Zareth didn't return with an army. Or a scroll of authority. Or even a proper complaint form.
He returned with a smug smile, a slightly fancier cloak, and the unmistakable energy of a man trying to manifest relevance by sheer force of dramatics.
Two weeks after his awkward debut, he descended upon Lenth again—this time not with fire in his hands, but with oily words on his tongue.
"I have filed a formal appeal with the Circle of Scrollbinders," he told a half-listening crowd of basket-weavers. "Though they were... preoccupied with an explosion in East Belrosk. Long story. Involving goats. Not my goats."
Jin, lounging beneath a rune-shaded awning with a mug of gently-warmed root brew, raised a brow. "Did they approve your request to confiscate all the villagers' creative joy and free-thinking advancements?"
Zareth cleared his throat. "They did not respond."
"Ah," Jin said, sipping. "The silence of overwhelming support."
Zareth scowled. "The Council is distracted. Petty school rivalries, wild monsters, scribal territory disputes... but one day, they will notice this place."
Jin gave a noncommittal shrug. "Until then, we'll keep improving roofs and inventing toaster runes. Thank you for your concern."
That might've been the end of it.
But Zareth—perhaps sensing his window for petty tyranny closing—did something profoundly stupid.
He marched to the academy plaza, raised his staff, and proclaimed, "I hereby declare all unauthorized magical practices in this village forbidden. I, Zareth of Ash Sigil, claim oversight in the name of protection."
The village froze.
Then someone threw a potato at him.
It bounced off his shoulder with a satisfying thud.
Zareth's staff lit up.
The crowd stepped back—not in fear, but in synchronized coordination. Runes embedded in the plaza hummed as they activated in response to the disruption.
From the bakery, a trap glyph flared.
From the well, a web of binding lines surged outward.
And from the academy roof, Nira dropped her satchel of warning stones—which promptly ignited in a spectacular burst of flashlight and sound, momentarily stunning the "protector" into embarrassed silence.
The villagers were no longer farmers and weavers. They were students. Practitioners. Collaborative magic-workers.
They surrounded him.
Zareth barely had time to mutter, "I'll have your whole settlement sanctioned—" before he was trussed up in a glowing net woven from mana and twine, hoisted by a very polite farming golem someone had built from leftover stone tiles.
Jin leaned over him. "Confiscated, huh? That's ironic."
They debated what to do.
They considered exile.
They considered letting the goats nibble his boots.
Ultimately, the decision was made through the oldest village tradition: a whispered prayer, a circle of skyfruit offered at the shrine, and a single flare released into the air.
Minutes later, the air trembled.
Valthuun descended—serene, immense, and unhurried.
Its eyes scanned the village.
Then, without fanfare, it plucked Zareth from the plaza like a falcon snatching a snack. No screams. Just a faint sound of insulted confusion as he vanished into the clouds.
There was a long silence.
Then Jin clapped his hands. "Right! Who's ready to invent magical toast that butters itself?"
The crowd erupted in cheers.
As for Zareth, well—maybe he learned something.
Or maybe he was out there somewhere, lecturing clouds about regulation and scribal compliance.
Either way, Lenth returned to its rhythm—bright, quietly rebellious, and increasingly very, very good at not being bullied.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It began, as most problems in Jin's life did, with something hissing.
He was out past the village trails, charting stones and sketching new sigil ideas on flattened bark. Professor Beakley pecked lazily nearby, guarding a pouch of chalk like it was sacred grain. The forest around them hummed with its usual serenity—birds, distant waterfalls, and the occasional goat-like creature snoring in a treetop.
Then that hiss.
It was sharp. Close. Wrong.
Beakley froze mid-peck.
"Okay," Jin murmured, backing up, "either that was the wind doing impressions... or I've just been enrolled in Practical Monster Combat 101."
From the shadows, it slithered.
Not a sky-serpent. Smaller. Roughly the size of a cow if cows were scaled, had too many joints, and the kind of smile that said, I'm not venomous, I just hate your whole existence.
A forest crawler. One of the lesser beasts said to roam the outer ridges—normally scared off by Valthuun's presence.
But today, it wasn't running.
Today, it saw a human with a satchel and a snack-size chicken.
Jin slowly reached into his bag and pulled out a palm-sized rune disk. He whispered, "Note to self: bring bigger spells on forest strolls."
The crawler lunged.
Jin slammed the disk into the ground. A triangle flare burst upward—air rune primed for deflection. The beast hit the invisible shield and bounced off with a loud, disgruntled hiss-squeal.
"Yeah, that's right," Jin said, heart pounding. "Geometry! It's edgy and pointy!"
The creature circled, faster now.
Jin yanked two more glyph stones from his bag—a spiral-charged push and a square-based anchor. He tossed one at a nearby boulder. When the crawler charged again, Jin sidestepped and kicked the rune tile into activation.
Whump.
A shockwave pulsed outward, slamming the monster sideways. Its claws dug into moss, redirecting mid-skid.
Smart little horror.
Jin's mind raced.
He drew with chalk across the ground: circle inside triangle inside hexagon. Not a spell he'd tested. Not one he understood completely.
But the monster wasn't waiting.
It leapt.
Jin finished the line. "Please work, please don't explode, please don't cook Beakley."
The rune flared to life.
The creature passed through it—and something shifted. Gravity twisted. For a brief second, the crawler floated mid-air, its limbs flailing, flipped upside-down by an artificial gravity swirl.
Then it crashed, disoriented.
Jin ran forward and slammed a heavy containment glyph onto its side, locking it in place.
It hissed one last time, then passed out.
Silence.
Jin exhaled, trembling. Beakley strutted over and pecked the unconscious monster's tail in triumph.
Jin sat down on a stump, laughing breathlessly. "Okay. First fight. Minimal screaming. No buildings destroyed. Only minor trauma."
He looked at his scribbled glyph circle—the one that had manipulated local space for just a second.
He'd made it from instinct. From logic. From shapes.
And it had worked.
Not a scroll. Not a brand. Just geometry and panic.
He looked toward the sky, where Valthuun sometimes slithered across the clouds in patient silence.
"You felt that, didn't you?"
The wind stirred, faint and deliberate.
Jin nodded. "Yeah. Me too."