Thorin's First Thundersday of Harvestfall, 1442, Gloam-Barrow Den, final chamber.

Vaelith's gaze followed Elyssia as the martial artist finally lowered her guard, tonfa sliding back at her hips with a muted click. The sound echoed faintly in the cavernous chamber, a punctuation mark to the awkward silence following the plague doctor's surrender. She crossed the moss-slick floor toward the treasure chest that had bloomed into being at the heart of the room—a glittering, incongruous reward for a battle that had felt less like triumph and more like intervention.

It had ended before it had really even begun.

Vaelith wondered how the encounter would have played out if not for Kaelyn's outburst—if the system had forced them into a traditional battle instead of rewarding their mercy. The doctor had stood in quiet resignation, waiting for death. Would he have fought back if pressed, or would his frail body have folded beneath the combined force of four adventurers in seconds?

Her fins twitched uneasily. The earlier mini-bosses had felt like duels, sparring matches designed to test skill and coordination. This one… this one had never been a fight at all. Perhaps the developers had intended a quick execution all along. Perhaps the dungeon was only ever a stage for Kaelyn's collapse.

She frowned, recalling the doctor's hollow voice. How he had awaited judgment. A man already broken, his weapons not blades or poisons, but guilt, sutured together so tightly it had taken Kaelyn's shadows to tear them loose.

Maybe that was the truth of it. The fight would always have been trivially easy. Not a test of steel or spell, but of what weight they were willing to shoulder in order to claim victory.

Ryan was sitting on the ground, knees to his chest, still donned in Lyn's clothes. Vaelith made a mental note to make something baggier for him to wear. Earlier, when going through her crafting options, for every skintight robe and shirts with plunging necklines, she had seen an equal amount of aketons, gambesons and doublets that would hide all traces of the felinae's curves.

Vaelith's train of thought was interrupted by the hinges' creaking as Elyssia opened the chest. A faint hiss of escaping air preceded the gleam of rewards within. The martial artist leaned in without hesitation and fished out the first prize.

"More patchwork gear," she announced, holding up a pair of dark, stitched trousers. The leather looked supple, but marred, with cross-hatched seams, as though cut from several different lives and forced into one. "Umbraholme elite leathers. Leoric's by default—he's the only one here who can wear them."

Still by Ryan's side, Leoric's ears perked, though he kept quiet for now, letting her continue.

Elyssia tilted her head, glancing at the others. "So? What'd you all get from the private rolls?"

Vaelith reached into her own inventory and withdrew a folded bundle of fabric. A long black skirt, its hem ragged, the seams crudely bound with surgical thread. "Caster legwear," she murmured. "The stats are a clear upgrade from my cotton slacks, but… I'm not convinced about the look." She pinched the material between her fingers; even the texture seemed wrong, coarse where it should have flowed. Like every other drop in this den, it carried the same aesthetic of torn cloth and crude stitching—more morgue than wardrobe.

Elyssia, unbothered, hefted her own prize next: a set of baghnakhs wrought from meteoric-black steel, blades curving wickedly over her knuckles. Their serrated edges glinted in the fungus-light, all menace and ritual precision. "Weapon upgrade here," she said with a grin. "And appropriately gothic for the décor."

Leoric's gaze flicked to Ryan. The burrovian was about to ask something, but Vaelith shook her head, silently signalling him to let the boy be for now. Loot could wait.

Leoric slowly stood up, stepped away from Ryan, and cleared his throat. "Guess it's a theme, then." He reached into his bag and pulled free a pair of heavy black boots, their seams criss-crossed with the same surgical thread as the trousers. "Boots to match. That makes three pieces of the Umbraholme guard set—halfway to a full ensemble already."

Vaelith watched as he put them on, then took a few steps, flexing the soles against the stone. The leather creaked, sturdy despite its unsettling patchwork look. "Not bad," Leoric said, though his ears flicked in annoyance. "Once I have the full set, I could pass for a guardsman at a distance."

Vaelith's gaze flicked across the room—to the plague doctor, still kneeling where he had been left, mask discarded, eyes hollow. Leoric followed her gaze and frowned, lowering his voice. "…What are we going to do with him, anyway? Turn him in to the city watch?"

