Monsters, Mayhem & Wild Magic: The Hexed and Hunted Series, #1

Monsters, Mayhem, and Wild Magic

Book 1 of the Hexed and Hunted Series

Noah Bodie

First published by Highly Caffeinated Art 2025

Copyright © 2025 by Noah Bodie

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission

from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or

distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents

portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Noah Bodie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is recommended for audiences ages 18+

Being set in my dark fantasy world ‘Lusefell,’ this work contains darker

themes including, but not limited to: implied and on-page sexual content,

harsh language, frightening creatures, dystopian/grimdark setting, reference

to magical experimentation on being/creature, murder, trauma, C-PTSD

and PTSD, scars, blood and gore, mental health topics, reference to suicide,

anger issues, and grief.

Please be safe as you dive into the world of Lusefell.

First edition

ISBN (paperback): 9798304381123

ISBN (hardcover): 9798304446181

For those who appreciate strong, dominant women

and soft, protective men.

Contents

Preface

1.Eyrei

2.The Mountain and the Stream

3.She Who Seeks Truth

4.He Who Hunts Monsters

5.On Hope and Ignorance

6.Blue

7.Little Nothings

8.Equivalent Exchange

9.The Sound of Silence

10.The Tower

11.Home

12.A Lady’s Favor

13.Axel

14.Blood and Honey

15.A Tale of Wants

16.The Festival of Reaping

17.Divinity

18.Favorite Things

19.The Forgotten

20.The Lady of Water

Epigraph

21.To Begin is to End

And Winter Came

22.Kismet 1st

23.The Art of Apology

24.Family Ties

25.Unraveled

26.Communication

27.Love

28.Dal Garuhm

29.Pillow Talk

A Brief History Lesson

Concept Art

World Map

Usphra

Redirine

Faixte

Ivuris

The Six Planes of Existence

The Immortal Boundaries

The People of Lusefell

The Pantheons of Lusefell

The Celestial Bodies and Calendar of Lusefell

About the Author

Also by Noah Bodie

Preface

Please note that if you’ve read the first book of my other series, Suneater, this story begins around four months after the end of it. Some events in this series will parallel those in the Desert Rose Saga and give a different perspective of things outside the protagonists in the Desert Rose’s purview.

For those who have not read Suneater, the backmatter contains a brief history of the world and its current state titled A Brief History Lesson. This will give you some background information about the world’s lore and some events referenced but not directly discussed in Monsters, Mayhem, and Wild Magic.

There are also extra tidbits about the world, maps, and concept art for characters for your enjoyment.

one

Eyrei

Eyrei.

It was a small, isolated village in the southern part of Usphra, near a branch of the Branmi Mountains. It was mostly known for its fishing and its unwelcoming atmosphere toward outsiders. Most of its wealth was derived from the surrounding water and the few remaining hunters in this part of the continent’s tragic landscape. Eyrei and its people were known to be cold, bitter, and forgotten, just like the mainland that it called home.

The village was tiny, barely holding a populace of a hundred and fifty souls, and was tucked carefully behind log-crafted high walls. Most of its homes were small, made of timber, and always covered in snow like the desolate landscape. Despite their suspicious air, the people were diverse, and most had various types of tattoos on their bodies. Some were runic, the older language of the Primals, and others seemed to have geometric designs that mimicked ice crystals. None were identical, and children did not display them as if the tattoos and age held cultural significance.

There was a harshness in the people here, with tired eyes and a look of abandonment that extended to all who wandered the village streets. Abandonment was perhaps the correct term, for they had been abandoned by the Water Primal Qella and the world due to their unwavering loyalty to her. They were people who had not lost their faith after Qella's betrayal and imprisonment and were now ostracized for it.

Outsiders stuck out like a sore thumb here … she stuck out like a sore thumb here. She didn’t have the tattoos to link her to the community, and her clothing had an otherness about it. Her clothes differed from the pelts of creatures that still braved this continent and were made by skilled hands that did not struggle to stay warm. Maybe that’s why she was seated at the bar, with no one daring to approach her. Why, when she’d sat down, even those seated next to her shifted away.

Cerci was a small human woman, approximately five feet ten inches tall, in her early thirties, with olive skin and large hazelnut eyes. She was lovely and vibrant and would have stood out in this place regardless of whether she had formed an arcane disguise to mingle. She had an air of warmth and curiosity about her, even in how she wore her hair. It was long, dark brown with natural red highlights and cut in wispy layers with blunt bangs. Her clothing was light, a blend of reds and golds with floral prints that conveyed a sense of movement; the only source of warmth was the woolen shawl draped over her shoulders.

