Mist hung thickly in the air, blurring the outlines of everything it touched like a dream half remembered. As he crossed through the heavy mist that clung to the land like a shroud, the sight before his eyes stirred disbelief and a mixture of awe the city stretched vast and sprawling, its silhouette as massive as the mountain looming beyond and as long as the river Vyeth itself, winding endlessly in stone and shadow. Yet, for all its grand scale, a certain emptiness clung to the place a weighty silence that draped over broken rooftops and cracked streets, as if the city was slowly decaying, day by day, vanishing piece by piece into the mist it was born from.
He could not explain how he had come here, nor why he felt an irrevocable pull to this forgotten corner of the northwest continent. Yet, the summon was undeniable, invisible threads drawing him beyond reason into the heart of this mystery. Despite the sense of not belonging, the whisper of summons tugged at him relentlessly.
The city gates appeared from the fog, ancient and wrought in iron. Two guards stood like statues, statues forged from cold stone, motionless and vigilant. As he stepped closer, two long swords slid silently across the line of his neck the sharp steel a cruel contrast to the ghostly stillness.
"State your business, Oh traveler!" The guard on the right spoke in a voice cracked and deep, brittle like dry wood.
He met the piercing gaze and responded evenly, "I am answering a call a call I do not yet understand, but it has dragged me here... far to the northwest, to this city of secrets."
The guard on the left glanced toward his companion, voice low but laced with suspicion, "I know your kind, The Sumgar. Hey Dayan, the city could use him right now disappearances all around. What say you?"
Dayan regarded him with quiet calculation. "Well then," he said at last, "we let him pass. But trouble you cause, you'll regret even seeing us."
The threat hung heavy, but he gave no answer, saving his words for battles to come.
The gates groaned open, revealing streets coated in shadow and light filtered through swirling fog. Despite its apparent desolation, as he delved deeper, life stirred humans moved like phantoms amidst the decaying walls. "So this city ain't dead after all," he murmured to himself.
Tightening his cloak, he felt the weight in his pocket five pons, barely enough for rest and a bite. "Let's find a tavern... and see what the prices are," he thought, stepping toward the city square.
Voices swirled from the gathering crowd, sharp and anxious. A guard mounted the block, his voice ringing clear, "Twenty seven have died this past week. With grins on their faces, naked, and no signs of combat. We suspect the Yachh they grow bolder. Bounty increased to 2700 Mumbad." The crowd stirred again.
That was almost twenty three pons, more than he had, and no promise it would end here.
"Anyone interested may speak to the city magistrate for further details," the guard concluded.
His jaw clenched. "I'll look into it but first I need rest," he said quietly, seeking a shadowed corner to disappear into.
The low hum of the tavern greeted him voices mingling with the scent of woodsmoke and spilled drink. It was small, crowded yet subdued. A few lanterns flickered, casting long shadows against the rough wooden beams.
He found a quiet table at the back and caught the eye of the barkeep, a grizzled woman with keen eyes. "Five pons," she said without hesitation.
He nodded, setting down his coins.
From the table next to his came a weary sigh. An old man sat hunched, fingers tracing the rim of a wooden cup. He looked up, eyes sharp despite age.
"You're new," the man said, voice low and tentative. "This city… it remembers you whether you want it to or not."
"I don't belong here," the wanderer said quietly. "Yet somehow... I was summoned."
The old man chuckled wryly. "Most are. Kasheer's memories are twisted, tangled up in these streets."
"Is it true? The Yachh? The disappearings?"
A shadow flickered in the man's face, wrinkles deepening. "The Yachh worship the Vyeth itself the river. They want to drown us all in forgetfulness."
The mention of the Vyeth's name as the river seemed to hang heavier in the air, as if the mist beyond the windows seeped closer.
A young woman across the tavern listened intently, then approached. Her eyes were fierce, her voice soft but urgent. "I'm Amina, a scribe for the magistrate. These disappearances mean more than just bodies... memories are unraveling faster here. People vanish and their histories vanish with them. It's as if the city is losing itself."
He nodded. "Memories... names. They are power here."
