Sorry for the delay!
This one took a lot longer to trim and edit than I was expecting.
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✦ Excerpt from the Pathfinder Starter Field Guide, 3rd Edition ✦
Published by the Prima City Exploration Union & Safety Commission
Revised under Directive 14-B for civilian readability
Whether you’re a fresh Pathfinder recruit, a contract freelancer, or just the unfortunate soul who wandered off the bus at the wrong stop, you’ll need at least a working knowledge of the Nexus Threat Grading Scale. Beasts on Nexus don’t follow polite rules, and while most would rather be left alone, the ones that don’t can make short work of anyone who hesitates at the wrong moment.
These classifications are standardized across every major Constellation, and you’ll find them used by law enforcement, rescue teams, licensed Guild branches, and most reputable news outlets. Treat them as gospel. A mistake in judgment is how most new Pathfinders end up as cautionary anecdotes in later editions of this guide.
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G-Grade — “Gentle Beasts”
Gentle Beasts, as they are informally called, represent the lowest tier of threat. The name is misleading; not all G-Grade creatures possess mild temperaments, and many will bite, sting, or charge when provoked.
However, a physically capable civilian armed with a standard-issue firearm can typically repel or neutralize a single G-Grade specimen without specialist intervention.
If encountered: Stay calm, keep your distance, and back away slowly. If forced to fight, aim for the center mass. Most will flee after the first shot.
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F-Grade — “Fierce Beasts”
This is where the real trouble starts. Fierce Beasts are fast, aggressive, and durable enough that a typical person with a gun may still die, even after landing a clean shot.
Engagement by untrained individuals is strongly discouraged.
When confronting an F-Grade creature, prioritize controlled retreat.
If encountered: If possible, avoid engagement entirely. If not, run first, shoot second. Retreat to elevation or reinforced shelter, and call for Gifted assistance.
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E-Grade — “Executioner Beasts”
These creatures are infamous for wiping out entire teams of inexperienced Gifted through superior mobility, defensive adaptations, or aggressive supernatural traits.
Pathfinders are instructed to issue a wide-radius alert via radio, mark the sighting coordinates, and avoid all attempts at pursuit. Engagement is reserved for certified strike teams only.
If encountered: Do not approach, do not provoke, do not track. Retreat immediately and issue alerts. If encountered, break line of sight and run. Many Executioner Beasts will pursue their target until something more interesting distracts them.
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D-Grade — “Disaster Beasts”
D-Grade entities’ destructive capability, territorial range, or resistance to standard containment procedures cease to be a danger to individuals or small groups and become something akin to a localized natural disaster.
Upon confirmed sighting, evacuation of nearby areas becomes the first priority. High-ranked Guild forces or municipal response units should be deployed to secure a perimeter and attempt suppression. Junior Pathfinders are strictly forbidden from approaching a D-Grade entity.
If encountered: Why are you still reading this guide? Leave. Now. Create distance, notify local authorities, and contact Pathfinder Command immediately. Evacuate civilians along designated routes. Treat the creature as a mobile natural disaster.
If you can see it clearly, you are too close.
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Grades C and above exceed the scope of this edition. Those entities exhibit traits and capabilities beyond the operational range of novice and intermediate Pathfinders. A revised manual addressing higher-grade calamity-class organisms will be released once current review cycles are complete.
Pathfinders are reminded that the grading scale exists not to inspire fear, but to provide clear expectations and survival frameworks. Proper identification, disciplined distance, and timely reporting remain the primary tools for minimizing loss of life. Encounters with any graded beast should be approached with professionalism, caution, and unwavering adherence to Guild protocol.
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The word D-Grade slammed through Jeremiah’s thoughts like a dropped anvil. His pulse spiked, breath locking in his chest. On the stage, the newly born Dreadnought stumbled like a drunk trying to find his feet. Its massive forelegs scraped trenches into the wood, bladed plates rasping against each other as it twitched and jerked, testing joints that hadn’t existed a minute ago. Purple light still clung to its shell in fading streaks, bleeding off in thin, oily wisps.
Jeremiah dragged his gaze away from the scan lingering at the edge of his vision and snapped his head toward the café doors.
“Nic!” His voice came out sharper than he intended. “Get everyone out. Now. Before it recovers.” His throat felt dry, but he forced the next words out anyway. “This thing is D-Grade!”
