Elowen walked at the front, one hand lifted, fingers spread. Sunlight streamed from her palm in a thin, steady sheet. Wherever it touched the shadow, the corruption recoiled an inch or two, leaving a narrow corridor of murky, livable gray.
Transit Path Maintained:
[BLUCLIFFE GATE] → [TOWN SQUARE]
Stability: …it’s better for morale if you don’t know.
Greg followed two steps behind, Giant Fucking Sword slung over his shoulder, trying to convince himself he could be of any help to anyone at this moment.
Behind him came the others: Doran, steady and grim; Nars, eyes scanning every warped doorway for hidden threats; Violet, muttering about “field data” and “catastrophic system failures” under her breath.
Behind them, a small crowd was forming. As they made their way through the streets, villagers joined in their wake, seeking safety in numbers and in Elowen’s light.
Tavers limped along close to the front, using his makeshift club as walking stick. He complained the whole time, mostly on principle.
“We should have never been stuck out there,” he grumbled. “Came to investigate the goings-on and what-nots, and then BAM, that’s what you get for bein’ nosy. But I tell you, we should have stayed stuck! It’s worse in here!”
Marla walked just ahead of Barnaby and Bartholomew, spear held in shaking hands. She kept her eyes pointed straight ahead, refusing to take her eyes off the road in front of her, even with shadows and demons dancing at the edge of her vision.
“This isn’t happening,” she kept whispering. “I’m going to wake up. The fields will be fine, I’ll yell at my idiot boys for letting me sleep through chores and none of this will be happening. This isn’t happening.”
Nobody contradicted her.
Barnaby and Bartholomew were the weight in the middle: one on each side of the little cluster of villagers, shields up, eyes sharp. Barnaby had lost his apron somewhere; without it he looked less like a fussy grocer and more like a hulking juggernaut of fatty muscle. Which he was, Greg supposed. Bartholomew, too. Outside of their “stations”, they seemed like different men entirely, dangerous ones. Wait, Barnaby is Bart’s brother, so if Tim was Bart’s nephew…
The dying, pathetic shriek of the twisted Ratling-boy echoed in Greg’s mind.
Make a mental note to never, ever think about this again.
Shelly brought up the rear with the mayor.
The blacksmith still had the kid tucked against his side, big hand splayed across the girl’s shoulders like a meaty breastplate. The child clung to him, fingers knotted in his soot-streaked tunic, eyes screwed shut. When the shadows pressed close, Shelly shifted to put his own body between them and the girl without breaking stride. He was surprisingly good with children, Greg thought, for a guy who crafted Giant Fucking Swords and handed out pocket sand like business cards.
The mayor walked just behind them, looking more damp than authoritative. His coat was half-buttoned, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. Every time the path narrowed, he managed to end up behind someone else.
Greg noticed the way his gaze kept flicking to Elowen, then to the villagers, then back to the shadow portal. Some calculation was resolving behind his eyes. He was cagier than Greg expected, but maybe he shouldn’t be surprised to see a politician thinking about stupid bullshit instead of the obvious problems in front of them.
They turned a corner. Or rather, the street turned, twisting under the weight of the corruption. The buildings on either side bowed inward, upper stories listing over the road like they were trying to touch. Shadow pooled in the gap between them, thick and slow as syrup.
Elowen’s spell, the thin corridor of pale sunlight they traveled in, grew even thinner, hugging their shoulders. Corruption rushed in, hungry. The air grew colder and tasted of the grave.
Ambient Status Intensified:
[Corruption Miasma II]
Effects: Nausea, Anxiety
Sudden Changes to Libido
Difficulty Maintaining Erections
Greg heard the villagers suck in breath behind him.
Elowen took another step forward. Her fingers curled, then straightened again. Light pulsed from her palm, stronger this time, pushing the shadow back that crucial inch and a half.
Greg wanted to offer to help. Ask if she needed support, or a break, or anything at all. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. For a second he thought it was shock. Or guilt finally climbing up his throat to strangle him. Then the corner of his vision flickered.
DIALOGUE OPTIONS UPDATED – [ELOWEN VALE]
- Are you alright?
- I can take point if you need to rest.
- [LOCKED]
The dialogue menu hung there, stacked neatly in the space where his own words should have been.
Greg blinked hard.
He tried again, forcing sound out. “Elowen?”
The options stayed. No free text. No messy, honest, “I’m sorry,” or “I screwed up,” or “Please don’t hate me.” He was back to bog-standard NPC dialogue options.
He swallowed and mentally jabbed at Option 1.
“Are you alright?” he heard himself say. The words sounded fine. Concerned, gentle even. But they slid out of his mouth wrong, weirdly smooth and distinctly not his own.
