Aetheria

Highcrest announced itself long before Aaron could see the walls.

The road widened first, changing from packed earth and weathered stone into a broad paved route divided by shallow drainage channels. Merchant traffic thickened around them as smaller paths joined from the north and south, bringing wagons loaded with timber, grain, ore and cages covered by heavy cloth that occasionally shifted from whatever moved inside.

Aaron spent most of the final morning walking beside the lead wagon with one hand resting near his bow. The escort had been uneventful enough that Miles had complained about carrying a shield for three days without getting to hit anything with it, which earned him a warning from one of the merchants that saying things like that usually invited trouble.

The trouble never arrived.

Instead, the hills opened.

Highcrest rose across the valley ahead.

Aaron stopped walking for half a second before the wagon behind him forced him to move again.

Larkhaven could have fit inside Highcrest several times.

Two stone walls circled the city at different heights, with the older inner wall climbing across a natural rise near the centre. Towers broke the outer fortifications at regular intervals, while buildings spread beyond them into farms, workshops and roadside markets that had grown large enough to become districts of their own.

Priya moved closer to Aaron while staring toward several narrow structures rising above the inner wall. Blue light travelled between metal rings around the tallest one, fading whenever clouds passed in front of the sun.

"That's probably the mage quarter," she said, and Aaron heard enough anticipation in her voice that he expected to lose her there within a day.

Jenna had already returned from scouting and was walking backward beside the wagon so she could look at the city. "There are four guild halls near the western gate alone," she said. "I counted three smithies before I stopped trying, and there's a market outside the wall that's larger than Larkhaven's centre."

The western gate had six lanes.

Two handled incoming wagons, another carried traffic outward, while the remaining three fed pedestrians beneath an arch tall enough for loaded caravans to pass without slowing. Guards inspected cargo rather than travellers unless someone approached carrying something obviously dangerous.

Aaron noticed the Outsiders almost immediately.

They were everywhere.

A young woman in blue robes hurried past carrying three books beneath one arm. Two men wearing matching leather armour argued over a map beside the gate, while farther ahead a group of six walked out of the city with weapons and packs arranged closely enough that Aaron assumed they had been travelling together for some time.

Several wore equipment much better than anything available in Larkhaven.

Aaron's layered ash bow had cost most of his savings.

A Ranger leaning beside one of the gatehouses carried a dark green bow carved from material Aaron initially mistook for polished wood until Ranger's Eye caught faint bands of Essence moving beneath its surface.

The Ranger caught Aaron looking.

Aaron looked away first.

Inside the walls, Highcrest became louder.

Blacksmiths worked behind open-fronted workshops where heat rolled into the street. Stall owners shouted prices over one another, children slipped between carts carrying messages, and someone somewhere nearby was selling grilled meat seasoned strongly enough that Miles turned his head twice before Priya grabbed the back of his armour and kept him moving.

Their merchant escort ended near a warehouse district.

The caravan master paid them in silver, thanked them without ceremony and immediately disappeared into an argument over storage fees. Aaron's group stood beside the wagons for several moments with their packs at their feet while crowds moved around them.

Jenna unfolded the letter Larkhaven's guild had given them.

"Western Guild Annex," she read. "That way."

She pointed uphill.

Miles was still looking toward the food stalls.

Priya took his sleeve.

They reached the guild after another twenty minutes.

The building occupied nearly an entire corner near the lower market, with wide doors standing open beneath a carved crest depicting crossed roads beneath a tower. A second entrance beside it had been marked OUTSIDER REGISTRATION AND CONTRACTS in freshly painted letters.

Aaron went through that one.

The room beyond had once been some kind of storage hall.

Temporary desks now covered most of it.

Maps had been nailed across one wall, each marked with coloured pins and handwritten notes, while another displayed several sheets listing names, levels and classes voluntarily submitted by Outsiders looking for parties.

Aaron slowed as he passed them.

The numbers were higher than he expected.

