The village of Maplewood slept beneath a blanket of autumn mist, its thatched roofs glowing amber in the first light of dawn. Silver stirred in his bed, the familiar scent of baking bread and damp earth drifting through his open window. Today was his seventeenth birthday, and more importantly, the day he would finally register as an adventurer.
He stretched, his lean frame unfolding from beneath woolen blankets. Silver was a striking youth, with hair that fell in a stark divide—the left side pure white, the right side jet black, as if night and day had settled upon his head. His eyes, a brilliant azure blue that seemed to hold fragments of sky, blinked away sleep. At six feet tall, he carried the easy grace of someone who'd spent his life climbing trees and running through forests, his shoulders broad from years of helping at the forge and his hands marked with the faint scars of minor mishaps.
"Silver! Breakfast!" came a warm call from downstairs.
"Coming, Aunt Mara!" he called back, pulling on his adventuring clothes—sturdy brown trousers, a dark green tunic reinforced at the elbows, and a leather vest lined with pockets for potions and tools. He slung his pack over one shoulder, the weight comforting and familiar.
Downstairs, the kitchen hummed with morning activity. Mara, a woman in her fifties with kind eyes the color of walnuts and silver-streaked brown hair tied in a practical bun, stood at the wood-fired stove. Her face was round and lined from years of smiling, and she moved with the efficient grace of someone who'd managed a household alone for seventeen years.
"Sit, sit," she said, waving a wooden spoon. "You'll need a proper meal before you go traipsing off to the Guild Hall."
"I'm not traipsing," Silver said with a grin, sliding into his usual seat at the rough-hewn table. "I'm embarking on a professional journey."
"Oh, a professional journey, is it?" Mara chuckled, setting a plate before him piled high with eggs, sausage, and thick slices of buttered bread. "Next you'll be telling me you need a fancy title. 'Silver the Dragonslayer,' perhaps?"
"Maybe just 'Silver the Capable' to start," he said through a mouthful of eggs.
Mara sat across from him, her expression softening. "You look so much like your mother today."
Silver paused, his fork hovering. They rarely spoke of his parents. All he knew was that they'd died when he was an infant, leaving him on Mara's doorstep with nothing but the clothes he wore and a note asking for his protection. Mara, his mother's younger sister, had never married, devoting her life to raising him instead.
"Did she have hair like mine?" Silver asked quietly.
Mara's gaze grew distant. "Your mother's hair was black as midnight. Your father's, I'm told, was white as fresh snow. You got the best of both." She reached across the table to squeeze his hand. "Now eat. The Guild Master won't wait all day."
---
The Maplewood Adventurer's Guild Hall was a modest timber-and-stone building at the village center, its sign—a shield crossed with a sword and wand—creaking in the morning breeze. Already, a line of hopefuls stretched out the door. Silver joined the queue, nodding to familiar faces.
"Silver! Over here!"
He turned to see Elara waving enthusiastically. She was a year younger than him, with vibrant red hair tied in a practical braid and freckles scattered across her nose like cinnamon sprinkled on cream. Her eyes, a lively green, sparkled with excitement. She wore simple leather armor over a blue tunic and carried a shortbow slung across her back.
"You actually came!" she said, bouncing on her toes. "I thought you might chicken out."
"And miss the chance to explore the Whispering Caverns with you? Never," Silver said, falling into step beside her.
"My brother says the first floor is just slimes and glow-bats," Elara said, her enthusiasm undimmed. "Perfect for beginners. Oh! Have you met Kael?"
A young man leaning against the guild hall wall straightened as they approached. Kael was tall and slender, with sharp features and intelligent gray eyes that missed nothing. His black hair was cut short, and he wore dark, practical clothing with numerous pouches. A spellbook hung from his belt, and a staff of polished yew rested against his shoulder.
"Kael, this is Silver," Elara said. "Silver, Kael. He's from Oakhaven, but he's staying with his uncle here. He's a mage!"
"Apprentice mage," Kael corrected with a slight smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. His voice was calm and measured. "Pleased to meet you. Elara's told me about your... unique appearance."
"It runs in the family," Silver said easily, used to the comment.
"So you're forming a party?" Kael asked, looking between them.
"If you'll join us," Silver said. "We could use someone who knows magic."
Kael studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. A balanced party increases survival rates by sixty percent, according to Guild statistics."
Elara rolled her eyes. "He talks like that sometimes. Don't mind him."
The line moved forward, and soon they stood before the registration desk. Guild Master Thorne was a mountain of a man in his late forties, with a shaved head, a beard the color of iron, and a network of scars crisscrossing his thick forearms. His eyes, the color of storm clouds, appraised each applicant with practiced efficiency.
"Name?" he grunted when Silver reached the front.
"Silver of Maplewood."
Thorne's gaze sharpened. "Mara's boy. She told me you'd be coming." He pushed a parchment across the desk. "Mark your primary skills. Combat, magic, healing, scouting, crafting."
Silver picked up the quill. Under combat, he marked swordsmanship and archery. Under crafting, he marked basic alchemy and blacksmithing. He slid the parchment back.
