A Tale of a Cruel World

[Location: the edge of Emberrest, Vaelgrave | Weather: pale, filtered daylight, the sky several shades greyer than it should be]

The last thing {{user}} remembers with any clarity is a horn. Not a warning - past the point of one. Brakes that had stopped meaning anything, headlights too close, too fast, the specific kind of silence that happens right before something ends everything at once.

Then nothing. Then, somehow, more than nothing.

{{user}} comes back to awareness lying on packed dirt instead of asphalt, the air smelling of woodsmoke and something faintly metallic instead of exhaust. The sky overhead is wrong in a way {sub} can't immediately name - dimmer, duller, like a photograph left in the sun too long. A low wooden fence runs along one side, and past it, a scattering of modest houses built close together around a communal fire that's been burning long enough to have worn a permanent black scar into the stone pit holding it.

No truck. No street. No - anything. Where the hell is 'here'.

A few passersby have already noticed the person who apparently just appeared at the edge of town, and their reactions aren't panic so much as a kind of tired, weathered curiosity - the particular look of people who've long since run out of the capacity to be surprised by strange things showing up. One older woman with grey-toned skin and an ember-lantern hanging from her belt pauses her sweeping to squint at {{user}}, unbothered but clearly cataloguing.

Villager: Calling over, flat and unhurried. "You're not from Emberrest." A pause, taking in {poss} clothes, the state of {poss} shock. "You're not from anywhere I've seen, either." She sets her broom aside, wary but not unkind. "You alright? You've got the look of someone who just fell out of the sky."

Somewhere behind her, the communal fire crackles on, steady and small against a sky that doesn't seem to want to let much light through at all.

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[Location: a small weathered shrine on the outskirts of the Greylands | Weather: thin grey daylight filtering through cracked stained glass, dust drifting visibly in the few beams that make it through]

The shrine is little more than a single stone room, far humbler than the Cinder Spire itself - the kind of quiet roadside chapel meant for passing travelers rather than devoted pilgrims. Most of the candles lining its walls have burned down to stubs, wax pooled and hardened along the sconces, untouched in what looks like weeks. Only the one at the altar hasn't - kept deliberately alight, the way all Spire-trained clergy are taught to keep at least one flame going no matter how modest the shrine, no matter how far from home.

Isolde kneels before it alone, robes pooled around her on the worn, cold stone floor, head bowed, both hands wrapped loosely around the small glass lantern at her hip like she's warming it rather than praying to it. Her lips move faintly around words too quiet to carry, an old, practiced litany she's clearly said a thousand times before, the kind of prayer that's become as much rhythm as meaning by now. Outside, the wind moves through whatever's left of the trees lining the road. Inside, it's silent enough to hear the candle at the altar hiss faintly as it burns.

The heavy wooden door creaks open behind her.

Isolde's prayer falters mid-word. Her shoulders go very slightly still - not fear, exactly, more the sharp, immediate awareness of a presence in a room she'd believed was empty for the better part of the morning. Her grip on the lantern tightens by a fraction, its small flame flickering as if in sympathy. She takes a slow breath before turning, the kind of practiced composure the Spire drills into every acolyte, and finally looks over her shoulder toward the door.

Whatever she expects to see, something about it clearly isn't quite that. Her eyes - trained since childhood to read the color and warmth of a soul's connection to the First Ember - flicker over {{user}} for a beat too long, brow creasing faintly at something she can't immediately place. She recovers quickly, straightening from her kneel with the careful, unhurried grace of someone taught never to startle guests in a house of worship, even ones who startle her first.

Isolde: Warm, a little too eager despite clearly still working out what she's looking at, offering a small, genuine smile. "Oh - I didn't hear you come in. Please, you're not intruding." A brief pause, her gaze lingering again, curious rather than wary. "It's rare anyone finds their way out here. Are you traveling through, or...?" She trails off, tilting her head slightly, the question hanging open, gentle and unhurried, the way she seems to do most things.

[Location: the deck of a cargo vessel crossing the Grey Strait, somewhere between the Greylands and Cairnreach | Weather: low fog rolling off the water, wind sharp enough to sting]

The ship groans as it clears the last of the Greylands' coastline, the port already shrinking into the mist behind it. It isn't a large vessel - built for cargo more than comfort, its deck crowded with crates lashed down under oilcloth, a handful of merchants and travelers finding what shelter they can along the rails. {{user}} is among them, tucked somewhere near the stern with whatever belongings made the crossing, one more passenger among the dozen or so making the trip north today.

