Gremlin interference not yet detected.
Proceeding with report…
It was a strange thing, watching people begin.
Moments ago, the townsfolk had been frozen. Not in the dramatic, ice-sculpture sense, but in the peculiar stillness of people who were waiting to resume being people. Like extras in a dream someone hadn’t finished directing.
Now, as Yenna stepped closer—Gami beside her, Desmon behind them making small noises that could generously be described as "whimper-adjacent"—the scene clicked into motion.
The change wasn’t abrupt. That would’ve been comforting in its own way. No, this was gradual, like a stage play that hadn’t quite finished loading. Murmurs trickled in on the rain, conversations spun up mid-sentence, and expressions of sorrow or quiet horror slipped seamlessly onto previously blank faces.
“Damn shame,” one of them muttered.
“Hurts to see,” another agreed.
“Was one of them cursed outsiders, wasn’t it?” came a third voice, and that one, at least, sounded like it had been rehearsed in front of a mirror.
But whatever consensus they were building toward was short-lived. Soon, elbows were nudged and throats were cleared as the first of the townsfolk became aware of those very ‘cursed outsiders’ presence. Desmon shrank a little further behind Yenna as eyes turned their way.
The hush spread once more, though it was now the uneasy kind, as if the silence were a dog that had been yelled at and had slunk back to its corner, still growling under its breath.
And then, the nearest of them pulled away and parted.
Not dramatically. No great sweeping movement, no gasps. Just a slow, almost sheepish stepping back. A social curtain drawn by mutual discomfort. Another beat in the story.
Yenna’s eyes fell on the object of the collective distress. Or rather, what remained of it, cracked at the sobbing woman’s knees.
It was a… thing.
Possibly once a beautiful thing. Possibly once important. Now, it was mostly pieces. A shattered glass bauble sprawled across cobbles gone slick with rain, with splinters of wood jutting out like accusations and copper wires coiled like nervous thoughts. Symbols—etched or carved or possibly burned—clung to the fragments, but none of them made sense. All they did was glimmer briefly before being claimed by the rain.
Whatever it had been, it wasn’t anymore.
Then, the scene proceeded.
Another story beat, and there came the footsteps.
Hurried, purposeful, and echoing in that very specific way that says the person making them is important and has absolutely no idea how to be quiet about it.
Two new figures entered the square. One was young, unremarkable, having yet learned how to walk in the rain without looking betrayed by the weather. He wasn’t the point of interest. He was merely the arrow. The other—
Edrik Kain—the name tag floated briefly above his head—was not a young man. His hair, having retreated long ago, left gray patches behind as a parting gift across his scalp. A hooked nose gave him the distinct visage of a bird of prey, and his thin beard drooped like it had just lost a bet with both gravity and the rain.
His glasses fogged up three times on the way over
And yet, even with a coat flapping like it had dreams of flight and limbs that looked to be negotiating with arthritis, Edrik Kain moved with the sort of authority that made people get out of the way before they even realized it.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
“Over here!” one of the townsfolk called the moment he entered the scene, too loudly and with too much relief.
“Hurry!” another chimed in, despite no one else having hurried to do anything except judge from a distance.
“Please, can he be saved?” sobbed the woman kneeling over the broken mess at last, words tripping out of her mouth like frightened birds from a collapsing cage.
The question flickered through Yenna’s head instinctively—he?—but she left it unasked. This wasn’t the moment to interfere. Gami hovered close, fingers clutching her spear. Taller, broader, she was a natural deterrent against danger and awkward conversations.
They both watched Edrik Kain take in the scene, if "take in" was the expression for someone who barely spared the shattered glass a glance before shaking his head. Desmon, meanwhile, had perfected the role of background worry and was committed to the performance.
“Oh dear,” Kain said, and then again, as if it had tasted strange the first time, “oh… dear.”
He coughed into a handkerchief, dark stains tainting the cloth. “How long since it happened?”
“Only minutes,” the woman replied, her voice strung with desperation. “Please, you can do something, right?”
“I’ll do my…cough–best,” said Edrik, a statement that might’ve sounded reassuring if he hadn’t been swaying like a drunk weathervane and wheezing like a dying bellows. Despite this, the crowd nodded with grave, expectant silence.
Odd, that.
The man was clearly unwell, clearly not the towering savior they were pretending he was. And yet, Yenna saw it. The reverence. The fear. The step-back-and-let-him-try helplessness of people who’d long ago outsourced their hope. Even if said hope came in the form of a man who could barely withstand the quiet drizzle.
Gami gave her a glance. The kind that said Should we…?
She had noticed it, too. The hovering ‘Incidents in the Rain’ had shifted to an expectant beat. The required exposition was over.
With a short nod, Yenna slipped past her friend–past the ring of silent townsfolk–toward the man who was clearly key to whatever scenario this was.
“Are you alright, mister?” she asked, offering Edrik Kain an arm. The simple kind of gesture that rewrote the tempo of a scene.
He looked at her, blinked, and tried to wave her off. “No need to worry about me, miss. I just need to—”
The cough hit like a punctuation mark. He would have collapsed if Yenna hadn’t caught him.
And then, reality shifted.
Not with magic. Not exactly. But with that peculiar ripple that says the Dungeon has acknowledged your choice.
Quest Line Discovered: Edrik Kain
Description:
You have offered aid to Edrik Kain, an enigmatic elder of Ashenmoor whose lungs are making a spirited attempt to escape his body. The townsfolk respect him. Some fear him. None will say why.
There’s something shattered in the square—copper, glass, and quiet dread. The townsfolk won’t say what it is. Edrik might. If he survives long enough to share his secrets.
Objectives:
- Assist Edrik Kain before he collapses completely.
- Investigate the broken artifact.
- Discover what lies beneath Ashenmoor’s lingering silence.
Yenna’s heart did a short-lived tap dance in her chest as the message flared across her vision. A new questline was always exciting—unless it came with a dying elder, several dozen eyes on your back, and the vague feeling that something eldrich-adjacent was waiting to see what you did next.
She should have felt excited.
Instead, she felt watched.
Even so, she made a choice.
“We need to get him inside and…” she glanced between Edrik—who was now wheezing like a dying accordion—and the strange bauble, or what was left of it. Finally, her eyes fell to the distraught woman, still kneeling near the debris.
“You,” Yenna said, in the firm manner of someone trying to direct a frightened deer without having it scurry off on its own. “Gather as much of that as you can and bring it.”
Charisma Check: Passed
In the presence of Edrik Kain, the woman chooses to listen.
For now.
The woman nodded and scrambled forward with the anxious efficiency of someone who'd just been given permission to matter.
“Desmon,” Yenna added, tone clipped. “Help her.”
Desmon started slightly, clearly hoping he’d remain in the periphery of the moment, but obeyed. For all his shortcomings, the boy was at least good at obeying when it mattered.
Your Actions have been Noticed
You are no longer a mere outsider to whatever has taken place in Ashenmoor.
Beware.
There was a shift in the air. Not warmer. Not colder. Just… attentive. The townsfolk didn’t speak, but they adjusted. A step closer here. A straightening of the spine there. Some of them turned ever so slightly toward Yenna—not in welcome, but in a newfound awareness. She had entered the narrative. That made her, for better or worse, the person they were now silently judging.
Edrik grunted softly, the sound somewhere between pain and grudging approval.
“You’ve a spine, miss,” he murmured through cracked lips. “That’s a dangerous trait.”
And beneath the rain, beneath the weight of gazes and broken things, something unseen stirred.
It had noticed her too.