Level 11.

Level 14.

Level 9.

Level 16.

A Level 18 Warrior was looking for a healer for a three-day dungeon expedition.

Priya stopped beside him.

"You seeing this?"

Aaron nodded.

They had known people elsewhere would be ahead.

Seeing it written across an entire wall felt different.

Miles read over Aaron's shoulder. "We took too long in Larkhaven."

Jenna stepped closer to the listings. "Or these people haven't slept."

A clerk waved them toward an empty desk before the discussion went farther.

The registration itself took almost an hour because Larkhaven's papers had to be copied into Highcrest's growing records. Aaron handed over Mara's list of names, and the clerk disappeared with it long enough that another worker brought them water while they waited.

When she returned, she carried three additional pages.

"These are the names Highcrest has confirmed from nearby settlements," she said. "If you recognise anybody, mark them and note where you last saw them."

Aaron looked through the list.

He found nobody he knew from Earth.

Priya recognised a university classmate near the bottom.

The woman had registered in a settlement two days north of Highcrest.

Priya stared at the name long enough that Aaron nudged the page toward her.

"You should ask."

"I will."

The clerk gave them directions to an Outsider hostel, then recommended they visit the central guild before choosing contracts. "The western annex mostly handles work below Level Ten," she explained while stamping their papers. "Once you've settled in, the central boards will give you a better idea of what's available around the city."

Miles tapped one of the party lists nearby.

"What about those?"

"Private groups. Some recruit here."

"Any good ones?"

The clerk's expression changed slightly.

"Depends what you mean by good."

Aaron noticed several people nearby listening.

The clerk leaned back in her chair. "If you're looking for organised Outsider groups, Grey Banner is the largest operating out of Highcrest. They're taking applications again after Gallowspire."

Jenna caught the unfamiliar name.

"What's Gallowspire?"

The clerk looked toward the maps on the wall.

Before she could answer, someone at another desk said, "A disaster."

An older Outsider with one arm in a sling had turned in his chair. His armour was scratched badly enough that the metal underneath the paint showed through.

The clerk sighed.

"You weren't asked."

"They should know before someone recruits them into the next one."

He shifted in the chair and looked toward Aaron's group. "Old fortress northwest of here. Grey Banner found an entrance beneath it and organised a large expedition. They cleared most of the upper levels, found the lower guardian and lost eleven people before getting back out."

The room became quieter around them.

Aaron looked at the man's sling.

"You were there?"

"Second support group."

Miles asked the question Aaron had been thinking.

"What was the guardian?"

The man's mouth tightened.

"Level Twenty-Three."

Priya glanced toward the listings again.

The highest level Aaron had noticed there was eighteen.

"Did anyone kill it?"

The man gave a short laugh that held very little humour. "Damon tried."

Several nearby Outsiders looked over.

Aaron caught it immediately.

"Who's Damon?"

The clerk answered first.

"Damon Grey."

The man in the sling leaned forward. "Highest confirmed Outsider in Highcrest."

Jenna's eyes narrowed. "Level?"

"Twenty-one."

Miles looked back toward the wall.

Aaron did the same calculation without meaning to.

Seven.

Twenty-one.

Three times his level.

The man noticed.

"You'll hear about him everywhere by tonight, so don't bother staring at the boards. Grey Banner started with twelve people. They've got more than a hundred now."

"What class?" Miles asked.

"Vanguard."

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

The clerk corrected him. "Iron Vanguard. He advanced at Ten."

That caught Aaron more than the number.

He had seen Level Ten mentioned in discussions at Larkhaven but knew almost nothing about what happened there.

Priya leaned against the desk. "How long ago did he reach Twenty-one?"

"Yesterday."

The man in the sling shook his head. "Probably Twenty-two by tomorrow if he goes back out."

The clerk gave him a look.

"He was ordered to rest."

"That hasn't stopped him before."