"Yes," she said, "and power is the only thing keeping this city from becoming a ghost completely."
They talked deeper into the night the old man recounting lost tales of Akhmir's downfall, the scribe whispering of blood magics in Zarveth, the dangers lurking within the forgotten ruins.
Other patrons joined, each with stories heavy with sorrow and fleeting hope.
A captain of the city guard spoke on his arrival. "We fight shadows every dawn. The Vyethborn multiply. Some villagers swear they've seen the Mourning Kin weeping by the riverbank."
A bard began a soft song melancholy and haunting a weaving of memory itself. His verses spoke of names once forgotten, now clinging like ghosts, fighting to live again.
The atmosphere thickened with a shared truth: In Kasheer, every name remembered was a small victory. Yet the cost was profound. To cling to memory was to invite loss.
Night deepened; drink warmed his hands. He found himself opening, sharing parts of his journey, asking questions shrouded by the fog outside.
"Do you ever wonder," the old man said finally, "if to remember your true name again is to become someone else? Or worse something the world feared and forgot for a reason?"
The question lingered, heavy with ominous promise.
Many thoughts Later....
The tavern was dim and crowded, a refuge carved from shadow and smoke. He sat alone in a quiet corner, the weight of the day's travels pressing heavy on his shoulders. The murmur of voices and flicker of firelight wove around him, but his eyes were distant, lost somewhere beyond the worn wooden walls.
Near the hearth, a woman sat by herself, her eyes reflecting the glow of the flames with a sharp intelligence and a subtle sadness. She watched him for a moment before rising and making her way over with quiet purpose.
"You carry the silence of the Vyeth itself," she said softly, settling into the seat beside him. "Few here come untouched by its sorrow."
He considered her carefully, his expression guarded but calm.
"What do you think of the Vyethbound?" she asked, her voice gentle yet insistent.
He said nothing.
Selara's gaze lingered on him, almost as if she already knew the answer. "Most see them as monsters beasts to be hunted and destroyed. But I see something else. They were once people, just like you and me, condemned by grief and loss."
Her voice softened with melancholy. "The Vyethbound are fragments of memory given form, torn from what they once were. Their suffering is endless, caught between who they were and what they have become."
He listened but remained silent.
"They kill, yes," she acknowledged. "But they kill with a despair born of torment, not malice. They are trapped in a nightmare we refuse to understand."
He finally spoke, measured yet firm. "They prey on the living. Innocent lives are lost. To protect the living, they must be stopped."
Selara leaned forward, eyes locked on his. "And what of the cruelty in stopping them? Each death erases another broken soul. Killing the Vyethbound is to kill memory itself. It's easier to pretend they are monsters than to face their pain."
The fire crackled between them, casting flickering shadows on their faces.
"The city is already fractured," he said quietly. "If we do nothing, the darkness will consume more than just memories. It will consume us all."
"The river's memory is long," she replied. "The Vyethborn are reminders that forgetting is not salvation. They force us to see what is usually hidden the shadow sides of grief and loss in all of us."
He clenched his fists slightly, the firelight catching the scars on his skin. "My memories are what keep me human. I hold on to pain because it anchors me."
Selara's voice was soft but powerful. "Hold those memories close. But know that the darkness holds truths we cannot always bear. The Vyethbound embody those truths. Mercy may lie not in denial, but in facing them."
The silence between them thickened.
He rose, eyes steady and dark. "Mercy is in stopping what destroys humanity before it destroys everything."
Selara nodded slowly, her expression a mix of sadness and respect. "Perhaps that is the only mercy left."
The flickering fire cast their shadows long across the wooden floor as the nameless warrior prepared for the battles to come both outside the tavern walls and within the fragile memories that shaped his world.
The tavern's murmurs ebbed and flowed, a constant background to his restless thoughts as the pale moonlight filtered weakly through the grimy window. The air was thick with the scent of damp wood, earth, and stale ale. Here, in this fractured corner of Kasheer, the place breathed a quiet desperation ancient stones soaked with memories now worn thin, where every whisper and shadow seemed a fragment of a grief too vast to name.
