Elian awoke to the sound of wind whispering through shattered ice.

  For a long moment, he struggled to recall why his chest hurt, or why his face was pressed into cold snow. Then the memories returned all at once—the cracking, the fall, the wall of earth rising up at his command.

  He sat up too fast, pain lancing through his ribs. “Kaeli?” he croaked.

  A groan came from a few feet away. Kaeli lay half-buried in the drift, her coat torn, her face pale but conscious.

  “You made a wall,” she mumbled. “That was... really cool.”

  Elian’s moved to pull her free with shaking hands - they did not shake from the cold. They shook from something deeper. A sense that the world had changed around him—and within him.

  [SYSTEM NOTE]

  Pattern [STONEWARD] used.

  Aetherpool: 90/100

  Thread stability: 93%

  He blinked. The words faded like fog lifting from a mirror. He looked over to Kaeli, a confused look on his face.

  “Do you see this too?” he asked, waving a hand before his eyes as if touching the message would prove it was real - “Something about a system.”

  “No.. did you hit your head or something?”

  “I don’t know.. Maybe?" He took a deep, steadying breath and turned to his sister. "We should get back home, it’s getting late and we really ought to get checked by the healer. How are you doing?”

  Slowly, and with muffled groans of pain, the pair got to their feet and quickly surveyed their surroundings. Everything looked different after the landslide, and it took them a few minutes to get their bearings.

  “I’ve been better,” Kaeli admitted groggily, before catching herself showing weakness before her brother. “But I’ll be fine, I’m more worried about you, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah..” he lied, “I’ll be good, but we should get back before the sun goes down.”

  The two slowly made their way back to familiar ground, heading in the general direction of their village until they came across the path they had taken earlier that day.

  By the time they arrived at the gates, the sun was resting gently on the horizon, casting an amber glow across the small rural village of Drelmark.

  “Hold it.” A gruff voice barked from the top of the palisade. “Who goes there?”

  “It’s Elian and Kaeli.” Elian called back, “Can you call for Marra Vell? We were caught in the icequake.”

  “Icequake?” the guard replied, a mixture of shock and awe in his voice, “So that’s what that noise was.” He turned behind him, and issued orders to his fellow guardsmen.

  Slowly, the old wooden gate was shifted to one side, creaking and groaning under the strain. A small gap appeared for the siblings to pass through.

  “Quickly now, you two.” The guard ushering them through, “It’s getting late, and we all know what’s lurking out there after dark.”

  Elian and Kaeli trudged down the familiar path towards the heart of Zudilia, watching the bustle of the day come to an end. Market stalls were packing their unsold wares away in crates, parents were calling their children home for supper and the Village Guard night shift were readying their armour and weapons.

  Finally, at the end of their path, they came to the door of “MarraVellous Medicines”. The building seemed a little out of place. The houses in this part of Drelmark had clean timber claddings, freshly trimmed lawns and were generally in a well kept condition. This store was... less so.

  This building almost appeared abandoned; the grass outside the windows long and unwieldy, with patches where something had been spilled long ago and left sections of scorched dirt devoid of vegetation. The street-facing window itself was broken; missing a few panes of glass. In their place wooden boards haphazardly nailed in place. An ominous vapour trickled from the lone chimney stack, wafting in the skies high above the roof.

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  “Are you sure about this?” Kaeli asked hesitantly. “You know the reputation she has..” Taking her left hand to her ear, and twirling her index finger in a circle.

  “I know,” Elian replied, “But she the village healer after all. If she can’t treat our wounds, then nobody can.” He looked at Kaeli reassuringly, a small grin forming at the edge of his mouth. “Besides, how bad can it be?”

  Inside, Marra Vell sat beside the hearth, stirring a kettle with one hand and tapping a shimmering crystal with the other. The crystal gave off a pale green aura- A weak glow from the mineral, masking something far more powerful within. The room smelled of pine resin, old herbs, and something faintly metallic - like ozone after a lightning strike.

  “Enter.” she said without looking up from her work. “Take a seat by the fire and get some warmth back in those bones of yours.”

  Kaeli glanced at her brother wearily, not knowing what to make of the offer. Noticing her hesitation, Elian slowly crossed the room to sit in an old tattered armchair. Following his lead, Kaeli followed close behind him, and rested on the couch next to him.

