The first thing he noticed was the silence.
Elloria's nights were never silent. Even when the streets emptied, there was always something—the clop of a late horse, laughter spilling from a tavern, the whisper of the wind through banners. Tonight, nothing. Not a voice, not a step, not a breath beyond his own.
Then came the mist.
It curled along the floorboards, slipping in through the shuttered window as though the night had bled into his room. The mist was cold to the touch even before it reached him, a creeping chill that seemed to draw the warmth from the air itself. It moved with a purpose, not random or aimless like fog on a quiet evening, but deliberate—an unseen current pulling it closer, threading through the cracks and splinters of the old wood. The faintest sound accompanied it, like the soft rustle of dry bones scraping together, barely audible but enough to set his nerves on edge.
At first, he thought it was smoke from some far-off fire. Then he saw the way it moved—slow, deliberate, as if the air itself was dragging it toward him.
A sound followed.
Chains. Heavy, slow. Dragging.
The kind of sound you didn't hear so much as feel in your teeth.
He sat up. The room felt wrong. Taller somehow. Narrower.
His breath frosted in the air.
The corner opposite his bed darkened—not like shadow, but like ink spilling into water.
From that blackness, a figure stepped—or floated—through the wall.
It was tall, its shape wrapped in a slow-drifting fog.
Dim orbs of blue light floated around it like the lanterns of some drowned procession. They flickered faintly, casting only enough glow to hint at a figure beneath.
The lights brightened—just a little—and he saw bone. A spine stacked high, vertebrae upon vertebrae, too many to be human. Rib bones flared outward, stretching into the fog like the ribs of a collapsed tower. At the center was a skull, its sockets lit with two bright-blue flames.
His mouth went dry.
A claw emerged from the mist, black and glassy, long enough to reach him without the figure moving. It pressed against his chest. Not on the skin—inside, gripping something he could not name.
A voice screamed inside his skull.
'Why did you come to my city…?'
The lights around the figure flared. The bone tower was clearer now. Atop it, that skull burned brighter, the flames casting shadows that bent in ways shadows shouldn't.
'Who sent you…?'
The claw pressed deeper. It didn't hurt, but it felt like it should. The sensation spread—not down, but inward.
'Are you of the Flame…?'
He tried to pull away, but the claw held him—not physically, but as though gravity itself had been rewritten. The flames seemed to lean closer, until they filled his sight entirely. And in their reflection, he saw his own eyes burning with the same blue fire.
Something inside him began to tear—slowly, precisely—like a page being pulled from a book. Thoughts he didn't mean to think slipped free.
'The Flame? Impossible… no one should know… the cult has never shown itself here…'
The claw twisted, and more of his thoughts came loose.
'Offer…'
'Elmwald…'
The lights dimmed. The claw vanished. The cold withdrew.
He collapsed back onto the bed, lungs heaving. The room was empty.
The chains were gone. The mist… lingered only a moment, then slid away as if called.
* * *
The mist spiraled upward toward the eaves of the Little Bird Inn, curling around the moonlight before dissolving into the night.
From the alley below, Arven held the rune of Hagalaz in place for one more breath before releasing it. The binding broke, and the magical weight on the mist lifted, letting it drift free. A faint ache began behind his eyes—early signs of mana fatigue—but he kept his breathing even.
Lila emerged from the shadows opposite, silent as a drawn blade. Half her lower body was still hidden in her own shimmer of stealth, but she let the magic fade now that the main act was over. Over her shoulder, Skele perched like a grotesque lantern, his hollow eyes dimming from the searing bright flames he had just unleashed.
"Timing was perfect!" she exclaimed with joy. It worked like charm, even though they have never rehearsed. "We need to do it more often!"
"I started to feel pity for the guy," Arven said with a low voice. He could still feel the lingering echo of the merchant's fear in the magic, like ripples in a pond after a stone drops.
The plan had been simple in theory—appear as something no sane man could explain, force the mind to yield what the lips would never confess. It took the kind of coordination that shouldn't be possible—but somehow, they made it look easy.