Her fins shifted uneasily at the question. She had been avoiding looking too long at the old burrovian. Without his guilt to prop him up, he looked less like a monster and more like a penitent—one who did not yet know how to stand again.

Turning him loose was out of the question. Whatever his intentions, he had desecrated the honoured dead of Umbraholme, stitched them into these half-living guinea pigs. Even if his intentions were technically noble—to save lives—he had not sought consent from the family members to use the bodies of the deceased this way. The relatives of the victims would be furious. He had to face judgment.

In a regular playthrough of this dungeon, the adventuring party would carry out their revenge. A normal group would have entered, fought against and defeated the doctor, granting him the respite he longed for.

The thought of the city watch dragging him to a public scaffold made Vaelith's stomach twist. What good was it to spare him here if it only delayed his death by a few hours? She doubted the only consequence of the secret win condition for the dungeon was to wash off the blood from her party's hands.

No, there had to be something more. Some follow-up quests nobody else would get. And since this quest seemed so connected to Kaelyn's past, then maybe following this path would lead them to even more of the answers they sought.

The purpose of the game. The reason for their transformation.

And maybe it would bring answers to the many questions Vaelith had about her own past—Vaelith's past. Her origins and unusual creation.

While it was no longer always on her mind, she had not forgotten that her avatar looked just like the goddess Luxoria. She had not forgotten that she had not even got to pick her appearance at creation, either.

Problems for later. Her mind returned to the present.

She looked at the wretched doctor. Justice was necessary, but vengeance was not. Reform, penance, rebuilding—those were paths worth pursuing. Perhaps this was the next quest, then? To make sure he survived his trial?

She exhaled slowly, and when she spoke, her voice was steady. "We take him with us," she said. "But I don't think we should simply surrender him to the city watch. What was the point of saving him here if we're just going to let someone else execute him?"

"We won't let that happen," Ryan said, head down, voice muffled by his own arms. He lifted his head, eyes meeting with Vaelith's. Somewhere inside these deep emerald eyes that had so captivated her on the first evening, there was a tiny glow now, even if it was a mere spark rather than a fire. "She'd never forgive us if we let him go that easily."

"Social encounters, then?" Elyssia let out an exaggerated exhale. "Not my favourite way to gain XP, but—"

"—I think we should see how far this rabbit hole goes," Leoric chimed in. "Out of curiosity, what god or goddess did you all pick at creation? I went with Zephyra."

At the mention of character creation, Vaelith quickly glanced in the doctor's direction, curious about his reaction. Earlier in the conversation, she had noticed how he had always kept his responses grounded in the game world. He still followed conversations that involved things from outside the game, such as Ryan's plural system, but never really commented on it in a way that broke immersion.

His gaze followed whoever was speaking, clearly listening in on them, but choosing not to take part, for now.

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"Terra," Elyssia answered. "Felt appropriate for a tank. Why, you think this matters?"

"Maybe. They make you pick the god first, which I thought was pretty unusual. In an older game I tried once, your race and class combo limited which gods were available to you. Druids were stuck with the nature one. Paladins only had one choice, and so on. I just wonder how much the choice of your creator affects things. What about you, Vaelith? Who did you pick?"

"Luxoria," she immediately answered. "I had no idea if the choice mattered beyond roleplay reasons, so I went with the first that got my attention. Out of all sixteen, her glyph shone the brightest, so I clicked it first. Since her domain did not displease me, I picked that option."

Leoric frowned. "And then you went and recreated her exact appearance?"

"No, not quite." Vaelith shook her head. "After I chose her, it transferred me into her body. That happened to everyone else?"

Leoric and Elyssia nodded.

"So then it prompted me to pick a class. I chose mage and got thrown into the game. I must've clicked past appearance selection by accident, and it defaulted to the body I was already in?"

"I'm sorry," Ryan said in a whisper. "On the day we met. Kaelyn assumed you had picked that appearance on purpose. She wanted to exploit that to her advantage."

"It's okay, Ryan," Vaelith said with her best reassuring smile. "That wasn't you."

"It feels like me, though. Like it's my fault. And the memories all blur together. I know—I can tell I wasn't the one really driving, but it feels like any of my other memories… Sometimes I can't tell where I end, and where she begins."