  “You’ve both been through quite the ordeal.” Marra stated in a matter of fact way. “It’s not every day you experience an icequake. Come.” she gestured at Kaeli to follow her across the room to a small cot in the corner. “Lay here and relax. This won’t hurt at all.”

  With a slight nod of reassurance from Elian, Kaeli stood and followed the old lady to the cot and carefully laid atop the cover. Still holding the crystal in one hand, Marra waved the other over Kaeli’s head - a cloud of sweet scented green vapour trailed behind the stone’s movement. Before she could understand what was happening, Kaeli’s eyes grew heavy, and she drifted into a peaceful slumber.

  The healer took a moment to confirm Kaeli was recovering, before slowly making her way back to where Elian sat wide-eyed. She perched on the edge of the couch, and returned to stirring the kettle on the fire.

  “You should be dead.” Marra said coldly, yet the words lacked any true malice. “You both should be. But the thread had other ideas.” She took the kettle off the fire, and poured its contents into two identical cups, offering one to Elian.

  Elian blinked. “The... what?”

  She glanced over to Kaeli, then back to Elian, lips twisting into a small smile. “The Threadveil. It’s what saved you. Or rather - it’s what you reached out to when you didn’t know you could.”

  “I.. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No one does, at least not at first.” She paused to take a sip of her drink before continuing. “The world isn’t just stone and snow, Elian. It’s woven. Woven with invisible strands we call Aether - and some folk, like you, are born with the instinct to pull those threads.”

  Elian leaned forwards slowly, taking the drink from Marra’s hand and cautiously taking a sip. The flavour was unlike anything he had experienced before: fruity with a herbal underbite, and something else he couldn’t quite place.

  “So.. Magic?” he asked, his doubts betrayed by the shakiness of his voice.

  “Yes,” she said. “But not the wand-waving, fireball-hurling kind you hear about in the bardic songs at your local tavern. Aetherweaving is a craft. It is a skill. You don’t cast magic - You weave it.”

  Elian’s eyes grew wider with every word, as much as it sounded like a fairy-tale, the new-found foreign feeling in the back of his mind told him it was all the truth.

  “Every living soul is tied to the Threadveil - but only some awaken to it.”

  “What was that wall I made?” Elian asked without thinking.

  “A Pattern. The system called it , yes? A simple defensive one, the kind that uses the Terran aspect - Stone, Earth, Resilience. If I had to wage a bet, I’d say that’s your primary affinity.”

  She sat her cup back down on the side, and picked up another crystal. This one pulsed with a warm, white aura. Holding it up towards Elian, she closed her eyes and muttered something under her breath that Elian couldn’t quite make out. Soft strands of light spiralled from the crystal like threads in water.

  “Think of the Aether as threads in a loom.” She said calmly, “Different colours, different textures. Each one tied to an Aspect: Fire, Water, Shadow, Light.” As she listed the aspects, the crystal in her hand subtly changed hue to match. “You... you’re aligned with Terran and Nivara - Earth and Water. Protection. Healing. Life.”

  “But how do I.. use these threads?”

  “The Threadveil helps. It’s a guide - part of the world itself. When you awaken, it speaks to you. It shows you a new way to see the world around you, a window behind your eyes. Stats, Skills, Patterns. It’s not a god, but it always watching.”

  She sat the crystal back in its home, then reached under her robe for a pouch, removing a small shard from within. Elian could tell immediately that this was different from the crystals Marra had used up until now. It was much smaller, with jagged edges that seemed like they could slice through reality itself if she allowed them to. Just like with the first crystal he had seen, this shard glowed faintly - but the energy it emitted was strangely intense - loud, bright and ferocious.

  “This is an Essence. Think of it like a seed. You absorb it, and it grows within you - alongside you. Some will grant you access to new patterns, others will evolve patterns you already know. Some are small, like this one. Some are mighty and powerful. All of them come with choices.”

  “So I can learn more patterns?” Elian asked, his eyes fixated on the essence before him.

  “If you train - yes.” Marra nodded slowly. “If you grow - yes. If you survive long enough.. you might even earn yourself a Title. And - if the Thread deems you worthy - you might change more than yourself.”

  “Change what?”

  “The world.”

  massive