Jaeth's Eye

Plot Introduction
Jaeth's Eye begins with the introduction of Kefier, a 19-year-old mercenary living in lawless Kago, an anarchist land between the Kag nations to the west and Jin-Sayeng to the east.

The continent of Vir is full of ancient magic and monsters. While other civilizations have managed to harness these powers for the advancement of society, the west has been hampered by a Gasparian witch who once walked through the wilderness and released monstrous, foul beasts that are not quite dead, not quite alive. It is only until the arrival of Agartes Allaicras, hero of the Kag, that people have been able to dominate the land.

The story follows Kefier in the aftermath of his friend's mysterious death. As he flees his old associates, he goes on a journey that leads him to discover the continent's strange secrets...and his connection to all of it.

The Boarshind
The first Prologue outlines the slaughter of the hero Agartes Allaicras’ family at the hands of the Dageians. We see Agartes’ pain as he realizes that not only has he lost his children, but that his memories of them will also fade in time. We learn of the beliefs of his people governing the afterlife, and are invited to remember that "The true story, as always, is in the details."

Kefier is a young man simply trying to figure life out on his own terms. Banished from his village for an accident involving his brother, he was taken as a slave by Dageian mages and it was only because of the help of a mercenary, Oji, that he was able to escape. But Oji’s well-meaning action causes Kefier much strife—the other mercenaries treat him as an outsider, blaming him for causing Oji to fall from grace in the officers’ eyes. And Kefier himself is resentful that Oji treats him like a child.

He attempts to gain control of his life by taking a job behind Oji’s back. It is a simple enough task involving the delivery of a letter, to be taken during a separate job Oji was entrusted with. Unbeknownst to Kefier, he is being tested for his response—or lack thereof—to a creature that one of the mercenaries’ clients has been growing in the abandoned mines, one which they have been feeding with children taken from villages throughout the land. Even just exposure to its slime can cause madness in some, and people have different levels of responses to it—mercenaries that can withstand its effects are particularly valued by this client.

Kefier reacts to the creature, but in an entirely different way—he hears it speaking in his head. Combined with the mild claustrophobia he had picked up during his time as a slave and his tendency to panic when surprised—something Oji and the other mercenaries have been careful with during his time with them—he stabs Oji and kills him.

Akki
Sume is Oji’s sister—a young woman in her teens who has been responsible for her father and the young family Oji left behind when he left to seek his fortune as a mercenary. For the last year, the money Oji has been sending them has stopped. She doesn’t know why, but she travels to the mainland in order to work as a seamstress.

She meets a foreign dockworker and strikes up a friendship with him. Something about the dockworker is familiar, especially with the way he speaks Jinan exactly like how her family does. Only later does she learn that he is Kefier, who was once the young boy her brother took under his wing—driven by guilt after his murder of Oji, he escapes to the city, where he gazes out at the sea to the island where Sume and her family lived, trying to muster up the courage to admit what he had done. Sume learns that Oji is dead and that Kefier is wanted by the other mercenaries.

Return to Kago
It seems as if Kefier caused more deaths after the events in the mines, when he kills the officer who gave him the job—his actions cause a chain reaction that results in the deaths of many of his and Oji’s companions. The mercenary who takes him prisoner, Gaven, blames him for everything. While in town, a traveller overhears Kefier’s story, and realizes he was once acquainted with him back in Kefier’s old village, when they were still children.

The traveller meets a client of the mercenaries and explains his concerns for Kefier—the client assures him that everything is taken care of. It turns out that this client is Ylir, a merchant and associate of a big company in the Kag—Yn Garr Industries. One of the secrets of the company involves their attempt to revive a creature from legend—the exact same one that Kefier encountered in the mines.

Ylir uses the creature’s slime and his own skill with enchantment in order to coerce Gaven into setting Kefier free. It is an experiment that works; Kefier wakes up on a cart heading to safety. Ylir, in disguise, even hitches a ride with him in order to leave him a gift—an blanket imbued with a “look away” spell that later protects Kefier from the mercenaries who are now after him in cold blood. It also protects him from an encounter with a creature in the forest, one of the many that plague the wilderness and were left behind by the same witch who created the more powerful one that Yn Garr Industries is trying to revive.

The Kusyani Village
Kefier attempts to return to the nation of Jin-Sayeng and Sume—though he doesn’t think about what he’s done, the guilt drives him and is about the only thing he has left to live for. But with mercenaries at his tail, he decides to go through the mountains to Gaspar, the nation bordering Jin-Sayeng.

He comes upon several spells that take him to a ''kusyani ''village. The kusyani are an ancient people of those mountains, and Kefier learns that the elder has been hosting a part of the creature within himself. He learns that this particular creature is difficult, almost impossible, to kill, and that it was separated into several pieces by mages before being sealed away. Each “part” can grow individually. The elder kusyan, with his strong connection to the agan, is able to destroy his part with his death. The act brings forth a surge of agan which calls back the past Kefier has been trying to escape.

As Kefier leaves the village, he encounters two mages who have been trying to learn about the witch and her creature. Events unfold, and they finally stumble upon the mercenaries who have been struggling to control the creature—which proceeds to eat a dragon and gain its power and form. The mages take Kefier to their home, where he learns that they’ve been tasked with keeping an eye on this creature and its individual parts to make sure it never returns to the world.

Journey to Gaspar
While all of this has been happening, Sume finds herself in the service of Ylir in exchange for her nephew’s life after her nephew attempts to steal from the merchant. They journey to Gaspar, where Ylir—despite taking an interest in Sume—sells her as a concubine to a powerful Gasparian lord, in exchange for support in Yn Garr Industries’ activities in the region. Sume, realizing what such a position could do for her family, decides to carry through with it, but Ylir changes his mind at the last moment and attempts to “rescue” her.

He injures himself and she ends up rescuing him and nursing him back to health. She forms a relationship with him during this time until Ylir’s master Yn Garr returns to remind him of his duties. Angrily, he joins up with the mercenaries, where he learns that they are currently attacking the mages where Kefier is staying.

The Mages of Enji
The leader of the mages takes Kefier aside and forces his memories out of him, back to the day when his brother has an accident. We learn that the accident occurred because Gorrhen yn Garr arrived at their village and took the creature from the temple—then a single eye, no bigger than a box—along with Kefier’s brother Enosh. The mage reveals that Ylir was Kefier’s brother all along, and that both of them are descended from a mage, Jaeth, who had been tasked with the part of the creature hidden in their village. Enosh has been keeping an eye out for Kefier, but his own selfishness means he has been more interested in his own affairs than reuniting with his brother.

The mercenaries and the mages clash. In the ensuing chaos, Kefier escapes with Sume and her nephew Dai. Gaven—now a shell of a man, half-mad from the creature’s influence—tries to stop them and injures Dai during the process. Kefier manages to defeat Gaven, but before he dies, the mercenary reminds him that he was the one who killed Oji.