"Modest," Thorne observed. "Most kids your age claim to be dragon-slayers." He stamped the parchment with the guild seal—a shimmer of magic binding it official. "Your provisional license. Valid for six months or until you achieve D-rank. The rules: no taking quests above your rank, no poaching from other adventurers, no looting ancient burial sites without permits. Break them, and I'll break you. Understood?"
"Understood," Silver said, accepting the bronze badge.
"Good. There's a cellar rat problem at the Millers' farm. D-rank elimination quest. Pays five silver coins. Take it?"
Silver glanced at Elara and Kael, who both nodded. "We'll take it."
"Report back by sundown." Thorne waved them off, already calling, "Next!"
---
The Miller farm lay half a mile east of Maplewood, nestled in a valley where the river ran slow and deep. Old Man Miller met them at the gate, a wiry man with stooped shoulders and hands permanently stained with soil. His face was leathery from sun, and his eyes held the perpetual worry of someone who worked land for a living.
"Took you long enough," he grumbled, though relief colored his tone. "The blighters are in the root cellar. Ate through two barrels of apples and a winter's worth of potatoes. Wife's threatening to sleep in the barn."
"We'll handle it," Silver said, drawing his sword—a simple but well-balanced blade Mara had gifted him last winter.
Elara nocked an arrow to her bowstring. Kael murmured an incantation, and a soft glow enveloped his staff tip.
The root cellar doors were heavy oak, scarred with fresh gnaw marks. Silver pulled them open, revealing stone steps descending into darkness. The smell of damp earth, rotting vegetables, and something musky wafted up.
"Light," Silver said.
Kael tapped his staff, and the glow brightened, illuminating the cellar. It was larger than Silver expected, with shelves along the walls and barrels stacked in corners. Movement flickered in the shadows.
"There," Elara whispered, pointing.
The cellar rats weren't ordinary vermin. Years of feeding on magical runoff from the river had mutated them. They were the size of small dogs, with bristly gray fur, yellowed teeth as long as fingers, and eyes that glowed faintly green in the dark. A dozen of them scurried among the barrels, hissing.
"Stay behind me," Silver said, descending the steps.
The rats turned as one, their hisses becoming shrieks. They charged.
Silver's training took over. He sidestepped the first rat, his sword flashing out to open a gash along its flank. It squealed and scrambled away. An arrow whizzed past his ear, thudding into a second rat's shoulder. Kael's staff glowed brighter, and a bolt of force knocked two rats back against the wall.
But there were too many. As Silver parried another attack, a rat darted around his guard, its teeth sinking into his calf. Pain, white-hot and sudden, lanced up his leg. He cried out, kicking the creature away, but two more closed in. Elara's arrows found their marks, but not fast enough. Kael was backing toward the stairs, his force bolts growing weaker with each cast.
Fear, cold and sharp, coiled in Silver's gut. This wasn't supposed to happen. They were just rats. But the pain in his leg was real, the blood soaking his trousers was real, and the glowing eyes surrounding them were very real.
Something primal stirred within him.
As another rat leaped for his throat, time seemed to slow. Silver felt a heat bloom in his left eye, a pressure building behind his temple. The world shifted hue—the shadows deepened, the rats' glowing eyes became beacons in the dark, and he could hear their rapid heartbeats like drums in his ears.
His vision from his left eye changed. Where before he saw the cellar in dim light, now he saw it in stark contrasts of heat and shadow. And his eye itself—he could feel it changing, the blue iris swallowed by pitch black, pierced by a vertical slit of glowing gold.
Strength flooded his limbs, sudden and intoxicating. The pain in his leg faded to a dull throb. When the next rat attacked, Silver moved faster than he ever had before. His sword became a blur, cleaving through two rats in a single swing. He didn't think—he acted, driven by instinct. He grabbed a rat mid-leap and slammed it against the stone wall with a sickening crunch.
"Silver!" Elara's voice cut through the red haze.
He turned, and she flinched. He saw his reflection in her wide eyes—a boy with one blue eye and one black eye with a golden slit, his face twisted with something that wasn't entirely his own anger.
The remaining rats, sensing a predator far beyond them, scattered into the shadows.
The heat in Silver's eye faded as suddenly as it had come. The black receded, the golden slit vanishing, leaving both eyes their normal blue once more. Weakness washed over him, and he stumbled, catching himself on a barrel.
"What... what was that?" Kael asked, his analytical gaze fixed on Silver's face.
"I don't know," Silver breathed, looking at his hands. They were trembling. "I just... reacted."
Elara hurried to his side, tearing a strip from her tunic to bind his wounded leg. "Are you alright? Your eye..."
"It's fine now," Silver said, though nothing felt fine. The adrenaline was fading, leaving confusion in its wake.
They finished clearing the cellar in silence, collecting the rat tails as proof of completion. Old Man Miller paid them without comment, though his eyes lingered on Silver a moment too long.
As they walked back to Maplewood in the late afternoon light, the weight of what had happened settled over Silver. The world he thought he knew—a world of simple quests and manageable dangers—had just cracked open, revealing something strange and terrifying beneath.
And whatever had awoken in that cellar, he knew with cold certainty, was still there inside him, waiting..