James exhaled, letting the tension ease from his shoulders as he opened the Status window hovering in his mind’s eye. He’d done this countless times in the time since he got it, checking his stats whenever he felt another little surge of power. Now, finally at rest beneath the soaring canopy of the Forest, he was ready to assess the growth he’d gained. The details sprawled out in neat, efficient lines.
---
<table style="width: 90.0243%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Name -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">Jameson Castellio</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Age -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Titles -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">| Dungeon Marauder (Crimson) |
| Convergent Soul (Crimson) |
| Mana Harmonization (Cobalt) |</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Achievements -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">First Kill</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Race -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">Human (Ashen Rank One)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Level -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">Level 7 (205/1139)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Class -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">N/A</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">
</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">770/770</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">MP -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">492/540</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Stamina -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">668/770</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Strength -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">
12
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Dexterity -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Agility -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Intelligence -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Endurance -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">24</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Charisma -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Wisdom -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Fate -</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">13</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Innate skill</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Level 1</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">
******
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Level 50</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">Locked</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Level 100</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">Locked</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Active Skills</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">
| Swimming (Ashen Rank One) |
| Trident Essence Thrust (Saffron Rank Two) |
| Essence Sight (Saffron Rank Seven) |
| Essence Inspect (Saffron Rank Six) |
| Strategic Tranquility (Saffron Rank Six) |
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Passive Skills</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">| Trident Proficiency (Ashen Rank Ten) |
| Familiar Bond (Saffron Level Two)|
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Affinities</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">********</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 26.3114%">Available Skills</td>
<td style="width: 73.5092%">| Breath Control (Ashen Rank One) |
| Rune Drawing (Ashen Rank One) |</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
He pursed his lips. Two new levels in {Strategic Tranquility}—no surprise, given how much he’d leaned on the skill to keep himself calm. Two levels in {Essence Inspect}, likely from examining the dire wolf and wards back in Tellemoria. Three levels in {Essence Sight}, probably for peering into the magical lines woven through the safe room and the house. Lastly, a single gain in {Trident Proficiency}, no doubt from that desperate fight against the wolf before the farmland was overrun by the Elemental.
James dismissed the main screen with a flick of will, only for a new panel to surface:
---
Welcome to the Sylvan Grove Forest
{Essence Level 15}
Clear Conditions:
1. Defeat Waves To Advance
Optional Objectives:
1. ???
Rewards:If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
1. Variable
Good luck, adventurers.
---
He frowned at the sparse text. So, this rift had a definitive challenge structure—something about “waves,” though it didn’t say how many or what form they might take. James recalled how, back on the Island, he and Joey had opted to skip many opportunities for gaining power in favor of survival. The memory of near-defeat and the loss of his familiar Nyx weighed on his heart.
But standing amid these colossal trees, James felt an unfamiliar flint of resolve. He was tired of feeling powerless. Tiremors of the grocery store holdup from his previous life—when he was still Frank—still haunted him. Then he recalled the Guardian Salamander killing Nyx. If only he had been stronger, faster, more capable, maybe none of that would have happened. Maybe Tellemoria, too, wouldn’t have burned.
His jaw tightened, anger surging like a tidal wave in his chest. This world wasn’t kind. In fact, it seemed made to punish those who couldn’t stand on their own feet. No more, he thought fiercely. I’m done being helpless, I''ll kill every last one of them!
A quiet rustle disturbed his reverie. A hand settled onto his shoulder. James nearly jumped—but then he recognized the scarred knuckles and warm grey eyes of Ser Loran the silver-haired knight who had saved him from the farmland’s destruction. The older man lowered himself to sit beside James, setting a few cleaned bowls at his feet.
“Son,” Ser Loran said gently, voice echoing through the hush of the rift, “you look ready to take on the world with vengeance blazing in your eyes.”
