"Are you sure about this, Serel? You don't have to. There's no pressure," Vera said, keeping her tone even.
Serel shook her head firmly, determination written across her face. "No, I want to, Mommy!"
Vera watched her for a long moment, then exhaled softly. "…Alright. If you say so."
She stepped back, eyes sweeping over the dense underbrush and the crooked tree they were half-crouched behind. Just across the shallow, murky stream in front of them, their 'target' hunched low at the water's edge, lapping at the dark surface in twitchy, halting motions.
It was a Fencoil Strider—a gangly, reed-limbed creature with semi-translucent black-green skin stretched over a too-thin frame. Every movement rattled like wind scraping through hollow twigs. Not the ugliest thing Vera had ever seen in Ashen Legacy, but far from pleasant.
It was a lower-tier monster in the game, usually found in packs, and notorious for throwing themselves at anything that moved, regardless of level. She'd farmed who-knows-how-many of them before, but watching one in such lifelike detail was a new experience.
After leaving Duskfall Vale behind and cutting into the Mistvale Reaches proper, their pace had slowed. Howl was still more than capable of traversing the terrain, but the Reaches were riddled with rivers, marshy paths, and obstacles that forced constant adjustments. Even following Caldrin's suggested route, an hour's ride had only carried them about a third of the way to Marrowfen, and sunset would come in a few hours.
Not that Vera minded. The ride was still exhilarating. And if she was enjoying it, Serel was absolutely thriving—especially now that the rougher terrain had Howl bouncing and lunging so much, the constant jolts never ceasing to send the girl into peals of laughter.
It was lucky Vera's body was as resilient as it was. Otherwise, she'd probably be battered black and blue just from keeping Serel from flying off the saddle.
At one point in their journey, she'd spotted something bulkier lurking in the brush—a Mirewrought bulge, level 60-ish back in the game—and decided on a whim to test it. Just to see how monsters in this zone compared to what she remembered.
It hadn't gone well.
For the monster, that is.
The creature had barely screeched out its toxic mist before Vera snuffed it out with a flick of her finger. Literally. A bit disappointing, but she hadn't been expecting much to begin with. Besides, seeing Serel bouncing with giddy celebration afterward had forced a quiet, smug smile out of Vera that she only half-heartedly tried to suppress.
The problem had come after, though—when Serel spotted the next monster, the Strider, and insisted she wanted to try one. So she could 'hunt like Mommy'.
Vera had been torn.
On one hand, Serel was six, and even in a world like this, that seemed too young to be picking fights with monsters.
On the other hand, Serel was nearly of the Eighth Binding. By the standards here, she was already more powerful than the vast majority of adults. And part of why Vera had brought her along was to see what she could actually do. Letting her take a shot at something low-level, with Vera right there to step in, seemed… reasonable.
So, after several minutes of Serel pleading—delivered with more effectiveness than Vera would admit aloud—she gave in.
Now, crouched in the brush, she was reconsidering everything.
The closer they'd gotten, the bigger the Strider looked—especially compared to Serel. Vera found herself mentally cataloging all the ways it could hurt the girl. Those claws looked sharp enough to slice through bone. Its legs were long enough to strike before Serel could dodge. And the thing loomed over her by at least a head.
Vera's hand had hovered more than once, Mark of Wither Hollow at the ready—just one invocation away from erasing the thing's soul off the face of the earth. But every time she nearly cast, she imagined Serel's crushed little face: wide eyes, trembling lip, pride shattered.
She hadn't even seen that expression before, but it haunted her all the same.
So she clenched her jaw, forced herself to wait, and kept her gaze locked on the creature.
To her left, Serel crept forward from behind the underbrush, keeping low as her eyes fixed on the Fencoil Strider.
She raised her hands with careful focus, brows drawn tight. Her fingers began to trace glowing lines into the air—slightly uneven, each stroke trailing with burning Resonance. Rough compared to Vera's own invoking, but after a few seconds, the glyph snapped into place, flaring bright.
Mark of Ember Flame.