The cup before her was filled again with a liquid that looked like coffee brewed too long. It was thicker than it should have been and had an oaky flavor that she had noticed during the last hour of waiting.

I think you may have been stood up, Nilkas, the bartender and owner of the pub The Fractured Fiend, said as he withdrew the kettle.

Nilkas was a tall, thin, high elf with pale skin and curved forehead tattoos. They were set in brown ink and resembled branching antlers that matched with curving lines of fillagree around his wrists and the top of his hands. His pale blonde hair was cropped short, enhancing his elongated features and giving him a somewhat deer-like appearance. He had a handsome yet plain face, and his monotone tenor voice gave the impression that it could lull children to sleep easily.

Perhaps, but I’m not in a rush, Cerci replied with a smile before grasping her chipped mug and taking another painful sip. It was bitter, but she wasn’t rude enough to refuse it. Her voice was a musical alto, slightly strained with annoyance, and had a coyness that clung to its edges.

Who are you meeting? Nilkas asked, pausing to look at Cerci with suspicion. He had entertained her for the past hour without asking too many questions, but now he seemed intrigued.

A man, or rather a monster hunter. Do you know one? Cerci asked, smiling as she took another drink of the poorly crafted … whatever it was supposed to be. The pub went quiet, and if not for the chill already present from the dying fire, she’d have noticed the temperature drop. Suspicion was palpable, and her gaze shifted around before falling back on the elven male behind the bar.

"You all seem to, don’t you?" Cerci said, raising her eyebrows in suspicion.

What do you want with Ridge? Nilkas asked, his voice tense.

That’s my business, but I won’t hurt him, Cerci responded.

A chorus of laughter broke the tension in the pub before it settled, and Nilkas leaned against the bartop. I’m sure you won’t, he said with a smile.

Cerci leaned forward, lips frowning in irritation at the response. She didn't like being underestimated. She pushed the coffee cup aside before asking, "Do you know where he is? It looks like I may have to hunt him down."

"I might share, but I don’t provide information for free. Especially to outsiders, and particularly about Ridge," Nilkas said, folding his hands thoughtfully over the bar top as he drew out the name on his lips.

Cerci offered a tight smile and stirred the liquid in her cup with her finger. It froze, making a crackling sound, and the mug groaned as if it were about to break from its expanding contents. The action drew Nilkas’ eyes and a few others around the pub to her. A new sense filled the space, replacing the lingering suspicion with a wave of interest and a strange new essence of relaxation at her display.

Cerci took a deep breath and leaned forward, withdrawing her finger before saying, "How about some advice in exchange for your information? Perhaps about your coffee … because it sucks."

The pub was quiet until Nilkas broke the silence with a sharp burst of laughter. He watched the woman at the bar carefully, his hazel eyes growing less suspicious and more intrigued the longer she talked to him. That’s because it’s not for the locals, but fair enough. How would you make it worse? he asked, leaning towards Cerci, almost giddy.

Oh, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re progressing perfectly if that’s the direction you wish to go, Cerci said with a laugh. She tapped her stiletto nails on the bar top, her patience wearing thin. So, Ridge? Where did you say he was? she asked.

"The wastes. Maybe half a mile from the north gate, or Ridge should be, Nilkas said as he pushed off the bartop, grabbed the frozen cup, and stowed it away. He grabbed a new cup and filled it with coffee from the kettle beside the one he had used previously. Going out there alone isn’t easy, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the area. Stay warm," he said.

"How kind. Thank you for the good coffee, Cerci said, grabbing the cup to take a sip. She smiled immediately and nodded before handing over the cup. See? I always believed in you. Your effectiveness has been proven—well done," she said. She knew Nilkas’ type—he wanted to prove a point, but she couldn’t quite tell if it was for his ego or to try to get under her skin.

Nilkas chuckled, grabbed the cup, and discarded its contents into a bin. Good luck, he said before turning around to clean up behind the bar.

"Was that really all it took for you to share information?" Cerci asked, her head tilting ever so slightly. This felt too easy, and she was suspicious of it.

Nilkas nodded toward her hand, specifically the one that had cast a spell to freeze the coffee, and said, "We respect people who can use wild magic here. Consider it a favor, and, as I mentioned, good luck."

I don’t need luck to walk in the snow, but thank you, Cerci replied, smiling sincerely. The smile wrinkled her nose slightly and drew attention to the faint dimples at the corners of her mouth.

"Not with the snow, but with Ridge," Nilkas said as the woman stood and began to turn away.

Oh, well, I’ll gladly take that luck. If the past hour indicates his punctuality, I might need it, Cerci sighed. She smiled before turning on her heel and heading out the front door.

