Weeks turned into months.
Lumberling lived in isolation, not of distance, but of focus. The world moved around him: crops were harvested, goblins trained, seasons shifted. But to him, it was all a blur, a passing haze he no longer paid attention to.
He had turned inward.
No etings. No speeches. No plans.
Only breath. Discipline. And the war within.
He no longer tracked the days. Ti had beco a rhythm of breath and heartbeat, of sunlight through leaves and the weight of his spear in hand.
He knew one truth, and it swallowed everything else:
Control.
Control over the chaos in his mind. Over the hunger in his blood. Over the fragnts of foreign instincts that whispered in his sleep.
Every mont was a silent vow: Master yourself. Or be mastered.
And beneath that vow, a second fire smoldered, quiet, but relentless:
Grow stronger.
Not just in body. But in will. In identity. In understanding.
The spear was no longer just a weapon. It was a mirror. Every movent revealed who he was, and who he could beco.
So he trained. He ditated. He breathed through the mories. He sharpened his mind like a blade, and reforged the pieces of himself not into what he once was...
...but into what he chose to be.
After mastering what he could from the wolves, spiders, and gnolls, Lumberling turned to the Shade Stalker.
He rembered its silence, not just quiet, but absence. A creature that didn’t move through the shadows, but beca them. Breathless. Bladeless. Its eyes like polished obsidian, always watching. Never blinking.
That mory beca his next teacher.
At night, cloaked in black, Lumberling wandered the periter of the village, not to fight, but to disappear.
He studied every shadow cast by torchlight, every flicker of the moon as it filtered through the canopy. He mapped the way branches moved in the wind and morized how each corner bent darkness.
He learned to walk without sound, to breathe without stirring the grass.
Once, he stood behind a giant spider for ten whole minutes. Its legs twitched. Its fangs clicked.
It never noticed him.
He had beco a ghost.
A whisper.
A Shade.
Then ca the Bloodthorns.
They weren’t hunters, they were destroyers.
Beasts that didn’t kill cleanly. They mutilated. They fought like berserkers, wild, howling, unrelenting. Their strength wasn’t in speed or finesse, but in the terrifying refusal to fall. They thrived on pain.
So Lumberling trained to et that edge.
In the dead of night, deep beyond the village, he wrapped cloth around his arms and stripped his upper body bare. Then he sparred alone, with weighted poles and blunt blades, letting bruises bloom along his ribs, his shoulders, his thighs.
He didn’t dodge every strike.
He absorbed them.
Not for punishnt.
For understanding.
Each hit inford his posture. Each jolt of pain reminded him of how Bloodthorns moved, charging through blades, turning agony into montum.
He let instinct take over.
He roared through the pain.
Until the monster surged.
His breath shortened. His grip tightened. That awful hunger stirred again, hot and electric.
But before it could consu him, his hand reached—
The stone.
Smooth. Cool. Constant.
He clutched it.
And rembered.
’This body is mine.’
’This fury is mine.’
’But it does not rule .’
He sat beneath the tree again that night, breath shivering, legs sore, and ditated. Not to escape the mory, but to anchor it. To understand it.
And when stillness returned, he wrote.
The journal pages grew thicker.
’Today I learned the spider’s rhythm.’
’Today I bled like a gnoll, but stood back up.’
’I felt the monster again... but I pulled it back.’
’The fear is still here. But so am I.’
Each page beca a scar in ink. A trail. A marker of control.
Each monster he studied was no longer sothing to fear, but a note in a larger composition.
A step in the dance.
A new form.
A new art.
Not born from a scroll or a noble lineage.
Not passed down through empire or dojo.
But forged through pain, patience, instinct, and will.
Not of man.
Not of monster.
But of both.
His own.
.....
But not all mories were useful.
So were wild, chaotic, dark things that clawed at his mind and had no place in the man he was trying to beco. They clouded his judgnt, dragged at his thoughts like chains, and threatened to twist his instincts into sothing unrecognizable.
So he found a way to deal with them.
He externalized them.
In training, he let himself go, unleashed the storm. He gave those mories form, beca the monster they wanted him to be. He fought until his arms trembled, until his legs gave out, until he collapsed in the dirt, soaked in sweat and fury.
