#### **Scene 1: The Dying Village** **Setting**: *The village of Brighthollow, once fertile but now rotting. Midday sun filters through ashen clouds. Wooden huts sag, fields are choked with blackened wheat, and villagers eye strangers with hollow stares.* **Opening Lines**: The wheat was the first to die. Kael Veyra knelt in Brighthollow's central field, gloved fingers brushing the brittle stalks. They crumbled like old bones at his touch, releasing a sour, metallic stench—the Hollowing's calling card. He'd seen it a dozen times before: crops withering, livestock birthing stillborn calves, children coughing up shadows. But this village was worse than most. The air itself felt *hungry*. **Character Action**: - Kael adjusts his tarnished mercenary badge (a relic of his former knighthood) and scans the village. Villagers whisper as he passes; one spits at his boots. - **Flashback Snippet**: A memory of his exile—his commander's snarled *"Traitor!"* as Kael refused orders to burn a Void-touched hamlet. **Dialogue (Villager)**: **Elder Marla** (hissing, clutching a sun amulet): "You shouldn't be here, *Veyra*. The Luminaries say the Hollowing follows your kind." **Kael** (flat, practiced): "The Luminaries also pay me to kill what's following you. Where's the rift?" **Key Detail**: Villagers blame "Void-touched" outsiders for the curse. Kael's reputation as a "tainted" knight lingers. --- #### **Scene 2: The Voidspawn Hunt** **Setting**: *A collapsed barn on the village outskirts. The rift—a jagged tear in reality—pulses with oily black light. The air hums with static.* **Action Beat**: - Kael readies his weapon (a notched longsword, its hilt wrapped in sun-bleached leather). - A **Voidspawn** slithers from the rift: a grotesque fusion of wolf and insect, with too many eyes and claws that drip corrosive shadow. **Fight Scene Snippet**: The Voidspawn lunged, jaws snapping where Kael's throat had been half a breath earlier. He pivoted, sword arcing downward—not steel, but instinct honed in a hundred border skirmishes. The blade bit into chitin, and the creature screeched, ichor spraying like ink. But the wound sealed instantly. *Of course.* "Persistent bastard," Kael muttered. He feigned a retreat, luring it toward the rift. The Voidspawn's claws raked his shoulder, and he gritted his teeth against the burn. *Just a little closer…* With a roar, he slammed his sword into the ground, fissuring the earth. The Voidspawn stumbled into the rift, which snapped shut with a thunderclap. **Aftermath**: - Kael's wounded shoulder smolders with residual Void energy. He bandages it roughly, ignoring the pain. - Villagers toss him a coin pouch but refuse to meet his eyes. One mutters, "The sun sees your sins."