Chapter 1

His brow was dampened from the effort to contain his intent from leaking from his mana pool, before the Neralak sensed his presence. Richard Snow had been tracking this particular beast for almost a week now and frustration was creeping up on his frayed nerves as he failed over and over to get close enough to kill the neralak.

In this instance, he was lying prone behind a rotten log, watching the neralak grazing just 40m from his position. As he thought of a plan to quickly subdue and secure this neralak, which was supposed to be his dinner tonight, he felt the bugs crawling leisurely around his body, dangerously close to interfering with his focus. He quietly swatted away a fly from his face and imbued energy into his arrow, muttering an incantation that would seek out the neralak's heart.

Suddenly, he felt a suffocating amount of mana that pressed down on his intent and caused the neralak to collapse.The energy spike caused the various fauna in the surrounding area to scatter. As sudden as the energy's appearance was, so was its sudden disappearance, leaving only the neralak's twitching body as evidence of it.

What was that powerful aura?Richard thought. Never in his forty five years of existence had he ever felt such a pressure. A rattling sound caught his attention and he realized his knees were trembling uncontrollably. But then so was his stomach. He remembered the neralak and dragged himself from the rotten log, cautiously approaching it.

The neralak was definitely dead,its heart collapsing at the weighty aura that had just permeated its surroundings. Before he could investigate this occurrence further, hunger again reminded him of the matter at hand and he decided to first secure his dinner before checking for the source of the surge. After all, he had been tracking this one on fumes alone. Richard extracted his hunting knife from his knapsack and slit the dead neralak's throat so that the blood could drain out.

That's when he heard the unmistakable cry of a baby crying not too far from him, to his right. The first thing that came to his mind was that it was a trick of the woods. There have always been rumours of weagluks pretending to be wounded humans crying for help, while luring you to a most definite death between their jaws. But this cry sounded too pure to be coming from a weagluk. Richard's curiosity got the better of him and he found himself slowly and quietly going towards the sound. To be safe, he chanted quietly and a ball of fire appeared and wrapped around his right hand. Swallowing hard and bracing himself,he approached what appeared to be a small clearing where the crying was coming from,steadily growing louder as he neared it. At first, he couldnt see clearly beyond what appeared to be a magical barrier in the clearing, but the rising of the hairs on his neck confirmed that this was the source of the aura he felt moments ago. Approaching closer to the barrier, the surface shuddered slightly before disappearing entirely. The area where the barrier had been was cleared and neighbouring bushes and trees had been bisected to give an imprint of the concave shape that had been the barrier,leaving a gleaming aftermath of the sheared background of the clearing. Richard's breath caught in his throat as he perceived what appeared to be a small bundle at the centre of the clearing,the source of the incessant wailing of a newly born baby.

A slight cold breeze wafted through Richard's hair and this nudged him into action as he realised that it was cold and that it was a baby against the elements. He extinguished the fire in his palm and leapt quickly into the clearing and rushed to the baby.

Carefully replacing his hunting knife in its scabbard,Richard parted the swaddling clothes from where the wailing had somehow increased, as if the baby knew that someone was close by and now demanding immediate attention to its cries. Taking the baby in his arms, the infant immediately grew quiet ,feeling the comfort of Richard's arms. It was a beautiful baby boy with bright ,inquisitive blue eyes and a ready smile.

Richard Snow had no children, even though he had been married to Theresa,his wife, for more than twenty years. He found himself mesmerized by the baby's fine features,which were flawless and glowing. The small tuft of grey hair had already grown to what will definitely be a fine head of hair in the future. The baby gave a small sneeze and its beautiful features contracted in the effort. Richard's heart clinched at that, giving him emotions that were very foreign to him. Richard and Theresa were barren and no amount of magic could undo their unfortunate demise. When they discovered this horror,they had settled down to loving each other to make up for their lack of children. Regardless of this,Richard had always wished for a son. And right here in the middle of the Beast forge he had stumbled on a baby boy.

This realisation woke him up from his revelry and he clung closer to the swaddling bundle as he stood up,inspecting the clearing closely. I must go home quickly before an actual weagluk found dinner and desert in my vulnerability,he thought. He was about to turn around and leave the clearing when a glimmering light caught his attention to where he had scooped up the baby from. It was a golden medallion the size of his palm, glistening, giving the obvious impression that it was worth a cave of gold. He picked it up deftly, put it in his pocket and quickly made his way back to the neralak. Muttering a spell under his breath, a light glow of energy wrapped around the corpse of the neralak and it shrunk and changed into a grey rune-covered stone, the size of his hand, enough to fit properly in his let's knapsack. "This should do it," he thought, looking at the cuddled baby in his arms."lets go home and see what we can do about you. Theresa will definitely be thrilled I found you... I think". Richard quickly made his way through the forest, finally going home with some meat....and a new-born baby.

*(A Neralak is a native animal of the beast forge forest that resembles a wildebeest)

*(A Weagluk is a hunting carnivore that resembles a tiger,but is larger and without the stripes)