Rayden grew up in Arvus, a small village on the center-east rim of Sepith that revolved around an iron deposit. It was a backwater town hardly more prosperous than Penrith, until an unexpected discovery of Slipsilver dramatically changed its citizens' fortunes.
The shiny gray mineral was similar to its namesake, but was softer and more malleable. It also had an anti-magic property, allowing weapons made out of it to easily pierce mana-based structures. It was the great equalizer of the kingdom, the common manâs only defense against Attuned warriors.
And thatâs why it was so greedily hoarded by the royal family.
Thanks to Baron Eliasâs easy-going natureâor laziness, as some whisperedâArvus was allowed to manage the mine independently as long as the Baron received half of the cut. His mother, who had previously served under an administrator in Eliasâs retinue, helped negotiate this deal and oversee its implementation.
The resulting windfall transformed Arvus into a bustling hub, a town where families settled down and businesses flourished. A year or two after the mining operation began, his mother was elected Lady Mayor, the townâs appointed representative to the Lord Baronâs court.
Funnily enough, Rayden grew up with a modest amount of privilege.
Arvus continued its ascent until his tenth birthday, when a powerful merchant guild called the Blue Girdle began pestering the town for a stake in its Slipsilver business. It started innocently enough, but the guild was uncomfortably persistent. His mother and the townâs elders repeatedly declined their offers of gold and prestige, but the guild kept trying to worm their way into Arvusâs good graces.
Rayden remembered asking his mom why they kept trying after she had already told them no. As a kid, he failed to understand how that was possible.
âSome men are like that,â she had patiently explained. âRejection only encourages them. If left unchecked, they will eventually go out and take what they want.â
He hadn't been old enough to fully understand the implication, but something about her words saddened him. It had been one of his first brushes with adulthood, a world where terrible things were accepted as commonplace.
A year after the Blue Girdle began their efforts, the guild won their first victory. After patiently offering bribe after bribe, they circumvented the townspeople and bought fifteen percent of the baronâs stake, becoming an official partner whether Arvus wanted it or not.
It was around this time that their leader, a Knight named Ivo, visited the mine for a âroutineâ inspection. His stay was uneventful, but the message was explicitly clear: We are stronger than you.
Soon after, people began to get sick, especially those who worked or lived in close proximity to the mine. The illness came on slowly, but progressed methodically, slowly degrading the body until crippling weakness took hold. Many of the townâs strongest workers were suddenly put out of commission, threatening the engine of Arvusâs economic livelihood.
The guild quickly labeled the disease a plague, but Raydenâs mother was adamant it was mana sickness, a result of a high-tier Attuned over Siphoning the area. Only someone of a Knightâs rank or higher could wield that kind of power, and only one such person had ever set foot in Arvus. Yet, sadly, his motherâs complaints were dismissed by the baron.
Elias declared that a witch hunt had no place in his domain and advised his mother to ensure his profits were not affected by a sudden bout of weakness. Rayden remembered the night after she had met with the baron. She went to bed immediately, without a word, and did not come out until noon the next day.
As the townâs woes got worse, the Blue Girdle generously offered to supplement the dwindling workforce with golems their Knight could create. It was an obvious poison pill, but one they could not refuse. If they didnât meet the baronâs quotas, they would lose everything. An agreement was hammered out, and the guild had earned a twenty-five percent stake of the townâs share for their troubles.
However, the people of Arvus did not give up. Under his motherâs leadership, the townâs coffers were emptied to supplement the income of the sick workers until they could return to their jobs, creating a safety net that kept morale high. The local shops and adventuring guild banded together out of loyalty to their home, refusing to raise the price of medicine, food, and supplies.
It was a wonderful show of community, but it proved ephemeral as the year dragged on. Rayden remembered seeing dark circles under his motherâs eyes most mornings, clinging to her face like oil as the town's fortunes dwindled.