James stiffened, his mind still buzzing with the status screen and the rift’s challenge prompt. “I... what if I am?” he muttered. He couldn’t shake the swirling animosity in his heart. He’d lost too much—Nyx, Tellemoria, Claire and Lily, the sense of safety he once had with Dad and Mom.
Ser Loran sighed. He stretched, armor clinking softly, then winced with an old man’s ache. “If you are,” he replied quietly, “then hear an old fool’s tale. One that might show you what it is to let hatred swallow you whole.”
James blinked, uncertain. His first impression of Ser Loran had been of a calm, experienced warrior—a man who had faced countless hardships. He’d never suspected the knight carried a personal history dark enough to serve as a warning. After a moment, he nodded slightly, curiosity tinged with caution.
Ser Loran poked at a stray leaf by his boot, gathering his thoughts. “I was about your age—perhaps younger—when my world ended. My parents were simple folk: honest, loyal, and content to serve in the domain of a lesser noble, Baron Halcroft. We tended his stables, cared for his lands. Life was good enough, or so it seemed.
“But one spring, the baron changed. He grew paranoid, convinced that my parents were disloyal. Concocted stories about them spying for a rival. In truth, the baron had sunk into gambling debts and wanted to seize our family home to pay them. He used a fabricated charge of treason to justify it.”
James swallowed, the anger roiling in his own chest flickering with empathy. Betrayal from above. It sounded like a realm both personal and foreign to him.
Ser Loran closed his eyes, as though he were reliving that moment. “One night, he had his soldiers drag my father and mother from their beds. I heard the shouting and crept to the window just in time to see them... executed in the courtyard.” His voice caught for an instant. “I was a child, powerless to stop it. In a blink, everything I knew was gone. I fled, vowing revenge.”
James sucked in a sharp breath, each detail kindling a spark of fear and rage within him. He knew too well that sense of helplessness, seeing loved ones hurt with no way to intervene.
A wave of sorrow passed over the older man’s features, quickly followed by a grim acceptance. “For years, I nurtured a festering hate,” Ser Loran continued. “I found a sword master who took me in, never asked questions about my past, only taught me how to fight, how to kill. By my eighteenth year, I had grown skilled—and bold—enough to confront Halcroft. I infiltrated his manor one night, blade in hand. My only thought was to bury steel in the man who killed my parents.”
Ser Loran’s knuckles whitened on the hilt of his sheathed sword, memory and old regrets tangling. “I succeeded,” he said curtly. “I cut him down without mercy. But do you know what came next? Nothing but emptiness. My family was still gone, and the baron’s death didn’t magically erase my pain or bring them back. It was a hollow, fleeting triumph.”
James stared at the flicker of forest motes around them. He could imagine that fateful confrontation—Ser Loran, a newly minted swordsman fueled by righteous fury, standing over the baron’s body. The taste of revenge might have been sweet for a heartbeat, but apparently left only bitterness in the end.
“I spent years wandering,” Loran said softly, “haunted by guilt. I was consumed by regret for letting vengeance become my sole purpose. My soul felt scorched, as though I had taken in more darkness than my heart could bear. I struggled to find meaning in anything. I tried mercenary work, joined bandit hunts, took escort jobs. Nothing filled that hollow space left by grief and anger.”
The older man turned, meeting James’s gaze. “Then I met your parents, Ariebel and Anthonellis. They were traveling at the time, responding to rumors of a disease ravaging a nearby village. They told me that if I wanted to be truly strong, I should learn to protect life instead of fixating on destroying it.”
James’s heart fluttered at the mention of his mom and dad. He could practically see them, the memories stirring: Dad’s easy laughter, Mom’s patient instructions on how to be a good person. They must have crossed paths with Ser Loran years ago.
Ser Loran’s mouth curved in a faint, sad smile. “Your father gave me the first real reminder that I could use my sword to shield rather than to slaughter. He said, ‘If your arms are strong enough for vengeance, they can be strong enough to lift others from despair.’ And your mother showed me that compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but of immense strength.”