The injured man stood carefully and adjusted the sling. Before leaving, he nodded toward the central district and told Miles that if he wanted to see what Highcrest's strongest Outsiders looked like, Grey Banner trained near the northern wall every afternoon.

Miles waited until the door closed.

"I want to see."

Priya folded the paper carrying her classmate's name. "Of course you do."

Aaron wanted to see too.

Their hostel stood deeper inside Highcrest than Aaron expected.

The building had once been an inn large enough to house travelling merchant families, but nearly every room now contained Outsiders. Aaron's group received two adjoining rooms on the third floor and spent the next hour doing very little beyond putting down their packs, washing three days of road dust from themselves and discovering that Miles had already spent part of his escort payment on food downstairs.

Aaron found him halfway through a bowl of something covered in dark sauce.

Priya and Jenna arrived soon afterward, bringing a folded city map and enough information to occupy the rest of the afternoon.

Highcrest's Outsiders had organised much faster than Larkhaven's.

Grey Banner was the largest group, but several others had grown around different priorities. Hearthbound operated mostly as a support network for people who wanted safer contracts and stable income. Lantern Circle had accumulated mages, healers and researchers interested in Essence.

Another group called Red Path seemed to exist primarily because its members enjoyed fighting difficult things.

"That sounds healthy," Aaron said while looking at the notes Jenna had collected.

Miles swallowed another mouthful of stew. "Depends whether they win."

"Apparently often enough to stay alive."

Priya had paid the least attention to the guilds.

She was reading the section of the map marking libraries and training halls.

"The central archive has three floors dedicated to magic."

Aaron looked at her.

"You're gone tomorrow, aren't you?"

"Probably."

Jenna unfolded another sheet.

"Damon Grey."

Miles lowered his spoon.

Aaron looked up.

Jenna had found a short public record posted outside Grey Banner's recruitment hall.

"Damon arrived near a village called Redwillow. Warrior at Level One, reached Ten before getting to Highcrest, advanced into Iron Vanguard and joined the first expedition east of the city within two days of arriving."

"Reached Ten before Highcrest?" Aaron asked.

Jenna nodded. "Apparently Redwillow has a lot more combat work than Larkhaven."

She continued reading.

Level Twelve during the Ashroad defence.

Fourteen after something called the Broken Quarry.

Seventeen after the first Gallowspire expedition.

Twenty following the second.

Twenty-one after the lower descent.

Aaron leaned back.

"How long has he been here?"

"Roughly the same amount of time we have."

Miles stopped eating.

That finally did it.

They went north after lunch.

Grey Banner's training ground occupied a broad yard between two warehouses near Highcrest's northern wall.

Nobody stopped them from watching.

Half the yard had been divided into sparring spaces, while the other contained training posts, weighted equipment and several marked lanes where people practised movement skills. Grey-clad fighters moved through all of it under the supervision of instructors Aaron guessed were native to Highcrest.

They looked organised.

Not military exactly.

Close enough that Aaron noticed.

Groups rotated through exercises rather than standing around waiting. Healers sat beneath an awning near one wall, while several people recorded results at tables covered in papers.

Miles watched a shield unit practise for nearly five minutes before speaking.

"They're actually good."

Aaron heard the reluctance.

One of the shield users took a heavy strike from a padded pole, absorbed it with his whole stance and immediately turned the force sideways so the person beside him could advance through the opening.

Aaron had seen Miles improve his Shield Bash through similar experimentation.

Grey Banner had an instructor drilling the principle into twenty people at once.

Priya joined them twenty minutes later after abandoning the nearby magical supply shop.

She followed Aaron's attention toward the yard.

"Which one's Damon?"

Nobody knew.

Several fighters looked strong enough.

A tall man carrying a halberd moved through three sparring partners without giving ground. Another wore armour heavy enough that Aaron initially assumed it would slow him until the man crossed half the training circle in a burst and knocked an opponent backward with a shoulder.

Miles eventually approached someone standing beside the fence.

