---
The road to Birthmere coiled like a drunken serpent, all mud-slicked bends and jagged stones that sent Laraine's bones rattling with every lurch of the cart. When the village finally oozed into view—a festering pit of slumped fences and leafless trees—she exhaled through her teeth.
"It smells like boiled socks and regret," she muttered.
"Birthmere," Elise announced, sweeping a hand toward the crumbling gates. "Twice cursed by plague and once by its own architects. Try not to die before supper."
No guards challenged them. Two spearmen snored beneath a rotted awning, their weapons planted upside-down in the dirt. Laraine tugged her hood lower.
'So this is where destiny dumped me? A backwater cabbage graveyard with delusions of grandeur?'
{Correction: *I* dumped you here. Destiny owes me five silvers. Also—92% chance this place is haunted. Fun, right?} Vi chirped.
The inn's sign groaned on rusted hinges: 'The Resting Hoof'. Inside, the air clung thick with ale, woodsmoke, and the tang of something pickled beyond salvation.
{User.} Vi's voice dripped saccharine menace. {Time to confront your tragic existence. Behold—your stats.}
A cerulean screen flared before Laraine's eyes:
---
[ USER STATUS ]
LEVEL: 1 (Pathetic)
•STR:3 (Could lose to a sickly goat)
•AGI: 3 (Sloth incarnate)
•END: 2 (Wheeze)
•MANA: 3 (A flickering candle in a hurricane)
•MANA: 0 (The universe despises you)
•INT: 5
BLOODLINE:?????(Level-up to unlock)
[ PERKS ]
• Goddess's Pity – Weak buffs when suffering (Congratulations?)
• Disguise Active – You look marginally less murderable
• Sync Rate: 15% (Barely sentient)
---
Laraine's eye twitched. 'Zero luck?'
{The dice gods spat on your cradle. Now—} Vi's tone brightened, {—wanna see how you die this time?}
[DING!]
---
[ QUEST: SOMETHING STIRS IN BIRTHMERE ]
• Investigate the dried-up well (It's definitely not corpses)
• Reward: 150 EXP + Shadowstep (Try not to trip)
• Failure Penalty: Death (Old friend, isn't it?)
---
Elise nudged a bowl of grayish gruel toward her. "You've been staring at the wall for three minutes."
"Planning my next poor life choice," Laraine deadpanned, flexing her fingers. The dagger at her hip felt heavier tonight.
Outside, the wind howled through warped timbers. The hearth fire burned too blue.
This time, she wouldn't bleed out nameless in a ditch.
This time, she was the thing that made the dark hold its breath.
---
Elise's POV
The stranger was wrong.
Elise had met liars, killers, men who'd sold their mothers for a copper—but Raine moved like a poorly-strung puppet. Her pauses were too deliberate. Her eyes, flat as a gutted fish's, tracked exits like a thief. And that smell—not just blood, but something beneath it. Like turned earth after a funeral.
When the scream tore through the night, the inn's patrons didn't flinch. Only Raine turned toward the window, her reflection a smudge of bone-pale fury in the glass.
"Something's here," she murmured. Not fear. Recognition.
Elise's thumb worried her silver ring.
'Who taught you to wear a human face so badly, girl?'
The Resting Hoof creaked around them—wood swollen with damp, smoke curling like lazy ghosts toward the rafters. Elise kept her gaze fixed on the girl across the table, who sipped her lukewarm gruel like someone unused to taste. Or care.
Raine hadn't flinched at the scream.
Hadn't blinked when the fire spat blue and the shadows near the doorway deepened like something was watching.
She was too calm.
"You're not from Luthia," Elise said casually, propping her boots on the bench. "That accent? Not local."
Raine looked up, slow. "Didn't say I was."
"You said you were from Luthia."
A beat of silence. Elise could almost hear the wheels creaking in Raine's head.
"…I changed citizenship," Raine said flatly, deadpan.
Elise blinked. "You what?"
{Oh my gods.} Vi groaned. {Even I felt that lie slap reality across the face. Quick—distract her with emotional trauma.}
Raine turned away with a sigh. "Look, I'm tired, sore, and this soup tastes like regret. Can we skip the interrogation until sunrise?"
Elise let it go—for now. But her fingers stayed near her belt, where the hilt of a small blade waited like a trusted friend.
Then the sound came again.
A second scream—shorter. Sharper. Cut off.
Raine stood immediately, ignoring the startled stares from the corner patrons and the innkeeper who suddenly had something very interesting to polish behind the bar.
"You don't want to check that out," Elise warned. "Birthmere has… history."
Raine didn't answer. She was already moving.
Elise cursed softly, grabbed her coat, and followed.
---
Outside, the fog had thickened. It clung to the ground like a second skin, curling between the stones and clawing up Laraine's legs like it wanted to pull her down again. Into the grave. Into that ditch.
But Vi was quiet now. That alone unsettled her more than the chill.
'Vi?' she called out mentally.
{Still here. Still fabulous. Just… registering anomalous spiritual pressure.}
'Meaning?'
{Meaning something wicked this way slithered.}
The well loomed ahead.
It sat in the center of a cracked stone circle, the rope long rotted, the wooden cover warped and partially broken. Around it, the ground was wrong. The grass too dead, the air too still.
A faint iron tang wafted up from the hole.
Raine's eyes narrowed.
"Curiosity kills, Raine," Elise muttered as she caught up. "And that thing? Doesn't just bite—it festers."
"I have a quest," Raine replied like that explained everything.
Elise blinked. "What?"
{Oh, now you want to play mysterious, huh?} Vi huffed. {Fine. Let's poke the eldritch beastie and see who dies first.}
Raine knelt beside the well, brushing her fingers against the stone. The texture was odd—sticky. Warm. When she leaned in, the whisper came. Faint. Garbled. Like someone was sobbing underwater.
She stiffened.
"What is it?" Elise asked.
"I think," Raine said slowly, "there's something at the bottom."
"Something alive?"
Raine reached for her dagger.
"…Not for long."
---
[QUEST UPDATED!]
• Optional Objective Unlocked: Cleanse the Well
• Sub-Objective: Don't die (again)
• Bonus Reward: ???
• Warning: Local entity has noticed you
{Oh no.} Vi whispered suddenly. {You've poked the undead bear.}
And from beneath the well, something laughed.
---