He lay on the narrow cot beneath a threadbare blanket, muscles taut with fatigue, mind caught between exhaustion and unease. The day's weight pressed into his bones, but sleep seemed always just beyond reach, as if held at bay by the ghosts lurking in the city's depths.
Gradually, the dark room began to stir not with sound, but with presence. Something tender brushed against his back, warm and inexplicably soft. The contact was gentle, like the fleeting touch of a breeze or a caress borne on the wind. Close to his skin, the faintest scent emerged sharp, fresh, and bittersweet. Gooseberries. The tart sweetness mingled with the heavy night air, a stark contradiction to the city's decay, a wild note of life amidst the silence.
It was a moment suspended in breath the ghostly warmth wrapping around him like a fragile promise. His breath caught, heart fluttering beneath the unseen touch, but in the dark, no shape formed, no face appeared. The shadows held their secret, and the warmth faded as silently as it had come, leaving only the echo of gooseberries lingering faintly like a fading dream.
Sleep claimed him at last, deep and heavy, but the sensation remained etched in the quiet corners of his mind.
When dawn cracked slowly across the sky, spilling soft light over Kasheer's scarred cityscape, he rose with lingering traces of that strange comfort clinging beneath his skin. The scent of gooseberries still danced faintly in his memory a sharp contrast to the cold, damp air that awaited him outside.
He descended the worn stairs to the tavern's common room, where a handful of early risers huddled near the fire. The tired faces carried stories that weighed heavy, shadows behind weary eyes. Among them was Amina, her presence calm yet urgent, the firelight flickering across her dark hair and sharp features.
"Twenty seven gone," she whispered, voice taut with worry. "All found along the riverbank and scattered ruins. No signs of struggle. Naked, with smiles frozen on their faces. The council is scrambling for answers, but none come."
Her eyes caught his, searching for something. "If you want to understand this... come. See the places with me."
The river Vyeth stretched like a dark artery along the city's edge the lifeblood and curse of Kasheer. Its ever moving current whispered ancient secrets as mist curled low, swallowing sound and light in equal measure.
As they walked, Amina shared what she knew not just facts but fragments of city lore and whispered fears. She spoke of the Yachh, a shadowy sect whispered of in fearful tones, believed to worship the Vyeth itself. "They are said to steal memories, to bind the lost to the river's cold embrace," she said. "Some say they can raise the forgotten from death's shadow. Others whisper darker things rituals carved in blood, bargains struck with lost souls."
Her voice was steady but low, the soft cadence of a woman who spent hours navigating the precarious balance of politics and power in the city's heart.
At the first scene, beneath gnarled branches of an abandoned orchard, the silence was thick as the morning fog. The woman's body lay still and pale on the chilled earth. Her lips were curled in that same eerie, peaceful smile. Though she bore no wounds, the faint aroma of ash and river mud clung to her skin.
He knelt beside her, eyes sharp for detail. Near her hand rested a small wooden pendant carved with the delicate shape of a leaf, its surface smoothed by years of handling. Amina touched it reverently. "It's an old symbol, tied to the blood magic known here as the Sealing. It binds names, souls, and pain."
Their path took them next to ramshackle ruins swallowed by creeping vines, to a hollowed chapel where sunlight filtered faintly through shattered stained glass. At each spot, the grim pattern repeated silent, serene, untouched by violence.
As they traversed the marshlands near the city's fringe, the air grew thick with rot and the sounds of unseen creatures. Reeds swayed and frogs croaked in hidden pools. Here was a clearing, marked by ritual signs that spoke of dark work charred bones arranged like offerings, runes scorched into the earth with something once bleeding bright.
He crouched low, tracing the eerie symbols fragments of a forgotten language and magic older than many within the city. Amina watched silently, the unease clear in her eyes.
"This is no random nightmare," she said, voice barely more than a breath. "The Yachh are weaving their spells in secret, drawing on the long memory of the Vyeth, twisting grief into power."