"Is Damon training today?"

The woman looked toward the far side of the yard.

"He's supposed to be resting."

Miles followed her gaze.

A man sat beneath a tree with his shirt off while a healer worked on a long wound crossing his ribs.

He looked about twenty.

Maybe twenty-one.

Aaron had expected someone larger.

Damon Grey was tall enough, but there was nothing enormous about him. Dark hair had been cut short around the sides, and the muscle across his shoulders came from someone who had spent weeks using his body rather than designing an imposing character.

His equipment lay nearby.

The armour was battered.

One gauntlet had been split almost in half.

A broad sword rested across a bench with chips along the edge.

Aaron found that more convincing than pristine equipment would have been.

Damon noticed them looking.

He said something to the healer.

She immediately looked annoyed.

Damon stood anyway.

The woman beside the fence sighed. "Every time."

He crossed the yard slowly.

People made room without anyone asking.

Aaron noticed that too.

Damon stopped on the opposite side of the fence and looked over the four of them.

"New?"

Miles answered first.

"Came from Larkhaven this morning."

Damon nodded. "How far along?"

Miles gave his level.

Aaron and the others followed.

Damon's expression barely changed.

"Decent."

Aaron disliked how much that single word made him want to explain the Hookjaws.

He resisted.

Miles did not.

"We took a Level Five pack at Three."

Damon looked toward him.

"How many?"

"Three."

"Party size?"

"Four."

"Any deaths?"

Miles shook his head.

Damon nodded again. "Good."

That somehow satisfied Miles.

Aaron looked toward the damaged sword on the bench.

"You were at Gallowspire?"

Damon's gaze followed his.

"Yes."

"What happened?"

The healer called from beneath the tree that what happened was Damon ignoring instructions again.

Damon ignored her.

"The first sections were manageable," he said. "The fortress goes deeper than anyone expected, and the difficulty changed faster than our scouting reports suggested. We reached a sealed lower chamber and opened it before properly checking the structure around it."

"You opened the guardian room," Priya said.

Damon glanced at her. "Yeah."

"Level Twenty-Three."

"That's what it showed."

Miles leaned against the fence.

"You fought it?"

"We all fought it."

"Did you almost win?"

Damon's eyes moved toward Miles.

"No."

The answer came so easily that Aaron believed him.

"We hurt it," Damon continued. "That isn't the same thing."

A group began sparring behind him.

Damon shifted half a step when one fighter was thrown beyond the marked circle, allowing the man to stumble past before continuing without looking.

Aaron noticed the movement.

He had moved before the fighter crossed into his peripheral vision.

Priya asked, "Why go that deep if nobody was close to Twenty-Three?"

Damon smiled faintly.

"Because we didn't know it was Twenty-Three until the door opened."

That explanation landed better than anything heroic would have.

Jenna folded her arms.

"Eleven people died."

Damon's expression changed.

"Yes."

The yard continued around them.

Someone shouted a correction from one training circle.

Wood struck wood farther away.

Damon looked toward the ground for several seconds before meeting Jenna's eyes again.

"We made decisions based on what had worked farther up. The lower floor punished that."

He touched the bandage around his ribs.

"The next time anyone opens that door, they'll know what's behind it."

Aaron wondered whether Damon meant himself.

He probably did.

Miles looked toward Grey Banner's fighters.

"How did you get to Twenty-One?"

Damon seemed amused by the directness.

"I kept fighting."

Damon added, "And I stopped doing stupid things more quickly than most people."

The healer shouted, "Debatable."

Several Grey Banner members laughed.

Damon looked over his shoulder.

"She's biased."

"Sit down before I make the wound worse myself."

He turned back toward Aaron's group.

"Don't chase levels because somebody else's number bothers you."

Aaron's attention sharpened.

Damon pointed toward Miles's shield.

"If you're alive and improving, keep doing that. Plenty of people who arrived around the same time as me tried to match whatever the highest number was that week."

