Ruins of Whispertrail.
Officially, this place had once been a remote chapel outpost—maintained by one of the lesser branches of the Chaptel of Amethyst City. Tucked away in the southern outskirts of Elloria, it was considered nothing more than starter-zone debris. A beginner's detour. One of many ruins meant to pad the early game experience.
At least, that was what Runebound Online claimed.
The in-game records were sparse. A crumbling sanctuary crawling with skeleton mobs. Low-tier enemies. Low-effort loot. The only quest associated with it involved retrieving a keepsake left behind by a city guard's dead friend.
A forgettable detour with a forgettable reward. Most players entered, cleared the mobs, skipped the dialogue, and left.
But Arwen had lingered.
He always lingered.
While others sped through content, chasing levels and rare drops, he lingered over details—reading every scrap of text, every awkward NPC line, every dusty journal hidden under a broken altar. To him, lore was never just background dressing. It was breadcrumb trails—clues left behind by developers who expected no one to look.
And sometimes, those crumbs led somewhere.
This time, they led here.
The first hints came in those neglected journals—mentions of sudden priestly visits, unusual patrol routes posted around Whispertrail, and strange requests disguised as supply runs. What began as daily rations soon escalated into demands for monster cores and rare herbs. One note even asked for fresh alchemical blood.
Then there were the disappearances.
Arwen remembered those little details—NPCs who'd once populated minor quests, vanishing without event. A delivery boy who used to run herbs from the market. A herbalist who gave out basic gathering quests. Gone.
Elloria's city guard had let something slip once during a random dialogue: a priest from the Chaptel of Amethyst had requested an escort to Mabu Lake and set up camp there. Then came the supply orders. Then the strange silence.
At the time, Arwen had chalked it up to flavor text. Nothing more.
The blacksmith—Degar, the one-eyed war veteran who rarely broke routine—had complained that leather was running low. "Not many monsters near the south trail lately," he said. "Even the damn slimes are hiding. Weird, that."
It had all seemed like background noise.
Until it didn't.
The puzzle pieces never screamed—they whispered. Quiet threads that wove together when someone finally cared to listen.
And Arwen had always listened.
During his first playthrough, he'd finished the quest as expected. Retrieved the ring. Gave it to the guard. Claimed the experience points.
Then, days later, while idly inspecting his inventory, he noticed something strange.
Inside the memento ring—barely visible unless tilted under the right lighting—was a faint rune carved into the band.
ᚺ — Hagalaz
[The Rune of Chaos. Hail. Disruption.]
The rune wasn't mentioned in the quest. Not explained. Not clickable.
That was enough to send him back.
New character. New run. Same ruined chapel. This time, he explored every inch.
He took his time. Fought slower. Looked closer. Mapped out the ruined hallways by hand. Re-read every journal. Paid attention to the way NPCs hesitated in their voice lines. Clicked every optional prompt.
And then he found it.
A stairwell, hidden behind a false wall. Cracked stone. Out-of-place bricks. The kind of thing a careless player would miss.
Back then, it felt like a reward. An Easter egg left for players who noticed things.
But now?
Now it felt like a grave.
The deeper he went, the clearer it became—this wasn't just a chapel.
It was a laboratory.
A secret sanctum chosen precisely for its isolation. Sacred ground, yes—but also quiet, remote, and easy to bury under lies. The priests from the Chaptel had used the ruin not to seal away evil—but to summon it.
They spread rumors of curses. Declared the land tainted. Warned nearby villages to stay away. All the while, they began construction. Not of a sanctuary. Of something far darker.
They took the dying—wounded soldiers, captured monsters, wayward travelers. Even the man whose death triggered the quest in the first place. People who could disappear without consequence.
And they experimented.
Rituals designed to bind monster essence to human will. Strength without rebellion. Immortality without ego. They wanted obedience. A servant. A guardian forged from both death and devotion.
Instead, they created Duskwither.
A creature born of grief and torment. Its body was mist and bone. Its soul—a hundred fractured voices, stitched together by force.
According to the deepest lore fragments, Duskwither wasn't truly alive at first. It had no thoughts. Only pain. A swirling haze of hunger, rage, and confusion.
But pain leaves impressions.
And eventually, those impressions began to form memories.
It remembered the rituals.
It remembered the screaming.
It remembered the faces of those who made it.
When it finally broke free, it didn't act like a beast. It didn't lash out in random violence.
It understood.
Duskwither moved with precision. It reached into the minds of its creators. Twisted their memories. Hollowed them out. Turned them into tools. And with their hands—it sealed the ruin.
Layer by layer.
No one outside ever knew.
And then, when all was quiet—when the ruin had been buried under false history and silence—Duskwither cast a spell on itself.
Not from command.
But from will.
ᛇ — Eiwaz
[The Rune of Death and Rebirth. Binding. Transformation.]
A rune carved not to gain power—
But to forget.
A spell of self-erasure.
So powerful it erased all traces of its existence from the memories of others—
At the cost of its own.
To protect.
To bury the pain.
To vanish into mist before it could cause harm again.
A monster that sealed itself away.
Not out of weakness—
But out of fear.
Fear of what it could become.
Fear of the misery it might bring.
So that no one else would suffer what it had endured.
The mist stirred.
* * *
Present day.
The ritual chamber stood still. Silent.
Shafts of sunlight filtered down from a collapsed ceiling high above, catching the slow swirl of dust in golden streams. The air was cool, dry, unmoving.
Rusted armor lay shattered across the floor. Some sets still wrapped around bones, others scattered like discarded shells. A sword jutted from between two broken tiles, snapped at the hilt.
Skele stood close, his ears low, posture tense. He didn't bark or growl—he listened.
Every breath shallow. Every pawstep careful.
Arwen watched the center of the room.
A mass of black mist hovered silently above the stone.
It didn't churn. It didn't rise.
It hung—like a wound in the air, suspended in place by sheer will.
The chamber pulsed—once again.
A low, aching thrum rolled through the ground beneath him, like the ruin itself had remembered something it wanted to forget.
The mist quivered.
And in that moment, Arwen didn't see an enemy.
He saw a choice. His hand hovered near the pendant. Skele stepped forward, just slightly, eyes locked.
No cutscene.
No dialogue prompt.
Just silence. A room filled with bones, regret— And a creature that had once tried to erase itself.
Arwen stepped forward. One footfall echoed in the chamber. Then another.
Across the room, Duskwither pressed a claw into its own husk— As if trying to tear itself open. As if trying to hold itself down.
Arwen watched.
He could feel it— Not power. But sorrow.
The pain of something that had once begged to be forgotten.
This world… it wasn't a game anymore.
He drew in a breath, steady and quiet.
And whispered,
"…Mist."