Nic’s eyes widened, all the color draining from her face in an instant. Then her expression hardened. She spun toward her people, already lifting her voice over the rising panic.
“KINDERGARTEN, FALL BACK! FULL EVAC — MOVE IT!”
Her guards didn’t argue. The line that had been holding the perimeter fractured and streamed toward the southwest exit in a controlled retreat, guiding the remaining civilians toward the doors. One of them gestured sharply at a cluster of gawkers frozen near the back, physically shoving them into motion. The courtyard’s chaos shifted from blind panic to a messy, purposeful stampede.
The sudden burst of motion seemed to catch the Dreadnought’s attention.
Its jagged head snapped toward the fleeing men. The violet gleam in its eyes narrowed, and it pivoted — or tried to — its uneven bulk swaying as its back end angled toward the fleeing men.
Jeremiah’s heart dropped. A sick, crawling fear gripped his chest as it became clear what the Dreadnought was doing. Before the thought even finished forming, his body was moving.
He dropped from the west side of the stage, boots hammering against stone as he sprinted across the courtyard. Jeremiah pushed his F-Grade speed to its limits. Chairs blurred past him.
“Come on, come on, come on—” he hissed under his breath.
A table leg clipped his shin as he vaulted over it, landing hard before sliding next to a cluster of toppled seats.
He skidded to a stop between the Dreadnought’s firing angle and the last line of Nic’s retreating guards. The Twin Boundaries flared to life the moment his hand hit the ground, and he dragged the crimson pen across the flagstones between overturned tables, a sharp red seam carving itself into the stone.
A heartbeat later, the line rose, thickening into a shimmering barrier that curved up and over like a translucent shield wall.
He barely had time to plant himself in front of it before the Dreadnought reared.
The monster’s back legs rose as it placed them near the middle of its back, spiked tips finding purchase in the armored ridges along its spine.
Then it flicked.
A dozen spear-like spines ripped free from its shell and exploded forward in a screech of sundered air.
The first spine hit the barrier with a sound like artillery. Red light shuddered, spiderweb cracks exploding outward from the point of impact. The second and third spines followed an instant later, slamming into fresh fractures, driving the damage deeper.
Jeremiah flinched as the impact reverberated through him. Thanks to [A Line In The Sand], the Twin Boundaries barriers would match his own grade — currently E with the uniform buffs — but they wouldn’t last against prolonged assault from a D-Grade.
One after another, the spines hammered into the barrier. Each strike bloomed new cracks, widening the old ones. The translucent surface bowed inward, its glow flickering as the enchantment strained. Jeremiah heard someone scream behind him, the sound almost drowned out by the relentless, bone-deep thuds.
On the eighth hit, the barrier’s glow guttered.
On the ninth, it shattered.
The shield exploded into shards of red light that dissolved before they hit the ground. The tenth and eleventh spines were deflected into a pile of chairs as they slammed into the shattered remains of the shield, sending splintering wood raining down.
Yet, the final spine managed to slip through the collapsing light, too fast to track.
Jeremiah barely saw it — just a streak of dark metal and violet light knifing through the space where the barrier had been. He had just enough time for a single, stunned inhale before the impact picked him up off the ground and hurled him backward.
His breath ripped from his lungs, his vision going white at the edges. The world spun past in a smear of lantern-light and shadow. He hit the ground hard — once, twice — and rolled several feet before finally skidding to a stop on his back.
The world narrowed to the sound of his own hoarse gasp.
“Jeremiah!” Nic’s voice cracked over the noise, sharp with horror.
He forced his eyes open.
The first thing he saw was the spear.
It lay half a meter in front of his boots, bent nearly in half from the impact. Its wicked, barbed tip was twisted, metal warped and crushed. Purple residue sizzled faintly along its surface, already fading.
His hand shook as he pressed it to his abdomen. His uniform’s fabric was torn and scorched where the spine had struck, the faint outline of the impact marked across the reinforced vest.
If the Shopkeeper’s Regalia didn’t have B-Grade defenses, that would have killed me… Some part of Jeremiah’s pain-clouded mind vaguely registered.
Even then, the force of the blow had punched through him like a battering ram. He felt the wrongness in his ribs, the deep, jarring throb spreading outward in painful waves.
“How…?” Nic’s voice came again, closer this time. “How are you—?”
Jeremiah didn’t answer. He couldn’t, not yet.
He stared at the ruined spear and swallowed against the copper taste flooding his mouth.
