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Omen Shard
Walking the hunting trails to gather was Adrian’s daily task, it was often boring, but he appreciated the ability to leave town and listen to the sounds of nature. In the process of gathering the usual mushrooms, herbs, and particularly good sticks, he found an eye-catching shard.
The shard was black, not simply the color of coal or a deep shadow, but a black that looked like a hole in space. It was smooth to the touch, and he could feel the sharp corners that defined its shape, as they just barely caught a glint of light from the sun that filtered through the canopy. Turning it over in his hand it looked ethereal. As he held it to the light, the shard revealed some other material, just as dark, flowing and suspended inside the outer shell. It was a beautiful piece, and a gem like this could surely be sold for a lot.
As he returned to town, the sun was setting. He remembered the merchant caravan that had stopped, and headed to the inn they had based themselves in.
“Where did you find this?” was the merchant’s first question. Her face was pensive; specked with fear. “Do you know what this is?”
Adrian shook his head. “What is it? Is it valuable?”
“It’s a guardian shard. If you found this nearby…” The merchant’s voice went quiet. “We need to leave, the town needs to evacuate.”
As the merchant’s voice rose, others in the inn started making their way over. The tension in the air turned palpable. From an adventuring party that had approached, a sword-bearing adventurer, covered with heavy chain, spoke up. “That’s a shard. There must be a ruin nearby. If there was a guardian who left the ruin, then there’s going to be more. We need to find it be-”
The adventurer’s comment was cut off by a bell in the distance. The town crier ran into the inn. “Something was spotted in the woods. We don’t know what.”
The scout atop the bell tower looked out at the treeline. Shining from within the darkness were lines of a pale blue light, peeking between moving scales of shadow, pinprick lights dotting the gaps between trunks and bushes.