And when the rampage ended, when the breath slowed and the shaking subsided...
The emotions were still there.
But quieter.
Not gone.
Just... no longer in control.
.....
One Night.
The world was still.
Too still.
Lumberling opened his eyes, and the stars were gone. No village. No sky. Only a boundless void stretched out in every direction, a pale, colorless space where light didn’t shine, but hovered like a mory of brightness. The ground beneath his feet was smooth, cold, like polished obsidian. His body felt weightless, yet his chest was heavy, as if sothing unseen sat upon it.
He knew this place.
He had been here before.
The dream.
But tonight, sothing had changed.
There was movent in the distance. A shape, shifting, crawling. A shadow that didn’t belong.
Lumberling took a step forward.
The shadow moved.
Then, it growled.
The sound was wrong. It wasn’t the howl of a beast, it was deeper, rougher. Like a broken voice clawing its way out of a throat long unused. A voice that once belonged to sothing human... but forgot how to be.
From the mist, it erged.
A beast made of mory.
Its body twisted with contradictions, limbs shaped like wolf haunches, bristled with spider hairs, wrapped in the ethereal tendrils of a shade stalker. A spear jutted from its back. Human eyes stared from a cracked gnoll skull. Its hands... were his.
But what made Lumberling stop cold
—was its face.
It wore his face.
Not the one he had now.
The one from before. The old him. The man who died before this world.
And it smiled.
"You let in," the creature rasped, its voice a chorus of all he had devoured. "You took every kill, every instinct. You fed on rage. On fear. You used ."
Lumberling stepped back, his grip tightening on his spear.
"You’re not ," he said, steady but firm.
The beast chuckled, its smile warping.
"You keep saying that," it hissed, "but I’ve lived in you since the first essence. Since the first death. I bled with you. I killed with you. You used my teeth to tear, my mories to grow, and now you want to pretend I don’t exist?"
It lunged.
Lumberling raised his spear just in ti. The clash shook the void. The beast struck again, claws slashing, fangs gnashing, its attacks wild, chaotic, like all the monsters he had fought rolled into one.
He blocked. Dodged. Countered. But every strike he landed passed through mist.
And every hit he took
—dug into him like guilt.
"Rember the bandit who begged for rcy?"
A claw swept past his guard.
"Rember all those you have devoured without thinking?"
A fang grazed his shoulder.
"Rember the fear in their eyes when you killed them all?"
The voices echoed with every step.
Lumberling stumbled, his breath ragged, his spear shaking. It wasn’t his body that was losing.
It was his mind.
’I’m breaking,’ he thought. ’Not here. Not like this.’
Then, he heard it.
His breath.
Even in the dream, it ca steady. asured. Familiar.
’Inhale.’
’Exhale.’
The beast raised its claw, laughing, "You’re a monster. A devourer. A curse that should never have lived."
Lumberling didn’t strike.
He didn’t run.
He opened his arms.
"I know what I am," he said.
The beast froze mid-lunge.
"I know what I’ve done. I know what I carry. The blood, the mories, the hunger. I’ve tried to reject it. I’ve tried to drown it out. But you’re not the enemy."
He took a step forward.
"I am you."
The beast’s body flickered, unsure, wavering like fla.
"And you are ," Lumberling continued. "I take responsibility for everything I’ve beco. I won’t run from it anymore. I won’t fear the monster. I’ll learn from it. Master it. Rise with it."
The beast’s eyes softened.
And in a blink, it rushed toward him, not in rage, but as if pulled by sothing unseen.
They collided.
And beca one.
Power surged through him, not violent, but sure. Like water filling a hollow vessel.
No voices scread.
No instincts clawed.
Just stillness.
Lumberling stood in the center of the dream, alone again. But no longer empty.
Then the world turned black.
....
He awoke with a breath, not a gasp, but a calm inhale. The sky above was quiet. His hands rested on his lap. And in his heart, there was clarity.
The storm had passed.
The silence was whole.
And within him, sothing new had blood.
A step had been taken.
A gate had opened.
(Beginner Sprint has reached Level 1)
(Beginner Bowmanship has reached Level 1)
(Beginner Concealnt has reached Level 4)
(Beginner Pikeman’s Art has reached Level 6)
(You have stepped into the Knight Apprentice Stage)
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