Elowen didn’t look back. “I am holding,” she said. “Just keep everyone moving.”
Approval [Elowen]:
Cold → …still Cold
(dialogue options are restricted until your Approval with this Companion is raised)
Greg’s stomach clenched.
He deserved that, sure; didn’t make it feel any less like a flick to the balls. Behind him, Tavers kept talking, the only one not already sick to death of the sound of his voice.
“Never did like you,” he muttered. “I told them, that very first day, you were a curse. Did they listen? Nope. No one ever listens to me! Now, you’ve done it. You’ve finally done it. Brought doom to us all, is what!”
“Shut up, Tavers,” Barnaby said mildly. “You’re scaring the child.”
“Kid can’t hear me,” Tavers scoffed. “Got her head shoved so far into Shelly’s hip, he’ll have to shit her out before he goes to sleep.”
Shelly snorted, the sound short and humorless. The girl flinched, then tightened her grip.
Marla didn’t respond at all. She was barely controlling her panic. Greg recognized the look. He’d done it himself, lying on his apartment floor between fast food bags and liquor bottles, trying not to think about anything at all: breathe in, two, three; breathe out, two, three.
Nars dropped back for a few steps, walking beside Greg as the path widened slightly around the empty shell of a house.
“You realize,” Nars said quietly, “all of these people are walking corpses. When the fighting starts, they’ll drop like flies. Thanks to you.”
“Eat shit, Nars,” Greg said.
“Good,” Nars replied. “Just checking to make sure you still felt bad.”
Breathe in, two, three. Breathe out, two, three.
They passed what had been the fountain.
It sat in the square like the town’s melted heart. The statue in the middle, an overly heroic depiction of the mayor with his ceremonial staff brandished high like a sword, had slumped, features smeared into an eyeless face. Water no longer ran; shadow did. It poured over the edges in slow, thick sheets, spreading in thin fingers across the cobbles.
The Sun Veil pushed it back a little where they walked, leaving a narrow strip of bare stone. Cracks spiraled out from the cleared path, veins of silver and black.
“Don’t step in the puddles,” Violet said. “Or on the cracks. Or look directly at them. Ignore the whispering!”
“We should wait here,” the mayor demanded suddenly, as if that thought had just seized him. “Everyone will gather here, yes. Everyone must be… protected.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Greg arched a heroic eyebrow at the particularly evil way the mayor had said ‘protected’, like he meant the opposite. Violet started up while his brain was still forming the words.
“Sure,” Violet said. “That’s a great plan, if you’re stupid as fuck. Everyone who’s not with us now? Needs to keep their head down and pray. We need to get inside, somewhere we can keep the shadows at bay without draining all of Elowen’s power, and regroup. Form a plan. Fight these demons!”
The mayor subsided.
The Gilded Gorge came into view as they rounded another warped corner.
It looked as tired as they did.
The tavern’s sign hung at half a tilt, the titular gorge, painted beneath the gilded letters, now streaked with black. Several of the front windows had cracked in spiderweb patterns. Shadow clung to the edges of the eaves like mold. But the building still stood, stubborn and squat, its stone bones holding where others had begun to sag.
Light spilled around its doorway. Warm, normal light. Someone had lanterns burning inside.
Barnaby and Bartholomew guided people toward the tavern door, shields outward. Shelly kept the kid tucked against his side, free hand on his hammer. Marla walked backward, spear out, watching the shadows. Tavers shuffled in close to the center, muttering prayers and curses in equal measure as he herded and shooed the rest of the stragglers in ahead of him.
Greg lingered at the edge of the Sun Veil, eyes on the shadowy streets.
Rattlings watched from just beyond the light’s reach. Smaller ones, hunched and twitching. They paced along invisible lines, circling, testing. One skittered forward until its claws touched the barrier and yelped, jerking back as if burned.
Not yet brave enough to charge. Or not yet desperate enough?
Give it time, Greg thought.
Nars tapped Greg’s shoulder. “Wake up,” he said. “You can sleep when you’re dead.”
Greg didn’t feel like arguing with that, so he grunted and followed him to the tavern door.
Inside, the Gilded Gorge was already a hive of activity. Someone had dragged tables into rough barricades along the windows. A few lanterns burned on the bar and in corners, throwing long shadows over faces Greg half-recognized from before: the old card players, now without their cards; the trio of farmhands who’d argued about whose mule was smarter, now sitting silent with their backs to the wall. Several were missing. All of them were scared witless.
Bartholomew immediately ducked behind the bar, checking shelves with a practiced eye. Barnaby set about sweeping the room for inventory; knives, silver, garlic, toothpicks, anything. Marla folded herself onto a chair and put her head in her hands. Tavers claimed a corner and started complaining about the temperature.