He tried to stand, and the pain hit, sending flashes of white across his vision. His chest seized. He doubled over, bracing on one hand, and coughed. A spatter of blood hit the stones, followed by another as his stomach lurched.
Yep, definitely a rib. Maybe two.
He ground his teeth, rode out the wave of nausea, and forced himself to his feet. The world tilted, but he refused to stay down. Too many people were still in range. Too many things could still go wrong.
On the stage, Birch laughed.
The sound scraped over Jeremiah’s nerves — high and breathless, half glee and half exhaustion. Birch slumped against the Arcadium pedestal, one hand braced tight as if it were the only thing holding him upright. Sweat plastered his hair to his brow and darkened the collar of his vest, but his grin was wide, teeth bared like a dog’s.
Jeremiah wasn’t sure how the man’s power worked, but it was obvious that controlling such a powerful beast was putting a lot of strain on the man.
“Lucky bastard,” Birch panted, voice carrying over the retreating crowd. “If that’s not enough, how about this?!”
He pushed off the pedestal and lifted his right hand.
Purple-black energy coiled up his forearm in tight spirals, clinging to his skin like living smoke. His fingers curled, then shot forward, as if hurling something only he could see.
On the stage, the Dreadnought’s twin violet eyes flared in answer.
It reared back, scythe-like mandibles clanking together in a shower of sparks. Its dorsal plates rattled, blades clashing in a harsh, clattering chorus. Then, the heavy wing cases on its back snapped open.
For a moment, the courtyard filled with the translucent blur of wings.
Huge, glassy panes unfurled, veined and humming. They beat once, twice, building a deep thrumming note that Jeremiah felt in his chest more than he heard with his ears. Dust and loose debris whipped up around the stage, swirling in a sudden gale.
Jeremiah’s breath hitched. Was Birch mad?! Was he really going to have this thing charge at him? Jeremiah’s eyes flicked toward the door behind him. If he dodged, that beast would punch through his shop wall like wet tissue paper… and into a corridor full of fleeing civilians.
Birch seemed to reach the same conclusion. Jeremiah could tell by the way the man’s grin sharpened, eyes narrowing under the brim of his cap. He had gone mad.
Jeremiah forced himself to his feet, every muscle in his torso screaming protest.
The Dreadnought screeched and charged.
Time didn’t simply slow — it compressed into a single, razor-thin strand. The Dreadnought hurled itself off the stage in a spray of splinters, all blades and shrieking metal, a tiger-sized mass of hate arrowing straight at him.
Jeremiah’s body moved on reflex. He dropped to one knee, ribs screaming, and slashed the Twin Boundaries pen across the stone. Red light flared up in front of him with a sound like drawn breath.
Not enough.
He dragged another line a handspan behind the first. Then another. The pen bit into stone like it had been waiting for this, each stroke leaving a glowing seam in its wake.
Three… four—
The air shook as the Dreadnought hit the courtyard floor. Each thunderous step chewed the distance between them, the monster’s wings buzzing in short, furious bursts to keep its bulk light on impact. Its violet eyes fixed on him, and the world narrowed to that charging shape and the stabbing pain in his side.
Five.
His hand shook. He almost lost his grip on the pen as a fresh jolt of agony flared through his ribs. Jeremiah braced his free palm against the ground, dug his boots in, and carved the last line.
Six.
Jeremiah planted his feet behind the final line, chest tight and ready to break. His ribs screamed every time he inhaled, but he forced his arm to stay steady. If these didn’t hold, the courtyard’s last evacuees didn’t stand a chance.
He bent to carve another.
A hand dropped onto his shoulder.
Jeremiah flinched, adrenaline spiking. He twisted, ready to shove whoever it was out of the way, and found Reggie standing just behind him, balanced and steady despite the shaking ground.
“Well done, lad,” the old man said with a grin. His eyes didn’t leave the charging beast. “You bought me just enough time to wake him up.”
“What are you—” Jeremiah’s voice cracked high and thin. “Get out of the way, hurry!”
Reggie only smiled, calm and maddening. “Now, now. It’s his turn.”
He stepped past Jeremiah, boots crossing the line where red light licked at the stone.
On the stage, Birch’s laughter had gone ragged and wild. The sound made the hairs on Jeremiah’s arms stand up.
The Dreadnought hit the first barrier.
The impact sounded like someone had struck a gong. The red wall flashed, holding for half a heartbeat, then shattered.