His gaze shifted toward an empty section of the training yard.

"They aren't here."

Nobody answered immediately.

Damon gave Aaron's bow a brief look.

"Ranger?"

Aaron nodded.

"You scout?"

"Usually with Jenna."

Damon looked toward her.

"Class?"

"Scout."

"Good combination."

Jenna asked what Grey Banner used Rangers for.

The question turned into a longer conversation.

Damon described how their expedition groups were structured, where scouts operated, how often they rotated healers and why Gallowspire had forced them to change their approach to retreat routes. He did not make it sound glamorous.

Maps mattered.

Food mattered.

Having enough people capable of carrying wounded fighters mattered.

Grey Banner's strength came from being able to send organised groups farther from Highcrest than smaller parties could comfortably manage.

Aaron listened closely.

The more Damon explained, the less the difference between Level Seven and Level Twenty-One felt like a mystery.

Damon had been moving.

Constantly.

His group had access to larger contracts.

Stronger enemies.

Longer expeditions.

More information.

More people.

More risk.

The scars covering the man's torso provided the rest of the explanation.

Eventually the healer walked over herself, took Damon by one arm and told Aaron's group that the famous highest-level Outsider would be considerably less impressive if his wound reopened and he fainted in the dirt.

Damon allowed himself to be dragged away.

Miles watched him go.

"I thought he'd be more annoying."

Priya looked toward Grey Banner's training circles. "Give him time."

Jenna had already taken out the city map.

"I want to know where they buy their maps."

Aaron laughed.

They stayed another hour.

Highcrest gave them work the following morning.

Aaron's group deliberately ignored every contract that looked like it had been designed for people trying to prove something.

Their first job took them into farmland northeast of the city, where a colony of Level 5 Needlebacks had begun nesting beneath irrigation channels. The creatures resembled long-bodied rodents with stiff quills running along their spines, and the farmer wanted the nests moved before someone stepped into one.

Aaron spent most of the morning tracking burrows.

Jenna found the connecting tunnels.

Priya discovered that smoke drove the Needlebacks out without setting the fields on fire, while Miles stood beside the exit point and discovered why the creatures had been named Needlebacks when one launched several quills into his shield.

They killed two.

The others fled toward uncultivated ground.

The farmer paid them for the intact nests because some local alchemist apparently used the resin lining.

Their next contract involved escorting surveyors into an abandoned quarry.

Then came river snakes near a ferry crossing, followed by three days helping patrol the southern trade route while reports of bandits turned out to involve hungry goblins stealing food from unattended wagons.

Aaron reached Level 8 during that patrol.

He spent his new attributes that evening while sitting outside the hostel, putting two into Perception and one into Endurance. The higher Perception sharpened details at distance enough that he spent several minutes testing signs across the street before Miles threw a walnut at him from an upstairs window.

Aaron caught the movement before the nut reached him.

It still hit his shoulder.

Miles laughed from above.

Aaron picked up the walnut.

Priya stopped him before the return throw broke a window.

Highcrest settled around them through repeated journeys in and out of the gate.

Aaron began recognising guards.

Jenna found a mapmaker willing to sell older survey copies cheaply if she helped correct trail information after contracts.

Miles became acquainted with an armourer who repaired shields without pretending every dent required replacing half the metal.

Priya disappeared into the archive whenever they had a free afternoon and returned carrying increasingly specific questions about Essence.

Grey Banner remained visible whether Aaron sought them out or not.

Their members occupied contract boards.

Their injured fighters appeared at healers.

Merchants complained about them buying entire lots of travel supplies before expeditions.

Damon's name surfaced constantly.

Sometimes the stories sounded plausible.

Other times Aaron doubted half of what he heard.

According to one tavern conversation, Damon had killed a Level Nineteen Marshhorn alone.

According to another, he had fought six.

Someone else claimed the Marshhorn had actually been Level Sixteen and Damon had three people with him.