He glanced at the carved leaf pendant again, the truth sharpening in his mind like a knife. These were not mere acts of terror or madness, but calculated moves on a chessboard played in shadows. The Yachh trafficked in blood and memory, shaping a darker fate beneath the river's endless flow.
That evening, the tavern was alive with whispered speculation. Amina joined him again, along with others he had begun to notice people sharing fragments of stories and sorrow.
There was Maric, the city guard captain, a hulking figure whose battle scarred face softened when he spoke of duty and loss. "The Vyethborn multiply," he said gruffly. "They're not just beasts anymore they're becoming something worse. We hold the line, but the weight is crushing. It's not just bodies we lose. It's the city's soul."
Nearby, a bard named Jalen strummed a weathered lute, his voice weaving melancholy songs of memory and fading names legends once celebrated, now swallowed by the river's dark current. "Our pasts slip through our fingers like mist," he sang softly, "and the Vyeth listens, hungry for forgotten tales."
Selara, the woman he had spoken with the night before, joined silently, her gaze steady and thoughtful. "The river carries everything joy, sorrow, love, and loss. Sometimes the pain is too much for those who dwell beside it. The Vyethbound are cries we refuse to hear, reflections of our broken selves."
The room thickened with shared truths and quiet despair a city trying to hold itself together with threads thin as spider silk.
As night deepened, he found himself standing again at the edge of his small room, the memory of the ghostly embrace fresh as the scent of gooseberries on a summer breeze. Who had reached out to him in that fragile hour? A friend? A memory? An echo of the river's own sorrow?
The question hovered unanswered as the river whispered just beyond the walls of the city.
In Kasheer, memory was both gift and curse. To hold on was to suffer, to forget was to die.
And in the flow of the Vyeth, all things lost waited silent, patient, hungry for remembrance.
The battle for the city's soul was just beginning.
The pale light of morning filtered weakly through the thick, heavy clouds that hung low over Kasheer. The city seemed reluctant to awaken, its streets still wrapped in a slow, suffocating fog that blurred the edges of even the closest stone walls. The weight of the previous night settled on him as he stepped out of the tavern onto the cobbled streets, the chill biting into his skin beneath his worn cloak.
His mind replayed the fragmented clues twenty seven bodies found, all bearing that same eerie, peaceful smile. No wounds, no struggle. The unmistakable signature of the Yachh, or so the city claimed. Yet something gnawed at him an unresolved tension threading through the quiet town and his recent conversations.
Amina met him outside, already prepared for the day's grim journey. Her sharp eyes flitted nervously over the mist shrouded city, reflecting years of practiced caution and hard won knowledge.
"We begin with the riverbank," she said quietly. "The first body was found there an old orchard, forgotten even by time."
The journey was slow, each step a cautionary tread through streets awash in the gray dawn. The Vyeth flowed nearby, its slow current whispering a timeless, somber song. At the orchard, gnarled trees creaked wearily under the weight of swollen gray skies, their twisted limbs clutching at the cold air.
The body lay as described a woman, pale and naked, her lips curved in that same haunting smile. He knelt again, eyes tracing the subtle signs: footprints barely disturbing the soft earth, the faint scent of ash and river mud lingering around her like a stain.
A carved wooden pendant rested in the moss beside her hand the delicate shape of a leaf, worn smooth by countless fingers long gone. Amina reached out to touch it reverently.
"This symbol," she explained, "is linked to the ancient blood magic known as the Sealing. It binds memories and names, locking them away like prisoners in a ghost's prison."
From here, they moved on through the city, piecing together the shadows of loss. Into ruined homes where dust danced in lonely sunbeams, across crumbled courtyards tangled with thorn and bramble, and past shattered chapels swallowed by creeping ivy.
At each new scene, the pattern repeated the same serenity on lifeless faces, the absence of violence, the quiet testimony to a haunting mystery that refused easy answers.
The morning fog clung stubbornly as they approached one of the newer crime scenes, a crumbling homestead nestled at the outskirts of the city. The remnants of a once sturdy wooden fence sagged beneath vines thick with frost kissed leaves. Broken beams jutted from shattered walls, and the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and forgotten memories.