By his thirteenth birthday, it seemed like every able-bodied worker in town was sick. Arvusâs surplus funds were rapidly depleting, and the citizens' morale had plummeted. The Blue Girdle had slyly bought up many of the local shops that helped Arvus maintain its solidarity, skyrocketing the price of their wares and blaming the mayorâs stubbornness for the inflation.
He remembered hearing townsfolk who had treated his mother like a celebrity just months ago begin to curse her name in the street. Many of them took the bait, whispering that if she just let the guild take over the mine, theyâd all be saved.
âDonât blame them,â his mom had told him one night. âTheyâve done admirably. The guild can afford to have patience, but most people in Arvus cannot.â
She tried hard to hide her pain, but every time she went to her room and closed the door, she came out with puffy red eyes and a cold stare. Rayden never said anything; he just quietly pretended that things would work out, same as she did.
Looking back now, he wondered how she had kept going, how she had endured those lonely days of being starved out by men who should want for nothing but demanded everything. Everywhere she looked for help, people either turned a blind eye or were already blinded by greed.
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Yet, she kept trying, right until the very end.
As things disintegrated, the guild master of the Blue Girdle made a personal visit to their home. Over dinner, he shamelessly made his mother a âgenerousâ offer to save the town by buying up its stake of the Slipsilver mine. He said that heâd talked it over with the baron, and they had both agreed that while she and Arvus had done a great job getting things off the ground, more capable hands were now required.
In that moment, he saw his mother's eyes smolder with rage for the first and only time in his life. Looking back, it was obvious how deeply wounded she had been by trying to do the right thing.
In the heat of the moment, his mother looked the rich and powerful man directly in his eyes, spat, and told him that sheâd never bow her head to a monster, not even if it reared its ugly head in the middle of her home.
The man flew into a rage, flaring his power as he shouted obscenities so loud the house shook. It was the first time heâd seen how powerful men treat women who donât give them what they want. Rayden couldnât even remember the exact words the brute had hurled at them; he had gone catatonic, silently trembling as he blocked everything out and prayed the man would just go away.
When Ivo eventually did, his mother pulled him into her arms and began to sob. The two of them cried together, letting the pain and suffering of the past few years out in a flood of tears. There was nothing else they could do.
He hadnât understood then that while he was crying for himself, a scared teenager unused to the kingdomâs cruelty, his mother was crying on behalf of the entire town, knowing that her people were going to be punished for a mere moment of rebellion.
The very next day, she sent him to visit his uncle, who lived in a small village nearby. She said that after a night of thinking it over, she wanted him to stay with her brother until things in Arvus calmed down.
He had been suspicious, but didnât make a stink. His mother was suddenly acting more upbeat than he had seen in months, and he didnât want to challenge her good mood.
Rayden could only imagine what she had been thinking now, spending her last moments with her son playing make-believe. When he thought of her fake smile that morningâ¦it made him want to tear out Ivoâs throat and put his head on a pike.
Rayden reached his uncle safely that evening. The gruff man was a strict but kind chaperone who loved to take him hunting and always made a point to marvel at Raydenâs skill with a bow. The weapon was a comfort, as if Rayden was pulling his worries against the tension of the string and letting them go.
Over the next two days, his uncle slowly learned how Arvus and his sister were fairing, wisely sneaking in a few questions here and there instead of demanding answers from a distraught teenager.
His uncle must have finally realized how bad things were, because he soon suggested they check on her immediately. Rayden agreed, after his uncle promised that he wouldnât get in trouble for coming back so soon.
They made it a few miles away from town before he noticed the thick cloud of smoke overhead. The smell of soot and burning wood intensified as they approached, until they eventually arrived at the flaming wreck that had become Arvus. The first thing Rayden saw was a group of guild members in blue belts piling up bodies and throwing them into the flames of still-burning buildings.
