Dellen continued running through the forest while also trying to avoid making any noise. He had explored these forests, but rarely had he come out this far. This far from the village it wasn't unlikely that he would run into Mystics who, while only being in the early to mid prime stages, would still rip him to shreds.
Mystics, or creatures with abilities and affinities, could easily wreak havoc on someone who didn't know what they where doing. The hunters in the village would hunt early prime stage Mystics if they came to close to the village, but only the most skilled hunters went out, and even then most came back injured. Well, if they came back at all.
Dellen, while walking home from the village, saw a bright light. Dellen had always had a curious and adventurous nature, so seeing the light he wanted to know what it was. Still though, he had to be wary of the Mystics.
Eventually he came to a clearing that he didn't recognize. Before exploring, he hid and scouted the outskirts for any Mystics. After a few minutes of finding nothing, he realized that he recognized the area he was in, but the clearing was new. He walked out into the clearing and after watching for anything stalking him, he continued to search the area.
It didn't take but a minute before a crater came into view. Dellen approached carefully, since whatever made it was probably still there. He carefully peaked into the crater, preparing himself to turn tail at any minute and run. To his surprise though, nothing was there. The crater had about a 5 meter radius and was about 2 meters deep in the center. What surprised him even more was that there were what seemed to be tracks leading from the crater away into the forest. Dellen went to examine them, and was surprised that they seemed to be human, though barefoot.
They were slightly smaller then his feet, so he figured it may be about his size, if not a little smaller. There are Mystics with humanoid appearances and extremely strong abilities. Even though Dellen hadn't ever heard of one being in the prime stage, he didn't know enough about them to completely rule it out.
Dellen continued following the tracks through the forest. After about five minutes of following the tracks and watching for Mystics, he was lead to the entrance of a cave. He had also started finding blood not far into the forest with the tracks, which he assumed whatever made them was injured. This could be a good thing if it was a humanoid Mystic since it probably wouldn't have the strength to chase him, or it could be bad if it was an injured human.
Dellen almost left right then. He wasn't confident in his ability to escape a normal mid prime stage Mystic, much less a humanoid one. Just as he turned to leave though, he realized that if it wasn't a Mystic, he was leaving someone in the forest to die. Even if they survived this injury, which didn't seam likely due to how much blood he had seen, they were still about 10 kilometers away from the village. No one with that bad an injury could walk that far without recovering, but the Mystics in the area would probably find the same trail that led Dellen here and kill the person.
Dellen still took two steps away from the cave, but his conscience wouldn't let him leave without at least confirming that the humanoid figure wasn't in fact human. With a sigh, he turned and carefully entered the cave.
While not completely dark, it was still slightly difficult for him to make out details around him, though he could see any obstacles, it wouldn't be hard for a Mystic to hide or blend in with the walls and stones. With this on his mind, he carefully tried to strain his eyes to see at least some details from the area around him.
After walking for about five minutes through the cave, he eventually saw what seemed like reflections from water come from around the corner he was approaching. He popped his head around it and saw a strange and beautiful sight. There was a small area of about ten meters from him to walk onto, but the rest of the area in front of him was water. Though this wasn't what caught his attention.
'A sword?'
He was solely focused on the sword that lay near the edge of the water. He walked onto the platform of stone, completely forgetting that there could be some extremely dangerous Mystic waiting to ambush him. He walked closer to the blade on the ground.
It had a white handle with a leather strap wrapped around it. The blade itself was slightly dipped in the water and seemed to almost be see through, but looked more durable than any steel sword Dellen had ever seen. There were black, intricate swirls along the white hilt, and the cross guard was also black, but seemed to be modeled after scaled wings with a single talon placed at the peak or the wings.
Dellen's body acted completely on it's own, and before he had thought about what he was doing, he had picked up the sword. It seemed to draw on his strength, almost like it was feeding on him. He could actually feel the strength leaving his body and entering the sword. Fortunately, this feeling stopped after a few seconds, and while he felt weaker, it wasn't an amount that worried him to much.
Of course, his instincts immediately told him to drop it. After all, it took some of his strength forcefully, but his body defied his mind and actually gripped the sword tighter. It was almost like he was attracted to the sword.
Dellen decided he would keep it for now since if he had to face a Mystic, he would want a weapon instead of nothing. He didn't even have his bow on him at the moment. As he turned around to continue following the trail, he berated himself about not being more careful, he stopped.
The trail went straight to the sword and stopped. Dellen investigated all around the platform but couldn't find any evidence of someone leaving. His mind immediately went to the water, but would someone that injured really try swimming.
He inched closer to the water. It was spring water, so he could see to the bottom, but even then he still couldn't see anything in the water, nor a tunnel or hole to swim through. If something entered the water and didn't come out, he should be able to see it.
Dellen eventually gave up. If it was actually a person, they would've bled to death by now. It had already been almost an hour since he initially saw the light, so if the humanoid was still alive, then it was a Mystic, and Dellen had enough common sense to not go looking for it. He left the cave and followed the same route he took from the clearing to get back. He then started backtracking towards the trail he was on when he originally saw the light.