"So, you're basically like the guy who's done all the side quests and ground out every possible skill point before taking on the Level 1 sub boss, right?" Mooney said, peering over my shoulder at the rapidly disintegrated shadow demon. "Like, you're just massively OP for this part of the map, aren't you?"

"No. Nothing like that at all," I said, looting the Shadow Orbs from the last of the victims the Lugat had flagged for me. Despite my words, though, I didn't actually think I could really disagree with his assessment. Those last couple of fights had been about as horribly straightforward as any I'd had since first slipping into Bayteran. In fact, this final one had been so straightforward, I pretty sure I'd have waltzed through pre-Wardening.

As the last of the tiny goblin-shaped-imp-thing faded away, I held the Shadow Orb in front of my face and considered it. As with the other four I now had in my possession, it was much lighter than it looked. Its glass was cold to my touch and seemed to contain a little moving bruise inside itself. No, not a bruise. More like a little spiral of ink which writhed about like it had somewhere more urgent to be.

Then it suddenly vanished, and I felt the other four disappear from my inventory too. Something was happening.

Mooney whistled at my magic trick. "Loot secured, then. Did you ding? Do you evolve? Do I get your sloppy seconds gear?"

I was saved from considering the horrific nature of that comment as my interface suddenly stuttered and a series of quickly flashing messages spiralled down.

[Quest Update: Shadow Orbs — Acquisition Status: 5/5] Objective condition met. Initiating Veil-Stabilisation Protocol A13…

…Alert… …Alert… [System Conflict: Key/Seal Mismatch] Artifacts registered as Shadow Orbs are not classified as SEALS. Functional profile: CHANNEL KEYS (bidirectional). Stabilisation routine: incompatible.

[Integrity Check: Guardian Anchor] Guardian of the Thres— … …Error… Guardian Presence not found. Legacy record detected: Margaret (Guardian of the Threshold) — status: inactive (deceased). Warden substitution: unauthorised for Protocol A13.

[System Alert: Veil Pressure Rising] Expected: ↓ 37–52% Observed: ↑ 19% and accelerating. Cause: Shadow resonance feedback from CHANNEL KEYS.

[Anchor Lattice: Harmonic Mismatch] Node Mesh expects: Seal-phase (quiet) Received: Channel-phase (open) Result: Reverberation (echo traffic; bleedthrough risk).

[Containment Attempt: QUARANTINE_ORB(x5)] Authorisation: insufficient. Requesting Guardian Override… …No response. Escalating to Emergency Warden Suite… …Partial access granted. Mitigation degraded.

[System Notice: Backflow Detected] Shadow influx via Orbs (5): 3 muted | 1 dormant | 1 active. Recommendation: Isolate active; invert polarity with iron/bread/salt + knot (x3).

[Class/Pathway Advisory] Warden—Guardian Track: operational (provisional). Subclass Guardian of the Threshold: unconfirmed (no sponsor present). Abilities may flicker near Anchor Nodes. Expect inconsistent manifestation.

[Process Error: STABILISE_VEIL()] Return code: FALSE (E-A13-GUARDIAN_ABSENT). Rollback: denied (Temporal lock encountered: Kohe-therës signature). Countermeasure: Find the hand, not the picture.

[Observer Notice] Observer Entities detected: 3 — ID: concealed [Error | mask intact] — ID: concealed [Error | mask intact] — ID: familiar (memory-adjacent) [Warning | proximity increasing]

Mooney, ignoring my obvious confusion, had chosen to carry on with his witless blathering. "… because, you know, I reckon given a chance and some actual proper kit, I could rock this sort of gig. And this wouldn't be my first demon-fighting rodeo, neither. I used to carry people through boss fights all the time. Back in the day."

"I think you'll find doing this in the real world is a little more complicated than playing online," I said, absently, following the increasing cascade of error messages that were continuing down the centre of my vision. I hadn't seen anything this worrying since waking up on a forest floor with wolves trying to eat me.

The System was obviously having a moment.

"I don't know about that. It doesn't look too complicated to me, Undershaft. All you did with that last squirmy dark thing was walk up to it and pull its head off. Bosh! I reckon I could do that, given the right equipment and sufficient encouragement."

After a few more moments of an error-strewn riff on the 'three Observer Entities' and 'Kohe-therës,' whoever that was, the messages finally subsided. I dismissed the last of them and looked over at a suddenly silent Mooney and noticed he was staring at me, expectantly.

It was more than a little unnerving.

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"What do you want, mate?"

"You need to listen more, Undershaft!" he huffed. "I always said that, for a spy, you had some of the worst listening skills I'd ever come across."

"I wasn't a spy, Mooney, I was a…"

"Freelance operative, yeah, I know the branding. I was extemporising. For local colour. What I was saying, mate, was that I reckon my undoubted supremacy on the console front would translate nicely into whatever gig you've got going on right now. And I want in. I've got your back, big guy."

If I'd given him any more side-eye, I'd have crushed him to death. "Mooney, mate. You're not a gamer."

"I absolutely am!"