She usually had to work harder for information, so her little display giving her an advantage was a pleasant surprise. She frowned slightly in thought as her boots tapped against the permafrost, and the ice crunched beneath her feet. She hadn’t planned to hike through the snow, much less search over a creature-ridden landscape for a man of all things.

The thought made her visibly grimace—not the snow, but the chasing.

She’d dared to hope she’d be met in the pub by a monster hunter who’d read the two letters she’d sent him over the past few months, get a warm drink, and hopefully have a realistic chat. Regrettably, she had no such experience and was beginning to question whether this monster hunter was worth all the time and effort she had invested in tracking him down.

two

The Mountain and the Stream

Another hour uphill, ankle-deep in the snow, in her best fucking boots. Uphill, and being pelted in the face by the falling precipitation. If Cerci had been asked how this meeting would go a day ago, she wouldn’t have predicted it would turn out this way. Hell, she hadn’t even had the meeting yet, and she was contemplating going back home.

Instead, she had been cursing under her breath, her hand clenching the woolen wrap tightly around herself to keep it from being blown back. Her eyes were constantly squinting, trying to see across the vacant white landscape. One positive aspect was that she hadn’t seen anything approaching or following her despite the faint sounds in the distance. The other was that this place possessed a quiet beauty, even with random gusts of wind that sounded more like howls than the gentle breeze she was accustomed to.

Cerci was unfamiliar with stillness and silence as she hailed from the city of Belmare, located across the sea on the continent of Redirine. Belmare was a well-known city celebrated for its connections to the Fire Primal, Cael, and its rich history of diversity and safety for refugees. It was always lively, even at night, with music that could be heard at all hours. It was a wash of bright sunshine during the day and faint arcane lights in the evenings. A place bathed in sandy tones, surrounded by a harsh desert and filled with jovial laughter.

Belmare, hell Redirine, was the opposite of this place.

Another howling bellow echoed in front of her, closer than it had been for the past fifteen minutes. A creature had been making its opinion known in spurts, and it seemed to be getting closer, or rather, she was getting closer to it. At first, it sounded farther away than she had thought, but now she could pick up on the strange distortion as if it were echoing from within a cave—a cave or near some cavernous space. Cerci paused to listen and squinted her eyes again, trying to discern anything new in the terrain ahead.

There were no nearby mountain peaks, and as far as she could tell, the landscape didn’t rise any higher than she was already going, which meant it possibly dropped off. She glanced behind her, glimpsing the faint footprints left in the snow of her own make. She was clearly ascending, which meant she was on the outer edges of the foothills.

A cave would make the most sense, or a drop off into a network of them.

She needed to watch her footing, or she might fall off, too. Wouldn’t that be a headline for them to print in Belmare?

Local investigator falls to her death

in Usphra doing … what?

We don’t know, and her employer doesn’t either.

Cerci snorted and laughed at herself before stepping forward a few more paces and stopping abruptly. A piercing scream echoed through the air, crude and louder than any she had heard. Angrier.

Cerci gripped her wrap tighter as she calmed her racing heart from the sudden startle. Then, her mind started sprinting. She was close; she had to be close because why would that thing sound like that if it wasn’t suddenly being attacked? She began to run, pushing her legs to move quickly through the deep sea of white. She could see the end of this trek, although it wasn’t in her line of sight. Just a little further. Just a little more to go.

Oh, fuck! Cerci screeched, skidding to a stop as the ground before her took a steep dive and opened into an at least mile-wide drop. She was correct—a drop led into a large, hollow canyon. She had read about the strange landscape and the hidden ecosystems within the cave networks of Usphra, but she never expected their entrances to be so abrupt. She’d not been prepared, or perhaps she’d underestimated the land.

Underestimation: she should’ve known better than to underestimate the creation of a woman, even if that woman was a banished Primal Lord.

Snowflakes glimmered, colors danced in crystal reflections, and a vast expanse of frozen rock lay at least a hundred feet below her. There was a moment of awed appreciation for the canyon and the vast openings that led into the rocks before she started to assess the terrain. This place was a crossroads, a point of entry and passage into the land beneath the surface. There had to be a way down that didn’t require her to fall to her death.

Another roar erupted, causing her to wince. It reverberated against her eardrums, seeming almost fearful and desperate. Then, another sound echoed around the canyon’s walls. She thought it was a howl, but it sounded more like a screeching gurgle or the labored breathing of a dying animal. It was chaotic, chased by a chorus of similar sounds, as if whatever made it was a multitude. Cerci felt a shiver run down her spine, not from the cold but from the sound that latched onto her bones and tugged at deeply stored information she had read in a report.

