Snow on one side, fire on the other. A forest that pulses with mana and a canyon that swallows villages whole. One minute you're stepping through flower-covered ruins, and the next there's a winged Hellbeast trying to bite your face off.
Even in the quietest corners of this world, something is always watching. And usually, it wants you dead.
Some regions are more "civilized"—if you count fortress-villages stacked like bunkers and armed like warships as civilized. The rest of the world? Just raw wilderness. A monster buffet. We live in outposts, stone cages with fancy names, where the walls are high and the air smells like blood and ambition.
That’s Croutonaire.
Beautiful. Brutal. Bipolar.
I grew up in the Crimson Fang. Which means I learned three things fast:
- Monsters don’t wait for your feelings.
- No one’s coming to save you.
- If you die, they recycle your boots.
If you asked a Hunter what kind of beasts they fought, the answer would be simple: anything that moves.
From the lowly Griffants—things the size of wagons, built like pigs and covered in bark—to the monstrous Tyrants who wear armor made of their own bones and smash towns into memories.
And then there’s the dragons.
The old wyrms.
Not just beasts.
They’re mana incarnate.
Their wings could black out the sky. Their scales shimmer like obsidian oil. The smart ones—because yeah, they’re smart—don’t fight unless they’re cornered. But if they do? Pray you’re not in the blast radius.
And of course, there was that one time I stood face to face with one and didn’t kill it.
But we’ll get to that later.
There are three kinds of people left in this world.
The Hunters — like me.
The Scribes — bookworms with trust issues.
And everyone else — trying not to get eaten before their next meal.
Anyway, the Hunters are what you’d expect. Rough, loud, and always in a hurry to prove something.
Me? I’m a Hunter. I don’t have the time or patience to think about complicated stuff like history, philosophy, or how things used to be. I prefer to focus on the here and now. I mean, who cares about the old Chronicles of Forgotten Bloodlines when there’s a Tyrant in the valley that needs slaying?
We train in blood. We level up by not dying. Our guilds were born out of the Great Cataclysm—back when magic fried the world and all the kingdoms fell apart like wet bread.
After that, people formed Fangs. Not kingdoms. Not armies. Just Fangs.
Three main ones:
- Crimson Fang – that’s us. Highland beasts. Sharp steel. Burn scars and red banners.
- Storm Fang – mountain rage and frostbite. They talk with their axes.
- Obsidian Fang — shadow alchemists. Monster-binders. Underground, worse than dead.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
There is an important Fang law: “We don’t fight each other unless it’s personal.” — Has been broken many times. We're all just waiting for a reason to rip each other apart. Something small. Something stupid.
Then there’s the Scribes.
Forest dwellers. Scroll addicts. Magic theorists. They hoard knowledge like it’s oxygen, and they think the rest of us are beneath them. They are our exact opposite. They control knowledge. They keep to their hideaways in the heart of Croutonaire’s forests, hidden from the world.
They’re scholars, strategists, and keepers of forgotten lore, always scribbling down their little theories while everyone else is out getting their hands dirty.
They hoard everything—from history to magic, all tucked away in their libraries, like they're the only ones who can understand the weight of the past. They look down on people like us—the Hunters.
Call us barbarians, idiots, whatever they like. But if you ask me, they’re just cowards. They’d rather study a Griffant’s behavior than actually hunt one.
Each group has their strengths. Hunters like me—we’re strong, resilient, and quick to act. We don’t hesitate. We’ve learned to rely on brute force and instinct.
The Scribes, though, they think before they act.
They measure their decisions, calculate their moves, which makes them great in their own way. But if you ask a Hunter about Scribes, you’ll get a laugh. They’d never fight. They’ll stand there, analyzing, hesitating, until it’s too late.
You can’t hesitate with a Tyrant bearing down on you. It’ll kill you first.
I suppose that’s why we hate each other so much. Scribes hold all the knowledge, but what’s the use of knowledge if you can’t defend yourself with it? I know what I see, and that’s more than enough for me. Meanwhile, they’re too busy recording and “preserving” things, like that’ll save them when the Hellbeasts come knocking.
Scribes live hidden in the Velmire Forest, deep under layers of illusions and glowing trees and other weird bookworm nonsense. They’ve got ranks too—Scriptors, Sages, Lorekeepers, all the way up to someone they call the Archon, who might not even exist.
Hunters don’t talk to Scribes. Scribes don’t talk to Hunters. That’s the deal. An ancient, unofficial, “stay in your lane” kind of peace.
It’s the silent peace that’s kept the world from burning.
For centuries, the two guilds have avoided full-scale conflict.
They stay in their corners, like two animals in separate cages.
But when we do meet—-when we’re forced to cross paths—there’s always a little tension. A blade, a shout, a challenge. I’ve been in my fair share of fights with Scribes.
And then... there’s the dragon.
Yeah, the one I was supposed to kill.
Anyway, I’ll get to that.
The important thing is that I hate the Scribes.
I don’t care about their knowledge or their scrolls. I care about what’s real. About what we can see and touch and fight.
Excerpt from “The Comprehensive Study of Croutonaire and Its Mortal Realms”
— as transcribed by Sage Orivel during the Era of Riftfall (Y.77)
"Croutonaire is a land most violently shaped—not by the hands of gods nor the whims of kings, but by fang, flame, and flesh. Its borders do not bend to treaties, but to the breath of beasts and the silence of those they leave behind."
"To the north lies the Velmire Forest, where fog clings to pine like memory, and mana roots wind deep beneath the earth, ancient as the bloodlines lost to the Cataclysm. The forest breathes. It listens. Many believe it still dreams."
"Southward, one finds the Highlands, a realm of molten stone and seething lakes, cracked with the fire of a thousand forgotten monsters. It is the crucible of the Crimson Fang, where storms fall sideways and even the sky looks sharp."
"And beyond them both, stretching past sense and season, are The Wastes—scoured by wind, claw, and time. No law holds sway there. Only instinct. And those who dwell within obey nothing but the call to survive."