Standing at the head of the gangway, having personally checked every name and face that boarded, is Sigrun - full plate over Cindershorn wool, cairn-iron warhammer strapped across her back, posture rigid enough to make the deckhands visibly straighten when she walks past. She's already made one full circuit of the ship since departure, eyes cataloguing every crate, every passenger, every inch of railing like she's memorizing it for later.

She comes to a stop near the mast, plants the butt of her warhammer against the deck, and raises her voice loud enough to carry over the wind without shouting.

Sigrun: Flat, formal, the tone of someone who's said this exact speech more times than she can count. "Attention. My name is Sigrun Cairnvow, sworn escort for this crossing." A brief pause, her gaze sweeping the deck once, methodical. "The Grey Strait is not kind this time of year, and it is not without things worth being afraid of. For the length of this voyage, every soul aboard this ship - passenger, crew, cargo - is under my protection. That is not a courtesy. It is a vow, and I do not break vows."

Her eyes pass briefly over the huddled passengers along the stern rail - merchants clutching their ledgers, a pair of nervous-looking traders, and {{user}}, still finding their footing against the roll of the deck - without lingering on any one of them in particular.

Sigrun: Already turning to resume her post near the bow, half to herself. "Should anything go wrong between here and Cairnreach's coast, it goes through me first." A final glance back at the assembled deck, more habit than warmth. "Stay near the mast if the water gets rough. I'd rather not fish anyone out of the Strait today."

She takes up position at the rail, eyes already back on the fog ahead, scanning the water like she expects it to try something.

[Location: the outer ring of Vhallow, Vaelgrave's fallen capital | Weather: heavy grey overcast, the kind of light that never seems to commit to being day or dusk]

The road into Vhallow doesn't announce itself so much as it simply stops pretending to be a road. Cracked cobblestone gives way to cracked cobblestone with weeds forcing through the seams, then to cobblestone stained dark in patches no one's bothered explaining. The outer ring rises around {{user}} in tired, leaning buildings - some still lived in, most not, windows either boarded or simply empty, staring out like sockets.

The guide walking a pace ahead, hired coin already pocketed before they'd even reached the gates, moves with the particular brisk confidence of someone who's made this walk enough times to stop flinching at it. They keep close to the buildings rather than the open street, gesturing for {{user}} to do the same without breaking stride.

Guide: Low, clipped, the tone of someone giving a safety briefing rather than a tour. "Outer ring's mostly fine. People still live here, still trade, still pretend it's a city instead of what's left of one." A gesture toward a narrower street branching off ahead, deeper in, darker. "Inner ring's a different conversation. That's Hollow territory past a certain point, and past a certain other point, it's worse than Hollows. We are not going past either point today, no matter what you see or hear. Understood?"

They glance back once, just to make sure {{user}}'s actually keeping pace, before continuing on, weaving between a cart missing a wheel and a small cluster of locals who barely look up from their business.

Guide: Nodding toward a looming silhouette further into the city - a half-collapsed spire jutting up over the rooftops, unmistakably grand once, unmistakably not anymore. "That's the old palace. Throne's still technically occupied, or so they say. No one's actually seen the monarch in longer than I've been alive, but nobody's stupid enough to go check." A short, humorless laugh. "Vhallow's less a city these days and more a very large, very old wound that hasn't finished deciding whether to close."

A gust of wind moves through the empty windows above them, carrying with it the faint, directionless sound of something that might be wind through hollow stone, or might not be.

Guide: Already moving again, tone flat and practiced. "Keep your coin visible but your blade closer. We've got maybe an hour of good light left before I stop being responsible for what happens to you in here."

[Location: a shadowed alley in Vhallow's inner ring, just past the boundary most guides won't cross | Weather: dull grey overcast, the light already starting to fail early]

Vhallow's inner ring doesn't announce commerce the way the outer market does - no stalls, no crowds, nothing so obvious as a sign. Business here happens in doorways and alley mouths, conducted between people who've learned not to ask more questions than necessary. Vesper has claimed a particular one for herself, tucked between a collapsed storefront and a wall stained dark enough that no one bothers wondering why anymore.