Across the stream, fire erupted, a swirling vortex of heat roaring up around the Strider. The creature shrieked, its cry distorted and pitched, before bursting out from the blaze, its form a smoldering blur that bolted into the brush.
The inferno collapsed moments later, leaving only scorched earth and a haze of smoke behind.
Serel stared at the now-empty patch of grass. Her lip trembled.
Vera stepped beside her and set a hand on her shoulder.
Serel looked up, the pout heavy on her face. "Mommy…"
"You'll do better next time, okay?"
The girl leaned into Vera, arms circling her waist.
There was always a faint tension whenever Serel touched her—a strange blend of emotional weight and physical familiarity Vera hadn't quite gotten used to yet. Sometimes it was easier to avoid touch altogether. But considering she'd only woken in this body yesterday, she figured she was adapting well enough.
There was also a pretty large part of her that actively wanted to touch the girl.
She ruffled Serel's hair lightly, letting her shake off the disappointment, while her own eyes tracked the clearing's far edge. She still caught flashes of the Strider darting through the vegetation.
Honestly, she was a little surprised it had survived. By memory, a Fencoil Strider was somewhere around level 50, which was well below Serel. But the Mark she'd cast had been shaky and unrefined. Like someone using it for the first time. Also, it was a First Seal Mark. It would probably have been enough for Vera, but she was more than 100 levels above the girl.
"Serel," Vera said after a moment, glancing down. "Can I ask you something?"
The girl nodded. "Mmm."
"How many Marks do you know? Beside that one?"
Serel blinked. "Just that."
"…You've never learned more?"
Wouldn't Veralyth have taught her more?
Serel shook her head. "No."
Vera frowned. "Then… when did you learn it?"
Serel seemed to hesitate. Her expression pinched slightly, as if she'd only just realized she might've said something she wasn't supposed to.
"Serel." Vera dropped her tone, hoping it came off more gentle than stern. "You're not in trouble. I just want to know."
The girl was quiet a moment longer, then murmured, "…Yesterday. When Mommy was fighting."
Vera's eyebrows shot up. "…You learned it from watching me?"
A tiny nod. "Mmm."
Vera stared.
That… had to be absurd, right? A Mark wasn't something you picked up in a day—certainly not just by watching. Probably. In Ashen Legacy, it had been almost that easy, sure, but here things felt different. Her talks with Caldrin had made that much clear. Which meant Serel wasn't the norm.
She was an outlier.
What struck Vera almost as much was the simple fact that Serel hadn't learned any Marks until now. Not a single one. That was odd, considering her level. It wasn't like she'd blinked into existence yesterday—or, well, maybe she technically had, depending on how this world handled continuity with NPCs. But she was still supposed to have some kind of backstory, formative years, and Caldrin's memories seemed to confirm that.
So why hadn't she been taught anything in those memories?
Was it her age? Or had there been another reason? Maybe something that also explained why she'd never been taken outside Sablewatch Hollow?
Vera wished she could reach into Veralyth Mournvale's memories and see how the woman had justified it. But those doors weren't open to her.
She studied Serel in silence, thoughts circling. Was it safe to assume yesterday was the first time the girl had ever seen a Mark used in combat? That might actually explain her excitement. And if she could learn Mark of Ember Flame so quickly, who was to say she couldn't learn more? Or even Forms?
That thought gave Vera pause. Was it smart to push down that road… or better to hold off? There was still too much she didn't know about the girl, after all.
For now, sticking with just one Mark seemed safest.
She spent a few minutes more comforting Serel, easing her out of the sting of failure. The girl's spirits eventually lifted, especially at the mention of getting back on the road.
Soon they were riding Howl once more, gliding over lowlands and weaving through pockets of wet woodland.
The Mistvale Reaches offered little in the way of infrastructure—there were few roads, and fewer settlements. The terrain probably made lasting construction difficult. But Howl didn't need roads, and Vera preferred avoiding them anyway. The wolf cut across roots and soft riverbanks as easily as cobbled stone, and the last thing she wanted was attention.