The mayor hovered near the entrance, looking like he wanted to say something inspiring but was coming up short. Greg sympathized. He still didn’t trust him.
Elowen let the Sun Veil contract until it rested over the building like a thin shell. She exhaled slowly and leaned against a pillar, eyes closed. Sweat beaded at her temple.
Elowen –
Essence Reserves: Low
Status: [Exhausted]
[Emotionally/Spiritually Done]
[Over This Shit]
Violet dropped her satchel onto the nearest clear table, scattering a few dusty mugs. “You should already know what I’m about to say: nobody touch anything,” she warned, already rummaging. “Side effects range from crippling happiness to spontaneous combustion, so just don’t.”
The mayor cleared his throat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “And… others. We are safe! We owe our thanks to these brave… adventurers, who have brought us—”
“Safe is generous,” Violet said without looking up. “Temporarily less doomed. At best.”
“—brought us… less doom,” the mayor amended. “For now.”
Eyes turned toward Greg’s group. Toward Greg. He felt it land on him: fear, hope, anger, confusion. The weight of all of it.
The mayor hesitated. “I agree we need a plan,” he said. “What do you suggest? Fighting shadows hardly seems like an option… we don’t even know what’s causing this uproar.” He hesitated again, deliberately. “Do we?”
Violet’s head came up. Greg knew that look. He beat her to it.
“I broke the Vault,” he said.
Silence overtook the ambient din of the room with a theatrically appropriate heaviness.
“You helped,” Violet added, unhelpfully. “Let’s not understate the collective effort. Petar’l Velyar was the one corrupting the Vault, but Mister Hero here took a bad situation, jammed his dick into it, and lit it on fire.”
Greg forced himself not to flinch. He met the villagers’ eyes instead.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said. “But, yes. I jammed my dick into it real good. I’m super sorry about that. We’re going to fix it.”
Greg turned toward Elowen, desperate suddenly, expecting her to at least look at him.
She didn’t.
She stood a little apart from the others, one hand braced on the pillar, gaze fixed on the lantern flame over the bar. Her face was calm, but he knew that inside she must barely be holding it all together.
Greg tried again.
- Say something. Please.
- You know I didn’t mean to.
- Stay back.
He jabbed at 1.
“Say something,” he said. “Please.”
Elowen’s fingers tightened on the wood.
“When the Heart cracked,” she said slowly, “I felt reality slip. Just a little. Like a wheel jumping a track.” Her eyes stayed on the flame. “I felt the chains that have held this world’s sky in place for thousands of years snap. I felt the sun burn out and die. And I felt you, Greg, at the center of all of it.”
She finally turned her head. Her eyes met his for a heartbeat. They were tired and sad, but not cold. Greg took a small comfort in that.
Greg nodded, still not trusting himself to articulate anything helpful. Especially in such a limited state. It would be action, not words, that changed what Elowen thought of him. Maybe then they could speak like people again and not with a dialogue tree.
“Alright,” Nars said eventually, clapping his hands once, the sound too loud in the quiet room. “We can stone Greg for his crimes later. Right now, we need to not die in the next few hours. That means food, weapons, and strategy.”
“That, I can help with,” Barnaby said.
Every head turned.
The grocer had moved behind one of the pushed-together tables, hands busily unpacking a variety of sundries and wares to display. His voice was level, almost brisk.
“Shelly,” he called. “Stock check?”
“Forge is still standing,” Shelly rumbled. “Most tools good. Lost some stock to…” He trailed off, eyes jerking to the window, where shadows crawled at the edge of the light. “I’ve got scrap metal, a few decent blades, plenty of nails.”
“Bartholomew,” Barnaby continued. “Casks? Food?”
“Pantry’s intact,” the barkeep said. “Dry goods, some smoked meat, grain, two casks of something that won’t kill us if we ration. Maybe three days, if we go down in the basement.”
Barnaby nodded, mentally adding columns. “Right. That’s something.”
Greg realized his hands were empty. His sword leaned against a nearby chair. He needed something to do that wasn’t standing in the middle of the room like a hazard.
He picked up the sword and drifted toward Barnaby.
The HUD flickered again.
- We need supplies. Whatever you’ve got left.
- How bad is it in town?
- [UNLOCKED] If things ever went really bad here… how would you defend the town?
Option 3 wasn’t [LOCKED] anymore.
For a second, Greg just stared at it. He remembered their last conversation, fresh off the day’s bullshit fetch quest, Barnaby’s hidden line just sitting there behind brackets, unavailable.
He restrained his curiosity and selected 1 first, because priorities.
“We need supplies,” he said. “Whatever you’ve got left that can keep us alive in a fight.”
Barnaby grunted. “You and everyone else.” He reached under the table and hauled up a crate. “You get first pick. You’re the ones daft enough to go back out there.”