"Okay, so name me anything you've played since last feeding ten pence pieces into a battered Pac-Man in an 80s arcade"

"Loads, mate! Loads! I once speedran Hades, romanced everyone, including a pomegranate. I'm a name in the Baldur's Gate 3 community for once proposing to a mind flayer during a long rest. I'm banned from the Egg Festival in Stardew Valley for marrying three villagers by mistake, and I'm well known for turning PowerWash Simulator into a spiritual experience."

"Mate, I have a very vivid memory of you once ringing me for help because your controller 'had too many buttons.'"

"That was a design critique, not a complaint. Oh, and I took down Malenia."

"You did not."

"Look, I'm not saying my summon sign was Let Me Solo Her – I signed a DNR, and those lawyers don't play – but I'm also not saying it, if you get me. Jar helm, boxers, twin katanas. I had a Waterfowl Dance spreadsheet."

Considering all the many things I'd recently been perfectly happy with taking on trust of late, I was finding this particular pill quite hard to swallow. "Seriously?"

"I tracked clears, mate. Two hundred and twelve successful runs, twelve wipes, three disconnects, and one guy who invaded just to bow and leave. Once I got into the swing of things, I actually made a montage that went big on Twitch with a Eurobeat under it. One of the comments said I was a 'menace to society.' I printed that one out and put it on the fridge."

"How has my life come to this?" I said to no one in particular.

"I still have the original saucepan. For luck. Also for pasta." He tapped me on the arm in a rather clingy way. "Come on! Tag me in, Undershaft. I reckon I'd be seriously good at this 'shadow fighting' thing. And I promise, you get hit once, and we can restart. I have my standards."

I opened my mouth to speak, but then more notifications appeared. The System seemed to have figured itself out.

Status: You have returned to Earth. Thread Link: Active Veil Link: Active Tether: London (stressed)

[PRIMARY OBJECTIVES]

Find Griff and interrogate for: – Links to Shadow sponsorship and Kohë-therës return. – Identity of any Observers he's liaising with.

Deal with the Observers (3 detected): – O₁: Concealed (mask intact). – O₂: Concealed (mask intact). – O₃: Familiar (memory-adjacent). Proximity increasing.

Counter the return of the Kohë-therës

[PROGRESS: ARTIFACTS] Shadow Orbs: 5/5 acquired → Classification: CHANNEL KEYS (bidirectional), not SEALS. Effect on protocol A13: incompatible (creates reverberation & backflow). Mitigation: Isolate active key; keep away from water; store within iron perimeter.

[TIMERS & WINDOWS] Personal Quest Countdown: 52:00:00 (reasserted). London Tether: Under Stress — delay increases risk of local thinning event. Alignment Window (Kohë-therës): Imminent (begins within the current quest timer; sub-window expected at night; duration ≤ one lunar night).

[SYSTEM ADVISORY] – Guardian of the Threshold: not present. – Veil Pressure: expected ↓ with Orbs; observed ↑ due to channel resonance. – Backflow: 3 muted | 1 dormant | 1 active through keys. Prioritise isolation. – Observer Entities: 3 (see above). Your actions are being reviewed.

[FAIL/REWARD CONDITIONS] Win: Veil delta ≤ −25% sustained for one year Fail: Anchor cascade → city-scale bleedthrough; Kohë-therës unlock scars local time (rollback denied). Potential Reward (conditional): Guardian Sponsor Invocation

I mentally put Mooney on pause for a moment while I tried to work all that through.

I didn't think it needed many powers of deductive reasoning to get a handle on what I was being asked to do here.

Somehow, my reasonably easy plan to find Griff and deliver some robust performance feedback for arranging my untimely murder had ended up merged with a 'Return of the Shadow King' cinematic universe.

I felt I was safe to presume that the Kohë-therës was the monster the Lugat had been keen to warned me about. The thing Aunt M had taken care of back in the vision. And that, rather than my revenge bear, seemed to have become more of the headline act. Well, that was fine. Two birds, one stone. Or, even better: two Big Bads, one Morningstar.

And what was I to make about the System's dangling promise as a reward for pulling this off leading to a promotion to Guardian? That sounded nice. But it also suggested the difficulty curve was about to kick up. As Mooney had pointed out, I was hardly being tested at the moment. I figured things were about to make a bit of a move up from marmalising street-level Shadows. And what about the three Observers that were flagged there? Were they more Snakeheads? Maybe.

What I did know was that—…

[Overwatch: MINIMAP — AUTO-ZOOM]

The whole of London suddenly unrolled on my HUD: the canal becoming a crooked necklace, the arterial roads like straws, and, at the heart of it, a green arrow under my feet hunched under an overpass.

The view drifted to the East and settled two miles out on a sliver of river road. The beating red dot pinned a sign I knew too well: The Spillway Arms. One of Griff's favourite "offices." The minimap pulsed, highlighting the lock and towpath forty metres behind it, then snapped back to street scale like it was slamming the pint down between us.

TARGET ACQUIRED: GRIFF

A beating red dot flared alive across the river, pulsing in my teeth.

[Distance: 2.1 km | Bearing: E.S.E] [Advisory: Target vector → WATER PATH]

Snap. The map slammed back to street scale, with the arrow jittering under my feet pointing towards the red dot now a heartbeat off to the southeast, still pulsing.

I grabbed Mooney's sleeve and started walking. "Okay, mate, you're in. For now. We're going to say hello to Griff."

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