Gradually, Marrowfen drew closer. Each ridge they crested, each thicket they cleared, offered a sharper glimpse of pale building rising from dark water. Along the way came other hints of civilization: thin smoke trails, torchlight in the distance, scattered outposts and lonely cottages tucked into moss-slick hills.
Vera hadn't known much about Marrowfen's industry prior to today—not beyond the aesthetics she remembered from the game, at least—but Caldrin had filled in a few blanks. The city's blackwater, rich with tannins and alchemically reactive compounds, was highly sought after for dyes, preservatives, and resonance-heavy tinctures. Smaller trades also revolved around the relics and bone-forged reagents dredged from the ossuary beneath the city, though that practice had slowed over time.
The region as a whole was relatively isolated, which showed in how underdeveloped the surrounding land felt. Marrowfen itself, however, was another matter.
The sun hadn't quite set by the time they reached the tree line near the city. The last rays of light were cresting over the mountains that cradled Duskfall Vale in the west.
Vera lifted Serel down from the saddle. As the girl's feet touched the soft earth, Howl dissolved into a swirl of wisps, vanishing silently into Vera's shadow.
They stepped to the ridge.
Marrowfen proper unfolded beneath them, sprawling low across a waterlogged stretch of land. The entire northern approach was choked by a wide estuary of tannin-dark streams, meandering through reed-thick channels before merging into a sluggish basin. The waters funneled inward toward the city's heart like veins to an organ, marked by pylons and markers—some rising like watchtowers, others little more than jagged teeth barely breaking the surface.
From a distance, the city looked almost stitched together: a patchwork of pale stone, bleached timber, and carved bone. Uneven walls wrapped the outer districts, and above them rose a ring of sanctum towers, with the spiked reaches of the Marrowvault at their center, its obsidian spire clawing at the sky.
It didn't look much like anyone had designed it with urban planning in mind. The few visible streets twisted at strange angles, buildings leaned into each other, and there was no discernible pattern to the sprawl. And yet… There was a kind of natural order in the chaos. A beauty born of wild growth, alive and unconcerned with symmetry.
Vera smiled to herself.
It was cool simply seeing the city like this. Standing here and taking it all in. The scale, the atmosphere, the sheer realness of it. A part of her wanted to run down immediately and spend the whole night just wandering the streets, comparing what she saw with what she remembered, searching for familiar corners and stumbling into the ones that had never existed before.
Beside her, Serel pointed at the Marrowvault's spire. "Mommy! Look! It's sooo tall!"
Vera nodded. "Canny observation. And guess what? It goes even deeper underground." She gestured toward it. "That's the Marrowvault. Remember the ossuary I told you about?"
Serel looked at her. "What's an 'ossuary'?"
"Do you want the actual definition, or the fun fantasy one?"
"The fun one!"
"It's a humongous, winding labyrinth full of ancient skeletons, buried war relics, and divine secrets hidden by gods too afraid to deal with them."
The girl giggled. "And the real one?"
Vera shrugged. "A small, mostly uninteresting building for storing bones in neat little piles."
Serel wrinkled her nose, clearly favoring the first answer. Vera smiled faintly, then let her gaze drift back to the city, scanning its perimeter for a way in.
She spotted one quickly. A modest gate along a half-sunken road that wound down from the higher reaches through a patch of low fog and crooked trees. A wagon trundled toward it, pulled by a pair of shaggy mule-like beasts and flanked by a few cloaked travelers. At the gate itself stood two guards in dull lacquered armor, one leaning lazily on a halberd as they watched the cart approach.
The sight pulled a soft breath of relief from Vera's chest—one she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
It was strange, maybe, but reassuring. Proof this world was still turning. That people still lived here. That this wasn't just some ghost-world spinning on without purpose. She hadn't exactly voiced those worries, but it seemed they'd been there.
"Come on," she said, giving Serel's shoulder a light squeeze as she started down the ridge. "Let's make it through the gates before dark."