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Loren couldn’t help feeling like a child, all of a sudden. A child listening to a conversation between adults who didn’t want him to comprehend everything that they were saying.

That couldn’t be the case, though. Hector must’ve had his own reasons for being so silent, not just because he was concerned about what Loren might think.

“We could continue this dance for days, I imagine,” said Caster. “But there is a far more pressing matter which we should discuss. A warning I should provide, in case you are not already aware. The world has just become a more dangerous place for people like us.”

“People like us?” said Hector.

“Those touched by the divine.”

And Caster left him an opening to respond again, but Hector elected to remain quiet.

Caster resumed. “The great storm in the Luthic Ocean that has shaken all of Eleg--that was no mere natural disaster. It was a turning point. A deciding moment of this Age. From it, a terror has been born and now roams the world freely. Do you know of what I speak?”

Still, Hector said nothing.

“A ravenous monster in the form of a wolf,” said Caster. “It is hunting us with a ferocity that is entirely unmatched in this modern era. Even the so-called ‘emperors’ of this realm have been falling to it.”

Okay, now Loren was really lost. A wolf in the ocean? What? Was this some kind of metaphor?

“Perhaps you will think my warning mad,” Caster went on, “but in time, it will become clearer. I am sure more news will break of the terror’s exploits, though it may again be muddied by the fog of war and the simple disbelief of common people. This is a problem so foreign to the general imagination, so unfathomable to the normal mind, that an average person could look upon it with their own two eyes and still not see it for what it is.”

Was Loren one of those average people? It didn’t seem like he was supposed to qualify, but he sure felt like he did, right now.

“...You want something from me,” said Hector.

“I want your friendship,” said Caster. “If there is any hope of surviving this ordeal, it will be together. Alone, we stand little chance.”

“...No, that’s too vague. You want something more specific than that.”

It was Caster’s turn to pause. Then he gave a curt laugh. “You have a discerning eye. Perhaps even a piercing one, hmm?”