The second fell just as fast.
The beast didn’t even slow down. It slammed through the third barrier, then the fourth. Each one exploded in a flare of light and a concussive blast that rattled Jeremiah’s teeth. The layered shields were buying seconds at most.
Reggie lifted his worn cane like a conductor preparing the downbeat of a symphony.
Up close, Jeremiah finally saw it for what it was: longer than a simple walking stick, shorter than a staff, thick with old polish and faint scuffs where a hand had rested for years. The wood was dark, almost black, the grain twisted like strands of rope. The gnarled head had always reminded him of a knotted root.
Reggie inhaled deeply, expanding his chest, then let the breath out slowly. The lines around his mouth smoothed, expression sharpening into something that looked very little like the affable showman who’d laughed with children.
The Dreadnought hit the fifth barrier.
Red light flared. For an instant, Jeremiah dared to hope it might hold.
Then the mandibles snapped shut.
The fifth barrier blew out in a storm of fractured light.
The sixth flickered.
Cracked.
Bowed inward with a groan of failing magic.
Jeremiah’s heart sank.
The final barrier burst in a flash of red shards—
—and Reggie’s cane twitched.
The wood split along hidden seams with a soft, unsettling crack.
Then erupted.
A forest of spindly, jointed legs unfurled outward, snapping into existence like a blossoming nightmare. Dozens of thin, flexible limbs shot forward and clamped onto the Dreadnought’s mandibles, its face, its forward plates — every reaching surface they could latch onto. The sound was a violent stutter of chitin striking chitin.
The Dreadnought’s momentum slammed into that net of living limbs. Reggie staggered back three, four heavy steps, boots grinding grooves into the stone, the cane anchored in both hands now, his shoulders bunched with strain.
But he didn’t fall.
The Dreadnought screamed, a screech of jagged metal and fury, and drove forward again. Muscles bunched under overlapping plates. Its wings beat, kicking up a storm of dust and broken chairs.
Reggie’s jaw clenched. Tendons stood out along his neck. The cane’s legs dug furrows into the chitin, flexing, absorbing brute force, and holding it like a snare fixed in bedrock.
The charge slowed.
Inch by inch, the beast’s forward motion bled away. The spiked forelegs clawed at the ground, shredding stone, trying to find purchase. Mandibles strained against the web of limbs.
And then, finally, it stopped.
Jeremiah stared, breathing hard, pain forgotten for a heartbeat.
Slowly, his eyes drifted from the Dreadnought to the cane in Reggie’s hands, trying to figure out what exacting it was he was really looking at. He dragged his gaze down the length of the cane. This close, he could see that the ‘wood’ looked wrong. There was no grain in it. Instead, rings layered over rings, each one fitted into the next like interlocking vertebrae. Faint, mossy green glimmered between the cracks.
Then, suddenly… the cane looked back.
A cluster of small, glossy black eyes, ringed by the faintest impression of bark-like texture, blinked open near the ‘knot’ at its head, and Jeremiah could feel a strange intelligence focus on him.
His breath hitched.
The System answered reflexively before he could even form the command. Lines of light snapped into place at the edge of his vision, text assembling with an urgency that matched the pounding of his heart.
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Ancient Willow
Grade: D – 2.15
Mental: (E) – 8.0
Physical: (D) – 1.2
Supernatural: (E) – 1.5
Rarity: Legendary
Pedigree: ★★★★★☆
Ecology:
A rare elder variant of the Coiled Willow species, Ancient Willows are revered among entomologists and botanists alike. Though born small and flexible, Willows possess no natural upper limit to their lifespan. They continue to grow so long as their environment can support them. With age, their bodies stiffen, chitin taking on the rigidity and appearance of aged wood. The oldest individuals become nearly immobile, requiring long periods of rest and, eventually, external aid to move.
Legends state that the oldest Willows will seek out rivers, lakebeds, or forest clearings and “plant” themselves, their bodies stiffening completely as they root into the soil. Over years, they become living trees — their former hunting grounds — hosting younger Willows in their branches and providing them with shelter and food.
This individual is estimated to be nearly a century old, far surpassing the documented average for its kind. Its continued mobility and lucidity indicate exceptional care and a long-term bond with a dedicated handler. While its physical strength is tremendous for an insect, its true danger lies in experience, refined reflexes, and a mind sharpened by decades of tactical conditioning.
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