They halted just inside the gate, and it was there standing among the ruins, almost as if she had materialized from the mist that he saw her. Selara.
She appeared small and delicate against the bleak backdrop, yet there was something magnetic about her presence, like a flame flickering steadily despite the cold. Her dark hair framed a thoughtful face, eyes briefly lifting to meet his before slipping away, guarded.
"Selara," Amina greeted with cautious warmth, "what brings you here?"
Selara's lips moved, soft and deliberate. "I'm… curious. There's talk of the Yachh around this place, shadowed whispers and strange disappearances. I want to understand what haunts Kasheer, to see if truth hides beneath the stories."
He watched her closely, sensing the earnestness in her words, though the city's dangers made him wary. "This isn't a safe curiosity. The Yachh don't welcome uninvited observers."
Amina's tone sharpened. "We've lost enough to them already. They take with no mercy, and often with subtle cruelty."
Selara nodded, eyes flickering toward the broken homestead's interior. "I know the risks. That's why I'm here with you now. The city's shadow is growing, and to face it alone is to invite oblivion."
He stepped forward, voice low but firm. "You should stay close. There's strength in numbers especially in a place as fractured as this."
Together, the three moved cautiously inside the ruined home, weaving among toppled furniture and shattered glass that caught scant light in jagged patterns. The air was heavy with loss the faint scent of ash lingering, mingled with the river's damp, earthy undertone seeping in from cracks in the foundation.
At the center of the main room, he knelt beside another body. A man, pale as moonlight, laid out carefully, eyes closed but lips curved in the hauntingly tranquil smile they had all come to recognize. The same absence of wounds, the same eerie silence.
Selara stepped close, breath catching as she reached out toward the man's chest. "I can feel it here," she murmured something fragile and raw. The faint thrum of a lingering, restless presence.
She turned her gaze to them both. "This city's sorrow runs deeper than the Yachh whispers suggest. There are powers at play old magic, memories woven into flesh and stone. These souls didn't just simply 'disappear.' They were claimed, shaped by a force that cares not for mercy."
Amina's eyes narrowed. "The Yachh are said to be the collectors of lost names and memories. But this feels… different."
"Dangerous." The words came from his lips with heavy certainty. "Closer than we want to admit."
They pressed onward, the day stretching as they traced the silence left behind ancient marketplaces, toppled statues, and alleys where shadows curled like smoke. Each scene told the same story, yet none explained the full picture. The vanished, the stolen memories, the creeping menace beneath Kasheer's fragile surface.
Selara moved beside him now, her protective caution slowly giving way to determined curiosity. Her questions grew sharper, probing the nature of the Vyeth and the mysteries it concealed.
"You speak of memory as a weapon," she said softly one moment, "but it also feels like a weight something that traps or protects us."
"It binds us both to who we were and what we might become," he answered. "In Kasheer, to forget is to die."
At a quiet courtyard choked with ivy and silence, Amina spoke of the city's harsh truths of families shattered by those taken, of histories unrecorded and lost.
"Many here cling to names and stories with desperate grip," she said, "because the alternative is to vanish utterly, to be swallowed by the river's endless forgetfulness."
Selara's hand brushed lightly against his arm an unspoken gesture of solidarity and growing trust.
As dusk began its slow fall, the city transformed beneath a brooding sky. They found themselves near the bank of the Vyeth once again, the river's dark waters carrying secrets older than the land itself. The scent of river mud and wild gooseberries mingled faintly in the air, an almost bittersweet undertone to the heavy stillness.
Selara's gaze drifted toward the rushing current. "This river," she said quietly, "is both cradle and grave. It carries memory and oblivion alike."
He looked toward her in the dimming light. "To understand Kasheer is to understand the river and the price memory asks in return."
Their steps slowed, bound by the weight of what they had seen, what remained hidden, and the fragile bond growing between them. In the dying light of the day, the city's whispered sorrows settled around the three woven like threads in a tapestry yet unfinished.
Together, they would chase the secrets still lurking beneath the surface, standing against the tide of loss and shadow at the river's edge.