His uncle flagged one down and was told that the golems inside the mine had gone haywire, rampaging across town and murdering anyone they came into contact with. It wasnât until Blue Girdleâs guildmaster arrived a day later that the magic automatons' rampage was quelled. Nobody had any idea how it happened, but tragically, over a thousand people died in the meantime.
That was nearly the whole town.
The guild worker said his best guess was that the townâs miners had tampered with Ivoâs golems in an act of protest, triggering their self-defense response. He then apologized and said he had to get back to the work, since the guild was doing their best to cremate the victim's bodies in the flames leftover from the attack, on account of the plague going around.
Rayden sprinted away before his uncle could stop him, running over his neighbor's charred corpses and the rubble of their burnt possessions until he finally reached his home. It was one of the few buildings still standing in the area. At first, he thought he had stumbled upon a miracle, but his hope dissolved the moment he opened the door.
His mother hung from a beam in the center of the living room, quiet, cold, and decomposing. She had hung herself, most likely the same day she had sent him away, having understood the retribution her defiance would bring. There was a note left out on the desk nearby, and Rayden managed to read it before his uncle stormed into the room behind him.
âIâm sorry, Rayden. I couldnât take it anymore.â
Her brief admission of defeat destroyed him. Furious and distraught, he raged like heâd seen the guildmaster do, suddenly awakening to his Attunement as he dismantled his childhood home with his bare hands. He remembered turning around after gods knew how long, wondering why his uncle hadnât stopped him, only to see the man trembling in fear.
In that moment, he learned what being Attuned meant.
Ashamed of himself, he ran away, cutting into the forest he played in as a child, aimlessly walking for miles until he finally settled down in the clearing that would become his Refuge.
A storm rolled in, and his tears fell in time with the rain.
He was envious, jealous of nature's unrestrained pride. The storm barreled across the land, announcing its arrival with booming thunder and jagged bolts of lightning. It dared humanity to survive its wrath, and never worried about having the tables turned.
It was bold and untamed, like the flash of lightning that had sparked in his mother's eyes when she declared the guildmaster a monster. Rayden didnât care that her pride had led to the town's destruction; heâd never blame her for that.
How much was one person expected to take?
Ivo and his guild were murderers; his mother was just a woman who had dared to say it to their faces. Even if she had been broken at the very end, strung up and torn asunder, he would keep the spark of her quiet fury alive in his heart.
Suddenly emboldened, he took the dagger his uncle had gifted him and carved out a memorial into the face of the rock he had been sitting on.
There was one thing he was certain of: she was not wrong.
And he would never suffer a fool who believed otherwise.
The tragedy of Arvus was the sins of its kingdom; that of Baron Eliasâs negligence, the Blue Girdleâs unbridled greed, and those who sat on their thrones while their vassals ravaged the people. A whole network of tyrants had come together and sacrificed their humanity to create a kingdom where atrocities went unpunished.
Sepith was rotten, and every single person who accepted the status quo was just as completely and utterly fucked. Rayden knew his motherâs pursuit of justice was a righteous cause, worthy of being written in stone.
âShe wasnât wrong!â He shouted at the sky.
Rayden almost lost himself to anger, to the temptation of tearing up everything around him until it was just as useless as the powerless speck of dust he had been reduced to.
However, he restrained himself, remembering his motherâs quiet dignity. Rayden would never become an unhinged animal like Ivo, the fucking pig bastard.
He would have to find a compromise. Now that he was Attuned, he could travel across Sepithâs poorest lands as an adventurer, taking on quests where others wouldnât, slowly amassing power as he traveled.
He would temper his pain and bravely march forward, just like his mother had done for years on end. After today, no one would ever see him lose control, and no one would see him cry until tonightâs tears were avenged. He would become a stubborn storm that thundered in private and refused to rain.
Until one day, one day in the distant future, when he became a force of nature. On that day of reckoning, he would return to the Elias barony with a flash of lightning, pry the powerful from their gilded seats, and make them all weep.