Ash and Echoes
Wilderness Trilogy Part 1
The banks of the River Lum shimmered in the early morning mist, its waters cold and quiet beneath a slate sky. Edgeville stood still—perched as always on the edge of civility, shadowed by the looming, broken lands just north. It was a place of crossroads and contradictions, where wandering adventurers mingled with repentant outlaws, and the wind carried whispers from the Wilderness.
Nyssarra adjusted the strap of her quiver, her boots soft against the dew-damp earth as she approached the town from the south. Crystal-tipped arrows gleamed at her back, catching slivers of pale light. Her hawk-like gaze swept across Edgeville’s rough buildings and moss-dark stone walls. The town bore scars—burnt wood, patched thatch, collapsed stone—but it endured. Like the people who chose to stay here.
She didn’t trust Edgeville, not fully. But it called to her.
“Ranger,” a low voice greeted as she passed the worn path to the monastery.
Brother Jered stood at its entrance, his dark robes plain and clean, but his eyes told of a man who’d seen far too much blood to call any ground holy.
“You’ve been expected,” he added.
Nyssarra raised a brow. “By whom?”
The monk gestured not to himself but toward the town below. “A visitor, two nights ago. She asked for someone who walks the balance between wild and wise. Someone who listens to the stars. She left a name I think you’ll know.”
Nyssarra’s breath caught.
“Wolfthora,” Jered said, his voice a hushed rumble. “She waits in the ruined house near the smithy.”
Edgeville's forge district was ashy and alive. The clang of hammers rang out despite the hour, and smoke rolled from low chimneys. But Nyssarra passed through like a shadow, eyes drawn to the half-toppled structure by the old furnace.
She stepped inside.
Wolfthora sat on the edge of a shattered hearth, arms wrapped around her knees. Her dark crimson hair spilled loose from its usual braid, her Zamorakian leathers dulled by travel. When she looked up, her sapphire eyes locked onto Nyssarra’s—not with fire, but with something far more dangerous: vulnerability.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Then why are you?” Nyssarra asked softly.
Wolfthora sighed. “Because something’s stirring. North of here. In the Wild.”
Nyssarra leaned against the crumbled wall, arms crossed. “You’ve never needed permission to walk into danger.”
“This is different.” Wolfthora stood, pacing. “I was hunting revenants—just like old times, right? In and out. But something’s changed. I saw them behaving… like a pack. Controlled. Not like echoes, but soldiers.”
Nyssarra frowned. “By what?”
“That’s just it,” Wolfthora said, stepping closer. “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s waking up. And it’s watching Edgeville.”
Silence hung between them like a drawn bowstring.
Later that day, Nyssarra wandered the riverbank just outside town. A child played near the water—chasing dragonflies with a laugh so bright it cut through the clouds.
Then something shimmered.
A flicker of energy pulsed across the river, just north of the bridge. Faint, like heat above stone, but charged with something unnatural. Nyssarra’s senses sharpened. Her fingertips tingled as they brushed her crystal pendant. Seren’s magic pulsed faintly in response—subtle, but wary.
She crossed the bridge, the landscape changing with each step. The grass thinned. The air cooled. The world grew… quiet.
Edgeville was not the Wilderness. Not yet. But the boundary was bleeding.
She knelt beside a discarded helmet, half-buried in the dirt. It wasn’t rusted. It was melted. Not by fire—but by magic. Or corruption.
A sound behind her: footsteps. Familiar ones.
“I told you it’s watching,” Wolfthora said, arms crossed, voice low. “Whatever this thing is, it’s scouting. I’ve seen the signs too.”
Nyssarra stood. “Then we find it.”
They returned to town under the false calm of dusk. Edgeville’s inn, “The Red Axe,” had no space for quiet, but they managed a corner table, hunched over a rough parchment map of the region. Locals drank loudly nearby, unaware of the creeping cold leaking from the north.
“See this path?” Wolfthora whispered, pointing. “Used to lead to a ruined watchtower near the border. I tracked the revenants there. They didn’t attack—they… waited. As if guarding something.”
Nyssarra traced the route with one finger. “We go tonight.”
Wolfthora grinned, a spark of the old fire returning. “That’s more like it.”
The moon was a jagged sliver as they passed through the last veil of safety. North of the town, the terrain changed. Soil gave way to stone. Trees grew twisted. The wind carried no scent.
The Wilderness.
Nyssarra felt Seren’s presence retreat like a whisper on the wind. The stars above seemed sharper here, their light colder. Wolfthora moved beside her like a specter, silent but alert.
Hours passed.
Then they saw it: the tower. Broken, ancient. But surrounded by something far newer.
Runes.
Carved into the earth in circles, pulsing with a low, violet light.
And in the center—standing still—was a figure. Tall, robed, masked. Not undead. Not alive.
Watching.
It turned.
And then the revenants came.
They fought like they had in the dungeons of Daemonheim: back-to-back, blade and bow, fire and light. Nyssarra’s arrows sang with elven magic, striking true, while Wolfthora’s greatsword tore through spectral bone and smoke. But they were outnumbered.
The robed figure raised its hand, and the runes flared.
A tremor shook the ground.
A gate began to open.
“Nyss!” Wolfthora shouted. “We need to break the circle!”
Nyssarra dove into a roll, loosing an arrow tipped with a shard of her mother’s crystal—a piece of the Singing Caverns. It struck the outer rune, and the light shattered like glass.
The gate flickered.
She fired again—another rune, another break.
Wolfthora hurled her sword through the final one, the blade burying deep.
The figure shrieked—an inhuman, echoing wail.
Then it vanished. So did the revenants.
Silence fell, broken only by ragged breaths.
They stood amid the ruins, the tower now still, the runes dead.
“What was that?” Wolfthora asked, wiping blood from her brow.
Nyssarra touched the ground where the figure had stood. The earth was scorched. “Not Zamorakian. Not Saradominist. Older.”
Wolfthora frowned. “A third player?”
“Or a forgotten one,” Nyssarra whispered.
They looked to the horizon, where the jagged peaks of the deep Wilderness rose in black silhouette.
“We’ll have to go deeper,” Wolfthora said.
Nyssarra nodded. “But not tonight.”
Back in Edgeville, the fires at the inn still burned. The town was unchanged on the surface. But beneath, something had shifted.
They sat again in their corner, hands wrapped around mugs of bitter tea.
Wolfthora leaned back. “Still think I shouldn’t be here?”
Nyssarra allowed herself a rare smile. “You’re always where the trouble is. I just wish you didn’t always drag me with you.”
“I didn’t drag you,” Wolfthora said, nudging her knee. “You ran.”
They sat in companionable silence, the edge of something greater creeping into their minds.
The Wild was waking.
And Edgeville would not be the last place to feel it.