A strange rattle reminiscent of death accompanied by fangs, claws, and flashing red eyes. She had never seen them, but she had read far too many reports about those creatures called Varog. Creatures that had been animated to serve the dead with their flesh made of blood magic and rot. With steel-like jaws that could maim and saliva that burned like acid on contact.

Cerci swallowed hard and pulled the woolen wrap tighter, begging it to protect her from her fear. Forward. There was no option to return; she had come too far now to go back. She had even reached out to this man, this Ridge, who had stood her up. He was supposed to be here, at least according to the bartender. Maybe he was dead? Perhaps he wasn’t here, and she had stumbled upon a typical occurrence in the wasteland.

Cerci strained her eyes, trying to distinguish details in the flurry of white that obstructed her vision. Then, she saw a steep slope. It was a place that would be impossible to climb back up without claws or steel, neither of which she possessed. If she chose this path, there would be no way to return to the surface without using her magic to leave the continent entirely.

If she were going to turn back, now would be the time, but she had never been one to turn back. She wasn’t the type of woman to give up or allow others to think she was weak. She had never allowed anyone to underestimate her, even herself, and she wouldn’t start now. She began to run, aiming for the slope, feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement in her gut.

I’m going to get myself killed, Cerci muttered under her breath and then dove, taking the plunge. The descent was quick, cold, and thrilling. A rush of adrenaline and a welcome blanket of chilliness prickled her skin and made her fingers tingle. Usphra, she discovered, made her magic sparkle with joy—like it was meant to be here. It pushed against her skin, constantly trying to break free from where she held it at bay.

The frantic yowling of another creature followed a loud, gurgling sound. She felt the ground tremble as something large rampaged through the space. Then, a new sound greeted her. It was the ring of steel striking stone and a male voice bouncing off the edges of ice in a way that gave it an ethereal quality. It was the ancient language of the Primals, words she didn’t understand but recognized from the fragments of conversations she’d overheard around Eyrei. Something about it made her fingertips sting, and she didn’t know whether it was the language or the voice causing the effect.

As she approached the end of the slope, her eyes turned to the east, and the hazelnuts widened. She had underestimated the depth of this place. As she looked up, the sky appeared to vanish into the ground above, with only a jagged grey line of stone faintly visible against it. The view from below was vastly different from above; all around her, the soft sunlight filtering through the clouds caught the crystals and cast the air in a sea of colors.

She dared wonder how such a beautiful place could have been quickly forgotten. The colors were so bright they could be blinding. The cold felt like a tight embrace, and the bitterness seemed almost inviting. Perhaps, Cerci dared to wonder, this place needed to be viewed differently to be seen for what it truly was. She had never heard Usphra described in the way she now saw it. This view was at least worth the two hours she had spent here and was something she would remember forever.

The ground shook as another strike of steel echoed through the cavern, followed by a haunting gurgle of pain. Cerci turned her eyes to the northern part of the canyon, where a beast was running toward the west. She discovered another creature she had never seen but had read about—a Yeti. It stood at least fifteen feet tall, massive, and hairless, with tightly pulled sinewy skin of white with gray and black hues toward its extremities. It had vast spiraling horns, resembling those of a ram but denser, and appeared almost to be made of bone. Its face was strangely humanoid, with a jaw slightly wider than normal and large, black eyes. It didn’t seem to be focused on her, and she noticed another figure trailing behind it.

Another Yeti, this time a young one. This was a parent and their child.

Cerci panicked, her brow knitting in anger as she searched for more understanding. Surely, this man—this monster hunter—wasn’t going after a parent and their child. Why? What had they done? Was this not their home just as much as those that lay over the snow behind their log-hewn walls? From what she’d read, Yetis were not corrupted and were native to this continent. Heated anger bubbled up, pushing back the cold and forcing it into her palms as she stood, gathering her footing on the slick ground. She felt another surge of anger for this creature, perhaps intensified by her growing impatience at being stood up.

Where was Ridge?

The male voice screamed again, its strange tongue distorted as it bounced around the caverns.

Cerci’s eyes darted around, following the reverberation until she finally spotted a figure following behind the Yetis. A man with a drawn blade that reflected nearly white in the brightness of the space. That was all she needed to see; she started running before her mind could question why she was getting involved. She saw something she didn’t understand but couldn’t ignore. Why did this parent and child deserve to die while this man lived? What had they done when he was in their home?

Hey! Cerci shouted, her voice echoing in the space and surprising her.

Rage. Cerci could hear it—anger built in her gut, an inexplicable feeling that resonated deep within her bones. Not only had she been ignored and stood up, but now this hunter looked foolish. What use was a monster