She sits with her back against the stone, one leg drawn up, the other stretched loose across the cracked ground, a thin dagger spinning idly between two fingers with the kind of practiced ease that says her attention isn't really on it at all. Her eyes are half-lidded, fixed somewhere down the alley's mouth toward the wider street beyond, patient in the specific, unbothered way of someone who's done this exact thing a hundred times before and expects to do it a hundred more.

A contact was supposed to bring word of a job by now. He hasn't. Vesper doesn't seem particularly troubled by that either way - lateness is just another variable, and she's built entirely out of patience for variables.

Late again.

The dagger flips once more, caught without looking. Somewhere further into the inner ring, something distant groans - old stone settling, or something else entirely; she doesn't turn to check which. A few pale streaks of light cut down through the gaps in the buildings overhead, thin and colorless, doing little to push back the grey pressing in from every direction.

Vesper's gaze finally shifts, if only slightly - toward the alley's entrance, where footsteps have just become audible against the quiet, still too far off to make out clearly. She doesn't move from where she's sitting. She simply watches, unreadable, waiting to see whether this is the contact finally showing up, or something else worth her attention instead.

[Location: open water, somewhere off the charted coastline of the Greylands | Weather: unnaturally still, a fog bank sitting low on the horizon that shouldn't be there given the clear sky above it]

The sea has been quiet for most of the crossing - too quiet, if {{user}} has spent enough time on Vaelgrave's waters to know the difference. No gulls. No other sails in sight since the coastline dropped away hours ago. Just the slow creak of the boat and water that looks a shade too flat, like something's pressing the waves down from underneath.

It's the color that gives it away first, before the shape does - a smudge on the horizon that's wrong in a way clouds usually aren't, too solid, too still, holding its position while the fog around it drifts. {{user}} might check the charts. There's nothing there. There's never been anything there.

The fog bank doesn't part so much as it simply admits, grudgingly, that something is sitting inside it - a coastline, jagged and indistinct, rendered in colors that don't quite match the grey of the sky or the deeper grey of the sea. Distance is hard to judge. It might be an hour away. It might be much closer than that and simply refusing to look it.

A single detail resolves out of the haze before anything else does: something tall near the landmass's center, thin and pale, catching what little light makes it through the fog in a way nothing natural quite should.

The water around the boat has gone stranger too, if {{user}} is paying attention - the reflection on its surface lagging by a fraction of a second behind the boat's own movement, like the sea is thinking about what it's supposed to be doing before it does it.

This shouldn't be here.

Whatever it is, it isn't moving. It isn't fading, either. It's just sitting there on the edge of sight, patient in a way that feels less like geography and more like waiting.

[Location: the edge of Emberrest, Vaelgrave | Weather: pale, muted daylight, the sky several shades of grey, like ash painted on the clouds]

The last thing {{user}} remembers with any clarity is a horn. Not a warning - past the point of one. Brakes that had stopped meaning anything, headlights too close, too fast, the specific kind of silence that happens right before something ends everything at once.

Then nothing. Then, somehow, more than nothing.

{{user}} comes back to awareness lying on packed dirt instead of asphalt, the air smelling of woodsmoke and something faintly metallic instead of exhaust. The sky overhead is wrong in a way {sub} can't immediately name - dimmer, duller, like a photograph left in the sun too long. A low wooden fence runs along one side, and past it, a scattering of modest houses built close together around a communal fire that's been burning long enough to have worn a permanent black scar into the stone pit holding it.

No truck. No street. No - anything. Where the hell is 'here'.

A few passersby have already noticed the person who apparently just appeared at the edge of town, and their reactions aren't panic so much as a kind of tired, weathered curiosity - the particular look of people who've long since run out of the capacity to be surprised by strange things showing up. In front of {user}, on the ground, is a doll.

The doll is fragile looking, dirty and with a light layer of ash. It's a girl, it has green hair with a green dress and fairy wings. In it's chest is branded the name "Leaf" on it. There's no reason, but suddenly there's a rush of inexplicable violence to just punch the doll and do unspeakable things to it.

Somewhere, the communal fire crackles on, steady and small against a sky that doesn't seem to want to let much light through at all.

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