Days passed. Training began.
Garrik drilled me with the spear, forcing me to adapt my Shard Blade to real combat. Kaelen reforged my blade with shard fragments, making it sharper, more stable. Liora kept us alive, stitching wounds and pushing back the corruption that lingered in our veins.
The girl trained, too—her bow skills growing sharper with every day. Her arrows no longer flickered. She was fast, deadly. A partner I could trust.
Then the AI spoke again.
> *[Quest Initiated: First Gate.]
Location: Shattered Gate ruins, east of Ashveil.
Objective: Enter and claim the Fragment within. Failure will accelerate Collapse.
When I asked Garrik about it, his face went pale. "The Gate? That's suicide. No one who enters comes back."
Which meant, of course, we were going.