Vaelith felt her heart painfully twist inside her chest. She stepped closer, lowered herself, and placed both hands on Ryan's shoulder.

"You're not a formula, not a map with neat borders, Ryan. And Lyn, Kaelyn—if you're listening—that's true for you two as well. You are all people. And people are by nature messy. Some days you feel confident and larger than life; other days you want to want to disappear—stay in bed all day. Ryan, Lyn and Kaelyn, you all share the same memories, at least in part. Whenever one of you acts, all three can learn from it. You won't always reach the same lesson—but you'll always see from more angles. In many ways, you have a superpower over the rest of us."

Ryan scoffed.

"No, I'm serious." Vaelith's fingers gripped harder on Ryan's shoulders. "Your capacity for learning—for growth—is significantly above average. Because your brain houses three consciousnesses, and they each have their own strengths, perspectives and biases. Take that dance in the market. You, Ryan, look at this moment with regret. You feel guilt—responsible—for what happened. But Lyn? She might have just been happy to be seen by the crowd. And Kaelyn? Sure, at first, maybe she was playing a long con, but she helped me break out of my shell. And I am thankful to her, and she can be proud of that."

"I'll… try to remember that."

"If you don't, I'm sure they will remind you." Vaelith giggled. "Anyway… with the tangent out of the way—what about your creator god? Which one did you pick?"

"Nocturne." Ryan nodded slowly. "Her domain spoke to me. Luxoria felt too cliché for a priestess."

The goddess who governed the concept of tip-toeing through dark tunnels in search of truth. It was such a fitting pick for Ryan. Except maybe it was the other way around? In the same way it felt like Luxoria had picked Vaelith, perhaps Nocturne had picked Ryan, too. Three young sparks, each casting their own light and shadow. It would also explain the darkness-as-light aspect of her powers. And perhaps even the stray visions and memories of Kaelyn's simulated past.

Nocturne was not merely a goddess of secrets in the dark. She was the patron of breadcrumbs, of labyrinthine side-quests, of illumination reaching the long way around.

Vaelith started to see how the pieces of the puzzle lined up. "I don't know about you, Ely, but I think this cements the idea. We really should focus on this questline."

"Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let's get back to the surface, then. Doc—you've got a name, by the by?"

"I do," the doctor said. "Esen. Quite the ironic name."

"Agreed."

Vaelith raised an eyebrow, looking at Elyssia for an explanation.

"It means 'good health'," Elyssia said. "Well, Esen. Let's get going. Stay in the middle of the group, please."

The doctor stood up, dusted his coat, and nodded. He was not quite as tall as Leoric, but towered over everybody else in the group.

Vaelith helped Ryan up. "Will you be okay to walk on your own? At least Lyn left you in practical boots."

Ryan nodded, but grabbed one of Vaelith's hands as she was about to walk away.

She immediately understood the silent request to stay nearby and stepped closer, letting the overwhelmed boy lean on her like a pillar.

"You know, Ryan, you could always change to a different gearset, too, if this is a problem."

"I don't have any set registered for myself." He shook his head. "And I really don't want to play dress-up right now."

"We'll fix that soon, I promise."

The long corridors of the Gloam-Barrow felt different on the way out. The fungus-light seemed dimmer now, the air heavier, as though the den itself knew its master had been unseated. With the constructs and undead unravelled, silence pressed down on them—no skittering insects, no creak of bone, only the soft rasp of boots against damp stone.

Ryan stayed close to Vaelith, one hand clutching her sleeve, the other braced against his own chest as though to keep Kaelyn's body from swallowing him whole. He said nothing, but every few steps Vaelith could feel his weight lean into her, a boy drowning inside the shape of a woman. She matched her pace to his, slow and steady, letting him draw strength from her calm.

Esen walked ahead between Elyssia and Leoric, his tall frame hunched, head bowed, hands empty and visible. The plague mask hung from his belt like a discarded relic, a reminder of who he had been and what he had done. Every now and then, his eyes flicked to the carved walls—moss-slick burial alcoves and the stitched corpses left unfinished. He did not speak.

"They're not going to take this well," Elyssia muttered as they passed the chamber where they fought the first boss. Her tone was flat, but her grip on her new weapons was tight. "The guards posted outside saw four of us enter, and now there's five of us. They'll know we found him inside."