Aaron stopped trying to separate rumours from facts.

Then he saw Damon fight.

It happened outside Highcrest nine days after their arrival.

Aaron's group had joined a larger guild patrol investigating damaged caravans along the northern road. The work had looked ordinary until they found a wagon embedded sideways against a tree and wheel tracks ending abruptly in torn earth.

Jenna crouched near the marks.

"Something dragged it."

Aaron examined the tree.

The wagon had not merely rolled.

Its frame had struck high enough to splinter branches several metres from the ground.

Several Grey Banner fighters were already farther ahead.

Aaron recognised two from the training yard.

Then something roared beyond the trees.

Everyone moved.

The patrol spread rather than rushing forward together, with Rangers and Scouts taking higher ground while shield users gathered near the centre. Aaron followed Jenna through the brush until the forest opened around a shallow basin filled with broken trees.

A creature stood inside.

Ironmaw Ursid

Level 17

The bear-like animal was enormous.

Metallic growths covered its shoulders and jaw, while one foreleg had enough armour around it to resemble a siege weapon. Blood already ran from several wounds along its side.

Damon stood in front of it.

Aaron realised the fight had been underway before they arrived.

Several Grey Banner members occupied the basin's edges.

They did not rush in.

Damon carried a broad replacement sword.

It looked ordinary compared with the damaged weapon Aaron had seen beside the tree.

The Ursid charged.

Damon met it.

Aaron expected the collision to throw him across the basin.

Instead, Damon shifted around the creature's armoured foreleg, sword cutting through a softer section beneath the shoulder while his body remained close enough to avoid the full sweep. The Ursid turned with terrifying speed, but Damon was already moving through the space created by his first attack.

The next exchange carried them across half the basin.

Damon gave ground when the creature's strength made staying close impossible, then returned the instant its weight committed too heavily in one direction. The sword did not stop moving for long enough to become a collection of separate attacks; defence folded into positioning, positioning into pressure and pressure into another opening as the Ursid became progressively angrier.

Aaron understood why people watched him.

The Level Seventeen creature was stronger.

Obviously stronger.

Every solid hit Damon received cost him badly.

He fought as though the difference had already been included in his decisions.

The Ursid slammed both forelegs into the ground.

Stone erupted around it.

Damon disappeared behind the debris.

Miles moved forward.

A Grey Banner fighter put one arm across his chest.

"Wait."

The dust cleared.

Damon emerged along the creature's side, bleeding from one temple.

His next attack hit the same damaged shoulder he had targeted earlier.

The Ursid's arm buckled.

That changed the fight.

Grey Banner moved.

Three fighters entered together when the creature could no longer turn properly, forcing its attention between shield pressure and attacks from the weakened side. Damon stayed near the centre of the exchange until the Ursid attempted to retreat.

The final strike came from a spear user Aaron had never seen before.

The creature collapsed into the dirt.

Damon sat down immediately afterward.

Aaron almost laughed.

The highest-level Outsider in Highcrest leaned against the dead Ursid's side while a healer walked over and started complaining before she even reached him.

Aaron recognised her.

Damon recognised Aaron's group too.

He lifted one hand.

Miles raised his shield in response.

Priya looked toward Aaron.

"Still want to catch him?"

Aaron watched Damon accept a healing potion while Grey Banner members began dressing the carcass.

"I want to stop getting surprised by Level Five animals first."

Priya smiled.

Jenna was already moving toward the tracks around the basin.

Aaron followed.

The damaged caravans still needed explaining.

Highcrest's walls stood somewhere beyond the southern trees, hidden by distance and terrain. Aaron could not see the city from the basin, although smoke from its workshops formed a faint dark line against the sky.

He adjusted the bow across his back and crouched beside Jenna.

The Ironmaw's tracks crossed the wagon trail.

Another set continued north.

Larger.

Jenna touched the edge of one print.

Aaron looked ahead.

Whatever had happened on the road was not finished.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!