way a child could become one. It’s a baseless rumor.”
“If you prefer standing around to doing patrols, I can accommodate that.”
The shadows were taken by surprise. The commander had appeared from almost nowhere. He looked like an ordinary man. He was much shorter than the two northerners and kept his black hair shorn short. His dark skin was unpainted and his armor was unadorned. But still, something about this man unnerved the shadows.
“Commander!” The two northerners saluted the commander and rushed back to their duties.
The shadows ignored the two men and focused on the commander. The Shadows can’t let him escape its watchful eyes. He walked down several hallways making twists and turns, if this was how he always moved, the Shadows would have found him earlier. Eventually, he came to a stop in an abandoned courtyard.
“So, you are following me.”
“!”
“I don’t know your goal or who sent you, but I can’t let you leave.”
The Shadows felt something trying to grab it. The Watcher couldn’t fathom how it was noticed, let alone what the man was attempting. Whatever was trying to grab The Shadows had enclosed the entire courtyard. The Watcher slipped between the spaces in reality and fled.
“It got away.”
While the Watcher was gone and didn’t see it, the man vanished into the shadows. It had a new subject to watch, but it must be cautious to avoid being noticed again.
A small look behind the scenes
My name is Lloyd Allhammer, but I have to go by the designation A5567. I’m the lead researcher into magic. Specifically, reincarnation magic. My job isn’t easy. Magic hasn’t been commonplace for decades and the magic of the target world is somewhat different. The underlying mechanics are the same even though the activation and results differ wildly. While it makes research unpredictable, there is at least a layer of conversion between the two worlds.
It’s like a mystery puzzle. Trying to connect all the pieces and figure out what is happening has been a source of excitement and exhaustion. It’s like both our magic systems were descended from the same foundation. It’s my hope that I can discover the root of magic.
The Reincarnation Magic that we are so reliant on is more like a school of magic. It’s rigid in what can be included and leaves little room for variation. We call each of the school’s spells, “metrics”. We’ve already used the four metrics we’ve developed even though one of them was off-limits and the last one was developed in a mad rush.
We started with only two subjects almost a decade ago, but now we have four, plus two more that just joined. The two new subjects allowed us to experiment with requirements. We were able to perform a Tensei but remodel the subject’s body to appear exactly like their old one. The other subject had their mind manipulated. A mission was implanted into the subconscious and select memories were preserved and given conditions to resurface. The Director said it’s all a part of a backup plan, but we were thrilled to manipulate the mind in such a way.
The stated goal of my department is the development of a perfect Shoukan metric. The board wants a spell that can directly transport body, mind, and spirit to the new world. It is far beyond sending memories into a new body and reforming the soul there. Once successful, we would transport the entire planet all at once.
The secret mission my boss gave me, though, was to develop a metric that is neither Tensei or Shoukan. The ultimate reincarnation spell that would make her immortal and able to watch over us in the new world for all eternity.
“Ugh. I love my work, but the higher-ups sure make it hard on us.”