Lila had carried Skele in close, half-visible and silent, his mist creeping into the room through cracks in the shutters. Arven had cast Hagalaz to bind that mist, saturating the air so the merchant couldn't tell where the world ended and the nightmare began. Then, a second rune—Algiz—to seal the room and keep the effect contained.
Once the merchant's pulse had quickened and his mind begun to fracture under the sensation of being watched, Arven summoned Veylith.
She had appeared as she always did: a veil of souls drifting in fog, their pale-blue lights dimmed to ghostly embers. Only when she shrieked into the merchant's mind did she let them flare bright, revealing the long bone-tower form beneath. Her claw had pressed into his chest—not physically, but into the essence of him—while she locked eyes with him through Skele's flaming sockets.
From the merchant's perspective, it would have been impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Four blue flames, two skulls' worth of hatred, one towering, ethereal body.
When Veylith had finished her work, Arven had dismissed her with a silent gesture. Even she, bound as she was to his will, had lingered—reluctant to abandon such rich terror.
* * *
By the time they reached Arven's own inn, the last of the mist had vanished into the night air.
Skele trotted silently at Arven's side, his hollow eye sockets dim but alert, casting faint flickers of blue light that barely touched the cobblestones.
Arven moved first, slipping inside without a sound. The merchant lay half-sprawled on the bed, unconscious, breath shallow. His coat came off easily, and Arven slung the man over his shoulder. He weighed less than expected—fear had already hollowed him out.
Skele shifted on the threshold, bones clicking softly, his gaze fixed on the merchant as if sensing the remnants of the dark fear clinging to the man's spirit.
Once inside the inn's common room, Arven paused near the stairwell and glanced toward Lila, who melted from shadow to light with a smile that barely masked her exhaustion.
"Goodnight," he said quietly.
She nodded, her eyes bright despite the late hour. "You too."
* * *
After she vanished up the stairs, Arven made his way to his room. The silence was thick, but his thoughts buzzed with the night's revelations as he gently set the merchant down and closed the door behind him.
Arven's mana reserves were low enough that his fingers trembled, but he ignored it.
The burn in his core was new—a warning that he'd pushed close to empty. If the summon had lasted any longer, it might've done more than just sting. This is the first time he experienced mana depletion.
The fragments Veylith had ripped free from the man's thoughts still clung to Arven's mind.
'Cult of Flame.'
'Offer.'
'Elmwald.'
First, the Cult of Flame.
It was confirmation at this point—a name to pin on the shadowed figures in his theories.The mural in the Ruin of Whispertrail flashed in his mind.
The image of that mural burned brighter in his memory now—worshipers with faces twisted by fear and reverence, kneeling before a beast chained with heavy iron links. Flames licked the creature's form, but it was not the fiery warmth of comfort or light; it was wild and dangerous, like a living brand threatening to consume everything around it.
The more he thought on it, the more the question gnawed at him.
Why pray to something they kept bound?
What secret terror hid behind that devotion?
Second, the offer—murky at best.Trade? A bandit alliance? Or something quieter, political.
The mayor was well-liked and firmly rooted. He didn't seem to need more influence.So what was it? An offer from the cult to the mayor?Or… a demand for an offering?
The third was what gnawed at him. Elmwald. His name.
Why had it lingered in the cultist's mind? In the game, the Elmwald heir never set foot outside his own lands. But that changed the moment he woke up here and decided to roam.
Could that one choice really carry enough weight to shift the course of this world?
His shoulders tensed.
He couldn't untangle the mystery tonight.Even so, it wasn't something he could set aside.Some questions only grow sharper the longer you leave them alone.
For now, more immediate matters demanded his attention—the siblings in the alley.He'd need to find and recruit them before the bandit invasion hit.
Arven rose, leaving the cultist-disguised merchant in the shadows behind him.
Outside, the city breathed in silence, the night thick with secrets waiting to be stirred.Tonight, the Boogeyman's work was done.