"Could we pretend he's from another adventuring party?" Leoric suggested. "Maybe pretend his group wiped. Then, as a healer, he waited in hiding until another group passed by?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure," Vaelith said. "I don't know if the game's continuity assumes we're the only group who were sent in to investigate the barrow? It doesn't make sense that hundreds of groups can all kill the doctor in a single day."

"That would make sense. That's how the previous version of the game worked, or a similar principle," Elyssia explained. "The in-universe timeline followed the quests you had completed yourself. And when you reran dungeons, it was good for loot and XP, but narratively, nobody really reacted. It was more like a time-loop, in that sense."

"Hmm. How would it work for something with branching outcomes, like this, then? Would re-running a dungeon allow you to alternate between the two timelines?"

"There weren't any branching points before, so your guess is as good as mine. But assuming a party ran this dungeon the normal way, then continued on with the storyline, get to level forty. If they later return to this dungeon for some reason, stumble on the secret ending, then it would not make sense to throw them at the level forty version of a parallel timeline."

Vaelith pondered this. "So… either they would be stuck on the original branch, or their progression would reset back to twenty-some levels ago? I can't imagine they would regress a player's story progression like that."

"Then that would mean we only have a single shot at any special conditions," Leoric said. "I can't imagine that many teams have decided to spare the doctor when they ran this place."

"You'd be surprised how many odd things some players—especially raiders—do and find out by accident. For instance, in the previous version of the game, there was a debuff called 'Misery' that you couldn't remove with status cure spells. A special type of enemy would insult your character. Your character would take extra damage for the duration of the misery debuff. It was pretty dangerous on big pulls—if the tank got hit by it. But instead of curing it with spells, all anyone needed to do was pat the player on the back with the comfort emote."

"Seriously? Using emotes in battle to clear debuffs? I played for a while, and I never knew," Leoric said, chuckling.

"Yeah. It's not that uncommon, too. In an older game, there was a knight on horseback with an instant kill manoeuvre—a neck-cutting sword slash, raid-wide. Even the invincibility tanking cooldowns would not save you from this attack. But if you used the kneel emote, you'd avoid it."

"Because you'd duck under the blade?" Vaelith giggled. "That's silly, though. The top of my head doesn't even reach Leoric's neck. I shouldn't have to kneel to save myself."

Elyssia grinned. "Videogame logic. They don't want to make your choice of species to have that big of an impact. Also, since the knight was technically a god or a king, depending on the lore you follow, maybe kneeling in front of him was more about showing respect, humility, or penitence than physically avoiding the sword. That said, there is a class that could simply jump out of the battle for a couple of seconds, and that would avoid the instant-kill too. Throwback to the original 16-bit version of the game."

"So… all this to say, you don't think we're the first ones to spare him?" Leoric asked.

"I don't know for sure. People would probably have made a big deal online about optional dungeon clears. And I haven't heard anything about that yet. Therefore, we might be the first to spare him."

"Uncharted waters, then," Leoric mused without any trace of mirth.

"Hey, trailblazing and pathfinding are supposed to be rangers' things. Plus, you're an explorer type, aren't you? Shouldn't you be thrilled about all this?"

"I am, in a way," he said. "There's just something that makes me uneasy about this all. I don't really want to get on the wrong side of the city watch."

Vaelith exhaled slowly. She could picture the two Umbraholme guards waiting at the threshold—the acrobat's wary eyes, the assassin's silence sharper than his blades. Neither had struck her as forgiving. They were loyal to their city, their dead. What would they see when four strangers escorted a grave-robber out alive?

"I agree. I don't want to fight them," Vaelith said softly. "So let's hope we can make them let us go in peace."

"That's rich," Elyssia muttered, but without heat. "Do you think they'll listen to reason when they realised what he did? Let's figure out how we'll deal with this first."

The group fell into an uneasy silence as they stopped a short distance from the moss-lit archways of the entrance. The faint sound of rushing wind met them—the breath of the Myrknar woods beyond, and with it, the confrontation waiting at the gates.

"I think I've got an idea…" Vaelith said. "Esen, have you visited Umbraholme before?"

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