GASP
Lurching forward, Asher clutched at his chest, hoping beyond hope that his heart would start beating once again. As his breaths came back to him, he slowly realized that his heart was beating, along with the memory of his otherworldly encounter coming back to him.
Calming his nerves, Asher took in his surroundings. He was in a bed, a medical bed. He was in the infirmary. He had survived.
A great smile spread across his cheeks as he came to this realization, and he stood up and stretched. Oh, how good it felt to have good luck after such a long streak of the bad sort.
Thinking back, Asher remembered how he first came across that pack of...ghouls he thought they were. He had been living on the streets of his old city of Urun, scavenging and stealing from anything he could.
One day, he was caught stealing an apple and was chased through town by a few guards. Luckily, he managed to lose them. Unluckily, he ended up in the darker side of town, near the woods.
That area was where a lot of people tended to go missing, and that night Asher found out why. A group of men and woman surrounded him, transforming into freakish, anemiated monsters with wide mouths.
Rightfuly freaking out, Asher ran as fast as he could, eventually leading them into both the Druid that he knew of and his lucky encounter with Yule. That was a very long night, followed by a painful week, and an excruciating...however long the transformation was.
Asher's head perked up, and he ran over to the mirror in the bathroom. There, he saw a completely different person. Now, his hair was snow white, similar to other grievers he had seen around. His eyes had changed as well, becoming a vibrant shade of orang/red and faintly glowing like coals in a furnace.
His body had changed as well. From a malnutritioned teen, he had suddendly become a muscular adult. Someone had changed him as well, as he figured that the clothes he was wearing wouldn't survive...the after effects of his transformation.
Pushing that though from his mind, Asher stretched, getting used to the newfound power running through his veins. He couldn't get an accurate reeding for it, but he felt like he could run for the rest of his life if he needed.
Getting dressed, Asher finished up just as Gene walked in, surprising the both of them "Oh, you're awake! You're early, seems like Yule found a good seed."
Asher raised a brow, speaking out in a voice that was somewhat alien to him. "Early? What do you mean?"
"It usually takes new recruits almost a week to wake up. It's only been two days for you." She explained.
Asher nodded, searching for something to talk about. "Am I good to go back to the dorms?"
Gene nodded. "Yes, you're awake and well. Seek me out if you feel something's wrong."
Asher nodded, turning to leave, but he had one more question for her. "Is there a library up here?"
Gene smiled crookedly. "What, you think all of us are muscle heads? Yes, we have a library. Just ask around and someone will point you in the right direction."
"Thank you, doc."
"Mhm."
---
Asher found the library soon enough, and immediately set about looking for all kinds of topics. He started with the things that he never got the chance to learn about while on the streets. Stuff like being able to look at maps, looking at the paths that he used to scurry down back in Urun.
Most importantly, he looked into grievers. What he had become. Grievers as a race are clearly not natural. They are an amalgamation of science, alchemy, and the wonders of the Weave all in one tiny little human.
By use of said experiments, they are changed into something greater: a monster killing monster. In the world of Valoria, monsters ran rampant, threatening the natural life. This actually ties back into the Weave, the souce if all magic and mythical beings in this world.
The Weave is a network of magical energies, connecting into other planes of being where the very air itself is composed of its specific energies. For example: A phoenix originally resides in the Fire Plane, but even said plane has several layers.
The lower planes are where your avarage elementals are found, the ones that you could find scattered all across the world. These were only the avarage beasts and often used as fodder.
The middle planes are where you start getting into stronger beings like helhounds or yetis. These are strong beast's and are either always in a group, or they are found off by themselves. Another example of these are the Druid that Asher ran into.
They take over large areas of territory and slowly change that area into their ideal environment, preping the area for the real dangers to cross over. Beings from higher planes are incredibly dangerous, and often need a very specialized area to fully utilize their strength.
And example of this are dragons. It modest matter what type, they always tend to go for two things: A hoard of some kind, and a safe area to rest. A fire dragon will usually look for volcanoes, kicking out whatever beast's originally lived there.
"These beings can only cross over into this world when the Weave from their own has reached close, a result from the prolonged habitation of their lessers." Asher read aloud, reaching the final book for the night.
It was a lot of information, but knowing what profession he was about to enter, I was good information to learn. Yawning, Asher stretched before putting the books he had found back to their shelves and heading back to the dorms.
Along the way, he reminisced about Solaria, and how her child was being nurtured in his chest. "I wonder what her name will be?...I hope the other hunters don't try and hunt her, I swore my life on hers."