Role

Chapter 1

Iskrith still remembers the sound that twisted his insides and quickened his
breath.

It was sharp and high. It soared and rattled, and then fell into a flat,
monotonous moan. It was repulsive and alluring, unlike anything he had ever
heard.

The noise drew him from his family's home in the K'sra Village. It had come
from the swamp. He looked and saw nothing. Then, the long body of a great
serpent slid through the foliage and the murk and the swamp returned to
silence and stillness.

Iskrith may have forgotten about that sound over time. But he would hear it
again weeks later, this time as he gathered marshweed just beyond the edge of
the village. Again, he looked and saw nothing.

It was not until the third time that he truly saw what he had been looking at
all along.

A young elven squire was being dragged into the swamp to the west of the
village, his voice crushed out of him by a carnivorous vine. A serpent arose
from the muck to take a bite out of the still-moving prey, engaging in a brief
and morbid tug-of-war that resolved when the elf's outstretched arm followed
the serpent into the muck. A spurting stump remained, and the elf let out a
ragged scream, his eyes primal and vacant.

More creatures emerged from the swamp over the next minutes and hours, each
taking a piece out of the elf for itself. Iskrith marveled at the scene. He
had never been taught a word for it. For many hours, he was entranced. For
nearly 30 years, he had lived but a few paces from this bizarre ritual of
taking, and yet he had never seen anything like it.

He returned home to his mother and father and brothers and sisters to share
his story and ask questions.

But their eyes did not see him, and their ears did not hear his voice, no
matter how loudly he screamed. The foliage that made up the village no longer
responded to him.

Among the K'sra, Iskrith was no longer seen.

He would only learn later that he had seen Weh, something that K'sra cannot.
He had become something else.