He flipped the lid.
Inside: bandages, a few stoppered vials, three loaves of bread that had seen better days, a scattering of dried fruit, two small bundles of arrows, a coil of rope, and a few dusty healing kits that reeked of cat piss.
Party Inventory Updated:
+Lousy Healing Kits x3
+Lousy Rations x5,
+Arrows (Lousy) x20,
+Rope (Pretty Good) x1
Greg applied one of them immediately, then another so he was back to full Vitality. This was as close to a break as he was going to get.
“How bad is it in town?” he asked, triggering 2.
Barnaby’s mouth flattened. “You walked through it,” he said. “You saw. This is the quietest it’s been since things started going wrong. Like the beasts are… waiting for something. Or listening.”
Greg didn’t like that image.
He hesitated, then picked 3.
“If things ever went really bad here,” he said, “how would you defend the town?”
Barnaby’s head snapped up.
For a moment, it wasn’t the grocer looking at him. It was someone older and harder, wearing different clothes in his memory.
“Thought you’d never ask,” Barnaby said. “I was starting to worry you lot liked making speeches more than making plans.”
The mayor shifted near the door. “I heard that,” he squeaked.
“Good,” Barnaby replied. He leaned over the table and dragged a mug through a patch of dust, sketching quick lines.
“Blucliffe’s got absolute bullshit for defense,” he said. “Too spread out. Too many alleys. From bandits on the road, we’re solid. Inside the walls… when the militia was still a thing, we talked through worst-case scenarios. Crawlers, wolf attacks, the occasional goblin swarm, that sort of thing.” He slammed a mug down on another empty table, scattering a few other bits and bogs to make a crude map. “The only place you can really hold is here.”
“The square,” Greg said.
Barnaby nodded. “You barricade these lanes,” he tapped three spokes off the central scribble, “with carts, furniture, whatever you’ve got. Force anything coming in from the outer streets to funnel through one or two choke points. Put your archer boy and your little wizard in the upper windows of the Gorge.” His eyes flicked toward Violet. “Anyone on the ground will need guardian angels watching their backs.”
Violet looked up from her satchel. “I was gonna say the same.”
“Spears and shields make a line across the open ground,” Barnaby continued. “Tavers and his junk traps go in these alleys, here and here, to catch anything that tries to climb around.” He jabbed another spot. “Shelly’s forge backs onto this lane. That’s your last fall back. Heavy door, stone walls, chimney as emergency exit if the front gets overrun.”
Shelly grunted. “Didn’t agree to turn my livelihood into an abattoir.”
“You’d rather it be a mausoleum?” Barnaby asked. “At least this way it goes down swinging.”
Shelly didn’t have an answer to that.
“And the mayor?” Nars asked lightly from where he’d drifted closer. “Where does he go in this grand design?”
Barnaby didn’t look up from his dust map. “Anywhere he can see and be seen giving orders,” he said. “People fight better if they think someone’s in charge.”
The mayor straightened, smoothing his coat. “I can certainly… contribute in that way,” he said. His eyes darted to Greg and away again. “Coordinate. Motivate.”
Something about the way the mayor spoke made Greg’s teeth itch, but there wasn’t time to examine the thought. System text ticked in his vision.
Bonus Redemption Subquest:
HOLD THE LINE
(Blucliffe Defense Protocol)
Objectives:
? Help Barnaby and Shelly set up kill zones
? Coordinate townsfolk:
– Talk to Tavers (traps/barricades)
– Talk to Marla (organize spear line)
– Talk to the Mayor (coordinate / motivate)
? Survive multiple waves of corrupted enemies to stabilize the immediate area. Keep as many villagers alive as possible.
Greg stared at the notification until the letters blurred.
This was it. The game, the world, whatever you wanted to call it, was handing him a chance. He couldn’t undo what he had done, but he could do the right thing even harder.
He looked up. Barnaby was already erasing and redrawing lines, refining angles. Doran had come over and was adding suggestions about choke widths and shield placements with the calm certainty of someone who’d blocked a charge or two in his time. Nars was eyeing upper windows for sniper sightlines. Violet was excited in a way that bordered on arousal, muttering about “field data” again and “optimal detonation arcs.” Shelly was grimly nodding along, already mentally inventorying which bits of his forge he could turn into barricades.
Elowen stood at the edge of the circle, watching. Her expression was still drawn, but there was the faintest flicker of something in her eyes. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But purpose.
Greg swallowed, fidgeting with his glasses, to stop himself from fidgeting with his Giant Fucking Sword.
He’d broken the Vault. He’d killed Herman. He’d let his Rage take the wheel and driven them straight into this.
Time to fix it.
“Alright,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.
He accepted the Quest.
“Let’s hold the line.”